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It is
taught within a certain enclave that concurrent
with the apocalyptic unveiling of the prophetic logos is the unveiling
of the generic idol. It is deemed that intensifying spiritual light
is casting
into relief the shadow, separating the light from darkness and
causing
the darkness to deepen. Yet while the darkness is universally descried
and lamented,
prophetic insight is required to determine its essence – as observed
Henry
David Thoreau, thousands are hacking at the branches of evil to one who
is
striking at the root. Whereas the internet is awash with
exposés and dire
warnings – as of the so-called new world order, of conspiracies and
fundamentalist resurgence, of the
Jesuits, the Zionists, the Masons, of Russia, China and the USA,
of famine, war and
tempestuous nature, of the king of the abyss: Anak and his
spawn of fallen angels –
one’s impression
is of symptoms rather than agents of the cosmic drama. The
focus, as in
a game of chess, is on the individual pieces, their disposition and
strategic
clout, to the distraction from the game as such.
But what is the game, foisted upon humanity and faithfully played out by its duped participants? The answer, predictably, is subtle, going to the root of the cultural enterprise and the rational construction of language. The persistent and predominant cultural current, which may be traced to the ancient Greeks, is that of rational apprehension. Even in its purported hiatus of medieval ecclesiasticism the faculty of reason retains its exalted status – it is celebrated in Augustine and Aquinas, and it was in the language of reason that Kramer and Sprenger explained why witches should be burned. What changed in the wake of the Enlightenment is the episteme, the ground or nature of what is considered to constitute valid knowledge, and this naturally in the name of a rational philosophy. Thus also it is intellect which yet rules supreme in the pantheon of modernity. Notwistanding an eclectic epistemological ecumenism, the reason is deemed the enlightened option, such that a rational model henceforth informs not only our science, but our politics, our economics, our ethics and religion, indeed our very conception of what it means to be human. Got to be cool, got to be wise … got to be rational! Intellect, reason, the rational attitude – this, I suggest, is the invisible idol of this extenuated current, the unseen and unspoken paradigm underlying the cultural enterprise – notably that which is designated Western. So let us examine the rational method. What does it assume about the world? What is its mode of operation? To be observed at the outset is that any paradigm casts the universe in its image. Implicit in the rational paradigm, therefore, is that the idea that the universe is rational – that is, subject to rational apprehension. This means it can be analysed, understood by reference to its constituent parts and their interrelationships. A theory thus obtained is called a scientific model, and its number of working parts, or variables, is necessarily small, as too many variables would render the required calculations impracticable. Certainly and significantly, their number is less than infinite. Stated another way, the universe is cast in the image of a mechanism, comprehensible at a finite depth of resolution and in terms of a finite number of working parts. Mechanism is to be distinguished from organism which, by definition, eludes mechanistic conceptualisation. Organic complexity inevitably exceed the analytical reach, and this quite regardless of how deeply one probes. While there can be no empirical demonstration of this, I suggest it is admissible on intuitive grounds. There is something about the quality of an organism, its irreducibly holistic nature that makes for infinite depth when examined analytically. The rational scientific method is thus reductive by nature, conceptually reducing organism to mechanism, and herein lies the quandary and the crux: the universe presents as organism whereas the model that mediates human interaction therewith is mechanistic. While ideally it is understood that any model is necessarily provisional and incomplete, in practice the accepted model is often enshrined as an absolute, exalted above scientific method itself and thus effectively beyond critique. There is evidently something about the human psyche which longs for closure; indeed so pronounced this need appears, that even the seemingly illustrious bow to various forms of fundamentalism. Or else, if not in model fixation, it is in the relentless drive forward, that this longing manifests. I wish to focus for a moment on this relentless drive, the unceasing quest that elusive satisfaction of soul which is not merely intellectual or moral, but ultimately spiritual in nature. Among its philosophic formulations is the dialectic of Friedrich Hegel (a German idealist in the wake of Kant), expressed in terms of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Out of any given thesis and antithesis, which mutually produce each other, arises a new synthesis. This synthesis becomes the new thesis, calling forth its antithesis, and so on unto final apotheosis in the Absolute Idea. Thus with each dialectic iteration a new set of referents comes into play, reshaping the cutting edge of thought, the demarcation between conceptualisation and the incommensurate. As new concepts come into vogue, the older are gradually discarded and perhaps ultimately forgotten, reabsorbed into the supra-rational plenum from which they emerged. In terms of the magical ouroboros, the symbolic serpent swallowing its tail, the plenum is for the most part unconscious – in latent hyperspatial superposition, to borrow a quantum physical analogy – the conscious dialectic process occurring at the devouring interface of the serpents jaws. In view of this temporal myopia – those who forget history are bound to repeat it – the idea of progress is arguably dubious, a notion expressed in Nietzsche’s idea of eternal return. Conceivably, and perhaps equally likely, the reductive process is inherently regressive. Taking this latter, essentially negative, view of the dialectic method, especially as applied to social theory, we may conceive of each conceptual revolution – and I think that the analogy is apt – as a turn of the screw whereby humanity is being screwed. For example, a repressive patriarchy diminishes the feminine principle (thesis), arises feminism (antithesis) to complete the destruction in the formulation of the neuter (synthesis). Or, again, a repressive feudalism devolves, at long last and perhaps after much bloodshed, into democracy – a democracy, to whit, more repressive than anything hitherto seen. Yet any temporary result aside, it may be apparent from the above that the process is intrinsically incapable of closure. There can be no final analysis and thus no ultimate synthesis, rendering the Absolute Idea a false chimera – namely on the intellectual, reductive plane of thought. The reductive analytical process – and this is the essential finding of modernism – is merely the explication of the groundless abyss of ratiocination, leading to radical all-embracing doubt and thus the despair of existential nihilism. This then is the crisis facing humanity on an individual as well as collective level. In the terminology of the A\A\ it is the ultimate crisis of initiation. Up to this point the ‘white’ and ‘black’ adept are on the same path. It is on the edge of the abyss, in response to its challenge, that their respective destinies diverge. What then is one – or a global society – to do at this point? Clearly the long trodden path has become meaningless – mere art for art’s sake, as it were – and it should be noted, as stated at the outset, that the path in question goes back at least to the culture of classical Greece. Two categorical paths, to pursue the magical theory, obtain at this juncture. One of these is transcendental synthesis in the disclosure of a higher mental faculty, which is the subject of a companion text, A True And Virtuous Language. See also Alice A. Bailey’s From Intellect To Intuition and One Star in Sight among the documents (Class A) of the Astrum Argentum. Thus there is the possibility of closure, but it is not rational closure. The cosmic mystery is engaged, not nailed. Appreciation rather than explanation is its essential attitude. Speaking more generally, this is the path associated with ascension, rapture, transcendence and spiritual renaissance. The other obtains in the formulation of an arbitrary creed, essentially as plucked out of a hat, often by committee or expert panel, rationally contrived and adopted by fiat. As a noted historic example I cite the infamous Nicene Council of 325 CE, appropriately credited with the invention of Christianity as bequeathed upon medieval Europe and hence the subsequent world. Specifically it is the arbitrary or narrowly parochial nature of such contrivances which makes for postmodern pluralist collectivism – numberless ideological enclaves, united in the idea that any point of view is to be accorded equal respect. As confessed the demon, familiar from the Gospel of Mark, my name is legion for we are many. In the culmination of the age, and in consolidation of this ethos, a new council is accordingly set to be inaugurated, with a prophetic charge to humanity – people of Earth, behold your god(s). This then is the apotheosis of Babel, the end of meaningful discourse, and this, as it is written, is the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place: the spectre of rational contrivance assuming the place of transcendent mind. |