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The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

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‘GOOD’ AND ‘EVIL’<br />

reciprocally; looked at in this manner neither is of a nature superior to the<br />

other. But the play of the active force causes the play of the passive force; if<br />

the play of my arm is action the play of the inertia of the stone is reaction.<br />

And what is true of these two forces in this minor phenomenon is equally true<br />

at all stages of universal creation. <strong>The</strong> two inferior principles, positive and<br />

negative, conceived in the abstract or existing apart from their interplay, are<br />

not the cause of one another; they derive, independently of one another, from<br />

a Primary Cause in the eyes of which they are strictly equal. But as soon as<br />

we envisage them in action we observe that the play of the active force<br />

causes the play of the passive force (it is in this that 'God' desires the<br />

existence of the 'Devil' and not the other way round). In so far as the two<br />

inferior principles interact and create, the positive principle sets in motion the<br />

play of the negative principle, and it then possesses in that respect an<br />

indisputable superiority over this negative principle. <strong>The</strong> primacy of the<br />

active force over the passive force does not consist in a chronological<br />

precedence (it is at the same moment that reaction and action occur) but in a<br />

causal precedence; one could express that by saying that the instanta<strong>neo</strong>us<br />

current by means of which the Superior Principle activates the two inferior<br />

principles reaches the negative principle in passing by the positive. In this<br />

way we can understand that the two inferior principles, equal noumenally, are<br />

unequal phenomenally, the positive being superior to the negative. If the<br />

force that moves the sister of charity is strictly equal to that which moves the<br />

assassin, the helping of orphans represents an undeniable superiority over<br />

assassination; but let us note at the same time that it is the concrete charitable<br />

action which possesses an incontestable superiority over the concrete murder,<br />

while the two acts, regarded in the abstract, are equal since, so regarded, they<br />

are no longer anything but the symbolic representatives of equal positive and<br />

negative forces.<br />

Arrived at this point we can understand that every constructive<br />

phenomenon manifests the play of the active force (action) and that every<br />

destructive phenomenon manifests the play of the passive force (reaction). It<br />

is for this reason that the man who has attained 'realisation' is as constructive,<br />

at every moment, as circumstances allow him; this man in fact is freed from<br />

conditioned reflexes: he no longer reacts, he is active; being active he is<br />

constructive.<br />

Such and such a destructive demeanour on the part of the 'wicked' man<br />

can seem to show initiative, can appear to result from the play of an active<br />

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