“And so, Reader, you have the work of death and life,
The embossings of the Holy page, and a short epigram.
These will be able to show and teach your mind
What your state was once and what it may become today” (p16).

Emblem 2: I INCREASE

“‘But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it and bring forth fruit with patience.’ (Luke 8:15)

“I am not a road, or a thorn, or a stone, but the best earth;
And sweet ears of corn will rise from the bossom of my heart” (p25).

Emblem 6: I AM ILLUMINATED

“‘In thy light shall we see light.’ (Psalms 36:9)

“I see the light in your light, let darkness be far away,
He is wise who gains wisdom from the book of the Lord” (p29).

Emblem 15: I MEDITATE

“‘As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men.’ (Galatians 6:9)

“The centuries fly by, the days pass away,
Every man must work for the good, while there is an hour of time” (p40).

Emblem 33: SUFFER AND LEARN

“‘The words of the Lord are pure words as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.’ (Psalms 12:6)

“The brick and hearth witness to the quality of gold;
The same may testify to the goodness of the mind” (p62).

Emblem 34: NEITHER ON THIS SIDE, NOR ON THE OTHER

“‘…we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left.’ (Numbers 20:17)

“Not in this place, not in that;
The heart will go more safely in the middle.
He who rushes from the mean, runs to destruction” (p63).

Emblem 35: SIMPLE WISDOM

“‘By ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.’ (Matthew 10:16)

“He whose heart is saved by simplicity, whose eye by wisdom,
Will be both serpent and dove to God” (p64).

“Cogito means ‘I think,’ but I interpret Descartes’s famous dictum as a contraction of, ‘I think about the I which thinks, therefore I am.’ Thinking requires an object. To think at all, one must think about something. The mystal no-mind is not achieved by suspending mental process but by eliminating mental content. The cogitating Descartes thought about thinking in a way that proved his existence as a thinker. I believe he thought about the I which thinks.

“Philosophers know the syllogistic conjunction ergo/therefore requires two premises to balance a conclusion, but Descarte presented only one premise—‘I think.’ His statement either fails as logic or transcends logic. I believe it transcends.

“The view that all knowledge is logically derivable gets one into a limitless proliferation of prior premises, an infinite regress, a reverse martingale, unacceptable to the practical cogitator. We need some premises that are not prior conclusions, or there will be no base on which to build the logical structure. I judge Descartes’s sum/I-am to be one such fundamental premise, needing no antecedent. As Ouroboros swallows his tails, so:” (p65)

Self-realization of the universe (p59)*. Click for larger version.

“Psience posits four frames of reference [as shown in the figure above], two real and two imaginary. (If it were not for mathematical convention, these might be called the material and immaterial.) One real and one imaginary frame of reference are linear; I call them spaces; their dimensions are of interval. The other two frames are non-linear; I call them fields; their dimensions are of regular recurrence, here called frequence” (p13).

“The real and imaginary frames are formally orthogonal… Thought, spirit, the immaterial or massless in general exist as recurrent pattern in the imaginary field. The imaginary pattern induces its realization in the real field, which is reflected in turn in the real space. Symbols existing in the real field have a magical power to affect the phenomenal world, or real space, in a manner that recalls the power the three-dimensional beings to produce miracles in Flatland. The geometric inversion of linearity is held to be a closed loop, that is, a regular recurrence; induction between imaginary and real fields takes places between closed loops, as with electric current and magnetic flux. The real field (and perhaps also the real space) has more than three dimensions; the imaginary field and space have unlimited dimensions.” (p15).

“As the unlimited dimensionality of temporal interval is disclosed by the statistical independence of different relative likelihoods, so the unlimited dimensionality of temporal frequence is disclosed by the harmonies of recurrent pattern. Though the pattern is imaginary, it may still be useful. For example, we could define the structure of a chord in such a schema without reference to the key in which the chord were played… what Globus (1976) called ‘relatedness per se’. Such a pattern is perpetual rather than eternal, qualitative rather than quantitative, imaginary rather than material. It is defined by its own harmonies” (p27).

Outward and inward departures from Origin (p39).

“…As the point of access to 3d space, τ space, r field, or ψ field, Origin displays four respective facets: Here/Now/Everywhere/Always. [The figure above] depicts outward departures from Here and Now, inward departures from Everywhere and Always. Unlike Here and Now, which serve as zero points for quantification, Always and Everywhere confound and nullify all measurements. Qualitative rather than quantitative, the ψ and r fields disallow direct measurements but still provide a frame of reference in which to consider relatedness per se” (p38).

“Psience proposes an inductive coupling between the orthogonal ψ and s fields—between the domain of imaginary, immaterial pattern and the domain of its symbolic representation. What is symbolically represented is relatedness per se. We can label the two arcs of this interactive feedback loop ‘expression’ and ‘communication’ [as figured above] (p58)”.

Hence “creation is the self-realization in the real field of relatedness per se in the imaginary field” (p62).

* I believe the top figure mislabels linear to the left of u-space, implying that both u-space and s-field are linear, whereas it is u-space and τ-space that are linear (as dimensions of interval). Perhaps a correct label would be spatial, as opposed to temporal, though this blurs the denomination of dimensions of interval as -spaces.

“The principle of dualistic monism is based on the intuition common to all men that things, phenomena, and beings are in a dynamic state of change and that life is process. Plants, men, and ideas all bloom in their season and wither in their season. Day changes into night, and night returns to day; the seasons run their course; Time, the enumeration of this change, stops for no man. In daily life we find no constant.

“The course of this change, however, is not erratic. We find ourselves living in a world of extremes. From midnight to midday, from the heat of summer to the cold of winter, from joy to sadness, all movement is along a continuum from one extreme to its opposite. Judging from our experience, we deduce that the universe is constructed on a plan of polarity: beginning and end, male and female, expansion and contraction, ascent and descent, life and death. Process occurs as movement between these poles of the universe.

“Although at first view nature’s poles present themselves as opposite and mutually antagonistic, on closer inspection we realize that they are complimentary; one cannot exist with the other… If movement in either direction were to stop, life would cease… The universe and our knowledge of it are therefore constituted of the endless to-and-fro movement of life from any pole to its complimentary opposite…

“Let us devise a practical language to use in discussing the structure and inner workings of polarity within the universe… that of yin and yang, derived from ancient China. But this is not to say we are simply expropriating that ancient philosophy as it was defined and used by Fu Hsi some five thousand years ago. We can and must redefine this terminology in such a way that modern man can make rational sense of it. This ancient principle of relativity is not a mysticism but a paradoxical logic of the universe.

“We shall designate as yin all phenomena, beings, and things that are dominated by centrifugal force, and as yang those dominated by centripetal force. Centrifugality can be most easily imagined as the tendency to move from a center toward a periphery; centripetality is movement from a periphery toward a center” (p20-21).

Yang centripetality and yin centrifugality (p21).

“Using our newly defined principle, we will categorize density as a yang phenomenon in comparison to expansive airiness, which we shall consider a yin phenomenon. By extension, a proton, having weight and density, will be classified as yang in comparison to an electron, which, having relatively little weight and density, will be classified as yin. Movement away from the center of the earth would express the yin tendency; movement toward the center, the yang. Verticality with reference to the earth may be considered an expression of yinness, horizontality an expression of yangness. Based on this latter concept, colors may be classified as a series of changes along the continuum from red to violet. Red describes an electromagnetic wave of low amplitude and frequency that may be said to be dominated by centripetal force. Violet describes a wave of much higher amplitude and frequency and, in comparison, may be said to be dominated by centrifugal force [see the figure below]. Heat and light are ‘centered’ phenomena: their existence presupposes a point of concentration in space and thus may be said to be yang. Cold and darkness are ‘dispersed’ phenomena: they originate at a peripheral nowhere and permeate space, and therefore may be said to be yin. Fire is yang; water, its antagonist, is yin. Shapes, too, may be classified. Shapes like △ contain their greatest bulk toward the bottom. Their movement is downward, and they are thus dominated by the yang tendency. Shapes like ▽ express a centrifugal movement upward and are dominated by the yin” (p21-22).

The continuum from yang red to yin violet (p22).

“If, then, the operation of yin and yang is at the core of nature, what fundamental shape will all entities and processes share? A symbolic representation of the principle of dualistic monism would have to fulfill the following seven requirements: first, it must display a polar structure of the relative world by indicating such things as beginning and end, above and below, periphery and center; second, it must link the two poles of existence indissolubly by showing them to be but the two complementary ends of one continuum; third, it must indicate the stages of change; fourth, it must show the variations of yin and yang within each stage; fifth, it must indicate the change of velocity within the process of change itself; sixth, it must demonstrate the potentiality for simultaneous movement in opposite directions between any two antagonistic poles; and seventh, it must indicate the original source of evolution and show that all evolved entities ultimately return to that source. In so doing, it must reveal the connectedness of the absolute and relative worlds, thereby demonstrating that all dualities are only modifications of an originally unified essence” (p28).

The logarithmic spiral (p29).

“The only pictorial symbol that can fulfill all seven conditions is the logarithmic spiral and its three-dimensional analogue, the helix. The spiral is a two-dimensional structure; the helix is its three-dimensional extension into space. The coils that curve along the ordinary screw exemplify helical structure. Thus, [the figure above] may be viewed in depth, with the periphery near to and the center far from the eye.

“We see in [this figure] that the polarities of both beginning-end and above-below are clearly expressed. We further note that in a logarithmic spiral the center is dense compared to the expanded periphery. The movement from beginning to end within any process follows the line of the spiral from periphery to center. The coils are thus the continuum. All things, phenomena, and beings begin at the periphery and move toward the center.

“The spiral may be portrayed with six or seven coils; each represents either a different stage from inception to conclusion of a process or different elements in the structure of an entity. Analysis into seven or eight parts is usually sufficient for an adequate explanation of the structures and processes within nature… By drawing a line through the spiral and dividing it in half, we see the variation of yin and yang within each stage.

“Since the distance between coils decreases logarithmically, it requires less time to travel from points C to D than from points A to B. This is equivalent to saying that processes speed up toward their conclusion or, in terms of entities, that density is a characteristic of center.

“If we take the empty space between the spiral’s coils to constitute another spiral—this one originating at the center and moving toward the periphery—we shall have indicated the simultaneity of antagonistic tendencies. We shall have also shown the dialectical identity of beginning and end, for the end point of one spiral is the origin of the other.

“Finally, the empty space surrounding and leading into the spiral may be conceived to be the invisible, infinite sea of energy. The world of polarity splits into being at the first point along the periphery of the coil and returns to its origin along the inner spiral” (p28-30).

Figure 1 (p17).

“The original triangle stood for the Goddess’s trinity of Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, she of a thousand names, such as Maya the birth-giving Virgin, Durga the preserving Mother, and Kali Ma the death-dealing Crone. Her primary symbol was a downward-pointing triangle, the Yoni Yantra, sometimes called Kali Yantra. This represented a vulva (Sanskrit yoni), and femaleness in general: by extension, a womb, motherhood, female sexuality, the life spirit embodied in menstrual blood, or the world-activating power of the Goddess herself. The same symbol stood for ‘woman’ and ‘Goddess’ among ancient Egyptians, pre-Hellenic Greeks, Tantric Buddhists, and the gypsies who migrated westward from Hindustan. The primordial female triangle became a male-female hexagram by eight stages, graphically represented as follows.

“At first there was only the Goddess alone, containing within herself all the elements in a fluid, unformed state (Fig. 1)” (p16-17).

Figure 2 (p17).

“With the passage of ages and by her will, eventually a spark of life was formed within her core, represented by a dot (Fig. 2). Tantric sages called this spark the bindu, and one of the Goddess’s titles was Bindumati, Mother of the Bindu. Among Cabalists it became Bina, the Womb of Earth” (p17).

Figure 3 (p17).

“The bindu grew and slowly became a separate being within the Mother (Fig. 3), though it still lay wholly inside her borders. At this early stage of the divine creation, the sages said, darkness (the god) was still enveloped in a greater Darkness (his Mother). The god was still one with the author of his being, Maha-Kali, the Great Power” (p17).

Figure 4 (p17).

“At the fourth stage, the god was born. Represented by an upward-pointing triangle—which often symbolized the masculine principle of fire—the god broke through the boundaries of the primordial maternal triangle (Fig. 4). Here, at the moment of ‘birth,’ the idea of the male deity was conveyed by three solid lines, while that of the female deity became three broken lines. Thus was the design taken apart, and its components utilized as trigrams and hexagrams in the I Ching” (p17).

Figure 5 (p19).

“In allowing her boundaries to be penetrated from within by an emerging Other, the Goddess demonstrated her true creativity. She became the universal Mother. This crucial moment of birth was synonymous with creation, according to the ancient concept. This was the moment when the Goddess (not the emerging God) said, ‘Let there be light,’ because the eyes of her newborn first perceived the light of existence, as he himself might become the light of fire or the sun. In the classical world, the Goddess had names like Juno Lucina or Diana Lucifera, the Bringer of Light. From her the biblical Yahweh copied his Fiat lux.

“The god’s birth was celebrated each year at midwinter. The nocturnal festival was known as the Night of the Mother to pre-Christian Britons, which may explain why Christmas Eve (the time of the actual birth) carried even more significance in Old England than Christmas Day. In Alexandria, the god’s birth was hailed by joyful shouts: ‘The Virgin (Kore) has given birth! The light grows!’ The naked image of the divine birth-giving Virgin was decorated with gold stars and carried seven times around the temple.

“Just as, in pagan belief, creation was a birth, so every birth was a new creation. Each year the Aeon or year-god was reborn from the eternally virgin, eternally maternal Goddess. Thus, at the mystic point of creation itself, the graphic symbol of the Mother became three broken lines, while that of her son-spouse was three solid lines.

“Male and female triangles, one separated, came together again in a very ancient figure that later rounded off to the mathematical symbol of infinity in so-called Arabic numerals, which were actually Hindu in origin. The two tangential circles or teardrop shapes of this sign meant the same as two tangential triangles: the two sexes in contact (Fig. 5). The female triangle above now took on the aspect of a nourishing breast, while the male received her nourishment.

“This was also taken as a sexual sign, in unconscious but nevertheless real recognition of the connection between adult sexuality and bond between mother and infant. According to Tantric symbolism, the female triangle was placed above the male, who then assumed all forms of relationship with her: offspring, twin, spouse, and eventually sacrificial victim, as he became the eternally dying-and-reborn god, similar to Osiris, Attis, Dionysus, Adonis, Orpheus, Yama, and so on. Therefore Tantric yogis and their shaktis (priestesses) favored female-superior sexual positions, which Vedic and Confucian patriarchs condemned because of their association with the Old Religion that they wanted to erase. Though this style of lovemaking was instituted by Shiva as Universal God and the original ‘daughters of the sages’ (shaktis), patriarchal Brahman priests insisted that it was a perversion” (p17-18).

Figure 6 (p19).

“However, Tantric yogis continued to hold that sexual union in true love was an intimation of divinity, giving the partners a sense of merging ‘like pouring of water into water’ (Fig. 6). Similarly in Egypt, the Goddess and her god were represented by vessels of water, their conjunction by a combination of the two waters, as in the sacred talisman known as menat. In the Middle East, a sacrificial god was preceded by a vessel of water in procession to his place of execution, a tradition that was followed even in the story of Jesus (Mark 14:13). Like Shiva, the Christian God also was born of the same Mother on whom, as a divine spouse, he begot himself” (p18-19).

Figure 7 (p19).

“By penetrating each other to the farthest boundary, god and Goddess formed between them the ancient Tantric symbol of the world and also the yoni: a diamond (Fig. 7), flanked by four new triangles that were assimilated to the elements, the four directions, the four corners of the earth (when the earth was supposed to be square), the four winds, the four divisions of the zodiac, the four Sons of Horus, or the Norsemen’s related spirits of north, east, south, and west that upheld the heavens. Sometimes this symbol represented a family or clan. All these ideas could be expressed in a simple glyph of six lines” (p19).

Figure 8 (p19).

“Finally, the ultimate interpenetration was shown by the full hexagram (Fig. 8). Male and female principles extended even beyond each other’s boundaries, becoming ‘one’ in sixfold symmetry. This was the union proposed by cabalists as well as Tantric sages: the symbol of eternal conception and re-creation. This was the hidden reason for the rabbinic traditions claiming that the Ark of the Covenant contained male and female images sexually joined, ‘in the form of a hexagram,’ and that the triple six of Solomon’s golden talents (1 Kings 10:14) represented the king’s sexual union with his goddess, who gave him his great wisdom.

“This explains also the early Christian’s horror of the sixfold symbol of Aphrodite, similarly united with Hermes as the first ‘hermaphrodite,’ and their insistence that three sixes made a devilish number (666) and six was the ‘number of sin.’ However, such sexual joining was envisioned for the male-female Primal Androgyne common to ancient India, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Even Jewish patriarchs declared that Adam and Eve were androgynously united in one body until God separated them.

“The ultimate absorption of the god into the Yoni Yantra (Goddess) was his immolation, usually conceived as a voluntary sacrifice of his life for salvation of the earthly world, which needed the life-force inherent in divine blood. As Kali the Destroyer, the Goddess devoured her consort and returned to the original solitary female form of the Yantra (Fig. 1). Thus the cycles of creation and destruction were carried on throughout the life of universe” (p19-20).

“Sankhya Tattva diagram, illustrating the manifestation processes of creation” (p182), cf. earlier post on the three gunas. Click for larger version.

“Many Hindu Tantrik images represent the first division of the creative urge into male and female, white and red… Without the division there can be no love, no activity or field of action, no puja can be made… Since the time of the oldest Upanisads, subject and object have been called ‘I’ and ‘This’… equated with male and female, Siva and Sakti, male and female dancer…

“The lower levels of the Sankhya diagram define all the various sub-functions and categories through which the original flow of Being-energy is channelled and subdivided to make up the experienced world of forms and time. It is, in fact, a full phenomenological ‘synthetic a priori‘ system, and it matches the pattern of the subtle body remarkably… An important point has always to be remembered. In every experience of every objective ‘This’ by every experiencer the female quantifier is absolutely necessary; but so too is the male reservoir of energy, which supplies the ‘Being’ from the side of the objective, the unitary consciousness of self from the side of the experiencer. Within every yoni, every active world-as-woman, is buried the lingam, the phallus, without which there would be no energy to inflate her pattern. To a primary male spark of Being (Prakasa) the Goddess offers Herself as the ‘Pure Mirror in which He reflects Himself’ (Vimarsa). There are innumerable icons in India which represent the Divine Pair either as a male and a female, He with erect organ, She holding a mirror, or as a single double-sexed being, divided down the centre, the right half male, again with an erect organ, the left half female.

“Philosophy, however, must not be allowed to delude itself with its own constructions. Whilst it may theoretically assume an original spark within the reflection, the moment it seeks to attribute to that spark any character or form it falls into delusion. For: ‘Whatever power anything possesses, that is Goddess… Into the hollows of her hair-pores millions of cosmic eggs constantly disappear… She grants the desires of sadhakas by assuming various forms in play.’ But ‘She who is absolute Being, Bliss, and Consciousness may be thought of as female, male or pure [neuter] Brahman; in reality she is none of these.’ Even these are simply forms She assumes to make sadhana possible” (p181-183).

A ca. 1700 (in one part, invisible) caduceus (p84). Click for larger version.

Tantra asana is a “yogic practice of transcending the human condition. Tantra itself is unique for being a synthesis of bhoga and yoga, enjoyment and liberation. There is no place for renunciation or denial in Tantra. Instead, we must involve ourselves in all the life processes which surround us. The spiritual is not something that descends from above, rather it is an illumination that is to be discovered within.

“Also fundamental in Tantrism is the notion of identity of the human body (anda), the microcosm, with the universe or macrocosm (brahmanda). Tantra holds that the body is the abode of truth, the epitome of the universe; and so man contains within himself, the truth of the whole cosmos. Therefore, the body, with its physiological and physical processes, becomes the perfect medium (yantra) to attain truth. ‘He who realizes the truth of the body can then come to know the truth of the universe’, says Ratnasara” (p15-16).

“Asana is visualized [in the painting above] as the pattern of forces sattva, rajas, and tamas [the three gunas], symbolized by the colours yellow, red and black along with the colourless white of cosmic consciousness — that principle which stays forever motionless, yet acts through its own radiation —, generates all forms of manifestation. The squares complete the suggestion that all this is ‘within’” (p136).

Compare with the coloration of the Classical four elemental processes (see previous post):

Mouravieff corrects Ouspensky’s diagram (see previous post), “which is the most important diagram for all who begin studying esotericism. We can see at first glance that it is not complete, and in addition, it contains grave errors” (p27).

Mouravieff’s correction, p31.

In the corrected diagram above, “the [black] arrows represent the influences created in life by life itself. This is the first kind of influence, called ‘A’ influence. It should be noted that the black arrows cover the surface of the circle of life almost evenly.

“Their effect, as with all radiant forces of nature, is inversely proportional to the square of the distance; that is why man is mainly influenced by the arrows closest to him, so that he find himself drawn at any moment by the result of the present moment. The influence of the ‘A’ arrows on involving man is compulsive; driven by them, he wanders within the circle of his life from birth until death.

“The totality of these ‘A’ influences forms the law of accident, and human fate comes under its rule. But if we examine the diagram more closely we will see that each black arrow is neutralised or counterbalanced by another arrow elsewhere that is equal in force and diametrically opposite in direction, so that had the arrows been left to neutralize each other, the general result would equal zero. This means that, taken as a whole, the ‘A’ influences are of an illusory nature, though their effect is real, and for this reason involving man generally takes them for the only reality in life” (p31).

‘E’ represents “the esoteric center, outside the general laws of life” (p32).

‘B’ influences “are thrown into the turmoil of life by the Esoteric Center. These different influences, which have been created outside life are represented in the diagram by white arrows. They are all oriented towards the same direction. Taken together they form a kind of magnetic field.

“Since the ‘A’ influences neutralise each other, the ‘B’ influences form the only reality in life.

“A man taken in isolation… is represented in the schematic diagram by a finely partitioned circle the surface area of which is crossed by fine diagonal lines except for the small clear area. This means that involving man’s nature is not homogeneous; it is a mixture.

“If a man spends his life without distinguishing between ‘A’ and ‘B’ influences, he will end it in the same way as he began — that is to say, mechanically, moved by the law of accident” (p32).

“Every individual is subject to a kind of preparatory test in life. If he is able to discern the ‘B’ influences and their existence, if he enjoys the taste of gathering them and absorbing them, and if he aspires to assimilate them more and more, then his interior nature, which began as a mixture, will, step by step, begin to undergo a certain evolution. Then, if his efforts to absorb the ‘B’ influences are constant and strong enough, a magnetic center begins to form inside him. That magnetic center is represented in the diagram by the small white area.

“If, once born in him and carefully developed, that center embodies itself, then it will exert an influence on the action of the ‘A’ arrows which are, of course, still functioning. This will lead to a change of direction. This deviation may be violent. It normally goes against the general laws of life, provoking conflicts in and around him. If he loses this battle he will emerge with the conviction that the ‘B’ influences are only an illusion, and that the only reality is represented by the ‘A’ influences. Step by step, the magnetic center that has been formed inside him will be re-absorbed and disappear. After this, his new situation will be worse than it was before he had first begun to discern the ‘B’ influences.

“But if he wins that first fight, his magnetic center, consolidated and reinforced, will attract him to a man of ‘C’ influence — stronger than he is and in possession of a stronger magnetic center than his own. Thus, by way of succession, since the man he had met has a relationship with a man of ‘D’ influence, he in his turn will be linked with the Esoteric Center ‘E’.

“From then on, that man will no longer be isolated in life. He will, of course, continue to live as he did before subject to the action of the ‘A’ influences, which will still exert their dominance upon him for a long time; yet, step by step, and thanks to the effect of the chain of influences B-C-D-E, his magnetic center will develop more and more and to the degree that his magnetic center grows he will evade the domination of the law of accident to enter the domain of consciousness” (p32-33).

“Wouldn’t it be interesting, if the world were structured according to the diagram [above]…

“Light itself consists of energy and ch’i.

“Quantum properties of Light are the refractions of its mass-energy component. Continua are the refractors of its massless ch’i.

“It’s no wonder that a Sanskrit root for Time is Light.

“Energy and mass, inanimate — we call it visible, existent, actual.

“Ch’i, our animate — we call invisible and nonexistent, useful.

“Organism is the active unity. Serenity reflects the active harmony.

“Life is an ongoing metabolism modifying ch’i.

“Evolution trends toward ever greater elegance of function.

“Mental illness follows the uncoupling, shunting, or deranging of selected pathways. Death ensues upon the loss of such a metabolic capability, as remnants then revert to inanimate dust.

“The origin of Life does not lie in the synthesis of a specific molecule, which has been arbitrarily defined to be organic.

“Such a change remains inanimate.

“Life arose with the first separation of the ch’i from Light in an assimilable form.

“Every species possesses a characteristic range of capacities for transforming ch’i.

“Normal offspring are endowed at birth with the lower threshold values; the ability to absorb and transform ch’i then increases with experience and with maturity. There is a steady change in the amount and variety of ch’i available from outside sources; and this, in turn, transmutes the former baseline for metabolism, giving rise to yet another series of resulting ch’i. The new ch’i then serves as the raw material for the succeeding process. Each exposure to a novel form of ch’i increases the proficiency of the inherited metabolizing apparatus.

“The metabolizing apparatus thereby constitutes one’s personality; its metabolic scope prescribes the fullness of one’s livingness; the extension of its scope accounts for creativity.

“There is a wide assortment of means by which the ch’i may enter into the being of the living.

“Primitive forms are continually incarnated in the tissues of green plants in photosynthesis, and these subsequently enter through the mouth as food.

“More sophisticated forms come through the ear, eye, mind, and a multitude of diverse and simultaneous communication channels, as compatibility allows.

“There is no past ch’i or future ch’i.

“Just as former states of energy exist in energy, so former states of ch’i exist in ch’i. And just as later states of energy exist in energy, so later states of ch’i exist in ch’i.

“There is only ch’i with hysteresis and potentiality.

“Men speak of the id, the ego, and the superego.

“Id reminds us of the transporting of ch’i through multimedia among the organisms. Ego, of the processing of ch’i internally in organisms. Superego, of the forming of the virtual presences as higher forms of ch’i by man.

“Wholesomeness of living seems dependent on continuing adjustments of a multitude of delicate coherences with the Whole.

“When the animals evolved the talent to produce a virtual presence, they acquired a soul.

“Then there was a God to be adored.

“And an Adam was created.

“As production of virtual presences increases, man’s tie to the Real decreases.

“Soon, he praises innovation and inhuman courage. He invents thrills and excitements. He relies on myths and mysteries. He downgrades Nature with a reckless chisel.

“Life becomes the Grand Illusion.

“With facility in the manipulation of the virtual presences, the primal Superman was born.

“With perfection in the art, a second Lucifer took charge.

“It was then that man came to defy the Lord.

“The interminable conflict thrusting the virtual presences against the real intensifies.

“As the power of the virtual grows, human values ineluctably turn phony. As the rate of change accelerates they turn ephemeral. And doubt in self and gods both virtual and real then takes its toll.

“The twilight of a great civilization is at hand” (p16-20).

“Fire and heat provide modes of explanation in the most varied domains, because they have been for us the occasion for unforgettable memories, for simple and decisive personal experiences. Fire is thus a privileged phenomenon which can explain anything. If all that changes slowly may be explained by life, all that changes quickly is explained by fire. Fire is the ultra-living element. It is intimate and it is universal. It lives in our heart. It lives in the sky. It rises from the depths of the substance and offers itself with the warmth of love. Or it can go back down into the substance and hide there, latent and pent-up, like hate and vengeance. Among all phenomena, it is really the only one to which there can be so definitely attributed the opposing values of good and evil. It shines in Paradise. It burns in Hell. It is gentleness and torture. It is cookery and it is apocalypse… It is well-being and it is respect. It is a tutelary and terrible divinity, both good and bad. It can contradict itself; thus it is one of the principles of universal explanation” (p7).

“One of the most obvious phenomenological contradictions was brought about by the discovery of alcohol — a triumph of the thaumaturgical activity of human thought. Brandy, or eau-de-vie, is also eau de feu or fire-water. It is a water which burns the tongue and flames up at the slightest spark. It does not limit itself to dissolving and destroying as does aqua fortis. It disappears with what it burns. It is the communion of life and of fire. Alcohol is also an immediate food which quickly warms the cockles of the heart…

“Since brandy burns before our entranced eyes, since, from the pit of the stomach, it radiates heat to the whole person, it affords proof of the convergence of inner experience and objective experiment. This double phenomenology prepares complexes that a psychoanalysis of objective knowledge will be obliged to eliminate in order to rediscover a true freedom of experiment. Among these complexes there is one which is quite special and quite powerful; it is the one which, so to speak, closes the circle; when the flame has run across the alcohol, when the fire has left its mark and sign, when the primitive fire-water has become clearly enriched with shining, burning flames, then we drink it. Only brandy, of all the substances in the world, is so close to being of the same substance as fire.

“In my youth, at the time of the great winter festivals, they used to prepare a brûlot (brandy burnt with sugar). My father would pour into a wide dish some marc-brandy produced from our own vineyard. In the center he would place pieces of broken sugar, the biggest ones in the sugar bowl. As soon as the match touched the tip of the sugar, a blue flame would run down to the surface of the alcohol with a little hiss. My mother would extinguish the hanging lamp. It was the hour of mystery, a time when a note of seriousness was introduced into the festivity. Familiar faces, which suddenly seemed strange in their ghastly paleness, were grouped about the round table. From time to time the sugar would sputter before its pyramid collapsed; a few yellow fringes would sparkle at the edges of the long pale flames. If the flames wavered and flickered, father would stir at the brûlot with an iron spoon. The spoon would come out sheathed in fire like an instrument of the devil. Then we would ‘theorize’: to blow out the flames too late would mean concentrating less fire and consequently diminishing the beneficent action of the brûlot again influenza. One of the watchers would tell of a brûlot that burned down to the last drop… At all costs we were bent of finding an objective and a general meaning for the exceptional phenomenon . . . Finally the brûlot would be in my glass: hot and sticky, truly an essence… When, after the spectacle, we savored the delightful taste of the drink, we were left with unforgettable memories of the occasion. Between the entranced eye and the comfortably-glowing stomach was established a Baudelairien correspondence that was all the stronger since it was all the more materialized…

“If one has not had a personal experience of this hot sugared alcohol that has been born of flame at some joyful midnight festivity, one has little understanding of the romantic value of punch; one is deprived of a diagnostic method of studying certain phantasmagorical poems… The loves of Phosphorus and the Lily illustrate the poetry of fire (third evening):

‘…desire, which is developing a beneficent heat throughout your whole being, will soon plunge into your heart a thousand sharp darts; for . . . the supreme pleasure that is being kindled by this spark I am placing within you is the hopeless grief that will make you perish only to germinate again in a different form. This spark is thought!’ ‘Alas!’ sighed the flower in a plaintive tone, ‘Since such an ardor now enflames me, can I not be yours?’

“In the same story when the witchcraft, which was to have brought back the student Anselme to the poor Veronica, is completed, there is nothing left ‘but a light flame rising from the spirits of wine which burn in the bottom of the cauldron.’ Later in the story the salamander, Lindhorst, goes in and out of the bowl of punch; the flames in turn absorb him and reveal him. The battle between the witch and salamander is a battle of flames; the snakes come out of the tureen filled with punch. Madness and intoxication, reason and enjoyment are constantly presented in combination. From time to time there appears in the stories a worthy bourgeois who would like ‘understand’ and who says to the student:

‘How did this cursed punch manage to go to our heads and cause us to commit a thousand follies?’ These were the words of Professor Paulmann when on the following morning he entered the room that was still strewn with broken mugs, in the midst of which the unfortunate periwig, reduced to its primary elements, was floating about, dissolved in an ocean of punch.

“Thus the rationalized explanation, the bourgeois explanation, the explanation through a confession of drunkenness, is brought in to moderate the phantasmagorical visions, so that the tale appears as being half rational, half dream, as partly subjective experience and partly objective perception, at once plausible in its cause and unreal in its effect” (p83-86).

“As we have seen… inner fire is dialectical in all its properties… As soon as a sentiment rises to the tonality of fire, as soon as it becomes exposed in its violence to the metaphysics of fire, one can be sure that it will become charged with opposites. When this occurs, the person in love wishes to be pure and ardent, unique and universal, dramatic and faithful, instantaneous and permanent. Confronted with the dreadful temptation, the Pasiphaé of Vielé-Griffin murmurs: A hot breath inflames my cheeks, a glacial chill turns me to ice…” (p111-112).

Black figure skyphos with gods, ca. 500 B.C.E (plate III). Click for larger version.

“Although the canonical four color grouping of black, white, red, and yellow is not documented in ancient literature before the first half of the fifth century, it can easily be noticed that these same four colors, separately, together, or in mixtures giving the so-called earth colors, predominate not merely in Greece but all through early cultures. The Greeks, specifically the Attic ceramic craftsmen, had a special relationship to this ‘canon’ in that they refined their color choice, presumably out of a passionate attachment to it, to a glossy black and orange-red as an aesthetic norm. Beings and objects in the pictorial freeze [e.g., above] are shown in black, suggesting the obvious conclusion that this color represents the corporeality, the density, of earth substance. And the frieze itself, be it noted, is reserved in the black density of the pot, also fire earth-substance.

“The orange frieze used in black figure work misses maximum contrast value with the black, so why was it chosen? Perhaps a kind of instinctive insight has always led people to refer to red, or reddish hues, as the color of life… In the circumstances we are considering… the reddish hue can really only represent air (atmosphere), in which all beings and things are bathed. For example if we consider animals or men, they unremittingly draw in life force for the blood through breathing air, whereupon the blood maintains both physical and emotional existence. Red, therefore, represents the air on the macrocosmic plane and in the extended microcosmic sense it represents soul life.

“We can now take stock. The two opposite fix-points, earth-air, provide a contrast that is more spatial than dynamic, for earth and air are fundamentally contiguous, and in an undisturbed state do not act on one another but simply preside over, as it were, the spheres of below and above, respectively. (Fire and water, on the other hand, are by nature hostile to one another, eliminate themselves when, forced together, they must attack each other.) Just as in the relationship of earth and air, the colors black and red have a complementary, not an adversarial, relationship, and it cannot be accidental that as prismatic colors of the Dark spectrum, black and red are precisely contiguous. Nevertheless, the juxtaposition is decisive: black is heavy, immobile, hence can function as support; red as a chromatic color has also a certain density but, as Goethe already noted, it is the least mobile color, so that without forcing a point we could say that it hovers over black. In this way once can feel why the Archaic painters remained so long satisfied with this combination: it gave superb expression to their passionate pursuit of physical reality in a way that no other color and background, e.g., white, could have.

“During the Archaic and Protoclassical periods the Ionian philosophers consistently pondered the nature of the elements on the basis of the polarity principle. Similarly, the colors black and white were seen as polar opposites, like cold and warm, but these colors could not be connected with the actual pair of polar opposites in the elements (fire and water) in view of the factors discussed above. Indeed, apart from black-earth, we shall find that a little leeway must be allowed in assigning color to elements (even red-air). In any case, at this point fire and water are open to appointment to white and yellow. According to the criterion of density already established [in the previous post], yellow, visually the stronger of the two colors, will go to water, the denser element, leaving white for fire (warmth) as the most rarefied substance of all (just as Empedokles took for granted).

“Yellow accordingly is the expression of the principle of fluidity, the functional principle (circulatory system) of the earth planet and all its creatures. Yellow therefore can be called the active color par excellence… White, on the other hand, characterizes the element which is the least physical — which in fact can almost not be conceived of except as an invisible connective (warmth) of the other elements. And indeed on the visual plane white is passive, lacking specific expressionality. It does not in any sense importune us but kindly provides without preconditions an empty space for inner freedom. This makes it highly suitable to represent, at the macrocosmic level, the sphere of pure thought, the goal of nous; the relative loftiness of this sphere may suggest, but does not compel, a connection to the Godhead. I say not compel because the Godhead is logically prior to and beyond all color. Moreover, white can be sullied by the admixture of impure elements, as can pure reason” (p31-33).

“Having established a structured visual paradigm for the relationship of the four elements among themselves [see previous post], we can now consider the associated colors when the paradigms are repeated to show the effects of the respective dominant process… [As] Empedokles himself envisioned: ‘Those elements and forces are to be understood as equally strong and coeval, yet each of them has a different function, each has its own characteristic and in the rounds of time they take their turn being dominant” (p46).

Macrocosmic progressions (p47). Click for larger version.

Fire is the creative principle in (B), (C), (D), hence white; it materializes only in (A), hence red (physical).

Air expands in (A), (B), hence yellow and increases its efforts to do so in (D) hence really a deeper yellow; it loses this quality by taking on weight in (C), hence red (immobility).

Water is the least stable in color. In (A) it is white (diminshingly physical). In (B) water signifies (retains) liquidity even in distillation (oxygen) hence red, yet it also becomes gaseous (hydrogen) thus tending toward yellow; in (C) it achieves maximum movement (yellow) and in (D) it tends toward immobility (red).

Earth is always stable to the extent that it remains the darker part in any condition. In principle, yellow is the color of dispersal, black of concentration, red of intensity or arrested movement and white of non-physicality or minimal physicality.

In all cases the colors share the tendency of the elements to mix themselves constantly and must therefore be taken as in constant gradation from one to the other.

“It must be emphasized that the progressions in [the figure above] relate to the macrocosmos, that is, more precisely, the universal, external and objective — as it were — basis of physical/physiological processes… [Whereas] the implications of elements and colors on the specific level of the human being, whose form and functions — physical, physiological, psychological and mental/moral — constantly interact with the macrocosmos. This is shown in [the figure below]” (p46-47).

Microcosmic progressions (p48). Click for larger version.

Earth is implcit in life processes at all stages providing physicality or its shadow, hence always black.

Water is more subject to movement in (F)-(G), hence yellow but more balanced and stable in (E) and (H), hence red.

Air is more subject to movement in (E) and (H), hence yellow but more stable and dense in (F) and (G), hence red.

Fire is the invisible presupposition of all processes, hence white throughout.

“In structuring the macrocosmic pictures, I employed… the hierarchical evolutionary principle of organization: fire, air, water and earth (as solid matter, the finished product of evolution). By contrast, since the psychological and mental/moral effects of interaction can be realized only by an individual consciousness, the microscopic series is therefore organized according to the biological principle. The order is exactly reversed since the human being begins with earth (physicality) at birth and rises in the end (ideally) to mental/moral ripeness” (p49).

“For the purpose of this study, it is essential to invent a ‘picture’ that can also suggest in spatial terms the concept of the miscibility (krasis) of the [four] elements, since these were understood by the ancients to be processes whereby a constant metamorphosis of the visual configuration of the world at any moment is actually taking place. The descriptive determination of such momentary states lies with two pairs of opposing conditions: hot-cold and wet-dry. These qualities in effect give the parameters of two of the elements, fire and water, whereby it can concluded that fire and water have a particular axial quality, a central governing position in the total concept of four.

“The most obvious and striking aspect of this relationship is, as already suggested, the uncontested polarity of fire and water. The archenemy of fire is water; equally, fire opposes water but with much less immediate impact and finality. Fire is quenched by water; water is evaporated (goes into air) by fire. This stronger quality of water allows it to determine how to pictorialize the relationship. Since the inalienable tendency of water is to seek the horizontal, we may use a horizontal line, whereby the placement of fire and water to left or right is still to be discussed: liquefaction opposes combustion” (p36-7).

“With this given, a second less dramatic but equally inescapable polarity remains: earth and air. Their normal relationship is to be contiguous, with the earth below and the air above… This relationship is logically to be illustrated by a vertical line: condensation opposes rarefaction” (p37).

“Given the interaction of the four elements observable by the senses, we can now cross the two lines” (p38).

“Whereas the position of A and E is given by physical characteristics, the placement of fire and water involves the relationship of left and right. Therefore the science and the laws of picture-making, if there be such, must meet and interact. There is no left and right bias in fire and water as such, but there is a fundamental difference between left and right visually… It was the merit of Vassily Kandinsky, acting on a suggestion of Goethe, to have conceptualized the picture plane as an area — blank or not — that is alive with tensions of weight. Indeed, that plane is an excerpt of each observer’s bodily relationship to the horizontal-vertical conditions of earthly existence. Thus the horizontal and vertical represent, respectively, earth’s plan from L to R and space from up to down. This visual resistance experienced in a defined rectangular pictorial space is naturally strongest below and weakest above. The next strongest resistance (tension) is offered by the right side; this is reduced on the left side but not so much as up and down. Thus, there are four degrees of density (sc. visual density) as represented by the following scheme” (p38):

“The applicability of Kandinsky’s reasoning to the problem at hand, if any, must be axiomatic, as indeed all geometrical reasoning lies inextricably rooted in the human body/mind condition. We may therefore criticize the suggested scheme with fire and water inserted” (p39).

“No conflict exists in the vertical plan. The potential conflict is in the horizontal. Although W is correctly placed on the right in relation to A and E, fire cannot easily be related to density in the sense of the other three. That is because, in contrast to ancient (and some current esoteric) thought that warm is a (primeval) substance, present scientific thought sees fire (warmth) as a condition of other substances. In terms of our picture, a resolution of this dilemma may be sought in regarding the elements not as substances but as processes, where there can be no conflict. In this sense we then have the completed diagram as follows” (p39-40):

“Taking into account again Kandinsky’s criteria and visualizing the results of the four processes in terms of changes of density in weighable and measurable materials of earth existence, combustion is clearly in the right position. Combustion can lighten matter, leaving ashes which are lighter than water or earth but still ultimately heavier than air; and on the other hand it may intensify the process of rarefaction and thus contribute to lightness.

“The next problem is to show the opposing pairs of elements in descriptive sense-analytical terms of early thought. These are described by Empedokles as hot/cold and wet/dry. The existence of four quadrants allows us to arrange these terms in the sense of equally balancing contrasts” (p40):

“N.B. the data about the elements contained in [the above diagram] can also be rendered, and more conveniently, by attaching the information about hot/cold and wet/dry to the vectors, as in the diagram below” (p43), a unified picture of the four elements theory:

“The persistent implication in the method of constructing the picture of the Four Elements theory… namely, that this is an irreducible explanation of earthly realities valid for all of humanity, requires a further comment. The elements qua substance require to be thought of as occupying real space: they are in a sense the planet we live on, they are our own body/mind entity. As such they are Being. But they are also synonymous with processes, so that one could just as well speak of the four processes theory — and as such they belong to the realm of time: they are Becoming. There is evidence that the Greeks themselves conceived of this latter idea without, however, living so much in consciousness of the technical potentialities of the processes which dominate our minds, but rather in the blessedness of feeling the processes as earthly projections of realities inherent in higher worlds. Nowhere is this so explicitly put as in a dialogue of Plutarch (De Defectu Oraculorum, 10):

Others (other authors) say, there is a transmutation of bodies as well as of souls; and that, just as we see of the earth is engendered water, of the water air, and of the air fire, the nature of substance still ascending higher, so good spirits always change for the best, being transformed from men into heroes, and from heroes into Daemons; and from Daemons, by degrees and in a long space of time, a few souls being refined and purified come to partake of the nature of the Divinity.

“If we consider this passage in microscopic terms, the reference to men, whose highest earthly member is nous (fire) [see following post], translates into an overlapping of the circle of the four elements by a higher circle of which nous is the lowest member with three stages above it, each of a finer and more (spiritually) rarefied nature: heroes, Daemons, and the Divine itself. The result of this merger of Heaven as the fifth element and fourfold man is therefore a sevenfold picture in all” (p43-4).

From chapter three (bipeds). Click for larger version.

From chapter eleven (architecture). Click for larger version.

From chapter two (fauna). Click for larger version.

“These three figures are said to be most ‘fecund’, not only for geometry but for all sciences and for contemplating and operating” (p314).

Figura Mentis, p307. C.f. Cusanus’s paradigmatic diagram and the mouth of Ra.

“There is… a ‘supernal triad’, consisting of the Father, or mind, or plenitude; of the Son, or the primal intellect; of Light which is the spirit of all things, or the anima mundi… ‘Ancient theologians,’ Bruno continues, understand by the Father, mind or mens, who generates intellect, or the Son, between them being fulgor, or light or love. Hence one may contemplate in the Father, the essence of essences; in the Son the beauty and love of generating; in fulgor, or light, the spirit pervading and vivifying all. Thus a triad may be imagined; ‘pater, mens; filium verbum; et per verbum, universa sunt producta’. From mens proceeds intellectus; from intellectus proceeds affectus or love. Mens sits above all; intellectus sees and distributes all; love makes and disposes all. This last is light or fulgor which fills all things and is diffused through all. Whence it is called the anima mundi and spiritus universorum, and is that of which Virgil spoke when he said ‘spiritus intus alit’” (p309-310).

Figura Intellectus, p307.

“A remarkable feature of [Bruno's] De monade is the use which [he] makes in it of Cecco d’Ascoli‘s necromantic commentary on the Sphere of Sacrobosco… The longest quotation from Cecco comes when Bruno is discussing ten, the number sacred to the ten Sephiroth. He mentions these, but later describes orders of demons or spirits whose hierarchies can be contemplated in the intersection of circles. ‘These (the orders of demons) are contemplated in the intersection of circles, as Astophon says in libro Mineralium constellatorum. O how great, he says, is the power in the intersection of circles.’ This is a quotation of Cecco’s quotation from the Astophon who is to be heard of nowhere else and was probably invented by Cecco. It throws light on why intersecting circles are such a prominent feature in the diagrams by which Bruno represents his Hermetic trinity…” (p322-323).

Figura Amoris, p307.

“Light, says Bruno, is the vehicle in the inner world through which the divine images and intimations are imprinted, and this light is not that through which normal sense impressions reach the eyes, but an inner light joined to a most profound contemplation, of which Moses speaks, calling it ‘primogenita’, and of which Mercurius also speaks in Pimander. Here the Genesis-Pimander equation, so characteristic of the Hermetic-Cabalist tradition, is applied by Bruno to creation of the inner world” (p336).

Paddy Jupurrurla Nelson, Paddy Japaljarri Sims, and Larry Jungarrayi Spencer, Yanjilypiri Jukurrpa (Star Dreaming), 1985 (f109).

“The Australian deserts appears empty and inhospitable to those who do not know them, but to the Aboriginal groups who inhabit these areas, the lands created by their ancestors and infused with their powers are places rich in spiritual meaning and physical sustenance.

“Geographically, the desert includes mountain ranges and spectacular rock-formations, grassy plains, strands and eucalypt and mulga trees, lakes, salt pans, sandhills, and stretches of stony country occasionally broken by seasonal watercourses and rivers and punctuated by rare permanent rockholes, springs, waterholes and soakages… Across this landscape spreads a web of ancestral paths travelled by the supernatural beings on their epic journeys of creation in the Jukurrpa or Dreaming, linking the topography firmly to the social order of the people” (p97).

“The basic elements of the pictorial art are limited in number but broad in meaning… Characteristic of the range of conventional designs and icons are those denoting place or site, and those indicating paths or movement. Concentric circles may denote a site, a camp, a waterhole or a fire. In ceremony, the concentric circle provides the means for the ancestral power which lies within the earth to surface and go back into the ground. Meandering and straight lines may indicate lightening or water courses, or they may describe the paths of ancestors and supernatural beings. Tracks of animals and humans are also part of the lexicon of desert imagery. U-shapes usually represent settled people or breasts, while arcs may be boomerangs or wind-breaks, and short straight lines or bars are often spears and digging sticks. Fields of dots can indicate sparks, fire, burnt ground, smoke, clouds, rain, and other phenomena.

“The interpretations of these designs are multiple and simultaneous, and depend on the viewer’s ritual knowledge of a site and the associated Dreaming. The meanings are elaborated and enhanced by the various combinations or juxtapositions of designs in the paintings, and also by the social and cultural contexts within which they operate — whether for ceremony or public domain, for instance. The combinations of designs allow for endless depth of meaning, and artists in decribing their work distinguish between those meanings that are indented for public revelations and those which are not, and provide the appropriate level of interpretation” (p98-99).

Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, Bandicoot Dreaming, 1991 (f98).

“It is by the acquisition of knowledge, not material possessions, that one attains status in Aboriginal culture. Art is an expression of knowledge, and hence a statement of authority. Through the use of ancestrally inherited designs, artists assert their identity, and their rights and responsibilities. They also define the relationships between individuals and groups, and affirm their connections to the land and the Dreaming” (p14-15).

“As a statement of authority, the aesthetic in art is often articulated in terms of ritual knowledge. Through art, individuals express their authority and knowledge of a subject, the land and the Dreaming, and artists will use their authority to introduce change and innovation” (p16).

“In ritual, paintings… are not intended to be static images requiring studied contemplation. Rather, since designs embody the power of supernatural beings, they are intended to be sensed more than viewed” (p59-60).

Seth, Master of the South, and Horus, Master of the North, the perpetual antagonists. Both of their heads emerge from a single body that stands on two horizontal bows evoking the energy potential that can make manifest the two inverse forces through the stimulation of the passage of Re (fig3).

Writes Schwaller de Lubicz, “Every circle, as a circular movement, has a center. This center controls this continuous and regular curve, which is closed; it is attractive, just as the circumference is repellent (centrifugal). This center is an abstract power which rules the phenomenon of circular movement. Two centers make an elliptical (or assimilated) movement if the curve is closed. If the curve is not closed but is superimposed, the center beomes a line or figure, horizontal for a spiral, vertical for a helicoidal curve, etc.

“The center controls; it is the will of the figure. Three axes of equal length, intersecting at 90°, are the will of the cube. The form of movement and the form of the Euclidian volume are in the center and in its radiation.

“I say that the will of a rotating sphere is the magnetic axis, and its equator is the centrifugal electrical effect. On the other hand, every magnetic effect is contradicting will, which produces the dilating, equatorial electrical effect. Inversely, every circlular electrical current provokes the magnetic axial effect. Will is esoteric; effect is exoteric.

“But where, then, is the will of the ‘container,’ the non-Euclidean volume?

“Its will is the seed, that is, the specification of the ‘contents,’ hence a genesis — that is, Time, for Time is none other than genesis. Genesis appears to us as Time.

“Now, all will of movement and of form is a specification of Energy. Will is thus identified with the seed, as the specifier, and, as genesis, appears as Time or duration.

“The seed ordains the volume, that is, Space; the genesis of this Space ordains Time. Will is what Lao-Tzu calls ‘the empty hub of the wheel.’

“The Absolute Will of the Origin includes all specifications.

“Everything that is naturally specified is a symbol and the expression of a will, hence of a specifying seed of non-objectifiable Energy: the Container, the non-polarized Sprit-substance. The specifying Will, the ‘Fire’ of the seed, was called the ‘odor’ by ancient Egyptians — the ‘odor’ of the Neter, (that is, in an esoteric sense, that which is emanated by the Neter like an ejaculated seed).

“The contained will must always be sought in the symbol, when the symbol is selected for an esoteric teaching. The character of this Will is that which will always compel Spirit — non-polarized Energy — to define itself in Time and Space, hence in the form of the symbol. This is the ‘magical’ meaning of the symbol. With regard to Spirit, this ‘magic’ operates like the Platonic Idea, just as rhythm acts on our will of movement; we obey despite and at odds with everything, even when we do not give in” (p69-70).

Invocation -76. Click for larger version.

Writes Qadri:

“to find
some meaning in life
is to give one to it
and find,
that it is meaningless.”

Pranayama, 2002, p101. Click for larger version.

Comments Donald Kuspit, “The ecstatic moment of full consciousness of the metaphysical truth about existence is a moment of aesthetic shock: concretizing the metaphysical truth [of the doctrine of Sunyata], Qadri’s icons give us an aesthetic shock. ‘The Pali word samvega is often used to denote the shock or wonder that may be felt when the perception of a work of art becomes a serious experience,’ Ananda Coomaraswamy writes. The perception of a work of art becomes a serious experience when it stirs ‘the will or mind’ to ‘consideration of the Eight Emotional Themes (birth, old age, sickness, death, and suffering arising in four other ways),’ and, ‘in the resulting state of distress, then gladdens it by the recollection of the Buddha, the Eternal Law… when it is in need of such gladdening’. Thus meditation on Qadri’s icons is therapeutic. The tensions in them — between contrasting colors, lines, and rhythms as well as light and dark — evoke our inner conflicts and distress even as their aesthetic resolution gladdens us, finally raising our spirits” (p14).

Purusha, 1999, p82. Click for larger version.

“Thus aesthetic shock is two-sided: it subverts ordinary consciousness by exposing the conflicts hidden by it even as it signals the extraordinary consciousness that resolves them. Qadri’s icons are as divided against themselves — fault lines run through some of them — as they are unified. They shock us into awareness of the eternal law stated in the doctrine of Sunyata. Meditation is not some mindless act of egoistic communion with oneself, but upsets one’s sense of selfhood, however, ultimately calming and enlightening by reason of its revelation of the eternal law. But the way to Buddha-like calm is through aesthetic delight, as Qadri’s icons show” (p14-15).

Ouspensky quotes G., “‘The results of the influences whose source lies outside life [i.e., esoteric influences] collect together within him, he remembers them together, feels them together. They begin to form within him a certain whole. He does not give a clear account to himself as to what, how, and why, or if he does give an account to himself, then he explains it wrongly. But the point is not in this, but in the fact that the results of these influences collect together within him and after a certain time they form within him a kind of magnetic center, which begins to attract to itself kindred influences and in this manner it grows. If the magnetic center receives sufficient nourishment, and if there is no strong resistance on the part of the other sides of a man’s personality which are the result of influences created in life [i.e., nation, climate, family, education, wealth, customs, etc.], the magnetic center begins to influence a man’s orientation, obliging him to turn round and even to move in a certain direction. When the magnetic center attains sufficient force and development, a man already understands the idea of the way and he begins to look for the way. The search for the way may take many years and lead to nothing. This depends upon conditions, upon circumstances, upon the power of the magnetic center, upon the power and the direction of inner tendencies which are not concerned with this search and which may divert a man at the very moment when the possibility of finding the way appears’” (p200).

“‘If the magnetic center works rightly and if a man really searches, or even if he does not search actively yet feels rightly, he may meet another man who knows the way and who is connected directly or through other people with a center existing outside the law of accident, from which proceed the ideas which created the magnetic center’” (p200-201).

Ouspensky’s embodiment and, below, its legend (p204).