Hi All Inserted is the Philosophy Of Naughting
A Philosophy of Naughting
By Richard, Duc de Palatine
OM/073/2008
A Philosophy of Naughting
by Richard, Duc de Palatine
I
This lecture was received by Richard through the Human Spirit of himself.
“No noble thought,
“However buried in the dust of ages,
“Can ever come to naught.”
Saxe – Spes est Vates st.1
Lying at the foundations of all the teachings of the sages, philosophers, saviours and mystics is an esoteric philosophy - A Gnosis - of the THINGS THAT ARE. This Gnosis concerns itself with the Great All, which treats of the sum total of that which is past, that which is in the present and that which will appear in the future as One Continuum. In this light, past, present and future are simply relative terms derived from the human reason, which reason always separates the ALL into the many in the involutionary process of creation. The Intelligence seeks to resolve, through the evolutionary process, these separates into the ALL again.
Our dictionaries equate "naught" with nothing, but they are in error, Naught is a state devoid of any division - it is the One wherein all exists simultaneously. Nothing indicates a vacuum and Natura abhors a vacuum. It is because of this ignorance of the two mental ideas - naught and nothing - that the western intellectual has misunderstood the concepts of "Light", "Nirvana", the "Kingdom of God", etc., as being a state of 'nothingness': without conscious existence. Let us look at the word 'existence': essence is life, combined with essence substantial creates existence, thus existence is Essence clothed with form. We could then say that this Essence clothed with form, it could be said it concerns anything that exists or has the quality of objectivity. Thus, the Essence which is clothed in form is the Great Naught or "The Things That Are", and not the things that appear to our senses.
It could be said that this Great All or Naughtness is the University of Life, wherein all living creatures are but pupils undergoing their training and unfoldment of their Naught Nature, just as you have the implicit life in the lower kingdoms of Natura, which are in themselves unfolding their portion of the Great ALL. These kingdoms of Natura have been formed by their Essence being clothed with matter in order to become objective. The Abstract World is the realm of Essence which gives the forms their power of Inertia, Mobility, and Rhythm whereby they can express the implicit life fully. It would seem that when the Great Naught fragments itself into the many forms this creates a state of chaos, but the forms through inherent Essence are enabled to restore themselves to Unity by a process of struggle to consolidate the form, and then by a process of non-resistance which releases the Essence from the form; bearing in mind that the Essence and the Form are simply aspects or modes of action by the Great Naught.
Just as there is a curriculum in a university, there are five grades or stages of consciousness in this University of Life. Any student who desires to leave the college of the senses and human desires and enter the University of Naught will find that his/her first period consists of spending considerable time accumulating knowledge about many things, perhaps over the time period of many separate lives. The second period arrives when he stops gathering facts which are derived from the activity of the five senses; he then begins to ponder what has been stored in his human computer. After a time of mental cogitation, the student enters into the mental period of experiment, observation and inductive reasoning of the facts gathered. The student will soon find that the majority of these facts, which were previously accepted as important and valid, begin to show themselves incapable of supplying the correct answers to life's problems; at this stage the student begins to discard, bit by bit, most of the sensual knowledge, until the mind becomes once again empty as a child's.
It would appear that the human being must fill the human computer with a mass of deposits from the age of seven to the time when the person is able to cut through the glamour of the senses; thus, almost every student passes through these stages when the mind is flung from thought to thought, he embraces all avenues of human thought and when the computer memory is full he becomes mentally sterile. All the changes which are taking place in the mind bring about a state of confusion within, for during this period, the emotional nature is unfolding and developing, and the student is swayed by emotions. The student "feels" that such and such a thing is correct, but, as yet, has no way in which to prove it one way or the other. The condition or state of the mind changes again, this time becoming preoccupied with one idea, it could be love, ambition, sex, knowledge, or a host of other objects or ideas. This preoccupation with one idea becomes an obsession with that person, slowly driving out all other vital and important ideas. After this the student reaches the stage wherein he realises that this preoccupation with one idea or thing has become a barrier to further achievement or attainment. He changes again. This time the previous compulsive-desire drive ceases and he then possesses the idea or thing, in other words he becomes master of it. Later, this stage is exchanged for another, wherein the person gains complete control over the mental, emotional and sensational faculties. At this point, he becomes non-attached to the world of form and seeks the world of Essence.
We must bear in mind that whilst every human being must pass through these five mental stages in his life, the majority of men are, for greater or lesser periods, unable to graduate beyond the stage of being pre-occupied with one subject or idea, such as science, the occult, philosophy, sex, power, possessions, or any of the many other things which occupy his mind, to become master of these things, whereby he can use and control them instead of himself being controlled. Still fewer men have gained complete control of their mental, emotional and sensational faculties and become a master of life – an Adept. Therefore, the Adept and his Pupil become the highest pinnacle of the Pyramid of Human Life wherein the fullest Glory and Potential of the Great Naught is expressed in a human being whilst still in the mortal body.
With the ability to control the three-fold faculties comes the crushing realization that, except within the fleeting light-waves which flit through the grey cells of the brain, the past is nothing, the present is non-important and the future does not exist. In this realization he or she becomes aware that the past limits the awareness of the present; that the present has no real permanent existence for that person, except by what is reflected by the past, and that the future is still unborn in time and space and, above all, it is of no importance to the present. But man, having consciousness focused within the gloom of the earth and the animal senses, still carries around the sepulchre of the past, and, for fear of the present or the illusory future, keeps opening the lid of the sepulchre in order to assure himself that he is alive, or that life means something to him. "Let the dead bury the dead,” said the last Great Reformer, but man ignores this sound psychological advice.
Just as time, space and duration are concepts in the human mind, so he realises that the past, present and future are equally invalid concepts in his mind, they are artificial divisions created by the mind in time. The past in this sense is an illusion, just as the present is also an illusion in the mind, and the future is an artificial creation by man to stimulate his flagging hopes of personal survival. Such a philosophy could be challenged by the intellectual and scientific mind, but by a mathematical process, this doctrine of the Naughtness can be proven to the hilt, nay, more, pure mathematics can be used to prove any scientific, philosophical, occult, or mystic premise to be true and identical in substance, excepting for the different terminology which each department uses to explain such a premise.
It has frequently been shown that the symbol of Three plays a very great part in the basic understanding of many of the religious and philosophical systems - the Three Titans of Samothrace, the Three Assassins of the Masons, the Trinity of the Christians all refer to the concepts of Time, Space and Duration. Hiram Abiff was slain (clothed) by the three Assassins and buried in an unknown tomb; Prometheus was chained to a mountain crag by the three Titans, etc. These triads are also symbolised by Past, Present and Future divisions of the Great Naught. The Titans are indwelling fragments of the Great Naught. In psychology, we find that these three Titans appear again as the Unconscious, Subconscious and Conscious aspects of the human soul, which clothes, or slays, the Soul in matter.
The Spirit of Man then is Naught but it is the All. The Spirit is the Monad of Plato - the Unity in the One which yet manifests the illusion of a Trinity - the Self, the Soul and the Mind, form the immortal part of man that reincarnates in the lower regions of mortal existence. Again, these are the slayers of the One by causing It to become the many. The human Soul has being and divisible substance, it is simply a part of the Whole and yet is the Whole. Thus, the Divine Spirit of Man - the World-Man, is eternal without beginning or end of existence; it is illimitable since it embodies the Whole, the unmanifested Great Naught; it is above and yet within all parts of the Whole. The human Soul, admittedly Divine - is nevertheless limited by and in time, space and duration through the vestures created by these three artificial divisions of the time-sequence. In this light the form in which the Spirit manifests in time is the image of the human Soul, just as an actor assumes the role of Hamlet one night and on the next that of Caesar, remaining however, himself the same man.
Thus, in the ultimate Philosophy of Naughting, the Spirit, Divine Soul and human Soul have no existence in time and space, except that which the mind of man creates for them. They are, in reality, concepts in the mind and have no reality other than in the convex nature of human consciousness. Just as these three apparent aspects of man have naught existence to the Great Naught through the concave nature of its Ultimate Consciousness. Naught is slain by Time and formed in Space and sustained by Duration and remains the illusion of Reality while man thinks upon it.
The idea of God, Logos, Spirit, Christ or Satan, has naught existence in time and space, except that which man conceives in the mind: he clothes these Ideas with matter to make them tangible and knowable and they are kept in their form by the duration of man's ability to think creatively. In this light, the human mind is the great separator of the Whole. The Naught becomes clothed in a tangible form. For instance, it is impossible for a person living in London to conceive the entire length, breadth and size of England, because to his consciousness this has no immediate existence. However, if that person were to fly at a sufficient altitude over the country, all of these would become apparent at once. Paradoxically, the movement and speed of the plane and the spin of the earth on its axis would make time, space and duration have less real existence in the person's mind.
Let us for a moment dwell upon the existence of man himself. Suppose it were possible to create a human form independent of the sexual act: it would be necessary to firstly bring together the required number and variety of bones to make the skeleton or framework. Next the viscera, muscles, nerves, veins and blood vessels must be inserted and the whole thing clothed with flesh and skin. If blood is now pumped into the veins and arteries and oxygen into the lungs, the body should live; however, in spite of all this, it is still a lifeless corpse. What can be done now? If the corpse could be naturally linked with the Source of Life, the body would be infused with "life" and get up and walk, but if this link is disconnected from the living man he becomes a lifeless corpse! It is obvious then that the vital Essence for the life of the body comes from the Abstract or Naught, under the compulsion of which the body functions. The body is therefore the form in which this Naught is imprisoned in time and space. However, this Essence can have existence independent of the body of matter!
If we wish to weave a tapestry, we must first obtain a piece of canvas upon which we proceed to draw a picture of our original mental image of the tapestry. We must now weave thousands of threads of wool into the canvas in order that the tapestry be completed and the image affixed to the canvas. Now, if we whip the canvas backing away from the tapestry, the whole picture would dissolve into a chaotic mass of bits of coloured wool. The canvas can thus be likened to the Naught upon which the image is projected by man, yet at the same time, the man, the canvas and the threads are part of the Great Naughtness.
Let us take another example: we know that a man becomes aware of the world through the five senses. If, however, the power of these five senses were nullified and the man could not see, hear, touch, smell or taste, since all these faculties would have been put out of action, the mortal man would still live and function, but he would have naught consciousness of the form or the world in which the form becomes possible. We may well ask what it is that enables the man to continue to live when his senses have been put out of action; as in the case of gas or hypnotism and in deep trance conditions or when a man is knocked unconscious. This "it" is not perceivable to our senses, yet it must have some form or substance to make the apparently senseless man remain a living human being.
This is the "Spirit" about which we hear so much and which is considered to be the Source of human Life and that of the lower kingdoms. It is triune in its nature, showing forth the three aspects of Will, Wisdom and Creative Activity, which manifest in the world of form as Time, Space and Duration, and within the human mind as the Unconscious, Conscious and Subconscious aspects. If we can ignore these concepts in the human mind, then we find that the three aspects of the Deity also have no existence to us; it becomes the Naught which is the All. Therefore, when we consider the meaning of the Buddhist beatitude - Nirvana, we can see that this state occurs when the Essence is freed from the form and becomes re-absorbed into the Naught. This does not mean to say that a man ceases to exist when he is blown out of the form, but simply that he is freer in his range of consciousness.
Thus Universal Soul is the Power of Ideation which ensouls all forms, in this light Ideation is the result of this Naughtness imagining its universe and then conceiving Itself in the form ideas projected into the primal substance. This could mean that the regions of form are simply concepts in the great mind of the Fashioner of this Naughtness and so long as this Fashioner keeps this concept in its mind, then manifestation becomes tangible, but the moment it ceases to think, the world of forms breaks up, and the Essence is absorbed back into the Naughtness, which also includes the Fashioner itself. If we call this Fashioner God, then obviously "God" is simply a concept in the Naughtness, just as it is a conception only in the human mind. We may well ask ourselves: If the Fashioner can be broken up and absorbed into the Naughtness, then must not this Naughtness be a “something” utterly incomprehensible to the human mind?
The Docetae Gnostics claimed that this Naughtness is symbolized in the seed of a fig tree, the mathematical point, which is everywhere, smaller than small, yet greater than great, containing in itself infinite potentialities. It is the Refuge of the terror-stricken Monads, who are covered by the leaf of the fig. Here is a glimpse of one of the esoteric meanings of Adam and Eve being clothed with fig leaves. We can now see that before the sensible world was conceived in the Naughtness there was an emanation of a divine or Ideal World of three root-aeons each consisting of myriads of sub-aeons, male-female; that is to say worlds, regions or beings, of self-generating powers. These three Root-Aeons become for us the Three Aspects of the Trinity - Time, Space and Duration which Three become the Fashioner of the Sensible World. This aeon-world of the Light Fashioner comes forth from the One Ideal Seed or Naughtness, which is the root of the universe, and becomes the ingenerable. From the human standpoint, however, these are still concepts in the mind, just as they are projected concepts in the mind of Naughtness.
Thus, the human Spirit - the Monad, being one of the sub-aeons, which is male-female in nature, is an atom or spark of this Universal Soul - the Great Fashioner. These Sparks become individualized for experience within the Divine and human Souls of men, so, in effect, once we realize that the human Soul is again another concept in the human mind, we must agree that the Divine Soul, Human Spirit and Universal Soul are but concepts only. They make up the Naught which is the All, in which all things are perfected, all being of the nature of That which transcends the intellect, and is free from any deficiency. This host of self-generable aeons united together produce the cosmic substance, and is the Alone-begotten or Generated One, containing within itself all the powers of the Ideal World of the Aeons, equal in power in all things to the original Seed of the Naught, the Ingenerable.
To understand the necessity for the limitation or clothing of Spirit by the various force-matters within the various regions, we must consider the nature of Consciousness. Consciousness is simply awareness. The Spirit of Naughtness is aware of all that It has emanated from Itself, but the Divine Soul, before its contact with matter, is aware only of what it contacts on its own regions of existence; bearing in mind that its human Soul is only a mental concept in its formless mind. This means that the changes of consciousness in the ALL cause vibrations in the surrounding force-matters, and it is by these vibrations that consciousness becomes aware that it is surrounded by various types of force-matters. In this light, awareness can only be possible to the Whole Man - the Primal Man, through the matter of the particular region upon which he is functioning.
Science in its official pronouncements is apt to claim that there is nothing beyond the physical levels. This stand is taken because the practitioners of the various disciplines have reasoned that unless an object can be given weight, size, depth or density, it cannot be said to exist. If this Naughtness were devoid of these qualities, then how can form still retain its shape? If they consider that Spirit is Naught, then how can it be the All? If there is no such thing as "spirit" then what is there in the universe which makes physical matter possible? What causes the plants, minerals, animals and the human species to be born, grow and then die? There must, logically, be "something" which is not perceptible to the human senses, and is yet independent from them. The paradox of science is this: its followers are quite right in their claim. We know nothing of consciousness outside the limits of the four dimensional awareness, and their instruments of research are incapable of measuring the nature of this Spirit. However, the true devotee of science should be willing to carry his research into the realms outside of the physical, but will not because it is claimed that there is nothing to be observed and experimented on, or, upon inductive reasoning, cannot be subjected to microscopes and test tubes, but a little reasoning, inductive or deductive, will show that there must be the "something" we have already mentioned and perhaps someday someone may decide to try a bit of investigation. In fact, some recent unofficial statements would tend to indicate that already some scientists are already as baffled as the so-called occultists as to the fundamental nature of this Naughtness. So perhaps there is hope yet?
In one thing, at least, Science and the Mystic agree, there is nothing other than what the mind conceives, that this has been amply verified by our psychological scientists in the cure of human neuroses. A neurosis is simply the misuse of the Ideatory Powers in the human mind which conceives out of nothing apparently tangible conditions causing them to manifest in the personality. But is this the whole picture? We think not! Just because science cannot physically conceive of this "nothing" it does not mean to say that it is not possible that this "naughtness" is more solid and tangible than physical matter. Obviously, the paradox cannot be answered by the senses or the human reason, since the reason is dependent upon what the senses supply to the brain, it cannot be solved by blandly stating that there is no Spirit or its combinations, since the Ideation of Spirit is derived from the human reason - but, where do we go from here?
There is also the question of consciousness and life. Both are sensed by the reason, assisted by contact with the physical world, thus, we can only know consciousness and life by its effects upon the human organism; if the human organism becomes incapacitated and its senses are nullified - where does the concept of life and consciousness stand up? Surely, it is Naught which is the All. Has anybody got a tranquillizer handy? The mind reels under the impact of the vastness and complexity of this Naughtness.
We are told that life and consciousness are identical, that they are the results of this Naught, and it is the human mind that causes the division in the Naught and creates the mental concepts by a process of 'emanation'. Thus, if we accept the Doctrine of Emanation as against the Doctrine of Evolution, the Philosophy of Naughtness becomes painfully logical to the human mind and it cuts right across the accepted pessimistic philosophy of the Physical Christians and draws us closer to the Buddhist philosophy. Shocking - the Christ a Buddhist! Is it so strange that Christ imbibed the doctrines of Buddha and re-stated them as Christianity? The Christ states that He came to give us nothing new, if this is not correct, then Christ is a fraud and a charlatan!
The Gnostic Christians, the Hebrews, Greeks, Buddhists, Hindus, and Egyptians all state that there are Ten Emanation, of the Deity: The highest is formed by the concentration of the Fashioner, the Image in matter of the Naughtness, therefore, each Aeon or Emanation produces by emanation another Aeon. Thus, each Aeon is a picture of a group of mental concepts embodying exalted ideas, titles and attributes, which the name but faintly represents. Each Aeon is called either active or passive. This indicates that the Philosophy of Naughtness is simply Pantheism, wherein one identifies God (Fashioner of Form) with Natura and vice-versa. This may be objectionable to many people on the grounds that it is reprehensible to identify Man as God. But, we ask this question: how can any student of Mysticism or even science regard Deity as infinite, omnipresent and eternal unless Nature is an aspect of this Naughtness, and Naughtness informs every invisible and divisible atom in Nature? Here science rightly questions the stand taken by the Christians that God and Man are two distinct creations. The sound of the crashing foundations of physical Christianity do become a roar like that of an earthquake under the super-structure of Christ's Church.
Let us discuss this question of consciousness a little further: consciousness is the state of being aware and becomes the totality of man's thoughts and feelings, thus consciousness turned inward is life; inward to what? Life turned outwards is consciousness - outwards from what? Consciousness - but, do we mean the same degree of awareness of surroundings and impacts - what causes us to become aware of these impacts? When we think of unity we call consciousness Life; when we think of multiplicity, we call Life consciousness - surely these qualities are the result of the mind breaking the Naught into the parts, our concept of which can be changed at any given moment. We are also told that awareness implies at least a duality: the subject and the object. The object we know by the senses, but how do we know the subject? By the action and results of the effects we conceive of a possible cause, here we agree with science – but where does this Cause come from? It cannot come from 'nothing', because the human mind conceives of nothing as a vacuum or space, but we agree with science - there is no such state as space or nothing.
If we place three objects on a table - a pen, a clock and a plant - each one of these objects is composed, so we are told, of atoms vibrating at given rates of motion. If this be so then what holds the three forms in their respective shape, density and weight? We could say that there is a form of matter invisible to our human senses, which in some way keeps the atoms in the forms from flying apart or running into each other. This could infer that there is a type of matter or substance that fills the spaces between the three articles which is heavier or denser than the matter composing the three. Thus, to our senses there is Naught between them, but it is something. If we close our eyes, they disappear from the sense of sight, but they are still there, since we can touch them.
Therefore, the ultimate philosophy is That or 'Naught', and in this Naught is to be found the ALL without division. This Naughtness is beyond the range of our senses, yet is the power of the senses, hence the reason that our senses cannot conceive of it. Naught is "That which is Not", which states that our universe of diverse forms is an illusion. Here we have the root-doctrine of the Mystic, Gnostic or Buddhist. From the standpoint of this Naughtness there is only Unity, the One that is All. This appearance of manyness is due to the activity of man's thought and to the limited character and range of our senses. In other words, the universe of force-matter and its many forms which are in a constant state of change is a concept in the mind of the unknown Principle, which Principle has no form, therefore is the Naughtness.
Consequently, the universe has no actual existence apart from the thought of the Principle - here we may ask can a Principle think and plan? Man conceives of this Principle in the same terms as he conceives of himself and his faculties. This Naughtness can never really be divided, it is the mind of man which divides this Naught into the many, since he considers himself as a separate individual and translates this feeling into everything around him. If he stopped thinking, his senses would be powerless to create the divisions and separateness, but the human being would still be a person for all that.
In this light, the teachings of the Disciplina Arcani are correct, inasmuch as these state that man should not animalise himself nor should he spiritualise himself, but that he should humanise himself. Here we see the reasons for the change of emphasis in the teachings of late. Love is the Naughtness in Essence and when it becomes clothed in matter it becomes humanity. But, if a man animalised himself, that is to say, accentuates this mental form into matter; on the other hand, if he tries to accentuate his so-called spiritual aspect, he is simply subjectively creating a mental concept patterned after his male aspect. For a man to accentuate the illusion of being a man - sexually - he is accentuating his animal passions, and if he tries to accentuate his femininity - sexually - he is accentuating the illusion of being spiritual, he creates neuroses within himself. But, if he can bring himself to realize that he is neither male nor female, but is the male-female, then he will humanize himself and become a balanced individual.
That which seems to us through the senses to take place in a sequence of past, present and future exists simultaneously in the Naughtness. As a man may from the top of a mountain summit embrace the whole country around him can be seen at a single glance, whilst the traveller in the valley can see it only in sequence, that is piecemeal, just so is a man subject to the sequences of time, space and duration by his very nature and the limiting character of his senses. Here the Illuminee is accused of stirring things, but any association with him or her must, by the very fact of their humanised nature, keep a gentle tension between them and those who love them. The unrestricted Love-Power stops any stagnation taking place within the natures of those whom the Illuminee loves. He or she shatters their concepts of time, space and duration and creates a sense of continuum, which can at first be very upsetting.
In this personal Philosophy of Naughtness, one gains the awareness of a vast Unity of Being, wherein all these things which appear to the senses as separate, having length, width, depth and weight, are no longer separate units making up the Unity, but are the Unity Itself. It is, therefore, obvious that such sense of Unity comes from the stilling of the reason and senses since we do not think nor do we register anything external by the sensational nature. But to ask the intellectual to stop thinking would be too much. What would he talk about? Or how to air their so-called knowledge and impress their hearers? – which after all, is the only way the intellectual can justify his existence. Silence, at least for him, is spiritual death!
Just as you have a point within the circumference which is nowhere in one place, but is the All embracing circumference; Basilides, the great Gnostic, says: "Naught was, neither matter, nor substance, nor voidness of substance, nor simplicity, nor impossibility-of-composition, nor inconceptibility, nor imperceptibility, neither man, nor angels, nor god; in fine, neither anything at all for which man has ever found a name, nor any operation which falls within the range either of his perfection or conception . . . the Deity beyond being, without thinking or feeling, or determining, or choosing, or being compelled, or desiring, will to create universality." This is the Naught or One beyond the Many, just as you have a point within the circle that is nowhere in one place, but is the All-embracing circumference, thus for the Gnostics and Mystics, God is a sensible being and is a concept in the mind of man. At the same time, there is no such being except that which man conceives in his mind. The Adept and Mystic rise to that stupendous intuitional conception of Deity which transcends even sensuous Being, and compared with the narrow mind of man, seems pure Nothingness.
Let us for the moment consider the idea of what we call "God". To us, as an Adept, God is nothing from the standpoint of reason and the senses, but because this God is the point within the circumference of the circle of Being, it is at the same time everywhere and there is no part of the circle at which the point or God is not. Thus, the Deity of the Adept is beyond time, beyond space, beyond consciousness, and even beyond Being itself, and this Deity can only be comprehended through the mystic experience of the Adept.
This infers that in your limited mental conception of God, and since you do conceive your God from your standpoint, any idea of God must be conditioned and objectified by and through your human senses. In this, we infer that man has created his God in his own image, however, from our standpoint and from that of the Naught - God is Nothing, and yet from the Naught this Primeval Idea evolves itself in the layers of illusion until it forms itself as One - the separate Man.
Let us look at this idea of Naughtness from yet another angle: when a meteor, a shooting star comprised of a small mass of fiery matter from celestial space, becomes luminous by collision with the earth’s atmospheric condition, it flashes through space and is pulled into the earth’s orbit and by the time it hits earth it has become a solid rock. Here we have an illustration of the process of essence becoming clothed or crystallised by hurtling through the space to earth. This means that the qualities of essence, gaseous and solid, are simultaneous within it, it is only the change which causes it to assume different natures. Now, supposing we were able to throw our meteor back into space at the same speed of light as its falling, surely the reverse would happen. The solid mass would be transmuted back into essence, yet it would still embody the qualities of solidity and gaseousness at the same time.
We know that essence or pure spirit is imperceptible to the widest range of our human senses, yet for all that, there are some people who can and do become aware of this non-sensual essence. The Adept and Mystic live in and through this non-sensual essence which is the Ideation of that kind of matter which is perceptible by the human senses. This means in effect; if we use the example of the meteor, that our consciousness follows the same pattern – we have the Naught, the Spirit and the Soul nature simultaneously in ourselves here and now, this means that movement in time and space is not required to know and experience the All. The Power which causes man to fail to experience this All lies within the nature of his mind, but if he can control the powers of his mind he can rise, as it were, beyond the limiting and conditioning nature of the senses and reason.
As we have said before, the appearance of manyness or of separate forms is due to the action of thought. The particular thought-faculty which causes this is in the peculiar possession of man. Although we may be created in the image of the Deity, God cannot possess this same faculty; otherwise Man and God would be the same being and God would be as limited as man has made himself. The Absolute Truth can be, therefore, of two kinds: one manifest and self-evident to him who knows and who can function independently of the reasoning mind and its tools - the five senses; or it can be that which satisfies those occultists, philosophers, scientists and intellectuals whose eyes are riveted to earth, as well as the majority of humanity who incessantly demand new demonstrations and proofs of the Spirit and of God and who are subject to the limitations of the sensual nature.
The human reason distorts the former premise by sophistry and causistry, and this is the main reason why the followers of Jesus, the Buddha and many of the mystic-cum-philosopher-cum-scientists have failed to grasp the full implications of their respective doctrines. They may retaliate against this claim by saying that we - the Adepts - cannot produce new demonstrations and proofs of our claims; but in spite of their declamations, they, themselves, have not brought forward any logical proofs to the contrary. To anyone who may be tempted to question our claim, we would only say, let them be careful, since we can, by using their own methods of research, question their own statements. Here we have the insidious paradox of reason, by this means one can prove, at least to themselves, the validity of any arguments, and if one is clever, convince almost anyone else.
The adherent to the Philosophy of Naughting cannot believe in, nor even wants to understand the theological god, since the whole conception is a bundle of contradictions and a logical impossibility. The modern conception of God as held by our philosophers and scientists, which, after all, was originally derived from the theologians, claims that God is infinite, limitless, and absolute - how can a god have form and at the same time be a creator of anything? Therefore, scientifically, form implies limitation, which suggests a beginning as well as an end; and God, in order to create must think and plan. Further, we ask, how can the Absolute be supposed to think; that is, to have any relation whatsoever to that which is limited, finite and above all conditioned? To hold the above premise is both a philosophical and a logical absurdity, and even the material blindness of our genuine scientists would never accept this conception.
Unfortunately, at least for the world, when the scientists question the idea of God, they are in reality questioning the validity of the theological god, and not the Mystic God, which they consider not worthy of attention. We, on the other hand, accept through sheer necessity the Doctrine of Pantheism, which infers that there is a Divine Unknown Principle, which is the root of all manifestation. From this Principle all proceeds through a process of Emanation, and within this Principle the manifested All shall be absorbed at the end of the Great Cycle of Being. This Principle is the 'Naught' of Plato and of the Mystics, and here we are not referring to the Mystic of the Theistic God. To us, God is Natura, which is derived from the word 'nasci', to be born or unwombed.
Therefore, if we push this conception further, we find that the Common God is but the aggregate of causes and effects in the world of form, which have become the personified sum and order of known causes and effects; or the total of all infinite agencies and forces, who are disconnected from an intelligent Creator or set of Creators. In this light, the Unknown is Naught to our senses, yet it is identical and co-eval with Natura, by which we infer that the eternal and uncreated Nature is meant, and not the visible aggregate of flitting shadows and finite realities. Natura is but the vehicle of the Unknown Principle, which is everywhere but nowhere, and is in every atom of the invisible and visible manifestation. It is in, inherent, over, and above all, around every invisible atom and divisible molecule known to science: It is the power of involution and evolution, and is the omnipresent, omnipotent and even omniscient creative potentiality.
Hence, the Naughtness is the Abstract that Natura obeys blindly, and is insofar as it is the personified sum and order of known causes and effects. Therefore, this Naughtness is within and yet above Creation, this infers that this Naughtness has no form or being which could be registered by our senses nor understood by the reason. This does infer that there are two 'gods', the first is not a god within our range of human references, but is the Principle from which our known 'God' is born. In this question we come to the crux of the reality of this Naughtness, all manifestation has a sensual reality so long as we direct the faculties of the senses upon it, but the moment we withdraw the energy of the senses from the object in question, it then has no reality to us.
No doubt this conception of Naughting of all Things may come as a shock to you, but be warned, in order to accept and experience this philosophy, you must have first understand the whole of our teachings from the beginning and then slowly re-orient them towards this non-reality of matter. It means that you must unlearn all that we have taught you - and then empty the mind of all sensual images. This emptying of the mind of images leaves the essence free and unhindered by the image-creating mind, in fact, it is not the image of the teaching which allows you to soar in intuition to the heights of Naughtness, but the Essence which ensouls the images. You, having been born from the One, cannot attain reunion with the One through the flesh.
Finally, our materialistic philosophers, occultists and scientists will no doubt rashly jump the line and accuse us of being stupid and fanciful in our claims. Let them do so by all means, at least it will land them into such an intellectual mess and confusion that they will be forced to let go of their mental limitations and soar with us into the very core of Life Itself. You cannot possibly know what we mean when we say that we can soar into Ourselves as the Naughtness. This infers that God and Man are the same and that there is no need to have a God external to yourself.
II
“The Universe is the combination of a thousand elements, and yet the expression of a single spirit – a chaos to the senses, a cosmos to the reason.” – H.P.Blavatsky
“The Self of Matter and the Self of Spirit can never meet. One of the twain must disappear: there is no place for both.” – Voice of the Silence.
When we were asked by our Chiefs (the Adept-Masters) to prepare a vehicle for the diffusion of this Philosophy of Naughtness, we chose the Gnostic term "Pleroma" as being the nearest concept to the FULNESS. It is the Great Nothing wherein all thinking and being cease, because the Eternal is without qualities. Thus our created world is differentiated and is the Essence of this uncreated world and from this division comes the myriad of divisions. This division of the One is created by man himself, since he is the great divider, he creates these divided concepts from his own nature and the instruments Nature has given him to use - the senses and the reason. It is because of the nature of the senses that we conceive of the pairs of opposites which have no real existence in the Great Naught, it is obedience to our dividing qualities of the senses which makes us victims of the myriad of opposites.
Thus, it is we as men, who create these non-existent qualities of the Pleroma, since we strive for differentiation in the first place, that when we have reached the limit of differentiation, we must then seek to restore ourselves to a state of Sameness wherein there is no such thing as mental concepts - God and Satan, Life and Form, Spirit and Matter, Time and Space, the Beautiful and the Ugly, and Divine Soul and human Soul, man and woman, etc., and this process of division is the essence of every created being - that is to say, when the Essence is clothed by form. The Mystic, therefore, as Basilides states: "We ourselves, however, are the Pleroma, because we are a portion of the eternal and the endless. Still, we do not possess it, but are exceedingly removed from the Pleroma; not in space or time, but in being, inasmuch as our being is different from the Pleroma, inasmuch as we are created beings, and thus limited by time and space."
Thus, in this ancient philosophy, the Gnostic knows all men and creatures to be equally divine - being of the same nature and essence as the Great Naught, and within this Principle, man, the Crown of created beings, is an immortal spirit whose power of development and unfoldment is unlimited, sharing in the life-giving Principle as omniscient and beneficent. In this light, each man is the master of his own destiny, and happiness lies within the reach of those who place themselves in harmony with the Divine Law of the Pleroma. But, so long as man retains the illusion that he is rent in twain, being both the Self of Matter and at the same time the Self of Spirit, by retaining and obeying the process of differentiation of himself from the One, he still remains in ignorance and in the land of gloom.
The Mystic, the adherent to the Doctrine of Naughtness, knows that he is not the Self of Matter, nor the Self of the Spirit, but is the Pleroma itself, thus, he seeks to restore himself to the One and at the same time be the One. He ceases to animalise his nature, to obey the impulses of his animal passions, nor does he seek to spiritualise himself by obeying the impulses of his Soul, but seeks to blend the two apparent sensual concepts into one - he thus humanises his nature, the scales of Universal Balance are then even, with neither opposites demanding attention in his nature, he is then able to rise into himself as the Great and Absolute Naught.
Now, we come to the basis of our philosophy, as shown above. The man who can attain this absolute balance between his two conceptional natures is a wise man indeed. Man is the centre of his own Universe or the Pleroma. Whilst man functions as a human being he becomes aware of this world through his senses, and his reasoning faculties interpret what his senses transmit to the brain, but, if the brain is deadened either by death or paralysis, the senses cannot transmit their impressions to the brain, then the man ceases to know the differentiated world around him. In this state of non-existence, he functions in a world of partial undifferentiation, wherein the senses play no part, he now becomes aware of the duration, minus the qualities of time and space.
Man, being the creator, as he is, has exteriorised his own human computer into a mechanistic computer, and this electronic computer can only react according to the deposits which man himself programmes into it, therefore the computer is subject to human error, just as our own human computer is programmed by the five senses which can also be subject to error. Thus, man and the electronic computer become subject to the results of good and bad deposits. Man, himself, has had a long series of human lives to enable him to programme his computer with deposits oscillating between the pairs of opposites; these deposits causing him to differentiate the world around him into manifold forms. Since man is subject to true and false concepts, so he must also feed his electronic computer with the same qualities. In this light, man and his creation have the inherent faculty of differentiation of the results of the senses which could only be called concepts of the mind. Thus a concept exists in the mind, but may have no corresponding existence in reality, when such a concept springs up in a man's mind it allows him to become possessed by this mental image - such a process causes differentiations in his mental thinking.
Thus, a man can conjure up in his mind a mental concept which can assume a tangible and subjective concept, bearing in mind that this concept comes from nothing; it is man who makes this subjective concept tangible to have its effects felt in the personality.
In the same manner, man's conception of God, Satan, Spirit, Matter, Soul and personality has been programmed by the energies received from his imperfect sensual nature with its five receiving stations, but has, in the Ultimate Reality no correspondence in the Pleroma. They are illusions in one sense, but they are real in another. If he has not computerized his human machine with interpretations derived from his imperfect senses, then these concepts are made real by this transmission, but if his senses are made perfect, then they can register the manifest and self-evident facts that these concepts are himself in reality, but through the imperfect senses he then demands incessant new demonstrations and proof of the existence of God and of himself as a fixation in the spatial illusion of time, space and duration.
This accounts for the blind-spots which one finds in the minds of students, they fail to see the reality of anything, simply because their senses are functioning imperfectly, whenever a fact is presented to them, they will always without exception overlook the obvious fact, but do place their own interpretation upon the simple fact.
Let us take note: in the beginning of the Pleroma as a Society, we pursued a process wherein this differentiation of the conceptional nature of man and God was pushed to its logical conclusion, wherein the student then became confused by the manifold apparent expressions of the One Life - the Fashioner of the World - the God of the Christians and Jews. This accentuation upon the Soul and the spiritual way must by necessity cause doubts to arise in the human mind, the natural result being for the mind to reject these mental concepts, it refuses to accept any more, as it realises that they are in themselves, as concepts, of no value to him. On the opposite side of the scales, man rushes after sex, food and entertainment as his concept of happiness. In his desire for sexual experience he can sink into the mire of his animal passions; in the quest for food he can accentuate his gross material body, and in his search for entertainment he might seek to escape the warning cry of Nature that the incessant differentiation of his animal nature would bring him disappointment. He will very often turn towards the opposite concept: so-called spirituality.
By now, we hope, our student should have been stripped of the illusion of the reality of the separateness of his animal life and his spiritual life and discovered that concentration on one at the expense of the other is a dead-end occupation whether of action or of the mind. In spite of this lust after the spiritual by man, his animal nature is still strong and there arises a terrific conflict within his divided nature - the struggle between the God in his Soul and the Devil in his animal nature. He should have realised that both aspects and his lusting after either perpetuates the division and imbalance in his body politic. "Divide and rule" is the cry of the enemy of the man who seeks for a humanised and balanced nature. Even in the Disciplina Arcani the members still lust after the differentiation of the Self, which makes for the disgusting scenes of gossip, backbiting and the double-faced dealing with their brothers.
It is now painfully obvious that each student should bring to perfection the qualities, capacities and nature of his five senses by humanising his life. By this means he avoids the snare of the opposites and becomes aware of his Oneness with the Great Naught, nay, he knows that he is the One.
Now we may ask ourselves - why is it necessary for us to accept and use the space, time and duration concepts of God, Spirit, Matter, Soul and human Soul, male and female, etc. The answer is simply this: the mechanism of the five senses can only function within the spatial limits of time, space and duration, because our senses are imperfect in their registration of the vibrations received by them, hence, these imperfect registrations are passed to the brain to be interpreted by the already programmed human computer. Obviously, the only way to eradicate the need for these spatial conceptions is to perfect the nature of our senses by humanising our life.
In reality, by having a closer look at the method of this reception by the brain of the impacts from external sources comes in a series of dots and dashes, with a space between each set of symbols, which gives the illusory appearance of duration or a continuous reception of these light-waves. For instance, the pattern of the invention of the Morse Code obviously comes from the brain and its method of reception and interpretation of these light-waves. Here we have the origin of the system of number and symbol which one finds in the Tarot, the synchronicity of Dr Carl J Jung, and the various systems of Numerology. The brain cannot receive a continuum of impressions because the senses are imperfect, just as the conscious mind is unable to register the continuum of the subconscious impressions or impulses.
We all know that light and sound waves do not function as a continuous stream of impulses, they are broken up into a series of dots and dashes. In a verbal message passing along a telephone wire each word as it passes through the wire is broken up into a series of combinations of dots and dashes. In a television set, the images received on the screen are a series of dots and dashes which form the picture, in the same way as the projector flashes onto the cinema screen a series of separate images at a certain speed which gives the appearance of being a continuous picture, as evidenced in some of the pictures of the early days of the film industry. Thus, it is through this process of number and symbol that the brain can register these impacts. If, for instance, the brain could register these vibrations as a continuum, then it could not register things or outlines in the objective world because man's senses at the moment are imperfect and are totally incapable of registering a continuum wherein time and space have no place. Perhaps the above is the key to the theory of Albert Einstein when he says that everything is space, time a continuum. Logically, this makes it seem that all manifestation is an illusion to the Real Man, but factual to the man of flesh. Here we have the paradox of life – one aspect of life is an illusion, whilst the form aspect is a fact registered by the senses.
It is now obvious, or should be, that the more man perfects the qualities and abilities of his senses the closer he will come to realise that he is the One and the One is in him. When this state occurs, and it does occur with the Adept, Illuminee and Mystic, the spatial distances between himself and the One become more and more undifferentiated. If we must use the outmoded term of "spirituality," it could be said that this is the work of spiritual labour, to reduce the barriers of differentiated existence and become one with the One - the Great Naught which is the All.
Therefore, in order to become free from the illusion of the senses, man must detach himself from the senses in such a way as not to become attached to them, but to use them as instruments as a mechanic uses his tools to accomplish his work. By non-attachment, we mean to perfect the use of the senses to such an extent that they will refuse to allow the brain to register any form of vibration that is not a continuum. This means that the objects of the sensual world are real only so long as men attach themselves to them, or consider them as reality in themselves; and it is this attachment to the illusions of the senses which creates frustrations, fears and resentments. For instance, a man in true love forgets himself in his beloved, in this state his senses are subservient to him, since they are marshalled towards his beloved, therefore, there can be no restraint, domination or limitation in his mind concerning the beloved.
The evil qualities, which are in reality the reception by the senses in an imperfect manner, can only arise in his mind if through his senses he treats the beloved as a means of satisfying the animal desires or self-centeredness, as in the case of a woman treating her husband as simply a "meal ticket"; or the man considering his beloved as a means of sexual pleasure for himself. In cases like these we have the attachment to the senses which eventually dominates the mind and from this comes jealousy, fear of loss, and the creation of the images of menace.
It is entirely through this non-attachment to the senses that in the sexual act, the two natures are blended into a terrific passionate embrace, the two are then merged into one being, and they both experience the terrific impact of Nature that hurls them up into a timeless state. In this union the earth trembles at the process of creation and where the unrestrained senses are allowed to follow their natural course of action without any interference from the reason or the senses they are unified into one and from this freedom they rise into the timeless sequence of the One Unified Man. If man can achieve this union in the sexual act, why cannot he do this in his normal everyday living?
In the lustful or selfish man, the attachment to another stems from the sense of importance which he gives to his erect phallus. This state of mind makes the man oblivious to reality, since every act is governed by this small organ of his body. The woman of the same type, on the other hand, attaches herself to any man, and from this stems a lack of security, this sense of fear has arisen from the brutal and selfish attitude of man towards his female self.
In these cases the man labours under the delusion that he is "manly" and the woman that she is "feminine"; the one connoting tough, virile strength and the capability to rule the world, and the other, a soft sensitive, clinging-vine incapable of anything but to follow her "man" to the ends of the earth. In actual fact, these differentiations are an illusion that brings untold misery to the human race. This is because so many people are brought up on this sickly pap and very few dare to question its validity, let alone deviate from it by so much as a millimetre. In these two cases we can see how the senses limit and restrict the free movement of a man or a woman. They reside in a world of illusion and thus the reasoning faculties in both are conditioned into a very narrow field - the business of satisfying their “unnatural” natural needs.
The man who truly loves another, finds himself prompted by an Abstract Cause, which in this case, stems from the impressions made upon the brain from an inner source. This Love-Force now regulates the need for sex, because it takes into account the needs of the beloved. This sense of sacrifice of the personal needs for another is the beginning of the non-attachment to the other; therefore, by the very nature of this love, they are both assured of their natural rhythm which Nature always demands for them. But, so long as the one treats the other as a means of satisfying his unnatural compulsion only, he will create in his atmosphere fear, frustration and very often distaste, and above all the fear of loss which will ultimately create a series of images of menace, which if the man allows them, will take over this natural function of sex which creates the union between two people. The man then finds that he is attached to the other and finds himself a captive in a net of unreality.
Here you have the root cause of the many kinds of mental neuroses which one finds in the so-called ‘sub-world of homosexual, bi-sexual and lesbian activities. Very often man or woman caught-up in this net find themselves powerless to exercise a restraining influence upon their attachment to sex. This is generally because of their own weakness or their unwillingness to do anything about it. Usually they do nothing about it because they are actually, in spite of their moaning, thoroughly enjoying their misery. Let us not, however, be so naïve as to think that this same situation does not arise in the heterosexual world also. In both cases, all who act in this manner will find themselves constantly in demand by others like themselves, even to the point of exhaustion. Slowly but surely a person like this reaches saturation point when the natural desire for sex, either homo- or hetero-, is burned out of them and the whole purpose of their life becomes a rush after sex in the hope of dulling their sense of doom and frustration, all other purpose being cast aside and forgotten.
Let us be brutally frank, although it may shock the susceptibilities of some of our members; a man or woman who is deprived of the normal rhythm of sex can and does become one of the many fanatics of spirituality, usually through vegetarianism or any other of the many illusions which make up the modern conception of what is "spiritual." Instead of becoming more spiritual, however, they almost always become eroded with jealousy, pride, arrogance, spite, love of gossiping and trying to run other people's lives for them - they are in fact, really attached to sex that they have driven from them. They are the "old maids" no matter what sex, who enjoy stirring up people's lives in order to satisfy their lack of a normal rhythmic life. As a compensation they arouse their animal potentialities in order to enjoy an illusion of sexual pleasure. Hard words, to be sure, but it is a psychological fact!
Where a person has complete freedom, when he is free from any mental concepts, he can truly love and abandon himself to Love, since this Love creates the world of the senses in its image and not in the images of the senses. The woman who loves develops a sense of maternal care for the man, this releases her self-direction into the freedom of association of man and through this freedom her concept of the world is changed from one of purposelessness to one of purpose, and this transformation also occurs in the man. Thus, when we boil all spiritual knowledge down to its basic principles we are forced to realise this fact; the Deity is in perpetual sexual union with Himself in order that creation may continue. In this light He is a bi-sexual God, capable of a sexual act with and in Himself. So why should the Western man fear to express his natural function, since the man and God are one and the same Being? This magnificent cosmic drama mirrored in man as Sex has been so degraded that it has now become the subject for dirty jokes, pornographic ideas and strip-tease clubs, all of which are simply a cowardly compensation for his refusal to recognize his true nature and function.
Let us take this one step further, bearing in mind that Man and God are one and the same Being, so that man must, by his very Divine Nature recapitulate the function of himself as the Great Naught in the personality. The man who is truly in love finds that this inner force lifts him out of the humdrum of life into a new feeling of mental and sensational activity. There is born with this Love the urge to conquer the illusions of this world, he is no longer content to remain a slave to its illusions, but seeks to use the illusions for others. The woman on the other hand, through the eyes of her lover, sees the latent potentialities within her lover and strives to awaken these potentials into activity; she becomes the driving force behind the man.
Thus, when the Fashioner of this World emerges from the Naught as a female, she changes the form of the Fashioner to become an active power who impregnates herself as the Womb of Nature. Here is the explanation of why the female is the stronger of the two sexes. The man today thinks that he is the conqueror of woman, but how mistaken he is, it is the woman who is the conqueror of man, without her, man could not exist. It is the man who runs after the woman and by his very nature becomes submissive to her. We silently smile at the claims of man and his so-called manliness, he is so attached to his senses that he fails to see that he is the servant of the woman and thus gives woman domination over him.
We can also see that this sense of Naughtness can continue to exist between the two lovers when time, space and duration have ceased for them. This continuum is only possible when the two concerned are truly devoted to each other. When the importance of the self is voluntarily given up and it is no longer a case of what one of the two wants for him or herself, but of what is good for the other. This is the non-attachment of the self to the senses and in this is the beginning of the Philosophy of Naughtness where the attachment to the self and the validity of its sense perception have no place. Any attempt to bring about separateness between the two is rejected since the two minds can now reciprocally receive external impressions as a continuum.
In considering the illogical claim by some Eastern civilizations that a man can have a number of wives, we can only say that this is only possible when the absolute freedom of the wives is dominated and restricted by the animal desire of man. The wives in this case, have no chance to express themselves according
