As Above, So Below

06, Dec 1999
'Quest for purpose is what necessitates the ideals without which man cannot live' 'Without our ideals, without our Gods, we are left with nothing but the laws of the jungle'

'Cultural war is raging, killing our self-confidence in who we are and what we believe. Human beings as a particular species cannot exist without ideals. Homo sapiens indeed.

It is said that the African ancients studied the movement of the stars and heavenly bodies astrology and astronomy ie logic applied to the naming and study of stars in attempting to comprehend the nature of the universe and man's place in it.

They adopted the maxim "As above, so below", indicating that the principles that obtained above, in the heavens, so to speak, had to be applied and maintained below in the affairs of man. Much later, that view would come to be incorporated in the Lord's prayer: "On Earth as it is in Heaven".

The mysteries of faith and from this a body of ideals had to emanate from the concreteness of natural environment, there was nothing else from which and with which man could begin his philosophical contemplation. The movement and positioning of the sun and the phases of the moon as well as the correlation thereby between light and darkness provided human beings with the fundamental source of almost all mythology and religion.

The fact that in human language "lunar" means "moon influenced" and when a lunatic acts up we say even today that "he moon up" indicate very, very ancient derivations. Every event, every celebration, every festival has its origin in the understanding of the movement and positioning of the heavenly bodies.

It has been proven that Christianity, a mere 2000 years old in comparison, inculcated and assimilated much of what obtained before, adopted most of the so-called pagan festivals and myths and fashioned them to suit its own requirements. It is said that the very story of the birth, death and resurrection of the "Son" has direct correlation to the movement and positioning of the "sun" between the period of December 25 and the time of Easter.

It is an indication of how the human mind works and how it developed. And metaphorically it all brings recollection of a poem called Sun Ships written by me way back in the turbulent 1970s:

Shall come, a day, shall come
when a burst of human meteors
each to each his own Sun,
must dispel forever
myths that only Gods and their Sons
rise up from the living and the dead....
Shall come a time to travel bright
moments of sun ships ascending
shall come the wisdom of burning light
glorious to warriors beholding...

The human being is the only living organism that has a reasoning capacity, that can link past with present and project for the future. Therefore we are the only living organisms who are capable of asking why? That constant questioning of ourselves and the universe, that quest for purpose is what necessitates the ideals without which, we said at the very beginning, man cannot live.

All our mythologies encapsulate these ideals and have been refined over the centuries to the point that all our representations of God, despite the various names attached to them, exude the same qualities of love, mercy, humility, empathy and compassion.

Man cannot live without representations of God or God-references with which to measure himself, that is the point, and, though much evil can be attributed historically to church and religion, yet still our Christian, Hindu and/or Muslim consciences remain great deterrents to wanton violence and a conception of survival as being only for the fittest and the strongest.

Without our ideals, without our Gods, we are left with nothing but the laws of the jungle. Our consciences and sensibilities tell us today, on the threshold of the new millennium, that we must debunk jungle behaviour in the affairs of mankind. The day of the exploitative predator and ravaging pioneer with superior weaponry and technology must be brought to an end.

No more is there need for the natural environment to be subdued and conquered, the need now is for it, the environment and all the intrinsic parts thereof, to be protected and sustained. All technology of destruction from the mere .22 revolver to the atom bomb must be controlled.

There are those who disagree. There are those who do not see the value-connection between the insane teenager roving the city streets armed with a Gluck or .357 magnum bullying all and sundry, and the State terrorists who rain bombs on less developed countries to fashion a balance of power in their own interest. The morality can be the same, whether one is a crazed teenager or a pleasantly dressed, well-demurred President or Prime Minister.

There are those who feel that it is an honourable principle of life to bear arms regardless. Listen to Charlton Heston, well-known Hollywood actor and vice-president of the National Rifle Association (NRA) of the USA as he addressed their 25th anniversary gala in 1997, not 1797 or 1897, but 1997:
"I have come to realise that a cultural war is raging across our land... storming our values, assaulting our freedoms, killing our self-confidence in who we are and what we believe... you have been assaulted and robbed of the courage of your convictions... you are shamed into silence... because you embrace a view at odds with the cultural warlords... It's plain that our Constitution guarantees law-abiding citizens the right to own a firearm.

"But if I stand up and say so, why does the media assault me with such a slashing, sinister brand of derision filled with hate... Heaven help the God-fearing, law-abiding Caucasian, middle-class, Protestant, or even worse, Evangelical Christian, Midwest or Southern or worse rural, apparently straight, or even worse admittedly heterosexual, gun-owning male, average working (person)..."

Heston identifies what he sees as a basic non-white, lesbian/homosexual, anti-Christian, anti-American conspiracy to remove his rights to bear arms by means of a cultural war that involves "thought-police" who control the media.

With this broad-brush he attacks all decent American citizens who, fed up with the senseless slaughter in their streets, wish to change their world and the relationships therein by starting with the small measure of gun-control.

To that people like Heston take great umbrage! He is right about one thing: a cultural war has well been joined. And we shall stand on the side against all anachronistic sods whose guns are an extension of their penises and their cerebral sense of "self-confidence".

Indeed, the ancients warned us, "as above, so below!"

brenco@tstt.net.tt