Tilting at Windmills

There is a constant misunderstanding that seeks to treat metaphysics as a philosophy or system of thought, like perennialism, that can be studied and debated from the outside. Quite the contrary, it is more like an empirical science, although that data observed are in consciousness. Even better, the metaphysician is more like an explorer such as Columbus or Lewis and Clark. He explores the contents of his consciousness, discovers new things, and only then begins to codify them. Rene Guenon writes in his Hindu Doctrines:

The real difficulty [in understanding metaphysics] is the mental assimilation needed to arrive at this result; there are certainly many minds that are quite incapable of it, and it is easy to gauge how far this effort transcends the scope of mere works of erudition. There is only one really profitable way of studying doctrines: in order to be understood they must be studied so to speak “from the inside” …

This is the third dimension of history that Julius Evola refers to; that dimension is depth which is really interiority. Hence, to understand metaphysics or tradition, one must avoid the temptation of the demon of dialectics and try to engage that system in a living way, much as an explorer searching for an unexplored part of the mind. Hermetic meditation can be helpful in this regard: by an imaging, one tries to understand the state of mind of a writer or speaker.

Metaphysical Pathology


Yet, as Guenon points out, few minds are capable of it. To answer why, we need to refer to the esoteric doctrine that what Guenon observes is necessarily so. Although there are many beings with a human form, only the few are capable of activating the dimension of spirit. This doctrine cannot be exoteric, since it would lead to all sorts of misunderstandings. Rather than looking for spiritual qualities, common men will try to separate men based on contingent and accidental qualities. Yet, the implication is there in the teaching on predestination. How else can we understand it?

Is it possible, then, to determine the inner state of another man? Perhaps some few enlightened beings can read a man’s soul directly, but otherwise, keeping in mind the principle that the lesser cannot judge the higher, there are clues to notice. Since the outer is the reflection of the inner, a man’s posture, voice, expression, and so on, often give away a lot. For example, it can be determined how conscious he is by whether his spirit dominates the soul which dominates the body, or, as is more likely, the other way around.

However, we can start at a more basic level. Since a man’s understanding of metaphysics depends on his own self-knowledge, we can get an idea of his state of self-knowledge by the opinions he professes to believe. If his self-knowledge lacks breadth or depth, that will show up in his philosophy of life.

For example, I once heard an on-line lecture by a quite intelligent man who claimed a 160 IQ. Nevertheless, he regarded his own inner life as the product of electro-chemical reactions in the brain. Now, there may arise in some the urge to debate him and claim that consciousness and the soul really exist and are irreducible to material causation. Or, we could simply take him at his word. The man may simply have an impoverished inner life, whether through lack of effort or by the very nature of his constitution.

Another claim I sometimes hear, and even once from a professor, is that guilt is a Jewish invention and has no part in the Western tradition. To debate that directly is a fool’s errand. The way to deal with it is by way of a phenomenology of guilt. We observe the experience in our consciousness and see how it arises. If we see it associated with the forces of chaos or neurotic instincts or false charges whose goal is manipulation, then we transcend them. Otherwise, guilt may reveal something fundamental about us. For example, Martin Heidegger claims to have (re)discovered a primordial sense of guilt. Now, it may very well be the case that the professor in his own consciousness cannot detect any sense of guilt. Unfortunately, this is not indicative of any higher state of mind. Rather, it is a psychological pathology which goes by the name of sociopathy, so don’t trust such a man with your money, your daughter, or your reputation.

A third example, this time indicating an acute form of paranoia, is the not infrequent claim that “Jews” are implanting Semitic ideas in our minds. Unfortunately, there is little specificity, so these alien ideas are simply ideas that the claimant doesn’t like. Now, on Terence’s principle that nothing human is alien to me, we need to look within ourselves for the source of such ideas; after all, a virus cannot take hold in an organism without the appropriate receptors. But the paranoid always experiences such ideas as coming from outside him. This is a pathology where the Persona projects undesired qualities onto the Shadow.

Otto Weininger made an effort to define exactly what are Aryan and Semitic ideas. While some of his insights are useful, his use of those terms is not at all helpful and just leads to misunderstanding. Weininger does qualify it by separating the Platonic ideal of Aryanity and the Semitic anti-ideal from their presence in specific races or ethnic groups. We prefer to refer to the forces of Order and the forces of Chaos, which we have defined on too many posts to link to. We observe them within ourselves. To the extent that the forces of chaos exert influence on us, they are a privation; that is, a force that by our nature we should overcome, but we have not yet developed the inner strength to oppose it. That is our real battle, not tilting at windmills.

5 thoughts on “Tilting at Windmills

  1. Thank you also. (In a way, I am thankful to no one, as it is an endless chain of entanglements {“thank you for this, thank you for that”; “thank you god, thank you god!”; “tusind tak” [danish]}; being thanked & thanking is addictive — but I use it to not seem rude. However, I appreciate all to different degrees.)

    Yes you are right about the ordinary man misunderstanding or assuming. Perhaps this is related to why EXIT does not take other people’s criticisms into consideration, speaking ex cathedra and ex tripode in a final and pedagogical tone, as if he could afford such authority. Admittedly I’ve made that mistake a lot in my life, but I can increasingly afford such procedures (and usually it turns out I’ve been right anyway — as when I was in India, and was harshly scolded by an Indophile Traditionalist, but later saw that all I said and he reacted badly to was actually confirmed by Evola, Nietzsche and Tradition. He was quite into the vegetative elements of Hinduism obviously.)
    That is, although EXIT has a lot of potential, is knowledgeable, and we agree on a lot, he is maladapted; e.g. in that he persists in tactics of communication that are ineffective. He speaks against the Semitic, yet he does not seem to be trying to convince but to cast shame or tantalize as a resentful Semite or the malignant Priest typically does. The Aryan does not persist in the ineffective nor does he engage in grim struggles like a zealot.

    “That dangerous word, hybris, is indeed the touchstone for every
    Heraclitean; here he may show whether he has understood or mistaken
    his master. Is there in this world: guilt, injustice, contradiction,
    suffering?
    Yes, exclaims Heraclitus, but only for the limited human being, who
    sees divergently and not convergently, not for the contuitive god; to
    him everything opposing converges into one harmony, invisible it is
    true to the common human eye, yet comprehensible to him who like
    Heraclitus resembles the contemplative god. Before his fiery eye no
    drop of injustice is left in the world poured out around him, and even
    that cardinal obstacle how pure fire can take up its quarters in forms
    so impure he masters by means of a sublime simile. Becoming and
    Passing, a building and destroying, without any moral bias, in
    perpetual innocence is in this world only the play of the artist and
    of the child. And similarly, just as the child and the artist play,
    the eternally living fire plays, builds up and destroys, in
    innocence—and this game aeons play with themselves.”
    [Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, section 7.]

    Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.

  2. Thanks for the research and clarifications, Hoo, but we were not referring to Eminent Men. The constant danger is that the ordinary man will hear a message such as yours and then assume that he is such. There is a world of difference between transcending guilt and not being aware of it at all.

    We see a similar thing in Buddhism in the West, which attracts a lot of weak men. That is because they hear doctrines like the “no-self”, and then, because they have such a weak sense of self within, they assume they are close to enlightened Buddhahood. But it is only the man with a strong self who is capable of transcending that self who is a Buddha; not at all, the man who never had any sense of self at all.

  3. Oh, I forgot one important thing (which makes my message less antagonistic): Of course there is also another side (as everything seems to have two faces or hands (even God)]; yes altogether far more common, to be “free” of those knots and suffering for/from it. And that side is not overcoming mere sociopathy (“suffering in society from a lack of sensitivity towards it”). The Eminent Man does not suffer from a lack of sensitivity towards the social. He has the sensitivity: he does not suffer from having it nor does he suffer from not having it, but he makes use of it as he wills.

  4. pathos: ´”quality that arouses pity or sorrow,” 1660s, from Gk. pathos “suffering, feeling, emotion,” lit. “what befalls one,” related to paskhein “to suffer,” and penthos “grief, sorrow;” from PIE base *kwenth- “to suffer, endure” (cf. O.Ir. cessaim, Lith. kenciu “suffer”).´

    [Cologero:] ´Now, it may very well be the case that the professor in his own consciousness cannot detect any sense of guilt. Unfortunately, this is not indicative of any higher state of mind. Rather, it is a psychological pathology which goes by the name of sociopath, so don’t trust such a man with your money, your daughter or your reputation.´

    This is a leveling message and thus anti-Hyperborean and wrong. It’s almost like you’re saying it’s pathological not to have pathos!

    Not suffering guilt, or being free of the knots of guilt-shame-fear, is actually one of the symptoms of a higher mind — being free of the entanglements of guilt-shame-fear is the absolute opposite of a pathos or dis-ease (for one then is always completely at ease)!

    disease: ´early 14c., “discomfort, inconvenience,” from O.Fr. desaise “lack, want; discomfort, distress; trouble, misfortune; disease, sickness,” from des- “without, away” (see dis-) + aise “ease” (see ease). Sense of “sickness, illness” in English first recorded late 14c.; the word still sometimes was used in its literal sense early 17c.´

    [Evola:] ´The notion of sin, as it has been understood by the Judeo-Christian tradition, is not found in Asia nor in the Aryan world, in either its Eastern or Western hemispheres. The latter knows the concept of “fault” rather than “sin,” in the sense of contamination, or impurity (an impurity that is almost physical, as in ancient Greece). When sin is reduced to the notion of guilt, it does not have a moral connotation, but it rather denotes a wrong action, performed in an irrational frame of mind. Earlier we learned that according to the Hindu doctrine of karma, he who violates his own dharma does not become a “sin-ner” but rather endures the consequences of his own actions. In this context, the pasha to be overcome could be identified with a “guilty conscience.”´ [in “The Yoga of Power” ]

    This of course mostly applies to the Master-Man, who ´does not take other people’s criticisms into consideration. The positive and negative comments about him made by the society in which he lives do not affect him. He is beyond shame and honor. He does not accept judgment according to the standards of ordi-
    nary society´ [“Yoga of Power”]

    This however is a very interesting point:
    [Cologero:]´nothing human is alien to me, we need to look within ourselves for the source of such ideas; after all, a virus cannot take hold in an organism without the appropriate receptors.´

    Perhaps we could say superior types are distinguished by the fact they didn’t even receive some of the viruses to begin with, by their superiority of not even being receptive to them (or being far more resilient)!

  5. [Thanks, Exit, for demonstrating the point that “the lower cannot judge the higher.” — admin]

    The main theme of your articles is heard again and again: no one understands metaphysics; but you have yet to display any metaphysical understanding yourself.

Please be relevant.

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