Op. 76

THE TRIUMPH OF BEING

Cyclic Philosophy

Copyright © 2013 John O'Loughlin

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CONTENTS

1. The Morality of Being

2. Other types of Morality

3. The Morality of Giving

4. The Morality of Taking

5. The Morality of Doing

6. What I Think

7. Some Clarifications

8. A Biblical Falsehood

9. On the 'Natures' of the Elements

10. Ideological Definitions

11. Some Further Correlations

12. The Subhumanity/Subnature of Go

13. Salvation and Redemption

14. Star and 'Cross'

15. From Imagination to Individuation

16. 'Up Above' and 'Down Below'

17. Beyond Nietzsche

18. The Triumph of Being

Appendix (Random Thoughts)

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THE MORALITY OF BEING

1. Am I being moral? Or, rather, what is moral being? Is it love or pride or pleasure or joy? - Yes, it is each of these qualities or, rather, essences, because they are states of positive being, and morality is always positive, never negative!

2. Hence I am being moral when my being is positive, whether the being in question be metachemical (love), chemical (pride), physical (pleasure), or metaphysical (joy) - that is, whether my being is noumenally objective, phenomenally objective, phenomenally subjective, or noumenally subjective, associated, in other words, with fire, water, vegetation (earth), or with air.

3. Thus although I am being moral in all four elemental contexts provided the nature of my being is positive, I am not being equally moral in them; for there is a considerable difference between metachemical being at one end of the elemental spectrum, so to speak, and metaphysical being at the other end - all the difference, in fact, between positive manifestations of Hell and Heaven.

4. In point of fact, in terms of a scale of being from fourth- to first-rates via third- and second-rates, it will transpire that love is a fourth-rate order of being, that pride is third-rate, pleasure second-rate, and joy alone a first-rate order of being - nothing short, in truth, than the being-of-beings.

5. Thus compared to positive metaphysical being, which is the most beingful order of being, positive physical being is more (relative to most) beingful, positive chemical being less (relative to least) beingful, and positive metachemical being least beingful, the beingfulness of a noumenally objective disposition which, with its fiery correlation, smacks of Hell.

6. Thus Hell, like Heaven, can be moral, since morality is ever positive, and love is no less positive (in a manner of speaking) than joy or, for that matter, the intermediate states of pride (chemical) and pleasure (physical), the former attaching, in religious terms, to that which is purgatorial, and the latter to whatever is earthly, and hence closer to vegetation than to water.

7. But if moral being can be hellish, purgatorial, earthly, or heavenly, then so can immoral being, or the condition of being immoral, except that one will be into being negatively in one of four different ways, viz. hatefully, humbly, painfully, or woefully, with hatred corresponding to that which is most negative, humility corresponding to that which is more (relative to most) negative, pain corresponding to that which is less (relative to least) negative, and woe corresponding, in its noumenal subjectivity, to that which is least negative, the negativity of a sort of Antiheaven, or negative Heaven, which is no less metaphysical, in its peculiar way, than the joy of Heaven. But, of course, being negative it is immoral, even if of a first-rate order of immoral being.

8. Thus metaphysical being is first-rate being, whether it is positive or negative; for being corresponds to the essence of things, and air, the metaphysical element, is the most essential, being neither apparent (like fire), quantitative (like water), nor qualitative (like vegetation). Being is essence, and the essence of being is soul, which, as we have seen, can be metachemical and fourth-rate, chemical and third-rate, physical and second-rate, or metaphysical and first-rate, corresponding not to love, pride, or pleasure, but to joy, the condition of being when it is most essential and therefore associated with air, whether externally in aural relation to the airwaves or internally in respiratory relation to the breath, the former sensual, the latter sensible.

9. Thus not only is being most essential when metaphysical, it is most moral when positively metaphysical and, conversely, least immoral when negatively metaphysical, the difference, in short, between joy and woe, Heaven and, for want of a better term, Antiheaven. Either way, the order of being is first-rate; for the elemental context in which metaphysical being takes place, viz. air (oxygen), is the only element with an essential correspondence to soul, the only element, that is, whose nature is such that being can attain to its most essential manifestation in what amounts to the quintessence of soul. Essence begets essence, and the being that results from air, being metaphysical, is the ne plus ultra of soul, the soulful per se in both positive (supreme) and negative (primal) contexts. Only positive being, however, which is rightly to be associated with supremacy, can be moral. For it attaches to the organic, and the organic is no less moral, in whatever element, than the inorganic is immoral, the primal backdrop or source from which everything organic, and hence moral, supremely springs.

10. There is no connection between inorganic primacy and morality; on the contrary, morality is only possible on the basis of or, rather, in positive relation to organic supremacy. It is for this reason that concepts of God(head) rooted in the Cosmos, the source of inorganic primacy, are fundamentally immoral, and hence false or, at any rate, merely negative. Morality begins, by contrast, in the most fundamental manifestation of the organic and culminates in its most transcendental manifestation, as germane to positive metaphysics.

OTHER TYPES OF MORALITY

1. Besides the morality of being, there are of course what may be termed the moralities of taking, of giving, and of doing, this latter equally, if antithetically, noumenal to being.

2. None of these alternative kinds of morality is - or ever can be - the principal concern of the philosopher, since the philosopher who is true to his vocation will sooner or later gravitate to being, thereby indicating that philosophy may well be the soul of literature as distinct from its ego (fiction), its spirit (drama), or its will (poetry). Thus when moral being has been accounted for and properly understood, the philosopher's task is effectively over. He may theorize about taking, giving, or doing, but always from the standpoint of one who is centred in being, specifically metaphysical being, and preferably of a sensible, or 're-born', order. For a literature that is centred or, alternatively, rooted in that which is less than being, one must turn to the novelist, the dramatist, and the poet, whose chief literary preserves are - or should be - taking, giving, and doing respectively. For while fiction is primarily a discipline of the ego, drama is its spiritual counterpart, and poetry, rather more noumenal than phenomenal, is that which lies the furthest removed from philosophy as the discipline, par excellence, of the will.

3. Thus as we have correlated being with soul, soul being the essence of beingfulness, so we can correlate taking with ego, ego being the quality of taking; giving with spirit, spirit being the quantity of giving; and doing with will, doing being the appearance of will. If drama and fiction are respectively feminine and masculine, corresponding to water and to vegetation (earth), then poetry and philosophy are their diabolic and divine counterparts, the former with a correspondence to fire and the latter having a no-less noumenal correspondence to air.

4. Of course, just as there is being in every element, from fire and water to vegetation and air, so doing, giving, and taking are likewise to be found everywhere, though not to the same extent or on identical terms. Just as being is only in its per se manifestation in air, so, conversely, doing is only such in positive relation to fire, while the phenomenal conditions of giving and taking will have their respective per se manifestations in water and vegetation. Thus no less than the soul per se will only be found in the metaphysical context of air, so the will per se, its doing-oriented antithesis, is only to be found in the metachemical context of fire; the spirit per se in the chemical context of water; and the ego per se in the physical context of vegetation.

5. Thus, in gender terms, will and spirit are primarily female attributes, whereas ego and soul are primarily male - certainly when of a per se nature. It is this insight which enables us to distinguish the objective elements (rooted in a vacuum and tending towards direct [straight line] divergence and/or convergence) of fire and water from the subjective elements (centred in a plenum and tending towards indirect [curved line] divergence and/or convergence) of vegetation and air - the former pair female and the latter pair male. Metachemistry and chemistry stand on one side of the gender fence, pretty much like poetry and drama, no less than physics and metaphysics on its other side, the side wherein fiction and philosophy are the principal literary concerns. Thus must doing and giving, the will and the spirit, be set aside, in elemental terms, from taking and being, the ego and the soul.

THE MORALITY OF GIVING

1. Just as being was characterized as hellish, purgatorial, earthly, or heavenly, depending on the kind of being, so giving can likewise be characterized in such terms; for it is the omega rather than the alpha of the self or, more correctly, not-self, as that which emanates in selfless fashion from a wilful, or will-based, precondition. Such selflessness is of course commensurate with spirit, and therefore it could be said that spirit shares in common with soul a tendency to be either hellish, purgatorial, earthly, or heavenly, if not strictly in terms of love, pride, pleasure, and joy (at any rate where its positive manifestations are concerned), then certainly in terms of brightness, dimness, heaviness, and lightness.

2. Far from having a metaphysical per se, however, giving has a chemical one, largely on account of its association with spirit, spirit being most quantitative in water and least quantitative in vegetation, while in between are the noumenal quantities of fiery spirit and airy spirit, the former more (relative to most) quantitative, and the latter less (relative to least) quantitative. Thus we may speak of moral giving as ranging positively through the elements, from a first-rate manifestation in water to a fourth-rate manifestation in vegetation via second- and third-rate manifestations in fire and air respectively, as though from the spirituality of dimness, necessarily feminine, to the spirituality of heaviness, its masculine antithesis, via the spiritualities of brightness and of lightness, corresponding to diabolic and divine alternatives.

3. As with being, however, there is also a negative, or immoral, quadruplicity of giving to be reckoned with, and such a quadruplicity is no less inorganic, or inorganically-conditioned, than its positive counterpart was organically-conditioned, being, by contrast, the product of primal modes of will. But even negative dimness, so to speak, is still, in its watery correlation, the per se manifestation of giving, and hence of spirit, whose quantitative status is most as distinct from more (relative to most), less (relative to least), or least quantitative. Thus dimness remains the per se manifestation of spirit even when it is negatively conditioned, and such dimness is commensurate with a spiritual antipurgatory, the sort of negative, or primal, purgatory that stands to the purgatorial per se of spirit as antigiving to giving.

4. Thus no less than being has a soulfully heavenly per se, whether it be positive or negative, so giving has a spiritually purgatorial per se, the sort of purgatory which owes less to essence than to quantity, and which, certainly on the female side of the gender divide, is manifestly objective, issuing in watery and/or fiery fashion from a chemical and/or metachemical order of will. In this respect, it is a primary as opposed to a secondary order of purgatory; for purgatory is primarily a condition of the spirit.

5. Before I proceed to briefly describe taking and doing, I should add that the primal modes of spirit are frankly less describable in terms of negative dimness, brightness, lightness, or heaviness ... than in terms of coldness, hotness, thinness, and thickness, which could be regarded as the spiritual counterparts to the negative soulful states of humility, hatred, woe, and pain. For it seems to me logically self-evident that the spiritual counterparts to the positive soulful states of pride, love, joy, and pleasure are indeed dimness, brightness, lightness, and heaviness. Hence the primal giving of coldness, hotness, thinness, and thickness, as distinct from the supreme giving of dimness, brightness, lightness, and heaviness.

THE MORALITY OF TAKING

1. Unlike giving but like being, taking is of the self, albeit of the self conceived egocentrically, and is therefore closely associated with mind, which stands to soul as form to content(ment). Taking, as we have seen, is a qualitative condition, and the taking of morality, moral taking, is most qualitatively aligned with vegetation, the qualitative element par excellence, and least qualitatively aligned, by contrast, with water, its quantitative antithesis. The elements of air and fire, on the other hand, provide us with second- and third-rate manifestations of taking, and hence of egocentric mind, relative to positions intermediate between the qualitative extremes.

2. Thus one can take morally in positive relation to either vegetation, in what is called knowledge; to air, in what is called truth; to fire, in what is called beauty; or to water, in what is called strength, as from first- to fourth-rate orders of taking. If giving has a chemical per se in keeping with its quantitative nature, then the per se manifestation of taking, by contrast, is physical, with the egocentric knowledge of vegetation. Receding from which is the egocentric truth of airiness, the egocentric beauty of fieriness, and the egocentric strength of wateriness, corresponding to metaphysical, metachemical, and chemical 'bovaryizations' of taking.

3. All such rates of moral taking naturally presuppose an organic precondition, such that logically adheres to supremacy, and further correspond, in their different elements, to masculine, divine, diabolic, and feminine standings. For taking is the alpha as opposed to the omega of the self, and is therefore less of the earth, Heaven, Hell, or purgatory ... than of man, God, the Devil, and woman. Knowledge leads to pleasure no less than truth to joy, or beauty to love, or strength to pride. Before there can be a soul, or emotional response, there must firstly be a mind, an egocentric starting-point - form duly leading (though not directly) to contentment.

4. The same of course applies to negative taking, the immoral taking of that which, by and large, is inorganically conditioned by primal factors to take in relation to negative vegetation, air, fire, and water, wherein one is conscious not of knowledge but of ignorance, not of truth but of falsity (illusion), not of beauty but of ugliness, and not of strength but of weakness. It is in such immoral taking that the antiman, the Antigod, the Antidevil, and the antiwoman are revealed, as negative modes of physics, metaphysics, metachemistry, and chemistry stake their respective claims to first-, second-, third-, and fourth-rate orders of antitaking, the antimind inorganically paramount. Thus does ignorance egocentrically become the vegetative precondition of pain, falsity the airy precondition of woe, ugliness the fiery precondition of hatred, and weakness the watery precondition of humility.

THE MORALITY OF DOING

1. Having dealt with taking, let us now turn to doing, whose will-based nature is rather more illustrative of appearances than of qualities or, for that matter, quantities and essences. For will is that which is furthest removed from soul, having its fulcrum, so to speak, in fire, wherein it is most apparent. Closer to spirit than to ego, will is ever of the not-self, the driving-force behind spiritual selflessness, and is never more itself than when noumenally objective, and hence metachemical. Compared and/or contrasted to which, the phenomenal objectivity of chemical doing is second-rate, the phenomenal subjectivity of physical doing third-rate, and the noumenal subjectivity of metaphysical doing fourth-rate, the least apparent order of doing and therefore the only order of will that can be used (by the metaphysical ego) as a springboard to the deepest, most essential soul. Will per se, on the other hand, will only deliver the least essential soul which, as we have seen, is called love.

2. Thus it would be quite philosophically incorrect to equate love with the will, even when the latter is metachemical, since the will is no less distinct from the soul than the spirit from the ego (mind), being affiliated to the not-self - or, in this case, to a specific not-self characterized as metachemical - as opposed to the self. The ego may direct the will, but the will is not commensurate with God or man or woman or the Devil on the basis of truth or knowledge or strength or beauty, but, rather, on a sort of secondary basis in which the nature of appearance, the doing of will, will be either quick or slow, excitable or calm, depending on its elemental bent. Quick, and we have metachemical will. Slow, by contrast, and the elemental correspondence will be chemical. Excitable, and we have physical will. Calm, and the will can only be metaphysical. Thus does moral doing reflect a positive relationship to either quickness or slowness when objective, while the subjective kinds of moral doing, being physical and metaphysical, can only be excitable or calm, bearing in mind their relationship to vegetation and to air.

3. As with giving, however, there are negative orders of doing to be reckoned with, and once again we may posit an inorganic precondition for them which would suggest the greater influence of primacy over supremacy in the unfolding of the various kinds of antiwill, from a metachemical per se through the chemical, physical, and metaphysical 'bovaryizations' of negative will. As we have distinguished negative giving from positive giving, so we shall here make a like-distinction, with regard to doing, between the positivity of quickness and the negativity of loudness; the positivity of slowness and the negativity of quietness; the positivity of excitableness and the negativity of hardness; and the positivity of calmness and the negativity of softness.

4. Thus no less than quickness is the positive metachemical corollary of beauty, its diabolical egocentric counterpart in the alpha-based contexts of not-self and self, so loudness (or aggressiveness) is the negative metachemical corollary of ugliness; and no less than slowness (or firmness) is the positive chemical corollary of strength, its feminine egocentric counterpart, so quietness (or shyness) is the negative corollary of weakness; and no less than excitableness is the positive physical corollary of knowledge (whether carnal or mental), its masculine egocentric counterpart, so hardness (or coarseness) is the negative physical corollary of ignorance; and no less than calmness is the positive metaphysical corollary of truth, its divine egocentric counterpart, so softness (or pliability) is the negative metaphysical corollary of falsity.

WHAT I THINK

1. No less than soul is the essence of being, so holiness is the wisdom of metaphysics.

2. No less than ego is the quality of taking, so unholiness is the folly of physics.

3. No less than spirit is the quantity of giving, so clearness is the goodness of chemistry.

4. No less than will is the appearance of doing, so unclearness is the evil of metachemistry.

5. The soul does not exist except in relation to the essence of being. Neither therefore does holiness exist except in relation to the wisdom of metaphysics.

6. The ego does not exist except in relation to the quality of taking. Neither therefore does unholiness exist except in relation to the folly of physics.

7. The spirit does not exist except in relation to the quantity of giving. Neither therefore does clearness exist except in relation to the goodness of chemistry.

8. The will does not exist except in relation to the appearance of doing. Neither therefore does unclearness exist except in relation to the evil of metachemistry.

9. If metaphysics is holy because wise, then so, too, is the soul which, being noumenally subjective, is an impression of metaphysical being - the holy soul of Heaven.

10. If physics is unholy because foolish, then so, too, is the ego which, being phenomenally subjective, is an impression of physical taking - the unholy ego of man.

11. If chemistry is clear because good, then so, too, is the spirit which, being phenomenally objective, is an expression of chemical giving - the clear spirit of purgatory.

12. If metachemistry is unclear because evil, then so, too, is the will which, being noumenally objective, is an expression of metachemical doing - the unclear will of the Devil.

13. The wisdom of metaphysics, which is the essence of being, leads to the holiness of grace, which is the soul of Heaven.

14. The folly of physics, which is the quality of taking, leads to the unholiness of sin, which is the ego of man.

15. The goodness of chemistry, which is the quantity of giving, leads to the clearness of punishment, which is the spirit of purgatory.

16. The evil of metachemistry, which is the appearance of doing, leads to the unclearness of crime, which is the will of the Devil.

17. The holy soul of Heaven (the universal metaphysical self) is no less superior to the holy spirit of Heaven (the universal metaphysical not-self) than the holy ego of God (the personal metaphysical self) to the holy will of God (the personal metaphysical not-self).

18. The unholy ego of man (the personal physical self) is no less superior to the unholy will of man (the personal physical not-self) than the unholy soul of earth (the universal physical self) to the unholy spirit of earth (the universal physical not-self).

19. The clear spirit of purgatory (the universal chemical not-self) is no less superior to the clear soul of purgatory (the universal chemical self) than the clear will of woman (the personal chemical not-self) to the clear ego of woman (the personal chemical self).

20. The unclear will of the Devil (the personal metachemical not-self) is no less superior to the unclear ego of the Devil (the personal metachemical self) than the unclear spirit of Hell (the universal metachemical not-self) to the unclear soul of Hell (the universal metachemical self).

21. The self is only superior to the not-self in the subjective elements of physics and metaphysics, vegetation and air.

22. The not-self is only superior to the self in the objective elements of metachemistry and chemistry, fire and water.

23. Subjective elements, being male, are those in which the self is primary, whether as ego or soul, and the not-self secondary, whether as will or spirit.

24. Objective elements, being female, are those in which the not-self is primary, whether as will or spirit, and the self secondary, whether as ego or soul.

25. Thus females are characterized by the dominance, within not-self primacy, of will and spirit - with especial reference to their per se manifestations in metachemistry and chemistry, fire and water.

26. Conversely, males are characterized by the dominance, within self primacy, of ego and soul - with especial reference to their per se manifestations in physics and metaphysics, vegetation and air.

27. In no respect are the genders equal but, rather, demonstrably dissimilar in their respective elemental predilections. In fact, insofar as fire and water are the primary elements, and vegetation and air the secondary ones, deriving their subjectivity from the prior existence of the objective elements, so, too, are females primary and males secondary.

28. Males cannot, in their subjectivity, dominate females the way or to the extent that females dominate males, though they can opt to 'turn their back' on females through the cultivation of either vegetative or airy sensibility, becoming either Christian or, in the latter case, effectively Buddhist, and hence transcendentalist.

29. This distinction is not only between phenomenal and noumenal modes of male sensibility, the former appertaining to volume and the latter to space, but is also indicative of a class distinction between 'lower' and 'upper' alternatives, in which the former effectively excludes the latter, and vice versa.

30. Vegetative sensibility exists on the plane of voluminous volume, and airy sensibility on the plane of spaced space - the former masculine and the latter divine.

31. In plane organic terms, this is simply a distinction between the brain and the lungs, cerebral physics and respiratory metaphysics.

32. In religious terms, such a distinction is reducible to prayer on the one hand, and to meditation (or transcendental meditation) on the other hand, with egocentric (intellectual) and psychocentric (emotional) implications.

33. Sensibility gives males the delusion - and nothing more - of ascendancy over females; for, in reality, vegetation and air remain secondary to water and fire, subjectivity being by definition secondary to objectivity.

34. In most cases of male ascendancy through sensibility, the sensibility in question loses ground, sooner or later, to the struggle by females to return to sensuality, wherein the female side of things is hegemonic.

35. Thus the confinement of females either to the phenomenal sensibility of massed mass or to the noumenal sensibility of repetitive time, to the chemical sensibility of the womb or to the metachemical sensibility of the heart, is sure to be at best intermittent and at worst temporary, since females have an inbuilt - one might even say genetically-programmed - tendency to return to the higher planes of either (depending on the circumstances) chemical or metachemical sensuality, the former definable in terms of the hegemony of volumetric volume (feminine) over massive mass (masculine), and the latter definable in terms of the hegemony of spatial space (diabolic) over sequential time (divine).

36. Females are saved to and by the planes of sensual space (spatial) and sensual volume (volumetric), but damned to and by the planes of sensible time (repetitive) and sensible mass (massed).

37. Conversely, males are dammed to and by the planes of sensual mass (massive) and sensual time (sequential), but saved to and by the planes of sensible volume (voluminous) and sensible space (spaced).

38. Those affiliated to the objective elements of fire and water will not, as females, tolerate damnation (to a subordinate status in sensibility under air and vegetation) for very long, since the primary natures of metachemistry and chemistry vis-à-vis metaphysics and physics are such that their maximum satisfaction can only be guaranteed by sensuality, wherein they are truly hegemonic.

39. Males are naturally resentful of their 'secondary' status as 'fall guys' in the 'once-born' contexts of vegetative and airy sensuality, but their sporadic endeavours to be saved (from sensual subjection to a sensible ascendancy over females) are bedevilled by the inescapable fact that, being subjective, vegetation and air, the male elements par excellence, are ever secondary to water and fire, their objective counterparts, and unable, in consequence, to prevail in the ascendancy for very long.

40. Exceptions to the rule notwithstanding, it would seem that unless steps were duly to be taken by males to undermine if not reduce the objectivity of females, salvation for them will remain at best problematic, at worst a rather intermittent or even temporary achievement ... steeped in delusion and hypocrisy.

41. For if life is a gender tug-of-war, it is one in which, due to the primacy of objectivity, females (despite suggestions to the contrary) have the upper hand.

42. And that is an upper hand which makes a Devil out of God and a Pan-like fool out of man - at any rate in sensual, or 'once-born', contexts.

43. Unfortunately for males, the world is not a context that greatly conduces towards the 'rebirth' of sensibility, least of all in metaphysical terms.

44. Even a physical 'rebirth' is about as relevant or germane to the world as the planet Mars, bearing in mind its Christic nature in what amounts to a cerebral parallel beyond the phallic parallel of terrestrial vegetation.

45. Genuine religion, by which is meant metaphysical religion, can only be tangential to the world; for the world is primarily a context of politics and economics, as befitting its mundane nature.

46. Even science, when genuine, will be tangential to the world, if rather more on a Venusian than, say, a Saturnalian basis, bearing in mind its materialist nature.

47. For the world is primarily a context of woman and man, water and vegetation, and not therefore a place in which either the Devil or God, fire or air, can expect to significantly flourish.

48. The Devil and/or God can only flourish in relation to woman and man, not independently of them.

49. In like manner, science and/or religion can only flourish in relation to politics and economics, not independently of them.

50. This does not necessarily imply that science and religion must be lowered to the level of the world and become merely worldly, even though science and religion can and are in fact obliged to do this; but, rather, that they must leave room for woman and man, politics and economics, whether in the event of science ruling the world through materialism or of religion leading it through transcendentalism.

51. The will of science contrasts absolutely with the soul of religion, as absolute power with absolute content(ment).

52. The spirit of politics contrasts relatively with the ego of economics, as relative glory with relative form.

53. The above would only of course apply to the per se manifestations of the respective disciplines - from science and politics on the female (objective) side of the gender fence ... to economics and religion on its male (subjective) side, as from fire and water to vegetation and air.

54. In literary terms, one would have to speak of a distinction between poetry and drama on the one hand and ... fiction and philosophy on the other, the former disciplines corresponding to fire and water, the latter ones to vegetation and air.

55. Which is to distinguish, after all, between appearance and quantity on the one hand and ... quality and essence on the other hand - the hand not of will and spirit, but of ego and soul.

56. As a philosopher, my principal concern is with soul, since I am the writer (sic.) of essence, not of quality (fiction), of quantity (drama), or of appearance (poetry), wherein knowledge, strength, and beauty rather than truth are - or should be - the respective means.

57. And I am an upper-class manifestation of philosophy, a per se manifestation of philosophy that has reference to aphoristic space rather than to, say, essayistic volume.

58. Such philosophy, which is alone true and genuine, can only be alien to a society rooted, democratically, in lower-class values, wherein the essayistic notion of philosophy tends to prevail.

59. But even then, philosophy remains peripheral to the worldly norms of fiction and drama, corresponding to economics and to politics.

60. For philosophy is closest of the literary branches to religion, and even religion of a lower-class order, like Christianity, will remain, in the nature of things, peripheral to the world, with its politics and economics, its novels/novelists and plays/dramatists.

61. Being peripheral to the world, like the essayistic philosopher, is one thing; being beyond the world in a philosophical Heaven is quite another!

62. And that is a distinction between the philosopher of knowledge, an enlightened man, and the philosopher of truth, effectively a god.

63. It is the philosopher of truth who, in proclaiming the truth, reveals himself as a divinity, a devotee of space who transcends volume as air transcends vegetation or as religion transcends economics or as grace transcends sin.

64. This philosopher cannot be bought and sold in the market place; for he is above the market place and its economic dominion. He lives not for physical wealth but for metaphysical wealth, which is the proclamation of truth and the attainment of joy ... in the holy soul of Heaven.

65. In such metaphysical fashion is wealth duly transposed into health, the divine ego eclipsed by the sublime soul.

66. Soul is always essence, the being of things, but it is not invariably wise or holy or graceful. We can speak of the first-rate, because per se, soul of metaphysics; of the second-rate, because 'once bovaryized', soul of physics; of the third-rate, because 'twice bovaryized', soul of chemistry; and of the fourth-rate, because 'thrice bovaryized', soul of metachemistry. But we cannot logically speak of second-rate wisdom or third-rate holiness or fourth-rate grace.

67. Wisdom, holiness, and grace are comparable attributes not simply of being but, more particularly, of metaphysical being, the soul of souls. Thus the holy soul of Heaven is alone wise, since its essence (as joy) is graceful.

68. Compared to the holy soul of Heaven, what may be termed the unholy soul of (the) earth, the physical soul, is foolish, since its essence (as pleasure) is sinful.

69. Contrasted to the unholy soul of (the) earth, we shall find that what may be called the clear soul of purgatory, the chemical soul, is good, since its essence (as pride) is just.

70. Compared to the clear soul of purgatory, what may be termed the unclear soul of Hell, the metachemical soul, is evil, since its essence (as love) is criminal.

71. Thus not only do we find distinctions between wise soul, foolish soul, good soul, and evil soul, but such distinctions mirror the elemental distances between metaphysics, physics, chemistry, and metachemistry, corresponding, in social terms, to God, man, woman, and the Devil.

72. Soul thereby recedes, in essence, from the most essential soul of metaphysics, which is wise, to the least essential soul of metachemistry, which is evil, via the more (relative to most) essential soul of physics, which is foolish, and the less (relative to least) essential soul of chemistry, which is good, as from first- to fourth-rate via second- and third-rate orders of being.

73. Now what applies to positive soul applies no less to negative soul, its primal counterpart, wherein not joy but woe, not pleasure but pain, not pride but humility, not love but hatred are the prevailing passions - passions receding from wisdom and folly on the male side of the gender divide ... to goodness and evil on its female side, the side not of the holy antisoul of Antiheaven and the unholy antisoul of anti-earth, but of the clear antisoul or antipurgatory and the unclear antisoul of Antihell.

74. As there is wise soul, so there is wise ego, wise spirit, and wise will - the holy (or metaphysical) ego of primary God (corresponding, in a manner of speaking, to God the Son), the holy (or metaphysical) spirit of secondary Heaven, and the holy (or metaphysical) will of secondary God (corresponding, in a manner of speaking, to God the Father), all of which complement the holy (or metaphysical) soul of primary Heaven.

75. Likewise, as there is foolish soul, so there is foolish ego, foolish spirit, and foolish will - the unholy (or physical) ego of primary man, the unholy (or physical) spirit of secondary earth, and the unholy (or physical) will of secondary man, all of which complement the unholy (or physical) soul of primary earth.

76. Similarly, as there is good soul, so there is good ego, good spirit, and good will - the clear (or chemical) ego of secondary woman, the clear (or chemical) spirit of primary purgatory, and the clear (or chemical) will of primary woman, all of which complement the clear (or chemical) soul of secondary purgatory.

77. Finally, as there is evil soul, so there is evil ego, evil spirit, and evil will - the unclear (or metachemical) ego of secondary Devil, the unclear (or metachemical) spirit of primary Hell, and the unclear (or metachemical) will of primary Devil, all of which complement the unclear (or metachemical) soul of secondary Hell.

78. As we have distinguished the first-rate soul of metaphysics from the second-rate soul of physics, the third-rate soul of chemistry, and the fourth-rate soul of metachemistry, working backwards from the per se manifestation of soul in the most essential element (of air) to once, twice, and thrice 'bovaryized' orders of soul in the more (relative to most), less (relative to least), and least essential elements (viz. earth, water and fire), so we shall do the same for ego, spirit, and will, starting with the qualitativeness (in taking) of ego.

79. Thus as ego is in its per se manifestation in the most qualitative element of vegetation (earth), it is 'once bovaryized' and second-rate in the more (relative to most) qualitative element of air, 'twice bovaryized' and third-rate in the less (relative to least) qualitative element of fire, and 'thrice bovaryized' and fourth-rate in the least qualitative element of water, thereby receding from physics to chemistry via metaphysics and metachemistry. Let us now turn to the quantitativeness (in giving) of spirit.

80. Thus as spirit is in its per se manifestation in the most quantitative element of water, it is 'once bovaryized' and second-rate in the more (relative to most) quantitative element of fire, 'twice bovaryized' and third-rate in the less (relative to least) quantitative element of air, and 'thrice bovaryized' and fourth-rate in the least quantitative element of vegetation, thereby receding from chemistry to physics via metachemistry and metaphysics. Let us turn, finally, to the appearance (in doing) of will.

81. Thus as will is in its per se manifestation in the most apparent element of fire, it is 'once bovaryized' and second-rate in the more (relative to most) apparent element of water, 'twice bovaryized' and third-rate in the less (relative to least) apparent element of vegetation, and 'thrice bovaryized' and fourth-rate in the least apparent element of air, thereby receding from metachemistry to metaphysics via chemistry and physics.

82. What applies to the positivity of supreme ego, spirit, and will applies no less to their negative, or primal, counterparts, whose folly, goodness, and evil will be per se or 'bovaryized' according to the element with which any one of these factors is individually associated.

83. Rather than dwell on negativity, I should like to continue with a discussion of the positive manifestations of ego, spirit, will, and, indeed, soul, the chief concern, after all, of the philosopher, particularly the moral philosopher.

84. Metaphysics provides us with a distinction, overall, between second-rate ego and first-rate soul in relation to the self (both personal and universal), and fourth-rate will and third-rate spirit in relation to the not-self (both personal and universal); for first-rate being is not possible on any other basis than that in which the doing is fourth-rate, the giving third-rate, and the taking second-rate.

85. Physics provides us with a distinction, overall, between first-rate ego and second-rate soul in relation to the self (both personal and universal), and third-rate will and fourth-rate spirit in relation to the not-self (both personal and universal); for first-rate taking is not possible on any other basis than that in which the giving is fourth-rate, the doing third-rate, and the being second-rate.

86. Chemistry provides us with a distinction, overall, between second-rate will and first-rate spirit in relation to the not-self (both personal and universal), and fourth-rate ego and third-rate soul in relation to the self (both personal and universal); for first-rate giving is not possible on any other basis than that in which the doing is second-rate, the being third-rate, and the taking fourth-rate.

87. Metachemistry provides us with a distinction, overall, between first-rate will and second-rate spirit in relation to the not-self (both personal and universal), and third-rate ego and fourth-rate soul in relation to the self (both personal and universal); for first-rate doing is not possible on any other basis than that in which giving is second-rate, taking third-rate, and being fourth-rate.

88. Thus in the airy context of metaphysics, the holy soul (universal self) of primary Heaven, the first-rate soul of metaphysical being, is only possible in relation to the holy ego (personal self) of primary God, the holy will (personal not-self) of secondary God, and the holy spirit (universal not-self) of secondary Heaven.

89. Thus in the vegetative context of physics, the unholy ego (personal self) of primary man, the first-rate ego of physical taking, is only possible in relation to the unholy soul (universal self) of primary earth, the unholy will (personal not-self) of secondary man, and the unholy spirit (universal not-self) of secondary earth.

90. Thus in the watery context of chemistry, the clear spirit (universal not-self) of primary purgatory, the first-rate spirit of chemical giving, is only possible in relation to the clear will (personal not-self) of primary woman, the clear ego (personal self) of secondary woman, and the clear soul (universal self) of secondary purgatory.

91. Thus in the fiery context of metachemistry, the unclear will (personal not-self) of the primary Devil, the first-rate will of metachemical doing, is only possible in relation to the unclear spirit (universal not-self) of primary Hell, the unclear ego (personal self) of the secondary Devil, and the unclear soul (universal self) of secondary Hell.

92. In metaphysics, the primary God and Heaven of truth and joy require the support of the secondary God and Heaven of calmness and lightness.

93. In physics, the primary man and earth of knowledge and pleasure require the support of the secondary man and earth of excitableness and heaviness.

94. In chemistry, the secondary woman and purgatory of strength and pride offer support to the primary woman and purgatory of slowness and dimness.

95. In metachemistry, the secondary Devil and Hell of beauty and love offer support to the primary Devil and Hell of quickness and brightness.

96. Conversely, in negative metaphysics, the primary God and Heaven of falsity and woe require the support of the secondary God and Heaven of softness and thinness.

97. In negative physics, the primary man and earth of ignorance and pain require the support of the secondary man and earth of hardness and thickness.

98. In negative chemistry, the secondary woman and purgatory of weakness and humility offer support to the primary woman and purgatory of quietness and coldness.

99. In negative metachemistry, the secondary Devil and Hell of ugliness and hatred offer support to the primary Devil and Hell of loudness and hotness.

SOME CLARIFICATIONS

1. Things proceed by degrees, and my philosophy is no exception, since refinements and corrections are only possible on the basis of prior undertakings, which logically pave the way for them.

2. Take the case, in metaphysics, of the words 'holy', 'wise', and 'grace', which I have tended to use interchangeably, as though they were equivalent. In actuality, they are different.

3. For 'wise' or 'wisdom' is a term that should only be applied to God, whether in the case of 'the Son' or 'the Father', the metaphysical ego, which is primary, or the metaphysical will, which is secondary.

4. Thus we may speak of the wisdom of God, since God alone is wise in being metaphysical or, more specifically, in taking metaphysically in the case of 'God the Son' and in doing metaphysically in the case of 'God the Father', a distinction, after all, between the personal metaphysical self and the personal metaphysical not-self, the ego that is into either the ears (in sensuality) or the lungs (in sensibility).

5. Now just as 'wise' should only be applied to God, so the term 'holy' should only be applied to Heaven, since where God is wise in his grace, Heaven is holy in its peace, whether we are thinking of the primary Heaven of the metaphysical soul or the secondary Heaven of the metaphysical spirit.

6. Thus we should speak of the holiness of Heaven, since Heaven alone is holy in being metaphysical or, more specifically, in giving metaphysically in the case of the spirit and in being metaphysical in the case, the per se case, of the soul - a distinction, after all, between the universal metaphysical not-self and the universal metaphysical self, the airwaves (in sensuality) and/or the breath (in sensibility) that enables the self to achieve redemption in soul, as it rebounds from its accommodation with selflessness to a deeper identification with self than would otherwise be possible.

7. I mentioned the word 'peace' a little while ago, and peace it is that characterizes holiness, just as grace is characteristic of wisdom. For grace and peace are the attributes of wisdom and holiness, of God and Heaven, whether in the primary metaphysical contexts of the ego and the soul, or in the secondary metaphysical contexts of the will and the spirit.

8. Let us turn, briefly, to physics, the elemental realm of vegetation, in which not wisdom and holiness but folly and unholiness are the twin poles of the self on the one hand, and of the not-self on the other hand.

9. As wisdom and holiness correlate with God and Heaven, so folly and unholiness, their physical counterparts, correlate with man and the earth, whether in the primary contexts of ego and soul or, secondarily, in relation to will and spirit.

10. Hence we should speak of the foolish man in relation to either the personal physical self (ego) or the personal physical not-self (will), but of the unholy spirit of earth in relation to the universal physical not-self and the unholy soul of earth in relation to the universal physical self, both of which have rather more to do with the giving and being of pleasure than with the taking and doing of knowledge.

11. Thus the ego that, being physical, is either into the penis (symbol of the flesh) or the brain, the sensuality and sensibility of organic vegetativeness, can only be categorized as foolish, since it is not associated with grace, like the wise ego, but with sin, the personal counterpart to the unholy universality of travail.

12. Thus not grace and peace, symptomatic of wisdom and holiness, of God and Heaven, but sin and travail are the foolish and unholy corollaries of man and the earth.

13. Turning from the male side of the gender fence in metaphysics and physics to its female side in chemistry and metachemistry, we shall find that chemistry, the phenomenal counterpart to physics, is divisible between the goodness of woman and the clearness of purgatory, whether in primary or secondary contexts, since goodness attaches to the personal chemical not-self (will) and personal chemical self (ego) in view of their censorious nature in punishment, while clearness, or clarity, attaches to the universal chemical not-self (spirit) and the universal chemical self (soul) in view of their justness, or the adroitness with which punishment is carried out.

14. Therefore we should speak of the good woman in relation to either the personal chemical not-self or the personal chemical self, but of the clear spirit of purgatory in relation to the universal chemical not-self and the clear soul of purgatory in relation to the universal chemical self, both of which have rather more to do with the giving and being of pride than with the doing and taking of strength.

15. Thus the ego that, being chemical, is either into the tongue (sensuality) or the womb (sensibility), can only be categorized as good, since its association is with punishment, and this is the personal counterpart to the clear universality of justness.

16. Let us turn, finally, to metachemistry, the elemental realm of fire, in which not goodness and clearness but evil and unclearness are the twin poles of the self and the not-self.

17. As goodness and clearness correlate with woman and purgatory, so evil and unclearness, their metachemical counterparts, correlate with the Devil and Hell, both in the primary contexts of will and spirit, and in the secondary contexts of ego and soul.

18. Hence we should speak of the evil Devil in relation to either the personal metachemical not-self (will) or the personal metachemical self (ego), but of the unclear spirit of Hell in relation to the universal metachemical not-self and the unclear soul of Hell in relation to the universal metachemical self, both of which have rather more to do with the giving and being of love than with the doing and taking of beauty.

19. Thus the ego that, being metachemical, is either into the eyes (sensuality) or the heart (sensibility), can only be categorized as evil, since it is not associated with punishment, like the good ego, but with crime, the personal counterpart to the unclear universality of turmoil.

20. Thus not punishment and justness, firmness and adroitness, symptomatic of goodness and clearness, woman and purgatory, but crime and turmoil, cruelty and war, are the evil and unclear correlations of the Devil and Hell.

21. Obviously what applies to the positive, or supreme, manifestations of each duality within any given quadruplicity applies just as much to their negative, or primal, manifestations, except that instead of God and Heaven, one will be speaking of Antigod and Antiheaven; instead of man and earth, antiman and anti-earth; instead of woman and purgatory, antiwoman and antipurgatory; and instead of the Devil and Hell, the Antidevil and Antihell.

22. Thus instead of truth and joy in the self-oriented contexts of supreme metaphysics, falsity and woe in the antiself-oriented contexts of primal metaphysics; instead of knowledge and pleasure in the self-oriented contexts of supreme physics, ignorance and pain in the antiself-oriented contexts of primal physics; instead of strength and pride in the self-oriented contexts of supreme chemistry, weakness and humility in the antiself-oriented contexts of primal chemistry; and instead of beauty and love in the self-oriented contexts of supreme metachemistry, ugliness and hatred in the antiself-oriented contexts of primal metachemistry.

23. Thus instead of calmness and lightness in the not-self contexts of supreme metaphysics, softness and thinness in the antinot-self contexts of primal metaphysics; instead of excitableness and heaviness in the not-self contexts of supreme physics, hardness and thickness in the antinot-self contexts of primal physics; instead of slowness and dimness in the not-self contexts of supreme chemistry, quietness and coldness in the antinot-self contexts of primal chemistry; and instead of quickness and brightness in the not-self contexts of supreme metachemistry, loudness and hotness in the antinot-self contexts of primal metachemistry.

24. For no less than truth and joy are underlined by calmness and lightness in the supreme metaphysical contexts of God and Heaven, so falsity (illusion) and woe are underlined by softness and thinness in the primal metaphysical contexts of Antigod and Antiheaven.

25. And no less than knowledge and pleasure are underlined by excitableness and heaviness in the supreme physical contexts of man and the earth, so ignorance and pain are underlined by hardness and thickness in the primal physical contexts of antiman and the anti-earth.

26. And no less, on the female, or objective, side of the gender fence, that strength and pride are underlined or, rather, overlined (given the primacy of will and spirit) by slowness and dimness in the supreme chemical contexts of woman and purgatory, so weakness and humility are overlined by quietness and coldness in the primal chemical contexts of antiwoman and antipurgatory.

27. And no less than beauty and love are overlined by quickness and brightness in the supreme metachemical contexts of the Devil and Hell, so ugliness and hatred are overlined by loudness and hotness in the primal metachemical contexts of the Antidevil and Antihell.

28. In supreme metaphysics, the truth of the egocentric self is only possible in relation to the calmness of the wilful not-self, just as the joy of the soulful self is only possible in relation to the lightness of the spiritual not-self.

29. In primal metaphysics, the falsity of the egocentric antiself, or negative self, is only possible in relation to the softness of the wilful antinot-self, or negative not-self, just as the woe of the soulful antiself is only possible in relation to the thinness of the spiritual antinot-self.

30. In supreme physics, the knowledge of the egocentric self is only possible in relation to the excitableness of the wilful not-self, just as the pleasure of the soulful self is only possible in relation to the heaviness of the spiritual not-self.

31. In primal physics, the ignorance of the egocentric antiself is only possible in relation to the hardness of the wilful antinot-self, just as the pain of the soulful antiself is only possible in relation to the thickness of the spiritual antinot-self.

32. In supreme chemistry, the strength of the egocentric self is only possible in relation to the slowness of the wilful not-self, just as the pride of the soulful self is only possible in relation to the dimness of the spiritual not-self.

33. In primal chemistry, the weakness of the egocentric antiself is only possible in relation to the quietness of the wilful antinot-self, just as the humility of the soulful antiself is only possible in relation to the coldness of the spiritual antinot-self.

34. In supreme metachemistry, the beauty of the egocentric self is only possible in relation to the quickness of the wilful not-self, just as the love of the soulful self is only possible in relation to the brightness of the spiritual not-self.

35. In primal metachemistry, the ugliness of the egocentric antiself is only possible in relation to the loudness of the wilful antinot-self, just as the hatred of the soulful antiself is only possible in relation to the hotness of the spiritual antinot-self.

36. All the above options, whether supreme or primal, are applicable in both sensuality and sensibility, the outer contexts of 'once-born' metaphysics, physics, chemistry, and metachemistry no less than their inner, or 're-born', counterparts.

37. Thus, in supreme contexts, they are as applicable to the ears as to the lungs (metaphysical), to the phallus as to the brain (physical), to the tongue as to the womb (chemical), and to the eyes as to the heart (metachemical), not to mention their spiritual correlations.

38. In primal contexts, they are as applicable to associations, no matter how tenuous, with the sun no less than with Saturn (metaphysical), with the terrestrial aspect of the earth no less than with Mars (physical), with the moon no less than with the oceanic aspect of the earth (chemical), and with the stellar plane - or a particular star, say the central star of the Galaxy - no less than with Venus (metachemical), not to mention their spiritual correlations.

A BIBLICAL FALSEHOOD

1. The notion that supreme being could or should be associated with the Cosmos, say the stellar plane, is, I contend, totally false and delusory. For that which is associated with the Cosmos, the starry universe, can only be primal, given its inorganic, and therefore negative, properties.

2. Neither does the Cosmos begin with primal being but, rather, with primal doing, as germane to the stellar plane and therefore to that which precedes, in anterior space, the solar plane, with its primal being.

3. In such fashion Jehovah precedes Satan, the 'Creator of the Universe' or 'First Mover' vis-à-vis the 'Fallen Angel', as primal doing preceding primal being, stellar primacy in spatial space vis-à-vis solar primacy in sequential time, and does so, moreover, as a negative Devil preceding a negative God, the sensual Antidevil vis-à-vis the sensual Antigod.

4. In such fashion, too, it must be said that woman precedes man, the superfeminine plane of spatial space preceding the submasculine plane of sequential time, and long before (lower-class) women and men on the comparatively phenomenal planes of mass and volume.

5. Thus religions based on the false belief of God preceding the Devil, of man preceding woman, and the even falser belief of supremacy attaching to such a God, are fundamentally delusory, and deserve to be consigned to the rubbish heap of history - as, hopefully, will democratically transpire in 'Kingdom Come', the time and society of the Second Coming, or ultimate Messiah.

6. For not until such delusory obstacles to religious progress have been done away with in due democratic fashion, and people cease to be subject to Biblical falsehood and the utterly preposterous claims to which the Bible too often lays claim, can there be scope for the expansion of supreme being from sensual to sensible planes within the context of 'Kingdom Come', as outlined by me in previous texts.

7. And supreme being, whether sensual or sensible, has nothing whatsoever to do with the Cosmos or, for that matter, the Solar System, least of all in terms of a superior creature deemed responsible for Creation, but is purely organic and affiliated to the metaphysical soul, the soul-of-souls.

8. Only, however, in the sensible metaphysics of the lung-centred 'kingdom within' is the highest and profoundest supreme being to be found, and he who advocates it at the expense of the ear-centred sensual metaphysics of the 'kingdom without' is truly a Second Coming equivalence, for whom sensibility takes precedence over sensuality not on physical terms (as with Christ, or the 'First Coming', the lower-class messiah), but on metaphysical terms, such that portend an ultimate 'kingdom within'.

9. I say to you that metaphysical salvation, quite apart from other types of salvation, is from sensuality to sensibility, so that one rises from the aural sensuality of sequential time to the respiratory sensibility of spaced space, as from ears to lungs, the airwaves to the breath, and finds therein the most profound being and supremacy.

10. But only such men as are already effectively gods of aural sensuality can truly be saved to respiratory sensibility, abandoning the spirituality of the airwaves for that of the breath. This is not the salvation of men in Christ from phallus to brain, nor is it intended for women and devils, or all those who pertain (in lower- and upper-class terms) to the female side of life. My salvation of gods entails the damnation of devils, as from eyes to heart, spatial space to repetitive time.

11. But it also entails, on lower tiers of what, in previous texts, I have called a triadic Beyond, the salvation of (lower-class) men and the damnation of (lower-class) women, as from sensuality to sensibility on both physical and chemical axes of mass and volume.

12. For to rise diagonally from sensuality to sensibility through two planes is to gravitate from vice to virtue, thereby achieving salvation, whereas to fall diagonally from sensuality to sensibility through two planes is to gravitate from virtue to vice, thereby undergoing damnation. Only when males do the former does the latter come to pass for females. In the meantime, males will continue to be 'fall guys for slag' in true Biblical fashion, as the 'First Mover' continues to play God at the expense of the 'Fallen Angel'.

ON THE 'NATURES' OF THE ELEMENTS

1. Of the four elements, only one is prohibitive of life or, more correctly, of the possibility of one's living in it - namely fire.

2. Fire prohibits life from directly living in it but is, paradoxically, the foundation of life, the root element from which each of the other elements, though particularly water, duly emerged.

3. There are life forms who live predominantly in each of the other elements besides fire - fish in water (the seas, etc.); animals on land (earth, vegetation, etc.); birds in the air (the sky). Thus they are definable primarily in terms of their environmental relationship to water, vegetation, or air, as the case may be.

4. It could be said of mankind that they, too, are predominantly creatures who live on land, after the fashion of animals, and certainly this would seem to be the general case.

5. These days more than ever before, however, mankind live or spend considerable periods of time in the water and in the air, as well as on land; for submarines at one extreme and aircraft at the other guarantee that a significant number of people lead fish- and bird-like existences in addition to animal-like ones.

6. Yet even mankind cannot live in fire, which remains for that reason an element more usually associated with death.

7. Water is closer to fire than are vegetation and air in the way that it, too, is a sort of death for all but fish and those who, lacking gills, have access to artificial breathing equipment or submarines. Certainly it is ranged with fire on the objective side of life as a primary element, the kind of element I have hitherto characterized as female or of female association.

8. In fact, I hold to the theory that whereas the 'nature' of fire, the metachemical element, is unnatural, bearing in mind that it is contrary to nature as the one element in which no living creature is to be found, the 'nature' of water, by contrast, is supernatural, since it stands to the left, as it were, of nature conceived in its most natural, or vegetative, terms, i.e. earth, as that which originally sprang from fire and continues, in a manner of speaking, to do so, like a geyser rushing up from the fiery bowels of the earth.

9. Thus out of the unnatural has sprung the supernatural, as water from fire, and, in human terms, woman from the Devil, the feminine from the diabolic. For women, in the broadest sense, are not only fiery, they are also somewhat watery, given to fits of temper followed by tearful remorse, and we recognize in this display of primary elementalism the more objective 'nature' of women as creatures from whom both evil and good flow in unnatural and supernatural torrents of metachemical and chemical agitation.

10. But if water is supernatural in relation both to the anterior unnatural 'nature' of fire and to the posterior natural 'nature' of vegetation (earth), the masculine element par excellence, so that it could be said to stem from the former as it gushes over the latter, this supernaturalism has nothing whatsoever to do with air, the metaphysical element, but is rather less divine than feminine in its purgatorial association, an association at once phenomenal and quantitative, having more to do, in volume and mass, with chemical giving than with metaphysical being.

11. Thus the association, so popularly upheld, of supernature or the supernatural with metaphysical being is really quite false, since although being does of course accrue to the supernatural, it is more in terms of chemistry than of metaphysics, with, for example, pride rather than joy being the essential correlation.

12. Yet not only being but doing, taking, and (especially) giving also accrue to the supernatural, as to all other elements in one degree or another. But giving remains the principal characteristic of supernature, just as doing, its apparent counterpart, remains principally characteristic of unnature, the fiery 'nature' of which renders everything else of subordinate interest.

13. But if doing and giving are the principal characteristics of fire and water, the unnatural and the supernatural, then the principal characteristic of vegetation, the natural element par excellence, is taking, not least of all in relation to what water, in particular, has to give.

14. For vegetation, being physical, is a qualitative element, an element that should be associated, in its subjective phenomenality, with the masculine, and thus, in a sense, with men - not, of course, the highest men, or gods (with their noumenal subjectivity in time and space), but man in his average or general permutation, as a creature who allows himself to be prevailed upon by women, to take what the supernatural, aided and abetted by the unnatural, has to give.

15. Beyond vegetation, earth, the land, etc., lies air, oxygen, the sky, etc., and it is with this fourth and last element that essence raises its metaphysical banner in the name not of nature, still less of supernature, but of subnature - a noumenal advancement over the phenomenality of nature, which stands to vegetation as God to man or grace to sin or truth to knowledge or soul to ego.

16. Yes, it is with the essential element, the metaphysical element of air, unseen but nevertheless omnipresent, that life evolves to the subnatural, to that which is deeper, profounder, higher than nature, and antithetical, in the subjectivity of its noumenal standing, to unnature, as essence to appearance, soul to will.

17 Thus not the supernatural out of nature, as popular delusion would have one believe, but the subnatural out of nature, the wisdom of truth out of the folly of knowledge, the holiness of joy out of the unholiness of pleasure, grace from sin, and peace from travail.

18. Now both alike, being subjective, appertain to the male side of life, and are only possible on the basis of the prior existence, in unnatural and supernatural primacy, of its female side - a side rather closer, paradoxically, to death than to life, since fire and water are less conducive to life, as we have seen, than are vegetation and air, even though they have a primary elemental correspondence and the latter merely a secondary one - like, in a sense, the Church in relation to the State.

19. One could speak, in relation to the elements, of the fire of death, the water of life-in-death, the vegetation of death-in-life, and the air of life, since where the noumenal elements of fire and air correspond to the absolute, the phenomenal elements of water and vegetation (earth) are correspondingly relative, having less to do with extremism than with moderation; less to do, in other words, with the Devil and God than with woman and man.

20. Thus whereas the fiery unnature of metachemistry corresponds to (eternal) death and the airy subnature of metaphysics to (eternal) life, the watery supernature of chemistry corresponds to (temporal) life-in-death and the vegetative nature of physics to (temporal) death-in-life.

21. The evil of death contrasts with the goodness of life-in-death ... as the Devil with woman, while the folly of death-in-life contrasts with the wisdom of life ... as man with God.

22. The immortality of devils and gods is premised upon their association with the noumenal elements of fire and air, the one commensurate with Eternal Death and the other with Eternal Life - metachemical will and metaphysical soul in the absolute contrast of unnature and subnature.

23. The mortality of women and men is premised upon their association with the phenomenal elements of water and vegetation, the one commensurate with the temporality of life-in-death and the other with the temporality of death-in-life - chemical spirit and physical ego in the relative contrast of supernature and nature.

24. The lower-class categories of women and men, corresponding to water and vegetation, are mortal in their respective temporalities, whereas the upper-class categories of devils and gods, corresponding to fire and air, are immortal in their respective eternalities.

25. In such fashion, mass and volume are mortal, whether as volume-mass devolution (feminine) or as mass-volume evolution (masculine), whereas time and space are immortal, whether as space-time devolution (diabolic) or as time-space evolution (divine).

26. Likewise whereas the unnature of noumenal objectivity, corresponding to space-time devolution, and the subnature of noumenal subjectivity, corresponding to time-space evolution, are immortal (the former in terms of Eternal Death and the latter in terms of Eternal Life), the supernature of phenomenal objectivity, corresponding to volume-mass devolution, and the nature of phenomenal subjectivity, corresponding to mass-volume evolution, are mortal (the former in terms of life-in-death and the latter in terms of death-in-life).

27. Immortal are both the unconscious and the subconscious, the former corresponding to unnature and the latter to subnature.

28. Mortal are both the superconscious and the conscious (mind), the former corresponding to supernature and the latter to nature.

29. Just as the unconscious (will) would be inconceivable without reference to unnature (fire), so the subconscious (soul) would be inconceivable without reference to subnature (air).

30. Just as the superconscious (spirit) would be inconceivable without reference to supernature (water), so the conscious (ego) would be inconceivable without reference to nature (vegetation).

31. Only the will that is of fire, the unconscious that is of metachemical unnature, is of a per se order of doing.

32. Only the soul that is of air, the subconscious that is of metaphysical subnature, is of a per se order of being.

33. Only the spirit that is of water, the superconscious that is of chemical supernature, is of a per se order of giving.

34. Only the ego that is of vegetation, the conscious that is of physical nature, is of a per se order of taking.

35. All other wills, souls, spirits, and egos are 'bovaryizations' of doing, being, giving, and taking that accrue, in their respective degrees and ways, to any element but that in which will, soul, spirit, or ego is in its per se mode.

36. Supernature without unnature is as inconceivable as subnature without nature. Water can no more exist totally independently of fire ... than air of vegetation.

37. Similarly, spirit without will is as inconceivable as soul without ego. Superconsciousness can no more exist totally independently of unconsciousness ... than subconsciousness of consciousness.

38. Woman without the Devil is as inconceivable as God without man. Strength can no more exist totally independently of beauty than truth ... of knowledge.

39. Purgatory without Hell is as inconceivable as Heaven without the earth. Pride can no more exist totally independently of love than joy ... of pleasure.

40. Just as woman needs the Devil to become properly feminine, so God needs man to become properly divine. There can no more be punishment (for some) without the crime (of others), than there can be grace (for some) without the sin (of others).

41. Just as punishment is only intelligible in relation to crime, and vice versa, so grace is only intelligible in relation to sin, and vice versa.

42. It is for this reason that although the genders are intelligible to themselves on the basis of a dichotomy between evil and good in the female case, and folly and wisdom in the male case, they are rarely intelligible to each other - crime and grace having as little in common as punishment and sin or, in broader terms, the State and the Church.

IDEOLOGICAL DEFINITIONS

1. Because metachemistry is fundamental to chemistry, it is identifiable with fundamentalism, as with fire.

2. Because metaphysics transcends physics, it is identifiable with transcendentalism, as with air.

3. In between, and lower down, than fundamentalism and transcendentalism come what may be called the nonconformism of chemistry and the humanism of physics, like water and vegetation in between fire on the one hand and air on the other.

4. Such broad-based definitions require to be clarified in terms of subdivisible categories in sensuality and sensibility, outer sense and inner sense, whether negatively or positively.

5. There are four ways of subdividing such definitions, and they are as follows: elemental particles; molecular particles; molecular wavicles; and elemental wavicles.

6. These subdivisions could more simply be described in terms of materialism, realism, naturalism, and idealism - materialism correlating with elemental particles, realism with molecular particles, naturalism with molecular wavicles, and idealism with elemental wavicles, so that the first and fourth are absolute, but the second and third relative. Now I hold to the view that they are applicable to each of the general definitions in terms of a correspondence to science, politics, economics, and religion.

7. Thus a direct correlation may be inferred to exist between materialism and science in relation to the absolutism of elemental particles; between realism and politics in relation to the relativity of molecular particles; between naturalism and economics in relation to the relativity of molecular wavicles; and between idealism and religion in relation to the absolutism of elemental wavicles.

8. Therefore I hold that just as a Materialist must be scientific, so a Realist can only be political.

9. Likewise I maintain that just as a Naturalist can only be economic, so an Idealist must be religious.

10. What the above categories do not tell us, however, is what kind of Materialist or Realist or Naturalist or Idealist. For if there are four broad-based definitions of ideology in relation to the elements, viz. fire, water, vegetation (earth), and air, then there are at least four different ways, in both sensuality and sensibility (not to mention with regard to negative as well as positive contexts), of being either materialist, realist, naturalist, or idealist.

11. Which is equivalent to saying that there are at least four different ways of being scientific, political, economic, or religious.

12. And such ways, as we have seen, are in terms of fundamentalism, nonconformism, humanism, and transcendentalism.

13. Thus, to take a single example, that of religion, one can be an Idealist, or religious person, in relation to fundamentalism, nonconformism, humanism, or transcendentalism, i.e. with regard to fire, water, vegetation, or air, with metachemical, chemical, physical, and metaphysical implications.

14. Thus an Idealist is not a specific type of religious person; he is simply a religious person as opposed to, say, a scientific or even a political person.

15. And, being a religious person, he can be a Fundamentalist, a Nonconformist, a Humanist, or a Transcendentalist, and thus be religious, or idealistic, in one of four different ways (in both sensuality and sensibility) - from fourth- to first-rate via third- and second-rate orders of idealism.

16. For the per se mode of religion, as of idealism, is of course transcendentalism, the metaphysical mode of religion, and therefore only that man (a god) whose idealism is of the air can be accounted a first-rate Idealist, since air, being essential, is the per se element of religion, and hence of idealism.

17. By contrast, the man whose idealism is of vegetation (earth) is a second-rate Idealist (Humanist), since vegetation is the per se element of economics, and hence of naturalism.

18. Contrariwise, the man or, better, woman whose idealism is of water is a third-rate Idealist (Nonconformist), since water is the per se element of politics, and hence of realism.

19. By contrast, the woman (a devil) whose idealism is of fire is a fourth-rate Idealist (Fundamentalist), since fire is the per se element of science, and hence of materialism.

20. Thus we may conclude that idealism, and therefore religion, is only first-rate in metaphysics, whereas in physics it is second-rate, in chemistry third-rate, and in metachemistry fourth-rate - the idealism, in this latter context, of fundamentalism as opposed, in ascending order, to the idealisms of nonconformism, humanism, and transcendentalism.

21. Therefore idealism is germane to the religious subdivision of any given element, the subdivision that correlates with elemental wavicles, which is the essential subdivision thereof.

22. Air being the essential element par excellence, the element of being through soulful contentment, it follows that the most essential mode of idealism can only be metaphysical, the idealism, as has been said, of transcendentalism, or the religious per se, wherein the soul, or essence of the self, is truly essential.

23. By contrast, vegetation being the qualitative element par excellence, the element of taking through egocentric form, it follows that idealism associated with vegetation, which we term religious humanism, can only be more (relative to most) essential ... in view of the qualitative per se, in naturalism, of vegetation, the physical element.

24. Contrariwise, water being the quantitative element par excellence, the element of giving through spiritual glory, it follows that idealism associated with water, which we term religious nonconformism, can only be less (relative to least) essential ... in view of the quantitative per se, in realism, of water, the chemical element.

25. By contrast, fire being the apparent element par excellence, the element of doing through wilful power, it follows that idealism associated with fire, which we term religious fundamentalism, can only be least essential ... in view of the apparent per se, in materialism, of fire, the metachemical element.

26. Thus although elemental wavicles are to be found in all elements, it is only in the metaphysical element (of air) that such a subdivision, corresponding to idealism, is fully commensurate with the nature, in essence, of the element in question.

27. The physical element (of vegetation) has a qualitative nature in which not elemental wavicles but molecular wavicles are the principal subdivision, in keeping with its naturalistic bias, in humanism, towards economics.

28. The chemical element (of water) has a quantitative nature (supernature) in which not molecular wavicles but molecular particles are the principal subdivision, in keeping with its realistic bias, in nonconformism, towards politics.

29. The metachemical element (of fire) has an apparent nature (unnature) in which not molecular particles but elemental particles are the principal subdivision, in keeping with its materialistic bias, in fundamentalism, towards science.

30. Only the metaphysical element (of air) has an essential nature (subnature) in which elemental wavicles are the principal subdivision, in keeping with its idealistic bias, in transcendentalism, towards religion.

31. Whereas the materialism of science affirms the will, the idealism of religion affirms the soul - the difference between appearance and essence, elemental particles and elemental wavicles.

32. Whereas the realism of politics affirms the spirit, the naturalism of economics affirms the ego (mind) - the difference between quantity and quality, molecular particles and molecular wavicles.

33. Since photons (in sensuality) and photinos (in sensibility) appertain to the noumenal objectivity, in metachemistry, of space-time devolution, or the diagonal descent of noumenal objectivity from spatial space to repetitive time, it could be said that photons/photinos are the elements/elementinos par excellence of materialism.

34. Since protons (in sensuality) and protinos (in sensibility) appertain to the noumenal subjectivity, in metaphysics, of time-space evolution, or the diagonal ascent of noumenal subjectivity from sequential time to spaced space, it could be said that protons/protinos are the elements/elementinos par excellence of idealism.

35. Since electrons (in sensuality) and electrinos (in sensibility) appertain to the phenomenal objectivity, in chemistry, of volume-mass devolution, or the diagonal descent of phenomenal objectivity from volumetric volume to massed mass, it could be said that electrons/electrinos are the elements/elementinos par excellence of realism.

36. Since neutrons (in sensuality) and neutrinos (in sensibility) appertain to the phenomenal subjectivity, in physics, of mass-volume evolution, or the diagonal ascent of phenomenal subjectivity from massive mass to voluminous volume, it could be said that neutrons/neutrinos are the elements/elementinos par excellence of naturalism.

37. The elemental particles of materialism conduce towards competitiveness, and never more so than in the metachemical contexts (in both photon sensuality and photino sensibility) of fundamentalism.

38. The molecular particles of realism conduce towards co-operativeness, and never more so than in the chemical contexts (in both electron sensuality and electrino sensibility) of nonconformism.

39. The molecular wavicles of naturalism conduce towards collectivism, and never more so than in the physical contexts (in both neutron sensuality and neutrino sensibility) of humanism.

40. The elemental wavicles of idealism conduce towards individualism, and never more so than in the metaphysical contexts (in both proton sensuality and protino sensibility) of transcendentalism.

41. Thus it could be said that whereas it is of the Devil's nature to be competitive, it is of woman's nature to be co-operative - the former in relation to fire and the latter in relation to water.

42. Likewise it could be said that whereas it is of man's nature to be collectivistic, it is of God's nature to be individualistic - the former in relation to vegetation and the latter in relation to air.

43. From which it can be deduced that whereas fire is the competitive element par excellence, water, by contrast, is the co-operative element par excellence.

44. And that whereas vegetation is the collectivistic element par excellence, air, by contrast, is the individualistic element par excellence.

45. The metachemical competitiveness of the Devil contrasts with the chemical co-operativeness of woman, as evil with goodness.

46. The physical collectivism of man contrasts with the metaphysical individualism of God, as folly with wisdom.

47. Every Materialist is competitive, but the Fundamentalist is the most competitive, after the manner of the per se manifestation, in metachemistry, of science.

48. Every Realist is co-operative, but the Nonconformist is the most co-operative, after the manner of the per se manifestation, in chemistry, of politics.

49. Every Naturalist is collectivistic, but the Humanist is the most collectivistic, after the manner of the per se manifestation, in physics, of economics.

50. Every Idealist is individualistic, but the Transcendentalist is the most individualistic, after the manner of the per se manifestation, in metaphysics, of religion.

51. To be against nature in the unnature of metachemical materialism is the competitive fate of the scientific Fundamentalist.

52. By contrast, the political Nonconformist (to scientific fundamentalism) lives the supernatural nature of co-operation with his or, rather, her kind in chemical realism.

53. Contrariwise, the economic Humanist lives the natural nature of collectivism with his kind in physical naturalism.

54. By contrast, the religious Transcendentalist (of economic humanism) lives the subnatural nature of individualism with his self in metaphysical idealism.

55. Thus do the will per se, the spirit per se, the ego per se, and the soul per se pursue their respective fates in conjunction with the materialism of fire, the realism of water, the naturalism of vegetation (earth), and the idealism of air.

56. Competitiveness and co-operativeness pertain, in their respective relationships with the will and the spirit, to the female side of life, wherein the not-self is primary and the self secondary.

57. Collectivism and individualism pertain, in their respective relationships with the ego and the soul, to the male side of life, wherein the self is primary and the not-self secondary.

58. Thus both competitiveness and co-operativeness are objective, in keeping with their respective associations with elemental particles and molecular particles, as specifically germane to metachemistry and chemistry.

59. Thus both collectivism and individualism are subjective, in keeping with their respective associations with molecular wavicles and elemental wavicles, as specifically germane to physics and metaphysics.

60. By and large the State encourages competitiveness and/or co-operativeness, whereas the Church encourages collectivism and/or individualism - competitiveness and individualism appertaining to upper-class (noumenal) manifestations of the State and the Church; co-operativeness and collectivism, by contrast, appertaining to lower-class (phenomenal) manifestations thereof.

61. Goodness triumphs over evil when co-operativeness supersedes - partially if not, in the nature of things, entirely - competitiveness, like woman superseding the Devil, or femininity superseding devility.

62. Wisdom triumphs over folly when individualism supersedes - partially if not, in the nature of things, entirely - collectivism, like God superseding man, or divinity superseding masculinity.

63. So it is that, as a writer, the wisdom of my philosophy has triumphed over the folly of fiction, with its collectivism of characters bogged down in a narrative plot.

64. The Catholic Confessional can be regarded as constituting a vehicle whereby moderate individualism, commensurate with humanism, is given due ecclesiastical encouragement.

65. Such moderate individualism is compatible with the pseudo-grace of verbal absolution which the sinful penitent receives via a priest in due process of extricating himself, through confession, from the collectivity, i.e. the general church-going masses, or congregation.

66. In contrast to confession, the Mass celebrates, through the sublimated 'body of Christ', the collective, for it is available to the congregation in general and is not therefore specifically individualistic.

67. With its fulcrum in sin, however, Christianity remains indubitably a lower-class religion in which folly tends to overshadow wisdom, the sinful collectivity overshadowing the penitential individual, who, in any case, is anything but a wise individual per se.

68. For man in the mass is ever sinful, and the Mass, or Eucharist, is but a symbolic confirmation - and affirmation - of such a collectivistic condition.

69. Collectivistic religion is by definition worldly and inferior, in its humanistic imperfections, to the otherworldly transcendentalism of genuine religion, which can only be individualistic.

70. I would like to think that my own (Social Transcendentalist) contribution to the development of individualistic religion will one day lead to a situation in which authentic grace is granted every encouragement to flourish on the wings of transcendental meditation, such that could only be cultivated in private, which is to say, in individual cubicles within any given meditation centre.

71. A special building that guarantees one peace and quiet would be commensurate with the attainment of religious sovereignty and the right thereby to idealistic self-realization at a variety of tier-levels - nonconformist, humanist, and transcendentalist - of the triadic Beyond within the overall parameters of Social Transcendentalism (as described in certain previous texts).

72. The higher one ascended in a meditation centre, which I envisage as taking the form of a curvilinear tower, the more privacy one could expect to find, since individualism requires a transcendentalist precondition, in contrast to the collectivism of humanism and the co-operativeness of nonconformism.

73. With regard to transcendentalism generally, I should like to distinguish between the competitive individualism of scientific transcendentalism; the co-operative individualism of political transcendentalism; the collectivistic individualism of economic transcendentalism; and the individualistic individualism, or individualism per se, of religious transcendentalism.

74. With regard to humanism generally, I should like to distinguish between the competitive collectivism of scientific humanism; the co-operative collectivism of political humanism; the collectivistic collectivism, or collectivism per se, of economic humanism; and the individualistic collectivism of religious humanism.

75. With regard to nonconformism generally, I should like to distinguish between the competitive co-operativeness of scientific nonconformism; the co-operative co-operativeness, or co-operativeness per se, of political nonconformism; the collectivistic co-operativeness of economic nonconformism; and the individualistic co-operativeness of religious nonconformism.

76. With regard to fundamentalism generally, I should like to distinguish between the competitive competitiveness, or competitiveness per se, of scientific fundamentalism; the co-operative competitiveness of political fundamentalism; the collectivistic competitiveness of economic fundamentalism; and the individualistic competitiveness of religious fundamentalism.

77. From the elemental proton and/or protino (in sensuality and/or sensibility) particles of competitive individualism to the elemental proton and/or protino wavicles of individualistic individualism via the molecular proton and/or protino particles of co-operative individualism and the molecular proton and/or protino wavicles of collectivistic individualism ... in relation to the noumenal subjectivity, within time-space evolution, of transcendentalism, as from metaphysical materialism to idealism via realism and naturalism.

78. From the elemental neutron and/or neutrino (in sensuality and/or sensibility) particles of competitive collectivism to the elemental neutron and/or neutrino wavicles of individualistic collectivism via the molecular neutron and/or neutrino particles of co-operative collectivism and the molecular neutron and/or neutrino wavicles of collectivistic collectivism ... in relation to the phenomenal subjectivity, within mass-volume evolution, of humanism, as from physical materialism to idealism via realism and naturalism.

79. From the elemental electron and/or electrino (in sensuality and/or sensibility) particles of competitive co-operativeness to the elemental electron and/or electrino wavicles of individualistic co-operativeness via the molecular electron and/or electrino particles of co-operative co-operativeness and the molecular electron and/or electrino wavicles of collectivistic co-operativeness ... in relation to the phenomenal objectivity, within volume-mass devolution, of nonconformism, as from chemical materialism to idealism via realism and naturalism.

80. From the elemental photon and/or photino (in sensuality and/or sensibility) particles of competitive competitiveness to the elemental photon and/or photino wavicles of individualistic competitiveness via the molecular photon and/or photino particles of co-operative competitiveness and the molecular photon and/or photino wavicles of collectivistic competitiveness ... in relation to the noumenal objectivity, within space-time devolution, of fundamentalism, as from metachemical materialism to idealism via realism and naturalism.

81. To contrast the materialism of metachemical competitiveness, which is evil, with the realism of chemical co-operativeness, which is good.

82. To contrast the naturalism of physical collectivism, which is foolish, with the idealism of metaphysical individualism, which is wise.

83. Even co-operativeness, collectivism, and individualism are evil, or noumenally objective, when affiliated to metachemistry, the competitive element par excellence.

84. Even competitiveness, collectivism, and individualism are good, or phenomenally objective, when affiliated to chemistry, the co-operative element par excellence.

85. Even competitiveness, co-operativeness, and individualism are foolish, or phenomenally subjective, when affiliated to physics, the collectivistic element par excellence.

86. Even competitiveness, co-operativeness, and collectivism are wise, or noumenally subjective, when affiliated to metaphysics, the individualistic element par excellence.

87. More specifically, one should distinguish the evil materialism (primary) and naturalism (secondary) of the metachemical will and ego from the unclear realism (primary) and idealism (secondary) of the metachemical spirit and soul.

88. Likewise, one should distinguish the good materialism (primary) and naturalism (secondary) of the chemical will and ego from the clear realism (primary) and idealism (secondary) of the chemical spirit and soul.

89. Contrariwise, one should distinguish the foolish materialism (secondary) and naturalism (primary) of the physical will and ego from the unholy realism (secondary) and idealism (primary) of the physical spirit and soul.

90. Similarly, one should distinguish the wise materialism (secondary) and naturalism (primary) of the metaphysical will and ego from the holy realism (secondary) and idealism (primary) of the metaphysical spirit and soul.

SOME FURTHER CORRELATIONS

1. In general terms, the will is that aspect of the not-self which we equate with doing, the appearance of power.

2. In general terms, the spirit is that aspect of the not-self which we equate with giving, the quantity of glory.

3. In general terms, the ego is that aspect of the self which we equate with taking, the quality of form.

4. In general terms, the soul is that aspect of the self which we equate with being, the essence of content(ment).

5. Power can be metachemical (quick/loud), chemical (slow/quiet), physical (excitable/hard), or metaphysical (calm/soft), but its materialism is always apparent.

6. Glory can be metachemical (bright/hot), chemical (dim/cold), physical (heavy/thick), or metaphysical (light/thin), but its realism is always quantitative.

7. Form can be metachemical (beautiful/ugly), chemical (strong/weak), physical (knowledgeable/ignorant), or metaphysical (true/false), but its naturalism is always qualitative.

8. Contentment can be metachemical (loving/hateful), chemical (proud/humble), physical (pleasurable/painful), or metaphysical (joyful/woeful), but its idealism is always essential.

9. Thus the materialism of doing contrasts with the realism of giving, as will with spirit, power with glory, in every element.

10. Thus the naturalism of taking contrasts with the idealism of being, as ego with soul, form with contentment, in every element.

11. And in every element, be it metachemical, chemical, physical, or metaphysical, doing and giving are of the not-self, but taking and being are of the self.

12. The power of doing, the materialism of the will, is first-rate (evil) in metachemistry, second-rate (good) in chemistry, third-rate (foolish) in physics, and fourth-rate (wise) in metaphysics.

13. The glory of giving, the realism of the spirit, is first-rate (clear) in chemistry, second-rate (unclear) in metachemistry, third-rate (holy) in metaphysics, and fourth-rate (unholy) in physics.

14. The form of taking, the naturalism of the ego, is first-rate (foolish) in physics, second-rate (wise) in metaphysics, third-rate (evil) in metachemistry, and fourth-rate (good) in chemistry.

15. The contentment of being, the idealism of the soul, is first-rate (holy) in metaphysics, second-rate (unholy) in physics, third-rate (clear) in chemistry, and fourth-rate (unclear) in metachemistry.

16. Hence metachemistry combines first-rate doing (primary evil) with second-rate giving (primary unclearness), third-rate taking (secondary evil), and fourth-rate being (secondary unclearness).

17. Hence chemistry combines first-rate giving (primary clearness) with second-rate doing (primary goodness), third-rate being (secondary clearness), and fourth-rate taking (secondary goodness).

18. Hence physics combines first-rate taking (primary folly) with second-rate being (primary unholiness), third-rate doing (secondary folly), and fourth-rate giving (secondary unholiness).

19. Hence metaphysics combines first-rate being (primary holiness) with second-rate taking (primary wisdom), third-rate giving (secondary holiness), and fourth-rate doing (secondary wisdom).

20. Metachemistry, being noumenally objective, is a combination of primary and secondary permutations of the Devil and Hell - the primary permutations in the not-self (as will and spirit), the secondary ones in the self (as ego and soul).

21. Chemistry, being phenomenally objective, is a combination of primary and secondary permutations of woman and purgatory - the primary permutations in the not-self (as will and spirit), the secondary ones in the self (as ego and soul).

22. Physics, being phenomenally subjective, is a combination of primary and secondary permutations of man and the earth - the primary permutations in the self (as ego and soul), the secondary ones in the not-self (as will and spirit).

23. Metaphysics, being noumenally subjective, is a combination of primary and secondary permutations of God and Heaven - the primary permutations in the self (as ego and soul), the secondary ones in the not-self (as will and spirit).

24. There are no devils and hells outside the metachemical parameters of space-time devolution, and therefore no evils and unclearnesses other than in relation to the spatial space (sensual) and repetitive time (sensible) of noumenal objectivity.

25. There are no women and purgatories outside the chemical parameters of volume-mass devolution, and therefore no goods and clearnesses other than in relation to the volumetric volume (sensual) and massed mass (sensible) of phenomenal objectivity.

26. There are no men and earths outside the physical parameters of mass-volume evolution, and therefore no follies and unholinesses other than in relation to the massive mass (sensual) and voluminous volume (sensible) of phenomenal subjectivity.

27. There are no gods and heavens outside the metaphysical parameters of time-space evolution, and therefore no wisdoms and holinesses other than in relation to the sequential time (sensual) and spaced space (sensible) of noumenal subjectivity.

28. This is so, in all the above instances, of sensuality no less than of sensibility, as well as to the negative counterparts, in primacy, of the positive options with their comparative supremacy.

29. Because every element is a combination of doing, giving, taking, and being, it follows that will, spirit, ego, and soul can be found in all the elements pretty much as one would expect to find metachemical, chemical, physical, and metaphysical manifestations of science, politics, economics, and religion, even though only one - and that a different one in each case - of these disciplines will be in its per se manifestation in any given element.

30. There is accordingly a sense in which those who specialize in doing as opposed to giving, in science as opposed to politics, are more akin to creatures of the will than of the spirit, and should be thought of less in terms of human beings (setting aside, for the moment, conventional usage and understanding) than of human doings, whether in relation to metachemistry, chemistry, physics, or metaphysics, though especially in relation to metachemistry.

31. Conversely, those who specialize in giving as opposed to doing, in politics as opposed to science, should be thought of less in terms of human beings than of human givings, since they function more as creatures of the spirit than of the will or, indeed, the soul (in relation to being), and especially in relation to chemistry.

32. There is also a sense in which those who specialize in taking as opposed to being, in economics as opposed to religion, are more akin to creatures of the ego than of the soul, and should accordingly be thought of less in terms of human beings than of human takings, whether in relation to metachemistry, chemistry, physics, or metaphysics, though especially in relation to physics.

33. Conversely, those who specialize in being as opposed to taking, in religion as opposed to economics, are the only ones who can properly be identified as human beings, since they function more as creatures of the soul, wherein being has its home, than of the ego, and especially in relation to metaphysics.

34. Now if religious people are the only genuine human beings, the only creatures for whom being is the principal concern, then it is only through religion that one becomes fully human or, at any rate, achieves an accommodation with being such that confirms one's right to be considered a human being, rather than simply a human taking, a human giving, or a human doing.

35. Such could certainly not be said of scientists, politicians, and economists, any more than it could be said of poets, dramatists, and novelists in relation to philosophers or, at least, to those philosophers who, being genuinely wise, really do relate to soulful being and not to something less - whether egocentric taking, spiritual giving, or wilful doing.

36. But the word 'human' is itself problematical, since it suggests humanistic limitations which conflict, in some degree, with the concept of divinity, or even of devility. Even supposing we limit the term 'human' to 'being', are all human beings equal - equal, that is, in relation to being?

37. And the answer to that has to be an emphatic 'no', since being exists, as we have discovered, in relation to metachemistry, chemistry, physics, and metaphysics, and therefore does so at a variety of levels or, as we have said, rates - from the fourth-rate being of love in metachemistry to the first-rate being of joy in metaphysics via the third-rate being of pride in chemistry and the second-rate being of pleasure in physics.

38. Therefore even religious people, whom we have logically identified with the notion of a more beingful humanity, are not equal, and we reserve for the admission of their inequality such differing and contrasting terms as Fundamentalist, Nonconformist, Humanist, and Transcendentalist.

39. Now what applies to religious people, or those who actually pursue a religious vocation, applies no less to economic people, political people, and scientific people - in short, to economists, politicians, and scientists in relation to the different levels and rates of taking, giving, and doing.

40. Thus no more than the being-orientated are equal, so one cannot allow that the doing-orientated or the giving-orientated or the taking-orientated are equal - except, however, in relation to those (within reason) whose elemental correspondence is with their own kind of being, doing, giving, or taking, as the case may be.

41. How, then, should we attempt to describe or define these inequalities in connection with the different elements - other than by recourse to the distinctions, drawn earlier, between the unnature of metachemistry, the supernature of chemistry, the nature of physics, and the subnature of metaphysics.

42. Or, more comprehensively, between the unnature/unconsciousness of metachemistry, the supernature/superconsciousness of chemistry, the nature/consciousness of physics, and the subnature/subconsciousness of metaphysics.

43. Thus, in terms of the will, we can distinguish the unnatural doing of metachemical will from the supernatural doing of chemical will, the natural doing of physical will, and the subnatural doing of metaphysical will.

44. Likewise, in terms of the spirit, we can distinguish the unconscious giving of metachemical spirit from the superconscious giving of chemical spirit, the conscious giving of physical spirit, and the subconscious giving of metaphysical spirit.

45. Similarly, in terms of the ego, we can distinguish the unnatural taking of metachemical ego from the supernatural taking of chemical ego, the natural taking of physical ego, and the subnatural taking of metaphysical ego.

46. Finally, in terms of the soul, we can distinguish the unconscious being of metachemical soul from the superconscious being of chemical soul, the conscious being of physical soul, and the subconscious being of metaphysical soul.

47. Since I have found reason to question the applicability of the term 'human' right across the board, so to speak, of elemental reference, even with regard to so-called 'human beings', I should like to posit a correlation between the unnatural and what I shall call the unhuman (inhuman), between the supernatural and the superhuman, between the natural and the human, and, last but hardly least, between the subnatural and the subhuman.

48. I do so because there is a definite correlation between 'human' and 'nature', as in 'human nature', and this is spite of the association - often rather questionable - of 'human' with 'being'. In short, it seems to me that the word 'human' has more of a somatic than a psychic connotation, such as stands it in good stead with 'nature' ... as something that should be distinguished from that which issues from it on a psychic, or non-somatic, basis.

49. Now if we correlate 'the natural' with 'the human' in this elemental fashion, it seems logically sustainable to correlate 'the conscious' with 'the astral', as that which, far from having a somatic connotation, is demonstrably psychic, and therefore more germane to either spirit or soul than to will and ego.

50. Thus, with the various elements in mind, we shall be able to distinguish the unhuman doing of metachemical will from the superhuman doing of chemical will, the human doing of physical will, and the subhuman doing of metaphysical will, as between first-, second-, third-, and fourth-rate levels of power.

51. Likewise we shall be able to distinguish the superastral giving, so to speak, of chemical spirit from the unastral giving of metachemical spirit, the subastral giving of metaphysical spirit, and the astral giving of physical spirit, as between first-, second-, third-, and fourth-rate levels of glory.

52. Contrariwise, we shall be able to distinguish the human taking of physical ego from the subhuman taking of metaphysical ego, the unhuman taking of metachemical ego, and the superhuman taking of chemical ego, as between first-, second-, third-, and fourth-rate levels of form.

53. Finally, we shall be able to distinguish the subastral being of metaphysical soul from the astral being of physical soul, the superastral being of chemical soul, and the unastral being of metachemical soul, as between first-, second-, third-, and fourth-rate levels of contentment.

54. Thus, contrary to conventional usage, being is not here associated with 'human' at all but, rather, with 'astral', so that we are speaking rather more of different levels or rates of 'astral being', according to the elemental context, together, in connection with the spirit, of different levels of 'astral giving', both of which are identified, in psychic vein, with 'the conscious', whether in terms, elementally conditioned, of unconsciousness, superconsciousness, consciousness, or subconsciousness.

55. Thus the 'natural/human' options of will and ego, power and form, doing and taking, are conceived as standing in a somatic relationship to the 'conscious/astral' options which, being psychic, have rather more applicability to spirit and soul, glory and contentment, giving and being.

56. Thus do the terms 'human nature' and 'astral consciousness' prove to be tautological, since 'nature' is no less 'human' than 'consciousness' is 'astral', or related to the spirit and/or soul.

57. In this respect, it becomes feasible to speak of a 'lower nature' in connection with the will and of a 'higher nature' in connection with the ego (associated not with consciousness but with thought or, at any rate, the possibility of knowledge of one kind or another), whether in relation to metachemistry, chemistry, physics, or metaphysics.

58. In like manner, it is now feasible to speak of a 'lower consciousness' in connection with the spirit and of a 'higher consciousness' in connection with the soul, again in relation to any or all of the elements.

59. It may even prove desirable to identify all kinds of 'lower nature' with 'the natural' and all the 'higher' kinds of 'nature', by contrast, with 'the human', so that the former is solely identified with the will, whether as unnature, supernature, nature, or subnature, and the latter with the ego, whether as unhuman (inhuman), superhuman, human, or subhuman.

60. Likewise, it may prove desirable to identify all kinds of 'lower consciousness' with 'the astral' and all the 'higher' kinds of 'consciousness', by contrast, with 'the conscious', so that the former is solely identified with the spirit, whether as unastral, superastral, astral, or subastral, and the latter with the soul, whether as unconscious, superconscious, conscious, or subconscious.

61. Thus every time the will was at issue one could resort to associations with 'the natural', reserving to the ego associations with 'the human', to the spirit associations with 'the astral', and to the soul associations with 'the conscious', thereby simplifying the matter to a single type of definition subject, in the course of elemental differentiation, to fourfold transmutations.

62. However that may be, there can be no doubt, as far as the not-self and the self are concerned, that each of the elements has a different pattern of correlations - from unnatural/unastral and unhuman/unconscious on the metachemical far left, as it were, of the elemental spectrum (noumenally objective) ... to subnatural/subastral and subhuman/subconscious on the metaphysical far right (noumenally subjective).

63. And, likewise, from supernatural/superastral and superhuman/superconscious on the chemical left of the elemental spectrum (phenomenally objective) ... to natural/astral and human/conscious on the physical right (phenomenally subjective), the position more usually associated with humanism, and hence nature.

64. Thus if we limit 'human' to the ego, we shall find that whereas what may be called the secondary Devil's ego is unhuman (inhuman) in its metachemical form, the secondary woman's ego is superhuman in its chemical form, the primary man's ego human in its physical form, and the primary God's ego subhuman in its metaphysical form.

65. Similarly, by limiting 'natural' to the will, we shall find that what may be called the primary Devil's will is unnatural in its metachemical power, the primary woman's will supernatural in its chemical power, the secondary man's will natural in its physical power, and the secondary God's will subnatural in its metaphysical power.

66. Likewise, by limiting 'astral' to the spirit, we shall find that whereas the primary Hell's spirit, so to speak, is unastral in its metachemical glory, the primary purgatory's spirit is superastral in its chemical glory, the secondary earth's spirit astral in its physical glory, and the secondary Heaven's spirit subastral in its metaphysical glory.

67. Finally, by limiting 'conscious' to the soul, we shall find that whereas the secondary Hell's soul, so to speak, is unconscious in its metachemical contentment, the secondary purgatory's soul is superconscious in its chemical contentment, the primary earth's soul conscious in its physical contentment, and the primary Heaven's soul subconscious in its metaphysical contentment.

68. In the objective elemental contexts (of metachemistry and chemistry) the will and the spirit are primary but the ego and the soul ... secondary, whereas in the subjective elemental contexts (of physics and metaphysics) the ego and the soul are primary but the will and the spirit ... secondary.

69. Thus we have every right to distinguish primary instances of the Devil, woman, man, and God from secondary instances thereof, together with similarly-based distinctions of primary instances of Hell, purgatory, earth, and Heaven from secondary instances, as described above.

70. And in all the elemental contexts of will and ego, the Devil, woman, man, and God of the not-self (will) are distinct from the Devil, woman, man, and God of the self (ego), whether the latter be primary or secondary.

71. As in all the elemental contexts of spirit and soul, the Hell, purgatory, earth, and Heaven of the not-self (spirit) are distinct from the Hell, purgatory, earth, and Heaven of the self (soul), whether the latter be primary or secondary.

72. Thus as we distinguish 'Son' from 'Father' in relation to God, the former of the metaphysical ego (primary) and the latter of the metaphysical will (secondary), so we should distinguish 'son' from 'father' in relation to man, the former of the physical ego (primary) and the latter of the physical will (secondary).

73. Contrariwise, it is no less logical to distinguish 'daughter' from 'mother' in relation to woman, the former of the chemical ego (secondary) and the latter of the chemical will (primary) ... as to distinguish 'Daughter' from 'Mother' in relation to the Devil, the former of the metachemical ego (secondary) and the latter of the metachemical will (primary).

74. Whereas distinctions between the egocentric and the wilful modes of God, metaphysical form and power, are commensurate with subhumanism and subnaturalism, metaphysical personal self and personal not-self, those between the egocentric and the wilful modes of man, physical form and power, are commensurate with humanism and naturalism, physical personal self and personal not-self.

75. Whereas distinctions between the egocentric and the wilful modes of woman, chemical form and power, are commensurate with superhumanism and supernaturalism, chemical personal self and personal not-self, those between the egocentric and the wilful modes of the Devil, metachemical form and power, are commensurate with unhumanism and unnature, metachemical personal self and personal not-self.

76. Just as it is logical to distinguish primary God (in the self) from secondary God (in the not-self), so we should distinguish the Son's Heaven, so to speak, from the Father's Heaven, the former of the metaphysical soul (primary) and the latter of the metaphysical spirit (secondary), not to mention the son's earth from the father's earth, the former of the physical soul (primary) and the latter of the physical spirit (secondary).

77. Contrariwise, it is no less logical to distinguish, on the objective side of the gender fence, the daughter's purgatory from the mother's purgatory, the former of the chemical soul (secondary) and the latter of the chemical spirit (primary), not to mention the Daughter's Hell from the Mother's Hell, the former of the metachemical soul (secondary) and the latter of the metachemical spirit (primary).

78. Whereas distinctions between the soulful and the spiritual modes of Heaven, metaphysical contentment and glory, are commensurate with the subconscious and the subastral, metaphysical universal self and universal not-self, those between the soulful and the spiritual modes of the earth, physical contentment and glory, are commensurate with the conscious and the astral, physical universal self and universal not-self.

79. Whereas distinctions between the soulful and the spiritual modes of purgatory, chemical contentment and glory, are commensurate with the superconscious and the superastral, chemical universal self and universal not-self, those between the soulful and the spiritual modes of Hell, metachemical contentment and glory, are commensurate with the unconscious and the unastral, metachemical universal self and universal not-self.

80. What applies to all the above contexts in sensuality, which is commensurate with the outer, to the kingdoms and/or queendoms 'without', applies no less in sensibility, as commensurate with the inner, to the kingdoms and/or queendoms 'within', in positive and negative, organic and inorganic, supreme and primal, manifestations thereof.

THE SUBHUMANITY/SUBNATURE OF GOD

1. Since the context of God, as of Heaven, appertains to metaphysics, and does so in both primary (formal) and secondary (powerful) terms, we can be sure that the 'humanity' of the one is subhuman and the 'nature' of the other subnatural, and that the godly individual is accordingly a kind of subman, whether in aural sensuality or, more definitively, in respiratory sensibility.

2. Thus whether aural or respiratory metaphysics is at issue, the subhumanity of 'God the Son', so to speak, and the subnaturalism of 'God the Father' would indicate the inevitability of a subman, since one cannot be anything less than the deepest and highest of persons to be identifiable with God or, at any rate, with what is godly in its redemptive drive, in both ego and will, towards the universality of Heaven.

3. Clearly, the average man is not godly in his physical mean, but human and natural, one might almost say, paraphrasing Nietzsche, human-all-too-human and natural-all-too-natural, which, admittedly, is the next-best-thing to godliness, but emphatically no more identical with God than, say, vegetation with air, or sin with grace, or unholiness with holiness, or the earth with Heaven, or travail with peace.

4. Thus although most men are intermittently capable of subhuman tendencies and not a few submen, by contrast, no less intermittently capable of human ones, a distinction nevertheless persists, in general terms, between the lower-class phenomenality, as it were, of mass-volume subjectivity and the noumenality, comparatively upper class, of time-space subjectivity, as between men and submen, the physical collectivity and the metaphysical individual who, in his graceful aloofness from the sinful, is akin to God.

5. But if man is not commensurate, in average masculine terms, with God, then what about those men who approximate, in their bias towards strength, to women, albeit from a vegetative (and therefore muscular) as opposed to a watery (and thus properly feminine) point of view?

6. Clearly, such 'men' are even further removed from the possibility of godliness than the generality of humanistic/naturalistic men, since strength is not closer to truth than knowledge, the masculine mean, but closer, in its objectivity, to beauty, that great antithesis of truth.

7. Therefore 'men' who are 'bovaryized', or bent, away from their own gender in arguably superhuman/supernatural terms, the sort of terms in which strength has its watery - and womanly - throne, are less men than effective 'supermen', and therefore a perverse kind of women, employing the latter term strictly in relation to volume-mass objectivity, and therefore not to its upper-class counterpart in space-time objectivity.

8. Thus the term 'superman' is really somewhat paradoxical, since it would seem to be women who, in their superhumanity/supernaturalism, more credibly approximate to a 'super' role - certainly in relation, as mothers, to their families.

9. One could almost identify the term 'superwoman' with the feminine, as we have identified 'subman' with the divine and 'man' with the masculine, but it seems to me that 'superfeminine' is a more appropriate identification with the objectivity of volume-mass devolution, and that 'feminine' may well, in the paradoxical nature of these things, lend itself to a womanly 'bovaryization' having more to do with knowledge than with strength, as though the female counterpart to 'supermasculine'.

10. Be that as it may, we are left with the possibility of identifying 'unwoman' or the 'unfeminine' with the diabolic, since that which is into, say, beauty in space-time objectivity is less superhuman than unhuman (inhuman), and correspondingly less supernatural than unnatural, appearance taking precedence over quantity in what amounts to a fixation on doing at the expense of giving.

11. Thus just as the male (subjective) side of life provides us with human and subhuman options, corresponding to man and God, so its female side (objective) offers us proof of superhuman and unhuman options, corresponding to woman and the Devil.

12. One could distinguish a per se unhumanism in the unfeminine from a 'bovaryized' unhumanism in the unmasculine, since the Devil is never more genuine than when upper-class female.

13. Likewise one could distinguish a per se superhumanism in the superfeminine from a 'bovaryized' superhumanism in the supermasculine, since woman is never more genuine than when lower-class female.

14. Similarly, one could distinguish a per se humanism in the masculine from a 'bovaryized' humanism in the feminine, since man is never more genuine than when lower-class male.

15. Finally, one could distinguish a per se subhumanism in the submasculine from a 'bovaryized' subhumanism in the subfeminine, since God is never more genuine than when upper-class male.

16. In this respect, one might speak of the pseudo-evil of the unmasculine as against the genuine evil of the unfeminine, in connection with the noumenal objectivity of unhumanism/unnature.

17. In such fashion, one might speak of the pseudo-goodness of the supermasculine as against the genuine goodness of the superfeminine, in connection with the phenomenal objectivity of superhumanism/supernature.

18. In like manner, one might speak of the pseudo-folly (foolishness) of the feminine as against the genuine folly of the masculine, in connection with the phenomenal subjectivity of humanism/nature.

19. In similar vein, one might speak of the pseudo-wisdom of the subfeminine as against the genuine wisdom of the submasculine, in connection with the noumenal subjectivity of subhumanism/subnature.

20. Whereas the humanism of man is attracted by the unhumanism of the Devil, the superhumanism of woman drives man towards the subhumanism of God; for co-option of the male mean by one extreme tends to result in its transmutation towards the opposite extreme by the resulting female mean which ensues with the superhuman.

21. This of course applies to men in general, not to those higher men, the submen, whom we have identified as gods, and who tend, in any case, to avoid compromising with women in the interests of a more genuine and lasting experience of the godly.

22. For whereas nature is drawn towards unnature, subnature tends away from it, as though from the threat of metaphysical annihilation.

23. For that which is against 'nature', being unnatural, is more against nature in its vegetative mean than against either supernature behind (anterior to) such a mean or subnature beyond (posterior to) it; for nature is the one element it can really dominate.

24. Subnature cannot be dominated by unnature because it has too much wisdom, in its metaphysical depths, to fall for evil.

25. Only folly can fall for evil, which can only be vanquished by goodness, thereby driving that which was foolish towards wisdom.

26. In such fashion most men are driven towards wisdom, not by evil as such, but by the goodness that results from the transmutation of evil by folly.

27. Were it not for folly it is debatable whether goodness would exist at all, since goodness arises out of evil no less than wisdom out of folly.

28. In fact, folly can be justified on the basis of the transmutation of evil towards good, even though the coming of goodness proves problematic for fools.

29. But the wisdom they are driven towards is not commensurate with wisdom per se, but is achieved rather more vicariously than directly, whether in sensuality or in sensibility.

30. For true wisdom, to repeat, is germane to one who, as a subhuman/subnatural subman, lives metaphysics from the inside, not from the physical standpoint of those who, as men, find themselves increasingly driven towards the vicarious experience of metaphysics, whether in terms of music or yoga or whatever.

31. Men remain, at bottom, somewhat sceptical towards and even fearful of the genuinely godly; for they do not want to sacrifice their worldly commitments, and, in any case, the masculine and the submasculine are not interchangeable but pertain to different elements, as, indeed, to two distinct classes - lower and upper - which fact is usually underlined by distinctive genetic and ethnic differences.

32. In sum, the majority of people are fated to remain as they are by nature, whether their natures be metachemical (and evil), chemical (and good), physical (and foolish), or metaphysical (and wise); for class is no less unalterable, as a rule, than gender.

33. The genuine unwoman is as uncharacteristic, in her way, of the world as the genuine subman, albeit from a contrary point of view - that of the metachemical Behind, as opposed to the metaphysical Beyond.

34. Yet whereas the genuine unwoman is about competition behind the co-operative aspect (purgatorial) of the world, the genuine subman is about individualism beyond the collectivistic aspect (earthly) of the world.

35. For while competition is the evil of the Devil, individualism is the wisdom of God, the former noumenally aloof from the goodness of co-operation, and the latter noumenally aloof from the folly of collectivism.

36. Thus do the genuinely Beautiful stand at the farthest possible remove from the genuinely True, a comparative Few at a noumenal elevation (in space and time) over the worldly phenomenality (in volume and mass) of 'the strong' and 'the knowledgeable', who correspond, in their respective gender-based ways, to the Many.

37. But just as beauty is fundamentally anterior to strength, as fire to water, so truth is transcendentally posterior to knowledge, as air to vegetation, and the distinction between the competitive evil of the one and the individualistic wisdom of the other is nothing less than the alpha (of metachemistry) and the omega (of metaphysics), appearance and essence.

38. In literary terms, it is the poet who corresponds, in 'his' obsession with beauty, to the alpha and the philosopher, with his concern for truth, to the omega, while the dramatist and the novelist, the playwright and the writer, take intermediate positions, relative to the world, in which, in the one case, strength and, in the other case, knowledge (whether carnally or otherwise) are the principal concerns.

39. Thus do 'the good' and 'the foolish' stand apart from 'the evil' and 'the wise', as women and men from devils and gods, chemistry and physics from metachemistry and metaphysics, co-operation and collectivism from competitiveness and individuality.

40. And what applies to positive, or supreme, manifestations of the poet, the dramatist, the novelist, and the philosopher ... applies no less to their negative, or primal, counterparts, for whom, whether in sensuality or sensibility, not beauty but ugliness, not strength but weakness, not knowledge but ignorance, and not truth but falsity (illusion) are the principal concerns.

41. Thus do negative devils, women, men, and gods exist in the cosmic (noumenal) and/or geologic (phenomenal) shadow of their positive counterparts, like the inorganic behind the organic, primal manifestations of evil, goodness, folly, and wisdom behind those supreme manifestations thereof which are more usually associated with 'high culture' or, at any rate, with a 'fine' rather than 'crude' approach to literature - as, indeed, to the Arts in general.

42. For, in more general terms, the artist (painter) is vocationally more the type of the unhuman than the poet, while the sculptor is vocationally more the type of the human than the novelist, and the musician vocationally more the type of the subhuman (in sensuality) than the philosopher - only the dramatist, of all the literary options, corresponding to the type of the superhuman per se.

43. However, even the musician leaves something to be desired from the standpoint of metaphysics, and that is the respiratory sensibility of the meditator, the transcendental meditation of the ultimate subman, the deepest god whose 'kingdom within' is salvation for submen from the 'kingdom without', based in aural sensuality, of the musician.

44. There is nothing higher or more profound than the meditative subman, the God-of-Gods, and it is towards him that musical submen will have to turn if they desire metaphysical salvation, the salvation-of-salvations that makes possible for the God-of-Gods the redemption-of-redemptions in the Heaven-of-Heavens, the sensible metaphysical being, in inner joy, of the truly peaceful soul.

SALVATION AND REDEMPTION

1. The personal is always redeemed by the universal, whether in relation to the self or to the not-self, in sensuality no less than in sensibility.

2. In the case of the self, be it metachemical, chemical, physical, or metaphysical, the ego is redeemed by the soul.

3. In the case of the not-self, be it metachemical, chemical, physical, or metaphysical, the will is redeemed by the spirit.

4. Thus the Devil is redeemed by Hell, woman by purgatory, man by the earth, and God by Heaven, in both primary and secondary manifestations of each elemental context.

5. Put more abstractly (and therefore philosophically), form is redeemed by content(ment) in the case of the self, while power is redeemed by glory in the case of the not-self.

6. And in all four elements the ego and the will are personal, but the spirit and the soul are universal - universal in relation to the astral/conscious as opposed to the human/nature.

7. Salvation, on the other hand, is not connected with the transcendence of the personal in the universal, of the Devil in Hell, woman in purgatory, man in the earth, or God in Heaven, but with deliverance of males from sensuality to sensibility in the elemental contexts, necessarily subjective, of physics and metaphysics, viz. vegetation and air.

8. Thus salvation is limited to men (in vegetation) and to submen (in air), as they diagonally ascend the physical and metaphysical axes from sensuality to sensibility, vice to virtue.

9. For men, who relate (in their physical mean) to phenomenal subjectivity, deliverance from sensuality to sensibility is from massive mass to voluminous volume within mass-volume evolution.

10. For submen, who relate (in their metaphysical mean) to noumenal subjectivity, deliverance from sensuality to sensibility is from sequential time to spaced space within time-space evolution.

11. Thus, in the supremacy of positivity, it could be said that men, the vegetative males, ascend from the phallus to the brain, from carnal knowledge to mental (intellectual) knowledge, in the process of undergoing phenomenal salvation from physical sensuality to sensibility.

12. Likewise it could be said of submen, the airy males, that they ascend, in the supremacy of positivity, from the ears to the lungs, from aural truth to respiratory truth, in the process of undergoing noumenal salvation from metaphysical sensuality to sensibility.

13. The former context, appertaining to men, is lower class and effectively Christian; the latter context, appertaining to submen, is upper class and effectively Buddhist.

14. But, in either case, salvation is a male solution, whether temporary or permanent, to the problem, from a male standpoint, of female dominion.

15. For that man/subman who is not 're-born' into Christ/Buddha is fated to remain under the virtuous dominion, in sensuality, of females, his 'once-born' viciousness condemning him to an inferior status in which, not surprisingly, he gets to play 'fall guy for slag', even to the extent of 'the Devil' or 'Pan'-like beast.

16. With the achievement, via Christianity or Buddhism or some such sensible religion, of salvation, however, it is the male who attains to virtue and the female, by contrast, who falls diagonally to vice ... in what becomes, for her, the damnation of sensibility.

17. For the corollary of male salvation ... is female damnation, whether in the upper-class terms of noumenal objectivity, wherein the unwoman, so to speak, falls diagonally from spatial space to repetitive time in space-time devolution, or in the lower-class terms of phenomenal objectivity, wherein damnation (for the superwoman) is from volumetric volume to massed mass in volume-mass devolution.

18. Thus, in relation to the supremacy of positivity, it could be said that unwomen, the fiery females, descend from the eyes to the heart, as from optical beauty to romantic beauty, in the process of undergoing noumenal damnation from metachemical sensuality to sensibility.

19. Likewise it could be said of superwomen, the watery females, that they descend, in relation to the supremacy of positivity, from the tongue to the womb, verbal strength to reproductive strength, in the process of undergoing phenomenal damnation from chemical sensuality to sensibility.

20. Either way, females are damned from sensuality to sensibility as they fall diagonally through two planes according to their class integrity and/or effective position at any given time, and this usually happens in response to the achievement, by males, of salvation from sensuality to sensibility in relation to the axes, bisecting two planes, with which males are specifically identifiable, viz. the physical axis of mass-volume evolution for men and the metaphysical axis of time-space evolution for submen.

21. But what is it that males are saved from and females damned to? Or, more to the point, how are we to regard the 'once-born' situations of the genders in which the female is hegemonic over the male - simply in terms of virtue over vice? Clearly that is the case, but it is also a fact that females are blessed with virtue in relation to metachemical and chemical sensuality, while males are cursed with vice in relation to physical and metaphysical sensuality.

22. Thus we can say that whereas it is a blessing for females to be virtuously ascendant over males in sensual metachemistry and chemistry, it is the curse of 'once-born' males to be viciously descendant, so to speak, under females in sensual physics and metaphysics.

23. Consequently, for males, salvation is from the curse of sensual vice to the liberation of sensible virtue, rising diagonally through two planes on either phenomenal or noumenal axes, as described above.

24. Conversely, for females, damnation is from the blessing of sensual virtue to the enslavement of sensible vice, falling diagonally through two planes on either noumenal or phenomenal axes, as above.

25. It could be said of males that salvation is an evolutionary progression from sensual vice to sensible virtue in physics and metaphysics, as from enslavement (of male binding) to freedom ... to liberation from such enslavement through binding to subjective sensibility.

26. Contrariwise, it could be said of females that damnation is a devolutionary regression from sensual virtue to sensible vice in metachemistry and chemistry, as from freedom (for female objectivity) ... to enslavement to binding via objective sensibility.

27. Thus from the binding, in sensual subjectivity, that is enslaved to the sensual objectivity of female freedom, males rise, via salvation, to the binding, in sensible subjectivity, that is deliverance from enslavement to such freedom.

28. Thus from the freedom, in sensual objectivity, that enslaves the sensual subjectivity of male binding, females fall, via damnation, to the freedom, in sensible objectivity, that is enslaved to the sensible subjectivity of male binding.

29. In either case, females remain free (objective) and males remain bound (subjective), but the freedom that, in sensibility, is enslaved by binding is an entirely different proposition to the binding that, in sensuality, is enslaved by freedom.

30. The freedom (female) that is enslaved by binding (male) is damned, whereas the binding (male) that is enslaved by freedom (female) is cursed.

31. 'The first' (blessed) shall be 'last' (damned), and 'the last' (cursed) shall be 'first' (saved), with the coming of God's Kingdom.

32. For life, remember, is a gender struggle, in which what is 'meat', or salvation, to the one gender spells, sooner or later, 'poison', or damnation, to the other - deliverance of males from subservience to freedom being the 'meat' that condemns females to the 'poison' of subservience before binding.

33. Leaving metaphors aside, we may be confident that any society in which 'God's Kingdom' has officially come to pass will not be liberal or libertarian, but ultra-conservative, with a tendency, in consequence, to focus things in extreme right-wing terms, though not, however, to the exclusion of right- and left-wing alternatives.

34. For the 'Kingdom' that I have outlined in previous texts does not exclude nonconformist and humanist tendencies, but rather seeks to integrate them, subordinately, into an overall structure in which transcendentalism is at the apex, as befitting a society led by God rather than represented by men or governed by women.

35. I have identified this structure with the concept of a triadic Beyond, and it would be germane to a society in which religious sovereignty was the prevailing norm, as applicable to 'Kingdom Come', and divine rights were accordingly of more relevance than human rights or, indeed, any kind of rights that fell short of a transcendentalist fulcrum in godliness.

36. But it would be the inner godliness, remember, of that which had been saved from metaphysical sensuality to metaphysical sensibility, and therefore had no need of cosmic-based Creators, whether negatively parallel to aural sensuality or not.

37. Such inner godliness, of both the sensible Son and Father of primary and secondary Godhead, would signify the salvation-of-salvations, and make possible the redemption-of-redemptions on both secondary and primary levels of Heaven (holy spirit and holy soul) for those to whom it especially applied.

38. I have called these persons submen, and they are that which is higher and deeper than men - an ultimate type of male for whom taking is of far less significance than being, and accordingly for whom knowledge is much less important than truth.

39. It is for submen that the ultimate 'kingdom within', necessarily metaphysical, will come to pass, that the highest and best may reap the harvest they deserve and no longer be starved of religious justice or official recognition.

40. For the ultimate 'kingdom within' is beyond Christ and his Church (with its Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or Spirit), and because of this it will only officially come to pass when Christianity has been consigned - democratically and officially - to the rubbish bin of history, making way for that Social Transcendentalism which I have identified, all along, with the effective Second Coming and 'Kingdom Come', as described in previous texts and requiring no further exegesis here! Only when my 'will', the wise will of inner metaphysics, is 'done' ... will there be an end to the world and a beginning made along that otherworldly path that leads to the 'Kingdom of Heaven' and to the triumph, in consequence, of the most moral being of the deepest individualism.

STAR AND 'CROSS'

1. Just as we have distinguished between unnature, supernature, nature, and subnature, as between unwoman, superwoman, man, and subman, so we may likewise distinguish between uncross (star), supercross, cross, and subcross, the latter of which would be rather more akin to what I have hitherto, in certain earlier texts, described as a supercross, viz. an inverted CND emblem with feminine and masculine signs attached.

2. Thus if the supercross of certain earlier texts in my philosophical journey would, in fact, be better described as a subcross, an emblem appropriate to the subman and deeper than the cross (of man), then the subcross it is which stands beyond the Christian cross, as that which epitomizes the triumph of individualism in transcendentalism, as germane to 'Kingdom Come'.

3. But if the inverted CND emblem with feminine and masculine signs attached would be better described as a subcross than a supercross, how, then, do we distinguish between subcross and supercross or, rather, between cross and supercross, assuming such a distinction still applies?

4. Clearly, if the Social Transcendentalist emblem is not a supercross but a subcross, as germane to metaphysics, then the cross will be germane to physics, as to nature, and have the figure of Christ upon it, as in the case of Catholic and Anglican crucifixes. The supercross, however, will have no such figure upon it, and will therefore stand aloof from the physical mean, as water from vegetation, or chemistry from physics.

5. Thus arises the notion of the Protestant cross as supercross, or that which, spurning bodily imagery, is closer to water than to vegetation, to woman than to man, to volume than to mass, to punishment than to sin, to glory than to form, etc., etc.

6. And this would even apply, if to a lesser extent, with the so-called 'burning cross' of white supremacists, which would take the Protestant supercross to the boundaries, in quasi-unnatural fashion, of the uncross, viz. the star, wherein fire rather than water is the cardinal element.

7. Thus 'nature' twisted towards unnature becomes paradoxically unnatural, as the supernature of the supercross is eclipsed by the unnature, in fire, of that which is properly germane to the star, the symbol of unnature and, consequently, of that which is against 'nature', especially, be it remembered, the vegetative nature of the Christian cross.

8. Thus from a Christian standpoint, be that standpoint Superchristian (and Puritan), Christian (and Catholic), or Subchristian (and Social Transcendentalist), the star is the great unnatural enemy, the anti-natural Devil that wages unceasing war on 'nature' in all its elemental permutations, through especially in the vegetative mean of nature per se, wherein the cross has its humanist throne.

9. Thus the star, being a kind of uncross, stands fundamentally apart from the nonconformism of the supercross, the humanism of the cross, and the transcendentalism of the subcross, each 'cross' having a different kind of star with which to contend, like a shadow side to 'consciousness', since the star can no more be permanently vanquished than fire, even if intermittent victories over it are not so much the exception as the general rule.

10. Indeed, the existences of water, vegetation, and air depend, in different ways, upon the prior existence of fire, without which there would be no life and therefore no 'nature' at all.

11. Therefore the star and the 'cross', unnature and 'nature', must continue to exist in an uneasy symbiosis of unconsciousness and 'consciousness' for as long as there is life - supernatural, natural, or subnatural.

12. For it is inconceivable that life could exist without a foundation of death, even if this foundation itself undergoes progressive modification in relation to the type of life prevailing at any given time - be it the life-in-death of supernature, the death-in-life of nature, or the Eternal Life of subnature, the life-of-lives which only gods can know or, more correctly, experience ... as due reward for their truth, the egocentric form to which they metaphysically subscribe.

FROM IMAGINATION TO INDIVIDUATION

1. Imagine, imaginary, imagination, imagery, imagined - such variations on a common theme have reference to appearances, since that which is imagined from the imagination as an image is purely apparent, and therefore of the will as opposed to the spirit, the ego, or the soul.

2. Imagination may be an adequate, even crucial, starting-point for literary creativity but, except possibly in the case of poetry, it would hardly be a suitable finishing-point, bearing in mind its confinement to images.

3. With television one is also confined to images, reduced to an appreciation of life from the standpoint of appearances, the surface superficiality of materialism.

4. Thanks to media like television, modern life is obsessed by images, as by the imagination, which, being superficial, is capable of virtually anything ... in surrealist-like vein.

5. Painters are, like poets, obsessed by images, since imagination is their stock-in-trade, without which there would be little or no art.

6. But just as there is a painting of the imagination, a painting of appearances, so, by a contrary token, there exists a painting of individuation, a painting of essences, which is no less abstract, or noumenal, than imaginative painting, but profoundly subjective rather than superficially objective - in a word, round as opposed to square.

7. And this individuational painting, like its imaginative antithesis, stands absolutely above the concrete, and therefore phenomenal, realm of representational painting, be that representation realistic or naturalistic, concerned, in watery vein, with civilization or concerned, in rather more vegetative vein, with nature, including, not least of all, human nature.

8. If materialism is best characterized by imagination, that faculty of the will, and the metachemical will most especially, then the leading characteristic of idealism can only be individuation, that faculty of the soul.

9. Beneath the appearance-obsessed materialism of imagination and the essence-obsessed idealism of individuation, however, stand what may be called the quantity-obsessed realism of inspiration and the quality-obsessed naturalism of intuition.

10. For if imagination is an attribute of the will and individuation an attribute of the soul, then inspiration is most assuredly an attribute of the spirit, particularly of the chemical or per se spirit, and intuition an attribute of the ego, not least of all as it bears upon physics.

11. As one might associate materialistic painting with the faculty of imagination and idealistic painting with the faculty of individuation, viz. the will and the soul, so one should associate realistic painting with the faculty of inspiration and naturalistic painting with the faculty of intuition, viz. the spirit and the ego (mind).

12. Thus imagination and inspiration line up against intuition and individuation, pretty much as females against males, the will and the spirit against the ego and the soul, with appearance and quantity characterizing the objectivity of the one side, but quality and essence characteristic of the subjectivity of the other side.

13. Such, too, can be said, oddly enough, of the distinction between scooters and conventional enclosed cars on the one hand, and ... open-topped cars and motorbikes on the other hand, since the dichotomy in this instance is also between female and male alternatives - the former objectively divisible, as with paintings, between materialism and realism; the latter no less subjectively divisible between naturalism and idealism.

14. Thus from the appearance-based materialism of scooters to the essence-centred idealism of motorbikes via the quantity-oriented realism of conventional enclosed (family) cars and the quality-oriented naturalism of open-topped (sports) cars, as from imagination to individuation via inspiration and intuition, or, in simple elemental language, from fire to air via water and vegetation (earth).

15. Which would indicate that whereas scooters and motorbikes, conforming to noumenal abstraction, are upper-class modes of road transportation, with scientific and religious implications respectively, family cars and sports cars, conforming to phenomenal concreteness, are lower-class modes of road transportation - analogous, in their political and economic implications, to realistic and naturalistic kinds of painting.

16. And such kinds of painting, like their transportational counterparts, are of course rather more the worldly rule than the (otherworldly) exception, bearing in mind the phenomenal natures of most people, less categorizable, as we have found, as devils or gods than as women and men.

17. Although I consider myself first and foremost a philosopher, I have striven, in my PC-based paintings, to develop noumenal abstraction as subjectively as possible, and therefore to symbolize the triumph of individuation on as consistently metaphysical a basis as is commensurate with transcendentalism.

18. My PC-based paintings are, in that sense, beyond imagery or imagination; for they are antithetical to the noumenally objective type of abstraction, in which appearance is king or, rather, queen.

19. With my paintings, on the other hand, essence is king, because they are emblematic of the soul, not the will.

20. And, being emblematic of the soul, they strive, whenever feasible, to symbolize transcendentalism as idealistically as possible, as due testimony to the ultimate 'kingdom within', the metaphysical kingdom of respiratory sensibility, wherein idealism has its transcendentalist throne.

'UP ABOVE' AND 'DOWN BELOW'

1. The notion of God being 'up above' is simply reflective, it seems to me, of a lower-class point of view, whereby somebody who more generally relates, as a man, to vegetative (earthly) criteria ... will be disposed to considering that which pertains, in metaphysical vein, to air or airiness ... to be 'up above'.

2. Such could also be said, albeit from a contrary point of view, of the notion of the Devil (more usually identified, in typical Biblical vein, with God) being 'up above', since anybody who, having a chemical bias, more generally relates, as a woman, to watery criteria ... will be disposed to considering that which pertains, in metachemical vein, to fire or fieriness to be 'up above'.

3. Thus both men and women, the generality of persons of a largely physical or chemical disposition, are logically entitled to posit God and the Devil, or gods and devils, as existing 'up above', since those who correspond to either a metaphysical (divine) or a metachemical (diabolic) disposition or lifestyle, being effectively 'upper class', really do live 'up above', on what amount to higher planes.

4. Of course, they don't live 'up above' all the time; for no-one, not even the most determinedly upper-class person, can live on either a fiery or an airy basis to the total exclusion of water and vegetation! But one can certainly live in such a fashion that one becomes identifiable, on properly upper-class terms, with either a fiery or an airy disposition and/or vocation, as germane to the noumenal planes of time and space.

5. And being identifiable with either a metachemical or a metaphysical orientation, such upper-class persons, corresponding to devils and gods, are entitled to regard that which typifies the human mean, the generality of watery women and vegetative men, as existing 'down below'.

6. For those who correspond, in watery or vegetative fashion, to either a chemical (womanly) or a physical (manly) disposition, being lower class, really do exist 'down below', in what amounts, from an upper-class standpoint, to the lower planes of volume and mass.

7. Thus whether one's upper-class affiliation be to space-time devolution or to time-space evolution, noumenal objectivity or noumenal subjectivity, one lives 'up above' from a lower-class point of view, the points of view, more specifically, of average women and men.

8. And whether one's lower-class affiliation be to volume-mass devolution or to mass-volume evolution, phenomenal objectivity or phenomenal subjectivity, one lives 'down below' from an upper-class standpoint, the standpoints, if genuine, of devils and gods.

9. So it is that those who live 'up above' are immortal in their metachemical and metaphysical dispositions, whereas those living 'down below' are merely mortal in what amount to chemical and physical dispositions.

10. 'The overworld' towers above 'the world', like Hell and Heaven above purgatory and the earth, and those who are of the former can only look down upon the latter.

11. Conversely, 'the world' exists below 'the overworld', like purgatory and the earth below Hell and Heaven, and those who are of the former can only look up to the latter.

12. Rarely is it that mortals change places with immortals or vice versa, since the majority of women and men are fated to remain mortal and not become devils or gods, abandoning chemistry for metachemistry in the one case and physics for metaphysics in the other.

13. The reasons for this are many and complex, but genetic factors are of no small consequence in determining ... class, even if class cuts both ways where gender is concerned, albeit on antithetical terms.

14. Social Transcendentalism, the ideological philosophy to which I subscribe, does not believe in squeezing everybody or everyone into a single class, but is determined to allow for class differentiation on the basis of the three-tier hierarchy of what has been called the triadic Beyond, with the strength of women, the knowledge of men, and the truth of gods being served, from the standpoint of 'Kingdom Come', by the beauty, albeit most refined and sublimated, of those chosen devils whose administrative acts will allow giving, taking, and (especially) being to flourish as never before.

BEYOND NIETZSCHE

1. Nietzsche's 'overman' (übermensch), as described in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is arguably more diabolic than divine, more metachemical than metaphysical, more objectively free than subjectively bound, more evil than wise, more will than soul, more beauty than truth, more fire than air.

2. I have shown that the 'overman', the upper-class person, can be diabolic or divine, female or male, unwoman or subman, free or bound, and that only the latter is commensurate with truth and joy, and hence the wisdom of philosophy.

3. The Zarathustrian 'overman' seems to me more the product of poetic imagination than of philosophic individuation, a creature ruled by power rather than led by contentment.

4. For years - right from the dualistic beginnings of my philosophical career to the recent transcendental flowering of it - I adhered to the identification of the Nietzschean 'overman' with the concept, widely prevalent, of 'superman', never for a moment imagining that the superman could be anything but a godly individual (and this despite Nietzsche's identification of him as the meaning of the earth!), commensurate with the ne plus ultra of human maturation.

5. Little did I realize that the superman is not even commensurate with upper-class or noumenal criteria in space and time! That, on the contrary, the superman is a paradoxical approach to strength which could only be secondary to the water-based (chemical) strength per se of the superwoman, of what is superfeminine, and that both alike are lower-class and therefore phenomenal parallels.

6. Thus as a vegetative (muscular) paradox, the superman became for me the male equivalent, in volume and mass, of the feminine woman, the quasi-humanist woman for whom knowledge, if paradoxically approached via water, viz. the tongue, was more important than strength.

7. In other words, the muscular man, a superman, and the intellectual woman, a feminine woman, were equally distinct from the generality of lower-class females and males, the former superfeminine in their watery strength and the latter masculine in their vegetative knowledge.

8. Thus supermen, commensurate with the supermasculine, and women, commensurate with the feminine, stand apart from the generality of chemical females and physical males as paradoxical exceptions to the general rule of superwomen and men, the former superfeminine and the latter masculine.

9. Far from being upper class and 'overmen', both the superfeminine superwoman and the supermasculine superman, the genuine and paradoxical manifestations, in strength, of supernaturalism/superhumanism, transpire to being lower class and, in Nietzschean parlance, 'undermen' (untermenschen), like water under fire, or the chemical under the metachemical.

10. Likewise feminine women and masculine men, the paradoxical and genuine manifestations, in knowledge, of naturalism/humanism, transpire to being lower class and ... 'undermen', like vegetation under air, or the physical under the metaphysical.

11. Thus the one kind of 'underman' is akin to woman under the Devil, while the other kind is akin to man under God - the superfeminine/supermasculine under the unfeminine/unmasculine on the one hand and the feminine/masculine under the subfeminine/submasculine on the other hand.

12. Thus my concept of the 'overman', divisible between devils and gods, the unnatural/unhuman and the subnatural/subhuman, bears no relation to anything supernatural/superhuman whatsoever, since more genuinely representative, it seems to me, of what are in fact upper-class, and hence noumenal, positions.

13. Far from the superman, it is the subman who is the ne plus ultra of human maturation, the type of the philosopher rather than of the dramatist, and his principal concern, whether in sensuality or sensibility, can only be with metaphysical being.

14. Certainly the subman is not to be thought of, in disparaging vein, as somehow sub-human, meaning, I would guess, less than human and therefore effectively pre-human.

15. On the contrary, the subman is neither pre-human nor post-human, nor even human-all-too-human, since deeper and higher than the generality of humanistic men, with their natural/human shortcomings in relation to God, or to what is godly.

16. Both the subwoman, corresponding to the subfeminine, and the subman, corresponding to the submasculine, are transcendentalist, given their respective gender-conditioned approaches to the subnaturalism/subhumanism of metaphysics, with its fulcrum in being.

17. Even the subhuman are divisible, as hinted above, between chemical, physical, and metaphysical approaches to transcendentalism, whether in the idealistic context of religion or otherwise, though only the metaphysical subman, properly submasculine, is truly commensurate with transcendentalism, and thus with a first-hand commitment to either music (in sensuality) or meditation (in sensibility).

18. Certainly the meditating subman, the devotee of transcendental meditation, is the ultimate type of metaphysician, and it is for him that the greatest joy in the deepest being becomes the heavenly redemption of his godly taking, metaphysical soul duly eclipsing metaphysical ego with the assistance, in secondary vein, of the metaphysical will and spirit, the metaphysical doing and giving (in lungs and breath), of meditative praxis.

THE TRIUMPH OF BEING

1. I said at the beginning of this cyclical project that the principal concern of philosophers was - or should be - being, and so it is to being that I shall now return at its ending, bearing in mind that being is characteristic of the essence, or soul, of things, as, most especially, of the self.

2. I have shown, contrary to the doubts and moral ignorance of those all-too-modern philosophers who are apt to dismiss being or the possibility of knowledge thereof, exactly what being is, and I maintain that there is a hierarchy of being which stretches from the least essential being of love (in metachemistry) to the most essential being of joy (in metaphysics) via the less (relative to least) essential being of pride (in chemistry) and the more (relative to most) essential being of pleasure (in physics).

3. Thus, because fire is the least essential (properly apparent) element and air the most essential, fiery being, otherwise known as love, is the least essential and airy being, otherwise known as joy, the most essential, while with the less (relative to least) essential (properly quantitative) element of water and the more (relative to most) essential (properly qualitative) element of vegetation in between, watery being and vegetative being, otherwise known as pride and pleasure, are correspondingly less essential and more essential respectively.

4. Such can also be said of the negative, or primary, counterparts to the above positive, or supreme, manifestations of being, viz. hatred, humility, pain, and woe, in sensuality no less than in sensibility.

5. However, since it has been my design to dwell on the positive manifestations of being, not their negative counterparts, I have focused most of my philosophic attention upon love, pride, pleasure, and joy, the respective idealisms, in religion, of fundamentalism, nonconformism, humanism, and transcendentalism.

6. For being is religious, and, being religious, it is ever idealistic, even if there are different kinds of idealism corresponding to the nature and/or unnature of the particular element with which it is associated.

7. Thus the idealism of love differs demonstrably - one might say absolutely - from the idealism of joy, as Hell from Heaven, unnatural/unhuman (inhuman) fundamentalism from subnatural/subhuman transcendentalism, and these in turn differ from the purgatorial idealism of pride and the earthly idealism of pleasure, both of which constitute a worldly antithesis, as germane to the nonconformism of the supernatural/superhuman on the one hand, and to the humanism of the natural/human on the other hand.

8. However, while being is to be found in every elemental context, from metachemistry and chemistry on the objective, or female, side of life ... to physics and metaphysics on its subjective, or male, side, it is only chiefly characteristic of metaphysics, wherein the noumenal element of air has its essential throne.

9. But if being is chiefly characteristic of metaphysics, it is not chiefly characteristic of physics, wherein the phenomenal element of vegetation has its qualitative throne. Neither is it chiefly characteristic of chemistry, wherein the phenomenal element of water has its quantitative throne, nor of metachemistry, wherein the noumenal element of fire has its apparent throne.

10. On the contrary, if the being of soul most characterizes metaphysics, then that which most characterizes physics, by contrast, is the taking of ego, while chemistry and metachemistry would have to be chiefly characterized by the giving of spirit and the doing of will, as by glory and power as opposed, on the subjective side of the gender divide, to form and, in the case of metaphysics, contentment.

11. Thus metaphysics, corresponding in ideological terms to transcendentalism, is the one element in which being (joy) can truly triumph, the one element in which, especially in the religious context of idealism, being is an end-in-itself rather than just an aside to some other - and false - end or (especially on the objective side of life) means, as the case may be.

12. In physics, by contrast, being (pleasure) has to take second place to taking, as to the ego; in chemistry being (pride) has to take third place to giving, as to the spirit; and in metachemistry being (love) has to take fourth place to doing, as to the will.

13. Thus it would be illogical, to the point of absurdity, to speak of being triumphing, or of the triumph of being, in any other element than metaphysics, the concern par excellence of philosophy, and hence of philosophers.

14. For physics, the concern par excellence of fiction, as of novelists, exemplifies the triumph of taking (in the ego), while chemistry, the concern par excellence of drama, as of playwrights, exemplifies the triumph of giving (in the spirit), and metachemistry, the concern par excellence of poetry, as of poets, exemplifies, in unequivocal terms, the triumph of doing (in the will).

15. Therefore it would be as illogical for a poet to speak of the triumph of being (in the soul) as for a philosopher - and there have, alas! been some highly prominent ones in recent times - to speak of the triumph of doing (in the will). The soul (love) of metachemistry can only be subordinate to the will (in noumenal objectivity), just as the will (in noumenal subjectivity) of metaphysics can only be subordinate to the soul (joy).

16. And what applies to the noumenal elements applies in rather more phenomenal vein to the intermediate elements, as it were, of chemistry and physics, wherein the spirit will be dominant in the one and the ego dominant in the other, whether in relation to will or soul or, indeed, to ego (chemistry) and spirit (physics).

17. Rather than risk getting drawn back into a discussion of will, spirit, or ego, I should like to stay with the soul, and hence the context of being which, as we have seen, is never more idealistic, or religious, than in metaphysics.

18. But metaphysics can be either of time or space, of sequential time in sensuality (outer) or of spaced space in sensibility (inner), and therefore metaphysical being has the capacity to ascend, through time-space evolution, from sensuality to sensibility, wherein it is saved.

19. Likewise metachemistry can be either of space or time, of spatial space in sensuality (outer) and of repetitive time in sensibility (inner), and therefore metachemical being has a fatality to descend, through space-time devolution, from sensuality to sensibility, wherein it is damned.

20. Contrariwise, physics can be either of mass or volume, of massive mass in sensuality (outer) or of voluminous volume in sensibility (inner), and therefore physical being has the capacity to ascend, through mass-volume evolution, from sensuality to sensibility, wherein it is saved.

21. Similarly chemistry can be either of volume or mass, of volumetric volume in sensuality (outer) or of massed mass in sensibility (inner), and therefore chemical being has a fatality to descend, through volume-mass devolution, from sensuality to sensibility, wherein it is damned.

22. Whether being be of the sort which is sensual or sensible, outer or inner, 'once born' or 're-born', it descends in metachemistry through space-time devolution and in chemistry through volume-mass devolution, whereas in physics it ascends through mass-volume evolution and in metaphysics through time-space evolution.

23. Thus far from being exclusively of time or space, noumenal being can be of time and space on both space-time and time-space axes - the former objective and the latter subjective, whether in sensuality or in sensibility.

24. And far from being exclusively of volume or mass, phenomenal being can be of volume and mass on both volume-mass and mass-volume axes - the former objective and the latter subjective, whether in sensuality or in sensibility.

25. Now just as being is never shallower, or less deep, than in the spatial space of space-time devolution, so it is never deeper, or more profound, than in the spaced space of time-space evolution, since space is the plane in which being is sensually metachemical on the one hand, and sensibly metaphysical on the other hand.

26. In fact, just as being can only be second-rate on a plane or axis in which taking (the ego) is cardinal, and third-rate on a plane or axis in which giving (the spirit) is cardinal, so it can only be fourth-rate on a plane or axis in which doing (the will) is cardinal, as it most assuredly is on the space-time axis of noumenal objectivity.

27. Thus the being (love) of space-time devolution is not only of an inferior order of being to the being (joy) of time-space evolution, whether in sensuality or sensibility, it is of an inferior order of being to the being (pride) of volume-mass devolution and to the being (pleasure) of mass-volume evolution, since of an order that is not simply more essential in relation to most essential, i.e. physical being in relation to metaphysical being, nor even less essential in relation to least essential, i.e. chemical being in relation to metachemical being, but least essential, because affiliated, in metachemistry, with that element which, being noumenally objective, is most apparent, viz. fire.

28. Therefore only that being which, being metaphysical, is affiliated to time-space evolution can be truly profound, and only in spaced space is that being sensibly supreme.

29. For while the joy accruing to aural metaphysics is incontestably supreme (positive), it is the supremacy of sensuality in sequential time, and therefore an inferior order (cursed) of metaphysical supremacy to the sensible order (saved) in spaced space.

30. Only respiratory metaphysics can deliver such an ultimate supremacy, an ultimate positive essence, and for that the ego, duly metaphysical, must be attuned to transcendental meditation, in order that the personal self may reap the universal harvest it richly deserves ... of the most sensible soul in the triumph of inner being, not only the being-of-beings in relation to other types of being, but the ultimate type of metaphysical being, in which the subconscious soul is saved for ever more. So be it!

APPENDIX (RANDOM THOUGHTS)

1. Fireworks strike me as a species of sublimated barbarism, something that, as a rule, appeals to only the most superficial and extrovert of people.

2. Heathenistic countries, with their female bias, almost invariably have red, white, and blue in their flags.

3. Watching television is pretty much the modern equivalent of staring into the fire, and only really appeals to those for whom the fascination of evil is too powerful to resist.

4. Most people are not interested in poetry or philosophy, because the majority of people are men and women, not devils and gods.

5. There is, at times, more philosophy in Baudelaire's Intimate Journals than in Nietzsche's Zarathustra, and this in spite of Baudelaire's reputation as a poet.

6. The twentieth century was more receptive, by and large, to poets than to philosophers, and not a few of the latter, including T.S. Eliot, opted to become poets - with predictable consequences!

7 Unlike Nietzsche, who might be said to have twisted philosophy towards poetry, Ezra Pound developed the knack of twisting poetry towards philosophy - without, however, ceasing to be a poet!

8. Just as a dramatist should, when genuine, be more biased towards poetry than towards philosophy, so a novelist should, when true, be more biased towards philosophy than towards poetry.

9. Examples of the former include Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. Examples of the latter include Aldous Huxley and John Fowles.

10. Poetic novelists, like Hesse, are as paradoxical as philosophic dramatists, like Sartre.

11. Of course, Sartre was more than a dramatist, but also considerably less than a philosopher, if by philosophy one means the aphoristic pursuit of truth in the interests of metaphysical being.

12. Civilization turns against barbarism as strength against beauty, quantity against appearance, water against fire; for civilization is jealous of any threat posed by barbarism to nature which might detract from, if not effectively exclude, its own dominion over nature, even to the exclusion of culture.

LONDON 1999 (Revised 2012)

The Triumph of Being