On Stoking the Divine Fire and Blowing Smoke

In giving it some thought, there are some other barriers to comprehending the Kabbalah, perhaps the biggest one being the insularity of Judaism, which is there for a reason. Recall what we said the other day about "blending," and its significance to Jewish metaphysics. For a non-Jew to poke his head behind the veil and presume to understand the highest and deepest secrets of Judaism requires a kind of breathtaking presumptuousness. I guess the technical term would be chutzpah.

When you think about the taboos against mixing this and that -- e.g., meat and milk -- part of this has to do with evoking vertical recollection of the original separation. I'm pretty sure it's not just meant to be a mechanical act, but that it has multiple layers of meaning. But this is why, for example, cross-dressing would be a "sin" in Judaism, because it represents an indiscriminate mixing and undoing of the supernatural separation that God has ordained. It certainly has absolutely nothing to do with repression or prudery; to the contrary, robust sexual polarity is a key to maintaining sexual passion.

Likewise opposition to the redefinition of marriage. Another key idea in Judaism is that the unit of mankind is not man or woman, but man and woman: maleandfemale he created them. Note that the unit is not the blending of male and female, but the personal transformation that results from their dialectical play. Yes, a man's feminine side -- his anima -- is developed through this process, but a man cannot bypass or hasten the process by wearing dresses, playing with dolls, or voting Democrat.

The ultimate intent of the Law is to prolong the vertical into the horizontal by imbuing various otherwise mundane activities with the recollection of God. It's not intended to be oppressive but liberating -- liberty from bondage being another central motif of Judaism.

Indeed, when it merely becomes law emptied of spirit, I'm pretty sure something has gone wrong. I have an elderly relative by marriage who maintains a rigidly kosher home, but who couldn't be more of a cold and heartless witch. In her case, I think religious ritual has been thoroughly highjacked by mind parasites from below, so that it is merely OCD by another name. It is simply a way to manage her abundant aggression and consequent unconscious guilt.

Furthermore, mechanical discharge of the Law does not facilitate ascent through recollection, but like any other compulsion, keeps her where she is in an endless loop. It is a magical way to "undo" what the mind parasites have done.

Please note that the same thing can occur, for example, in Catholicism, when a person misuses the sacraments in order to remain the same, not to change. If they are not transformative, then something is not working as it should be -- probably due to a lack of sincerity, or a being who is riven by mind-parasites with competing agendas, about which the person has no conscious awareness.

More generally, the Raccoon view would be that the ultimate purpose of any religious ritual is to invoke, activate, and "invite" the Grace (↓). Obviously we do not create the grace, but can only try to live in such a way that we get out of its way. This dovetails with what we were discussing last week about man's role in the cosmic economy. I would put it this way: we cannot save ourselves, but we can certainly condemn ourselves (in a manner of speaking).

Now, I could very well be talking out of my yarmulke here, and if so, I will be pleased for Gandalin to smite me. I have no problem with that. I admittedly have no authority to belowviate on these elevated matters, except for the questionable authority Toots Mondello has vested in me and every other dues-paying Raccoon. The Raccoon is obviously a generalist, not a specialist. Much of what he does will appear to the uninitiated to be "blending," but it actually isn't, since it is operating from "above" not "below."

In other words, whether rightly or wrongly, we cannot help ourselves from examining the underlying principles by which a religious proposition is true (similar to how science reduces multiplicity to unity). This path is not for everyone, and in fact, it may well be for no one but me, since, while I can't help being me, you presumably can.

But assuming that I am animated by pneumacosmic principle, then the same principle should be active in at least a few others. I would certainly never attempt to proselytize my views to outsiders, as I well understand why they would be offended or indifferent. Thus, I preach only to the coonverted -- to those who, when they read my words, have that distinct sense that they are not so much learning anything new as recalling who they have always been.

Again, I have no illusions that this path is for everyone. Our Oly slackraments no doubt appear loose and lazy to outsiders, but I can assure them that it is much easier than it looks, since nothing is easier than being oneself. The hard part is becoming oneself.

One of Schuon's closest friends, Leo Schaya, wrote a book on the Kabbalah that is closer to the universalist perspective we have in mind. Of course Raccoons have our differences with the Traditionalists, but I think we can nevertheless draw some useful insights from this study. For example, Uncle Leo says that the ultimate purpose of Kabbalah is "spiritual contemplation, pure inspiration, or 'intellectual intuition.'" It endeavors to "rise above the plane of phenomena" through a plunge into the depths of the soul.

I suppose the main point is that Kabbalah can only maintain its universality by preserving its particularity -- in the same way that a man is only a "real man" to the extent that he is an individual man. One does not "become a man" by blending into some indistinct archetype, but by filling out the content of the archetype from below.

Thus, by becoming a true individual, one becomes a "mode of the infinite." In contrast, the "false individualism" of narcissism renders one a mode of the finite -- or death incarnate -- since one is severed from the source of the person, which is the metacosmic Person. It is the difference between being a mere eccentric and a true esocentric, to coin a word.

The book we are discussing begins with a foreword that tells the story of a meeting with an elderly Jewish sage who seems to be in a perpetual state of ecstatic raving about the Kabbalah. I think it's fair to say that it has become "operative" in him, and is doing what it is supposed to do -- which is to say, the Tree of Life beleafing in abundance. Again, it should not be a matter of memorizing dry or mechanical knowledge, but should facilitate a flow of vertical recollection on the soul-plane.

This man -- whom the author calls "Ezekiel" -- says that the purpose of life is "to know and experience God like a fire in the core of the core of your heart." In other words -- actually, the same words in a different order -- the idea is for your heart to be on fire with the experience of God. Then it's just a matter of properly stoking the fire and blowing a lot of smoke.

More holy smoke tomorrow....