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avevale_intelligencer“Let us consider the stages of abstraction, firstly in a general example, and then as they affect those activities in which we ourselves take an interest. Odoacer, whatever it is that you are currently masticating with such manifestly audible delectation, dear boy, please be so good as to extract it and bestow it in the receptacle provided. By the door there. Thank you so much.
“Take, if you will, the case of a primitive society, and let us enumerate the stages as I have no doubt Vassily will have done in his estimable course on Basic Humanoid Sociology. In stage one, you will recall, our primitives discover enjoyment in shared activities such as making music, eating and drinking together, intoxication, copulation and so on. Stage two begins when they decide that the pleasure derived from such activities must pertain to a higher state of being. In stage three this higher plane is identified and taxonomised, and the putative entities who occupy it given local habitations and names. In stage four, the act of communion with these entities is established as a separate activity in itself, and in stage five this activity is separated from those other shared activities from which it arose, some of which may still be permitted in that context, but only in a limited or purely symbolic form. Very few religious ceremonies in societies at this stage involve actual eating, drinking or copulation.
“Stage six, which is where we are now, is marked by an increasing disenchantment with what we may now rightly call religion—Pharamond, Vortigern, I beg you to take pity on an old man's leaden and lag-footed recitation and either postpone the daring scintillations of your native wit to a later date, or continue in another location. I, dear boys, if I may be permitted to be inexcusably blunt, am chatting. Where was I? Disenchantment. Stage six, yes. Which in normal societies runs parallel with the development of rationalist and scientific approaches to the study of existence. This is where most societies reach a sort of plateau: the ways to direct experience of the higher state of being discovered in stage two have been systematically blocked off, and while some may still attain it through the direct exercise of their minds, the majority must largely be content to imagine what it must be like. And while people still eat and drink together, make music, become intoxicated and copulate--not necessarily in that order--it has been strenuously impressed upon them that such activities are antipathetic to the attainment of the higher state, and so they see them as no more than sources of temporary and mundane pleasure. When on rare occasions the higher state is spontaneously attained, it is put down as a random, subjective and unreproducible phenomenon. Meanwhile, the mere existence of the higher state is called into question, and found not to be susceptible of proof in the rationalist paradigm. In these circumstances, further advancement along this path is strongly contra-indicated, and may never happen at all. Given time, though, and the right individuals in the right places at the right times, it is possible to, as it were, administer a 'kick start' and move the society on to stage seven. I have never, you understand, personally undertaken the task.
“Stage seven is a recapitulation of stage two, but with the knowledge gained in the preceding stages available. The higher state of being is rediscovered through its original sources, the ordinary shared activities that bring pleasure, and this time it is more fully understood. The taxonomies of stage three are largely discredited and abandoned, the separations of stage four and five understood to be artificial. 'Religion' as such begins, very slowly, to cease to exist. Some few societies with which you may come in contact have embarked on stage seven, but most are still trudging across the long plateau of stage six. Stage eight, in which the majority of people in the society live permanently in the higher state of being, is still purely theoretical, and some have hypothesised that we shall not see it in this Age of the galaxy.
“So much for the theory as applied to religion. Whatever that artifact is, Guismond, kindly return it to your sabretache, or else pass it to me so that the entire class may behold it. Let us now turn to the more mundane but precisely parallel concept known as 'business'...”
“Take, if you will, the case of a primitive society, and let us enumerate the stages as I have no doubt Vassily will have done in his estimable course on Basic Humanoid Sociology. In stage one, you will recall, our primitives discover enjoyment in shared activities such as making music, eating and drinking together, intoxication, copulation and so on. Stage two begins when they decide that the pleasure derived from such activities must pertain to a higher state of being. In stage three this higher plane is identified and taxonomised, and the putative entities who occupy it given local habitations and names. In stage four, the act of communion with these entities is established as a separate activity in itself, and in stage five this activity is separated from those other shared activities from which it arose, some of which may still be permitted in that context, but only in a limited or purely symbolic form. Very few religious ceremonies in societies at this stage involve actual eating, drinking or copulation.
“Stage six, which is where we are now, is marked by an increasing disenchantment with what we may now rightly call religion—Pharamond, Vortigern, I beg you to take pity on an old man's leaden and lag-footed recitation and either postpone the daring scintillations of your native wit to a later date, or continue in another location. I, dear boys, if I may be permitted to be inexcusably blunt, am chatting. Where was I? Disenchantment. Stage six, yes. Which in normal societies runs parallel with the development of rationalist and scientific approaches to the study of existence. This is where most societies reach a sort of plateau: the ways to direct experience of the higher state of being discovered in stage two have been systematically blocked off, and while some may still attain it through the direct exercise of their minds, the majority must largely be content to imagine what it must be like. And while people still eat and drink together, make music, become intoxicated and copulate--not necessarily in that order--it has been strenuously impressed upon them that such activities are antipathetic to the attainment of the higher state, and so they see them as no more than sources of temporary and mundane pleasure. When on rare occasions the higher state is spontaneously attained, it is put down as a random, subjective and unreproducible phenomenon. Meanwhile, the mere existence of the higher state is called into question, and found not to be susceptible of proof in the rationalist paradigm. In these circumstances, further advancement along this path is strongly contra-indicated, and may never happen at all. Given time, though, and the right individuals in the right places at the right times, it is possible to, as it were, administer a 'kick start' and move the society on to stage seven. I have never, you understand, personally undertaken the task.
“Stage seven is a recapitulation of stage two, but with the knowledge gained in the preceding stages available. The higher state of being is rediscovered through its original sources, the ordinary shared activities that bring pleasure, and this time it is more fully understood. The taxonomies of stage three are largely discredited and abandoned, the separations of stage four and five understood to be artificial. 'Religion' as such begins, very slowly, to cease to exist. Some few societies with which you may come in contact have embarked on stage seven, but most are still trudging across the long plateau of stage six. Stage eight, in which the majority of people in the society live permanently in the higher state of being, is still purely theoretical, and some have hypothesised that we shall not see it in this Age of the galaxy.
“So much for the theory as applied to religion. Whatever that artifact is, Guismond, kindly return it to your sabretache, or else pass it to me so that the entire class may behold it. Let us now turn to the more mundane but precisely parallel concept known as 'business'...”
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 08:41 pm (UTC)I agree, religion and business are both artifacts, they have a lot in common.
I don't really understand the term 'a higher state of being' - do humans possess a 'super' nature? I notice though that Stage eight is purely theoretical and a matter of hypothesis.
Are you reaching for a perfect cultural form that would complement our brain systems to an nth degree such that the societies which stem from the cultural form would be inhabited by people who are, granted, still fallable, still capable of diversity and originality, but who are perhaps geared up with a mental outlook to always be able to put a positive spin on issues as they arise? So this is Eden without God?
no subject
Date: 2008-04-10 01:03 am (UTC)You're mostly right. What I mean by the phrase "a higher state of being" is derived from a lot of reading around the subject: Theodore Sturgeon's Godbody is a primary source, and there are bits of Colin Wilson, Robert Anton ditto, Geoffrey Ashe and others in there. People in a stage eight society would indeed be still individual and fallible and human, but would have a constant "sense of the presence of god" in themselves and in each other. It's an early step on the long journey which ends when something that began as us finally graduates to godhood and makes its first universe. The Nyronds, by their nature, are excluded from that.
And all this was a digression from the actual subject of the lecture, to which he is about to pass on in a subsequent post.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-09 10:08 pm (UTC)It also sent me to the OED for a definition of sabretache. (I love it when a writer does that and does it well. Have I mentioned that I adore Gene Wolfe?) Oddly enough, it gives the pronunciation as -- well, without using IPA, I'll say it's just like "sabotage" but ending with an "sh" sound instead of a "zh" sound.
Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody