Saturday, October 16, 2021
4 a.m. To continue, then.
[LXXXII. OBEDIENCE. Obedience is the mediator of the soul. It is the organ of immediate inspiration; the hierophant of the Godhead. It is the method of revelation; the law of all culture.]
This is clear perception, provided only that one realizes who, or rather what, one is obedient to. This, you see, is behind so many scriptural injunctions against false gods and, therefore, false prophets. For what is entirely constructive when connected to reality easily becomes irrelevant and then destructive if connected to any form of unreality. In the prophet, any form of Psychic’s Disease may lead to this result. But even more deadly, any listening to the wrong input may turn prophetic ability into an element of destruction for those who are convinced by the sincerity of the conduit, not thinking to “test the spirits” themselves.
This may seem a negative take on a positive statement, and perhaps it is. But because the condition as stated is so positive, shows how powerful the connection, it is well to paint the negative space. Only – having looked at the hazards, now let’s look at the astounding potential here revealed. This short saying ought to connect many thoughts you have not till now seen together.
Obedience is often seen as a negative thing. It looks better if you recognize it as following the laws of your nature, functioning as you were made to function. When your bodily cells cease to obey their nature, problems arise not only for the system of which they are a part, but for the cells themselves, of course. The same goes at any level you care to look at: society and its laws, the atomic scale, Boyle’s Law, whatever. Obedience to one’s nature can never be tyranny, and disobedience can never be anything but missing the mark.
Emerson says somewhere that everything has been created for our benefit, but the only proviso is that we must obey. It was clear to him that this did not mean social conformity, of course, but did mean, be who you were constructed to be. At least, that’s what I get from it.
And Alcott understood Emerson, you see. Their minds ran together in the larger things, however different they were in prudence, say, or fortitude.
[LXXXIII. RETRIBUTION. The laws of the soul and of nature are forecast and preordained in the spirit of God, and are ever executing themselves through conscience in man, and gravity in things. Man’s body and the world are organs, through which the retributions of the spiritual universe are justified to reason and sense. Disease and misfortune are memoranda of violations of the divine law, written in the letter of pain and evil.]
This one makes sense only in light of its predecessor, you see. Considered on its own – as people often do consider this idea, even never having heard of Alcott – often feel that this is a statement of universal tyranny. “Violations of the divine law” would be acts of heroic resistance, if you assumed that divine law was unjust like human law. It is the difference between the universal and the partial. Human laws can never be perfect, hence never more than relatively just, because they can never take into account more than a certain percentage of the total structure, even with the most honest intent and the best will in the world. Divine law, as Alcott calls it here, can never, by definition, not take into account everything and everybody.
It is an interesting thing Alcott does, comparing conscience in conscious beings to gravity in (as he assumed) unconscious matter. But over the years – come to think of it – you guys have compared love and gravity as the basic components of 3D life. You haven’t put it quite that way, but close enough.
You will notice that here he solves, quite offhand, the problem of the existence of evil that so perplexed and perplexes non-theological philosophers. (It perplexes many a theologian, too, of course, but they usually resort to a statement of faith that things make sense if we only could see straight, so just take it for granted that all is well.)
Sounds somewhat familiar.
Perhaps we faced the same problem with our audience, initially.
In any case, Alcott defines the existence of evil and disease as “violations of the divine law.” Well, this can’t mean something like “You didn’t obey the Ten Commandments,” or even “Humans are born in a state of original sin,” though in some ways this is true enough, in that every 3D creature is working out the results of past errors and present misjudgments. The man born deaf and blind did not “sin” in this life, and it would be unjust for him to have to suffer for the sins of his parents, you would think. (Though babies born syphilitic or born addicted to crack cocaine would be likely to see it as unjust if they saw it only in 3D context, they might argue the contrary if they saw “the whole picture.”)
If you once begin to see “divine retribution” as “inevitable cause and effect” (thus removing your suspicion of arbitrary power expressed as tyranny), you move farther toward seeing the 3D world as the place for the rechanneling of vast forces into better alignment. And if you remember that the point of 3D is not society or even the continual existence of the entire ongoing demonstration (that is, the continual creation and maintenance of the 3D world by the shared subjectivity of its constituent past, present, and future inhabitants), but the successive development of the souls that sojourn there, you see that making exceptions to the rules of justice would only interfere with the process.
I’m not sure how clear those long sentences are going to be, but I’m not going to try to reconstruct them.
You can always edit after the fact, if they prove impenetrable. [They meant, if it becomes clear that people can’t understand them, or if I can’t either when not actively connected to them.]
A pity Alcott didn’t have a good editor. But maybe he wouldn’t have trusted one to get his thought. Though, given that his friends included Emerson and Thoreau, you’d think he would have trusted one or the other – and both were sometime editors of “The Dial.”
[LXXXIV. WORSHIP. The ritual of the soul is preordained in her relations to God, man, nature, herself. Life, with its varied duties, is her ordained worship; labor and meditation her sacraments. Whatsoever violates this order is idolatry and sacrilege. A holy spirit, she hallows all times, places, services; and perpetually she consecrates her temples, and ministers at the altars of her divinity. Her censer flames always toward heaven, and the spirit of God descends to kindle her devotions.]
Once again, this saying can mean little if not considered as a development of the preceding thoughts. Here his omitting of the connecting logic probably seemed the obvious thing to do, but insofar as it encouraged people to see the points as separate rather than as station-stops on his train of thought, he made his meaning even more obscure.
“Station-stops on his train of thought.” I can’t decide if that is clever or cutesy. A little of each, maybe. But it gets the point across.
If it did nothing else, this saying should have demonstrated how saintly a man Alcott was – not that “saintly” would have been seen by his contemporaries as other than irreligious, for of course he was not conventionally religious. But in this 84th saying, he makes it quite clear how he saw his place (because everyone’s place) in 3D life. He makes it clear that he does not regard himself as exempt from the duty to obey, and does not regard himself as the object of some kind of cosmic injustice when his life doesn’t go the way his 3D judgment says it ought to have gone.
Yes, a beautiful soul, even if sometimes he must have been an annoying one.
[LXXXV. BAPTISM. Except a man be born of water and of spirit, he cannot apprehend eternal life. Sobriety is clarity; sanctity is sight. John baptizes Jesus. Repent, abstain, resolve;—thus purify yourself in this laver of regeneration, and become a denizen of the kingdom of God.]
This one is a problem for me. I see what he is saying, but I don’t see why he is connecting things this way. You could do us a real service by making it clear. Specifically what does it mean, “born of water and of spirit”? The words are familiar from any reading of Jesus’s words, but what does the “water” part of it signify?
We will take this as a “saved by the bell” situation. Your hour is up, and we will want to take advantage of a pause before going into this – which in any case ought not to be treated merely as an afterthought.
Well, I’ll hold you to it. Till next time, and our thanks as always.