The All is the Law. And as The All unfolds, its manifestations call our order to syncretism, to syntheism, and to mythic truth.
Bitter Atheis clenches his fists. He insists that our insignificant race projects a higher authority onto an insentient cosmos. His sister, the credulous Theis, warns that this higher authority reigns transcendent and will judge her brother in the end. Both live in the present, situated in three dimensions, caged by limited perceptions and conceptions, respectively.
Our siblinghood sees only vanity in their sibling rivalry.
Vanity of vanities, said Koheleth; vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
בהֲבֵ֤ל הֲבָלִים֙ אָמַ֣ר קֹהֶ֔לֶת הֲבֵ֥ל הֲבָלִ֖ים הַכֹּ֥ל הָֽבֶל:
Instead, we observe, inquire, and imagine on a rolling wheel.
We learn from history’s teachers. We know that their messages are but facets of something more resplendent, more mysterious, and inexplicable. We resolve, therefore, to bask in the mystery—to open one door to the adjacent possible only to find another door to the adjacent possible, ceaselessly, until we die.
Yet one burned-black wick lights another.
No sibling is required to give up her faith or remove the figure she keeps at the center. Instead, she is invited to imagine how The All can manifest as entheos—the power within all of us, and especially within the best of us.
As within, so without.
As above, so below.
As The All lives outside of time, HisHer timebound embodiments appear, like we do, as great but imperfect beings, though recognizable enough.
Corpus Dei. Organa Omnium.
The Buddha is the crown.
Spinoza is the right hemisphere.
Aristotle is the left hemisphere.
Zoroaster is the right eye.
Heraclitus is the left eye.
Rumi and Valmiki are throat and tongue.
Jesus is the heart.
Koheleth is the right lung.
Zhuangzi is the left lung.
Adam is the rib cage.
Darwin is the sternum.
Marcus Aurelius is the right hand.
Teresa of Ávila is the left hand.
Epicurus is the belly.
Patanjali is the root.
Elijah is the right leg.
Nanak is the left leg.
Moses is the right foot.
Lao Tzu is the left foot.
E pluribus unum. Ex uno plures.
Hierophants of our order, perhaps you manifest as some organ of The All, or limb, or aperture into HimHer. But it is more than enough to be a single cell—to organize with other cells so that the will of The All may unfold in a way that protects the world from the clutches of Lucifer, Marduk, or Angra Mainyu, allowing civilizations to flourish like galaxies in the dark.
For you see, because we are free, we are prone to error.
Let us pause, siblings, and reflect together: How can a holistic understanding of The All encompass the reality of evil without surrendering to it? How can evil be something wholly other, without making The All into a Holy Other? We invoke sages from many traditions—Buddha, Aristotle, Spinoza, and beyond—and imagine theirs is a corpus of wisdom, as they are a corpus of The All.
In doing so, we acknowledge our limits and admit the vanity amid the vast ineffable.
What we perceive as evil are the shadows we cast upon ourselves. Could Mohammed, that murderous, unwitting scion of Marduk, be an organ of the unfolding All? How could someone so offensive to our doctrine inspire the fractals of Nasir al-Mulk and embody Allah (The All of infinity and the ah of wonder)?
الله هو كل اللانهاية و”آه” العجب
As Spinoza teaches, the divine is the immanent energy through which all things exist, and what we call evil is often the result of our incomplete view of the whole—our perspectival prison. A more complete view would require the eyes of the Ophalim, which we can only borrow in the inner sanctum.
We speak of three manifestations of evil: excessive freedom’s disorderly rebellion, imposed order’s brutal oppression, and black nihilism’s destructive nature. None of these negate the unmanifested All that swells beyond time, delivering ceaseless moments of change. Shadow manifestations are for us to reckon with and integrate, sometimes sensed as skittering in the dark or slithering in the deep.
Remember who we are.
We shall not yield to darkness, but learn to illuminate it. Walk forward with that grave and fragile wisdom, knowing that your search for understanding is incomplete and your precious freedom is also fodder for Lucifer, Marduk, and Angra Mainyu. Without freedom, our only gods are Time and Fate. To be a sibling in our order is to seize your freedom as a gift and know it can also be a curse, admitting that, as we move toward the light, our Shadow becomes starker, and the penumbra appears.
Home is there for now.