51. However, such divine, diabolic, and
worldly
antitheses as I have named, viz. philosophy and theosophy, theology and
psychology, sexology and sociology, form only the extremes of a picture
which,
if it is to lay claim to a more comprehensive perspective, must also
include a
middle-ground position, so to speak, in between each of the
aforementioned
antitheses. For such a middle-ground
position does of course exist, and more so over the past few centuries
than
have either of the respective extremes, if we recall the inevitability
of a
phenomenal divisibility coming in-between alpha-stemming noumenal
indivisibility on the one hand and omega-aspiring supernoumenal
indivisibility on the other hand.
Consequently such a phenomenal middle-ground is relative to and
symptomatic of a kind of compromise, or cross, between what precedes it
in the
history of the particular spectrum to which it pertains and the
discipline that
is destined, sooner or later, to succeed it, about which, however, it
will be
largely if not entirely ignorant. In the
case of the philosophy/theosophy spectrum, which is that which most
closely
approximates to the Divine, we are alluding to anthroposophy, or a love
of man
considered in its humanistic context, and such a discipline corresponds
to a
Christian position in between Creator-stemming philosophy and
theosophical
aspirations towards the Holy Ghost, with particular reference to
idealistic
Protestantism. Not how best to conduct
one's life in the light of philosophical wisdom, nor how best to
conduct
oneself in the light of theosophical idealism, but how best to love
one's
fellow man in the light of anthroposophical
humanism. 'The happiness of the greatest
number' follows from an anthroposophical
premise ...
that the chief concern of life is neither personally practical nor
impersonally
theoretical, active nor passive, but both active and passive,
practical and
theoretical, in
relation to the interests of humanity generally. What
one
might call worldly idealism or, as I
have elsewhere termed it, a wavicle
atomicity, which
corresponds to phenomenal religion. In
the case of the theology/psychology spectrum, however, we are obliged
to posit
an epistemological middle-ground in between knowledge of God (the
Father) and
knowledge of the psyche, which takes the form of knowledge of
knowledge, or
knowledge of how we know what we know - the origin, nature, and
limitations of
knowledge as such, a discipline that focuses attention on man's
knowledge-forming faculty rather than on either theological anterior
knowledge
in relation to the Father or psychological posterior knowledge in
relation to
the psyche and such bearing as it may have on the future development of
transcendent
spirit. If epistemology fits in between
these two extremes, then so, it seems to me, does ontology, or the
science of
being, and philology, or the science of the structure and development
of
language, with the latter preceding epistemology and the former
succeeding it,
pretty much as grand- and petty-bourgeois disciplines flanking a
specifically
bourgeois discipline on the diabolic spectrum.
Finally, it will be necessary to posit an anthropological
middle-ground
in between sexology and sociology on the third, or worldly, spectrum,
so that
the study of man as such is seen as taking a phenomenal position in
between the
study of his sexual habits on the one hand and (the study) of his
social habits
on the other, that is to say as a humanistic concern coming in-between
reproductive and productive extremes, sex and society.
52. Thus our three spectra should read as
follows:-
1. philosophy anthroposophy
theosophy
2. theology epistemology psychology
3. sexology anthropology sociology
with Father -
Son - and
Holy Ghost implications stretching through divine, diabolic, and
worldly
distinctions. Clearly the three major
contemporary disciplines are theosophy, psychology, and sociology,
since they
alone pertain to the omega poles of their respective spectra ... and
things can
only become more omega orientated as time goes by, doubtless even to
the point
where, firstly, sociology and, then, psychology will be left behind as
both
worldly and diabolic biases are eclipsed by the divine bias of a truly supernoumenal indivisibility in
Transcendentalism. At present, however,
open-society criteria
tend to prevail in the world and, consequently, a seemingly timeless
juxtaposition of one discipline with another - philosophy with
theosophy,
theology with psychology, sexology with sociology - is not uncommon. Yet, strictly speaking, each of the extremes
is mutually exclusive. Philosophy
excludes the possibility of theosophy and vice versa. One is a philosopher or a theosophist, a
theologian or a psychologist, a sexologist or a sociologist, not both
at
once! Although appearances of being
'three in one', like Christ, will accrue to the anthroposophical,
epistemological,
and
anthropological middle-grounds, as befitting a worldly
phenomenal compromise in-between alpha and omega, proton and electron
antitheses. Where philosophy ends,
anthroposophy begins. And where
anthroposophy ends, there begins theosophy.
The same of course applies to the disciplines on each of the
other
spectra.
53. Correct doing in relation to God ... the
Father; correct doing/being in relation to God ... the Son (of Man);
correct
being in relation to God ... the Holy Ghost: philosophy - anthroposophy
-
theosophy. The more
doing the less being and, conversely, the more being the less doing. A theosophist is not only atheistic with
regard to the Father; he is indifferent to philosophy.
A stoical or hedonistic theosophist would be
as paradoxical or, rather, self-contradictory as a meditating
philosopher.
54. Many of the things that pass for
philosophy
are less philosophical than ontological or epistemological or
philological or
psychological or even theological.
Genuine philosophy, by which is meant classical philosophy, is
concerned
rather more with the practical conduct of life than with theories about
life as
such. In that respect, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau and John Cowper Powys are somewhat closer to the classical
ideal than,
say, Kant or Schopenhauer. So, in The Conquest
of
Happiness, is Bertrand Russell.
Worldly, or phenomenal, philosophy, on the other hand, is far
more
conceptual than perceptual.
55. In music, the
distinction between alpha-noumenal,
phenomenal, superphenomenal, and supernoumenal
can be recognized on the basis of a percussive absolutism in the first
case, an
orchestral relativity in the second, an electronic relativity in the
third, and
synthesizer absolutism in the fourth.
Thus in the case of the alpha noumenal,
we
are
dealing with a reactive indivisibility between a variety of, for the
most part,
hand-played percussion instruments, the musical equivalent to
proton-proton
reactions. With the ensuing phenomenal
stage of music, however, percussion is reduced and transmuted, played
rather
more with drumsticks or some similar artificial means, and it takes on
a
subordinate role to stringed and wind instruments, as in the classical
orchestra, so that an atomic integrity between protons and electrons is
the
musical result, with correspondingly relativistic implications. Similar implications accrue to the compromise
between percussive and electric instruments - as, for example, guitars,
keyboards, etc. - which characterizes superphenomenal
music, whether in terms of pop, rock, modern jazz, or any combination
of the
three; though, as a rule, percussion is rather more persistent on this
level of
music than on the classical, if slightly less forceful, diversified,
and
(except in rare instances) obtrusive, serving merely to accompany the
lead
instruments rather than to rival or dominate them.
Yet if some kind of electron-biased atomicity
may be elicited in connection with superphenomenal
music, then the ensuing supernoumenal
music would
suggest an attractive indivisibility symptomatic of free-electron
criteria ...
in which several synthesizers co-operate in the production of a totally
synthesizer-derived sound, as in the cases of Jean-Michel Jarre
and Tangerine Dream traditionally. Such
synthesizer indivisibility is the ultimate musical format and, if
progress is
to come, it can only be in terms of how the synthesizers are played,
that is to
say with regard to increasing the pitch-biased, and hence idealistic,
element
at the expense of rhythm, so that even synthesizer-derived percussion
'withers
away' in the course of supernoumenal time,
as music
approximates ever more closely to the pure electron indivisibility of
the Omega
Absolute. Such truly divine music will
be as far removed from the percussive inception of music in alpha-noumenal rhythms ... as one-piece zipper suits
of a PVC
construction from ankle-length cotton dresses.
Only with the transcendence of rhythm will music become entirely
free.
56. It is not by mere chance that coital sex
is
rhythmic, that man makes love to the opposite sex on a rhythmical basis. Such coital rhythms amount to a deference, on
the part of men, to the proton-biased alpha-noumenal
nature of the vagina. Like music, sex
can only become free, from a male standpoint, once it is released from
coital
enslavement and elevated above the rhythmic to a masturbatory status in
pornographic sublimation, albeit with the long-term aim of transcending
the
masturbatory element altogether - an aim comparable to synthesizer
music or,
rather, supermusic that transcends
percussive
rhythms. Hence supersex,
which
is
supernoumenal in character, permits of
sexual salvation to the extent that the rhythmic element is left
behind, or
transcended, as 'sex' becomes increasingly mind-biased.
Such supernoumenal
sex is to phenomenal sex what the Centre is/will be to the State - the
only
terms on which the State can 'wither' ... as the Centre expands. When, however, the State becomes an
end-in-itself, as in communist countries, there can be no withering of
sex in
regard to its rhythmic roots but, rather, a continuation of sex on
artificial
terms, with particular regard to the use of plastic inflatables
and/or vibrators, depending on the individual's gender.
In other words, sex is superphenomenal
in the context of the
57. But the Socialist State will not
properly
understand the nature and status of pornography (although I use the
term with
regard to erotic as opposed to sadistic material, and especially within
a
lawfully teenage context), in consequence of which it is improbable
that
pornographically-dependent sex will flourish wherever Socialism
prevails. Only in the Centre, and thus
with reference
to Social Transcendentalism, can proper justice be done to this
ultimate mode
of sexuality. However, if the Socialist
State is incapable of coming to terms with supernoumenal
criteria, whether with regard to sex, music, art, or anything else (and
primarily because its naturalistic bias will dispose it to superphenomenal
criteria), then there should be no doubt as to the place of inflatable
and
vibrator sexuality in such a State; for this alone is truly
commensurate with
the superphenomenal.
On the other hand, homosexuality will be frowned upon and its
practitioners penalized within the context in question, since it is
symptomatic
of sexual decadence within a phenomenal, or democratic, context, having
strong
socialist implications from a Western, and hence Germanic,
point-of-view, which
makes it not so much superphenomenal as
anti-phenomenal and therefore somewhat more antinatural
than supernatural. Such antinatural sexuality - and all modes and
degrees of
anally-biased intercourse come under this category - could not be
countenanced
within a superphenomenal society, such as
Communism
strives to realize. For the antinatural is but a degeneration of the natural
and
accordingly fails to meet the artificial criteria required in and by a superphenomenal context.
Plastic inflatables are no less
beyond
homosexuality than straight heterosexuality is before it.
Homosexuality is the end of phenomenal
civilization, not the beginning of superphenomenal
civilization! And even homosexual
pornography, or pornographic material involving male models, would be
irrelevant in a superphenomenal society,
since a form
of sexual Nazism in which materialism is idealized through the medium
of
photography. An idealistic decadence is
no less unacceptable to a new civilization than decadence in all of its
materialistic baseness. Nazism and
Socialism are alike beneath the superphenomenal
pale.... Of course, what applies to the superphenomenal
applies even more to the supernoumenal,
where even
inflatable and vibrator sexuality would be to a certain extent taboo,
the
emphasis being on mature juvenile erotica.
58. Probable antithetical equivalents to be
found
between (a) erotic paintings and/or drawings on the one hand and
pornographic
erotica on the other, as regarding alpha and omega idealistic extremes,
e.g.
ancient Indian or Persian drawings/paintings in relation to latter-day
photographic pornography; (b) erotic sculptures or carvings on the one
hand and
'sex dolls' or vibrators on the other, as regarding alpha and omega
naturalistic extremes, e.g. ancient Greek nude statues in relation to
plastic inflatables; (c) cunnilingus in
relation to fellatio, as
regarding worldly idealistic extremes; (d) lesbianism in relation to
homosexuality, as regarding worldly materialistic extremes. Thus, treating heterosexuality as a worldly
and therefore realistic mode of sexuality, one could speak of
cunnilingus and fellatio
as flanking it above ... in the realms of pre- and post-worldly sexual
idealism, but of lesbianism and homosexuality as flanking it beneath
... in the
realms of pre- and post-worldly sexual materialism.
Flanking these extremes, however, will be the
alpha and omega idealistic extremes cited in (a) above, and the alpha
and omega
naturalistic extremes cited in (b) above, so that we may speak of
erotic
drawings, for instance, as preceding cunnilingus and of pornographic
erotica as
succeeding fellatio on the one hand, but of erotic sculptures as
preceding
lesbianism and of plastic inflatables as
succeeding
homosexuality on the other hand. An
atomic breakdown of each mode of sexuality would read as follows: alpha
idealistic extreme: proton wavicles; omega
idealistic
extreme: electron wavicles; alpha
naturalistic
extreme: proton particles; omega naturalistic extreme: electron
particles;
pre-worldly idealistic extreme: proton-biased atomic wavicles;
post-worldly idealistic extreme: electron-biased atomic wavicles;
pre-worldly materialistic extreme: proton-biased atomic particles;
post-worldly
materialistic extreme: electron-biased atomic particles; worldly
realistic
middle-ground: atomic balance.
59. Treating cunnilingus and fellatio as
antithetical on this pre- and post-worldly basis seems to me the most
objectively credible interpretation of these modes of sexual behaviour,
which
reflect diametrically opposite attitudes - the former an attitude of
deference
and even obeisance towards the female sex, the latter an attitude of
deference
towards the male sex, as appropriate to the moral and social standing
of each
of the sexes during the pre- and post-worldly epochs in question. By which I mean that until the properly
worldly epoch of Western civilization, as pertaining to the 17-19th
centuries,
men were inferior to women and, accordingly, would have been more
disposed to
practising sexual deference towards them in the form of cunnilingus,
whereas
ever since the first decades of the twentieth century women have been
losing
ground to men and thus becoming less feminine than masculine in their
outlook
on life, more disposed, in consequence, to practise sexual deference
towards
men in the form of fellatio, in which the woman is the sexually active
partner
within a context that places her in a quasi-obeisant position,
acknowledging
the phallic ascendancy of male-biased post-worldly society. For whereas women were once the exemplars of
everything good and noble, the balance has increasingly tipped, during
the past
hundred years, towards men, and women now continue to prostrate
themselves
before men as the exemplars of everything good and noble - in a word,
of
triumphant male progress! Yet such a
view is of course relative and therefore pertinent to the world, or
worldly
sexuality, rather than to the divine and diabolic modes of sexuality
which
exist at a proletarian remove, as it were, from bourgeois modes,
including the
aforementioned, and which presuppose a free-electron orientation, not
merely
atomic sexuality with either a proton or an electron bias, depending on
the
mode or context in question.
Consequently we could speak of cunnilingus as grand-bourgeois
idealistic
sexuality, in contrast to petty-bourgeois fellatio.
And by a similar token it should be feasible
to regard lesbianism in a grand-bourgeois materialistic light, in
contrast to
petty-bourgeois homosexuality - treating each mode of sexuality on an
alpha/omega basis within the worldly framework of fleshy realism, so
that, on
the one hand, we are able to distinguish between alpha and omega modes
of
realistic idealism, whilst, on the other hand, we are distinguishing
rather
more between alpha and omega modes of realistic materialism.
60. But why do I
distinguish, in such fashion, between idealism and materialism anyway? What is it about cunnilingus and fellatio
that justifies me in applying the term 'idealism'?
Well, the answer to that question is: because
each mode of sexuality requires the use of the head and entails a
quasi-absolutist
sexual commitment ... either to the vagina or to the penis, rather than
-
except in the case of dualistic oral sex, which ought to be described
as
idealistic realism - to both at once.
Thus in the case of cunnilingus, the male applies his mouth and
tongue
to the female's vagina ... in an idealistic deference towards her
sexual
femininity, which makes for an alpha-stemming orientation, whereas in
the case
of fellatio the female applies her mouth and tongue to the male's penis
... in
an idealistic deference towards his masculinity, which makes for an
omega-oriented sexuality, albeit within the worldly context. Such idealism is in marked contrast to the
sexual materialism of lesbians and homosexuals, since the head is not
here at
stake and two sexually identical bodies pleasuring each other on a
rather more
down-to-earth basis are somewhat less idealistic than materialistic (on
account
of their sexual identity). For realism is precisely the compromise between male and
female,
penis and vagina, which constitutes the heterosexual norm as the
world's sexual
fulcrum, so to speak. There can
be idealistic realism, as in the case of a dualistic oral experience,
but never
materialistic realism ... except to the extent that sodomy takes place
between
the sexes. Straight heterosexuality is
realistic on account of this sexual compromise between opposites. Only on the pre- or post-worldly flanks, as
it were, can one speak of realistic materialism - realistic to the
extent that
two bodies are involved, materialistic to the much greater extent that
both of
them are sexually identical. Yet if both
materialism and idealism flank realism in its strictly coital context,
it
should not be forgotten that such pre- and post-worldly manifestations
of
sexual extremism are also flanked, on both alpha and omega levels, by
more
extreme manifestations of sexuality, with noumenal
and supernoumenal, subphenomenal
and superphenomenal implications ... as
discussed
above. In point of fact, we have already
distinguished between superphenomenal and supernoumenal on the omega plane, with specific
reference
to plastic inflatables and pornography
respectively,
and should categorize the former in terms of idealistic naturalism, or
supernaturalism, and the latter in terms of idealistic idealism, or superidealism.
Contrast this with the naturalistic idealism of the divine alpha-noumenal and the materialistic naturalism of the
diabolic
alpha-noumenal, or subphenomenal,
and
you
have a complete picture of sexual evolution, both civilized and
natural, from the dawn of civilization to the present day and even into
the
next and ultimate civilization, which, being transcendental, will place
especial emphasis on the superidealistic
modes of
sexuality in preference to anything natural or, for that matter, antinatural (without, however, unduly
encouraging sex of
any description).
61. Interestingly, a further distinction
could be
drawn between the superphenomenal and a
crude supernoumenal mode of sexuality. For there is a sense in which, contrary to
what I maintained earlier with regard to the Socialist State
effectively being
a plastic-inflatable dead-end, extrapolations from Communist purism to
a
Transcendental Socialist order suggest the possibility of a video
alternative
to inflatable sex which might be defined as crudely supernoumenal
... insofar as motion is involved with regard to actual participants. There are other analogies with what I am
attempting to express here - for example, the superphenomenal/crude
supernoumenal distinctions between, say,
light-blue
denims and leather pants (in contrast to the smooth supernoumenal
status of PVC pants), which suggest a Communist/Transcendental
Socialist
option. Doubtless, what applies on the supernaturalistic plane also applies, in a
converse kind of
way, on the superidealistic plane, where a
distinction
between Fascism and Social Transcendentalism would be in order, so that
the supernoumenal mode of sexuality, which
requires erotic
pornography, may be regarded as being less pure on the Social
Transcendentalist
level than on the strictly Fascist level - less pure to the extent of
being
more actively heterosexual than passively erotic in character, i.e.
pornography
rather than erotica, though always on a non-sadistic and
non-sensational
basis. Of course, there are other
applications of video than the purely sexual, and our theorizing has to
account
for them if a more comprehensive and possibly accurate perspective is
to
emerge. One could even distinguish
between videos on the basis of a Transcendental Socialist/Social
Transcendentalist dichotomy, with those on the former side being linked
to
television, i.e. projected onto a television screen, but those on the
latter
side being relatively free-standing in the context of a video screen. Clearly, if televideo
is Transcendental Socialist, then a colour portable of streamlined
construction, like a monitor-style TV, can be regarded in a Communist
light,
given its purist implications. Similarly
if free-standing video is Social Transcendentalist, then colour slides
projected onto a screen would be Fascist, and we could regard the video
as a
'fall' from Fascist purism to the extent that it entailed pictorial
movement,
i.e. action, and therefore stood closer to the Transcendental Socialist
ideological plane in terms of doing at the expense of being, or
doing-being as
opposed to being-doing - a distinction, within relative terms, between
the
Divine and the Diabolic.
62. Taking a wider view of being and doing,
we
may contend that sleep or, rather, dreaming signifies doing-being on
the alpha
level of subconscious self-indulgence, whether for good or bad, with
regard to
pleasant dreams or nightmares, whereas consciously-determined activity
signifies being-doing, whether for good or ill, with regard to life or
death,
sex or war. Sublimated
actions, or those which proceed instinctively from the body, are the
closest to
pure doing, since they lack conscious determination and accordingly may
be
described as worldly, in the strict bodily sense of that term. Instinctive sexual actions come within this
category, as do involuntary movements, scratchings,
jerks,
etc. But all of this is natural
or, at any rate, has reference to natural behaviour, which is why I
used the
word 'alpha' a moment ago, in order to distinguish it from those
artificial or
supernatural modes of behaviour that would be better defined in terms
of
'omega', whether on divine, diabolic, or worldly levels - in other
words, with
regard to artificially-motivated doing-being, such as watching
television,
video, or, more inherently, experiencing LSD visions;
artificially-motivated
being-doing, such as dancing (particularly within a disco context),
playing a
musical instrument, or competing in some engrossing sports context,
like
motorcycle racing; and, finally, artificially-motivated doing, whether
in a sports
or a dance or some other context, where what happens at the time is
more
automatic than consciously determined.
Such distinctions hold true, then, at both ends of the
evolutionary
spectra, and while supernatural doing-being and being-doing are
preferable,
from an evolutionary standpoint, to their natural counterparts (the
same should
be said of automatically-motivated doing in relation to
instinctively-motivated
doing), we must not forget that the goal of human striving is pure superconscious being, and that such being is as
much above
artificially-motivated doing-being as the unconscious being of pure
unconsciousness is beneath the subconsciously-motivated doing-being of
dreams.
63. Just as we spoke of being or doing-being
on
alpha and omega levels, with regard to natural and supernatural
distinctions,
so we can speak of natural truth on the alpha divine level and of
supernatural
truth on the omega divine level or, to be more precise, of a continuum
of
truths stretching from subnatural alpha
beginnings to
a supernatural omega end via a natural worldly compromise.
Thus we have truth in relation to the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, or protons, atoms, and electrons, with
centrifugal/centripetal implications.
But I shall simplify matters by speaking of
natural-to-supernatural,
including within the scope of the former term subnatural
truth. Hence truth in
relation to nature and the Cosmos on the one hand, and truth in
relation to
man's aspirations towards the Holy Ghost on the other. Outer truth and inner
truth, centrifugal truth and centripetal truth, natural religion and
supernatural religion. Similarly,
we can speak of two opposite kinds of beauty, viz. natural beauty
(including
the cosmic subnatural variety) and
supernatural, or
artificial, beauty - the former outer and centrifugal, the latter inner
and
centripetal; natural aesthetics and supernatural aesthetics. Doubtless race horses come within the former
category and streamlined motorbikes within the latter.
Or beautiful women on the
one hand and plastic inflatables on the
other hand. Or perhaps even natural
flowers in relation
to artificial flowers - for example, plastic roses?
Indeed, the more disposed a person is to
artificial beauty the less he will be disposed to its natural
counterpart....
Now what applies to beauty applies just as much to truth, that is to
say, to
supernatural truth in relation to natural truth. 'The more a man
cultivates the
arts, the less he fornicates', wrote Baudelaire in regard to beauty,
and the
more mindful a man is of inner truth in relation to the Holy Ghost, the
less he
will care for outer truth in relation to either the Cosmos or nature.
64. But if truth and beauty are the divine
and
diabolic alternatives with which life presents us on very antithetical
terms,
then strength and goodness are their worldly counterparts, and we can
just as
readily distinguish between natural strength and artificial, or
mechanical,
strength ... as between natural goodness and artificial goodness,
reserving for
ourselves the right to a specific bias either way.
Doubtless natural strength applies to
truncheons, fists, feet, and hands used in an aggressive way, while
bullets,
bombs, missiles, and torpedoes are all manifestations of artificial
strength
when launched from their mechanical platforms.
So are tractors when used to clear away or lift something that
would
have required three or four times as many horses or even ten times as
many men
all exerting their muscles at once. Strength is the power of force exerted
against something else and, although it is of the world, it has a
diabolic
bias, in contrast to goodness which, while being worldly in character,
smacks
of the Divine, whether in terms of the natural or the artificial, with
reference, say, to fruit on the one hand and to flavoured yoghurts on
the
other, or to water as opposed to cola, or potatoes as opposed to chips. The Good is always useful, particularly to
human wellbeing, and doing well to others is only intelligible within
the
framework of what is good for them. If
strength is fundamentally autocratic, then goodness is essentially
democratic. Apples are good so long as
one needs to eat and even after one has eaten, though rotten apples are
bad. The absence of all apples, or of any
food, is
also bad, especially if one is starving to death in consequence. Yet it isn't bad in the same concrete way as
a rotten apple, but in an abstract way, which is rather less evil than
unfortunate.
65. Similarly, the absence of truth isn't
necessarily falsity, though falsity can exist alongside truth and even
be taken
for truth until it is 'seen through'.
Falsity is, rather, the negation of truth, just as ugliness is
the
negation of beauty, weakness the negation of strength, and evil the
negation of
good. Whatever conduces towards
happiness is true, whatever conduces towards love is beautiful,
whatever
conduces towards pride is strong, and whatever conduces towards
pleasure is
good. Conversely, whatever results in
grief is false, whatever results in hate is ugly, whatever results in
humiliation is weak, and whatever results in pain is evil.
And this whether we are
considering the alpha or omega poles of any given experience-spectrum,
the
natural or the supernatural.
There is natural truth and supernatural truth, natural happiness
and
supernatural happiness. Pleasant dreams
are an example of the former, pleasant trips an instance of the latter. Conversely, there is natural falsity and
supernatural falsity, natural sadness and supernatural sadness. Unpleasant dreams are an example of the
former, unpleasant trips an instance of the latter.
Likewise, there is natural beauty and
supernatural beauty, natural love and supernatural love.
Good-looking women are an example of the
former, well-made 'sex dolls' an instance of the latter.
Conversely, there is natural ugliness and
supernatural ugliness, natural hate and supernatural hate.
Bad-looking women are an example of the
former, badly-made 'sex dolls' an instance of the latter.
Similarly, we may speak of natural goodness
and supernatural goodness, natural pleasure and supernatural pleasure,
with
natural food an example of the former and synthetic food an instance of
the
latter. Conversely, we may speak of
natural evil and supernatural evil, natural pain and supernatural pain,
with
rotten or mouldy food an example of the former but rotten or poisonous
synthetic food an instance of the latter.
Finally, we may speak of natural strength and supernatural
strength,
natural pride and supernatural pride, with athletic ability an example
of the
former and Grand-Prix ability an instance of the latter.
Conversely, we can speak of natural weakness
and supernatural weakness, natural humiliation and supernatural
humiliation,
with athletic inability an example of the former and Grand-Prix
inability,
whether for personal or mechanical reasons, an instance of the latter. Examples could be multiplied, but each
category is to a large extent independent of the others and should only
be
evaluated in relation to itself.
66. Speaking of
any
given spectrum in terms of another is both morally wrong and patently
absurd. A person isn't necessarily weak
because he lacks the appearance of strength, since he may well be
primarily
good or beautiful or true and, accordingly, entitled to evaluation on
one or other
of these alternative terms, with the possibility of an alternative
negative
evaluation if appropriate. Also we must
bear in mind the nature of the quality - or absence thereof - we select
in
regard to any given person or thing, since there is an antithetical
distinction
between the natural and the supernatural and/or artificial, and what is
entitled to evaluation in terms of the one should never be evaluated
according
to the other! Of course, no man is
entirely any one thing. All men are a
combination, in different degrees, of a variety of qualities and
quantities. Yet this need not prevent us
from ascribing a leading or principal characteristic to any given
person, since
no man is everything in equal degrees either.
Some men are predominantly divine and, hence, truthful or false;
some
men are predominantly diabolic and, hence, beautiful or ugly; some men
are
predominantly worldly in an autocratic way and, hence, strong or weak;
some men
are predominantly worldly in a democratic way and, hence, good or evil,
with
all due gradations of quality in accompaniment.
Thus sadness with the false and happiness with the true; hate
with the
ugly and love with the beautiful; humiliation with the weak and pride
with the
strong; and, finally, pain with the evil and pleasure with the good. Basically, men are divisible along these
essentially tripartite lines, with divine, diabolic, and worldly
implications. It is only in a democracy
that this fact can be lost sight of, the more so in proportion as
worldly, and
hence bodily, criteria obtain. For there
can be no doubt that societies differ from one another in evolutionary
terms,
and the ideal of one society may differ considerably from that of
another,
especially when the societies in question are not only diametrically
antithetical in terms of, say, to what pole of a given spectrum they
may
pertain but pertain, moreover, to different spectra, with the
possibility -
certainly in the case of a divine/worldly distinction - of no real
cultural or
social contiguity whatsoever.
67. Thus whilst a materialistic society will
make
strength its principal ideal, beauty will be the principal ideal of
naturalistic societies, goodness the principal ideal of realistic
societies,
and truth the principal ideal of idealistic societies.
There may also be periods in any given
society when not strength but weakness will be the prevailing norm, not
beauty
but ugliness, not goodness but evil, not truth but falsity,
irrespective of
whether or not such negative quantities and their respective
qualitative
attributes are elevated to the status of an ideal.
Certainly there is ample evidence to show
that the negative attribute tends to precede the positive one in any
given type
of society, so that before truth can get an airing, even in relatively
rudimentary terms, there must first be falsity; for falsity is ever the
alpha
roots of the Divine from which the flower of truth must eventually
spring. One might even say that falsity is
a
precondition of truth, since without it there can be no revolt in
favour of
truth. Without paganism there would have
been no Christianity, without the Creator no Christ.
And what applies to the alpha-stemming half
of the divine spectrum applies just as much to its omega-aspiring half;
for no
less than natural falsity is superseded by natural truth ... must
supernatural
falsity, or Fascism, be superseded by supernatural truth, or Social
Transcendentalism. Fascism is as much a
precondition of theocratic Centrism as paganism ... of Christianity,
particularly in its Catholic manifestation.
Truth, whether natural or supernatural, is not possible without
reference to a falsity against which it is in revolt.
You cannot conjure truth out of thin
air. Falsity is the ground of
truth. Similarly, ugliness is the ground
and precondition of beauty. Beauty,
whether natural or artificial, cannot materialize where there has not
first
been ugliness. You do not start from
beauty and work down to ugliness, since evolution proceeds forwards,
and as
much within the diabolic spectrum as within the divine spectrum or, for
that
matter, each of the worldly spectra.
Beauty is perfect form, which is perfect appearance, and should
be
regarded in terms of the maturation of the Diabolic rather than as a
refutation
of or antithesis to it. Thus ugliness
and beauty are both diabolic, the only difference being that whereas
ugliness
is the root, or primitive, manifestation of the Diabolic, beauty is its
flowering into full maturity, a more evolved manifestation of the
Diabolic
which stands to the original manifestation as the blossom of a flower
to its
roots, just as Christ stands to the Creator as Son to Father, natural
divinity
to subnatural divinity - the one true and
the other
false. Doubtless, the same may be held
of artificial beauty in relation to artificial ugliness, a modern
skyscraper
city, say, in relation to the slum- or ghetto-type city that may have
preceded
it - assuming the new-style city was not built from scratch (though
obviously
in relation to other cities, both contemporary and past).
68. Imperfect form precedes perfect form no
less
on the artificial plane than on the natural one, which stands to it as
alpha to
omega, even though they may overlap and co-exist, which is usually the
case
within contemporary open societies where, more often than not, the
natural
takes precedence over the supernatural, as though in deference to a
traditional
hierarchical pattern. Obviously my chief
intellectual interest is with the latter, or artificial, modes of
ugliness/beauty, and I wager that, ideologically considered, Communism
and
Western Socialism stand to Transcendental Socialism as Fascism to
Social
Transcendentalism, which is to say, as ugly preconditions of a more
beautiful,
and hence ideologically mature, extrapolation.
For it has to be admitted that Transcendental Socialism is more
concerned with beauty than truth, even when it boasts of connections
with the
latter, and that such beauty testifies to a revolt against Western
ugliness. The artificial beauty of the
69. Alpha-stemming diabolic evolution can be
regarded as a struggle from the formless to the formful,
as
from
the sun to the most beautiful men, which entails a progression
from
protons to electrons, albeit with reference to a particle as opposed to
a wavicle bias ... contrary to what
appertains to the
Divine. And yet, if we are talking, in
effect, of two different levels of the Diabolic, viz. ugly and
beautiful, with qualitative implications of hate and love, we are also
talking
of two different types of the Diabolic, with Satanic and Antichristic implications respectively. For if natural ugliness is characterized by a
particle-biased formlessness with regard to protons, then the
particle-biased
form which characterizes the Beautiful has regard to electrons, and
therefore
to a more atomically-evolved manifestation of the Diabolic. Just as Christ stands to
the Creator in the manner of natural truth to natural falsity, or wavicle-biased electrons to wavicle-biased
protons,
so
natural beauty stands to natural ugliness in the manner of
Antichrist to Satan. But if this
is true of the alpha-stemming part of each spectrum, it is no less true
of its
omega-aspiring part, since, as we have noted, artificial ugliness tends
to
precede artificial beauty, and artificial falsity to precede artificial
truth.
70. Thus we have two types of the Diabolic,
or Superdiabolic, on the artificial plane
no less than on the
natural one, together with two types of the Divine, which may be
characterized
in terms of the Supersatanic and the Super-antichristic on the one hand, and the Superfatheristic
and the Superchristic on the other, with
proton and
electron distinctions - protons tending to predominate on the planes of
falsity
and ugliness, electrons on the planes of truth and beauty, though
always with
the aforementioned wavicle and particle
distinctions
... as applying to the Divine and to the Diabolic respectively. For whereas a wavicle bias makes for essence, a particle bias
makes for
appearance, whether in terms of ugliness or beauty.
Hence proton-wavicle
artificial or supernatural falsity and proton-particle artificial or
supernatural ugliness on the one hand, but electron-wavicle
artificial truth and electron-particle artificial beauty on the other
hand. Alternatively, one could speak of superfalsity and supertruth
with
regard to the omega part of the divine spectrum, and of super-ugliness
and superbeauty with regard to the omega
part of the diabolic
spectrum. These would contrast to both
natural falsity and truth in the one case, and to natural ugliness and
beauty
in the other - as relative to the alpha part of each spectrum.
71. Thus there is a progression from the
Father
to Christ with regard to the natural part of the divine spectrum, and
from the Superfather to Superchrist with
regard to its artificial, or supernatural, part. Such
alternatives
are of course more
characteristic of the head than of the body, and oblige us to posit
analogies
with mind and brain on a tripartite basis, as between subconscious,
conscious,
and superconscious in the one case, with
old brain,
mid-brain, and new brain in the other, the subconscious correlative of
the
Father, the conscious correlative of Christ, and the superconscious
correlative of Superchrist; although a
correlation
between the lower part of the superconscious
and the Superfather also has to be
considered, which accords with
the superfalse and therefore with an
artificial,
external precondition of the supertrue ...
in pure superconsciousness.
Doubtless the Jungian distinction between the personal
unconscious and
collective unconscious is correlative of the Father and the Superfather
respectively, while leaving Christ and Superchrist
to
the conscious and superconscious. With regard to the brain, however, we shall
posit a correlation between the old brain and Satan, the mid-brain and
Antichrist, the lower part of the new brain and Supersatan,
and
the
upper part of the new brain and Super-antichrist, though such
correlations are not of course to be taken literally but merely
regarded as an
approximate guide to the true nature of both mind and brain in their
tripartite
entirety. Certainly, analogies with
political or religious figures could be inferred, and few people would
doubt an
argument to the effect that Hitler more accords with the superfalse
collective unconscious than with the supertrue
superconscious, whereas if Marx is as
credible a candidate
as any for the role of Supersatan in
relation to
socialist super-ugliness, then no better candidate than Lenin could be
found to
fill the role of the Super-antichrist in relation to communist or,
rather,
Soviet superbeauty.
I shall say nothing, however, about the best candidate for the Superchristic role in relation to supertruth! For as
surely as the Diabolic proceeds from the
lower new-brain to the higher new-brain,
so the Divine proceeds from the lower superconscious
to the higher superconscious.
Indeed, we should really be speaking of superdiabolic
and superdivine in
connection with the omega pole of each spectrum, since that is what, in
effect,
the roles of the Superfather and Superchrist
on the one hand and of Supersatan and the
Super-antichrist on the other hand actually amount to, in contrast with
the
alpha-stemming equivalents which precede them.
72. Certainly this distinction we have drawn
between one type of divinity and another, as also between one type of
diabolism
and another, could be further defined in terms of negative and
positive, with
the Father and Superfather corresponding
to the
negative Divine on natural and supernatural levels, but Christ and Superchrist corresponding to the positive Divine
on natural
and supernatural levels. Just so, Satan
and Supersatan would correspond to the
negative
Diabolic on natural and supernatural levels, with the Antichrist and
the
Super-antichrist corresponding to the positive Diabolic on these same
levels,
which are equivalent and yet antithetical in evolutionary terms. Thus the negative divine and diabolic levels
would correspond to proton wavicles and
particles
respectively, while the positive divine and diabolic levels would
likewise
correspond to electron wavicles and
particles. As already noted, the false is
not diabolic
and the true alone divine; it is simply a lower, i.e. negative, mode of
the
Divine. And, by a similar if converse
token,
beauty is not divine because ugliness is diabolic; it is simply a
higher, i.e.
positive, mode of the Diabolic. Hence
Baudelaire, no less than
73. However that may be, the distinctions we
have
drawn between falsity and truth, ugliness and beauty, etc., appertain
to the
head, both psychologically and physiologically, more than to the body,
which,
not altogether surprisingly, has a different order of distinctions
which are
less divine or diabolic than worldly. I
have already noted the body's basic distinctions in terms of weakness
and
strength on the one hand and evil and goodness on the other, with the
former
options appertaining to what may be called an autocratic spectrum, and
the
latter options appertaining to a democratic one, whether with regard to
the
natural or to the artificial, that is, whether on alpha-stemming or
omega-aspiring terms. Sticking to our
physical analogue, it will come as no surprise to most people that
broken bones
are symbolic of weakness, whereas muscles, particularly when developed
beyond
the normal scale, serve to symbolize strength.
In the first case, humiliation; in the
second case,
pride. Similarly, spilt blood
all-too-readily connotes with evil and, hence, pain, whereas sensual
gratification, particularly when of the flesh, connotes with goodness
and,
hence, pleasure. Taking our analogies a
step further, one could argue that bones and muscles connote with
autocratic
weakness and strength respectively, while blood and flesh connote, by
contrast,
with democratic evil and good. Certainly
we have adequate reason to equate broken bones with weakness and spilt
blood
with evil, since in both cases violence is usually responsible, and
violence is
the product of ugliness and thus of hate.
The body isn't usually the motive of its own actions, neither on
the
negative planes of weakness and evil nor on the positive planes of
strength and
goodness, which, likewise, may require some motive from 'On High', so
to speak,
such as beauty and love if, for example, the gratification of the flesh
is to
acquire diabolic sanction. The more
democratic the society, however, the less importance such a motive will
be and
the more purely carnal the bodily satisfactions. Mindless
self-assertion
and mindless
self-indulgence become equally indicative of worldly purism.
74. However, even in the world there are
diabolic
and divine leanings, with the particle-biased atomic spectrum of
weakness and
strength, negative and positive autocratic worldliness, leaning towards
the
former and, by contrast, the wavicle-biased
atomic
spectrum
of evil and good, negative and positive democratic
worldliness,
leaning towards the latter. In other
words, each spectrum has a bias towards either the Diabolic or the
Divine
within the context of its own worldly integrity. Consequently
the
weakness/strength spectrum
is the worldly parallel to the ugliness/beauty spectrum above, whereas
the evil/goodness
spectrum is the worldly parallel to the falsity/truth spectrum above,
the
former diabolic and the latter divine.
Now just as we distinguished between negative and positive in
regard to
the atomicity of each of the 'head' spectra, so the negative worldly
attribute
within each of the 'bodily' spectra has a proton bias, the positive
worldly
attribute, by contrast, an electron bias.
Thus proton-biased weakness and evil,
electron-biased
strength and goodness. Particles and wavicles
within an atomic
cohesion.
75. Speaking more generally of each of the
spectra, whether 'head' or 'bodily', we have to satisfy ourselves as to
whether
the qualitative attribute precedes and is a precondition of the
quantitative
attribute, or vice
versa. In other words, does sadness
precede falsity or is falsity a precondition of sadness?
Or, to take the negative diabolic equivalent
of falsity, does hate precede ugliness or is ugliness a precondition of
hate? Similarly, within the positive
side of each spectrum, does joy precede truth or is truth a
precondition of
joy? And does love precede beauty or is
beauty a precondition of love? Obviously
a commonsensical, merely physical answer to these questions will assert
that
the quantitative precedes and is therefore a precondition of the
qualitative,
viz. falsity a precondition of sadness, truth a precondition of joy,
and so
on. But while this would be the most
apparent answer, the essential, or metaphysical, answer is to the
contrary;
namely that sadness precedes and is the necessary precondition of
falsity, just
as joy precedes and is the necessary precondition of truth. Likewise, within the diabolic spectrum, hate
is the precondition of ugliness, love the precondition of beauty. And, taking the worldly spectra to complete
the picture, it will transpire that humiliation is the precondition of
weakness, pride the precondition of strength; pain the precondition of
evil,
pleasure the precondition of good. For
it must be admitted that the noumenal
precedes the
phenomenal, and what is qualitative is inherently noumenal,
in
contrast
to the quantitative, and therefore phenomenal, attribute that
stems
from it. Contrary to superficial
appearances, hate precedes ugliness, not vice versa, and,
conversely, no
woman is more beautiful than when she is loved.
Indeed, love is what renders her beautiful or, if that sounds
too
sweeping, let us rather say that without love there is no essential
beauty
but merely an apparent, or superficial, beauty such that merely
pertains
to the physical. With love, her beauty
becomes metaphysical and accordingly acquires soul.
76. Thus we concur with Schopenhauer in
positing
a noumenal precondition of phenomenal
quantities,
although such a qualitative precondition extends beyond the negative
attributes
to the positive ones as well, which are not so much Cosmos-derived as
...
nature-derived, and therefore more worldly, since appertaining to the
electron
side of the atom, whether on wavicle or
particle,
divine or diabolic terms. Unlike hate,
love cannot be derived in any degree from a cosmic noumenal
source, for instance the particle-biased proton-proton reactions of the
sun,
since it requires an electron-particle bias, and such a bias will not
be found,
as a rule, on the subatomic plane but only within a worldly and, in
particular,
organic context, with especial reference to man. Even
animals
would seem incapable of love as
we understand it, since of a psychic constitution which is too
rudimentary and,
hence, biased towards protons for all but the most primitive
expressions of
love, as for example in loyalty and trust, to materialize.
Yet, in man, love can be so intense as to
completely transform his world-view, and this manifestation of the
Diabolic
must be subsumed under the general rubric of Antichristic
emotionalism, in contrast to the satanic emotionalism of hate, which
may be
said to derive from a pre-worldly and therefore genuinely noumenal
source. Of course, what applies to hate
and love will apply to each of the other pairs of attributes as well,
the
negative preceding the positive and the qualitative the quantitative,
so that
we may trace the original negative experience to one of three noumenal roots, viz. divine, diabolic, or
planetary, while
reserving for the positive experience a comparatively worldly noumenal extrapolation, as in the case of joy as
a
precondition of truth. As the reader may
have surmised, falsity is everywhere the root divine condition, though,
before
falsity can arise in the phenomenal, there must first of all be
sadness, or something
analogous, in the noumenal, which is to
say, in the
central star of the Galaxy, for which a wavicle
proton-proton reaction is the most apposite definition, as befitting
the
Creator. Thus falsity is the expression
of sadness no less than truth the expression of joy.
Truth cannot be achieved on the basis of
sadness, and neither will falsity arise from joy.
77. Yet if the qualitative precedes the
quantitative on the alpha-stemming levels of the divine, diabolic, and
worldly
spectra, so that we have a noumenal
precondition of a
phenomenal outcome, it is completely the converse where the
omega-aspiring
levels of these same spectra are concerned!
For, as I have elsewhere argued, the superphenomenal
is a precondition of the supernoumenal,
and consequently
before there can be any qualitative attribute of a given
negative/positive
polarity, there must firstly be a quantitative attribute that precedes
it. Thus before there can be supersadness,
a superfalsity such as Fascism must arise,
and,
likewise, before superjoy can become a
reality, there
must firstly be supertruth.
In each case, whether of the negative or
positive Divine, Superfather or Superchrist,
the quantitative is a precondition of the qualitative.
And what applies to the divine spectrum is just
as applicable to the diabolic one, where, taking the negative pole
first,
super-ugliness will precede superhate and
be no less
its precondition than superbeauty in
relation to superlove - the positive
diabolic pole on both quantitative
and qualitative terms. An example of
super-ugliness would be heavy rhythmic rock music, whereas light,
pitch-biased
modern jazz will serve as an example of superbeauty. Thus if superhate,
or
hate
which springs from and is inspired by artificial ugliness, accords
with
the qualitative attribute of the negative Superdiabolic,
in
which
a proton-particle bias will preponderate, then superlove,
or
love inspired by artificial beauty, accords with the qualitative
attribute
of the positive Superdiabolic, in which an
electron-particle bias will be preponderant.
Both of which contrast with the wavicle
bias,
whether on proton or electron terms, of the negative and positive Superdivine - in other words with supersadness
and superjoy, as appertaining to the superfalse and to the supertrue
respectively. Generally speaking, it
will be found that whereas the Divine is optical
the
Diabolic is aural, and that purer feelings accrue to the former than to
the
latter. But more about that later! Here I wish to stress the superphenomenal
precondition of supernoumenal experience,
and this
applies as much to the 'bodily' spectra within an omega-aspiring
context as to
the 'head' spectra, whether mind or brain, divine or diabolic (or, as I
should
say, superconscious or new brain/superdivine
or superdiabolic).
78. Thus superweakness
will be a precondition of superhumiliation,
or
humiliation
attendant upon artificial weakness, i.e. a mechanical
breakdown or
technical malfunctioning in some artificial context on which one is
dependent,
while superstrength will be the
precondition of superpride, or pride
attendant upon the powerful and
efficient functioning of some machine or mechanical apparatus with
which one is
associated - a racing car, say, or a high-speed powerboat.
Clearly, there will be quite a difference of
feeling between someone whose racing car
malfunctions
early-on in a race and the driver whose machine is performing at peak
levels,
leading him to eventual victory over his remaining rivals.
In the first instance, superhumiliation
attendant upon superweakness;
in the second instance, superpride
attendant upon superstrength.
A proton-biased particle atomicity in the
one case, an
electron-biased particle atomicity in the other.
Negative and positive modes
of superworldliness respectively.
79. Similarly, in turning from the superautocratic to the superdemocratic,
we
shall
find that superevil is a
precondition of superpain, or pain
attendant upon the reception of
artificial evil, whether through violence or electric shock or some
accident
involving mechanical or automotive means, while supergood
is a precondition of superpleasure, or
pleasure
attendant upon the use of some artificial good, whether in the realms
of food,
drink, sex, drugs, or whatever. Thus superpain attendant upon superevil,
for
instance
a bullet wound, and superpleasure
attendant upon supergoodness, for instance
a (drink
of) cola. In the one
case, a proton-biased wavicle atomicity;
in the other
case, an electron-biased wavicle atomicity. Negative and positive
modes
of superworldliness within superdemocratic
terms. Thus here, no less than
elsewhere in the other spectra, the superphenomenal
is effectively a precondition of the supernoumenal.
80. My philosophy can accordingly be
regarded as
the antithetical equivalent of Schopenhauer's, since he is concerned
with the
alpha, where noumenon precedes phenomenon,
whereas I
am primarily concerned with the omega, where superphenomenon
precedes supernoumenon.
Before one can be 'turned on' at any given supernoumenal
level, one must firstly be 'wired up',
'plugged in', 'geared up', etc., to the
relevant superphenomenal precondition. A new world is thereby established which is
the converse of the old one. And,
increasingly, the more this new and artificial world takes hold of the
'turned-on'
individual, the less will the old and natural world have any meaning
for
him. Beyond a certain point, one has no
use for the noumenal or phenomenal in the
alpha-stemming contexts propounded by Schopenhauer.
One denies them. For the Father is
irrelevant to anyone set
upon attaining to the Holy Ghost. He
must be atheist with regard to the former before he can become truly
theist or,
rather, deist with regard to the latter.
A true re-evaluation or, rather, 'transvaluation
of all values' is required here, and this presupposes the adoption of
the superphenomenal as a means to the supernoumenal. Such
is the real implication of being 'born
again'.
81. We have agreed, therefore, that the
negative
precedes the positive, whether in terms of the Divine, the Diabolic, or
the
world. The further back in alpha-stemming time we go
(at least in imagination), the more will falsity predominate over
truth,
ugliness over beauty, weakness over strength, and evil over good ...
though not
to the same extent everywhere or in every early pagan society. Some societies, which may be accorded a
divine bias, will have more falsity than ugliness; other early
societies, the
converse of divine, will have more ugliness than falsity; and yet
others, which
we may regard as predominantly worldly, will have more weakness than
ugliness
or more evil than falsity, as the case may be.
In other words, identical criteria cannot be applied right
across the
global board irrespective of racial factors, no more than all men can
be judged
according to criteria only applicable to one class or type of man -
say,
worldly and, hence, bodily criteria, as in a democratic society. For the world - and here I use the term in
its most general sense - is a much more complex place than some
people(s) would
have us believe, and while divine, diabolic, and worldly factors will
be found
in virtually all societies, they will not be found to the same degree,
neither
on a caste nor a racial basis. Early
Irish society was no less divine because falsity generally prevailed
than when
truth subsequently emerged victorious in the guise of Catholic
Christianity. It was simply divine in a
negative way. And, doubtless, early
English society, while having a divine dimension, was if not more
diabolical in
a negative way, as relative to a predominating ugliness, then almost
certainly
more worldly in terms, for example, of weakness or, to a lesser extent,
evil. Therefore we cannot categorically
argue that ugliness predominated over beauty in every early
society,
since that would be to judge them all according to only diabolic
criteria, but
should rather maintain that while some societies were dominated by
ugliness,
others, though still subject to a degree of ugliness, were dominated by
falsity
or weakness or evil, depending on the type of society in question. Now since, paradoxically, the Divine takes
precedence over both the Diabolic and the world, a predominantly false
society
would have been morally superior to each of the other types, whether
ugly,
weak, or evil. Similarly, a
predominantly ugly society, whilst inferior to a false one, would have
been
morally superior to both predominantly weak and evil societies. For the Diabolic takes precedence over the
world, since aligned with the head as opposed to the body, if, in
relation to
the Divine, as brain rather than mind.
Thus in
82. However that may be, it is perhaps one
of
life's supreme ironies that the society or caste which is most false or
ugly or
weak in an early phase of its existence is the one destined to become
most true
or beautiful or strong at a subsequent phase of it, when the positive
pole has
come to the fore at the expense of the negative one and electron-biased
norms
accordingly preponderate. Provided the
racial structure of any given type of society remains relatively
unchanged,
then positive counterbalances to the earlier negative preconditions
will duly
emerge ... to usher in a better age for the peoples concerned. A predominantly false society will thus
become a predominantly true, or Catholic, one.
A predominantly ugly society will become a predominantly
beautiful, or
Orthodox, one. And, finally, a
predominantly weak society will acquire new strength and emerge in a
Protestant
guise, just as a predominantly evil society will cast of its painful
constraints and become good - in a word, democratic and equalitarian,
serving
the happiness of the greatest number.
Such swings from one extreme to another are shared by all
societies, and
we may characterize the negative pole and approximations to it in terms
of
devolution, in contrast to the evolutionary nature of progress towards
and
approximations to the positive pole. Devolution from the alpha, evolution towards the omega. This in both natural, i.e. noumenal/phenomenal, and supernatural, i.e. superphenomenal/supernoumenal, societies ...
whether
divine, diabolic, or worldly. And in all
three cases, at whichever pole of their respective spectra, we have
devolution
from protons, evolution towards electrons.
Devolution from falsity, evolution towards truth; devolution
from
ugliness, evolution towards beauty ... and so on, with the same of
course applying
to the super-manifestations of each quantity and its qualitative
attribute -
as, for example, in the case of superhate
and superlove, which are conditional upon
the prior existence
of super-ugliness and superbeauty
respectively. Thus there is devolution
from super-ugliness
and evolution towards superbeauty, each of
which
pertains to the artificial part, so to speak, of the diabolic spectrum,
with Supersatanic and Super-antichristic
implications. Generally speaking,
devolution at this level is commensurate with the superphenomenal,
whereas
evolution
at such a level is commensurate with the supernoumenal.
83. Likewise, in relation to the
naturalistic
part of each spectrum, we can speak of devolution from the noumenal
and of evolution towards the phenomenal, with mainly proton and
electron implications
... such as find a moral analogue in the distinction between
centrifugal and
centripetal. But if progress towards the
centripetal is evolutionary, it is only so on a rather limited,
centrifugal-dominated basis within the noumenal-to-phenomenal
part
of
any given spectrum, where the proton element preponderates overall,
and
moral progress is accordingly subordinate to the root centrifugal
element and
has its existence within the umbrella, so to speak, of that element, as
where
trousers or breeches are worn under or in conjunction with jackets and
coats,
creating a paradoxically amoral impression.
It is only with the artificial part of each spectrum that the
centripetal element can break increasingly free of the centrifugal
element and
thereby achieve supernoumenal salvation. For here it is not the centripetal which
exists in the
centrifugal but,
on the contrary, the latter which exists in the former,
since the electron element
is preponderant overall. Hence not coats
or jackets over trousers or breeches, but trousers or, rather, jeans
and pants
over T-shirt and vest, which are the last refuge, so to speak, of the
centrifugal within an omega-aspiring context.
A transvaluation beyond the
phenomenon has
taken place, and therefore the centripetal element has become truly
ascendant
and capable of encroaching ever further upon what remains of the
centrifugal,
until, with supernoumenal salvation,
nothing
demonstrably centrifugal remains, since one-piece zipper suits have
eclipsed
pants/vest relativity, the pants having paved the way, as it were, for
the
suits in question, which are not so much pants and vest in one as
expanded
pants ... symptomatic of a centripetal absolutism.
84. Yet if there is devolution from dresses
to
skirts, and evolution from pants to one-piece zipper suits, there is
also
co-existence within the phenomenal and superphenomenal
contexts of skirts and trousers, as relative to a worldly compromise in
atomic
cohesion. There is a second femininity
within the alpha-stemming context of the artificial part of each
spectrum, and
this is the femininity of skirts made from synthetic materials like PVC
and
co-existing with pants of an equally synthetic construction. For one cannot limit skirts to the phenomenal
when they are made from synthetics, and therefore it follows that such
skirts
encroach upon the superphenomenal as a
devolution
from phenomenal skirts, or those made from naturalistic materials like
cotton
and silk, and are accordingly of shorter length, i.e. mini. Devolution presupposes a reduction of scale,
particularly in terms of length ... which connotes with sexual status,
or the
social standing of the feminine element in life at any given point in
time, and
short skirts are certainly devolved in relation to long or
medium-length
ones. Therefore just as devolution of
the dress, that inherently noumenal
parallel,
proceeds from full-length to mini via intermediate lengths, so
devolution of
the skirt, that inherently phenomenal parallel, proceeds from
full-length to
mini via intermediate lengths, with its optimum devolution occurring
within the
superphenomenal context of PVC minis - at
any rate,
with regard to length; though the shift from natural to synthetic
materials is,
of course, rather more evolutionary than devolutionary in character,
and may be
regarded as the evolutionary ingredient par
excellence within a superphenomenal
context - a context, however, where jeans and pants will always
predominate,
since a masculine bias is more characteristic of the superphenomenal
than of the phenomenal. Indeed, so much is
this so ... that the more positive and progressive it becomes, the
closer it
will draw to the centripetal indivisibility of the supernoumenal,
as,
for
example, with regard to one-piece zipper suits of a synthetic
construction. Accordingly, it is my belief
that while
skirts of a synthetic and devolved order are permissible within the
negative
pole of the superphenomenal (the
quantitative pole,
which may be described in terms of super-ugliness), dresses would be
quite
anomalous there, even when made from synthetic materials and of a
highly
devolved, i.e. mini-length, order. For
dresses and skirts are not identical or interchangeable but pertain to
different civilizations, one might almost say to different ages and
classes, and
while the dress is perfectly at home in an alpha-stemming noumenal
context, it would be completely out-of-place in a superphenomenal
one, since far too feminine for the context in question.
Only the half- or quarter-femininity, so to
speak, of a miniskirt could have any place there, and then in a rather
subordinate way to jeans or pants. For
if the centrifugal dominates the noumenal
and, to a
lesser extent, the phenomenal, then the centripetal is the dominating
factor of
the superphenomenal and, to a greater
extent, of the supernoumenal.
85. I have digressed at some length from my
original devolutionary/evolutionary theme, although not altogether
without good
reason, since the sartorial parallels drawn above indicate, in no
uncertain
terms, that the ratio of negative to positive within a naturalistic
context is
more in favour of the negative than of the positive, whereas in an
artificial
context, by contrast, it is the positive pole that comes out on top. Let us take the naturalistic context of any
given spectrum first - say, falsity and truth in the case of the Divine. Now if we equate falsity with the noumenon and truth with the phenomenon, our
sartorial
parallel will show that falsity is equivalent to the dress, any dress,
and
truth to trousers. Therefore falsity is
indivisible and truth divisible. Falsity
is whole, truth merely a half-measure; falsity accords with proton
absolutism,
truth merely corresponds to relativity with an electron bias. The one outweighs the other and, accordingly,
the imbalance is always in favour of falsity or, what amounts to the
same
thing, the noumenal indivisibility of the
negative
pole. In other words, the Father
outweighs Christ, and even when truth has come to the fore, as in
Christianity,
there is always more falsity to be reckoned with. Again,
to
revert to our sartorial parallel,
we may have all males in trousers, but not all females will be in
skirts. Many will still prefer dresses,
whether long
or short, and even those who usually wear skirts may also at certain
times
favour a dress, so that any possible balance between trousers and
skirts is
countered by the number of females wearing dresses which, when added to
the
number of skirts being worn in society, creates or, rather, maintains
an
imbalance in favour of the negative and, hence, of alpha-stemming
domination. Had men the possibility,
during a phenomenal age, of one-piece zipper suits, they could
balance-out the
negative, feminine element of dresses ... and thereby achieve or
maintain a
comparable degree of positivity, bringing
their own
masculinity to the full. But this they
cannot of course do, since no such possibility then exists, and so
their
existence is that of a male half-measure vis-à-vis female
half-measures, i.e.
skirts, and female whole-measures, i.e. dresses, in consequence of
which truth
is accordingly a half-measure in relation to alpha-noumenal
falsity. And not only Christian truth in
relation to pagan falsity (not to mention Christian falsity, as
paralleled by
skirts), but Antichristian beauty in relation to Satanic ugliness,
worldly
strength in relation to worldly weakness, worldly good in relation to
worldly
evil.
86. Thus, taking the qualitative attributes
of
each of the above-mentioned dichotomies, joy is a half-measure in
relation to
sadness, love a half-measure in relation to hate, pride a half-measure
in
relation to humiliation, and pleasure a half-measure in relation to
pain. No matter how earnest the endeavour
to
establish the True on the basis of joy, or the Beautiful on the basis
of love,
or the Strong on the basis of pride, or the Good on the basis of
pleasure, the
negative correlations of these virtues always preponderate, and the
result is a
world in which truth, beauty, strength, and goodness are outweighed by
falsity,
ugliness, weakness, and evil; a world in which sadness, hate,
humiliation, and
pain predominate because they are always the whole measure, or capable
of
becoming such, while the others remain merely the half.
They are the dress while the others are
merely the trousers. Small wonder if men
of a certain progressive stamp grow weary of natural virtue and instead
turn
towards the possibility of supernatural, or supernoumenal,
virtue,
which
requires a superphenomenal
precondition! Better to fall into a new
and therefore artificial falsity, ugliness, weakness, or evil ... if in
due
course that will pave the way towards a new and higher type of truth,
beauty,
strength, or goodness which, in contrast to the natural types, will be
a whole
measure rather than merely a half.
Better that the negative poles should be half- or
quarter-measures on
the artificial part of each spectrum ... than that one should remain a
perpetual victim of negative whole-measures on their natural part. Better PVC miniskirts than full-length cotton
dresses. Better jeans than half-measure
cotton trousers, particularly if they lead to boiler suits in due
course. Or, better still, PVC pants
leading to
one-piece zipper suits of an equally synthetic construction, since
jeans are
merely worldly whereas PVC pants, being synthetic, are of a divine
orientation.
87. Indeed, one should distinguish between
cords
and denims on the one hand, as alternative types of worldly
masculine-biased
attire, and leather and PVC pants on the other, as alternative types of
post-worldly (diabolic and divine) attire which are not so much
masculine as supermasculine - certainly on
the supernoumenal
levels of one-piece zipper suits! Be
that as it may, there is no guarantee of strength or goodness or beauty
or
truth, not to mention their qualitative concomitants (which, on the
omega-oriented artificial part of each spectrum, derive from them),
except from
a superphenomenal base which, even when a
half-measure or, more correctly, less than a whole-measure, is a
precondition
of supernoumenal whole-measures
thereafter, and hence
of full-blown positivity.
Now, obviously, while full-blown strength,
symbolized by a denim boiler suit, is preferable to the half-measure
strength
which obtains in the naturalistic context, it is not the ultimate positivity but merely a worldly or, rather, superworldly positivity
that
complements, on a superautocratic plane,
full-blown
goodness ... as relative to superdemocratic
worldliness, which can be symbolized by a one-piece cord suit - a sort
of cord
boiler suit. Both kinds of one-piece
suit - rare though they were in the late-twentieth century - are only
really
relevant to a superworldly supernoumenon
and, hence, to a supernoumenon of the body
as opposed
to the head. One might define them in
terms of Western supernoumenalism ...
insofar as the
West, being largely a Germanic phenomenon, is nothing if not bodily,
and
therefore values strength and goodness above beauty and truth. A higher supernoumenon,
namely
that
of the head, would have to be given the 'go ahead' elsewhere ...
by
peoples more inherently disposed to diabolic or to divine criteria,
i.e. beauty
or truth, and such post-worldly peoples would eventually eclipse the
worldly
... as demanded by evolutionary progress, which, in this day and age,
tends
away from the body (and thus the world) towards the head (and thus the Antichristic Diabolic in relation to the new
brain, and the
Superchristic Divine in relation to the superconscious).
Higher than worldly supernoumenalism
would be
the diabolic supernoumenalism of leather
or rubber
one-piece zipper suits, as especially relevant to the Slavic East, and
higher
again would be the divine supernoumenalism
of PVC
one-piece zipper suits, as especially relevant to the Third World and
to
theocracy-biased countries like Ireland and Iran.
88. Thus whilst all kinds of supernoumenalism
are preferable to their respective superphenomenal
preconditions, because significant of full-blown positivity,
evolution
will
demand that only the highest supernoumenalism
eventually prevails. Since
this
is
commensurate with the Divine, and hence with the (electron-wavicle) Holy Ghost, so the ultimate
indivisibility must be
of a PVC-type construction, and therefore a reflection of truth rather
than of
beauty, goodness, or strength. Or, more correctly, a reflection of supertruth
rather than of superbeauty, supergoodness,
or superstrength.
Such supertruth,
whether in sartorial or other terms, is the goal of all evolutionary
striving. For true world unity can only
be achieved on the basis of spiritual homogeneity, not on the basis of
co-existence between incompatible ideals.
Even superbeauty will eventually
have to be
consigned to obsolescence ... if supertruth
is
ultimately to prevail.
89. Some pages ago I briefly referred to a
kind
of divine/diabolic distinction between the optical and the aural, and
now I
wish to expand on that reference on the basis of distinguishing between
optical
perception, which is linked rather more closely to the mind than to the
brain,
and aural perception which, by contrast, is linked rather more closely
to the
brain than to the mind. For it will not
have failed to dawn on the reader that, through the agencies of seeing
and
hearing, the eyes and the ears are two modes of perceiving the world -
the
former optical and the latter aural.
Using the term 'perception' in the general sense of
understanding and
noting, it is indisputable that perception of the world is no less
aural than optical,
and that while people may differ from one another in terms of the
degree to
which their perception of the world is either optical or aural, all
would
agree, I think, that hearing is as much a mode of perception as seeing,
the
only real difference being that in the one case the emotions are more
deeply
involved than in the other case because, as already remarked, hearing
connects
more directly to the brain than to the mind, and the brain is nothing
if not
emotional. This being the case, it is
right that we should regard it in a diabolic rather than a divine light
-
indeed, to switch metaphors, as heat rather than light, since emotions,
passions, etc., are of a deeper and less-elevated order of noumenal
experience than feelings, using that term in the narrow sense of
abstract
emotions like sadness, joy, and happiness which, by contrast, are not
only more
refined but of an altogether higher order of noumenal
experience, an order pertaining to spirit as opposed to soul. Thus if we associate emotion with the brain,
and hence the Diabolic, it is only proper that we should equate
feelings with
the mind, and hence the Divine.
Accordingly, in the one case we shall have concrete noumenal
experience and in the other case abstract noumenal
experience, as befitting the respective natures of hearing and seeing,
aural
perception and optical perception.
90. But of course
we
cannot limit perception to the pre-worldly, and hence natural, context
that may
be regarded as preceding worldly concepts and conceptions.
Perception does precede
conception, as
Schopenhauer correctly maintained, but it is no less the case, in this
day and
age, that there are modes of perception which succeed the conceptual,
and we
should be careful to distinguish them from the pre-conceptual varieties. Accordingly I use the term 'superperceptual' for all modes of perception,
whether aural
or optical, that relate to and are dependent upon artificial phenomena
such as
television, radio, record-player, video-recorder, etc., and I maintain
that
they relate to the natural modes of perception as omega to alpha or as
the supernoumenal to the noumenal,
with an antithetical status in consequence.
Yet such supernoumenal perceptions,
or superperceptions, are only relative,
not absolute. For there is a sense in
which, say, optical
perception of television differs only in degree rather than kind from
optical
perception of natural phenomena like trees and flowers.
Admittedly, we should distinguish perception
of the artificial from perception of the natural, and many people, me
included,
would hold the view that the perception of flowers on television, where
in a
sense they become artificial, is superior than and preferable to the
perception
of flowers in
naturalis, and therefore is a mode of superperception.
However, such 'superperception' is
relative,
in contrast to the use of artificial modes of perception, whether
optical or
aural, which may be regarded as constituting a direct, or absolute,
antithesis
to the natural modes, and the chief examples of which are the camera
and the
microphone, the former functioning as an artificial eye and the latter
as an
artificial ear, albeit in a more radical sense than is achieved by
corrective
lenses on the one hand or by hearing aids on the other, each of which
may be
described as intermediary between natural modes of perception and their
artificial, and hence mechanical, counterparts - at any rate, to the
extent
that they serve to correct a natural defect rather than to take the
place of
natural modes of perception as such.
Consequently we may define the camera as an artificial eye, or
optical
recorder of phenomena external to itself, while reserving to
microphones,
including those which are used in bugging operations, the status of an
artificial ear, or aural recorder of phenomena external to itself.
(Although
the glass eye is artificial and intended to replace the loss of a
natural eye,
it has no perceptive function and therefore cannot be accorded an
antithetical
status to the natural eye in the functional sense we are elucidating
here.)
91. Interestingly enough, while we
increasingly
use our natural modes of perception in connection with artificial
phenomena
such as television and radio, the artificial modes of perception are
more often
used in connection with natural phenomena, including people,
conversation, and
singing, a fact which cannot be without some significance in throwing
light
upon the paradoxical and transitional nature of the age.
For it does seem that most people have what
borders on an aversion to photographing or recording artificial
phenomena,
preferring to concentrate on subjects which the natural eye or ear has
grown
out of, in their preference for artificial phenomena.
Doubtless, this ironic situation will be
transcended in the course of time ... as artificial modes of perception
become
increasingly important and the world becomes correspondingly more
transcendental. In the future, people
will cease to be interested in natural phenomena perceived through
artificial
means, but will increasingly turn towards the artificial perception of
artificial phenomena. Even the natural
perception of artificial phenomena, as, for example, on and through
cinema
films, television, and videos, will be transcended by and through
artificially-induced visionary experience, thereby opening-up new
worlds of
internal perception as required by the progression of divine, or
visionary,
experience from superfalse to supertrue
levels, in conjunction with the correlative progression of the
diabolic, or
auditory, experience from super-ugly to superbeautiful
levels.
92. Indeed, now that I have returned to my
initial divine/diabolic theme, it is incumbent upon me to distinguish
divine
from diabolic progressions in terms of an optical/aural dichotomy, and
to
regard the following options as constituting parallel progressions,
viz. films
and records, television and radio, videos and compact discs, and,
finally, LSD
trips and cassettes, with, in the one case, divine and, in the other,
diabolic
implications. Thus, with this dichotomous
view of artificial visionary and auditory phenomena, we have a divine
progression, on the one hand, from films to trips via television and
videos,
which is paralleled by a diabolic (aural as opposed to optical, heat as
opposed
to light) progression, on the other hand, from records to cassettes via
radio
and compact discs. Now, obviously, films
in the context of cinema must precede the showing of films - TV films
excepted
- on television, just as records in the context of LPs must precede the
playing
of records on the radio, and therefore we can categorically maintain
that there
is a sequential and, in a limitedly literal sense, evolutionary
progression
from the one to the other, since without prior films or records there
could be
no television or radio transmission of films and records, which may
consequently be regarded as a precondition of the media in question. Furthermore, both television and radio are
alike in that they are multimedia modes of transmission, with a variety
of
channels broadcasting an even greater variety of programmes, some of
which will
be literary and theatrical, some of which musical and operatic, others
of which
documentary, sports, current affairs, and so on. Thus
there
exists a definite parallel between
radio and television, irrespective of the type of radio or television
we have
in mind. A parallel of sorts, although
of a different order, may also be said to exist between videos and
compact
discs, insofar as they are extrapolations from and evolutionary
improvements on
films and records or, as we could alternatively argue with qualified
justification, the equivalent of films and records in a post-television
and
post-radio age, society, mentality, or whatever, while further along
our
evolutionary spectrum we find ourselves positing a like-parallel
between
artificially-induced visionary experience and cassettes only on the
basis that
there would seem to be little else - at any rate on such a radically
extreme
level, a level which suggests an outright supernoumenal
indivisibility in each case (not forgetting our divine/diabolic
distinctions
between visionary and auditory modes of perception).
Here the Divine truly attains, as only it
can, to an internal level of visionary perception, while the Diabolic,
though
not capable of such internalization itself, at least becomes less
external to
the degree that cassettes increasingly depend upon microlight
headphones - indeed, as in the case of portable minicassette-players,
can
only
be listened to with the aid of such headphones, there being no
speaker
option.
93. Until now we
have
been considering the perceptual beyond the world, i.e. the conceptual,
on both
optical and aural terms, which we have called superperceptions. Now we must consider artificial levels of the
conceptual beyond the world, which likewise may be called superconceptions,
and which, like the superperceptual, can
be divided
into relative and absolute distinctions.
In the first category we shall find pocket calculators and other
portable modes of computation which serve as a correction to or
substitute for
the brain, and which stand to it rather as spectacles and hearing-aids
to the
eyes and ears respectively, having a direct connection with their user. In the second and more absolute category,
however, we shall find computers ... from the smallest to the largest,
the
least complex to the most sophisticated, which exist not merely in
relation to
the brain, and hence in an intermediate position, but as completely
artificial
brains antithetical in every way to it, and therefore no less
independent of
natural intelligence than cameras in relation to the eye or microphones
in
relation to the ear. Such 'artificial
brains' assume a superworldly conceptual
status
analogous to the superdivine status of
artificial
optical perception and to the superdiabolic
status of
artificial aural perception, and accordingly complement these latter
modes of
perception within the artificial context of an omega orientation, in
contrast
to natural thought, which stands to the computer as natural sight to
the camera
and as natural hearing to the microphone.
Nevertheless, natural thought, or the conceptual capability and
employment of the human brain, can be used in conjunction with
artificial
phenomena, i.e. as thought about the man-made world, just as the eye
can be
used to see and the ear to hear artificial phenomena, and we should
distinguish
such thought from purely natural thought, or thought about nature and
naturalistic phenomena generally, including people, animals, etc., in
the same
way and to the same extent that we have distinguished optical and aural
perceptions in relation to artificial phenomena such as television and
radio
from their more naturalistic counterparts.
In such fashion, we shall be able to distinguish thought of a
new-brain
order from its old-brain counterpart, as well as from any mid-brain
compromise
between or conjunction of the two, so that a relatively superconceptual
status will accrue to the former, thereby allowing for the varieties of
thoughts, some of which are antithetical to others, that fall to the
human
brain, itself divisible in the aforementioned ways.
94. Consequently an omega-oriented order of
the
conceptual will be antithetical to the alpha-stemming order of
conceptual
thought to the degree that the new brain is antithetical to the old
brain. One cannot think on both levels at
once,
since there are evolutionary and class distinctions between the two
contexts
and those who most approximate to a dual integrity in their thinking
are
neither specific to the one nor to the other but pertain to an
intermediate,
bourgeois level situated in between.
Traditionally such a level has found its religious embodiment in
prayer,
as relative to Christianity or some such 'worldly' religion, and we may
regard
the conceptual, contrary to Schopenhauer, as truly appertaining to the
Divine
... in contrast to the perceptual, which can only pertain to it
indirectly,
that is to say through the medium of appearances. For
true
divinity is essential, not apparent,
and therefore centripetal as opposed to centrifugal in character, a
turning in
upon oneself, whether in pagan and, hence, sensual terms, as in sleep,
or in
Christian and, hence, intellectual terms, as in prayer, or, beyond both
of
these, in transcendent and, hence, spiritual terms, as in meditation.
95. Thus one can distinguish, on a
tripartite
basis, between the subconceptual, the
conceptual, and
the superconceptual, where the
above-mentioned modes
of conceiving are concerned, and there should be no doubt that progress
tends
from the first to the third, though not without apparent levels of the
Divine
coming in-between, so that we may allow, to take a single example, for
a
television-to-video-to-LSD progression in between mid-brain cognitive
conceptions on the one hand and new-brain meditative conceptions on the
other,
which constitutes ascending levels of artificial perception ... from
the
external to the internal, and so from the false to the true or, more
correctly,
quasi-true. For it must be admitted that
film, whether on television, video, or at the cinema, pertains to
divine superfalsity to the extent that we
are dealing with
appearances external to ourselves which come to us via mechanical
means,
whereas artificially-induced visionary experience of an hallucinogenic
order is
closer to divine supertruth by dint of
taking place within the psyche
in a
context rather more chemical than material, and therefore more directly
spiritual. If it is less than truly superconceptual, it is at any rate more than
merely superperceptual.
One
might distinguish this ultimate mode of visionary experience from the
mechanically-derived modes like television or video in terms of a
perceptual-conceptual integrity ... in contrast to the
conceptual-perceptual
integrity of the latter, which I accordingly equate with the superfalse. For the
closer one draws to the Holy Ghost, the more superconceptual
things become, since ultimate divinity is not apparent but essential
and
therefore can only be approached, i.e. evolved towards, from within ...
on the
basis of superconceptual freedom. Such freedom paves the way for the pure
meditative experience to follow, and is its necessary precondition.
96. But such a meditative experience
shouldn't be
confounded with the petty-bourgeois meditative experiences so prevalent
in the
West in the late-twentieth century.
These latter were more akin to 'prayer without words' - decadent
modes
of Christian religious observance analogous to abstract paintings,
which call
to mind a denial of the will in the negative and merely relative sense
advocated by Schopenhauer. The decline
and extinction of bourgeois civilization is one thing, the rise and
expansion
of proletarian civilization quite another, and those who demand the
Truth
should never rest content with the half-measures and subterfuges of a
civilization in partial eclipse! The
ultimate meditation, when it becomes possible, will as little resemble
'prayer
without words' as laser light art the painting without subject-matter
which is
but the Schopenhaurian/Sartrean decline
into the
nothingness, or neant, of
decadent bourgeois civilization. It will
be dynamic, like the Tao-te-Ching
mode of meditation assisted by deep-breathing
exercises. But if that admirable form of
yoga corresponds to the positive pole of a divine integrity within a
naturalistic context, i.e. the Eastern equivalent to
Western truth as embodied in the person of
Christ, then the supermeditation I have in
mind for
the future will correspond to the positive divine pole within an
artificial, or
supernaturalistic, context and be
relatively artificial
- indeed, assisted not by breaths of natural air but by inhalations of
chemically-manufactured air stored in oxygen containers and requiring
the use
of special oxygen masks. Such dynamic supermeditation will, I believe, greatly
facilitate upward
self-transcendence, particularly in contexts simulating, through
recourse to
special body harnesses, the gravity-defying miracle of levitation. The result will not only be higher than could
be achieved via natural meditation but purer as well, since such
impurities as
cling to natural air would not exist within the comparatively
artificial
context of oxygen containers.
97. However, in returning to the distinction
we
were making between perception and conception, it should be
re-emphasised that
the Divine would be rather more conceptual than perceptual; for that
which is
above appearances is essential and therefore beyond sight, or the
possibility
of optical perception. Being in the Holy
Spirit would
be to feel
the
bliss of electron-electron attractions, not to see them. For where there are no eyes, there is no
sight. Of course, one should distinguish
between sensory perception, which depends upon the use of sight, and
spiritual
perception, which, like the artificially-induced visions of an LSD
trip, is less
a matter of external vision than of internal vision ... as germane to
the
mind's eye, that elusive capacity of the imagination to 'visualize' its
contents. Such spiritual perception
extends down to the dream contents of the subconscious, as well as to
daydreams
or fantasies, and, as I have argued, can also embrace natural visions,
or
hallucinations; though these will have the appearance of being outside
the
psyche and accordingly border on sensory perception, especially when
motivated
by external phenomena. Conversely, it
may be argued that films, whether at the cinema or elsewhere, primarily
appeal
to sensory perception ... to the extent that they are external to the
psyche
and have to be watched, in contrast to the artificially-induced
visionary experience
of LSD trips which, as already noted, transcend sensory perception and
accordingly enter the realm of supertruth. For here we touch upon the crucial
distinction between the superfalse and the
supertrue - a distinction between sensory
perception of artificially-produced
visionary phenomena, i.e. films, and the spiritual perception of
artificially-induced visions which are not so much phenomenal as noumenal or, rather, supernoumenal
... as pertaining to the superconscious
part of the
psyche. Here we move from the realm of
the superphenomenal to the much higher and
therefore
more genuinely divine realm of the supernoumenal. It is a progression, in other words, from
appearance to essence, from sensory perception to spiritual conception
or, at
any rate, to a realm of spiritual perception which borders on the superconceptual. For
me,
it
signifies a Superchristic prelude to
properly
transcendental essence.
98. Since I began, some pages ago, by
contending
that the eyes, and hence the sense of sight, were of divine origin in
relation
to the ears, and that there exists, in consequence, a kind of
divine/diabolic
distinction between optical perception and aural perception, I had
better
qualify my original statement by words to the effect that such a
distinction is
merely apparent and relative in relation to spiritual perception of
either a
visionary or an auditory order, since no sensory perception, whether
optical or
aural, can be truly divine or diabolic.
Rather, it is superficially so in relation to dreams, visions,
voices,
whisperings, etc., which correspond to the inner eye and to the inner
ear in
their various hallucinatory manifestations - more usually as
manifestations of
subconscious activity than of conscious activity as such, which, except
in the
context of fantasies or daydreams, corresponds to the conceptual, and
hence to
abstract thought.
99. Yet we are just as susceptible to
auditory
perceptions in our dreams as to visionary perceptions, and the ratio of
the one
to the other will indicate the nature of the dream, i.e. divine or
diabolic,
whether on negative or positive terms, which is to say with reference
to the
false and/or ugly on the one hand, or to the true and/or beautiful on
the other
hand. Some people's dreams are
predominantly visionary and therefore 'quiet', as befitting the Divine,
whether
negative or positive. Other people's
dreams, by contrast, are predominantly auditory, as befitting the
Diabolic,
again whether negative or positive. Yet
others experience an approximate balance between the two poles of the
subconscious or, as I should say, the subconscious-proper and the old
brain. Just so, some people are more
susceptible to auditory hallucinations than to visionary ones and may
accordingly be regarded as having a relatively diabolic psychic bias,
in
contrast to those for whom visionary hallucinations are the norm. There is no reason why auditory
hallucinations should be regarded as any stranger than visionary ones,
nor need
we discount the possibility of a psychic balance between the two, as
germane to
a worldly integrity. Probably most
people's autonomous psychic activity outside dreams is so faint and
distant,
these days, that they are unaware of its existence, particularly since
so much
time is now spent in front of televisions, radios, and other such
mechanically
autonomous devices. Doubtless in the
future, LSD trips will open-up further autonomous regions of the psyche
and
duly eclipse natural hallucinations with artificially-induced
hallucinatory
experience either of a predominantly visionary or of a predominantly
auditory
nature, depending on the type of hallucinogen and the character of the
tripping
recipient. A 'good' trip will almost
invariably be predominantly visionary; a 'bum' trip will be less
visionary than
auditory. Yet whatever the psychic
nature of the trip, the positive will generally preponderate over the
negative,
to the extent that we are referring to a supernoumenal
and, hence, full-blown positivity as
opposed to a
phenomenal or, rather, superphenomenal
half-measure
... as relative to films, which, as everyone knows, can be good or bad
or good
and bad, depending on the type of film in question.
100. Thus trips have this further advantage over
films, in that not only are they internal rather than external, but
almost
invariably 'good'. A 'bad' as opposed to
an audibly-biased 'bum' trip is indeed the exception to the rule, and
so much
so that one would have cause to suspect the quality of the recipient
rather
than that of the LSD, in the event of persistently 'bad' tripping. Conversely, with dreams it is more usually
the bad dream, or nightmare, that is a full-measure and the good dream
a half
one, particularly in the case of the very young and of people who are
psychically backward. For dreams are
predominantly noumenal by nature, and the noumenal is nothing if not negative. Even good dreams, which are comparatively
rare, are less good than bad dreams are bad, owing to the predominantly
negative constitution of the subconscious.
Either the Father gets the better of Christ, so to speak, or
Satan the
better of the Antichrist, depending on the type of dream to which one
is
usually partial. And even persons whose dream life is predominantly
truthful or
beautiful, which should include most well-constituted males, will only
experience the Christic or the Antichristic
on the basis of a half-measure, as relative to natural truth or beauty. For a full-blown positivity,
one
must
turn to the superconscious and to the
experience, therein, of artificially-induced visions.
Doubtless the future will in fact encourage
such a procedure, in accordance with the transcendental requirements of
an
omega-oriented society - the only possible society in which true
salvation can
be achieved.
