Soul-Surfing On the Agitated Waves of the Day (11.17.11)

Now, on to Letter XII, Le Pendu, The Hanged Man. This, along with the Hermit, is a key archetype for Raccoons, as it speaks to the nonlocal habitat in which the Raccoon dwells, which is suspended roughly halfway between God and matter, give or take, i.e., the celestial and terrestrial planes.

UF says that this card "plunges us into the heart of the problem of the relationship between man and gravitation, and the conflicts that this relationship entails." Something analogous to gravity operates at all levels of the cosmos, both interior and exterior, from the solar system, to culture, to personal relationships, to the self, and even to mind parasites. In each case, there is an "attractive force" that draws subject and objects toward other subjects or objects, and also toward their own "center of gravity."

We are not so much interested in the attraction of objects as of subjects, for this is where the real mystery lies. For example, once you "locate" your true self, it will begin to attract the kinds of relationships and experiences it requires to grow. If you fail to live out of this "interior center," then no matter what happens to you in your life, it will be an incoherent stream of experiences with no possibility of synthesis into a higher unity.

Here again, this is why liberty is so critical to the articulation and development of the self. The self is something that pre-exists in the form of potential, but can only be known through experience. This implicit self must be free to choose the objects, relationships, and experiences it requires in order to "be." This is why one man's paradise can be another man's prison -- even a living death. This is why there can be no real spirituality in the absence of freedom, and in turn why leftism is intrinsically retrograde.

Vertically speaking, you might say that we live in the phase space between two great attractors, which I symbolize in the book as O and Ø. As such, there are two "final causes" that operate on us; you could even call them eros and thanatos, or love and death. The death-stream draws us down to the terminal moraine of our lower nature, which ultimately ends in death and dissolution. The life-stream pulls us in, up, and out, toward our nonlocal source above. Even the most cynical atheist cannot live -- not even for a moment -- without this life-stream, for it is what pulls him toward truth, or love, or meaning -- even toward his hatred of God! (since this hatred is rooted in a misguided love of truth).

UF agrees that "the domain of our freedom... shows the real and active presence of gravitation of a spiritual order." This is why people are attracted to God and religion to begin with, "for what is the phenomenon of religion if not the manifestation of spiritual gravitation towards God -- i.e., towards the centre of spiritual gravitation of the world?"

We cannot "see" gravity, any more than we can see the wind. However, we can obviously feel the effects of gravity and wind. On the interior plane, these effects are "subtle" but nevertheless clear, especially as one learns to "amplify" them and to live within this attractor space. It's as clear as "falling in love." No one had to teach me how to do that. I just went with the cosmic flow, straight into a brick wall... or was it an abyss? I suppose it was both.

But that was terrestrial love. Furthermore, it was a terrestrial love completely severed from its actual source, and fully located in the object of my affliction. Plus, it was thoroughly entangled with formidable mind parasites which also love in their fashion. Yes, as with everything else they use, they have to appropriate the love from elsewhere, but it feels real at the time.

Anyway, speaking of falling, UF situates mankind's fall within this space. I'm always trying to trancelight religious ideas into terms I can better grasp, and in this case, "there is nothing against the conception of the Fall of Adam as the passage from a spiritual gravitation system, whose centre is God, to a terrestrial gravitational system, whose centre is the serpent."

That's certainly how it feels to me. Don't you feel those twin pulls? And don't you remember as a child, the first awareness of the pull into darkness? I remember it distinctly. I think it repeats itself in different forms at different stages of life -- assuming you actually grow through different developmental stages beyond ego. Each stage has a central "temptation" that is an image of the first. In each case, we must choose the Light.

The Gospel designates the two attractors as "heaven" and "this world," or "the kingdom of God" and "the kingdom of the prince of this world." Or, we could again just call them O and Ø; or "slack" and "the conspiracy."

Likewise, this can be thought of as a sword that cuts mankind right down the middle, between the "children of this world" and "the children (or the sons) of light." Here again, standard issue cOOnvision allows us to know in an instant when we are in the presence of one or the other. It could not be more obvious, could it?

UF notes that there are actually three main categories, and I see that these correspond to the three gunas of Vedanta, which we won't get into. But there is the "carnal" (or vital) man who "lives in the grip of gravitation of 'this world' at the expense of the gravitation of 'heaven'; then there is the "psychic man" who "lives in equilibrium between the two fields"; then there is the spiritual or pneumatic man "who lives under the sway of the gravitation of 'heaven.'" One reason I no longer do psychotherapy is that I just can't deal with type #1. I don't even know where to begin. I have no interest in helping people better adapt to unreality -- which is what most people want.

Now, the Hanged Man "represents the condition of one in the life of whom gravitation from above has replaced that of below." In Raccoon terms, it is someone who has discovered his proper orientation, and sees the cosmos "inside out" and "upside down" relative to "the normals." In reality, we have merely reverted things to their proper place. And we are irresistibly attracted to the top.

There are numerous references to this in the Cosmobliteration section of the Coonifesto: no body crosses the phoenix line lest it be repossessed and amortized; reverse worldward descent and cross the bridge of darkness to the father shore; floating upstream along the ancient celestial trail, out from under the toilsome tablets of time; returning to the Oneself, borne again to the mysterious mamamatrix of our birthdeath; etc.

Well, I'm just about out of time. Lots of work to do. I'll leave you with this to ponder:

Now the words 'I am; do not be afraid' spoken by the one walking on the water amount to the statement: 'I am gravitation, and he who holds to me will never sink or be engulfed.... Thus there is another field of gravitation than that of death, and who unites himself with it can walk on water, i.e, transcend the agitated element of 'this world,' the electrical gravitational field of the serpent. --Meditations on the Tarot