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