Idealism is the view that the universe is a mental construct - an arena
exclusively of ideas. There's no such thing as matter, or, rather,
matter is itself just a mental construct. If no minds existed, no
material world would exist.
Materialism asserts that there is nothing but matter. The mental world
is a product of matter. If no matter existed, there would be no minds.
Dualism contends that matter and mind exist as independent substances.
Descartes, the leading dualist, said that matter (res extensa) had the
property of extension (i.e. physical dimensions) while mind (res
cogitans) did not. Matter was a physical substance while mind was a
substance relating to thinking, feeling, willing, perceiving and
consciousness. Since they were completely different substances, it was
unclear how they could interact. Descartes infamously suggested that
the pineal gland in the brain acted as a mediator between mind and
matter.
Idealists deny the independent existence of matter while materialists
deny the independent existence of mind. Dualists assert that matter
exists independently of mind, and mind independently of matter, but
can't explain their relationship to each other. All three stances have
failed to solve the mind/matter problem.
Is there another possibility?
Whatever the universe is made of, one thing is undeniable - it contains
the capacity for intelligent thought. Humans are composed of atoms and
yet they can contemplate the nature of existence. How can atoms that
obey mechanistic laws combine in such a way as to give rise to
intelligence?
There are different types of intelligence. A crocodile has a limited
repertoire of behaviour. A horse has a larger, more complex brain and
can display more varied behaviour. A human being is capable of vastly
more complicated behaviour still. Yet there's an enormous range within
human intelligence. Some humans are mired in trivial, hedonistic
pursuits while others are wrestling with the profoundest questions of
life.
Then there is the intelligence of colonies of ants or bees. Individuals
within the colony have limited intelligence and yet the colony as a
whole can demonstrate astonishingly complex behaviour. Is the
intelligence of a collection of human beings also an example of the
intelligence of a colony i.e. is human intelligence considered in
isolation completely different from collective human intelligence? If someone pokes a stick into an ant colony, ants will scurry around in a host of different ways to repair the damage. If an airplane flies into a skyscraper, humans will scurry around in a host of different ways to repair the damage. Is there really such a difference between an ant colony and a human colony?
Can
the human race be said to have some sort of Mass Mind? Could the
inhabitants of other planets in the universe also exhibit Mass Minds?
Could all of these Mass Minds act as individual brain cells for a
Universal Mind? Think of the power of such a Mind. Would it be the Mind
of God?
Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin talked of the "noosphere" - the mind sphere, a kind
of collective human consciousness. As humanity evolves and creates
increasingly complex social networks and societies, so the noosphere
evolves too, becoming ever more self aware. Eventually this would
lead to a Mass Mind.
Gaia theory - the view that the earth self-regulates - attributes an
intelligence of sorts to the planet. If such a theory is true of earth,
it must be true of every other planet. If planets have this type of
intelligence, why not solar systems or galaxies? Why not the universe
itself? If all the "intelligent" planets and all the Mass Minds
combined, what then? Is the universe a vast brain?
Since a range of intelligence is known to exist, is there any reason to
believe that human intelligence should represent the upper limit? Is
there any limit at all? Why should there not be levels of intelligence
that make humans seem like insects in comparison? Why shouldn't
evolution be able to create any level of intelligence, up to the
highest possible of which the universe is capable? If a maximum
intelligence is not forbidden then it's compulsory. One way or another,
the universe will maximise the intelligence buried as potential within
it.
What single change would revolutionise humanity? Imagine that
everything that any person learned was immediately learned,
effortlessly, by every other person. So, if 6.5 billion humans were
each learning new things and every person was immediately accumulating
all of the knowledge gained by all the others, what would happen? In a
very short time, the Mass Mind of humanity would be powerful beyond
imagining. Is it impossible? Or has it already happened to another
species on another planet?
Long ago, the planet earth contained no life, yet it now sustains
billions of intelligent humans, and countless animals and plants. Is
that not the perfect example of how an apparently inanimate world has,
latent within it, the potential to express incredible intelligence and
abundance of life? And if that is true of earth then it must be true of
the universe as a whole, yet on a breathtakingly bigger scale. If earth
can evolve human intelligence, what can the universe evolve? The answer
is simple - the intelligence of God.
But how can mind be generated by matter, how can intelligence emerge
from atoms obeying the laws of science, how can life come from
lifelessness? Any human being can be decomposed into a collection of
atoms that originate from the food and drink which the person has
consumed during their life. How is it that a particular arrangement of
atoms can exhibit intelligence while innumerable alternative
arrangements of those same atoms would show no intelligence whatever?
The number of ways of grouping atoms in the human body in ways that
don't lead to intelligent behaviour is almost infinitely larger than
those that do. Yet humanity exists - six and half billion people, and
rising. What are the odds? Is there an underlying factor that makes
humans, and human intelligence in particular, much more likely than it
might seem?
Evolutionist Richard Dawkins talks about "the selfish gene" and of
humans being "gene survival machines". He doesn't mean that genes are
literally selfish, but, rather, that if we characterise them in this
way then it helps to better understand observed behaviour. For example,
in moral terms, no one should be more willing to help one person rather
than another, yet it's self-evident that families (i.e. groups with
high genetic commonality) almost always help each other in preference
to non-family members. Although other explanations can be given, this
is suggestive that genes act as if to promote their own interests over
those of rival genes. But if genes - particular organisations of atoms
- are "selfish" then what of individual atoms?
"Panpsychism" is a theory that claims that all matter is associated
with mind. If atoms are "minded" in some way i.e. aren't just passive
objects being buffeted by physical forces but are active to some
degree, albeit difficult to define, could it better explain scientific
phenomena?
It is difficult to understand how life can emerge from lifelessness,
how mind can emerge from non-mind, how a chemical soup on earth
billions of years ago could randomly create the single living cells
from which humanity eventually evolved. Some people find it so
improbable that they dismiss it entirely and look for explanations
involving God.
But if everything in the universe already has mind in some way, and can
be said to be "alive" at some level, then several mysteries immediately
become more comprehensible. If the chemical soup from which life
emerged on earth was already "alive" (though at a non-conscious level)
and was, in a sense, seeking to actualise itself in the optimal
possible way; if the chemical soup were striving to generate higher
forms of life from itself, then that would make the appearance of
single cells more likely. Such a factor underlying evolutionary forces
can't be quantified and isn't readily susceptible to scientific study,
but it would radically increase the chances of complex life appearing.
Nothing is lifeless. Nothing is mindless. Life and mind are an
ascending scale. The most elementary particles have little that would
be recognised as life or mind, but nevertheless those qualities are
there. To assert the opposite position, that there is both life and
non-life, is to assume a dualistic position. How can these two entirely
different "substances" interact? How can one give rise to the other?
How can specific arrangements of non-life generate life? The reality is
that what has been defined as non-life does contain life, albeit at a
much more primitive level. A single brain cell in a human brain doesn't
appear to have either life or mind, and yet that brain cell is part of
a functioning mind within a living organism. There are only two
possibilities: either life and mind miraculously emerge from non-life
and non-mind, or life and mind were there all along, but unexpressed in
any meaningful way.
The Sea of Becoming is the source of the physical world we appear to
inhabit; "appear" because, as the philosophers of Idealism realised,
there is no direct way to prove the existence of the physical world.
All ideas about the world are just that - ideas. The world of a dream
seems solid and real while the dream is being experienced, but the
dreamworld simply isn't there. It exists as an idea in the mind, not as
an independent reality. Is the "real" world similarly illusory? The
movie "The Matrix" portrays the "real" world as an elaborate computer
simulation. "There are no facts, only interpretations," said Nietzsche.
The physical universe conforms to this rule. It is not a fact, it's an
interpretation.
The Sea of Becoming discussed in another section of this website had
the property of extension, of physical dimensions. But the Sea of
Becoming could equally well have no extension, no physical dimensions.
In this case, the thesis of "Being" and the antithesis of "Nothing"
reach their synthesis within a dimensionless reality - the mental
universe. The mental universe can contain ideas, but not physical
objects.
Yet virtually no one seriously contemplates that there is not a
physical world "out there". Although its existence cannot technically
be demonstrated, few would assert that it's all just an illusion. Even
in "The Matrix" there was an underlying truth, a real world, a "rabbit
hole" leading to the truth.
So, it's possible that there's both a physical Sea of Becoming and a
mental Sea of Becoming. Descartes' dualistic universe has reappeared.
The issue of mind-matter dualism is really the same one as whether a
hypothetical "Nothing" can be said to have dimensions or no dimensions.
A physical universe can emerge from a Nothing with dimensions, but not
from one without dimensions. A mental universe can arise from
zero-dimensional Nothing.
Leibniz introduced the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which states
that there must be a sufficient reason why something should be thus and
not otherwise. There is no sufficient reason why the physical universe
should be privileged over the mental, or vice versa. There is no
sufficient reason why Nothing with dimensions should be privileged over
Nothing with no dimensions, and vice versa. Dialectical logic provides
the solution to this impasse: the thesis and antithesis are combined in
a higher truth - the synthesis.
The synthesis of mind and matter - of two supposedly separate,
independent, incompatible substances - is that they are the same
substance viewed from two different perspectives. Zero and non-zero
dimensional nothingness are the same nothingness viewed from two
different perspectives. Every deep secret of the universe flows from
the truth that the material and mental worlds are not separate, and
that zero dimensions can coexist with multi dimensions. All the
difficulties of metaphysics arise from a false dichotomy between mind
and matter.
The Complementarity Principle of Quantum Theory says (http://universe-review.ca/F12-molecule.htm):
"According to the uncertainty principle, the pair of conjugate
variables such as the position and momentum of a particle is not well
defined but exist only as opposing potentialities. These potentialities
complement each other, since each is necessary in a complete
description of the physical processes through which the particle
manifests itself. This is referred as "principle of complementarity".
The more general statement reads: At the quantum level, the most
general physical properties of any system must be expressed in terms of
complementary pairs of variables, each of which can be better defined
only at the expense of a corresponding loss in the degree of definition
of the other. In particular, particle and wave can be considered as one
of those complementary pairs - no experiment can reveal both at once."
Mind and matter are also a complementary pair. No experiment can reveal
both simultaneously. Mind is the inner, internalised aspect of the
universe while matter is the outer, externalised aspect. If a human
skull is opened up, a fleshy brain will be exposed, but no mind. Yet
the mind is there. No one can deny it. In fact, the appearance of the
physical brain is, ultimately, nothing but an idea in the mind.
Illumination teaches that everything that appears in the physical world
- the world of dimensions - has a complementary appearance in the
mental world, the non-dimensional world i.e. every physical event also
registers as a mental event. All physical objects are also mental
entities. The physical world is objectified mind while the mental world
is subjectified matter. Mind is the inner experience of matter while
matter is the outer experience of mind. The physical world is the
objective, external reality experienced in a scientific way while the
mental world is the subjective, internal reality experienced within the
spectrum of consciousness.
Human consciousness belongs to the non-dimensional domain, yet it is
tied to the physical world. It is impossible to probe it directly
because it is not in the dimensional reality of science. Science has
provided a vast amount of knowledge about the physical world, but it
cannot say anything significant about the non-physical world. That is
the province of metaphysics. Historically, science and metaphysics have
clashed because metaphysics has strayed into scientific territory, and
vice versa.
Illumination combines science and metaphysics, acknowledging the
primacy of each in its own sphere. If the proper applicability of
science and metaphysics is understood, science should never contradict
metaphysics, and vice versa.
Metaphysical Reality
Immanuel Kant is recognised as one of the greatest philosophers of all
time, but he has probably done more than anyone to cause confusion
between science and metaphysics. Kant applied two descriptions to the
universe: "noumenal" and "phenomenal". Noumenal applies to the universe
as it is in itself while phenomenal applies to how the universe appears
to observers. Kant was highlighting a potential gulf between how things
really are and how they seem. If it's impossible to get beyond the
universe of appearances then the world as it is in itself can never be
known.
Every human presents a mask - a persona - to others, but underneath
that mask lie traits, feelings and beliefs that could be shocking to
others. No one can claim to absolutely know any other person, no matter
how seemingly close they are, because the mask - the appearance -
always stands in the way.
Kant's revolutionary idea was that the universe doesn't put on a mask
but, rather, observers put a mask on the universe. Reality doesn't
shape the human mind, rather the human mind shapes reality i.e.
"reality" is a construct of the human mind and there's no way of
knowing if there's any correspondence between the mind-generated
reality and reality itself. The world of phenomena - things as they
appear to us - seem that way because our minds compel them to. In
particular, Kant said, our minds create time and space, cause and
effect, and everything is viewed through the prism of these categories.
If our minds didn't exist there would be no time and space, no cause
and effect. Things would be how they really are: "things-in-themselves"
i.e. noumena. According to Kant, knowledge of noumena is impossible.
Every human, by virtue of having a human mind, is permanently excluded
from seeing the underlying reality of existence.
It's important to emphasise that, for Kant, there is a single reality,
but the actions of mind create a mind-specific interpretation of
reality. Every different type of mind - those of insects, mammals,
dinosaurs, aliens - would produce a different interpretation of the
same underlying reality. It's not the reality that changes but the way
in which it is perceived by particular minds. The universe is masked in
as many ways as there are observers. The mind creates phenomena and can
know nothing of noumena.
Science, in this view, is the systematic study of something that is
really an illusion. The maximum possible knowledge of the phenomenal
world would yield no truths at all about how things are in themselves.
If the scientists in the movie "The Matrix" had discovered every
conceivable scientific "truth" about their world, they would have
learned nothing except the rules of the elaborate computer simulation
in which they were trapped. They wouldn't have discovered a single fact
about the reality outwith that simulation. Science, in the Kantian
view, does nothing but help us to make sense of our own mental
simulation of how things are, but the relationship of that simulation
to reality remains forever unknowable.
Illumination, on the other hand, teaches that there is a single reality
that manifests itself in two ways: physical and mental. In Kant's
universe, noumena are unknowable and phenomena are illusory, but in the
universe of Illumination, the mental component of existence is fully
knowable, and through it the physical component of the universe. The
perfect understanding of the universe in both of its aspects is the
province of God.
The mental and physical aspects inherently interact with and link to
each other; they always do so and can never not do so. Being part of a
single reality, they are never independent of each other. But if the
physical is active, the mental is passive, and if the mental is active
the physical is passive. At any instant, either the physical or mental
is in control. Control can switch instantly from one to another.
The physical aspect of the universe provides the platform for the
mental aspect to express itself as fully as possible. Evolution is
about simpler forms, under the control of the physical aspect of the
universe, trying to find ways to create more complex forms where the
mental aspect comes to the fore. The ultimate manifestation of the
mental universe is the supreme consciousness: God. The universe is
going on an extraordinary journey from an apparently blind, mechanical,
unconscious physical nature to completely purposeful, intelligent
self-awareness. The Law of Becoming dictates that the physical aspect
of reality gradually surrenders to the mental. The physical world is
the start of the journey, the mental the end.
Whereas Kant believed that the human mind creates time and space, cause
and effect, Illumination teaches the opposite. Time and space, cause
and effect are features of the physical world and not of the mental.
The physical world gives these attributes to the mental, not the other
way around. When the brain, the physical aspect of the mind, goes to
sleep, the mind isn't disengaged. It continues to function - in dreams.
Dreams reveal something of the pure mental domain. Causality breaks
down, time and space are distorted. Reality becomes a weird
hyperreality.
If Kant were right and the mind were the active creator of time and
space, of cause and effect, there would be no reason for dreams to be
different from reality. Yet they are entirely different. In sleep,
sensory input from the physical world is denied to the mental world, so
the mental world reverts to its own way of working. Similarly, when a
brain is affected by drugs, especially hallucinogens, and normal
functioning is disrupted, the mind loses all sense of space and time,
cause and effect. Under the influence of hallucinogens, senses often
become confused. People can smell colours, taste sounds, hear sights
and so on. The mind requires a properly functioning brain to operate
correctly. The mental world is shaped by the physical.
There is no true noumenal/phenomenal divide. The mental is trying to
harness the physical in order to understand both the physical and
itself. A sufficient mind - that of God - can have complete
understanding of the physical and mental worlds. Even the limited human
mind can gain a far deeper understanding than Kant believed possible.
Jung said, "Psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world,
and moreover are in continuous contact with one another. Psyche and
matter are two different aspects of one and the same thing." This is
exactly what Illumination teaches.
But if everything physical has a psyche, what is the nature of that
psyche? It's absurd to claim that an atom has a psyche in precisely the
same way as a human being. Individual atoms are not conscious. They do
not feel, do not exhibit intelligence, and do not make plans for the
future. To understand their mental nature, it is necessary to turn to a
concept known as "will".
Schopenhauer, a man who hated the Illuminati because of his personal
rivalry with the great Illuminist Hegel, independently produced a
philosophy that, ironically, has several points of similarity to
Illumination.
Schopenhauer said, "The act of will and the action of the body are not
two different states objectively known, connected by the bond of
causality; they do not stand in the relation of cause and effect, but
are one and the same thing, though given in two entirely different
ways, first quite directly, and then in perception for the
understanding."
In other words, an act of will does not cause a physical action to take
place. Rather, the act of will is the same thing as the physical
action, just viewed from a different perspective.
Schopenhauer's "will" is the will-to-exist, the will-to-live, the
will-to-survive. It is a blind, irrational striving, driving forward
relentlessly and forever, with no object other than to exist. In a
sense, it manifests itself as a cosmic yearning, an unquenchable
desire. Schopenhauer, a notorious pessimist, characterised it as evil.
It leads, he said, to eternal, pointless existence that fights and
struggles and wreaks misery in its desperation to continue to be. It
contains no meaning whatever. Happiness, if it ever appears, is never
anything other than fleeting, and quickly succumbs to fresh struggles
and disappointments.
Schopenhauer criticised science on the basis that it only ever gave us
knowledge of one aspect of reality. We find out many things about the
"outer" aspect of reality, but discover nothing about its inner
character, which is why science seems so cold, clinical and sterile. It
doesn't seem to answer any of the profound questions of existence
because it is always standing on the outside. Illumination is about
reconciling the outer with the inner, about revealing the science of
the inner realm. This is a very different science from the conventional
one and yet it is really just the same thing viewed from a radically
different perspective.
Atoms are too simple to manifest any behaviour that could be deemed
purposeful. Although they have a mental aspect, they are not conscious.
At such an elementary level, "will" cannot express itself meaningfully.
It is potentiality rather than actuality. The physical aspect dominates
the mental aspect. The laws of science rather than those of the mind
are obeyed. At a certain point in evolution, there is a transition from
dominance of the physical to that of the mental, from science to
religion/philosophy, from objective to subjective, outer to inner,
mechanistic laws to moral laws.
Science is easier to study than the mental arena because it is
objective rather than subjective. Primitive objects can't lie, dream,
deceive, delude themselves, fantasise, choose, act irrationally:
sophisticated minds can do all of those. The mental arena is unreliable
in a way that the physical isn't, yet everything that constitutes the
meaning of life lies in the mental arena and not in the physical.
Nietzsche, an admirer of Schopenhauer's philosophy in his youth, argued
that the will to live was really the will to power. He pointed out that
animals, including humans, often risk their lives to gain more power.
They would not do so if survival were their goal. The fight to gain
power, risking death, can be more alluring than long life without
power. Fear, In Nietzsche's view, is the feeling of the absence of
power. Those animals, or humans, that fail to struggle for power lack
will to power and hence lead fearful lives. Nietzsche, an opponent of
dualism, said, "'Will' can of course operate only on 'will' - and not
on 'matter' (not on 'nerves', for example - ): enough, one must venture
the hypothesis that wherever 'effects' are recognised, will is
operating upon will - and that all mechanical occurrences, in so far as
a force is active in them, are force of will, effects of will."
Nietzsche is right that one substance can operate on another only if it
is a compatible substance. If "will" is radically different from
"matter", the two cannot interact. Illumination, by revealing that mind
and matter are two aspects of the same substance allows will to
directly influence matter, and vice versa. Mind and matter are distinct
yet inseparable. Neither can be reduced to the other, nor to any other
substance. They are dual aspects of a single reality, but this reality
will always present itself in one way or another, never as both. This
is known technically as "dual aspect monism". It is like the Roman god
Janus, normally depicted with two heads facing in opposite directions.
You can look at one or other of his faces, but never both. (Janus is a
prominent symbol of the Illuminati.)
Nietzsche believed that everything could be reduced to will to power,
but it is not a simple monism. Rather, it is a "dialectical monism".
Walter Kaufmann said, "[Nietzsche's] basic force, the will to power, is
not only the Dionysian passionate striving, akin to Schopenhauer's
irrational will, but is also Apollonian and possesses an inherent
capacity to give itself form."
In other words, the will to power is a synthesis of a chaotic,
impulsive, irrational, passionate, destructive force (which Nietzsche
labelled Dionysian in honour of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and
intoxication), and its antithesis: an ordered, organised, rational,
cool and calculating creative force (labelled the Apollonian, in honour
of Apollo, the Greek god of light and the sun, the truth, prophecy and
the arts - the Illuminati have many symbols associated with Apollo).
Nietzsche's notion of a force that strives to create order and form
from chaos is an improvement over Schopenhauer's more simple force. The
seed of Freud's Id, Ego, and Superego tripartite division of the human
psyche can be glimpsed in Nietzsche's work (the Id is akin to the
Dionysian force, the Superego to the Apollonian, and the Ego to the
synthesis of the two.)
Nietzsche's dialectical will to power, with its inbuilt tendency to
create order, accords more with observed reality than Schopenhauer's
blind, chaotic striving.
Hegel referred to the basic substance of the universe as "Geist", a
complex German word that expresses notions of both mind and spirit.
Geist is dialectically evolving towards what Hegel called 'the
Absolute' - God. The Absolute represents the complete control of the
physical world by the mental. It is a state of Absolute Knowledge and
Absolute Freedom. The Absolute understands itself perfectly. Hegel is
often interpreted as an idealist, denying the existence of the
physical, but in fact, like all Illuminists, he considered the physical
and mental to be two aspects of a single substance. However, he
certainly regarded the mental as the dominant aspect of the single
mind-matter reality - the dialectical process is all about bringing
mind to its highest possible expression - and to that extent can be
regarded as an idealist. Hence "Geist" is carefully chosen to emphasise
the mental aspect.
There is no word that perfectly captures the nature of the basic
substance of the universe: the arche, the first principle. The Ancient
Greek philosopher Anaximander used the word "apeiron", which is usually
translated as "a substance without definition that gives rise to all
things and to which all things return, a sort of primal chaos."
Illuminists most usually use the word "Becoming" to describe the single
fundamental substance of the universe. "Becoming" is technically an
adjective rather than a noun, but Illuminists prefer this word over any
other because it makes clear the difference between Illumination and
the false religions of Being such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
"Becoming" emphasises the changing, dynamic nature of the universe, the
evolutionary, dialectical aspect that drives the universe forwards and
upwards. "Being" on the other hand is frozen, static, conservative,
resistant to change.
Mathematician Roger Penrose has proposed that there are three kinds of
reality: physical, mental and mathematical, all connected in an unknown
and deeply mysterious way. In fact there is only one reality, which
presents itself in two ways: mind and matter.
Mathematics, it is true, is more than just a language created by the
mind. It might be said to be a deep expression of Nietzsche's
Apollonian ordering principle that seeks to shape the Dionysian chaos.
Mind and matter, if they are to avoid an existence of meaningless
chaos, must have a strong core of order and organisation, a tendency to
obey natural laws. That tendency will never be precise, but it will be
reliable on average, hence the statistical emphasis of modern Quantum
Theory.
Mind and matter both have mathematics built into them. Mathematics can
be defined as the science of pattern. Mathematicians look for patterns
in numbers and space, in the physical world and abstract worlds. The
mind cannot help looking for patterns. Humans look at the clouds in the
sky and start to see meaningful shapes. People have reported seeing the
face of Jesus Christ on slices of toast. At all times, the mind tries
to shape and pattern sensory data. All of this is mathematical in
nature.
Baseball players, basketball players, American football players, soccer
players and most other sportspeople engage in remarkable feats of
intuitive mathematics. Think of the skill involved in catching a ball
while on the run: the catcher is subconsciously calculating the speed
of the ball, its trajectory, wind speed, his own speed, the conditions
under his feet, the interception point, the orientation of his hands
etc. The person involved may know nothing about mathematics as an
academic subject, he might even be hopeless at the subject, yet he can
solve this complex maths problem as he's on the move without carrying
out a single conscious calculation. Autistic savants can carry out
prodigious calculations in their heads faster than professors can solve
them with a calculator. These examples prove how deeply embedded in
the psyche mathematics is.
The Ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras - another great Illuminist
(and the first to be identified with Illumination's fundamental
doctrine of the transmigration of souls) - claimed that numbers are the
arche. He also said that a mathematical Law called Harmony controlled
the universe.
Pythagoras is associated with the mystical idea of the Music of the
Spheres (also known as Musica universalis - universal music): the most
beautiful and perfect music of all, which permeates the entire universe
but can be heard only by God. Music is audible mathematics. It is the
sound of the Apollonian order in the universe. It has such a powerful
effect on us because it resonates with the mathematical intuitions
buried within us. When we hear harmonies, we are listening to
orchestrated numbers; we are directly experiencing universal order in
the form of musical notes. Discordant music, jarring notes are the
province of Dionysian disharmony. Schopenhauer said that music was a
"copy of the will itself" and there's much truth in this.
Illumination is a religion that holds mathematics in the highest regard
and assigns to it an elevated status, but it is not a separate reality
as Roger Penrose believes. It is part of the fabric of mind and matter.
It is the language of the fundamental ordering principle.
The Apollonian principle of order and harmony is opposed by the
Dionysian principle of chaos, disharmony and entropy. "Becoming"
requires the two opposing principles. It is the tension between the two
that fuels the dialectic, that generates the never-ending cycle of
birth, death and rebirth. "Becoming" requires destruction and creation.
"Being" on the other hand is static and lifeless. Quite simply, there
is no such thing as eternal Being. All teachings regarding Being are
false. Becoming is the only true reality.
It is said that in order to command nature one must first learn to obey
it. At the outset, the mind obeys the physical (matter over mind), but
later it commands it (mind over matter).
Consciousness has five levels: non-conscious, pre-conscious, conscious
(sentient), self-conscious and hyper-conscious. Rocks are
non-conscious, plants pre-conscious, animals conscious, humans
self-conscious and the divine hyper-conscious. The next stage of human
evolution is to bridge the gap between self-consciousness and
hyper-consciousness.
The theory of epiphenomenalism portrays the mind as a by-product of
brain activity. The mind, in this view, has no effect on physical
events. It merely interprets events after the fact and deludes itself
that it caused them. This is not as absurd as it seems. In a famous
experiment by Benjamin Libet, he showed that the decision to carry out
certain voluntary actions is initiated prior to any conscious intention
to perform them.
Illumination teaches that mind can be active and passive (engaged
versus unengaged). The mind affects the world only when it is active.
Otherwise, physical events occur mechanistically, and the mind makes
sense of those events afterwards, but is passive in relation to them.
Consider this thought experiment. Imagine you are about to raise your
arm, but don't actually do so. Now go ahead and raise your arm. Can you
identify any difference between thinking of raising your arm and
actually doing it? Yet merely thinking about it has no effect in the
physical world. It is passive thinking. Much of our mental activity is
of that sort. To physically raise you arm, you must actively will it.
Your mind must be engaged. The non-conscious and pre-conscious minds
are always passive; the conscious and self-conscious minds are
sometimes passive and sometimes active. The hyper-conscious mind is
always active.
When the mind is passive, it exists in an epiphenomenal state,
rationalising events after they've taken place. For example, tears
appear in your eyes, and you explain to yourself that you are sad. But
that is a post-rationalisation. There was no conscious decision by you
to shed tears. You might not even have been sad, but you will convince
yourself that you were in order to explain the tears.
It is argued that you will feel better if you smile. Why? Because your
mind will automatically try to think of good, positive reasons why
you're happy, and by that very process you will become happy. So, if
you smile for non-conscious reasons, you will quickly find conscious
reasons to account for your happiness, whether or not they're correct.
Conclusion
Illumination teaches that the basic substance of the universe, the
arche, is "Becoming", the synthesis of Being and Nothing. It is the
ever-changing "fire" of Heraclitus. Becoming has two aspects: the
physical and the mental. At the earliest stages of Becoming, the
physical is dominant. During this phase, the mental is non-conscious
but has an inherent Apollonian tendency to create form and order, to
promote growth, interaction and change.
As Becoming unfolds and evolves, the physical grows increasingly
organised, giving the mental ever-greater expression until eventually
consciousness has appeared in the mental arena. (Consciousness is mind
that has been given a direct window into the physical world via the
senses. Consciousness cannot exist without senses. Senses are the
connecting channels between the physical and the mental.)
Consciousness in turn evolves into self-consciousness: a higher form of
consciousness where a being can reflect on its own existence. Becoming
follows a dialectical process to achieve an ascending scale of
consciousness, and of truth, knowledge and freedom. As Becoming
advances, the mental aspect becomes entirely dominant and able to
control the physical at will.
The culmination of Becoming is the Absolute. God. Becoming is a process
that never ends, but it does reach a so-called End of History where all
major changes possible have taken place. Events still take place after
the End of History, but in a context of peace, freedom and
self-understanding. The End of History is the age of Heaven.
The God of Becoming is the True God. He is the perfect potential that
existed within the universe from its beginning. The purpose of the
universe, of Becoming, is to release its maximum potential. That
maximum is God. God is the perfection of Becoming. God is ultimate
Becoming. Nothing can become greater than God.
Here is the highest wisdom. God himself is evolving. He is not pure
Being but pure Becoming. That means that the universe is not in any
final state. Indeed, it can never reach any final state. There is no
Last Judgement, no Day of Resurrection. The gospel - the good news - is
that there is no predestination. We are free and our future is not
locked and sealed. We can become the most that we have it within
ourselves to be, the most that our merits deserve.
Later, we will explain the religious rather than philosophical aspects
of Becoming. We will reveal why the God of Becoming created good and
evil, why Satan was permitted to become a new creator - a creator of a
particular type of matter - why we are reincarnated beings that are
confronted by an incredible challenge - to maximise ourselves, to
self-actualise, to become as perfect as we can be.
We can become our best selves only by overcoming the hardest
challenges, hence Satan, the great Adversary, the great Tester, the
ultimate Tempter. It is Satan who stands between God and us. The Old
World Order are those who have succumbed to Satan and accepted every
temptation he has to offer.
Satan creates false religions such as Christianity, Islam and Judaism
that masquerade as the truth, as good and noble messages for humanity,
but are lies and poison from beginning to end. These religions corrupt
humanity and are designed to lure the souls of the believers to Hell.
Only knowledge - Gnosis - can save us. Illumination lights the path for
us all, the road through the Satanic darkness.
We will show how we ourselves can become gods. The vast majority will
fail, but the select few, the most meritocratic, those who have worked
hardest and followed the path of Illumination across many
reincarnations will be provided with the ultimate reward.
Personal divinity.
Paradise Regained
There is a final truth.
Ultimate becoming is God. But there is one stage beyond.
A community of Gods.
And we can become part of that divine community.