The Reification of Time - IV
The actual situation is one of complete randomness – of all likely outcomes occurring simultaneously in different probable realities. And in each probable reality mind clicks out a thought form to justify / explain why this or that particular reality occurred. E.g. there is no “competition for scarce resources” going on; this is just the presenting problem, the superficial appearance of an energy dynamic in which sentient beings appear to be in turmoil, preying upon and devouring one another’s energy. This is what W.B. Yeats’ termed Deception – the appearance that the acts of creation and destruction are not exactly identical, flip sides of the same coin, like the snake devouring its own tail. Elephants don’t have long proboscises because this confers an evolutionary advantage. Rather, they just have them, period. Any evolutionary advantage this bestows is a post hoc, materialistic interpretation: things are the way they are because that’s how they are, and this explains why they are that way.
Anyone who discerns any purpose in the outworkings of the universe – whether this purpose is conceived of as the will of God, or survival of the fittest and most prolific reproducers, or the selfishness of genes – is looking at things backwards. Both Christianity and rationalistic materialism (science) are projecting images which aren’t there. Like the cabalistic Gematria which finds hidden connections in every biblical name and phrase, or like a paranoid who detects sinister plots against him in every chance occurrence, Christianity and materialism project meaning and purpose onto complete chaos. There is no purpose to anything except as in retrospect it can be argued that things are the way they are because that is how they were meant to be. But this is an illusion, the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which in turn is predicated on the fallacy of linear time.
This is not to say that there is no causality in the universe: effects do not arise without a cause. However that causality is not embedded in linear time, and indeed it is too complex to analyze rationally (though here and there its results can be anticipated or predicted by intuition / feeling, as we do in astrology). What most of us take to be causality is merely an illusion – mistaking how humans in our society make agreements amongst themselves for laws of the universe; as if golf or the latest Paris fashions were somehow universal principles with application outside of human society. What we take to be causality is merely post hoc sophistry: “See, I told you so!” But it doesn’t prove anything whatsoever.
For example, we mistakenly believe that first things happen to us, and then we react to them. E.g., first we get laid off from our job, and then we feel depressed and helpless. However from the magical point of view, the decision to feel depressed and helpless is primary – is made “first” (on the level of dreamless sleep). The “getting laid off” thought form is conjured up “later” to justify feelings of importance – that it’s important to feel depressed and helpless. In astrology we can often see bad times coming up in the future, in the progressions or transits, although it’s not always possible to predict the exact thought form situation which the bad times will take. The point is that either causality has nothing to do with linear time, or else astrology is a false doctrine. Q.E.D.
(continued …)