He can participate in mystery, man, by living, reproducing, and by dying, but these offer him not an explanation of himself or the plain on which he participates: that is the job of his sciences, to gain, atop his participation, perspective. These perspectives mean knowledge, knowledge that comes from the participatory plain, and with it potential and power —leverage— over that plain. Yet, man’s attempt at participation in the mysteries by way of science only keep him in the plain as much as in reign over it.
These sciences have yet to explain the plain, which is human existence, itself, in terms of its proposition for (to) man. Power over it, yes; an explanation of ‘what’, surely; but the why, the necessity, of his participation, no, not by the material sciences can that be had—one cannot derive ‘ought from is’, as Hume says.
And so he has delved into the mysteries themselves, codified his participation (however obscured to the masses), and endeavored to explain the proposition of the ‘living out of the mystery’ in that code. These perspectives, participatory and half-conscious, are the mythico-realities inscribed in the great religious texts by the prophets, priests and their scribes.
To my reason for considering the nature of this participation: the mysteries thus codified (as sacraments) are: baptism, confession, reconciliation, communion, death, and marriage. Am I un-catechized by my lack of participation in the mystery of marriage, of reproduction?
Shall one not ‘meet god’ if he goes unmarried, or does he simply violate the priests’ and laymans’ sensibilities in favor of his own?
A man has his choices, but they are framed by Nature’s realities: death and desire, these are her tools.
The god-king —each man being a king in his own house— sits upon Isis’ lap for such a length as his kingdom, his life, which is hers in as far as Nature gives and takes life back at her whim, will last: he serves at her pleasure, and his will is as extensive as his healthy days are long. And so a struggler against fate, against death and desire, he is. He is wise to know this about other men, and wiser still, to employ them in service to his earthly temporal kingdom; that he might prosper and even extend his days (the rich do live longer), by trickery as it were. How then might Nature be pleased toward these ends? Surely by service to her. She is desirous of life, and of death. All our ceremonies and pageantry say so — celebrations of her desires.
A man may be a husband, may practice bullish husbandry; we conceive of bridal exchange as the matrimonial trade, but it is he who is sorrowful in the binding act, where she, in secret representation of the Great Mother, has, on Her behalf claimed a bull —or else a servant— for her procreative ends. Or he may be a priest, who dons the Mother’s gowns and, as a celibate, is celebrated by her as a steer a castrated, more direct, servant. That is, the patriarchal religions —Christianity most especially— are secretly Matriarchal. And, lest a man think unwisely that he may remain in between, pursuing his own ends, ignorant of those of the Great Mother, he will find himself a lonely philosopher. Desire will creep, and longing too, each in service, within him, because She is in him, to Her, and he will be as sad as a Mother disappointed from her throne. This makes him an Apostle: his refusal to take the throne, a fool to leave it empty, a fool to live and die without attempt at usurping Nature by way of everlasting life (where she would have him certainly die), he is —we are— in each case fools of Nature, bodies to Her grand design, and fools-come-saviors if we are clever and bold enough.
What explanation does this apostolic apostle, the philosopher, gain for all his sorrows? The priest escapes husbandry, servitude to the personal woman, only to serve the Mother herself (albeit ‘in the name of the Father’); and the husband forgoes heroics and deeper thinking and counts orgasm his reward from the Mother…truly he is little more than a stud.
I will tell you: the philosopher is nearest rebellion. Rebellion is all he writes toward, in fact. Nietzsche, who will be counted with Hermes one day, made his heaven run at greatest cost —perhaps greater even than Jesus’. Camus has so directly given us this ‘philosopher’s truth’, in his Rebel. That is, the philosopher is nearest metaphysical rebellion. His tool, his leverage against the despair he experiences on account of his rebellion from either marriage or the priesthood, and his (sub)version of direct participation in life, he finds in his ability to assemble a salvific story—his own sacred trade, his own ‘way’ to heaven, his own baptism, confession, reconciliation, communion, death, and marriage.
The philosopher, too, has his sacraments: just ask after Nietzsche and you will find them in his apotheosis. In short, the philosopher’s sacred trade: his misery for the magical ability to speak the Logos. He communes with the gods by his participation in this mystery; one unsanctioned, nay, un-mentioned, even, by all but the other great rebels of history, themselves victim-victors—psychopomps all, who’ve made that same trade. And, we know their names—their tricks have practically worked, they have, in as far as man continues their names, gained access to the pantheon against the will of the gods. Nietzsche’s name lives alongside Christ and Hermes, and there is nothing to be done in recourse: he made the sacred and terrible trade, and the laws (of metaphysics) are as hardened as those of physics. Success leaves clues.
The philosopher takes a perspective and so becomes perspectival; by his word, his writing, he explores the propositional; and because he makes the sacred (that is, sacral) trade, he earns his sacred participation. Specifically, his sacrifice is that of his own bloodline’s continuance. His sadness is, essentially, the Great Mother’s own sorrow at the cycle of life and death being ‘stopped up’; this is the very act that tears a veil (her veil, perhaps) between heaven and earth, allowing a new psychopomp entrance. Who communes more with Mary, in her pious misery, than the childless Christ who must pay the price of making a mere dirt man acceptable to the heavens?
If his science studies only material, he has stopped short of Glory, for if he digs deeply enough, he would realize the mystery —that is the kingdom of heaven— is within him. How narrow, now that we have described the criterion for entrance, is that ‘way’? This is the alchemist’s insight, the fact of the need for metaphysics, the laws regarding consciousness, alongside those of material physics—that they are one: this is the lapiz philosophorum, the pursuit that modern science has forgotten; that is, the need, if man is to transform all the Mother’s material into its highest and best use, for man to transform himself.
“Man lives not by bread (material substance) alone, but by every word (Logos) that proceeds from the mouth of God.” The proper philosopher, therefore, pursues transformation of himself. The holy power of naming, as Adam was commanded to undertake, of every thing —categorization, that is, to the modern scientific tongue— of transforming what is into what ought, which is the Telos, the function, of the Logos which man (Adam, Christ, Hermes, Nietzsche) uniquely possesses, if he will only make that sacred trade and name himself, finally, a god, one with god, consubstantial with the father; this naming will be his salvation. The philosophers, if they will only follow Nietzsche’s and Christ’s examples, tear themselves to pieces, they will become the bread of life to others, and will themselves join God—whether at his left or his right. In philosophers’ attempts at metaphysical rebellion, they necessarily put themselves on the Altar, and in return earn their holy exchange: a perspective on life’s (Mother’s) proposition, and in that self-sacrifice, happiness— a psychopomp in true participation in the Divine. This is why sisyphus should be imagined happy.
All thanks to John Vervaeke, for his brilliant ‘3 p’s’ and his kind heart.