[ Warning!!! Entering this Magic Theater could change the way you think.]
The World in metaphor as theater has been around since Shiva’s Dancing, Plato’s Cave, Songs of Orpheus, Soliloquies of Shakespeare, World Wars, and all interactive media happenings of today. Today’s proscenium is so much larger–globally larger with an ever-widening screen to the universe. The Players are in constant dramatic engagement due to shared sciences, climate catastrophes, health connections, politics, media, and advances in technology everywhere. The Stage is One. Theater is One. Humanity is One. The Planet is One. The Curtain is One. We are the World’s Play as a Planetary United Species –as One–as never before. Transhumanism is the theme of our day as it augurs the mix of human&machine//brain intelligence&artificial intelligence: implants, robotics bionic organs, neural prosthetics, “substitutes,” and cyborg this and that: natural vs. virtual. It’s called a Singularity, because once the marriage of creature&machine happens — there’s no going back. In such a Magical Theater we must grasp our new role of Magical Thinking&Linking. What follows in this APE –APOETESSAY– is an Existential Pagaiaian Covenant Romantic’s (EPACOROM)… grasp of our primary role to be a self-realized individual at Home and at One with this life and others…for which there is no “substitute” for our own “natural” performance. HAPE HOME (Home Address Planet Earth–Humanity’s Only Mother Earth). Thus — HAPE HOME of the EPACOROMs. In conclusion, I’ll explain what I mean by the “magical.” But first, here’s an operative perspective from the new hypothesis of the Fifth Force of Nature. (FIFORONAT) –[ Note: the Acronym-Amalgam-Aligns such as to say “the EPACOROMs of the FIFORONATs” are to manifest the new vocabulary quests in Poetries of a New Spirituality — and, also, to demonstrate Magical Thinking-Linking.I have done so in all my books. Hesse is partly responsible as you’ll see in Part III.]
[I]
To begin, we live in an imperfect world as imperfects. Everywhere inequalities, oddities, and things that don’t add-up. So many unknowns and random happenings make it so. So we have hypotheses, poetries, syllogisms, and formulae to help us understand. One fundamental understanding is how things are structured—like archways, skeletons, animals– concepts like trinities and of time. I’ve written of ODDIONS, the prime numbers such as 3-5-7-9-11, on this site. Their structure is basically like a one in the middle with equal numbers down each side: as your head between left and right arms. Most creature forms are of this type. Much of what we as humans have created is based on Oddion structuring. There are indeed symmetries of sums that are equaled like 3-4-6-8. However, as often described it is the breaking of such static symmetries that allows for creation beyond them to occur. (Recall the “vanishing point on a 2-D canvass — creating a 3-D visual.) Dualities split into primes, become actions. On the back of my card on this site is my drawing of the essence of a prime number “7”–with the added dimension of the Individual “i” in the middle of overlapping dualities. The nature of consciousness is such that it “actively” forms between contraries. My book SYMPATHIES was mostly about the various en-choirings and magics of “3” and the three threes that make the 9 Muses. Indeed, “3” as the first prime is pervasively primal in structures of existence and our concepts of existence. One of my “prime-primal” examples is the palindrome of LifeInDeath A DeathInLife, where the A is our oscillating consciousness between them.
Here, I will draw specific attention to the prime number 5. Already, way before I learned just a few days ago, of the Fifth Force of Nature ( An hypothesis I’ll explain below.), I was writing about our normal week 5 days plus two to make seven( 7 is the most honored number of alchemies and magics) and many triune formations and concepts, such as palindromes with that pendulant “A” in the middle(see Glossary for more on this). But the number 5, coming from age-old thoughts of the quintessence and 5th element Aether, found a new role with me– beyond that and five fingers and five toes–and five stars. In AUGURIES, I found the “Pentamaroion” which was the 5th dimension of Breath-Breathing-Respiration as manifest in our prospering between predation and procreation. This was developed with a breathing history and on this site recast as the QUINTETION. Also on this site are the articles on the Fifth Freedom and Quintons. Primarily, the prime 5 is most significantly played in the QUINTETION–with its five instruments of breathing and meditation. ( Five instruments, with seven sounds from four; the fifth being “silence.”) And, on the first page of this site I’ve detailed the four-word concepts that gave rise to the fifth — ‘Apo’kstrophes.’ Granted there is a lot of Magical Thinking-Linking going on here that my concluding comments on Hesse in this context should clarify. The word-usage concept of “amalgam-amalgamation” is, by its very nature in human consciousness, a magical thinking-linking. A favorite visual to have this feel — is that of a two-handed Juggler, juggling three balls. Now, let’s look at the latest magic from physics with its concept of The Fifth Force of Nature.
[II]
Christies has just announced the auction of Einstein’s letter about his religious beliefs and lack thereof. He expressed his disbelief in a personal God, in a Chosen People, and in the Bible as but a group of “venerable, but still rather primitive legends.” Seems he concluded with this sentiment: “If something is in me which can be called religious, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” In the context of my thought, this “unbounded admiration for structure” is better termed “spiritual” than “religious.” Einstein may have had something of a “theistic” feeling for this, but that, nor religious-as-institutionalized, is necessary. Poetries of a New Spirituality are full of such admiration.
Now, to that “structure” as currently reported by Aristos Georgiou in Newsweek (10/1/18) – under the title of The Fifth Force of Nature. (The Amalgam FIFORONAT from me.) I will briefly summarize this new (scientific — but also magical&poetical) hypothesis.
Scientists have long wrestled with attempts to blend the quantum world with the Standard Model of our 3-D world experience. Also, they are sure the universe is full of both Dark Matter and Dark Energy. A lot of Dark Matter and a universe (and Planet) full of Matter making existence possible. How did matter survive the Big Bang of antimatter & matter, which should have been the annihilation of both into a form of energy. That energy resulting from BB collision of positrons and electrons released Photons Of Light. So where did matter come from and what’s the force behind the interplay of Dark Matter and Dark Energy? Here’s a substantive quote from Georgiou to direct us:
“This Dark sector is basically ‘decoupled’ from the Standard Model sector….in the scenario dark matter particles have no way of intersecting with Standard Model particles, except if this interaction is mediated by what physicists refer to as a ‘messenger particle.’ “ These messengers have been labeled “Dark Photons.” They enable our matter and dark matter to interact. And the BB surmise is that that Singularity gave off not just Light Photons — but Matter Photons, which because of their “messenger” power are termed The Fifth Force of Nature. The other four are well known: electromagnetic-gravity-weak&strong nuclear forces. This FIFORONAT seems to be the long-sought-key to their being a universe of matter and a you and a me. Perhaps a cousin to Light Photons (in some way ) engendered from the electromagnetic force. However!! Yes, this is hypothetical, but these Dark Photon Messengers provide this “helpful signature” to what’s happening to make existence be as it is and to offer a comprehension of the relational interaction between the quantum particle world and our 3-D mass world — and of this “hidden realm” of the universe(s) of existence. — Yes, we are back to the magicals of the quintessence, the Aether, the Pentamarorion, and the Presentation of the QUINTETION. Generally, it is conceivable that any “quarterion” will have a dynamic energy-field of its interplay, which is a Fifth as in the “quintessential.” A pyramid has not only four sides — it has a base. The QUINTETION has not only four instruments playing — it has the silent-Presentation as that from which the message to engage bursts out as AH-HA!!
In AUGURIES, I gave my own FIFORONAT in our human/planet structure of existence. There the great dualism of Predation-Procreation released the Prosperoion, which released the Showonakarion — and the energy field that encompassed/enchoired all four was Breath as the FIFORONAT Dimension called the Pentamaroion. Well, I wrote a whole book to grasp this. At the time I didn’t have Einstein’s letter or the concept of Dark Photons making the interchange of Light&Dark manifest existence. I didn’t have these “comprehensions” when I did my two Master Theses in Philosophy of Religion and Clinical Psychology; both based on the more than “helpful signature” of RECIPROCITY as the most essential “messenger” of contrasting dualities–resulting in ….say The Promise of Life from the play of death&life: never losing the authenticity of either, but transcending (breaking from ) that yoked-duality with a Purposeful Drive towards the future. Wow! My whole book in one paragraph. Magical Thinking-Linking, indeed.
[III]
Now to conclude, as promised, with Hermann Hesse as quide. I realized as I was finishing AUGURIES that I’d forgot to include Hesse’s influence. (Well, the book was big enough as it was–and magical thinking was all through it.) HH was just as important as Virgil, Shakespeare, Emerson, Eliade, Camus, Yeats, Eliot, etc. — particularly in the 70’s. So, my first HH notes come from Edwin F. Casebeer’s “Writer’s for the 70’s–Hermann Hesse,” Warner books, 1972. From that era, particularly HH, writers were reacting to a time of “spiritual exhaustion” in “an age that had lost its bearings.” From HH one is constantly engaged in a journey “through the fantastic Magic Theater” to arrive at “self-knowledge.” HH’s journey took him East, where he learned (and lived it through his novels-characters) of specific pattern breathing, and Mantras of A-U-M ( the primordial sound of existence, as the three main Vedas, as Brahma-Vishnu-Siva)–with the main point –explored/experienced– being a “oneness” of humans and universe: dualities overcome. Casebeer put it this way: “that man’s most important act in the universe is that of Love, for it is the act of ‘joning’ together that which in reality has never been apart.”(pp. 15–from the Foreword by. T. Malley: 29.49).
Perhaps the primary interpreter of HH is Theodore Ziolkowski ( TZ ). He wrote “The Novels of HH–A Study in Theme and Structure” in 1965(Princeton Press) and the Introduction to “HH-My Belief,” 1974/1979(Triad Panther). The following quote from his first book is most substantial for comprehending the thematicstructure/dynamic of my own writings. Therefore, I will give it ample space.
“…every pole has its opposite. The person who even for an instant accepts the interchangeability of nature and spirit, of good and evil, is the worst enemy of all order, for at that point chaos begins. The greatest reality, in the sense of traditional human culture, is the dichotomy of the world in light and dark, good and evil, fas and nefas But ….highest reality is the magical experience of the reversibility of all concepts, of the equally justified existence of both poles….The future is uncertain, but the way…is unambiguous: it is spiritual reevaluation….it demands ‘magical thinking,’ the acceptance of chaos, the return to the unordered, to the unconscious, to the formless, the animal and still further back to all beginnings. Then men can be reborn. —— Hesse’s implications are clear. The inward way into the chaos of one’s own nature leads man to the realization that he is the seat of a polarity between the opposite forces of spirit and nature. Man must accept this polarity positively, and the process of spiritual reevaluation through which this takes place is ‘magical thinking’(magisches Denken)–the search for a new totally through the acceptance of chaos…. Herbert J. Muller writes: ‘Emerson remarked that it is a good thing, now and then, to take a look at the landscape from between one’s legs. Although this stunt might seem pointless when things are already topsy-turvy, it can be more helpful then. One may say that what this chaotic world needs first of all is more dissociation; by breaking up factitious alliances and oppositions, one may get at the deep uniformities.’”(p. 23-24)
So, here again, we see the augural magic of the breaking of symmetries into the future; also a neat connect between Emerson and HH — as that bending towards the earth and viewing things for the perspective of one’s own creaturely stance and journey of self-reliance. But, now for a bit more insight into the core&yoke of this magic, here’s Ziolkowski:
“In the tale ‘Within and Without,’(1920) Hesse defines magic as the ability to exchange inner and outer reality….Magical thinking is the capacity of the individual to see beyond the apparent disharmony of the polar opposites and to perceive the essential unity and totality of all things. Within the individual as within the world.”(p. 25)….magical thinking…is an ethical act through which the individual examines his own life in order to cast off inherited prejudices and to affirm the totality of the world. This immanent quality of magical thinking is underscored…This is ‘mysticism without mysticism,’ for the transformation is immanent and not transcendent, ethical and not ontological.”(p. 32) — HH in his autobiography sums his real life implication of magical thinking as “I live very much in the future.” He embodied “an imaginative projection of his life into the future.” — Oh, so magical is this — for it breaks the bond of past and present. And Oh, so ethical….and aesthetical as HH shows throughout his works an integration of romanticism and existentialism ( As TZ concludes, p. 361) and prefaced on p. 360:
“We can observe over and over again in Hesse’s major themes a reduction of transcendence to immanence, of the ontological to the ethical, of the speculative to the existential. With romantic tools he seeks to analyze the existential encounter with reality.” — Alas, to be able to translate chaos into unity, death into life, and ever like the Juggler keeping all in dynamic play of balance, is the essence of magical thinking-linking. There is irony here and the ability to manifest joy and even to laugh. As TZ concludes his introduction to “The Glass Bead Game,”(1969): “ If parody alone can adequately render the reality of our times, only irony offers us the freedom and detachment that are the essential condition of responsible analysis and action. This is the final aesthetic meaning of The Glass Bead Game.’”(p.xvi) — So, let it be noted well, that magical thinking-linking — poets it’s odes –out of a detachment/embodiment of the burlesque and ironic—smiling hope past the smoke of pain. Yes, procreation must live with predation to the prosperoion, which breaks us free from that duality of annihilation — while continuing their hold on life that lives for a future with/beyond them. Now, that’s magical. We know the glass beads will eventually shatter–but we rosary them with aesthetics, ethics, and joyful acceptance of their immanence.
CODA
So, all happens in this Theatrum Mundi —even as we look deep into space and the forces of existence. TZ, in his introduction to HH’s “My Belief,” examines what he calls HH’s “triadic rhythm of humanization” in his literary works. In sum, this is the move from Innocence to Guilt to Acceptance. It is on this third level of “acceptance,” that magical thinking occurs as the “man of reason and pious man achieve synthesis — cancelling opposition — to enter a state of true humanity.’(p.xvi) — Fundamentally, there is “a binary opposition operating and being transformed within a ternary historical sequence.” So it is, that when I write about “Poetries of a New Spirituality,” I’ve based it on this kind of acceptance.
It’s an acceptance within our immanence — whereby the 1+1( all essential dualisms at one another), becomes 1+1 =( as in becomes) 3 ( that new ternary unity–which has itself and the duality continuing in tandem reciprocity. Indeed, the reciprocal tension leading to the reversibility of all polarities( recall the pendulation in palindromes) into the creation of a unity from them. “…one soon perceives that the two systems should operate in a reciprocal tension. They should sound together as a chord, and not individually as two separate tones.”( TV p. 353) The separate tones are always there, though, and every chording carries them forward for further play. The magic, the spirituality, comes from the “acceptance” of the concert. My breathing QUINTETION is but one performance of this on-going acceptance: poetries the same. The hypothetical, but well “signatured” Fifth Force of Nature — plays in the same ballpark…the same stage. The ANIMATE between ANIMUS AND ANIMA— is a term like “The Prosperoion,” which names that chordal reciprocity’s creation of a unified/harmonious/balanced presence in acceptance.
All of my current writings are in/from this Magical Theater–even going way back to my two Master’s theses on reciprocity. The creation of new words and concepts, which I do, comes naturally from this engagement. Embedded in SYMPATHIES is the ternary concept from two real — in the dictionary words — Symmysts of Syzygy (SOS). To my knowledge, no one else has created this phrase. Symmysts are those initiated to the secret alchemies of life’s magic. Syzygy is a word meaning the bonding/yoking of two different things into a correlated pair. So it is, that magical thinking-linking is the spiritual poetics of Symmysts of Syzygy. From this interplay comes for each of us so much of life’s magic — such as The SHOALS OF WONTSUNODI — those Shining Holds of Angelic Legacies of Wonders That Should Not Die.
Thus it is, as stated above, this APOETESSAY is a EPACOROM’s grasp of the FIFORONAT’s — or words to that effect: namely, our immanence-acceptance grasp of how existence is working to be as it is and we as we are. I welcome with open arms this Fifth Force of Nature. It plays well in this Theatrum Mundi’s Magic Theater of reciprocities of things/ideas creating/auguring out of living’s coincidentia oppositorum — new realities that matter. — ThreeCheers&FiveStars&HighFives for this new “manifest” of MANIFEST DESTINY’S ODYSSEAN KAIROS. Calls for good glasses of wine (or sips of a Fifth) to “clink-and-link-around” and “bottoms-up” this Kairosion quintessential pairing of DarkPhotons&LightPhotons. !!YAY!!
[PS — In the context of this thought, we take a good look at Democracy as a unified achievement from balancing the dualities of power and in keeping the tension a positive reciprocity — ever engendering and enchoiring that unity. Leadership of one side power-play disruptions of this process–more focused on contrariness of the polarities rather than the achievable union over time, unless checked — will cause divisions that will nurture tyranny and people against people. We are so vulnerable to this in our time — depending on how those who control the technology use it to control power and people. The people could lose control of their own worlds, let alone the government. The Magic Theater must not be closed. The Juggler must keep all three balls in “triadic rhythm of humanization.” The “Presidential emergency warning” system’s simultaneous ring on every American’s cell phone was, indeed, a warning. The satellite can zoom in on your home and backyard–whenever focused to do so. Today, the Theatrum Mundi is invisibly and universally wired. The “messenger” is trying to connect the natural to the virtual without losing the natural. Its voice is becoming increasingly shrill.]– mdok