Open Enlightenment

The Absolute Versus The Relative

The description of enlightenment as the realisation of the Absolute is one of my favourites. Its advantages include the implicit notion that enlightenment is not something a person ‘has’ or ‘is’; not a state or feeling, but the arrival at a form of understanding.

Yet enlightenment as ‘realisation of the Absolute’ has distinct drawbacks. It might lead someone to imagine it is the adoption of an idea, or a particular version of the idea of the Absolute. Another disadvantage is that by identifying enlightenment with the Absolute it implicitly encourages us to draw a dualistic contrast between it and the relative.

The Absolute includes but transcends the relative, so it’s not a dualistic relationship. But not until the process of enlightenment is well under way can we begin to experience this relationship in anything but an intellectual and dualist sense. And yet I still think the notions of Absolute and relative are among the most useful tools we have for speaking about and teaching enlightenment.

This impression was confirmed when I recently read a translation of one of the final works of the Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitaro (1870-1945), who offers some valuable ideas for understanding enlightenment (or ‘religious consciousness’ as he tends to call it) in terms of the realisation of the Absolute, but with some important safeguards that prevent this model from degenerating into dualism.

In a sense, however, realising dualism is just as important as realising the Absolute. Nishida writes on how religious consciousness does not begin until we gain an inkling of the contradiction implied by the very notion of a self – that part of the world we pretend is separate from or is looking out on the rest of it (Nishida 1987: 66). Although some might reject outright the model of Absolute versus relative as too dualistic for the purpose of conceptualising enlightenment, Nishida is reminding us here that the manifest absurdity of duality is what fuels the whole enterprise of enlightenment. Duality is such a stupid way of seeing the world that it’s its own best argument against itself.

Nothing gives us a better handle on the stupidity of duality that the supposed dualism between the relative and the Absolute, because if the Absolute were conceived as the dualistic counterpart to the relative (its ‘opposite’, for example, or its ‘complement’, ‘shadow’, ‘avatar’, or any relationship whatsoever) it would therefore be in a relation to the relative – i.e. relative itself – and instantly, by definition, non-Absolute.

The attempt to think dualistically about the Absolute demonstrates immediately that the Absolute requires a completely different kind of logic in order to be conceptualised correctly. As Nishida puts it:

[T]he absolute is not merely non-relative. For it contains absolute negation within itself. Therefore the relative which stands in relation to the absolute is not merely a part of the absolute or a lesser version of it. If it were, the absolute would indeed be non-relative, but it would no longer be the absolute either. A true absolute must possess itself through self-negation. The true absolute exists in that it returns itself in the form of the relative. The true absolute One expresses itself in the form of the infinite many. God exists in this world through self-negation. (Nishida 1987: 69)

Wow…

(Now go back and read that again – slowly, this time…)

In other words, then, the relative has nothing to do with the Absolute (because otherwise the Absolute would be relative to it). The true Absolute, therefore, is non-relative because it negates its own nature, which it does by expressing itself as the relative.

This is the most stunning, the most beautiful description of the radical, bottomless emptiness of Emptiness, the most succinct description of why it can be said that ‘Emptiness is Form’ that I’ve yet come across. It’s also a vivid evocation of precisely what the enlightened mind sees and experiences when it meditates upon Emptiness.

Too bad that Nishida’s writing isn’t more widely read for what it manifestly is: his report on his own experience. Part of the reason for this is the position he occupies in the standard version of the history of ideas. He was among the first eastern thinkers to adopt western ideas and express himself in the style of western academic philosophy. For this reason he is often read in the West as another western academic philosopher – that is, someone who seeks to understand experience through the medium of ideas – albeit those ideas are a little more exotic than average, with their ‘Zen’ trappings and references to thinkers with funny-sounding names that we don’t read over here.

In the translation of Nishida that I own, the editor’s closing essay is revealing in this respect. Peppering his argument with the usual post-modern buzzwords, the editor takes issue with the idea that Nishida’s non-dualism can only be understood within a tradition of eastern mysticism. Yet he never entertains the possibility that Nishida might simply be describing stuff he has experienced. Instead, Nishida’s work is viewed as a kind of linguistic exercise, which has ‘obvious parallels’ in the work of western poets – such as Shakespeare, Milton and Wallace Stevens – and with the work of post-modern philosophers such as (oh, for Fuck’s Sake) Jacques Derrida.

The only thing this clueless argument demonstrates is the possible pitfall of trying to teach enlightenment as realisation of the Absolute. Of course, all models are fallible, but without an appreciation of the non-dual logic of the Absolute as deep and as subtle as Nishida’s, it’s all too easy for post-modern wind-bags to strand themselves in the shallows of rhetoric and ideas.

Source

Nishida Kitaro (1987). Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview. Translated and edited by David A. Dilworth. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

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A Non-Dual View of Enlightenment

I recently posted an argument on behalf of the belief that enlightenment is an event that happens to a person, with the intent of having the argument – at some point in the future – reviewed by my peers. In lieu of the fact that there is no one to put forward the apparently opposite argument that enlightenment cannot happen to a person, I thought I would do this myself.

However, my thinking has got ahead of my writing, and I’ve arrived at an interesting place where both views are in some degree accurate and inaccurate. I would much prefer to explore this, although I’ll give the main points in support of the view that enlightenment cannot happen to a person.

I’ve already given the irrational consequences of believing enlightenment is not an event and cannot happen to a person, such as mistakenly identifying Non-duality with doing nothing, giving up and understanding nothing; with the developmental nature of enlightenment – described by every single biography of a pseudo-Advaitist and straight up practitioner alike – left ignored and deemed irrelevant.

But what about the problems with believing enlightenment is an event that happens to a person?

First, if we accept that a person experiences knowledge of the Non-dual, then we are left with the person as a subject and the Non-dual as an object. Hardly non-dual (as Ceri pointed out). Yet personal experience reveals that the Non-dual is not absence of experience; but at the same time, there is no duality. How can we describe enlightenment in order to facilitate an understanding of this, without falling into either trap?

Second, we are left with the consequences of describing someone as an ‘enlightened person’. Not a person who has experienced enlightenment, but an enlightened person. Can you see the difference in emphasis? The first is a description that matches the facts; the second is the ascribing of a certain quality to an individual, and it is very rarely used in the sense that ‘this person has experienced enlightenment’. I would argue that every single bad model, ridiculous expectation and delusional fantasy around what it means ‘to be enlightened’ stem from using enlightenment as an adjective, and it’s a huge contributing factor to the facilitation of the abuse of power by many a guru or teacher. Consider: if enlightenment could not be used as an adjective, exactly how would you ask the question ‘what does it mean to be enlightened?’

The Language of Non-duality

So how do we resolve the two apparently irreconcilable view points? Either enlightenment happens to a person, or it doesn’t, yes?

I think the solution lies in describing the experience of the Non-dual accurately, without resorting to the gobbledygook of pseudo-Advaitists. It’s common here for the pseudo-Advaitist or amateur postmodern philosopher to interject with the idea that language fails us, and that true understanding is not possible with language anyway; we can only ‘point the way’ using feeble gestures and nonsensical phrases.

‘A bad workman always blames his tools’ springs to mind, so let’s continue.

When enlightenment happens, whether it’s just a peek or it’s permanent, it is usually accompanied by the intellectual realisation that consciousness or awareness is not limited to the body, the emotions, the mind, or the individual. What is normally taken to be the self is seen as just another set of sensations, no different from the ground beneath your feet or the sky above your head. Buddhist’s call this ‘no-self’. Advaitist’s call this ‘the Self’ with a capital ‘S’ (or Big Self), as opposed to the ego, or small self.

Duality only exists where there is a subject and object. Normally, the subject is taken to be the sensations that make up a person, who experiences the world as something separate from itself, as an object. But with enlightenment, the ignorance that the person or individual is a subject is gone; we are left with ‘an experience with no experiencer’.

This is exactly my experience. Since my enlightenment I know that I am not this person, Alan Chapman. But Alan Chapman persists after enlightenment just as he did before (much to everyone’s delight, I’m sure). Enlightenment occurred for me, and it was a radical transformation in identity, from subject to Non-dual experience.

‘An experience with no experiencer’ is not meaningless; it is not a garbled, flailing gesture that is supposed to point to the truth. It is an accurate description of what occurs during enlightenment. It is a wonderful definition of Being itself, and perfectly expresses the non-dual nature of existence: Just this.

No doubt some people will argue that it is impossible for experience to exist without an experiencer, and so yet again, language has failed us. But the fault here is not with language, but with a logic based on the ignorance of duality. Awareness is not a thing. Consciousness is not a subject. This can be expressed (and I hope it is right now) very clearly with language, without the need to resort to pseudo-Advaita speak.

Rational Consequences

What does this mean for the belief that enlightenment happens to a person, and the contrary view that it cannot?

The sensations that make up a self or person do not disappear with enlightenment; but the person is very much effected by it. A change in behaviour – physical, emotional and mental – takes place. The person has knowledge of enlightenment, memories of it occurring and persisting, and can express all of this experience in words. Enlightenment happens to people, as an experience.

But the person is no longer a subject. It is assumed by human society at large that a person – his or her physical body, emotions and mind – IS a subject, and they will describe the subject usually in those terms: fat or thin, ugly or attractive, nice or annoying, stupid or clever. For the person who has experienced enlightenment, this still retains its functionality. But can we describe a person as ‘enlightened’ in the same way? Do we not assume that an ‘enlightened person’ is actually an ‘enlightened subject’ when we use enlightenment as an adjective? Does this not imply that there is a subject with a quality – enlightenment – that really exists, when this is actually the opposite of the experience itself?

If there is one thing enlightenment demonstrates, it is that there is no subject to ‘be enlightened’.

Just as describing yourself as ‘fat’ or ‘thin’ still has a degree of utility after enlightenment, even though there is no subject to be fat or thin, can we use ‘enlightened’ in the same way? Consider any description of a person – bar ‘enlightened’ – and you will see that it describes either a physical, emotional, mental or behavioural trait: All the things mistaken to be a subject. ‘Enlightened’ does not accurately describe any physical, emotional, mental or behavioural trait; and that’s why it is frequently assumed as a (usually fantastical) description of a phenomenon that falls into one of these categories.

Describing a person as ‘enlightened’ could be the greatest mistake ever made in the history of genuine spirituality. (Hey, talk about a turn around in opinion.)

So does enlightenment happen to a person? Absolutely. It is an experience that is a perfectly natural development for every single man, woman and child on this planet, and it is perfectly understandable. No pseudo-Advaita necessary.

But there is no such thing as an ‘enlightened person’.

There’s a big difference.

(P.S. I’m not sure what this means for the ‘Small self/Big Self Fallacy’, because I haven’t thought it through yet. More to come no doubt.)

(P.P.S. I’m quite enjoying this. The fact that I’ve arrived at my current position is in part down to the Challenging False Beliefs approach. I think it has definite value. If anyone would like to review this article, I would be greatful.)

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10 ideas I’ve changed my mind about since becoming enlightened

Here are ten ideas I’ve changed my mind about since my enlightenment in March 2009:

1. The arrogance of psychological development

According to the Integral crowd, pluralism allowed us for the first time in history to recognise the existence of many perspectives. This puts the postmodernist at an advantage to any of the lower stages of psychological development, but at the cost of a narcissism based on moral superiority. Postmodernists can be infuriatingly patronising.

Due to the extreme equality of all values and viewpoints held by the postmodernist, any genuinely new perspective to develop after postmodernism must inescapably reintroduce the concepts of hierarchy, progress and values; the very same concepts championed by modernism. And so it is not uncommon for the post-postmodernist (or integralist) to be mistaken for a modernist by the postmodernist, and the sadly predictable patronising ensues (which is doubly frustrating when you’re more than familiar with postmodernism).

I’ve been on the wrong end of a patronising postmodernist a few times, and I’ve been so enranged and sickened by his or her unexamined smugness, that I’ve responded by informing them that, actually, I’m at a level of development above and beyond theirs, and so they’re just incapable of understanding me. Ha!

In other words, I’ve been arrogant and patronising myself. Rather than seeing this behaviour as inherently postmodern, I’m convinced the integral or spiral dynamics model of psychological development actually promotes arrogance. If this is the case, I don”t believe spiral dynamics is the best tool with which to approach the problems of any given perspective, or a profitable lens with which to view each other.

There is an assumption in the Integral view that developmental stages are in themselves arrogant and patronising, when in truth only humans have that honour.

2. Occultists need to be convinced that magick is about enlightenment

I’ve spent the last few years trying to rehabilitate magick as the Western tradition of enlightenment. I used to think magick was important in this respect, but I was missing the point. The Great Work has never been about the tradition of magick itself, and persisting in trying to convince occultists and everyone else of what magick is really about ultimately has nothing to do with enlightenment.

I always assumed magick was important for the Great Work; when in reality, enlightenment is not bound to any tradition whatsoever. Isn’t it time for a Western tradition accessible to a majority – instead of a minority – living in the 21^st Century?

3. Magick is different to other traditions of enlightenment

Reading contemporary Western Buddhist literature can easily lead to a very narrow expectation of the type and variety of meditative results; when compared to the reported interactions with non-human intelligences, dreams, oracles, visions and synchronicities of magick, a dry meditative practice can seem like a very boring path to enlightenment.

In the past I’ve emphasised the difference between magick and other less ‘exciting’ traditions, which carries with it the assumption that a straight up insight practice doesn’t engender the same variety and type of experience as, say, invoking the Holy Guardian Angel.

But this assumption has no basis in reality; after all, it is the process of enlightenment that is the root of the vast diversity of mystical and magical events, not any single technique or tradition. Perhaps it would be to everyones benefit if magicians talked more about the developmental stages of spiritual development, and Buddhists more regularly described their meetings with spirits, the occurrence of life-changing visions and the development of psychic powers.

4. Ritual and meditation are demonstrably synonymous

I’ve tried many times over the course of three years to show how the practice of ritual can lead to the same process of insight as straight-up meditation. The assumption here is that a technical explanation for how the two seemingly separate acts both engender the same result is directly related to helping others reach enlightenment; but it isn’t. (This is also tied up with convincing others that magick is an enlightenment tradition, as discussed above.)

So I’ve ditched the comparative, specific tradition-related practical approach that attempts to prove a technical synonymity, in favour of a simple symbol that helps to explain enlightenment on its own terms. It proves nothing, but I’m pretty sure it’s helpful.

5. Enlightenment is a science

Personal verification of the promise of enlightenment is to be expected of a genuine, spiritual practice. In order to stress my conviction in the reality of enlightenment (and magick), in the past I have jumped on the ‘deep science’ bandwagon and tried to argue that enlightenment is an injunction that brings forth data that can be verified by peers, thus making it a bone fide science.

But exactly how is arguing whether or not enlightenment is a science (in a specialised sense of the word that only a philosopher might be familiar with) in any way related to a). personally getting enlightened or b). helping others get enlightened? Is it not enough to say enlightenment requires no belief or blind faith, just the will to verify its reality for yourself?

God knows, I am not a scientist in the accepted sense of the word, and neither are the majority of people I know who have actively engaged with enlightenment. Of the scientists I do know, it wasn’t any notion of performing ‘deep science’ in order to prove anything that made them decide to take up insight practice or draw a circle on the floor in order to summon a spirit.

Attempting to prove that enlightenment is a science, as if this is necessary before we might delude ourselves, is simply ridiculous and missing the point.

6. The virtue of the language of the Relative and the Absolute

For me, enlightenment has always been about answering questions such as ‘why am I here?’ and ‘what is the true nature of reality?’ I think these are questions worth asking, and I strongly believe enlightenment provides the answers.

With so much extreme postmodernism floating around, especially within contemporary occult culture, any notion of pursuing the Big Questions required a reactionary language with which to discuss them. Absolute relativity is a myth completely divorced from reality, and it leaves the inquisitive lost in a sea of meaningless perspectives in a universe inherently devoid of value. It was necessary to re-introduce the idea of the Absolute itself, something outside of the individual, but that could be discovered by it. The language of the relative and the absolute has proved useful as a means of navigating away from the insanity of radical postmodernism.

However, such language is inescapably dualistic, and by this I mean it fosters a conceptual divide that doesn’t really exist. And if Absolute Relativity is a myth, why should we entertain the Relatively Absolute into the bargain? Furthermore, talk of the absolute only reinforces the human propensity to invest in the One Correct Answer or a Unified Theory of Everything. I fail to see how this is profitable.

I believe there is a much more beneficial way to approaching enlightenment that doesn’t require first challenging postmodernism, and then erecting a conceptual divide between enlightenment and everything else. I hope to post further developments in this direction in the near future, whilst resolutely refusing to try and prove anything, resolve contradictions or create the One Mighty and Complete System that Accounts for Everything.

7. Morality, psychology and insight are three separate lines of development

Daniel Ingram’s masterpiece Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha provided me with a pure insight model, divorced from the fantasies of many of the models of enlightenment taught by so many Buddhist traditions.

Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory showed me how development in insight can help the progression through the psychological stages of Spiral Dynamics, but that it was perfectly possible to be enlightened at the Traditional stage as it was to be at the Integral stage.

As a non-Buddhist, and being particularly inclined to Aleister Crowley’s Thelema, I wrote off the Buddha’s training in morality as just another example of religious dogma.

But my experience of the process of enlightenment has demonstrated that a). a pure insight model is impossible, b). enlightenment has its own unique psychological development and c). its own unique moral development too.

The ‘discarded’ models of enlightenment certainly require revisiting (I will be writing something up soon), and I hope in the future there will be some research into the psychological effects of enlightenment, with the creation of an accurate psychological developmental model specifically related to enlightenment. I’ve begun to address Enlightened Ethics, which I plan to develop into a method of conscious integration.

8. Enlightenment is not a matter for hard science

While I still believe it is absolutely wonderful that enlightenment is a personal, direct experience that must be verified and understood first hand, thereby invalidating any idea of a priesthood or church, I can no longer believe in strictly relegating hard science to the physical world, and enlightenment to the spiritual level of experience alone, based on the assumption that one has no business with the other. After all, in the final analysis enlightenment has nothing to do with the spiritual level of experience either. The freedom of enlightenment has demonstrated to me firsthand that my identity is not bound up in any of the levels of the Great Chain of Being, and so I no longer have an aversion to discussing the physiology of the enlightened brain for fear of becoming a materialist reductionist.

In fact, I wholeheartedly wish to encourage the notion that enlightenment is a question for science. Not because I believe enlightenment is nothing but a product of the brain, but because I believe the brain must necessarily demonstrate a correlate with the enlightened experience. My identity and perspective on the world is so radically different than it was beforehand that I find it hard to believe my brain is still the same as it was pre-enlightenment. The great thing is, there is still no real research in this area (yes, there have been studies of meditators brains and so on, but there is no reason to assume the test subjects were enlightened or even engaged with the process).

I’m really excited by what might be discovered by hard science in the realm of enlightenment. If only I had money to invest!

9. The Goal mentality

For three and a half years I had one goal in mind, and for three and a half years I struggled to practice the methods of enlightenment correctly and at the right volume in order to ensure success. And when I reached the goal, this investment had negative consequences in the form of frustration, helplessness and fear. Yes: immediately after enlightenment, I had a really shitty time. (I’ll go into this at a later date.)

Of course, early on I learned that after the first peak experience of enlightenment it isn’t you that ‘does’ the process of enlightenment, but the process that ‘does’ you. But I never consciously integrated this experience – I wasn’t even aware that I could or should! – and I persisted in re-enforcing a habit based on the belief that I must chase a goal that I would eventually achieve through my own doing (and the sooner, the better!).

So what happens when you suddenly gain the ability to see every deeply held false opinion you have about yourself and reality for what they are? What happens when you can suddenly and clearly perceive that virtually your entire being is habitually dedicated to a behaviour and way of thinking that is based on an incorrect assumption?

Just because you are enlightened, it doesn’t mean the habits and behaviours based on ignorance disappear over night. They must be replaced by new, enlightened behaviours.

In terms of enlightenment, the goal mentality sets you up for a big fall. While it is very important to realise that both a daily practice of active transcendence and a willing participation is required to attain the very real event of enlightenment, this should not translate to a gung-ho balls-to-the-wall chase for awakening. Such an attitude belongs to the beginner who has not yet had the personal insight – granted by the process of enlightenment – of realising there is much more to reality than the whims of the ego. It appears that without a conscious integration of this insight, the participant is left with a lot of pain and a good deal of work to do post-enlightenment.

10. Maps are always useful

I have personally found maps very useful in my development, as have many of my friends. I used to think everyone should be armed with as many maps and models as they could find, until I met a raw beginner who, ascribing to the goal mentality, had tied themselves up in knots trying to figure out where they ‘were’. Exactly how the headache and expended energy used in trying to find a resolution to this problem were helpful in his achieving enlightenment escapes me (as it turns out, he was slowly but surely making good progress, almost in despite of ‘where’ he thought he was at).

I came across maps just near the end of my first cycle through the stages of insight, and so I already had a good deal of the basic spiritual experiences under my belt. It was a simple question of aligning my experiences with a model to see what fit, and it wasn’t long before I could accurately judge my position. But would I have found maps and models as useful as a beginner with absolutely no experience whatsoever? Would I have memorised the language of the maps and frantically applied them to every little intellectually ‘insight’ or physical peculiarity that might arise during meditation, ending up wondering if i had just landed Naïve Enlightenment or if I was close to the end of the process by experiencing enlightenment in real time?

I can’t be sure, but what I am sure of is that models aren’t always good for everyone all of the time.

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The Dialogue of Eris and Angelos (Part 2)

ANGELOS: What would you like to drink, Eris? I’d suggest something highly caffeinated, because if we continue to pursue the themes we’ve explored so far I’ve a feeling things might get very deep.

ERIS: In that case, Angelos, mine’s a mocha – with extra chocolate. I’ll need a heavy dose of pleasure if you’re going to get mystical on me. Let’s sit over here, at the back, where there’s less chance anyone who knows me might overhear us discussing your spooky trash.

ANGELOS: ‘Spooky trash’? So I’m guessing you’d reject out of hand the idea that there exists something Absolute?

ERIS: Yes. Because it’s impossible. A thing that I experience is defined in some way, so the fact that it’s not an absolute is what makes each thing itself.

ANGELOS: You’d assert that the Absolute does not exist?

ERIS: Yes. Or if it could be said to exist, it would have no relevance to my experience.

ANGELOS: Therefore the Absolute is that which does not exist?

ERIS: Hey, I don’t like the sound of this. I’m not too happy about that ‘is’…

ANGELOS: But would you agree that all things that exist do so in a manner that is distinct, each from the other, and this is what enables us to tell them apart?

ERIS: Of course.

ANGELOS: And that which does not exist does so in a manner which is identical to all other things that do not exist, and it’s this which enables us to distinguish between things that do exist and all those that don’t?

ERIS: No. Because things can ‘not exist’ differently. For instance: dinosaurs do not currently exist, but they once did. Unicorns, on the other hand, never have.

ANGELOS: Agreed. But I’d like to keep our discussion focused on our experience. I want to talk about things existing and not existing according to how they arise within our awareness. Can you go along with me on this?

ERIS: Fine, because what doesn’t exist can’t arise in my awareness. How could it? This is going to be a very short discussion and I’ve hardly sipped my mocha yet.

ANGELOS: Hang on a moment! Although unicorns and dinosaurs can’t arise in our experience, you were able to talk about them just now.

ERIS: Of course, because we have signs in our language with which to do so.

ANGELOS: So when you talk about things not existing in different ways, what you’re really talking about is a difference among types of signs. You’re referring to a difference among things that do exist – the signs. But as far as our experience is concerned, unicorns and dinsosaurs are both absent from it in an identical fashion.

ERIS: Well, yes, I suppose so. I still don’t see how this helps your argument, because now you’re admitting that our awareness is defined and limited by our language.

ANGELOS: Only if we choose to limit ourselves to the realm of thoughts and ideas, Eris. The point I was hoping to make is simply that all things that don’t exist manifest their non-existence in the same way – by not being available to experience – whereas all things that do exist manifest uniquely.

ERIS: I’m not sure that ‘manifesting non-existence’ makes much sense, but I would provisionally accept that.

ANGELOS: I don’t like putting it that way either. All I mean is that what doesn’t exist isn’t apparent to our mind and senses except as a sign or idea (which is a representative, not the thing itself) and that this goes for all things that don’t exist. Whereas all things that do exist are apparent, and are all apparently different.

ERIS: Okay. So what? All you’ve done is to echo my assertion that no absolute exists, and nothing that does not exist is available to our experience.

ANGELOS: You’re right. But I want to look at it now from the converse. Namely: that which does not exist, because all things are non-existent in the same way, is therefore intrinsically consistent and whole. And also, that which does not exist does so unchangingly and for all time.

ERIS: Unless it comes into existence at some point in the future.

ANGELOS: You mean that a conception of something non-existent that we once had may at a later time become a reality?

ERIS: Why not?

ANGELOS: Granted. But is our conception identical to the thing that later comes into being?

ERIS: No. It’s not the actual thing, but we’re able to identify it as such.

ANGELOS: So, again, we have to be careful to distinguish between our ideas and thoughts, which exist, and the things of which they are the representatives, which may not exist. As far as our personal awareness is concerned, isn’t it the case that something that does not exist for us will continue not to do so uniformly and for all time?

ERIS: I suppose so. But if it doesn’t exist, forgive me if I don’t make much of a fuss about it!

ANGELOS: Even though it is whole, consistent, and eternally unchanging? Even though that which doesn’t exist fits the criteria of something Absolute which, at the beginning, you said you couldn’t conceive?

ERIS: But what’s the point? It still doesn’t exist, so therefore I’m still unable to experience it – except in the sphere of ideas and language, which – God knows why – you’ve ruled out of our discussion. Yet you still seem happy to go on chatting, and if this discussion isn’t an example of a purely linguistic exercise then I don’t know what is!

ANGELOS: Well, firstly you said you couldn’t conceive of an Absolute, and yet by talking about the nature of that which does not exist we’ve arrived at precisely such a concept.

ERIS: Yet the concept is not the thing – as you yourself admitted.

ANGELOS: Agreed. So what we need to do next is to examine whether that which does not exist can nevertheless enter experience.

ERIS: I can’t wait to hear this! Come on, then.

ANGELOS: Have you ever come across the so-called ‘pointing-out instructions’? They’re derived from eastern religions and are traditionally used for demonstrating to people that the self doesn’t exist.

ERIS: Yes, I’ve read about those. The instructions take you through awareness of every part of the body and you ask yourself: ‘Am I this finger? Am I these eyes?’, and so on.

ANGELOS: That’s one form of it. But you can ask the same question of anything that arises in your experience: ‘Am I these perceptions? These thoughts? This mind?’ What soon becomes apparent is that there is nothing corresponding to a ‘self’ anywhere in our experience. If you’re aware of something, that thing can’t be the thing that has the awareness – it cannot be you. Even the mind that you’re aware of having – it can’t be the same mind that has an awareness of ‘you’. So what is this ‘you’?

ERIS: I’ve done this exercise. If you continue with it for long enough it can make you feel really weird. But something is wrong there, obviously, because even though it ‘logically’ proves there’s no self, I can still feel one. The self must be some kind of deep structure or pattern in the brain; something that’s not available to experience but is constantly there nonetheless.

ANGELOS: The self is unconscious, in other words?

ERIS: Yes.

ANGELOS: But you’re conscious, aren’t you?

ERIS: So it seems, although there are philosophers around these days who deny that it’s so simple.

ANGELOS: So if Eris’s ‘self’ is unconscious, but Eris is conscious, then Eris and herself are unalike.

ERIS: Consciousness is the greatest mystery of modern science. If I knew the answer do you think I’d be sitting here with you?

ANGELOS: What if the logic of the pointing-out instructions were correct and ‘modern science’ were asking the wrong questions? What if the self truly doesn’t exist, as seems to be the case when we take the time to investigate?

ERIS: Why does my experience tell me it does, then?

ANGELOS: If we experience a self, yet the investigation of it reveals it cannot exist, then your earlier argument that we cannot experience what does not exist is simply an assumption. Each time we experience the self we are actually experiencing something that cannot exist.

ERIS: Not necessarily. It could be just a misperception.

ANGELOS: Misperception is when one thing that is known is mistaken for another. A rook is mistaken for a crow, perhaps, or a pattern in the bark of a tree is taken for a face. But in our case, what is this self that we have mistaken for some other thing?

ERIS: It’s… – I don’t know! It’s just the self; it’s self-evident!

ANGELOS: My point is that it can’t be said we’re ‘misperceiving’ something if we can’t even state what that thing is we suppose is being misperceived.

ERIS: None of this is new to me, Angelos. I know that if we look deep into the nature of anything we find that our grounds for supposing it to exist are baseless. This is called deconstructionism and, on this point at least, modern philosophy and the Eastern traditions have much in common.

ANGELOS: I know the sort of philosophers you mean, Eris. If they have so much in common with Buddhism – as you suggest – and if they’ve realised that nothing possesses intrinsic being, do these philosophers declare themselves enlightened, like the Buddha did?

ERIS: Certainly not! That would be a claim of absolute truth, whereas our contemporary philosophers have demonstrated there’s no such thing. Instead, it’s our language, our social practices and habits of perception that lend things the appearance of intrinsic existence.

ANGELOS: We considered how the criteria for absolute truth matches the criteria of that which doesn’t exist, in that both are prefectly consistent and eternal. To grasp the groundlessness of everything – I suggested – is therefore to grasp nothingness. The claim of enlightenment therefore arises from a realisation of nothingness. It’s not a pretension to any specific knowledge, since that would be something and would not meet the criteria of absolute truth. Yet our contemporary philosophers imply that the ‘groundlessness’ of all things is grapsed through acquiring specific knowledge of lingustic and cultural conventions. Haven’t they contradicted themselves, then, by asserting that there are ‘grounds’ for this supposed ‘groundlessness’?

ERIS: Surely you’re not going to claim that language and culture are unimportant?

ANGELOS: Certainly not. But the very fact that are so important demonstrates that our philosophers haven’t at all grapsed the ‘groundlessness’ of things. What they have grasped is not nothingness, but on the contrary something very salient.

ERIS: Yet without this understanding of the forces that determine our perception and history we’re at the mercy of prejudice and ignorance. You might not consider postmodernism as an equivalent to ‘enlightenment’, but it’s good enough for me! Anyone who rests smugly on a notion of absolute truth will fall victim to their own prejudice by supposing that what seems true to them applies to everyone. And believing that the truth of all things is ‘nothingness’ is tantamount to nihilism.

ANGELOS: If I said that ‘nothingness’ were the truth of everything, then I’d be making something of my nothing. But it’s more subtle than that, Eris. The absolute can’t merely stand in opposition to the relative; the type of nothingness I’m talking about isn’t simply the ‘opposite’ of something. If it were, it would be defined in relation to something, in which case it would itself be relative and not absolute – nor nothing, for that matter. The truly absolute is the negation of something, but it must also be engaged in negating itself.

ERIS: Sounds like a mouthful of philosophical verbiage to me!

ANGELOS: No. It’s completely practical. Enlightenment is an engagement with this self-negating absolute. Meditation and other spiritual exercises involve the practitioner in the negation of self, therefore bringing the practitioner into line with the nature of the absolute itself, and over time this results in a realisation that the self and the absolute are actually one and the same. Deconstructionism, on the other hand, is completely different. For starters, it never steps from the realm of ideas into experience. And it never obliges us to change ourselves through self-negation in the way that is required to align ourselves with the absolute. Which is probably why you only tend to hear it coming from the mouths of academics.

ERIS: Postmodernism leads us into engagement with cultural forces and institutions. I’d say it engages with the world far more deeply than sitting on a cushion with your eyes shut and pretending you don’t exist.

ANGELOS: I see your point. But ethical consequences certainly arise from a realisation of the absolute. Yet that’s a topic for another time.

ERIS: You’re not trying to side-step the issue, are you Angelos?

ANGELOS: I’d just assumed you’d probably had enough for one day.

ERIS: I’d be fascinated to hear how you suppose that believing in an absolute nothingness makes you a better person.

ANGELOS: You’re such hard work, Eris.

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The Dialogue of Eris and Angelos

ANGELOS: Hello, Eris. I should’ve known I’d find you here. This is a great occult bookshop. They’ve got everything, haven’t they? Are you researching something specific?

ERIS: You know what I’m like, Angelos. I’m looking up some references for the latest paper I’ve written on the history of occultism since Aleister Crowley.

ANGELOS: Sounds interesting.

ERIS: Not as interesting as what I’ve heard about you. Someone told me you’d fallen in with a religious crowd and had turned all mystical.

ANGELOS: Well, kind of. You could say the work I’ve been doing recently has been an exploration of how mysticism sits with contemporary magick. One of the problems with chaos magic, when it appeared in the late seventies, is that it has left out the dimension of spiritual practice and development.

ERIS: Yes. Recently I’ve heard people on the magick scene using the term ‘results mysticism’ – which is quite a striking idea.

ANGELOS: Well, that wasn’t us, but yes. However, one of the ways in which we’ve gained results from mysticism is through the realisation that magical and esoteric traditions (if they are genuinely that, because many of them aren’t) are all pushing towards the same goal – namely, The Great Work, which in the eastern traditions is known as enlightenment.

ERIS: Woah – hang on there, Angelos! This idea that all traditions lead to the same goal is one that I have tremendous difficulties with. Each tradition presents a point of view that is socially determined. You know that, surely? Each is a product of the language used by a social group, and other cultural factors besides.

ANGELOS: Do you have to be anywhere in the next hour, Eris? I’m asking, because it’s probably going to take me a while to explain why we need to move on from ideas like that.

ERIS: Move on? That’s a little presumptuous! You have my full attention, Angelos. I only hope the rumours I’ve heard about you aren’t true.

ANGELOS: I’m touched by your concern. But consider this, Eris: if the esoteric traditions are purely socially determined and therefore incommensurate, then in what do you suppose lies the fundamental difference between ‘The Great Work’ in the western tradition and ‘enlightenment’ in the Eastern?

ERIS: Well, it seems to me quite clear. The Buddhist seeks the annihilation of the self (yes, I accept that that’s simplistically phrased, but this isn’t my main point) whereas, in the western tradition, the magician works through successive states of awareness, with the assistance of the Holy Guardian Angel. The Great Work aims toward the knowledge and conversation of the angel, and then union with it. Clearly these aims are not commensurate at all.

ANGELOS: I appreciate that they may not appear so on the surface. Yet in our explorations and practise we’ve discovered that the higher grades of the A∴A∴, which Crowley represented on the Tree of Life as Magister Templi (Binah), Magus (Chokmah) and Ipsissimus (Kether) are mappable with surprising consistency onto the stages of awakening described in the Theravada Buddhist model: sottapana (‘stream-enterer’), anagami (‘never-returner’) and arahat.

ERIS: But this shouldn’t surprise us, Angelos, because Crowley was influenced by the Buddhist model and incorporated it into his own.

ANGELOS: So couldn’t we say he incorporated the Buddhist model because he found it corresponded with his own experience so well? You’re right that my friends and I may have re-invented the wheel, but it’s not our aim to find new models, simply models that work. Should it trouble us, as long as our re-invented wheel takes us where we want to go?

ERIS: Yes, I think it should, because the idea that there is somewhere to go and that it’s the same place for everyone regardless of tradition is itself an idea that arose at a particular moment in history. It came from Helena Blavatsky, if you’d like to know. Before her, it was not generally supposed at all that different paths led to the same place.

ANGELOS: It still isn’t, as far as I can see. Eris, I wouldn’t impose on anyone that they should follow any path to anything. I’m skeptical of this view that no one had this idea before Blavatsky, but I want to avoid an argument over the historical precedence of ideas. What’s more striking is that it seems to me this is where you situate your notion of truth – in the circumstances of the origin of ideas. You’re talking like a historian! This is very odd to me, because we both practise magick, and surely you would not suggest this historical approach is necessary to practise magick successfully. If any practice yields a useful result, it’s not due to the circumstances of its origin, is it?

ERIS: Angelos, Truth (with a capital ‘T’) is something I would be at pains not to situate anywhere! As I said earlier, that which appears to us as truth is the product of socially-constructed cultural processes. Consider: science does not require a notion of truth in order to arrive at its findings. A neurologist, for instance, demonstrates that certain types of stimulation of the brain result in particular states or experiences without any recourse to their supposed ‘truth’ or ‘validity’ or ‘significance’. These states simply are. How they are interpreted by the person that experiences them – as ‘God’ perhaps, or a vision of an angel – is another question entirely. If you, on the other hand, assert that there is Truth, then you are going to have to explain in more detail what you consider it to be.

ANGELOS: Well, it’s ineffable and absolute.

ERIS: Beyond human experience, then?

ANGELOS: No, because it requires human consciousness in order for us to be aware of it. In fact, it arises only from our experience of it.

ERIS: But do you not see how this leads to awful problems? For instance: if you have no direct experience of the Holocaust, let’s say, then you’re asserting it’s not ‘true’; it didn’t happen.

ANGELOS: Come on, Eris! Give me some credit! The truth of the Holocaust lies in the experience of others, but their experience can enter into mine through my reading (for example) and their testimony. I’m not advocating solipsism here. And besides, a social-constructivist view doesn’t deal with this problem any better. Yet is it really a problem? Consider: where’s the sense in accusing an isolated tribe living in the Peruvian jungle of ‘holocaust denial’ if they should have the temerity to claim they know nothing of it?

ERIS: Yet you’re unable to say anything substantial about this absolute truth of yours, which – on the basis of only subjective evidence – you continue to assert.

ANGELOS: Because talking about it isn’t point. If truth lies in our experience of it, then it lies with experience and not words nor ideas. This is why it doesn’t matter in a wider sense what tradition or means of experiencing truth we chose to follow. For instance, our group has been comparing notes very closely with Buddhist practitioners, and we’re able to talk to each other across our respective traditions very easily, so long as we remain focused on the specific details of our practice and its experiential results.

ERIS: And as I said before, this is completely unsurprising because Crowley’s model was derived from Buddhism. You won’t be taken seriously by any of the authorities in these fields if you insist on a notion of absolute truth (which you still refuse to define) or your view that self-evident differences between the traditions are not significant.

ANGELOS: Eris, I’m astonished at how you can be satisfied by a notion of truth – or in your own terminology perhaps I ought to call it ‘a dominant view’ – that depends entirely on consensus. I look around this bookshop and I can see works by Crowley, Steiner, Blavatsky, etc., and I wonder at your concern that my views might place me ‘beyond the pale’ of academic orthodoxy because surely all of these writers received similar criticism in their life-time for holding similar views on truth to mine? I find it strange that you value these writers only from a historical perspective, rather than for what is to be gained from engaging in the practices they taught.

ERIS: But I do engage in those practices.

ANGELOS: You’ve sought the Knowledge and Communication of the Holy Guardian Angel?

ERIS: Yes.

ANGELOS: And you were successful?

ERIS: Yes. I experienced all kinds of visions, synchronicities and deep states of trance.

ANGELOS: And you experienced these as the actual presence of your angel?

ERIS: Well, yes and no. I experienced them as the angel, because that was what I had chosen to believe in at the time – what I had chosen to interpret these experiences as. But simultaneously I was aware that there were any number of ways in which these experiences could be interpreted, and if I’d chosen to follow a different tradition they would’ve taken on a different significance.

ANGELOS: You were using your belief as a tool, then, as a means of influencing your experiences?

ERIS: Yes – but surely you know this as well as I do. We both practise magick, and so we both accept – I imagine – that this is how magick works. Our reality is determined by our perception, and our perception in turn is shaped by our belief. Most of the time, our belief is unconscious or involuntary, and thus we can become prisoners of our own reality. Magick helps set us free from this.

ANGELOS: You mean, of course, it frees us because it enables us to intervene in the process by which our belief shapes our perception? I’m certainly in agreement with you on that!

ERIS: Yes. I choose a particular way of seeing things, and therefore my so-called ‘reality’ lines-up in that way, determined by my way of seeing. But if you agree with this, why do you insist on there being ‘Truth’, with that ludicrous capital T, when you’ve now admitted that what we call reality is after all a matter of belief?

ANGELOS: You’ve never directly perceived truth, then?

ERIS: No. But, as I’ve said, I’ve sometimes chosen to believe that certain things were true, with the conscious intention of changing my reality. So you’re telling me, now, that you have directly perceived it?

ANGELOS: No, I haven’t. Because truth is apprehended through knowledge, and knowledge is neither belief nor perception. It is outside either of those.

ERIS: That sounds like mystical word-play! If this Truth of yours can’t appear, how do you know it exists?

ANGELOS: Because we can know it. And this is not mystical at all, Eris, but in fact very ordinary. Consider: if we had to perceive something in order to know it, then how would we ever be able to plan for situations that weren’t immediately present to our awareness, or even hold abstract concepts in our minds?

ERIS: Then this truth of yours is simply your belief. Don’t you see? If it can’t be perceived, as you admit it can’t, then how else would you describe your clinging onto something that can’t be seen or spoken about, and which, therefore, has no discernible effect upon anyone, unless – like you – they choose to believe in it?

ANGELOS: Because it lies beyond perception. Up to this point we’re in agreement, it seems to me, and we are both happy to call ourselves magicians. Only it also seems to me that in being a magician it’s necessary to step beyond perception and into knowledge, if one wants to connect with that realm of absolute truth that is the aim of The Great Work.

ERIS: I understand what you’re saying, Angelos. However, that which is supposedly beyond perception cannot be perceived or experienced, and therefore can only be an object of supposition or belief. How can it be otherwise?

ANGELOS: You said a while back that we can become prisoners in our reality, because that reality is made of perceptions and beliefs?

ERIS: Yes. Unless we choose among our beliefs carefully.

ANGELOS: Or we choose to see beyond them altogether. Because isn’t our notion of what perception is merely derived also from our perception?

ERIS: Yes. And our reality is therefore malleable to a degree, because of that.

ANGELOS: Then what if our perception of our perceptions were inaccurate? What if, in actuality, our consciousness were arranged in such a way that what you described as ‘beyond perception’ were not really so, but only appeared as such due to a mistaken and involuntary belief about the nature of ourselves?

ERIS: Then I would ask how you could have possibly arrived at this knowledge, which – according to the circumstances you propose – would be impossible for us to arrive at.

ANGELOS: But it wouldn’t be impossible, not if we adopted as a practice the habit of making our perception the object of itself, and at the same time took care to protect this practice against influence from our mundane beliefs, on the one hand, nor allowed the results of our practice to solidify into anything we mistook for a concrete ‘reality’ on the other.

ERIS: I can see where you’re trying to take this! It sounds like the Buddhist technique of ‘insight’ meditation. But I can’t see how it bears any resemblance to the western magical tradition and the Holy Guardian Angel.

ANGELOS: The basic practice is the same in all traditions and it leads to an identical result. The ‘angel’ is another term for that ‘true self’ which I described as hidden from us by our habitual beliefs. This ‘true self’ is what the Buddhists term ‘no-self’, a deeper, actual level of consciousness that sees ‘beyond perception’ because it’s not limited by the way that our habitual false beliefs shape our everyday idea of what ‘self’ is.

ERIS: This still sounds to me simply a point of view. It’s the regurgitation of the ‘perennial philosophy’; it’s simply Blavatsky all over again.

ANGELOS: Come on, Eris. Let’s get out of this dusty bookshop and go and get a coffee somewhere. Without leaving behind ideas and turning around instead to examine whom you suppose is having them, it’s unlikely things will appear to you any other way.

ERIS: You’ve got a lot of work to do to convince me, Angelos. But if you’re buying, I might be persuaded to listen some more.

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