The Ever-present Origin. Part One

Chapter Eight

The Foundations of the Aperspectival World

1. The Ever-Present Origin (Complementing Cross Sections)

One difficulty which to some will seem insurmountable is the difficulty of "representing" the aperspectival world. This world goes beyond our conceptualization. By the same token, the mental world once went beyond the experiential capability of mythical man, and yet this world of the mind became reality. Anyone who objects that the aperspectival world is, in spatial terms, unimaginable, incomprehensible, impalpable, inconclusive, and unthinkable - and there will be no end to such objections - falls victim to his own limitations of comprehension and to the visual representation imposed by his world. Some will undoubtedly also be irritated by the talk of arational possibilities which are not to be confused with the irrational or pre-rational.

From our deliberations it will have become evident that we reject neither rationalists nor irrationalists. We leave such a mutual rejection to the antagonists themselves since it is nothing more than homage to a dualism that must be overcome. While rationalists regard everything non-rational as being merely objectionable irrationality, irrationalists regard the rational as being merely irrational - as irrational as our spatial world is in the eyes of Indians who regard it as "Maya" (appearance). We are not speaking in favor of this antithetical negation and rejection, but we have called attention to their respective deficient manifestations. Indeed we have gone even beyond this and shown that even the pre-rational was not just valid at one time but rather that its structure continues to be effective in us as one of our co-constituents, and further, that the archaic structure is ineradicable and remains ever-present even today as a consequence of its originary presence.

Just as the magic structure cannot be represented but only lived, the mythical structure not represented but only experienced, and the rational structure neither lived nor experienced but only represented and conceptualized, so the integral structure cannot be represented but only "awared-in-truth." This perception or "verition" is, then, not an impossibility if the fourth-dimensional coordinate system receives a consciousness character. (It will be the task of Part II to bring this out and make it perceptible.) Here we would only recall that the aperspectival world, which is arational, does not represent a synthesis. To be a synthesis it would have to attempt to unite two worlds - for instance, the rational and the irrational - an attempt which paradoxical thinking undertakes. But here we are concerned with at least four worlds or structures, each of which is valid as well as necessary; and the fifth isabsolutely required.

In the face of these four structures and the fact that not only originality but also lived events, experience, conception, and thinking or cognition must be achieved in and through us, a fifth cannot be attained by synthesis but only by integration. And one of the "avenues" toward this integration is for us to concretize the previous structures that constitute us. This means that they must at the same time become present to our awareness in their respective degrees of consciousness. Only what is present is perceptible, just as "awaring-of-truth" is also a truth-imparting act of presentiation or making-present. Perception-in-truth or "verition" is not bound to our capacity of sight, which primarily shapes the mental structure; but without in any way going beyond the senses, it presentiates forms of appearance or manifestation and is thus able to perceive diaphaneity, which cannot be realized by simple seeing, hearing, or sensation.

Again it should be emphasized that perception is not a super-sensory process. Concepts such as intuition and the like are definitely out of place when characterizing it. It is an integral event and, if you will, an integral state of the "itself." It is presential and itself renders diaphanous; and this diaphaneity can neither be heard, intuited, nor seen. That is to say: through perception or verition the merely audible, intuitable, and visible world will be present in its entirety or wholeness. What is necessary is that this integrity and integrality be actualized.

The actualization of this entirety or wholeness is possible only when the parts which form together merely an aggregate can, by the decisive act of perception and impartation of truth, become a whole. For this to happen there is one basic prerequisite: the parts must be heard or experienced, intuited or endured, seen or thought in accord with their very essence. Only concretized parts can be integrated; the abstract, and especially the absolute, always remain separated parts (although this is not to deny the clarifying and epistemic capacity of abstraction within its commensurate mental structure).

The deliberations of the last three chapters were devoted to the concretion of parts (chapters 5, 6, 7). They form a complement to our first summary chapter (4) and were arranged in accord with the mutations. These chapters should have brought to perception the conditionality of the magic structure as manifest in its point-like nature, and the temporal boundaries of the mythical structure that are a counterpole to its limitlessness and are expressed by the fact that thought emerged from myth. In addition, the mythic-psychic world required this temporal limitation otherwise the necessary left-right interchange which was attempted would have remained unachievable. Finally, besides revealing the conditionality and the temporal boundaries of the magic and rnythical structures respectively, these chapters may have suggested the limitation of the mental-rational structure as reflected in the consequences of its one-sidedness, that is, in its emphasis on the right, which to a great extent was substituted for all other forms of directionality and directedness - a limitation visible in the three-dimensional violation of time.

On the basis of these findings we were able to clarify implicitly that the previous "time" was a degraded time. Instead of being left as a functional and constitutive dimension, directing and spatializing, it was itself directed and spatialized. This error was unavoidable in a purely spatialized world-conception. And with regard to spirit, we were also able to clarify implicitly that what has hitherto been called "spirit" was a degraded spirit seen either in psychistic or in abstract terms, an error possible only in a world-view entangled in the psyche. In a world representation, spirit has no place since it is an arational "magnitude"; as "spirit" it was necessarily excluded and separated from the world and absolutized just as time is a degraded form of "coming-to-time " so is the spirit a degraded form of the "spiritual." Both can be actualized only within the amateriality of the integral structure, just as space is realized only within the material and soul in the immaterial structures.

In order to present an annotated, though incomplete, survey of the fundamentals of the aperspectival world as well as sonne of the findings in chapters 5, 6, and 7, we would like to include them in several complementary cross-sectional tables. We begin with those cross-sections which complement the ones already given earlier for the forms of realization and thought in cross-section 11.a) and b). This results in the following additional summary:

In this connection let it be noted that the attributions for the integral structure in these and subsequent cross-sections present only suggestive indications and not perspectival postulations or positings. As we have summarized these cross-sections on the preceding pages, we believe their reiteration here to be unnecessary. Cross-sections 15,16, and 17 by contrast will be treated differently:

We consider cross section 15 necessary here since it complements the cross-sections 9 and 10; moreover, it is not unimportant that we take into account the "numinous" role played by out organs in the awakening of consciousness, particularly as a residue of this once-numinous or mana-like efficacy is still effective in various places today. (The deficiently magic blood-and-earth slogan of the "Thousand Year Reich," which was defeated after only twelve years,is merely one example among many.)

We have designated semen and blood as the solelocalization of soul in the magic structure because they most clearly expressthe original point-like dispersion of the soul over all "points" experienceable by magic man. Blood and semen were vehicles of the soul since these substances are the pre-eminentvital forces. The numinous property of such substances and fluids has remained effective down to our own mental era: the blood of Christ is administered in symbolic, sacramental form in the wine; and the semen has a major role, notably in the writings of the Gnostics in the notion of the logos spermatikos. In Greece Hippias still called semen the locus of the soul, while Critias located it in the blood.

With the mythical structure an upward relocation of emphasis an the organs considered numinous becomes evident: a shift from the vital to the emotive sphere symbolized and designated by the diaphragm and the heart. We observed this shift as we examined the changes in the individual Greek numinous concepts, as in etor which originally denoted "blood" and later "heart." The diaphragm, moreover, is related to breathing, and like the heart-beat, is a polar occurrence. In the mythical sphere it is the heart that hears and is spoken to; sight does not yet play a decisive role. Hence there are good reasons why mythical bards like Homer are represented as being blind; their view of the soul does not require an eye to view the visible world, but a sight turned inward to contemplate the inner images of the soul.

And finally it is generally known that as a consequence of the mental structure the locus or organ of so-called psychic processes is considered to be the spinal cord and the brain. The first to make this claim was Alkmaion, and present-day materialistic psychologists will be the last, for this they can always invoke the Support of Descartes.

The attributions in cross-section 16 will likely be comprehensible without further explanation. As to mythicalrelegio and mental "religion," they provide a basis for us to infer the existence of the proligio of the magic structure, a term which expresses more accurately the essence of so-called "primitive religion." It is the tie to the "point" that has validity "for" (pro) magic man in the sense of the pars pro toto; and magic man's closeness to origin makes it illusory to speak here of "religion," which presupposes in any event the mental consciousness structure. In the same sense we cannot speak of mere "religion" with respect to the integral structure. Presentiation is "more" than a tie to the past; it is also an incorporation of the future.

Inasmuch as presentiation integrates the presence of the past as well as the presence of the future, the ties of the integral structure are ties to praeligio. This praeligio excludes all delusions and prepossessions; it is without expectation, without hope of something, since everything to be hoped for is latent in us and is realized through praeligio. The same is true of recollection and of the interchange between the conditioned above and below, between the temporally limited left and right, as well as the bound before and alter. Praeligio is thus a commitment to the emergent transparency of the presence of origin,which, as soon as man becomes conscious of it, enables him to perceive as well as to impart the truth of integrity or the whole. The praeligio does not exclude any of the other forms of tie or commitment; rather it integrates them "into" the whole.

Finally, with regard to cross-section 17, we have repeatedly referred to the magic pars pro toto. We also remind the reader of the characteristic ambivalence of the Greek term psyche which signifies not only "soul" but also "life" within the mythical context. That life, symbolized by mythic-psychic images, always contains its complementary death pole. The first "motto" expresses the unifying moment; the second, the polar. In the third we find Parmenides' sentence, the positing "is"; and in the fourth the intimation that verition is neither a unification, a polarization, a postulation, nor a synthesis, but rather an integration by means of which origin - which places its imprint on the whole - becomes the perceived present. 

2. Summation and Prospect

Here we conclude our attempt to exposit the foundations of a new mutation. To the extent that we have been successful in making this mutation evident it will be apparent that the four structures which constitute man must be perceived in their entirety as a whole. The mutations are an awakening of consciousness, and their "history" as we have presented it is a contribution toward the understanding of this awakening of consciousness. This history makes us aware of the vitality and plenitude with which these structures function.

To live these structures together, commensurate with their respective degrees of conscious awareness, is to approach an integrated, integral life. And there can be no doubt that our knowledge of the particular structure from which a specific event, reaction, attitude, or judgement originates will be of aid in clarifying our lives. But it must be a clarity aware of the obscure, and a wakefulness that knows of somnolence, for these are prerequisites demanded by the transparency of the integral structure.

During our deliberations on the foundations we have already made reference to those things able to actualize a new mutation. This entailed some risks since these references were without binding force and "proof." They are to be understood as intimations or suggestions in the same way as if they were a description of a still unfamiliar landscape, a description that appears strange rather than helpful until one has seen the landscape for oneself. Nevertheless, we believe that we have been correct in pointing repeatedly to the "new landscape" of the aperspectival world. What is needed is not a representation but an intimation of this landscape. In any event, initial manifestations of this new landscape can be identified. This landscape is not so much a promise as a task or challenge.

Whatever the nature of this landscape, it cannot be a repetition of what has been. At the very outset (or the conclusion) of this "new landscape" four major and encompassing modalities of the world from which we have come forth, lived, experienced, and thought, and from which we continue to go forth, live, experience, and think - four encompassing and intensifying realms of possible and actual forms of manifestation are eliminated. This surely does not simplify our task, but it does serve to clarify it.

The mutations as presented also make clear that something not experienceable did come to be experienced; something inconceivable did come to be conceived of; something unthinkable did come to be thought. For magic man cannot realize the experience or thought of the mental structure. For merely mental man, the perceptibility of the integral structure will not be conceivable; nevertheless we are already in the inception of this integral structure - a circumstance that provides support for events which still seem unrealizable.

Events of the past several decades have surely revealed that a new mutation is necessary if the dire situation of the present is to be changed. The extent of general destruction of materialized and false values today no longer requires a description. At this turn it may be well to recall that once, when the mythical structure began to pale, Greek man was faced with a proliferating chaos similar to ours today. The chaos then affected the mythical world which had burst apart, and the threat was a destruction of the psyche. With the aid of directed thinking the Greeks were able to master this chaos.

Our chaos today pervades our material-spatial world; perhaps we can master it by "verition." The ideas of Plato gave a fixed form to the thought contents of the soul without which the Greeks would never have been able to extricate themselves from soul and myth. This fixation which made the spatial world possible was itself fixed by Leonardo's perspective. Without it European man would have been lost in space just as the Greeks would have been lost in the soul without the set, idealized points.

Now that this spatial world threatens to come apart because the forces it has unleashed are more powerful than man who realized them, the new capability is being formed in him which is awakened by precisely those seemingly negative powers and forces. Just assense-directed thought - which was able to prevent the Greeks fromperishing inthe inner world of awakening consciousness (the soul) - was awakened by the ruptured mythical circle, so too could "senseful awaring" be awakened by the bursting spatial world: a "perception" able to sustain us against perishing in the consciously realized external world of matter.

We must not forget that the splintered spatial world of our conceptualization is the assurance of the possibility of a space-free aperspectival world. If we succeed in regarding events from the vantage point of mutation, it will be evident that the comparison made above is not a question of repetition, but of a "new" event. From the earliest times until the present the structures have increased, and it is our task to achieve the latest incrementation for the time being by integration.

When the Mexicans in their deficient mythical-magic structure encountered the mentally-oriented Spaniards, the magic-mythical power failed in the face of mental strength; clan consciousness failed in the face of the individualized ego-consciousness. If an integral man were to encounter a deficient mental man, would not deficient material power fail in the face of integral strength? Would not the individual ego-consciousness falter in the face of the Itself-consciousness of mankind? the mental-rational in the face of the spiritual? fragmentation in the face of integrality?

It is today no longer a question as to whether "reforms" are of use; this is evident from the course of our discussion. Yet one question remains: what can man do to bring about this mutation? To this we have already hazarded an answer: we must know where we are to effect events, or to let them take their course; where we are merely to "be aware" of truth, and where we may "impart the truth." For we too presentiate the whole by realizing that we are to the same degree active as well as enduring and passive, past as well as future. Man is in the world to sustain it as well as himself "in truth," not for his or its own sake, but for the sake of the spiritual present. It is this spiritual present which elevates wholeness to transparency and frees us from our transient age, for this age of ours is not the present but partiality and flight, indeed, almost a conclusion. Only someone who knows of origin has present - living and dying in the whole, in integrity.

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