The Contention & God-use
WHAT THE CONTENTION OVER GOD-USE IS ABOUT
“The Contention”, as used here, comes from Corpus Hermeticum, First Book, v. 9f.:
“For the Contention is of one against two, whilst it flies away and they strive to hold and detain it.
10. But the victory of both is not like; for the one hasteth to that which is Good, but the other is a neighbour to the things that are Evil; and that which is Good, desireth to be set at Liberty; but the things that are Evil, love Bondage and Slavery.
11. And if the two parts be overcome, they become quiet, and are content to accept of it as their Ruler; but if the one be overcome of the two, it is by them led and carried to be punished by its being and continuance here.”
Applied to “God”-use, this becomes the form of Completing Totality (the One) contended over by the Two, striving to hold and detain it. In other words, contention over whose God rules the universe. Parties to the Two, according to the unity of the person as a totality, are Mind and Body: the person’s awareness of themselves as both. Those who follow Mind- signs in relating to reality find completion only in a God beyond space and time. Those who follow Body-signs in relating to reality find completion only in a God IN space and time. These polarities are sometimes called “transcendent” vrs. “immanent” representations of God (the completing totality). Separate and distinct representations of completing totalities is possible because they, themselves, respectively – Mind and Body – are distinct (though not separable, since both are joined already from below by the conditions sign-use) triads. The two legs of the upper triad are ego (a) and sign-use (b); the completion is use of God (c) (for the completion). The two legs of the lower triad are basal neuro-genic response (a), phenomenal quality response (b); the completion is use of God (c) for the acme of pleasure during the orgasm reflex. Both contend, but “the victory of both is not equal. For the one hasteneth to that which is good, while the other is neighbour to that which is evil.” Notes that this interpretation does not equate the body with evil, but with its “neighbour”. The analysis proposed here is that with the splitting of the two strands of the X, the ‘lagging strand’, in this case the lower triad, the Body, taken in abstraction from the higher-level mental functioning of its Mind. It can become bound up with contradictory processes: incompatible polarities feeding off each the other’s negativity. “The Mind that cannot be Body; the Body that cannot be Mind.” Each must know its own place, but how is that possible if the One they share (consciousness under sign-use as a totality by the person) has been irreparably dismembered? Attachment of the lower to evil, putting it in absolute contradiction with the One, renders it unredeemable, is unforgivable sin.
WHY CHRISTIANITY ABHORED THOTH
As representation (Vorstellung) of the ideal completing totality prior to the Christian era, he connected thought with truth (both words are variants of “His” name) through Light and Life, but not Love. According to the Johannine Gospel (John 3.16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son…”), this was the central motivation of Christ’s revelation; therefore what had previously connected mankind to cosmic totalities, macro and micro, was no longer sufficient. Gad and his man, or man and his God, whichever end of the metaphysical polarity one chooses to view it from, had evolved, in the sense of psychologically developed, to the point where Love, first attached to arousal of emotions biologically connected with reproduction, in the Adam, demands a completing cosmic counterpart – and cannot be instinctually satisfied without One! That would be because the idea of a completing totality is part of the functional organic equipment of self-consciously completing one. The Christ attainment in humans would, as a matter of the unity of energies supported by the psycho-neuro-genetic base, would require a proper ‘sublimation’ of physical Love, though this can be radically misunderstood and used against psychological development in connection with severe, abusive Father/ super-ego formation.
Light and Life can be viewed as two strands of a single thread, twinned by time invading space. When this process of nature, having mechanically proceeded for the millennial durations up to 0 A.D. , began re-producing individual members of the human species who became aware of how their bodies entered into the scheme of reproducing things on earth, the One previously completing his totality from the side of the body is called upon to complete him further, through it. That call cannot be answered by Thoth, ex hypothesi, even though the unity in his representation, in and of itself, is taken up into the trinitarian Father-Son-Holy Spirit unity.
For the Love-enlightened Mind, therefore, Thoth is darkness. The soul-journey from ancient Egypt to America is brought back now in the juxtaposition with “Christ” as completed Archetypal Man. But both are back. And it is not fair, nor accurate, to equate Thoth with the God of abusive Fathers. That is only what/who he was/is for those unwashed in the blood of the lamb -- whether they call themselves “Christian” or not.
“The Contention”, as used here, comes from Corpus Hermeticum, First Book, v. 9f.:
“For the Contention is of one against two, whilst it flies away and they strive to hold and detain it.
10. But the victory of both is not like; for the one hasteth to that which is Good, but the other is a neighbour to the things that are Evil; and that which is Good, desireth to be set at Liberty; but the things that are Evil, love Bondage and Slavery.
11. And if the two parts be overcome, they become quiet, and are content to accept of it as their Ruler; but if the one be overcome of the two, it is by them led and carried to be punished by its being and continuance here.”
Applied to “God”-use, this becomes the form of Completing Totality (the One) contended over by the Two, striving to hold and detain it. In other words, contention over whose God rules the universe. Parties to the Two, according to the unity of the person as a totality, are Mind and Body: the person’s awareness of themselves as both. Those who follow Mind- signs in relating to reality find completion only in a God beyond space and time. Those who follow Body-signs in relating to reality find completion only in a God IN space and time. These polarities are sometimes called “transcendent” vrs. “immanent” representations of God (the completing totality). Separate and distinct representations of completing totalities is possible because they, themselves, respectively – Mind and Body – are distinct (though not separable, since both are joined already from below by the conditions sign-use) triads. The two legs of the upper triad are ego (a) and sign-use (b); the completion is use of God (c) (for the completion). The two legs of the lower triad are basal neuro-genic response (a), phenomenal quality response (b); the completion is use of God (c) for the acme of pleasure during the orgasm reflex. Both contend, but “the victory of both is not equal. For the one hasteneth to that which is good, while the other is neighbour to that which is evil.” Notes that this interpretation does not equate the body with evil, but with its “neighbour”. The analysis proposed here is that with the splitting of the two strands of the X, the ‘lagging strand’, in this case the lower triad, the Body, taken in abstraction from the higher-level mental functioning of its Mind. It can become bound up with contradictory processes: incompatible polarities feeding off each the other’s negativity. “The Mind that cannot be Body; the Body that cannot be Mind.” Each must know its own place, but how is that possible if the One they share (consciousness under sign-use as a totality by the person) has been irreparably dismembered? Attachment of the lower to evil, putting it in absolute contradiction with the One, renders it unredeemable, is unforgivable sin.
WHY CHRISTIANITY ABHORED THOTH
As representation (Vorstellung) of the ideal completing totality prior to the Christian era, he connected thought with truth (both words are variants of “His” name) through Light and Life, but not Love. According to the Johannine Gospel (John 3.16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son…”), this was the central motivation of Christ’s revelation; therefore what had previously connected mankind to cosmic totalities, macro and micro, was no longer sufficient. Gad and his man, or man and his God, whichever end of the metaphysical polarity one chooses to view it from, had evolved, in the sense of psychologically developed, to the point where Love, first attached to arousal of emotions biologically connected with reproduction, in the Adam, demands a completing cosmic counterpart – and cannot be instinctually satisfied without One! That would be because the idea of a completing totality is part of the functional organic equipment of self-consciously completing one. The Christ attainment in humans would, as a matter of the unity of energies supported by the psycho-neuro-genetic base, would require a proper ‘sublimation’ of physical Love, though this can be radically misunderstood and used against psychological development in connection with severe, abusive Father/ super-ego formation.
Light and Life can be viewed as two strands of a single thread, twinned by time invading space. When this process of nature, having mechanically proceeded for the millennial durations up to 0 A.D. , began re-producing individual members of the human species who became aware of how their bodies entered into the scheme of reproducing things on earth, the One previously completing his totality from the side of the body is called upon to complete him further, through it. That call cannot be answered by Thoth, ex hypothesi, even though the unity in his representation, in and of itself, is taken up into the trinitarian Father-Son-Holy Spirit unity.
For the Love-enlightened Mind, therefore, Thoth is darkness. The soul-journey from ancient Egypt to America is brought back now in the juxtaposition with “Christ” as completed Archetypal Man. But both are back. And it is not fair, nor accurate, to equate Thoth with the God of abusive Fathers. That is only what/who he was/is for those unwashed in the blood of the lamb -- whether they call themselves “Christian” or not.
posted by Sid Thomas | 7:10 PM
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