Tirips And Nietzsche's Greek Chorus

It occurred to me while reading “Young Nietzsche” by Carl Pletsch, that the Spirit-Will, or Tirips, in the religious philosophy of the theological materialism can be compared to the Greek chorus as Nietzsche defined it.

The chorus (Tirips) is life or humanity in its undifferentiated state, “behind all civilization.” We, as spectators derive metaphysical comfort from identifying with the chorus-Tirips, a comfort of Dionysian wisdom, for the Greeks, to compensate for the difficult pain of everyday life.

But unlike the Greek satyr chorus with its more anarchic, chaotic, Dionysian dynamic, Tirips is identified as going somewhere, it is fully defined as the material activating Will-To-Godhood within all life, activating all life to evolve to Godhood, never separated from life, and then shaped by natural evolution.

This offers more metaphysical comfort to our world than the Greek chorus, while being grounded in the flow of material (and supermaterial) life. Tirips also counters the relativism of values and morals in Nietzsche and his many followers.

Harmonizing inward and outward man

Cycles of cultural history seem to relate to the way inward and outward man connected. The pagan religions seemed to emphasize outward man, the revealed religions emphasized inward man and sought the God Within or the Father Within, although they both contained inward and outward man.

Atheistic science was like a return to outward man, perhaps beginning in the Renaissance rediscovery of the pagan Ancient Greeks and Romans. The Enlightenment, and then Locke and his followers, could be thought of as returning to inward man in the sense of affirming the individual autonomous man, even though traditional religion was somewhat undermined. Whereas the later reaction of Romanticism could be thought of as a return to outward man, first emphasizing the individual hero, and then the nation. Locke's inward man led to democratic reforms, Romanticism led to positive national pride as well as negative totalitarianism.

It is inadequate for religion to essentially affirm only the inward God and inward man, our evolution to real Godhood in the Outward Path needs to come forward and be understood---the outward real Godhood which we evolve to, is the fulfillment of the inward virtual God, first seen in the inward path of the great religions.  For this reason religion needs to relate to outward sociobiological and political transformation as well as inward transformation.

History no longer needs to relate only to a single man, or single people, or single state, it is religion which can now embody the spirit of the people in our evolution to Godhood---we are all evolving to Godhood. Real evolution on the path to Godhood can take place best with a variety of diverse people and diverse states, which suggest thousands of states or ethnostates across the world, ideally signaling to one another new discoveries, in cooperative competition, with the independence of the small states protected by a light federalism---and guided voluntary by the church.  Humans are capable of this. 

The Twofold Path in the religious philosophy of the ECC is the long term way to harmonize inward and outward man.

Equality and Inequality

In the TC equality is defined as equality before the Spirit-Will which activates all life, before evolution shapes life---this we all share---and not equality by way of trying to level people down to the same thing. Individual differences require freedom and individual effort. I agree with those who have said that history was created by individual cultural heroes, without denying the vital importance of group bonding and group-selection.

As Cattell's heroic “Beyondism” pointed out, we need to foster respect for higher intelligence and higher achievement, not envy. This is the opposite of the cultural Marxism and political correctness which has infected the West. Conservatives tend to understand this, liberals do not.

In the TC, Christian compassion does not come in the form of a sentimental encouraging of devolution but in one diverse group helping another diverse group regarding any evolutionary advances they have discovered. This can be guided by the church. We are all evolving to Godhood.

Competition can be cooperative---even if negative and dysgenic war breaks out it can be done in the spirit of respect for ones adversary, not hate. This is advanced psychology, but humans are capable of it. We require it if we are to survive and evolve out into the cosmos.  We are civilizing the beast, not returning to the beast.

Faith and science

I've never felt comfortable with the idea that faith and science are forever separated. Elements of faith, like intellectual intuition, seem to be more than faith-ungrounded, for example, patterns are often seen first before defining them scientifically, although it may involve developing a newer kind of science.

That said, I think these four elements of “faith” need to be proven scientifically: Godhood at the zenith of evolution, the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood activating all life before evolution shapes life, the Soul at the zenith of the human mind, and the creation of the cosmos from the Primal Material activated by a Primal Spirit-Will. I don't think these will be permanently separated from science.  There are patterns that suggest these elements of faith are in a harmony with reality.

Living life minus these elements of faith gives a limited view of life, which probably leads to the modern feelings of incompleteness and dissatisfaction with life, because the modern view is actually an unfinished worldview.

The way out of decadence

Romanticism tried to balance the classicism and scientism of the previous age, which had been a reaction to strict religion, and individual psychology tried to balance the nationalism that grew out of romanticism, and our present narcissistic individualism grew out of individual psychology and existentialism. We still require wholeness.

It is not enough to turn inward as a gnostic Jungian or outward as a supremacist nationalist, these pursued alone can lead to narcissism, and Stalin or Hitler. Both psychological and political change are necessary, and this large scale wholeness comes with religion. But not religion that exclusively follows the same gnostic inwardness of the great religions. That is incomplete.

The great religions essentially turned their backs on material evolution, and science essentially turned its back on spiritual growth, whereas the Twofold Path of the ECC proclaims the evolution of material life to the Godhood first seen inwardly. This leads in practical terms to an affirmation of all groups, and it brings back the affirmation of classic heroes who triumph on behalf of the group---not only for themselves as in our time. The vital difference in this worldview is that imperialism and one-race dominion are the certain enemy.

We are all, all groups, all ethnostates, evolving to Godhood in different stages, and ideally we can evolve while in cooperative competition. This evolution can be guided by the Church, with small states protected by a light political federalism. This can bring the modern world out of its spiraling decadence, this can establish long term wholeness so that the cycles of change don't have to be so radical. Ordered Evolution is the long term conservative path of change.

The most natural political philosophy

The most natural political structure, in harmony with what mankind has learned of human nature from the Ancient Greeks to the science of sociobiology, suggests a world of small states or ethnostates with a variety of ethnic groups, and a light federalism protecting the independence of the states, which can be a form of “nationalism,” not unlike the vision of the original U.S. Constitution, but strongly emphasizing the independence and variety of the states. The idea is to think of organic small states in a positive and not negative way, not as aliens and outsiders against one another in the world, but as reinforcing one another in positive, cooperative group competition.

Human beings can do this, we are capable of this, across the world, in Europe, Russia, China, it can be done because it is deeply natural and in complete harmony with what we are as human beings. This is how we can bring our alienated modern world back to its roots again. And when we attach evolutionary religion to this worldview, such as the Theoevolutionary Church, we can have the long-term bonding and the sacred goals necessary to move out into the cosmos, while holding on to older traditions. Only the vestiges of more primitive instincts, as seen in selfish forms of imperialism, keep us from applying this civilizing political philosophy.  

Synthesizing the Hero and the Saint

Two seemingly opposite views of the hero and the saint come together in the Twofold Path of the Evolutionary Christian Church. This is not the same as when the pagans changed to Christianity (partly by the sword), and not the same as St. Thomas intellectually bringing the Socratics into Christianity.

This means seeing the saint as the embodiment of the Involutionary Inward Path, and the hero as the embodiment of the Evolutionary Outward Path. The saint experiences the Father-Within in the Inward Path by essentially blocking all material desires, and the hero defines the God Without in the Evolutionary Outward Path of material-supermaterial evolution to Godhood, the Godhood first glimpsed by the saint inwardly.

This perspective does underplay the inward paths of primordial tradition which seem to have been precursor to the God Within of the great religions, but they seem to have originally been applied more to warrior disciplines, which were later hypertrophied by the priests.

This is a healthier synthesis than affirming only one of these paths. This leads to a synthesis of science and religion, the spiritual and material, left and right, tradition and progress, which have not got along as well as this before.

Going from A to Z

It seems possible that mankind has been slowly losing the older, instinctive parts of our lower brain as being superficial to higher civilization, and the neo-cortex is taking over the lower branch. Is this a uniform process across all mankind? Maybe so, but people can't seem to go from A to Z without taking the slower steps between, it can't be forced.

Sin and virtue have an evolutionary foundation and are not merely regressive archetypes of unchanging human behavior. Love of the future generation needs to be included. The goal of evolving to Godhood remains, even when ethics alter depending on the evolutionary stage of development.

The creation of our religious philosophy and the Theoevolutionary Church could be thought of as a channel of inspiration not only for our own people but for the human race. We all have to recover from the anti-life religions and from the relativistic ethics of the modern world.

Revitalizing God, the Soul and the Spirit-Will

In transforming religion, the ECC and theological materialism have been giving new meanings to old religion, and giving new meaning to various philosophers and thinkers. What I have been attempting to do is what St. Thomas Aquinas did in a more systematic way---he adapted Aristotle toward meaning things he did not exactly mean, he arguably expanded Aristotle, and other thinkers.

This is revitalization, not radicalism, which leads away from revolution. I have been impressed with the wisdom of traditional conservatism which keeps the feet on the ground, whereas science and intellectual intuition are liberating.

Plato believed that the Soul, as the first mover, was God, and he saw many Gods or many Souls within all of life. The problem with this polytheism is that the Soul is not God. The mover, or activator, is the Spirit-Will, which is also not God. The Spirit-Will seeks Godhood by activating material life to evolve to Godhood.

The Soul is experienced at the zenith of the human mind where, after severe ascetic blocking of material desires, we can experience the God-Within, or the Father-Within, as a virtual God, a virtual Father, which is a glimpse of what real Godhood is like at the zenith of evolution. This is the Involutionary Inward Path to the Father-Within.

In the Twofold Path it is the Evolutionary Outward Path which leads to real Godhood, reached by material-supermaterial evolution, activated by the Spirit-Will within all living things. The Spirit-Will activates, and evolution shapes the path of evolution. This is where life has been going, this is where we are going, this is where future species are going.

Traditional versus modern heroism

The modern hero is individualistic to the point of being narcissistic, winning triumphs for himself alone or perhaps his immediate family. The traditional hero is an individual who wins an often solitary triumph on behalf of his whole group, not merely himself.

“ Modern man can only be rescued by new heroes who retrieve the power latent in ancient symbols,” said Robert Ellwood, writing about Carl Jung. This kind of heroism applies to the development of the Theoevolutionary Church, which takes traditional religious symbols and ideas and makes them modern and cosmic on behalf of the evolution of life to Godhood.

Less spiritual frustration

There is less indirect sublimation of the instincts (ergic drives) in the Theoevolutionary Church (TC) than in other religions, because the Spirit-Will is seen as the Zenith of the Instincts. This sacred instinct needs to be allowed to come forward rather than blocked---any sublimation comes in the form of consciously moving toward evolution rather than devolution.

As Cattell and others pointed out, when basic instincts are frustrated people have different reactions, some with violence, some with creativity, some with mental illness, depending on the culture and the individual.

Material life and spiritual life are not at odds when material life is seen as the vehicle for evolving to Godhood. In the Twofold Path this means movement toward the Outward Path of evolution, and away from the exclusive concentration on involution in the Inward Path of the mystical traditions, while still retaining their insights.

The healthier advantage in the TC is being able to apply creativity in both science and religion toward our evolution to Godhood, with less spiritual frustration.

Comparing Plato's First Mover with the Spirit-Will

Plato's argument for God from motion, the spontaneous first mover in the "Laws,” is called the Soul by Plato, but is called the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood in the theological materialism of the ECC. But the Spirit-Will is never separate from the Primal Material, the Spirit-Will activates all living matter.

In theological materialism the Spirit-Will is not God as it seems to be in Plato, and as it is in the great religions, the Spirit-Will as the activator seeks Godhood by activating matter to evolve to Godhood, matter is then shaped by evolution.

Good and evil are values connected to our evolution to Godhood, and not to the Soul versus Matter, which is the error of Plato and the gnostic perspective and of many mystical traditions. The higher we evolve to Godhood the better we are and also the more in harmony we are with the goal of the activating Spirit-Will in the world.

And the Spirit-Will is material, or supermaterial, and very much in the world, not outside the world.

Looking backward and forward for fulfillment

We all know the weakness of modern democracy, as a front for the global power masters of capitalism, who try to knock down all borders, the progressive alienation of individuals, the manipulation of the masses in voting for their own mass destruction. But America was not conceived as such a democracy, the Founders were very wary of democracy, seeing it as a tyranny of the majority, this is why they created a Republic, not a democracy. A Republic uses the democrat process to elect representatives who make policy on behalf of the people, the majority is limited under a Republic, which helps to safeguard the rights of the individual states, and the minority.

We need to return to being a Republic, where small, virtually independent states are protected by the light federalism the Founders wanted, which allowed the economic nationalism necessary to protect the nation's industry and commerce. This structure harmonizes with all the knowledge coming in from sociobiology. This suggests Revitalized Conservatism, but this is not merely a turning backward, we turn backward so that we can move forward with an Ordered Evolution.

Traditionalism sees the fallen world and looks backward to paradise, the Theoevolutionary Church (TC) looks forward to Godhood. We have confidence in science and in Republicanism while still being grounded in past religion and tradition. And while science sees nature as inert matter, we see matter activated by the Spirit-Will-To Godhood, which once again connects alienated modern man to both nature and the sacred. Heroes can once again have a place in our evolution to Godhood.

The bottom line, however, is that within the falling West, and the corrupt political world, the ECC can be a means of preserving and advancing life, and transmitting the religious philosophy to future generations.

Scientific and Religious Evolution

The heroic Raymond Cattell said that science grasps little more than a meaningful pattern to evolution, little more than the evolutionary process, and that the best we can do on earth is follow this path until our minds our equal to the answers. But religion will go where science will not go, and the theological materialism of the Theoevolutionary Church (TC) perceives a Godhood goal to the pattern of evolution. Also, the TC sees life activated by the Spirit-Will before evolution, with all its randomness, shapes life.

The TC connects this evolutionary religion with the traditional God and Spirit of Christianity, and the great religions, which are now seen as precursor experiences to the Godhood attained through material and supermaterial evolution. Symbolically the Spirit-Will also connects with an even more ancient idea of Father-Spirit and Mother-Earth. This religious philosophy avoids some of the radicalism of Cattell's superb Beyondism (religion from science) while highly valuing and applying science in religious evolution.

The Spirit-Will is not the gnostic “God above God” because it seeks more than it is, it seeks Godhood, which is why it is formally called the Spirit-Will-To Godhood. Material life and the Spirit are never separated, material life is the evolutionary vehicle of the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood.

This evolutionary religion moves beyond mankind out into the cosmos, but we arrive at our goals through the love of the earth, and with the evolutionary group-selection of basic human nature, made possible by small independent states, cooperatively protected in their variety with a light federalism. Evolutionary science and religion can work well in this environment.  

The return to vitality

Nietzsche defined decadence as losing touch with the instincts, looking backward rather than forward, a quest for knowledge without a culturally determined purpose---knowledge is useful insofar as it serves life, said Nietzsche. Unfortunately Nietzsche solution was the egocentric will-to-power of individual supermen, power for the sake of power, or power for the creations of power.

Traditionalism and conservatism have been mostly looking backward and losing vitality. Science has become a secular search for knowledge for the sake of knowledge, even if science has found solutions to some of  life's problems.  A Revitalized Conservatism that applies religion, science, evolution, and the future, to the ancient quest for the traditional God is called for. This is done in the Twofold Path of the Theoevolutionary Church.

The Involutionary Inward Path looks inward to the Father-Within, as did the great religions, but the Inward Path to the Father Within is seen as a mirror, a virtual representation of the real Godhood reached in the Evolutionary Outward Path of material-supermaterial evolution.  This brings us back in touch with the instincts, this looks forward as well as backward, this gives a biologically, culturally, and religiously determined purpose to life.

This is a return to vitality.

Why we create our own institution within the corrupted West

Who Destroyed the West?

William Lind has brilliantly and clearly pointed out how “political correctness,” which is really cultural Marxism, destroyed Western culture over the last 50 years.

When the communist revolution was not supported by the workers of the world, Gramsci, Lukas, Horkheimer, Benjamin, Adorno, Fromm, Reich and Marcuse, among others, known as the Frankfurt School, decided this was because the workers had been too blinded by Western culture and Christianity, therefore the new Marxist strategy was to culturally destroy the West and Christianity so that the communist revolution could take place in the West.

This has been largely accomplished in the West, with big help from the universities and the media. New strategies such as “Critical Theory” were developed where anyone was called a “fascist” if they did not agree with the political correctness of cultural Marxism. It was also decided (eg. Deconstruction) that history was determined by which groups had power, such as men, women, races, religions, etc. rather than history being determined solely by who owned the means of production. A generation of university educated elites fully absorbed this perspective in their lives, promoting the idea that white males and evil religions were fascist oppressors.

So what is to be done? Can we separate ourselves from the cultural Marxism that rules our culture? Can we take back our institutions? Can we build our own  institutions alongside the corrupted institutions? Many conservatives, and others, have seceded, with homeschooling, small farms and generally thinking locally rather than globally. Lind points out that in a way this is using Gramsci's strategy of a “long march through the institutions” by creating our own long march to create our own institutions.

Certainly the Theoevolutionary Church follows this policy of creating our own institution within the corrupted world.

Reconciling Apollo and Dionysus in the Twofold Path

("Tragedy" seen as an immature Apollonian grasp of the Dionysian evolutionary goal of the cosmos)

The Twofold Path changes Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's definitions of the Will, the Apollonian, and the Dionysian. Apollo is symbolized in the Involutionary Inward Path as non-material, individualistic, and Dionysus is of the Evolutionary Outward Path, evolutionary, identifying with the group more than the individual. The Apollonian is the “idea” and the Dionysian is the “will,” or the Will-To-Godhood, leading real material objects to evolve toward Godhood, not merely the Apollonian “idea” of real objects, or the idea of God.

The Twofold Path replaces the old tension between the Apollonian Soul of the Inward Path, and the Dionysian Will of the Outward Path, between the ascetic and sensual, the rational and irrational,  science and religion, etc. The tension is resolved by including yet superseding the Apollonian in the Dionysian. The God Within (Father-Within, or Apollo to the Greeks) was the first blissful inward glimpse of the real Godhood which is reached by the Dionysian Evolutionary Outward Path.

This is the Great Reconciliation unblocking the Great Spiritual Blockade of the ascetic Apollo (and the great religions), with the  Dionysian evolution of the material world to Godhood. This is a combining of the Apollonian “idea” into the Dionysian flux of real material and supermaterial evolution. Evolution retains the power to shape, even randomly, the activating force of the Dionysian Will in its ancient sacred goal of Godhood. Ordered Evolution can be enhanced by including orderly-Apollo in activating-Dionysus.

"Tragedy" this way can be seen as an immature Apollonian grasp of the Dionysian evolutionary goal of mankind and the cosmos.

A more realistic evolutionary art, filling the void left by postmodernism

The narrative of our evolution to Godhood can unify the modern progressive world with the utopian world of the old romantics. This was something that the 19^th century struggled with and then lost out to International Marxism and Global Capitalism, in spite of the remedies attempted by Carl Jung and Rene Guenon. We do not have to work backward to paradise when we apply science and religion in our evolution to Godhood.

The one-race supremacy and imperialism of the 19^th and early twentieth century looks simplistic and short-sighted when compared to a world of small states, or ethnostates, with each state and people affirmed in their distinctiveness, and set alongside the others, all evolving in their own way.

This is more in harmony with human nature as defined by sociobiology and cultural history. In America there already exists a pattern for independent small states, protected by a light federalism, if the original Constitution is followed.  We would emphasize the distinctiveness of the individual states.  Europe, Russia, China also have their small states and provinces which can be affirmed and protected in their distinctiveness.

Religion can then bond and help advance the whole, as each in their variety evolve to Godhood in the cosmos.  This defines a more realistic evolutionary romanticism, filling the void left by postmodernism.

The sacred source of valuing and ethics

A living object's life is the source of it's valuing, but to fully understand this valuing we need to fully understand the object itself, what it is, what makes it work and live.

Life itself is activated by the Spirit-Will which ultimately seeks Godhood in evolution through the vehicle of material evolution. Evolution shapes, often randomly, what the Spirit-Will activates.  Godhood is the Spirit-Will's supreme attainment and its supreme desire, Godhood is absolute or eternal representation, supreme success in survival and reproduction.

Ethics can alter depending on the evolutionary stage of development, but the goal of Godhood remains. Sin and virtue are not merely regressive archetypes of unchanging behavior, love of evolution and love of future generations needs to be included. Whatever furthers evolution is good, what does not is bad.  

But that said, evolution in no way excludes conservatism, tradition can lead to Ordered Evolution, radicalism can destroy evolution. The Twofold Path includes the traditional Involutionary Inward Path to the Father-Within, this was the first virtual glimpse of Godhood, which in reality is reached in the Evolutionary Outward Path. Evolution not revolution is advocated in this sacred evolution.

Science and religion too severely reject one another

I think that such things as Godhood at the zenith of evolution, the activating Spirit-Will, the Twofold Path, etc, which are the faith and idealism of the ECC, do not necessarily oppose reason but can add to our rational and scientific knowledge. This was the criteria that St. Thomas, and Paul Tillich, used for accepting revelation. These things seem more than “probable,” and more than wish-fulfillment. Science too severely rejects other forms of knowledge, and other forms of knowledge too severely reject science.

A Rebirth Of More Than Tragedy

What is closest to representing the Will? Music is not closest to the Will, as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche suggested. The Will or Spirit-Will, or Tirips as I call it, cannot be separated from the object or body which it activates. Tirips is the inward dynamism of the material activation within life activating material life to evolve in the outside world toward Godhood, shaped by outside natural selection and evolution.

Tirips does not reduce the world to mere appearance, as does the will of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche (and most religions), Tirips activates the material-supermaterial world and is never separate from the world of objects, which are its only vehicle to attain Godhood, its sacred goal, by way of evolution.

The idolatry of music, numbers and words has taken us away from the real world---religion, science and art are all guilty of this. It is not the rebirth of tragedy (see Nietzsche), and not the affirmation of science (see various scientists), but the rebirth of the evolving human being which is the central antidote to decline---and that is also central to the rebirth of religion, science, art, and yes politics.

July 4th 2012

Finding the proper material-spiritual balance

The standard civilizing attitude is to move upward away from the beast instincts and toward the civilized neo-cortex. The problem with this is that the zenith of the beast-instincts contains the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, the most sacred drive of life, which essentially defines life itself.

One extreme imbalance is the total blocking of the material instincts by ascetics to attain the desire-free state of the Father-Within.

The proper balance is found in the Twofold Path, where the Father Within becomes an inward guide, a blissful glimpse of what real Godhood is like at the zenith of evolution, but the Father Within is not a place to permanently exist.

This means that there is much sacred work to do in our long cosmic evolution to Godhood, the goal of the Spirit-Will. The Great Spiritual Blockade against material evolution needs to be put in its proper place.

Definitions of the Will compared to the Twofold Path

Schopenhauer sought to negate the blind will, as the great religions did in their highest forms. Nietzsche sought to free the will which he defined as the will-to-power.

The Twofold Path of the Theoevolutionary Church (TC) redefines the Will as the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood. Once the Spirit-Will has activated life---all life---then the shaping of evolution takes over. The Will is therefore not amoral or blind, it has a goal, it seeks Godhood by riding within the vehicle of life which it activates, all the way to Godhood, yet the path to Godhood is shaped by sometimes seemingly random evolution.

Even so, the negation of the Will is certainly not forgotten in the religious philosophy of the TC, it is retained in the Involutionary Inward Path to the Father Within, which was the first glimpse of Godhood seen in the great religions, and now understood to be reached through the Evolutionary Outward Path to Godhood in the cosmos. The old is included in the new in a conservative---therefore not revolutionary---Ordered Evolution.