The Coming Present Collapse of the Spiritual Bubble

Well, everything appears to be back to normal. With the exception of the will to blog, the absence of which may well be the new normal. It was certainly the old normal, i.e, pre-October 2005. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, continuing with Meditations on the Tarot, our Unknown Friend makes the extremely important point that "the existence of the universe is rendered possible by the act of contraction of God within himself. God made a 'place' for the world in abandoning a region inferior to himself."

This is in conformity with the Kabbalistic idea of tsimtsum, or "the withdrawal of God in order to create freedom." It adds a vital dimension to the otherwise unthinkable idea of creatio ex nihilo. In other words, it helps us to think about the nothing with which the cosmos is made. For as every pneumanaut knows, the cosmos is a very real present absence; compared to the Absolute, it is nothing. And yet, it is. But how is it? How can nothing be something?

As follows: "in order to create the world ex nihilo, God had first to bring the void into existence. He had to withdraw within in order to create a mystical space, a space without his presence -- the void. And it is in thinking this thought that we assist in the birth of freedom." [I would add that since we are in the image of the Creator, we must do something analogous to "give birth" to the Word, i.e., "withdraw" and create a space for him.]

This is why the Void is such a "pregnant mystery," so to speak. Our own subjectivity is aglow with the absent-presence of the divine Subject. The realm of the "mysterious" is not at all synonymous with "ignorance"; rather, it is a mode of knowing. More precisely, it is a mode of unKnowing, a paradoxical "unthought-known" that coincides with the Creator's absent-presence.

[Says Meister Eckhart, coincidentally, "Though it may be called a nescience, an unknowing, yet there is in it more than in all knowing and understanding without it, for this unknowing lures and attracts you from all understood things, and from your [lower] self as well" (emphasis mine); note also the subtext of what it means to be an "unKnown Friend."]

Nine out of ten authentic mystics agree that the unKnown God is "superior" to the known God. How could it not be so? It is foolish to imagine that we could ever contain the uncontainable within our borrowed being. It would be like taking out a loan from the bank in order to try to buy the bank. And we all know where that leads....

If you think the financial credit bubble was bad, just wait until the bill comes due on the vast fortune secular society has borrowed from religion. There is a huge spiritual bubble at the foundation of materialism, scientism, secularism, and leftism, and I don't want to be around when it bursts. No, check me on that. I do want to be around, since it is happening before our eyes.

But so too does this bubble exist on an individual basis. The leftist is puffed up and inflated with a host of morals and other truths he has purloined from the church. Thus, he is not so much a legitimate borrower as a cosmic criminal and thief.

One can well appreciate why classical liberalism is such a hard sell, being that freedom is an echo of the haudible nothing that makes our very existence possible.

In other words, a conservative, in order to be true to his principles, must promise nothing. He must swear to protect our God-given nothing -- our natural rights -- from the enemies who would misappropriate it, and he must always endeavor to give the people more of the nothing they deserve.

While people such as the OWS protesters cry for "social justice," this is actually the last thing they want, since justice means getting what one deserves. And that would resemble a Boschian vision of hell. Or worse, an OWS encampment.

In contrast to the conservative liberal, the illiberal leftist promises everything, but in so doing usurps our precious nothing until there's nothing left of it. The leftist gives us something for nothing, which is a terrible bargain.

The leftist state is like the bad mother who anticipates our needs before we can even feel them, so we become an enfeebled nobody instead of a robust nothing. From there it is a mere step from being a full-blown EUnuch who can't even be bothered to reproduce. Soon there won't be enough children to feed all the hungry grown-ups, at which time the Muslims will devour them.

As UF further explains, the mystical space of nothing is not only the space of freedom, but of potential. Therefore, it is not an empty nothing, but a plenum that is filled with unborn preconceptions that will become future realizations once they are properly fertilized and conceived.

Why does tiny Israel have more patents in a year than the entire Muslim world in a hundred (or thousand or whatever it is)? Because the Muslim world cannot tolerate the nothingness of freedom. Instead, its people are swaddled in an allah-too-present, "in your face" god who gives no slack. And yet, I am quite sure there are Sufi teachings compatible with the ideas we are discussing today.

Just as "the bigger the state, the smaller the citizen," the bigger the God the smaller the person. Previously we have highlighted the "smallness" of a God who is not only an anonymous peasant born in the back of beyond, but who is crucified in history as a common criminal. Can't get much smaller than that! But look what grew out of that tiny seed.

The divine withdrawal and creatio ex nihilo are also related to the idea of kenosis (the self-emptying of God) and the crucifixion. In fact, you could also say that these ideas are linked to sacrifice, in that God becomes "nothing" in order for you to become "something." It is better for you that I go away, because when I do, the Holy Spirit will come along to help refill your empty tanks.

Obama may be our president, but he will never be our meister, much as he would like to be. For our Master rules by his intrinsic authority, which can only be freely recognized in his absence.