The fact that the order of the world leads to death forced humanity
to remove the threat of uncertainty when leaving this world. It has always been
known that the order of the world is fragile. Nevertheless, what is further,
higher, and more unattainable, like celestial bodies for example, appeared
steadfast and unchanging to an observer on Earth, despite their constant
movement. What was closer to the ground changed more quickly, was created and
disappeared. Therefore, it was necessary to bring the spirit of eternal
permanence closer to humans, and this could be achieved by projecting
permanence beyond the gates of death. The awareness of life's fatality led our
ancient ancestors (each tradition in its own way) to introduce into their
conceptual order the idea of the metacosmos, whose formulations are today known
as: the spiritual world, the world of the dead, the underworld, the heavenly
world, the world of spirits, the afterlife, the other world, etc.
If life entails experience, does
that mean that death is not an experience, i.e., that it represents the absence
of experience? We see how the idea of the metaworld, or metareality,
illustrates the desire to attribute experience to what constitutes the negation
of experience (death). Given the unusual circumstances and the radical break
with the continuity of life’s reality, the afterlife experience is differently
shaped. It has become part of the so-called afterlife. Afterlife existence is
situated in a different reality but is in some way connected to this world, the
world of the living. This means that ancestors, though dead, in some way still
exist, remain connected with their descendants, and thus have experience.
Gathered around a mythical or totemic figure, or entity (a community founder, a
great or first ancestor, a hero, a god, or a divine messenger), ancestors,
existing in a different way, form the basis of the shared identity of a
community. The dead represent the starting point for the gathering and
collective identity of the living, which holds true regardless of whether the
dead exist in a special way or not. They have largely determined the way of
life of the currently living. This is why the cult of ancestors is extremely
important in traditional life. If we remember our ancestors, we know who we
are. In this way, the life and identity of the individual are integrated and
molded into the life and identity of the community. When life paths or the
influence of new ideas uproot people from the community, leading to its
dissolution, the question of individual identity becomes subject to change.
The idea of the metacosmos is the
first idea that humanity discovered, one that is not the product of
philosophical reasoning but rather of a certain transcendental experience. This
experience, in some way, elevated humanity from the animal kingdom. The discovery
of metareality marks the initial moment in the process of creating the shell of
the Self, the complex of Reason-Ego-Personality, as well as the vast
intergenerational sequence of identification, associations, cultural content,
mental images tied to strong emotions, and so on. We can call the beginning of
this process the beginning of history (even though it occurred in deep
prehistory), as it is quite certain that this process forms the backbone of
history.
The first seer, the explorer of the
metaworld environment, besides being confused or amazed, was also not far from
becoming delusional or carried away by the whispers of the beyond. In any case,
that first pioneer of the metaworld arena laid the foundation for the
transformation of the unknown human into the human we know today—the historical
human. Therefore, it was not work that created humanity, but a web of
circumstances, in scope and significance, situated between the concepts of fate
and chance. The historical human is thus the product of the prehistoric human’s
response to some challenges unknown (or known) to us. Specifically, in this
case, I refer to the so-called power plants and hallucinogenic
mushrooms—something that, from the standpoint of (still) prevailing morality,
seems devastating. For, when “power plants” and “magic mushrooms” are
mentioned, they inevitably evoke associations with drugs and their abuse. Thus,
it seems that what created humanity is also what destroys it. This doesn’t mean
that if we take drugs, we will become more than human or better and more
spiritual people. In most cases, we become addicts and toxics, but that also
doesn’t mean that through knowledgeable use of power plants and mushrooms, and
their derivatives, we cannot achieve certain results in our quest toward
metaworld destinations.
People made progress with the help
of the spirits of plants and mushrooms, which helped them radically change
their worldview. These experiences led them to deep contemplation and the
search for explanations to reconcile what they had encountered with the
experience of their everyday lives. In any case, it’s reasonable to conclude
that the experience with the spirit of mushrooms and power plants had a
stimulating effect on the awakening of reason, which points to yet another
paradox: that what stimulates mental activity and imagination is, among other
things, precisely what clouds them.
The second
stimulus for the development of human historical consciousness, embodied
through Reason-Ego-Personality, was careful observation, which contributed to
the emergence of analogies in the ancient mind. People observed living and
non-living nature, plants, animals, natural phenomena, and celestial bodies,
linking them into a coherent and unified system of meaning. They integrated
themselves, their community, and their ancestors into this overall system.
Thus, the universe became a complete and interconnected whole. In such a
universe, the ancient human established their place. The third factor of
development was the influence of the dreaming consciousness. Strange and
extraordinary things occurred in dreams. Therefore, there are threefold stimuli
that shape human thought, consciousness, habits, and worldview. In all this,
the human realized there was an infallible natural mechanism to which they had
to adapt for survival, which led to a particular way of acting—rational,
purposeful, methodical, and grounded in experience. This is how magic arose,
which is, in fact, a rather rational activity. Magic ensured cosmic order and
the smooth functioning of the world, securing the safety and foundation of
humanity's place within it. Magic also provided ways of communicating with
other worlds, that is, with invisible forms of existence. It provided knowledge
and thus embodied the living tradition of the community. Corruption arises when
individuals discover the allure of magical power and begin to make pacts with beings
from the other side, but that is another topic.
In
attempting to communicate his extraordinary experience to others, that first
explorer of metaspheres and magic set in motion the course of history. This was
far from smooth, as the prehistoric mode of communication was not entirely
suited for describing and conveying the experience of an abstract encounter. In
reality, the experience itself was concrete, but its placement within the
sequence of life experiences and their interpretations was abstract. Since
these people did not possess language in the historical sense, the first
awakened individual encountered a wall of misunderstanding. Through numerous
and challenging attempts to convey his unusual experience and describe the
vistas that had opened up to him, interacting with curious or concerned interlocutors,
this first cultural genius—an initiator and revolutionary—began constructing
the foundations of what would become today's cultural and civilized world. Thus
began the development of language, the emergence of logic, rationality,
imagination, magic, and religion. A cult and a corresponding mode of thinking
were born. It became necessary to describe unimaginable or incomprehensible
things and phenomena that no one else had seen or experienced, and to somehow
integrate all of this into a unified worldview. The shaman was born. Of course,
other people could have simply taken the same plant or mushroom, but we must
keep in mind that not everyone experiences profound insights. Some are chosen
by the spirits and granted true visions, while others get lost in nonsense.
The mythical metacosmos, though
interpreted differently and through various visions or direct experiences, has
always been a model and destination for religious and mystical aspirations, as
it primarily represented peace, an expression of fundamental human
yearnings—what we might call meta-peace. Let us recall that the essential human
aspirations, in a metaphysical sense, aim toward order, stability, balance, and
permanence. These are also the principles of metacosmic peace. The striving for
such peace initiated and built culture, civilization, tradition, religion, art,
and history, with the aim of serving human communities in their effort to
transform their existence from a process into a state (to eternalize it). That
this endeavor is as lethal as it is salvific is evidenced by the fact that this
architectural pursuit of human will—driven by the desire to transcend
annihilation—has called into question the very existence of the human species.
Nevertheless, the majority has always meekly accepted the gifts of fate, with
the distinction that people of traditional communities had no doubts about
their afterlife destinations as we do today. They naturally transitioned into
the world of the dead, joining their ancestors, and therefore saw no need to
undertake additional efforts to gain power in order to attain freedom; instead,
they focused on properly observing the established rituals and customs.
We who are alive today are the
result of both elevated human aspirations and all the baseness and absurdities
that have together, side by side, built history. The consequence of this dual
construction of history is evident in the structure of the modern civilizational
edifice, which is founded on dual principles, and the spirit of this edifice
is, for obvious reasons, schizophrenic at its core. Spirituality, while having
created the historical human, also threatens to destroy it. Beyond its
evolutionary potential, spirituality can also have a retrogressive,
involutionary direction, depending on the extent of distortion in dominant
spiritual systems and corresponding mental frameworks. We will seek the causes
of this state of affairs in the degenerative dialectic of the decay of all
things, everything, and everyone. The meaning of life, and thus of humanity,
has always been embodied in the struggle within the global arena, resisting the
degenerative and destructive forces of the chaotic universe. The creation always
strives for its own preservation; indeed, its form strives for this, while its
content, or the substance from which it is made, seeks liberation from the
confines and limitations of that form. The substance generally prevails, albeit
with greater or lesser resistance from the form.
Every effort directed towards a
positive fateful outcome is potentially redemptive, even if the risk associated
with such an endeavor is extremely high. Ultimately, the risk is quite
irrelevant since the outcome of life is shipwreck. If we perish trying to save
ourselves, it is a better possibility than sitting idly by, claiming that all
resistance is futile, and inevitably perishing. In the case of resistance, we
might still manage to escape. By hesitating, a human being misses the
opportunity to act, thus nullifying their own will. On the other hand, the
choice of life is not always redemptive, just as the choice of death is not
always fatal. The marriage of form and substance has a dual choice: dissolution
or transformation. The latter may involve a whole range of transformations, up
to the establishment of the ideal form that does not "frustrate" the
substance, or perhaps the solution lies in the eternal dynamics of endless
transformations (which resembles fleeing from annihilation). Thus, being can
choose one of three fateful options: dissolution—triumph of death and
nothingness; development—achieving the perfect form or formlessness; avoidance
of death—constant transformation, involution, or “redemptive” regression. The
meaning of human life corresponds to death. Whatever a person does or does not
do, it only makes sense if it somehow transcends death or serves that purpose.
This is the ethical and logical framework of human behavior from the standpoint
of metaphysical purposefulness. Only such a character of behavior and action
justifies the defiant upright position of the human being. Humans do not have
roots to stand upright, yet they do stand. This could also be seen as a call or
indication of the possibility of the transformation of human beings. People
might rise to the heights of stellar magnitudes or bow down to be closer to the
ground, restrained by the fear of separation from Earth.
The idea of the metacosm, which
represents realities beyond this reality, higher realities, true realities, or
more intense realities, points to a nature that implies incorruptibility. This
idea is primary, abstract, and indicates an intention aiming towards the
transcendental. Therefore, it is quite natural that this idea occupies the
position of the fundamental orientation of human striving. However, through its
diffusion and institutionalization over time, many customs, institutions, and
organizations have been created, often exclusive, rigid, and mutually opposed,
which generally hinder the intention of the fundamental idea they represent.
Additionally, the application of the metacosmic idea involves the derivation of
secondary and tertiary ideas, values, norms, and categories for the needs of
specific areas of cultural-civilizational activity (politics, ideology,
religion, philosophy, etc.).
The idea of the metacosm points to a
fundamental human value (the beam of consciousness), as it presupposes a golden
foundation for the emission of our everyday life tokens and currencies. Thus,
the lives of our "primitive" ancestors were imbued with this sense,
which was continually enriched with new segments of meaning, significantly
contributing to our existence today. If the lives of our ancestors had been
meaningless, as many today perceive them to be, we would not exist. A whole
series of generations worked towards this simply by living their lives. This is
the simple secret of the endurance of the human race. The lives of our
ancestors had meaning that they themselves constructed. From the perspective of
contemporary tastes, their lives might have seemed wretched and limited, but
from their own point of view, they were not meaningless. The future of a
family, nation, or humanity depends entirely on whether the lives of those who
are currently living, who are here and now, have meaning. For a person’s life
to have meaning, it is essential that the individual incorporates certain
values into it, which will be placed at the very top of their list of life
priorities.
For something to carry the adjective
of value, it must be permanent and durable. The metacosmic idea implies the
permanence of the essence of being as the basis of eternal life. Therefore,
this idea represents a token of value and ontological durability. For example,
gold did not accidentally become a universal medium of exchange and a substance
of valuation. This is due to the specific properties of gold—its durability and
rarity. The same applies to the metacosmic idea. If this idea represents value
akin to gold, then money made from less noble metals, alloys, paper, or even
digital zeros and ones, in this sense, have the meaning of derived values.
In his book Revolt Against the
Modern World, Julius Evola emphasizes that the phenomenon of the sacred, once a
question of reality and transcendent experience, has become a matter of faith
based on feeling, or the subject of theological speculation. Rare instances of
reaching the peak of purified Christian mysticism did not prevent God and gods,
angels and demons, intelligible beings and heavens from taking on the form of
myth. According to Evola, Christian Western civilization lost awareness of them
as symbols of possible supra-rational experiences, supra-individual conditions
of existence, and the deep dimensions of integral human being. He points out
that even the ancient world contributed to the simplification of symbolism into
mythology, which became increasingly opaque and more non-existent, adjudicated
by artistic imagination. With the reduction of the experience of the sacred to
faith, memory, and moralism, and to a scholastic philosophical concept, the
idealism of the spirit was almost entirely displaced by the supernatural. Thus,
ideological and religious madness prevailed, on which rationalism was later
founded.
From the perspective of the
prevailing rationalistic cult of "scientificity," the metasphere does
not exist. The rationalistic mindset would more readily accept a parallel
universe, another space-time continuum, than the metacosmos in its value-laden
sense and fullness of meaning. Ultimately, it is somewhat absurd that the
leading mode of thought in modern civilization ignores or denies something on
which the cultural and civilizational complex of today is based, namely the
metaspheric experience. The consequences of that experience, in terms of
rationalization, interpretation, application, institutionalization,
politicization, ideologization, dogmatization, acculturation, enculturation,
tabooization, profanation, fetishization, etc., encompass the essence and
framework of our way of life, worldview, cultural and social universe, and
psychosphere. If the shamanic, prophetic, priestly, and divinatory experiences
of our ancestors, as well as the psychoses and hallucinations caused by epilepsy,
starvation, asceticism, fear, shock, drink, or drugs, and the ramblings of
madmen, lepers, ambitious fantasists, and cunning manipulators, are considered
to be mere delusions, then today’s civilization, being founded on all this, is
indeed a pseudo-civilization. The wheels of this civilization, if they were not
so at the beginning, are certainly today driven by psychoses, hysteria,
(self)deception, hallucinations, and the ramblings of madmen, fools, ambitious
fantasists, cunning manipulators, and fanatical power holders.
We are witnessing an era of chronic
Machiavellianism and bellicism that wave grotesque flags of democratism and
pacifism, making the current historical situation tragically comical.
Additionally, there is a conflict between the promoters of emerging, globalizing
values and those of the more entrenched, somewhat older values, as well as a
conflict of various polarities within these currents. In this struggle, the new
values appear as forgeries, or as promissory notes without backing, based on
current power dynamics, while the old values are entirely useless and extremely
impractical. Given all this, it is time for a rediscovery and promotion of
different, and I would say, revolutionary values.
Since the metacosmic idea is the
primary orienting point in the complex of culture, its focal point, it also
serves as a guide to the purpose of culture, a guide to meaning, both for
individuals and for communities. However, despite this, the metacosmic idea is
decadent, like any material, spiritual, or intellectual creation. Due to
various historical reasons, many chains of initiation have experienced
distortions or interruptions. Consequently, many incomplete initiates or
usurpers, manipulators, in their inability to understand the metacosmic
experience, began to sacralize the idea itself. The idea, as a mental image of
the metacosmic experience which is inaccessible to most people, became the
foundation of doctrine. As such, the idea was represented by a specific symbol,
which, being suprarational, mystified that experience. Thus, the very idea of
meta-reality, or the imaginative image represented by a symbol, became a value.
While the idea could be accessible to everyone through the symbol, the immediate
metacosmic experience remained reserved only for those who could attain it, and
even that did not disappear. At the same time, vision was replaced by
imagination, immediate experience by imaginative projection, which was
attempted to be revived through special techniques, sometimes with more or less
success.
Throughout history, up to the
present day, various caricatures, distorted and unclear images, have gained
certain value and have been treated as values. Ideas that are almost impossible
to shape even in imagination or to see clearly are now treated as values, with
clumsy ideological terminology further mystifying them. Unsupported values,
spiritual derivatives, unfounded imaginative projections (fantasies), treated
as values rather than as means, constitute the material of every demagoguery,
the arsenal of cultural poisons and mystifications used to legitimize certain
social and political relations, and the prevailing social power. This power,
however it is presented, always tends to distort the meaning of concepts, and
consequently values, as it blurs the true nature and character of the social
relations it governs.
In the form of dogma, interpretation
pushes experience out of the center of the whole narrative and establishes
itself as a rational fetish. Dogma forbids experience! The statement "God
is One," among other things, represents a form of idolatry and a tool of
mystification. It is Reason admiring itself, not God. After these initial
steps, a whole series of further valuations, interpretations, and
reinterpretations arise, influenced and permeated by ideological, economic,
political interests, and personal ambitions or fears. Thus, today we have a
whole assortment of national, religious, political, ideological, traditional,
universal, and other values. For values to have that life-giving and driving
force, it is necessary for a prophet to occasionally emerge who will clearly
point out the existing corruption of current values and revive them with a new
vision, interpretation, or offer other values.
In the book Transcendental Magic,
Eliphas Levi states that to be a prophet means to be exalted and mysterious. It
means to foresee the consequence contained within the cause, while performing
miracles means acting upon the universal magical agent (astral light) and
subordinating it to one's will. Prophecies and miracles are two characteristics
that point to God in man and man in God. Therefore, if there are no individuals
to spread heavenly enthusiasm, the faith of those who cannot see, that is,
those who are unable to achieve transcendental experience, gradually
disappears, as people begin to cling to murky ideals, or to nothing at all.
Perceptive blind individuals recognize that something is wrong with the current
values and attempt to enact reform through mere speculation (with reform always
backed by ambitions and political interests), and this is done without
metaphysical support, without experience, without vision, and without the voice
of God. They engage in counterfeiting, printing money without backing. If they
succeed, the result is a revolutionary degradation of religion. Hence, any
religion without living prophets who maintain the connection between the human
and the divine is no longer a religion in the true sense of the word.
Similarly, any political order not founded on the metacosmic idea is on the
path to disintegration, as it loses its cultural and psychological core.
Once established as a social value,
something is subject to social, historical, and cultural mechanisms, as well as
the laws of the all-encompassing machinery of the fatal dialectic of this
world. Christianity originated from the exceptional charisma of Jesus Christ.
His charisma was undoubtedly greater than that of his apostles, while the
apostolic charisma surpassed that of the later Church Fathers of the early
Church. The charisma of subsequent church dignitaries, saints, monks, priests,
or neo-Protestant street and home missionaries, is incomparably inferior to the
original model embodied in the figure and work of the Christian Savior.
Therefore, in Christianity, what is older and closer to the divine model is
more valuable. The path from a direct relationship with God to the institution
of the Church or Temple is a degrading series of interpretations,
reinterpretations, dogmatic-ideological, and political maneuvers, eventually
leading to the worship or valuation of something or someone who was not at the
beginning of that series, but stood at the other end of the idea as a
contrasting perspective.
Social values, over time, transform
into their own opposites, as they become distorted and lose their grounding in
reality. This process necessarily involves a decline in the quality of the
human material that constitutes the pillars of that idea or value. In order to
gain, increase, or maintain control over essential currents of social power and
the distribution of social wealth, individuals will use all available means to
achieve these goals. To this end, some will instrumentalize social values,
subjecting them to even more distorted interpretations and implementations. As
soon as this becomes apparent, the oppressed or those who are also ambitious
but from lower strata or lower levels of the current power hierarchy will
naturally aim for revision, reform, or even revolution.
Values are socio-psychological
projections of virtues, and virtues, as such, are tied to metacosmic
destinations and aspirations, corresponding to the meaning of life and death.
Values are therefore signposts that direct us toward metacosmic destinations. A
signpost primarily means a symbol: a cross, ankh, pentagram, hexagram,
swastika, mandala, vesica, triangle, rune of the sacred alphabet, etc. A value
is a symbol, an idea presented in an abstract graphical form, a condensed piece
of information expressed in aesthetic simplicity. The form of the symbol
represents the most rational way of depicting metacosmic relations, making
symbols better representatives of an idea than words or statements, although
words are also symbols, particularly nouns. To be fully visual, an auditory
component is necessary. The multitude of symbols and sounds is already the fate
of culture. Too many details spoil the aesthetics and thus indicate the level
of dissolution in social relations and human consciousness. Practically speaking,
a symbol is a tool, a machine that a person must master before using it.
Mastery of the symbol opens perspectives on what the symbol represents. At that
moment, the symbol becomes the only concrete thing we have in our hands. Then
the meaning of the form becomes clear. Functionally, a symbol is a means of
mastering reality, a milestone. Yet, the symbol is locked, and the keys are
hidden or irrevocably lost.
