A Dweller of the Silent Desert

Note (2006 CE):  These are the transcribed notes (by RM) of a conversation, in Shropshire, with DM, some years ago (approx 1998 CE). The notes are just that - notes of a conversation, and while they do not represent exactly what was said, they express the gist of the conversation, which conversation expressed or hinted at a few of the insights and understanding which led, some years later, to the formulation, by DM, of The Numinous Way. As such, these notes may be of some interest, although they do not sometimes manifest the insights and understandings of The Numinous Way as it is now, following several years of development arising from more recent insights, experiences, thought, and understanding.

How would you define an ideal?

An ideal/archetype is a human construct, based upon an abstraction - a projection from what is real/observed to what is imagined; that is, to what might/could be, but does not (yet) exist. [ In fact, human ideals can never really exist - we only believe they can.] They cannot be defined by abstract ideas/theories - for this is a tautology.

One of the two ways for an ideal to exist, and so be defined, is to use a human or existing example and take that as the ideal. For example, Odysseus - the ideal Hellenic man. But one should see the flaws of this - humans are fallible; what lives or exists dies or changes. Therefore the ideal changes/dies.

In a way, ideals must be organic - or immortal. The only real ideal  (i.e. unchanging) is that which is infallible, unchanging, immortal. By definition, this is God.

Are manners, honour, reason, dictated by/exist because of ideals?

Yes and no. Depends on what you assume is the ideal. If organic - then honour is defined by the example (e.g. Odysseus) or a collection of examples ("heroes"). Same with reason etc.

Thus morality and our civilized nature (reason, manners etc) either derive from human ideals/examples or they derive from God. If the latter, then we may know reason, honour etc. beyond their being in relation to a human - fallible - ideal: that is, we may know them in relation to what is immortal, unchanging. What Aristotle called the Prime Cause (i.e. the Supreme Being).

For the truth about honour is that it depends on a supra personal dimension - a belief in a force or forces more powerful than the individual, which controls or rules over the individual. Without this extra dimension - and the innate, heart-felt belief which is part of it - honour does not live: it is just an abstract concept, to be believed in or not, to be followed or not, according to what the individual feels or believes, or is persuaded to feel or believe.

The same applies to justice, to the fairness of the civilized person. The simple truth is that no civilized  way of life can be created without this 'moral dimension', this heart-felt belief in some supra personal Power.

What about the ideal of race, and the aiding of racial politics in what has been termed "Aeonics"?

Ultimately, accepting or believing in illusive causal forms - whatever their past or present purpose/use in causal terms - is not a good basis for creating something of the future - ie. creating a new culture based upon what is real and which seeks to express and manifest to others over causal time not only the numinous itself but also our humanity.

Several points need to be made:

1) Human beings are a distinct species, and what are called races are sub-divisions of this species. The crucial factor here is that sub-divisions can breed together and produce fertile offspring, and so create a hybrid. Furthermore, this mixing does occur naturally over periods of time. This natural hybridization often occurs in Nature. Secondly, human beings are evolving and changing, and have evolved and changed over aeonic spans of causal time, due to circumstances, their mobility and their interaction and intermingling.

What is important, is to realize that a definition of race requires the definition to have a starting point in causal time - thus, at this moment in our evolution, we define this human type as a race called "Aryan" which has various sub-divisions within it (Nordic, Alpine etc.). But where to begin? Now? Ten thousand years ago? Five hundred years ago? Fifty thousand years ago? What we term races are always in a state of flux; of change. Therefore a modern definition of race is an attempt surely to impose a causal idea upon something which cannot be contained in such an abstract way. Did our modern "Aryan" exist fifty thousand years ago? Did the Nordic?

If one so defines a race from the now (or recent past) and then creates an idea to keep this race "pure" is this acting against Nature because it is an attempt to limit Nature to this human abstract idea?

2) People certainly differ in physical appearance - but how important is this in terms of those things which make us human and which can enable us to create a numinous society and ? evolve further? That is, is there a deeper difference in terms of ability, invention, goodness, appreciation of numinous etc? And I mean a real, living difference. [The answers of political rhetoric are irrelevant here.]

The only viable way to answer this is practical experience - go among peoples of different races, cultures, in different lands; study; learn; observe, for many, many years. The answers of most other people are not good enough here. Why the only viable way? Because that surely is one of the foundations of civilization - observation, logical deductions based upon them etc. [qv Aristotle; true science.]

Based on such practical experience, my answers are: the differences are superficial for three important reasons. (i) The vast majority of people of all races possess the ability to change: through education, experience, personal influence etc. (ii) No one race - or what is defined/called a race - has a monopoly on invention, heroism, intelligence etc. (iii) No one "race" has a monopoly on the good, and perception of the numinous. In essence, all "races" produce culture.

3) Culture and civilization. Forget the old political definition of civilization. What is it, in reality? Nothing more than an expanding culture - a culture which has some military might. Civilization as previously defined in not always a good thing. It is often anti-cultural and inhuman: detrimental to the numinous/acausal.

Again, the previous definitions of civilization (Toynbee etc.) are nonsense because once again the definition implies using causal terms/means which are flawed and far from objective (e.g. some recorded, mostly biased, history which has survived - what about all that did not survive??). A culture cannot be contained within set deterministic causal limits (e.g 350 years for an "Imperium") because it is organic: changing, living, unique. A good form - one which expresses something of the reality, the truth, the acausal - is one which can be stripped of its causal forms but still retain its essence.

The whole edifice which some now seem to accept as necessary is actually based upon trying to impose causal forms on the organic, living, essence - aeonics, "politics" etc. etc. All lifeless forms trying to grasp the essence, and failing, as they must. Useful? Perhaps, for a while - but never beyond the Abyss...

The illusion, the artifice, must be stripped away.

Does this stripping away imply a move away from all strident philosophising, and towards instead a more receptive,"Taoist" way of being?

Not quite. There must be some fundamental postulates on which this living is based - some concept about the nature of Reality/Existence and our place within it. By our place here is meant - our being. From these postulates, a framework is constructed, verifiable via observation and logically sound. All thought, hence ALL human living, must start with postulates about Reality etc.

But this framework is only a basis to live - i.e. to think and relate what is, what occurs, to what is beyond. And importantly this framework is intentionally limited - an apprehension, a mode of being,  and never a theory.

The most important model as a way forward is that of a community living in a rural area in an almost contemplative way. Such a way will create the necessary apprehension about our being and Reality/Existence - how our being derives from Nature, the cosmos. This is the central insight which is the beginning, the genesis, of the new culture, and thus the community.

What outer form/appearance would this community take? One of an Aryan farm, where its folk practice old Aryan/pagan customs? Some believe so - but again: does the apprehension involve a division into race? That is, do we view our being, our relation to Nature, through race? What is the prime mode of apprehension? The unity beyond the causal/acausal of which Nature is a presencing - or the division into races?

In the simple sense - from whence is our identity, as beings, as individuals? From Nature (without a further division into race etc) - or from race? The first has been construed in the past as Tao; while the second has been construed recently in political terms.

To know how we dwell - the mode of our dwelling, in this life, on this planet - we must answer this question about the prime mode of our apprehension. The two answers are very different - they determine our orientation and indeed our apprehension and understanding of the numinous. They set our identity, and thus determine the mode of being of the new community and its culture.

Some would answer that race is irrelevant - from both a practical viewpoint, now (the genesis), and from the viewpoint of the apprehension itself.

But what about racial Destiny - surely this is not a theory but a spiritual truth? 

Race is a merely a theory - a construct. Do you wish it to be the primal apprehension? Destiny is irrelevant - in fact a meaningless term; pure jargon, pure form, used to motivate one's self and others. There is no such thing as Destiny. (Think about this, and you should see that Destiny derives from one particular mode of apprehension which is not a primal one.)

"Destiny" is often used as an argument in favour of hitherto existing priorities - and often used to try and motivate others to act. "We must act for it is our Destiny to do such and such, or be such and such  ..." and so on.

But in reality, as used in the context above, it is just an abstract concept - a construct, an attempt to explain how things are, and an attempt to try and change things as we wish them to be or believe they should be. To invoke it as an abstract concept - as many have done in the past - simply does not work; it fails to motivate the majority, and simply marks the person or persons who use the concept as odd or extreme or deluded.

What can motivate and has motivated a majority is Destiny = will of a supra personal Power, provided that there already exists in that majority a heart-felt belief in such a Power. If not, then this has the same effect as Destiny as a concept - that is, no achievement, and a condemnation of the person or persons using it.

You state that both race and Destiny are merely theories, but does not the inter-breeding of separate races occur with a notable frequency when a culture loses its identity and declines; and thus cultural decline - that is, barbarism - may be understood to be indicative of the loss of racial consciousness?

Again, you must answer whether a culture actually depends upon race, otherwise there is a tautology. This leads to the question, what is culture?

An answer: a human mode of living based on an apprehension of Reality. The Way of manners, honour, reason etc. Simply - A means of living, as human beings, rather than as barbarians - rather than semi-animals who give in to their instincts.

There is a confusion about the use of the term destiny - it is used in two ways. (a) to imply what is predestined - and which a person cannot alter (the original use of the term: re fate; norns). For example, death is our destiny; (b) to imply what can be achieved given will of a person/nation etc. Really, the second is either political jargon, or a manifestation of a world-view which sees will as capable of changing/shaping evolution itself due to consciousness. To properly define destiny - or to understand it as of no meaning (save for a false meaning projected onto Reality by those lacking understanding) - Reality itself must be defined, and then our own relation to this defined Reality, in terms of being, nature etc.

There are two basic answers:

1) Reality exists independent of us, and what we perceive via our senses is only one (and lower) aspect of this. That is, there are planes of being/existence which we cannot directly access via our senses.

2) Reality is defined in purely causal, physical, terms - what is observed, or may be observed via our senses, is what exists. That is, causality and a physical Space are the essence of Reality.

1) can be said to assume acausality and acausal Space.

The theory of evolution - chance development  for us and other life forms etc - relies on (2), since acausality is contra- evolution in the Darwinian sense. (If you think about this, you will see why this is so: evolution-->depends on linear progression which implies causal development etc.)

Darwinian evolution is central in the modern world-view. The notion of changeable destiny itself implies this type of causality.

This leads to the question of free will - but first, what does (1) for answer to Reality mean and imply re our nature/being/creation?

It can mean two things:

a) that life was created by some higher being (which could be the supreme Being but might not be)

b) that life is a mystery (not the product of evolution, though!) which we with our limited consciousness cannot understand in any way at present

If (a) we can take a few more steps - if we were created by a being/beings, or the Being (God), then for what purpose? And what is the nature of these beings/God?

Are we an experiment by some race of higher beings who exist in some alternative reality we cannot perceive? Possible.......  But, what is beyond these beings? Who created them? And why?

Or - is our life here on this plane of existence a test, a means, a chance, to enter these other (acausal) realms?

One of these realms might well be Paradise - eternal life etc.

If our mortal life is a test of some kind - a chance - then we must have some kind of free will in order to choose/decide/gain another type of existence. That is, a limited type of free will must exist - which means the first type of destiny (fate) does not exist (and since neither does the second, destiny itself does not exist).

You talk of culture, and yet deny the reality of race: which cultures then have not been founded on a "racial" basis?

Very many. One example - Islam. This is a civilized way of living. There is an Islamic culture - a specific, definable way of being based on a certain apprehension of Reality; a certain distinct mode of being which individuals of that culture strive to attain. This does not depend on race - or even on what is often termed national culture. A Muslim from Africa is the same as a Muslim from India, Malaya, Norway, England etc. etc. This culture has flourished for nearly 1,500 years - and is still flourishing.

Another example - the culture of Buddhism.

We might even add - the culture of Christianity.

Note that all these examples are usually described as religions rather than ways of living/cultures. What is religion? What is culture? Once again, apprehension is the key - the striving for a mode of being founded in the dwelling such apprehension brings. [Heidegger struggled toward this insight.] Why have such ways been defined, in the West, as religions? And what is this "West" anyway? Whose "West"?

Again you must define culture first. To say culture is racially determined implies many things - that race determines apprehension, for instance.

 

I take it therefore that the Aeonics model of aeons and civilizations, of their growth and decline, was merely a means but not a reality?

Yes.

But can we at least define a civilization as a society which emerges at a particular earthly location, comprised of the people of that geographical location, and which develops a significant and creative world-view?

Such a model implies several things:

1) The idea of progress - of causal evolution

2) The idea of a self-contained being ( a culture/civilization)

3) The idea that there is an ethos/soul to this being

4) The idea that this ethos is created/maintained by a fixed thing (e.g. race)

5) That there is an ethos for a distinct race

As per previous answers, (1) does not exist. (2) does not exist because the definition of civilization used is wrong. For example, what is Hellenic civilization? The way of life which existed in ancient Greece/Turkey etc.? But when did it begin/end? Did it evolve/change?

What is there which distinguishes the "6 or 8 civilizations" (aeons) from other ways of life which were civilized? Where for instance is the Islamic way of life - surely a civilized way (perhaps the most civilized there has ever been)? Further, this civilization was in existence for longer than all other civilizations, and did not have a "racial ethos".

Consider - Hellenic-->civilization?-->sack of Troy, Agamemnon killing his own child as sacrifice; Alexander killing thousands of people etc. etc. In this scenario, Rome is the Empire of Hellenic civilization - but was this a civilized way of life? In some ways yes; in others, no. The tribal societies of Northern Europe at the time were more civilized - so were they civilizations?

In essence, the previous definition of civilization (I used) ignores such questions: the past is interpreted through a few fixed ideas to interpret reality in a certain way. Interesting ideas/concepts, certainly; and useful; but flawed when the larger perspective is considered. Such ideas give the appearance of understanding - but it is only appearance.

What can the Newtonian principles of science contribute towards the apprehension of the acausal? Why is quantum physics a wrong approach to the acausal?

Again, there is a projection of causal ideas onto existence, which is both causal and acausal [in reality, both terms are also merely constructs - to enable an apprehension towards the Unity]. Newtonian physics is a good example of this causal approach.

Modern science is reductionist and seeks to find simple causal causes. Proper science (which includes the acausal) seeks to understand the lower realities (of which our causal world is one) in terms of the higher realities (of which the acausal is one) - it is a way upward toward that which is Infinite and Eternal, which Itself is evident in all lower beings and all lower (causal) existents.

Modern science seeks to reduce all to a cause and effect - to basic particle mechanics; the properties of physical matter etc. on an atomic or astronomical level. Hence the laws of Physics.

Quantum mechanics is a modern reductionist approach (an illogical one at that) which seeks to reduce all the uncertainty based upon OUR apprehension of the causal - for example, our attempts to measure/quantify matter using instruments which are said to produce an uncertainty in our observation. Again, a projection of causality (lower reality) onto existence to attempt to understand existence in such lower causal terms. Such measurement etc. are causal (limited) means - not the essence of understanding: not a means to apprehending that which is beyond our causality.

Aristotle strove to understand  the natural world, the cosmos, in an acausal way. This was a beginning, albeit a limited one. The success of reductionist science (Newtonian mechanics etc) in our temporal world does not mean it is a correct approach to understanding.

But ultimately all such divisions (religion, politics, science) are causal projections of abstract, fixed, ideas. In Reality, no such divisions exist - there is no science, no religion. There is only that which is beyond us (the Unity and origin of causal and acausal) which our ideas distance us from.

There are no such things as society, culture, even civilization - there is only (1) the way of apprehending the essence (Reality itself) and a striving to live that apprehension on the personal, communal level, and (2) then everything else.

In essence - there is the THE WAY, or ignorance. There is only a covering-up of the essence (through causal forms) and the apprehension of the essence as that essence is. Ignorance, barbarism etc. are a covering-up of the essence; just as THE WAY is a revealing of that essence, from the essence itself.

Reason is one way toward the apprehension of the essence, just as the way of living we call civilized (manners, honour, fairness etc) is the Way which appropriates/manifests/makes real this essence here on this Earth. And that is all there is or ever has been.

The whole way of thinking of the modern world is fundamentally wrong - just as the way of being of this modern world is wrong. It is not a question of Nature, culture, civilization, race, nation etc etc., but a question of how we ARE: what our being is, or rather what we make our being by using our reason and will (our humanity).

Our being can either be toward the essence, the Unity - or toward the causal abstract forms/ideas invented by our species recently and in the past.

How then do we strive beyond the present, ultimately illusory means towards an authentic understanding of the purpose of the Cosmic Being - if a purpose/meaning exists at all?

Essentially: what is our purpose, as rational beings? Why do we exist? Are we just the product of chance events (nature/evolution) or were we created (and guided) by a Supreme Being for some purpose?

If Nature/evolution/cosmos - then how did this arise? How was Nature created/evolved? And the cosmos itself? Chance? And from what/where? What is the origin of life, and the very cosmos itself? Is the cosmos finite in time and space? Did it begin in some big bang with a minute piece of matter? If so, what was outside? And where did this matter come from? How did it come into being? What, essentially, is Space and Time, and being?

Having answered this question of existence, then and only then can there be an understanding of our apprehension/thought in terms of what exists (or what we have accepted exists).

Would you care to summarise?

All answers depend upon the primal apprehension. All the possibilities really amount to the two discussed above: the causal/evolution/chance answer; and the acausal/higher being answer.

All that is now in the West (and all that a certain political form depends upon) depends upon the causal/evolution answer - as does the apprehension of paganism etc when examined logically (e.g. our consciousness is the consciousness of Nature etc - but how did this consciousness come to be from what was before?) In the end the question is - where did life originate from? A creation by a being/Supreme being, or a physical occurrence based upon chance/change/evolution/causality? And where did the cosmos come from, as well?

Note that one must apprehend the acausal as it is and not in causal terms (e.g. as a still unknown type of Space which we can travel to etc). The use of such terms for political ends (once! - like the use of destiny) does not mean their reality is in those ends or in the apprehension underlying those causal ends.  In essence, acausality implies the essence of life - that from which it arose.

Thus, having defined the primal apprehension, you can understand how evolution, destiny etc. depend upon one answer to the nature of the primal Reality.

The other possible answer shows there to be no evolution and no destiny as these terms are commonly understood. Also, note that evolution implies the Western idea of progress - social, historical etc. Western type progress demands causality.

If the acausal/Supreme/Cosmic Being answer is accepted, social/political/economic progress, e.g. as understood in the West, is irrelevant: what matters is to live to achieve the life beyond - and make that accessible for others.