subjective

3/12/2024

The SUBJECTIVE and simple Principle, realized in the heart, presents itself first of all as immanent; but It is equally transcendent in relation to the empirical subject–the ego woven of images and tendencies–otherwise the ego as such would be identified with the absolute Subject, with the divine Self. Essays NATURE AND UNITY OF THE PRINCIPLE

There is the perspective of Transcendence and there is the perspective of Immanence; each must be found in the other, as is shown in its own way by the Taoist Yin-Yang. There is a SUBJECTIVE Transcendence as there is an objective Immanence: the intellect is transcendent in relation to the individual, as the Creator is immanent in created things. Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy

We have said that the driving force of the path of gnosis is intelligence; now it is far from being the case that this principle is applicable in a spiritual society – unless it is not very numerous – for in general, intelligence is largely inoperative once it is called upon to hold a collectivity in balance; in all justice, one cannot deny in sentimental and humilitarian moralism a certain realism and hence a corresponding efficacy. It follows from all this, not that gnosis has to repudiate socially its principle of the primacy of intelligence, but that it must put each thing in its place and take men as they are; that is precisely why the perspective of gnosis will be the first to insist, not upon a simplifying moralism, but upon intrinsic virtue, which – like beauty – is “the splendor of the true.” Intelligence must be not only objective and conceptual, but also SUBJECTIVE and existential; the unicity of the object demands the totality of the subject. sophiaperennis: Gnosis

To sum up our exposition and at the risk of repeating ourselves, we say that all anti-intellectual philosophy falls into this trap: it claims, for example, that there is only the SUBJECTIVE and the relative, without taking account of the fact that this is an assertion which, as such, is valid only on condition that it is itself neither SUBJECTIVE nor relative, for otherwise there would no longer be any difference between correct perception and illusion, or between truth and error. If “everything is true that is SUBJECTIVE,” then Lapland is in France, provided we imagine it so; and if everything is relative – in a sense which excludes all reflection of absoluteness in the world – then the definition of relativity is equally relative, absolutely relative, and our definition has no meaning. Relativists of all kinds – the “existentialist” and “vitalist” defenders of the infra-rational – have then no excuse for their bad habits of thought. Those who would dig a grave for the intelligence22 do not escape this fatal contradiction: they reject intellectual dis crimination as being “rationalism” and in favor of “existence” or of “life,” without realizing that this rejection is not “existence” or “life” but a “rationalist” operation in its turn, hence something considered to be opposed to the idol “life” or “existence”; for if rationalism – or let us say intelligence – is opposed, as these philosophers believe, to fair and innocent “existence” – that of vipers and bombs among other things – then there is no means of either defending or accusing this existence, nor even of defining it in any way at all, since all thinking is supposed to “go outside” existence in order to place itself on the side of rationalism, as if one could cease to exist in order to think. In reality, man – insofar as he is distinct from other creatures on earth – is intelligence; and intelligence – in its principle and its plenitude – is knowledge of the Absolute; the Absolute is the fundamental content of the intelligence and determines its nature and functions. What distinguishes man from animals is not knowledge of a tree, but the concept – whether explicit or implicit – of the Absolute; it is from this that the whole hierarchy of values is derived, and hence all notion of a homogeneous world. God is the “motionless mover” of every operation of the mind, even when man – reason – makes himself out to be the measure of God. To say that man is the measure of all things is meaningless unless one starts from the idea that God is the measure of man, or that the Absolute is the measure of the relative, or again, that the universal Intellect is the measure of individual existence; nothing is fully human that is not determined by the Divine, and therefore centered on it. Once man makes of himself a measure, while refusing to be measured in turn, or once he makes definitions while refusing to be defined by what transcends him and gives him all his meaning, all human reference points disappear; cut off from the Divine, the human collapses. In our day, it is the machine which tends to become the measure of man, and thereby it becomes something like the measure of God, though of course in a diabolically illusory manner; for the most “advanced” minds it is in fact the machine, technics, experimental science, which will henceforth dictate to man his nature, and it is these which create the truth – as is shamelessly admitted – or rather what usurps its place in man’s consciousness. It is difficult for man to fall lower, to realize a greater mental perversion, a more complete abandonment of himself, a more perfect betrayal of his intelligent and free personality: in the name of “science” and of “human genius” man consents to become the creation of what he has created and to forget what he is, to the point of expecting the answer to this from machines and from the blind forces of nature; he has waited until he is no longer anything and now claims to be his own creator. Swept away by a torrent, he glories in his incapacity to resist it. sophiaperennis: Existentialism

The existentialist will not ask, “What is this thing?” but “What does this thing signify for ME?” Thus he will put the altogether SUBJECTIVE ” significance” in place of the objective nature, which is not only the height of absurdity but also of pride and insolence. As true greatness ” signifies” nothing for the little man, he will see in it only a kind of infirmity the better to be able to enjoy his own ” significant” inflat edness. sophiaperennis: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Klages and others like them.

There is a common mistake, and one characteristic of the positivist or existentialist mentality of our times, which consists in believing that the establishing of a fact depends on knowing its causes or the remedies for it as the case may be, as if man had not a right to see things he can neither explain nor modify; to point out an evil is called “barren criticism” and one forgets that the first step towards a possible cure is to establish the nature of the disease. In any case, every situation offers the possibility, if not of an objective solution, at least of a SUBJECTIVE evaluation, a liberation by the spirit; whoever understands the real nature of machinery will at the same time escape from psychological enslavement to machines, and this is already a great gain. We say this without any optimism and without losing sight of the fact that the present world is a necessary evil whose metaphysical root lies in the last analysis in the infinity of Divine Possibility. sophiaperennis: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Klages and others like them.

The notion of philosophy, with its suggestion of human fallibility, evokes ipso facto the problem of infallibility, and thereby the question of knowing whether man is condemned by his nature to be mistaken. We have seen in the course of this book that in fact the human mind, even when disciplined by a sacred tradition, remains exposed to many faults. That these should be possible does not mean that they are inevitable in principle; on the contrary they are due to causes that are not at all mysterious. Doctrinal infallibility pertains to the realm of orthodoxy and authority, the first element being objective and the second SUBJECTIVE, each having a bearing that is either formal or formless, extrinsic or intrinsic, traditional or universal, depending on the case. sophiaperennis: The notion of philosophy

We have compared pure intelligence to a mirror; now it must be recalled that there is always a certain element of inversion in the relationship between subject and object, that is, the subject which reflects inverts the object reflected. A tree reflected in water is inverted, and so is “false” in relation to the real tree, but it is still a tree – even “this” tree – and never anything else: consequently the reflected tree is perfectly “true,” despite its illusory character, so that it is a mistake to conclude that intellection is illusory because of its SUBJECTIVE framework. The powers of the cosmic illusion are not unlimited, for the Absolute is reflected in the contingent, otherwise the latter would not exist; everything is in God – “All is Atma” – and the Absolute flashes forth everywhere, it is “infinitely close”; barriers are illusory, they are at the same time immeasurably great and infinitesimally small. sophiaperennis: What is the intellect and Intellection?

Some have believed it is possible to replace the premise of thought by the arbitrary, empirical and altogether SUBJECTIVE element that is the “personality” of the thinker, which amounts to the very sophiaperennis: Original meaning of the word Philosophy

Plato represents the inward dimension, SUBJECTIVE extension, synthesis and reintegration, whereas Aristotle represents the outward dimension, objective extension, analysis and projection; but this does not mean that Aristotle was a rationalist in the modern sense of the word. For the ancients, in fact, “reason” is synonymous with “intellect”: reasoning prolongs intellection more or less, depending upon the level of the subject matter under consideration. sophiaperennis: Plato

Platonism, which is as it were “centripetal” and unitive, opens onto the consciousness of the one and immanent Self; on the contrary, Aristotelianism, which is “centrifugal” and separative, tends to sever the world – and with it man – from its divine roots. This can serve theology inasmuch as it needs the image of a man totally helpless without dogmatic and sacramental graces; and this led St. Thomas to opt for Aristotle – as against the Platonism of St. Augustine – and to deprive Catholicism of its deepest metaphysical dimension, while at the same time immunizing it – according to the usual opinion – against all temptation to “gnosis.” Be that as it may, we could also say, very schematically, that Plato represents the inward dimension, SUBJECTIVE extension, synthesis and reintegration, whereas Aristotle represents the outward dimension, objective extension, analysis and projection; but this does not mean that Aristotle was a rationalist in the modern sense of the word. For the ancients, in fact, “reason” is synonymous with “intellect”: reasoning prolongs intellection more or less, depending upon the level of the subject matter under consideration. sophiaperennis: Comparison between Plato and Aristotle

In this order of ideas, we must add that the starting point of a doctrine is either definitive, static or dogmatic or else a contradiction pure and simple: consequently, the starting point of a doctrine that places everything in the future and admits no stable truth is either definitively valid, in which case its reason for being, namely the theory of the indefinite evolution of truth, is false; or else the starting point attributes to itself the right to “evolve” and hence to change, in which case it is false by definition and could not be the premise of anything whatsoever. Analogously, absolute subjectivism falls before its initial contradiction: its starting point is either objective, in which case the evident necessity of its own objectivity only proves the falsity of subjectivism, or else it is SUBJECTIVE, in which case it obviously has no objective value, and it is reduced to a meaningless monologue. It is assuredly absurd to affirm that no affirmation is true; similarly it is senseless to speak to others to tell them that one does not believe in their existence; all that is being done in such cases is to deny the essential aspects of intelligence and truth, namely objective value on the one hand and intellectual evidence on the other, both being inseparable in intellection. sophiaperennis: Rationalism

It is necessary to distinguish between an idolatry that is objective and another that is SUBJECTIVE: in the first case, it is the image itself that is erroneous, because it is supposed to be a god; in the second case, the image may pertain to sacred art and it is the lack of contemplativity that constitutes idolatry; it is because man no longer knows how to perceive the metaphysical transparency of phenomena, images and symbols that he is idolatrous. sophiaperennis: ART, ITS DUTIES AND ITS RIGHTS

ESOTERISM comprises four principal dimensions: an intellectual dimension, to which doctrine bears witness; a volitive or technical dimension, which includes the direct and indirect means of the way; a moral dimension, which concerns the intrinsic and extrinsic virtues; and an aesthetic dimension, to which pertain symbolism and art from both the SUBJECTIVE and objective point of view. sophiaperennis: FOUNDATIONS OF AN INTEGRAL AESTHETICS

No piece of knowledge at the phenomenal level is bad in itself; but the important question is that of knowing, firstly, whether this knowledge is reconcilable with the ends of human intelligence, secondly, whether in the last analysis it is truly useful, and thirdly, whether man can support it spiritually; in fact there is proof in plenty that man cannot support a body of knowledge which breaks a certain natural and providential equilibrium, and that the objective consequences of this knowledge correspond exactly to its SUBJECTIVE anomaly. Modern science could not have developed except as the result of a forgetting of God, and of our duties towards God and towards ourselves; in an analogous manner, artistic naturalism, which first made its appearance in antiquity and was rediscovered at the beginnings of the modern era, can be explained only by the explosive birth of a passionately exteriorized and exteriorizing mentality. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART

Another very widespread error, not moralist this time but relativist and subjectivist, suggests that beauty is no more than a mere question of taste and that the canons of aesthetic perfection vary according to the country and the period; or to put it the other way, that the variations which in fact occur prove the arbitrary and SUBJECTIVE character of beauty, or of that which has come to be called beauty. In reality beauty is essentially an objective factor which we may or may not see or may or may not understand but which like all objective reality or like truth possesses its own intrinsic quality; thus it exists before man and independently of him. It is not man who creates the Platonic archetypes, it is they that determine man and his understanding; the beautiful has its ontological roots far beyond all that is within the comprehension of sciences restricted to phenomena. sophiaperennis: Truths and Errors Concerning Beauty

Thus beauty always manifests a reality of love, of deployment, of illimitation, of equilibrium, of beatitude, of generosity. On the one hand, love, which is SUBJECTIVE, responds to beauty, which is objective, and on the other hand, beauty, which is deployment, springs from love, which is illimitation, a giving of self, an overflowing, and thus realizes a sort of infinitude. In Being the Universal Substance, the materia prima, is pure Beauty; the creative Essence, which communicates to Substance the archetypes to be incarnated, is the Divine Intelligence, of which Beauty is the eternal complement. (NA: This is the complementarism Purusha-Prakriti, the two poles of Ishvara, Being.) sophiaperennis: Truths and Errors Concerning Beauty

To come back to the symbolic and spiritual quality of the icon: one’s ability to perceive the spiritual quality of an icon or any other symbol is a question of contemplative intelligence and also of ‘sacred science’. However, it is certainly false to claim, in justification of naturalism, that the people need an ‘accessible’, that is to say a platitudinous art, for it is riot the ‘people’ who gave birth to the Renaissance; the art of the latter, like all the ‘fine art’ which is derived from it, is on the contrary an offence to the piety of the simple person. The artistic ideals of the Renaissance and of all modern art are therefore very far removed from what the people need, and, in fact, nearly all the miraculous Virgins to which people are attracted are Byzantine or Romanesque; and who would presume to argue that the black colouring of some of them agrees with popular taste or is particularly accessible to it? On the other hand, the Virgins made by the hands of the people, when they have not been corrupted by the influence of academic art, are very much more ‘real’, even in a SUBJECTIVE way, than those of the latter; and even if one were prepared to admit that the majority demand empty or unintelligent images, can it be said that the needs of the elite are never to be taken into consideration? sophiaperennis: CONCERNING FORMS IN ART

Beauty mirrors happiness and truth. Without the element of ‘happiness’ there remains only the bare form, geometrical, rhythmical or other; and without the element of ‘truth’ there remains only a wholly SUBJECTIVE enjoyment, or luxury if you will. Beauty stands between abstract form and blind pleasure, or rather combines the two so as to imbue veridical form with pleasure and veridical pleasure with form. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

Apart from its function of ‘conserving’ and ‘suggesting’, which concerns both the collectivity and, more directly, certain contemplatives who draw inspiration from its symbolism and breathe its beauty, sacred art belongs to the order of ‘sensible consolations’. Such consolations may draw a man nearer to God or may distance him from God according to the SUBJECTIVE dispositions of the individual, and independently of the objective value of the forms. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

‘Truth’ in art can by no means be reduced to the SUBJECTIVE veracity of the artist; it resides first and foremost in the objective truth of forms, colours and materials. Thus an ignorant and profane art will be far more ‘false’ than a faithful copy of an ancient work, for the copy will at least transmit the objective truth of the original, whereas the invented work will transmit only the psychological ‘truth’ – and thus the error – of its author. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

Architecture, painting and sculpture are objective and static. These arts above all express forms, and their universality lies in the objective symbolism of these forms. Poetry, music and dance are SUBJECTIVE and dynamic. These arts first and foremost express essences, and their universality lies in the SUBJECTIVE reality of these essences. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

There is a common mistake, and one characteristic of the positivist or existentialist mentality of our times, which consists in believing that the establishing of a fact depends on knowing its causes or the remedies for it as the case may be, as if man had not a right to see things he can neither explain nor modify; people call it ‘barren criticism’ merely to point out an evil and they forget that the first step towards an ultimate cure is to establish the nature of the disease. In any case every situation offers the possibility, if not of an objective solution, at least of a SUBJECTIVE evaluation, a liberation by the spirit; whoever fathoms the real nature of machinery will at the same time escape from psychological enslavement to machines, and this is already a great gain. sophiaperennis: Science and mythologies

… the rationalists and the fideists are not the only adversaries of the Sophia Perennis: another component — somewhat unexpected — is what we could term “realizationism” or “ecstatism”: namely the mystical prejudice — rather widespread in India — which has it that only “realization” or “states” count in spirituality. The partisans of this opinion oppose “concrete realization” to “vain thought” and they too easily imagine that with ecstasy all is won; they forget that without the doctrines — beginning with the Vedanta! — they would not even exist; and it also happens that they forget that a SUBJECTIVE realization — founded on the idea of the immanent “Self” — greatly has need of the objective element that is the Grace of the personal God, without forgetting the concurrence of Tradition. sophiaperennis: The Sophia Perennis and Neo-spiritualism