BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT, EAST AND WEST
(Part 1 Religions)
by John Cooper
cosmicflyswatter.com

Mr. Pinkerton makes no secret of the fact that his opinions on this subject are incipient. But he does agree with me on 90% of what follows in spite of any lingering uncertainty in his theological convictions. And as we have stated before, to understand the concepts of the EAP Theory and the Lens Pole it is necessary to consider the philosophical and theological differences between the east and the west, and how the these theories are rooted mostly in western philosophy and theology.

In the first place it is in the choosing of trying to approach what appears to be the way things actually are, that the Lens Pole has any relevance at all. And though our opinions are in time/space, and simply one frame of reference among so many, we will attempt to make the case for what we see most clearly as better logic. Without pretending to scholarship in areas where neither of us holds credentials, we intend to sketch out some fundamentals in the different religions and philosophies that indeed got us to thinking of the EAP and the Lens Pole in the first place. And it seems apparent that without making certain choices as to what is the make up of man beyond his organic and psychological constitution, no metaphysical clarity will ensue. So here are our opinions, our choices.

From the Western perspective, the Eastern traditions of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism have more in common than they appear to their followers. They all are holistic in that they do not pretend to a monotheism that distinguishes man from God, but see all of reality knowable or not as inseparable and all of the same substance. With their differences in approach to happiness and perfection they nevertheless practice what can be characterized as a most attractive ordering of reality into limiting conveniences. They do not have to answer the questions that are imperative to the Western religious. Buddhism has fourteen unanswerable questions that are seen as a net dragging man into bewilderment and suffering. Among these are questions such as, is there life after death and what would that life be. They remove themselves from such harassments by explaining that man need not answer such questions and that it is more important for him to understand that he is plagued by desire and should remove all desire to attain nirvana. From our perspective this is a limiting convenience. We are not saying that they are incorrect about man and his desires; we simply think that man is if anything a desire machine, and that to attempt to remove all desire is simply to redirect the will towards the desire to have no desire. A man’s will is his desire vehicle and it cannot be removed efficiently. Whatever good emanates from these traditions and there has been plenty, we are certain that outside the box of the reality they have fashioned, there is more, there is All Ways More.

Hinduism is the last stronghold of ancient and deeply structured paganism. It is safe to say that in their view all things are gods and potentially gods. Though I have met some very fine people who are Hindu, I find their religion repulsive in what has been the result of these beliefs on the structure of their society. The caste system and the escapist and evil aspects of those portions and principles of Karma beyond the valid aspect of reap and sow, leave us dismissive at best.

All the aforementioned Eastern traditions believe in reincarnation, though the Buddhist sees this as a negative since nirvana is the eventual escape from it. But reincarnation from our perspective is a covering from the light of the Truth that man can prove only one life, the one he possesses until his death. And belief in such a scheme is a poor substitute for the salvation that all men either seek or deny that they need, or both deny and seek at the same time. For all men know they are not perfect and yet no man, with the exception of the truly depraved, does not direct himself towards perfection whether he knows it or not. There is no other reason for doing any good at all without its pursuit.

Before we outline our conception of the body the soul and the spirit, in the next article, we will say a few words about the myriad of other philosophical inventions. There are dozens of parsed eastern sects, and ancient middle-eastern Gnostic traditions. There are dozens of pseudo-Christian sects that are unhappy with what has been revealed, and attempt to mix the soothing tonics of new-enlightenment logics, hoping to present themselves to each other as more reasoned. And then there are the western stews of the New Age and Human Potential Movements. These last two don’t even possess a cultural context in which to consider them legitimate religions. They are what we have categorized as Cultus Cheerleadicus for they are little more than pseudo-enlightenment, where intellectual hygiene is comingled with flavorings of shamanism, animism, paganism and scientism, and are used to turn God, and man and his soul into an art project. Nothing beyond relativism and obscurantism can possibly proceed from them, except for perhaps a temporary psychic boost. They are Snake Oil. Scientology, though not alone, is perhaps the most infamous of these today since it mixes in a most fantastic and foolish science fiction mythology with many other admixtures, some of which possess tiny and partial truths.

The West stands on Judeo-Christian beliefs however unfashionable it is to say such a thing at the moment. No matter how efficient the obfuscation that has proceeded from modern historical revisionism, it takes no genius to see the philosophical threads that underlay the development of western societies. To argue that philosophies are simply coincidental players along with more important economic and political machinations is in itself a transparent form of revisionism. For however the ebb and flow of man’s power structures proceed, the participants will in times of crisis forward philosophies as remedies if for no other reason than self-interest alone. In the West, all reliance and alliance inevitably rested however hypocritically upon the philosophy spawned by the Man from Galilee.

For two thousand years since the Advent, through the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Ancient Regime, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution, all political, economic, and martial events were conformed inevitably and cyclically returned to the philosophical momentum of Judeo-Christian theology; if for nothing else, the appearance of justice. We see this march of human endeavor as movements unleashed and then again restrained by a series of starts, false starts and penalties culminating in the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

At the root of this western belief is a specific freedom promised in the Person of Christ. This goal is not dissimilar to eastern traditions in that they also pretend to this freedom. It is the freedom from corruption for the human soul. The difference lies in how this freedom is accomplished. And this difference distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. All other religions are based in requisite actions or works, whereas Christianity’s promise is based on a work of God. It is this belief more than anything else that produced the inclination in men to modify the practices, methods and eventually the form of government itself, that it might respect the unalienable dignity and freedom of individual men.

It is a tragedy that the great societies of men that have flowered in the west have abused this freedom to produce what is now devolving into arguably the most depraved, and at the very least the most vacuous forms of lifestyle. In this the Moslems have a valid perspective, but we will say no more here about them and their deeply flawed notion of the Living God.

The EAP Theory and the Lens Pole are attempts to find correlatives for man’s perceptive abilities within the observable order and activity of the cosmos and microcosmic realities. But such efforts are unapproachable without deciding just what makes up a human being. And though man is not in the absolute, the creator of his reality, he is a participant in it by the powers of his own perception and his beliefs. These things reside in his soul governing his body and coloring his spirit.

This background on our view of western religious distinction is provided as a backdrop for our thoughts on the human makeup. They are the subject of Part II of this article.