You sure do, Sweetpubes. Skippy ripped this image off the Web. Bots & Agents scrambled at the speed of light to fill his Pagan Lusts. He just told the Archangel Google what he needed and `poof ' - it was done. God should be so quick to answer Skippy's prayers. Spinoza grins up at Skippy from his Coffre in Paris and asks why I think he didn't? Like Kenny La Roche, Skippy steals only what he needs. If you ask Skippy about Intellectual Copyright he will Tear Up because the idea of one mind owning something which other minds can't have is the 1st Casualty of the Semantic Web and the Font of the Argument which Baruch Spinoza was having with his "Race, Place, et Milieu." As well as with himself. Benedictus found only One Thing useful in the Kaballah: the Last Act. The Tikkun olam it was called and it glosses as: Repairing the World.
Spinoza saw the Cosmos as "Self-Aware Logic." That shit will keep you up until dawn. Individual things - all the shards from the Broken Vessels - are nothing but Modifications of the Attributes and Emanations of God. They are Means & Media "by which the Attributes of God are expressed in a Fixed and Definite manner." So says Rebecca Goldstein, who has the saddest eyes of any MacArthur Foundation Grantee. Google won't bring Skippy Bright Becky all oiled and ready. So instead he takes a Hit of Neckercube and remembers her cooing: "We know the truth only to the extent that our ideas approach asymptotically closer to congruence with God's infinite mind, which divine mind we should think of as the world's being aware of its own explanation." Oh oh oh ... Jesus. I need a Towlette. The Cosmos has Mirror-Neurons and Knows that it Knows what it Knows. We are What it Knows.
Skippy has Asymptotic Wood for any woman who can use a word like Asymptotically without Sardony. Especially in a sentence about God, Spinoza, and the problems between Infinite and Finite Minds. Here's the sitz im leben: Modern Man has gone grossly `A Posteriori ' - he demands hard facts, weights & measurements. He observes. He frames Hypotheses. He tests. He lies about the results - or like Jimmy Watson & his dog Crick, he steals the results from Others. Like Skippy snatching things off the Web. It's all ours anyway. Nothing is real to Adam Cola which cannot be determined. We are heirs to a Logical Positivist frame of Reference. Which is only 1/2 true when you remember all the Emics. Spinoza believed one thing in his soul: All Facts have Explanations. There are no things "inexplicably given." This is the only Assumption we can count on - when the `A Priori ' rears its Medusa head. No fact is a fact just because it's a fact. Becky gets me stiff when she leans into me and breathes in my ear - in a surprisingly husky voice, almost like the runt nun's, Sister Samuel - "There are no inexplicable dangling threads protruding from the fabric of the world." What Spinoza claimed - and here I can picture Barber Perfect in his cold Schloss in East-Prussia weighing this thought on his scales of Truly Dangerous Ideas - What the Philosopher believed was that "Logic itself is the World, which can be conceptualized alternatively as God or Nature. The World is Self-Aware Logic. . . . Its Awareness and its Being are One and the Same." When Barber 1st understood this - and he knew it for certain after spending a week with him shortly before Benito died - he knew that Spinoza came first - that he was a John the Baptist Type - and that he and his Dispensation would Kill god with a certainty which Baruch would admire. After Spinoza there would be a decreasing need for god - there would, in fact, be an Inverse Ratio which would entrain both Prayer and Logic and as the last increased the first would waste away. Inevitable is the word which both Barber and Baruch would choose to describe the world as it slouched towards its completion. Physics would use the word Beauty.
Adam Kadmon is in the Sippe of guys like the Neoplatonic Demiurge. He's a "cosmic prototype for all of reality." He is both clothed in the 10 Sephiroth and composed of these Emanations. Now comes the Plan: Since the Sephiroth have splashed out into the Shards we call the world then the Unity of God is Kaput. Light and Dark are separated as are all their Correspondences. The Monkey, thru his Sin - a Collateral act of Separation - now inherits an Obligation. "Un Devoir," as Pooler defines it. A duty. He must put himself back together again and as he does he must put God back together again. God has lost his Shekhina and he calls upon his People to get her back. The People of Israel are that Shekhina. As long as the Jews are in Exile then God is in Exile for the Shekhina has been lost with them and in them. Man is the Work and as he is Perfected so will he Perfect God. The Beautiful Truth dawns on Spinoza: God needs Us just as much as We need God. The "exile" of the Below mirrors the "exile" of the Above. A Sacred Union is necessary. The Divine Nuptials must be prepared and consummated. "For this exile of the people corresponds in the `upper world ' ... to an exile of the Shekina who went into exile with them." The return of the Jews from exile corresponds to the Redemption of the Volk. The "homecoming of the Shekhina to God" is the Work of the People as well as the Opus of Alchemy. The `Messiah ' who creates the Stone of Tikkun Olam and restores the Cosmos to Unity and Harmony "will be a manifestation of the Shekinah" - Female.
So how should we think about Evil in the World? If all is God then Evil must be apart of that All. Evil must therefore be intrinsic to the Divine. Evil must be part of the Plan, a Cosmic `felix culpa' which Eve recapitulates in the earthly Eden. Evil is about Separation and Estrangement from the Source of Emanations. It's Distance from the Font. In the 17th Century, Nathan of Gaza put it like this: "The root of evil is a principle within the Ayn-Soph itself which holds itself aloof from creation and seeks to prevent the forms of light which contain thought from being actualized, not because it is evil by nature but only because its whole desire is that nothing should exist apart from Ayn-Soph." The Tikkun olam is the Restoration of Harmony and Balance between the Chi of Expansive Light and the Chi of Restrictive Dark so that both may be absorbed again in the Ain Soph. Evil is doubt which restricts human creativity and freedom. Evil is "the inevitable result of dialectic opposition in a monistic system." Skippy squirts. He and Spinoza had been saying that for ages. If you have a mind that thinks that way you will live in a world that acts that way under heavens that are so constructed. Or as the Code says: Monkey In = Monkey Out. There's no way out of the Code. But there is Doubt. And the Devil is Anything that makes you Doubt. Ham Armstrong nails it: "The argument is as follows: if the universe in an overflowing or projection of God, and the universe contains what man calls `evil ', then `evil ' is contained in the nature of God. If, however, God is all good, then evil is not evil, it is but the dark side or foil of good. There is, in fact, no other possible logical solution to the problem of evil in a universe produced by emanation rather than creation from nothing. As man develops his own inner divine potential (individually and collectively) as an emanation of God there must be a balance of the progressive and the restrictive within the person and society to attain the ideal. This was of course, the `Enlightenment ' proposed by Leibniz in his Théodicée. This form of thinking has impacted Western thought from the 16th century to the present." Thank you Hamilton Reed Armstrong! You can hear Hegel in there ... and Nietzsche clearing his throat. Imagine that ... a Balance between the "progressive and the restrictive" - or maybe some kind of Golden Mean.
Kaballah talks only to those times with ears to hear and in Spinoza's Mokum Aleph the war for Baruch's soul was mirrored on the Kolk. The times were Messianic if not Apotheotic. Leibniz called Spinoza's "Presumption of Reason" - the "Principle of Sufficient Reason." If all Facts have Explanations there were Cowboy Metaphysicians out to Rope and Brand them and then fatten them up in an Epistemological Corral ringed with Barbed Wire. When Kenny La Roche took Lucky back to camp after the Libernalia of Lucky's 19th Birthday in La Rochelle, France, he parked the Midnight Black Citroen DS19 near the Oasis Bar which straddled a field near the Front Gate of the Base, and looked into Lucky like Maria Prophetessa looking into her Well. For a moment his eyes lost their edge of humor as he said: "Lucky, I'll tell you this several times. Today is the first time. It's about Barb Wire. You won't see it until later. But it is. It's all about Barbed Wire. It's the Devil's Rope." Then he said it again, very softly: It's the Devil's Rope. Baruch Spinoza had drifted out of his Corral. He was seeing a world without Corrals - a very dangerous vision to entertain in the 1660's - as well as the 1960s when the vision would return. Mathematics, Reason, and Logic were the Emanations Bento was drinking from. Kabbalah Kids were blissed out on Pomegranate Seeds while Geometric Rigidities wormed their way into their minds. Spinoza came out Above it all. In the war between the RaMBaM and the RaMaK for Benito's Soul the winner was a no-show. Halakha Dogma & Secret Garden Mysticism were never the only choices to an Open Mind. Radical Objectivity empties the Personal - so there was a third path. The Rational must always Shrivel the Personal. Spinoza had a new view of the Street which the Street would never fully understand since it stood in the Street to know the Street. You gotta get off Planet! Screams Slag, and he's right. If you empty out Ego you lose a place to Stand. Besides - who you are in the scheme of things vanishes "altogether in the apprehension of the Scheme itself." Goddamn! Skippy can hear Johnny Cash singing: "I ride an old Paint. He's on the weary side. And I'm a saddle tramp 'bout to cross the Great Divide." The closer Spinoza draws towards the Infinite Intellect of God the smaller his Ego shrinks towards the "ultimate insignificance of the individual." Expansion & Contraction. Leaving & Clinging. Tsimtzum & Kenosis.
H. R. knows where thinking like this must go. "In terms of eschatology, the immanentist theology of the Kabbalah must inevitably lead to the doctrine of Apokatastasis the reintegration of all spiritual emanations, active and passive, `good ' and `evil,' into the divinity at the End of Time. If God is All, then God can not leave part of himself outside of himself forever. This is precisely what the Kabbalah predicts with its doctrine of the Tikkun Olam. After myriad reincarnations, the souls of all men, as well as Angels and Demons, will form once again the unity of God. As the forces of creative light expand in man and dark judgement is absorbed, so also shall it be with God. It is even said that the Arch Devil Samael will be transformed at time's end to Sa'el one the 72 holy Names of God." The Seal to the right is by Eliphas Levi and is called "The Complete God." It attempts to picture for the visual sense the Coincidentia Opositorum - the coming together of opposites and the Fusion of Good and Evil to form the Complete God - which in Alchemy is also the Completed Work - being One and the Same. The image is Masonic, who stole it from the Christians, who stole it from the Jews, who probably took it with them out of Egypt if not Babylon. The Meme called Apokatastasis has gotten men branded and burned when it has been carried to its Logical conclusion. The Cosmos can only be Redeemed when Satan is Redeemed. He will be the last holdout. And it will all come down to how he answers the last question. If he bows it shall be completed and Satan will take back his Name in God. At which point, like Keyser Sozé - `poof ' the world just goes away. It's the perfect plan because it's Logical and its Logical because it's Inevitable. That tickled Spinoza. He had already decided that no religion on earth was true, that the Jews were not chosen by anybody, and that all the Masks of God were bullshit. But the Tikkun Olam and its consequence - Apokatastasis - that was part of Logic.
Redeeming Satan is a Mindful - but the idea is so Necessary - given the scenario of the Cosmic/Secular condition. As such, Reality is a Plan and unwinds with predictable results. Inevitable results. Athanasius Kircher - a contemporary of Spinoza & a German Jesuit scholar - was a huge fan of the Inevitable. Kircher was one of the last Grand Fusionists. He was after it all. He and his beer buddy Gottfried Leibniz were the last of a breed - those trying to learn and know Everything. Everything. That's Kircher's take on the Kaballah to the left. All Conversoed & Kikied-Up for the blue-eyed set. The problem with Kabbala is that it is a Natural construction of the Monkey Mind. Given the need to explain the worlds, the Mind defaults to its Innate & Innenwelt organization. Before the 20th century it was common sense that the Cosmos must mean something, that it must also share a Moral & even a Mental dimension with the Monkey, the Angels, and the gods. Discovering the Ur-Plan of the Mind of God was the Bidnez of Life for the Monkey and picking up the clues from Nature was the means to this end. As Above - So Below. That was all you really needed to understand. Everything else would follow of necessity. Spinoza & Kircher, as well as Leibniz, got Wood for all things which "Followed from Necessity." So Yah, Baruch Spinoza, was shedding the Masks of God with a deliberation which was frightening to his contemporaries - but he had not Shed God. The Thing in Itself. The Ding an Sicht which Kant would burble about whenever he bellied up to the Gin. And while Bento thought the Kabbalists were Romantics & dreamers & Proto-Hippies, he had a real and open respect for the System and the Vision of the Kaballah. It was a Logical Organization of the Relationships between the Worlds. And Spinoza still believed in the Worlds. Kaballah to Spinoza was like Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology to Dick Dawkins & E.O. Wilson - either it was True or something very much like it must be true. The Devil was in the details - and finally the Monkey had apprehended a logical scenario where even the Devil had a part to play before the show was over. There is something very comforting about a Grand Fusion Vision - Kaballah was the ultimate in Comfort Food for the Mind.
Look how the Christians expropriated Adam Kadmon for its Christ. "According to the Zohar - the Book of Splendor - what was engraved first on the Void were the words: `Let there be Light ' in the 22 Letters of the Hebrew Alphabet. " After which God "emerged from the primal ether on the right as the Masculine principle and Elohim - Darkness - emerged on the left as the Feminine principle. Then appeared the actual `Light ' signifying that the Left was included in the Right and the Right in the Left." From the Light streamed the 10 Sephiroth in Concentric Circles." Aposympotically Just So. That's how Eternity interacts with Temporality - Aposympotically. As Above, So Below. So goddamn neat that "There are no inexplicable dangling threads protruding from the fabric of the world." Everything Can be Known. Kircher & Leibniz are not just Jacking Off in a Gnostic Wind. "Hell is not Eternal," said the Kabala. "There is no Hell," said Spinoza. "That's only the Mind spinning its Inferences into the World." But buck up, Sweetpubes! What could you use a Heaven for anyway? Or a Hell. Evil is only `Distance from the Font ' and its Vehicle is Doubt. In the War for his Soul, Spinoza was a Pacifist - a Conscientious Objector. His new Bidnez was getting rid of Doubt. Geometrically, Logically - to the last decimal of precision. The Kabba-Kikes of Mokum A saw Apokatastasis as the Restoration of Jeroboam. Jerry was the Archetypal "Wicked King." He had been the 1st King of the 10 Tribes of Judah and after the split from the Kingdom of Judah, he introduced Golden Calf Idols and the saying "Evil like Jeroboam" became the Coin for such a thought. It was his sins which had brought on the Desolation of the Tribes and caused them to be carried off as slaves "and disappear from the world as Israelites." Rabbi Aboab was telling everyone that it was the soul of Jeroboam which would reincarnate as the Messiah. Iconic Evil must become Iconic Good. Everything else, as Karl Wallenda said, was only Waiting.
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