Atla wrote: ↑Fri May 03, 2024 5:22 amTo say that supernatural realness isn't real, seems absurd? On the contrary. It appears to me that you think like someone who hasn't come into contact with religion and spirituality for the first few decades of his life, and now that you did, it's mesmerizing you.
Spirituality is good, but it can't be overdone anymore on a civilizational scale. A real metaphysical authority is off the table imo, except for lower intelligence.
Your comment here is relevant and I would not dismiss your assertions without careful analysis. First though, if you examine the internal structure of what you are asserting -- you present it as what Occidental man has come to as if to say it is an advance -- I think that you will agree that it is a rather common view. It is the view of those who have risen above such low-level beliefs, immersed as they are in superstition and obscurantism.
You state it plainly here:
"Higher" intelligence will usually arrive at the conclusion that it wasn't supernatural realness itself that effected our entire world. Instead it was our beliefs in supernatural realness, quite possibly even fueled by some kind of innate psychological features we have that create sensations of the spiritual, of the supernatural, of the transcendent. Often forming sensations of God and other higher powers to be followed, but upon closer inspection, that could just be what happens when a reflection of the human self, of the human "I", gets intertwined with our innate spiritual sensations.
What I would say as a kind of response to this formulation is that I think it has
elements of truth. It is undeniable that superstitious modes of perception can and do not only *mesmerize* people but trap them into conspiratorial modes of seeing the world. A way to examine this is to examine conspiracy theories today. For example as Michael Barkun documents in
A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. I could not deny that religious views, I suppose especially when entertained and handled by populations without the sort of education to enable a clear-headed analysis of these negative aspects of blind belief, can well be described as you do describe them.
In my view -- and I did say this -- there are higher and lower orders of belief and understanding in relation to, and in response to, what I refer to continually as *metaphysical reality*. One problem though is that I am not accomplished enough in my explanations. Dubious recently asserts that
any description is simply and only an organization of words to present that description as if it is tangible realness. This implies a sort of internal loop or better said what results when a man stares into an internal mirror and takes the reflection (*invented* they say) as a reality. I do not deny this necessarily. Because I see man's imagination as a very important faculty.
The *imagination* is the sort of internal stage where through -- idea, view -- is played out to use theatrical terms. It can be played out crudely and in hard symbolisms, and these we are all familiar with and more or less detest, but some imaginal productions (if you will permit this turn of phrase) are of a far higher order. I.e. they are purified of dross. It should be clear that I am presenting a way of examining "metaphysical realness" as if describing Plato's Cave. There certainly is a lower order, and it certainly does *enchain* and *entrap* -- but following the terms of the metaphor it is also possible to ascend from one state of perception and understanding to another level.
In other places I have referred to Plato's Seventh Epistle which I admit has influenced the way I understand the internal realness I describe. In that letter Plato describes certain internal processes, impossible according to him to describe in discursive language:
I know indeed that others have written on the same subjects; but who they are, is more than they know themselves. Thus much at least, I can say about all writers, past or future, who say they know the things to which I devote myself, whether by hearing the teaching of me or of others, or by their own discoveries -- that according to my view it is not possible for them to have any real skill in the matter. There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject. For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself.
So what I came to understand -- indeed reflecting on all sorts of different experiences of my own -- is that it all hinges on that light or spark which is kindled in the soul. I fully admit the subjectivity of such experience. But the core idea I work with does not negate or explain away what is suggested and implied by Plato's reference, which he cannot provide an adequate verbal description of, "For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge".
Now it is true that I began this thread by reference to Christianity and, by implication, something in it of quintessential importance. That is my view. What confuses people is that my own view is more philosophical and grounded in an intellectually realized perception (idea) than it is in a classic "Christian faith" which can and does overtake some people with what is termed (negatively, critically) as
enthusiasm. When I study, and I do study, the very innards of Catholic-Christian theology -- a complex interplay of symbols, yes, but also of metaphysical principles, I begin to see what is presented through it and why it has been transformative and elevating.
When you and others use the term *invented* to denounce what I refer to as *metaphysical realness* I personally believe you are making a great mistake. You get stuck seeing
the trees when you would do better to see
the forest. So let me refer to Plato's description: "suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself" as referring to some type of essence the realization of which, for want of a better word, and one that might confuse,
enlightens.
A real metaphysical authority is off the table
I believe that I see your point, and in a sense I agree, but then I also adamantly disagree. In my view it is our task to discover and attempt to explain, through it will always be problematic and misleading, just what we mean by
metaphysical authority. I am pretty sure that we know it intuitively and perhaps I can say that man will always know it. But the question is how it can be made real when, as indeed is the case, we live among the *ruins* that Evola refers to. I see ruins as being a densely loaded term that has to be unpacked. To be in a ruinous state, or a ruined state, is to be in a degenerated state -- and it is that state that requires renovation.
