The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist
The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist
The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
‘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 />
25