Image by Art4TheGlryOfGod by Sharon via Flickr
by Tristan A. Shaw
Writer, Dandelion Salad
British Columbia, Canada
December 28, 2014
I write these words for those interested in the esoteric domain of philosophy (real philosophy). Certain truths, in seeming contradiction, may be reconciled with a novelty of perspective – and so may this short piece help one’s struggle with the many difficulties which inexorably lay ahead.
What is Philosophy?
Do not be fooled by modern confusion. Philosophy is not a “discipline” isolated from science and art. In fact, the essence of genuine philosophy can be described as the quintessential art of human Being. Like all art, philosophy exercises the creative impulse of Spirit. It seeks to harmonize the vital relationship between action and thought (a unity of expression and behavior). And when this is done well and the philosopher is no longer a hypocrite, the divine power of human creativity unfolds its mystic effect within his/her perceptible reality. Things change, and then you change even more – and so the realization of Spirit’s ascension, exponential in nature, expounds its greatness upon human experience. Words produce little discernible effect upon reality, but when behavior synergizes with rhetoric, its impact can be infinitely larger.
Philosophy, therefore, is the highest aspiration of mind because it holds Wisdom as its guiding energy.
What is Wisdom?
Wisdom is usually equated (arbitrarily) to the human faculty of finite intelligence. But it doesn’t take much contemplating to distinguish the difference: psychopaths can be unusually ‘intelligent’ while at the same time contain almost no Wisdom. Wisdom is universally consistent and immutably perfect.
What force assembles the ingredients of an atom? It is clear that the word “material” is an insufficient description of mortal reality – has there ever been any discovered? An atom is 99.9999 percent space, with that tiny decimal of “matter” not comprising anything substantial or stable enough to properly label it so (it pops around, and in and out of existence, in some sort of quantum effect).
Likewise, what assembles the holistic order of cellular intelligence (and other microbiology)? What orders the perfect orbits and positions of celestial systems? Try contemplating how a complete solar eclipse is even possible, that is, how did the dimensions of Earth, Moon, and Sun evolve with such mechanically precision?
The answer is what ancients call “Wisdom.” It is divine. It is universally present in everything. It is an energetic emanation of ethere, of Spirit. And so, what makes a human wise? (Let’s term a phase, “Divine Energy,” to be interchangeable with Wisdom.) No one can be wise without Divine Energy, culminating up the 7 chakras. No one can resist being anything but wise when Divine Energy is in high states. Consciousness rises to higher planes of perception. Wisdom rises in direct proportion to your level of conscious awareness.
Wisdom, according to Hermetic tradition, is the highest plane within reality’s sacred triad (the holy trinity).
Hermetic Trinity
The three dimensions of Universe, or reality, are not separated in any way. Even an atom contains each fundamental pillar.
Wisdom is the highest cause of everything (pre-eminent and super-essential). It is Spirit. It is the pure energy of Soul and Consciousness.
The second plane which mediates between high and low is, through history, called “Eternal Law,” “Cosmic Intelligence,” “Universal Mind,” and so on. It is the intermediation, the communication, from Wisdom to material reality, organizing ALL with the instrument of communication.
The third plane, lowest and most base, is mortal or material reality, experienced through perceiving the limitations of space-time, producing the perception of solid “here and there,” “before and after.”
I reckon the third plane is not an accurate representation of what Hermes Trismegistus actually taught; teachings that were interpreted from ancient Egyptian iconography and language through millennia of dark ages and translated into many languages. A more accurate representation of the role and function of the second plane of universal Being, of communication and order, is better articulated (using modern English) by the idea of sound (harmonic frequency). Sacred fractals, geometric patterns, sympathetic resonance; music is the act of creation through conscious intent. So is all language a vibritory medium, it codifies intent.
Pythagoras is popularized with a phrase “harmony of the spheres.” It is easier, using finite cognition, to understand the cosmos through the music of divine expression. It is a message, a way of codifying Spirit, and uses a fundamental principle that applies to everything: vibration (nothing is static).
What is Truth?
Truth (when capitalized) expresses a force more essential than the relative truth of mortal facts. We can know the truth of an isolated occurrence in time and place, a materially relative truth, and then we can know the Truth of “morality” and “purpose.”
This is why the written word can attempt to impart messages and meaning. In other words, Truth is principal … it is intelligible and apprehensible. It organizes. It flows from the purity of Spirit – but is not the sum total of Spirit itself.
Is Truth static?
We think of Truth as something our minds can “learn.” It is something we can “realize,” something we “recognize.” We think Truth is something “out there,” waiting to be assimilated into sentient cognition.
But Truth, surely, is not static. Truth is expressed by the superior force of Spirit, and therefore must evolve like Spirit. We evolve. Everything evolves! Truth must be mutable…
Have you ever experienced a series of consecutive material circumstances that are all too consistently unfavorable to discard as “coincidental chance” (words that mean nothing and therefore violate the nature of Universe). Has life ever spontaneously revolutionized into favourable harmony and provided material prosperity?
This is Truth’s own malleability, its intrinsic creative power. The notion of “positive thinking” and “create your own reality” is clearly grounded in the second plane of reality which is molded by Spirit-Consciousness-Wisdom.
Therefore, Truth is created – Mozart, Socrates, Hermes, etc. It reaches toward highest reality through the infinite creative potential of music and rhythm. We can all create Truth, much like the concept of Shaman magic or Witchcraft, by expressing our own unique musical emanations (within consciousness, not merely verbal language). And the more harmonically balanced these musical laws are, the more material reality synchronizes with Spirit, with Wisdom.
And so: we all can create cosmic principles that manifest change in the lower realm of material reality … we disseminate our own moral codes that were never pre-existent. Stated differently, we all can (and always do, within endless degrees) influence the Universe’s ‘operating manual,’ by virtue of Spirit – law is not static.
The Significance of Creative Power (Truth)
Modern society is propelled by its industrial engine of profit. It is clearly and irrevocably moving toward systematic collapse. Earth’s living organism, the nature supporting the human world, will destory it with ease. And indeed, this fact is organic and therefore cannot be intepreted as “bad” or “unfortunate.” On the contrary, one could pose a legitimate argument for the virtue of industrial meltdown. Of course! It needs to happen, and so it will. It is a virus threatening to consume its life host. The virus must, and most certainly will, be eviscerated by nature’s unrivalled power to destroy (and thus create).
If 7 billion humans, swelling with the insatiable desire of material culture, are headed toward this chasm, this unknown cliff, what can be used as a stable life-vessel to ensure our sustainability? How can we begin to contemplate this?
It must reside in the mystical relationship between consciousness and matter, the extraordinary phenomena sometimes called “synchronicity” – experiences that violate any Newtonian-type ideation (if an improbability occurs 7 consecutive times, intuitive-reason must discard “randomness” as a serious explanation). This concept can be the analytical vehicle into which we place confidence and trust. It has the ability, when properly understood, to ensure survival, it ensures a new beginning of spiritual awakening.
If Newtonian thought is not a complete explanation of ALL, as it completely ignores how consciousness supersedes physics, how can we move toward completing it?
In considering the history of human evolution, we may recognize the holistic order balancing the polarized nature of Universe.
Many mathematicians, viewing our past through the modern perspective, have pointed out the mind-bending statistical improbability that must have all coalesced (synchronization) to evolve the biological complexity of the human species. Planetary positions (with the flawless lunar system) converged into a perfected order that made our fragile nature evolve: first with primal life forms; then, to facilitate the necessary change, extinction events produced perfect conditions for only a few species, the ones which contained human potential. I cannot complete this picture myself, but I have heard some modern thinkers explain this (mystery) as not simply statistically unlikely, but so mathematically improbable that is it more accurate to call it impossible (according to Newtonian physics). So why would we use Newtonian law to explain a reality that violates its basic principles?
Ancient philosophy has much to contribute. They use words like “intelligence” to describe the “purpose” of everything. The unstained purity of Spirit, existing in highest Being, existing in eternal perfection, creates the seeds of biological life … in order to evolve its own infinite greatness. All things ascend. (Evolution moves in one direction only … time can only move one direction, things advance.) Perfection can still grow. All art is created by our Spirit as perfect, and yet it evolves into something greater. As above, so below (is the great Hermetic principle). Human evolution, therefore, did not result from a random series of unexplainable circumstances, which modern institutions instill. Evolution can only be understood if we ignore Darwin and Newton and the institutions that exploit them. Evolution is nature. Nature is unity polar being: Female and Male, Water and Fire, Intuition and Reason. To understand evolution you must unite these two contrasts together. They must be in harmony, which then means that intuition must govern reason.
Reason, untempered by intuition, spirals in its own direction, producing a type of madness. Just take a look around. Reason is used without intuition to justify the free market. Take a modern class on economics and your head might explode with reason. Intuition must light the true path forward, and then reason may be used to understand where intuition has taken it.
Harmony produces order (the word cosmos literally means “well-ordered”).
According to all esoteric tradition, Spirit is described as androgynous, being above both Male and Female poles of Being. So too is the ethereal (substance or energy) of Spirit within each of us, animating our awareness. Human evolution is just one isolated experiment within a vast multitude (countless perhaps) of similar experiments. Our evolution is no different.
In light of this, total systemic breakdown (cleaning the canvas for new Truth) cannot be conceptualized using reason alone. It too requires unity. It too contains inexplicable order, intelligence and purpose that are unavoidable – and that is the point!
The number of those who will successfully weather the impending revolution will be determined by our own capacity for creative Truth. Each being has within its reach two directions he/she may move. The two extremes will branch outwards. Help kill the modern virus within yourself, create beauty and meaning to replace it, and you can be certain that this will overcome any degree of darkness (darkness is always inferior to light). Or chose to descend with the sinking ship of modernity.
Natural law is not a misfortune that awaits our kind. This thought comes from the same corruption that is in discord with nature. Instead, a mystery containing limitless potential awaits the human journey through time, and we may as well embrace the Wisdom that underlies it all.
Tristan A. Shaw is a young writer residing off the West coast of Canada. He invites constructive communication at tristanshw@gmail.com.
from the archives:
Embracing the Specter of Systemic Collapse by Tristan A. Shaw
Introduction to Intelligibility by Tristan A. Shaw
The Man From the North: Wisdom: A Force Unstoppable by Rivera Sun
The Great Unknown by Tristan A. Shaw
Dandelion Salad 