Sunday, March 29, 2009

A New Melody Within The Form

Revitalized Conservatism and the Neoclassical Return in the Theoevolutionary Church

The conservative and the classical perspective defines innovation as taking place one small step at a time. Classicism developed forms and did not reject or discard past forms. Classicism required “beauty and clarity of form, nobility of subject, meaningfulness, and catharsis in a work of art.” (see “Can there be great composers anymore,” by Webster Young) Also, classical art begins from nature and builds on nature. Modernism and the revolutionary perspective define the new as individualistic, completely original, iconoclastic. Modernism destroys form as its basic principle.

Revitalized conservatism and neoclassicalism apply innovations to past and evolved forms in politics, art and culture. But this applies to religion too. Innovation in religion builds on past forms, and this includes most importantly building from nature, using and idealizing nature.

Religion has gotten away from nature and neglected the “chord of nature,” for example, in virtually rejecting evolution in nature, and more or less rejecting science as well. The Theoevolutionary Church (TC) returns to the classical and conservative principle of including nature in religion, politics and art, as well as building on past forms.

Rejecting all innovation of past forms can create the same barrenness as destroying all past forms in the name of originality. TC owes its form to past forms yet redefines a new melody within the form. This defines Revitalized Conservatism and Neoclassicism within the 
Theoevolutionary Church

Friday, March 27, 2009

From Ecumenism to the Evolutionary Outward Path

First and Second Force In the Theoevolutionary Church

Uniting the Two Paths

In the Theoevolutionary Church, the Second Force is more or less the proscription of the Traditionalist School. This seems to be the path of ecumenism. The proponents of this school (Guenon, Schuon, Burckhardt, Lings, Nasr) believe that all the world's religions, in their original forms, from the Hindus and Kabbalah, to the Revealed Religions, are equally valid and lead to what TC (not the Traditionalist School) defines as the Involutionary Inward Path to the Soul-Within. But since this school is highly critical of the material world, yet alone critical of modern thoughts and ideas, this is only the Second Force in TC for ecumenism in the world.

The First Force embraces the Evolutionary Outward Path, and the Activation-Within requiring the sacred advance of material-spiritual evolution all the way to True Godhood. The material world is blocked in the Great Spiritual Blockade of the Inward Path, described above, which is only the Second Force of ecumenism leading to the Soul-Within. Unlike the Traditionalist School, we do not reject the Inward Path as they reject the Outward Path. Both Paths are necessary.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Balancing history and reason

Conservatism at its best balances reasoning with experience, historical experience, the actual behavior of men and women and their cultures.

Fundamentalist Conservatism largely ignores reason and affirms only historical experience. Fundamentalist Liberal-Socialism largely ignores historical experience and affirms only reason.

Revitalized Conservatism seeks to balance reason by guiding evolution forward through looking back at historical experience.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

The Denaturing of God

The Highest Materiality/Spirituality, or God, can be called “spiritual” as long as materiality is not rejected by the term spirituality. God is a real Being, the highest evolved materiality in the cosmos. God is in nature as a Being, even as God created nature. God is a living Being.

When God is seen as pure abstraction, pure spirituality, this is not a “victory” over nature, it makes religion stale, a technical game. We see this has happened with religion in the East and the West. Religion has essentially abstracted God from nature, discarded the material world, the way modernist painters discarded realism and naturalism. Clever flim flam to include nature in religion by religious thinkers, some of them brilliant, does not change the basic rejection of the material world by religion.

God has been too much described as not a part of nature, and this abandons the great inspiration from nature. God has been replaced by abstractions and definitions. God must appear within nature not outside of nature. The beast of nature unites with the beauty of nature when nature evolves to Godhood.

A strong understanding of God in nature is the true basis for religion. The denaturing of God began long ago with ancient religions and philosophers. God became philosophical, increasingly less physical. Apollo requires Dionysus. Spirit requires the material. This is the dialectic of life and evolution.

Nature too often seems to collapse in religion. Pagans seemed more attuned to nature, nature and God did not seem to be at odds in Paganism. Humans need to reacquire the religious magic, the wisdom to transform nature into Godhood. Nature evolves to God, which defines the importance of nature.

God As Object Before Name

“A monk says: 'Is there anything more miraculous than the wonders of nature? The Master says: “Yes, your awareness of nature.” (From World Wisdom Inc.)

God is “nameless” in the sense that God is an Object, not a name. We can correctly name God only when we name the Object God. God came before the name of God, not after the name.

The Inward Path sees the Soul-Within, which is not the Divine Object God, but the Soul of the Body, the highest aspect of the body, but this is not the Seed of God or the Activation of God—the Spirit is the Seed of God and the Will to Godhood. It is this Soul-Within that appears to some as nameless in as much as it is not God but the Soul of the body.

Seeking Absolute Knowledge is seeking to think like God. Seeking the Highest Good is seeking to act like God. Seeking the Highest Beauty is seeking to look like God. These define the Divine Object, the Trinity. Seeking any one of these alone is not the Complete God. The Inward Path tends to seek Absolute Knowledge alone, which tends to be the way of Traditional Religions.

Because God comes before the naming of God, seeking the Highest Good and the Highest Beauty seems to be more important than seeking Absolute Knowledge because Goodness and Beauty define God as the Divine Object, whether God is or is not defined by Absolute Knowledge.

God is more a biological imperative than a mathematical imperative, since we evolve to God. This brings science back into religion where it belongs.

Friday, March 20, 2009

God is God whether we have a name for God or not

“The tào that can be told is not the eternal Tào
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.

The unnameable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin of all particular things.”
(Tào Té Chīng)

Why does God or the Absolute have to be expressed only in negative terms? Why does the understanding of the Ultimate Reality often define Nothing in Traditional religious understanding? Ultimate Reality can be referred to directly as a Divine Object, not a name only, not a nameless nothing, but a Being, God, who is part of the world as the highest evolved Being in the Kosmos. Naming God does not make God less, unless God is nothing, or unless God is only considered a name. And the name or definition of God alone is not God. It does not matter what the name of God is, God is God whether we have a name for God or not. In any case, we are too ignorant at this stage in our evolution to accurately name God.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Human power and God's power

Do we not have the right to “tamper” with nature? We are made in the image of God, and if we are wise we can be creators, not as great as God, but we can be evolving creators. Contrary to various religious perspectives that center solely on the Soul or Spirit of the Inward Path, we have to believe in human power. We can renew the earth. We can certainly reach the stars and beyond, we must.

What we want to avoid is the tyranny of scientism, with no concern or understanding of God, discarding the great Mystery, and God's creation. We want to avoid science divested of religion, which even now is leading to the destruction of the earth. Science need not build “Satanic mills,” science and religion can build a new Eden.

One of the things we like about the times leading out of the Middle Ages to the Age of Enlightenment was the occult combination of science and religion. We seek to once again combine religion and science, as the Involutionary Inward Path of Tradition joins the Evolutionary Outward Path leading to the evolution to God.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Two Doctrines

Traditionalism has cautioned that spiritual seekers must be willing to both follow a Doctrine as well as "walk alone" if need be---especially in spiritual seeking it is easy to go astray.

The Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC) more or less follows two Doctrines, Traditional Chrisitian and Beyondist, and walks alone with the synthesis of the Inward (Chrisitian) and Outward (Beyondist) Paths. When synthesized the Two Doctrines become greater than the sum of their parts.

Founders of religion seem to have developed new Doctrines, but the Traditionalist School believes that they have revealed another aspect of the Perennial Truth presented for a different age. In this sense ECC is a New Covenant. We do not consider ourselves to be syncrenistic since we are finding deeper meaning among the ancient and modern forms.

We look forward to bringing a great spiritual and scientific revival, not a “replacement theology” but a synthesizing unity.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Solutions to America's Economic Problem

From Economy In Crisis

Revitalizing, Not Revolutionizing, the City of God and the City of Man

Permanent and Changeable Things

It has been stated that if the Church and State are considered to be founded in sacred authority then the church and state may not be disobeyed except to obey the higher duties of divine and natural law, therefore the revitalizing of Conservatism in the Theoevolutionary Church is based in this exception of obeying higher divine laws. The laws of the Outward Path are evolutionary and the laws of the Inward Path are involutionary and the Inward Path is revitalized by the Outward Path.

The Soul-Within involves the "Changeable Things" City of Man—particularity). The Spirit-Within involves “Permanent Things" City of God—universality). The universal is synthesized in the particular through evolution. The “Principles” of Universality (Leo Strauss) are enshrined in the Spirit-Within and are realized through Tradition, History and Evolution (Russell Kirk) These need not oppose one another. What has been missing is knowledge of the activation of evolution to Godhood by the Spirit-Within in the Outward Path, previously mainly considered static spiritual definition through the Inward Path only to the Soul-Within, although blissful and enlightening.

All of life, from church, state, the arts, and business are a means to a higher end, our evolution to God.


Claes G. Ryn, one of the better conservative thinkers, considers these things in a somewhat different way in his essay from 2007 "The decline of American intellectual conservatism"

Friday, March 13, 2009

The Tragedy of Religious Social Philosophy

There is much flim flam in religious social philosophy. Religion would really like to say: “Look, basically, material life is not spiritual life, and material life must be completely blocked to see God Within.” But only a small number of humans can take up the celibate life, and leave the world, to center on the Soul Within and God. Life is all around, everywhere one looks there is growing life, changing, dying, being born, it is not easy to turn away from life or to tell humanity to turn away from life.

There has been very clever and subtle reasoning and rationalizing, by very clever and subtle religious philosophers, which basically tried to soften the stark fact that material life must be blocked to see the Soul-Within. Life is so strong that it has certainly continued to turn away from spiritual things, one way or the other. Spiritual philosophers have managed to divert, soften or sublimate the stark natural drives of life. But only partially, and in some ages more than others. Most of the time spiritual life has lost out to material life, and this has been bemoaned by religious thinkers. Millions of people have been caused to feel like religious failures, or considered worse, by being religiously misdirected in this way.

The Evolutionary Christian Church (ECC) believes that spirituality will continue to lose ground to materialism mainly because there has been a tragic religious mistake made by established religions in relegating material life to a secondary and expendable position in religion. Material life should have been seen for what it is, a sacred path to attain Godhood through material evolution. If this had been known or affirmed all along, much of the flim flam in religious social philosophy could have been avoided.

The Soul-Within (which is the zenith of the body) can continue to be affirmed in religion, and in religious social philosophy, as it is in ECC, with the Involutionary Inward Path, but this is not done at the dark expense of virtually dismissing the Spirit-Within and material life. Religious social philosophy can then be less rationalizing, more direct, truer and healthier. But most importantly, we will not have cut off attaining Godhood, by tragically misusing the Great Spiritual Blockade, which has muddied and complicated religious social philosophy for the past two thousand years. With the Evolutionary Outward Path we can attain God through evolution, the God we have first seen from the Soul-Within.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

An economically conquered nation

..."As an economically conquered nation we have no ability to resist this economic and political pressure. Our factories are shuttered and our industries are unproductive. This country imports consumer goods which could and should otherwise be made at home. It exports its wealth, strength, and prestige in exchange..."

Article from "Economy In Crisis" here

On Spiritualism and Satanism

The Involutionary Inward Path is not alone “of God” any more than the Evolutionary Outward Path is “of Satan.” This sort of terminology plays by the false rules of those who see material life as evil and Satanic, and only spiritual life as good and Godly. These Paths are united, synthesized in the Evolutionary Christian Church, as they always have been united since the birth of the Kosmos.

Satanism accepts the spiritual terminology of its competitor, in the Great Spiritual Blockade, believing that material life is evil, which Satanism then rebelliously affirms as good. False spiritualism also affirms this terminology believing that only spiritual life is good.

Material life evolves to God, although it is a material-spiritual life that is really the zenith of material evolution. This is the true Synthesis of the Mystery: Spiritual Alchemy unites with Material Alchemy. Let there be an end to double-mindedness and two-faced duplicity.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Building The New Temple

Method of the Gordian Knot

We like the legend of the Gordian Knot, the insoluble problem solved in a simple and clean way, outside the games and overcomplications played. The occult and esoteric traditions can be approached this way. The danger, however, is that one will appear either barbarian or enlightened.

Ecumenism is enhanced by seeing the Established Religions, along with their varied yet similar arcane techniques (eg, Hindu alchemy, the Kabbalah, etc.) all as directed essentially toward attaining the Spirit-Within, the God-Within, which we define as the Involutionary Inward Path.

The Evolutionary Outward Path must now be included, we need to know that we must evolve to God, and not only see and experience the God first glimpsed by seeing the Soul-Within, through the Involutionary Inward Path.

This applies the Gordian Knot method to reveal the new Pristine Tradition of the Order of the Outward Path. The new Temple is being built by evolving materially to Godhood. Both the Inward and Outward Paths are now applied in this revitalized conservatism.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Defining Beauty

Truth and beauty may go hand in hand but it is truth that gives testimony to beauty not the other way around. The Object needs to be redeemed from the definition of the object.

Recovering beauty means recovering the object as sacred.

Beauty has a biological imperative.

In defining beauty we lean toward the Aristotelian sensory approach more than the Platonic mathematical ideal.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

How we deal with secularism and nihilism

Kant's reaction to secularism and nihilism was to say that “reason” can define even the Christian moral law. Darwin's evolution appeared to rule out a teleological or religious view of nature. Nietzsche said that since Christianity is untrue, then Christian morality is untrue, which would lead us to nihilism; but Nietzsche continued by saying that we could overcome nihilism by saying yes to life without meaning, saying yes to life beyond good and evil. Post-modernism followed this lead. And so the world now stands.

Theoretical materialism and the Theoevolutionary Church deals with these problems by saying that orthodox religion, the revealed religions, or more deeply, the Perennial Tradition, are all true regarding the Involutionary Inward Path to the Soul-Within--and we too affirm this Inward Path--but the traditional religions are tragically missing the Evolutionary Outward Path of evolution to real Godhood.

We reaffirm a teleological view of nature by affirming the pattern of evolution, from the simple to the complex, toward higher consciousness and beauty, and by religiously taking this evolutionary pattern to the zenith of Godhood. Not only do we embrace science, we embrace in many ways the new sociobiological science of Beyondism, that is, Cattell's religion from science, but we go further than Cattell in affirming future evolution all the way to Godhood, the goal of the Spirit-Within of the Outward Path and the symbolic goal of the Soul-Within of the Inward Path.

This is how we deal with the secularism and nihilism of the present world.


For the older conservative view of dealing with these things see “Conservatism, Christianity, and the Revitalization of Europe,” by Lee Congdon, from First Principles.

Ethnostates? Perhaps. But Without Federalism? No

If the members are given the liberty of states rights, federalism (like empires) can keep the peace, otherwise states do war against one another, as history has shown, time and again. With states rights, variety and freedom are vital for evolution, but economic nationalism and national defense are vital advantages of federalism. If followed, the United States Constitution is a great document for separating the powers while keeping them lightly united.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Eros and Thanatos

Eros can be a symbol of the Evolutionary Outward Path and Thanatos a symbol of the Involutionary Inward Path. Thanatos is not literally the “death wish,” the senses and the body are immobilized to see the Soul-Within. Eros is more than the sum of life-preserving instincts of the Spirit-Within, it is the Will-to-Godhood.

Exaggerating Thanatos can lead to the Great Spiritual Blockade, exaggerating Eros can lead to profane and directionless life. Someone defined paganism as “Eros with ethics,” which seems to be on the path to the ethics of Christianity, and eventually to the Theoevolutionary Church.

In the Theoevolutionary Church, Eros and Thanatos should be more balanced between the Inward And Outward Paths. The God Drive of the Spirit activates the sex drive with a preference for Perfect Beauty and Perfect Action (Perfect Goodness) which is reached in the Trinity through evolution.