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by Phillip D. Collins
June 11, 2009
from
ConspiracyArchive Website
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Phillip D. Collins acted as the editor for The Hidden Face of
Terrorism. He co-authored the book The Ascendancy of the Scientific
Dictatorship, which is available at www.amazon.com. It is also
available as an E-book at www.4acloserlook.com. Phillip has also
written articles for Paranoia Magazine, MKzine, News With Views,
B.I.P.E.D.: The Official Website of Darwinian Dissent and Conspiracy
Archive.
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He has also been interviewed on several radio programs,
including A Closer Look, Peering Into Darkness, From the Grassy
Knoll, Frankly Speaking, the ByteShow, and Sphinx Radio.
In 1999, Phillip earned an Associate degree of Arts and Science. In
2006, he earned a bachelor's degree with a major in communication
studies and liberal studies along with a minor in philosophy. During
the course of his seven-year college career, Phillip has studied
philosophy, religion, political science, semiotics, journalism,
theatre, and classic literature.
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He recently completed a collection
of short stories, poetry, and prose entitled Expansive Thoughts.
Readers can learn more about it at
www.expansivethoughts.com
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Scientific
totalitarianism is certainly not a new topic in the halls
of political science and history.
�
Given its bloody legacy of democide
(i.e., state-sanctioned genocide, mass murder, and politicide) and
its prolific spread throughout the world, scientific totalitarianism
remains a preoccupying sociopolitical phenomenon of the 20th
century. Yet, few researchers have examined the epistemological
foundations of scientific totalitarianism.
�
In turn, an understanding of scientific
totalitarianism's epistemological roots elucidates an occult
conception of science, which edified the sundry
Weltanschauungs of
sociopolitical Utopians (e.g., socialists of either the communist or
fascist ilk). In light of this core epistemological commonality, all
forms of sociopolitical Utopianism could be considered the
manifestations of a trans-historical occult counterculture movement.
To understand the occult conception of science, one must first
establish a working definition for traditional science. The word
"science" is derived from the Latin word scientia, which
means "knowing" or "knowledge."
�
Thus, there is an epistemological
dimension to science. After all,
epistemology is etymologically
derived from the Greek word episteme, which also means "knowing" or
"knowledge." In recent years, science has been couched in the
epistemology of radical empiricism, the theory that all knowledge is
derived from the senses.
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Within such epistemologically rigid
parameters, the gaze of contemporary science has been firmly fixed
upon the ontological confines of the physical universe. Whether the
modern scientist realizes it or cares to admit it, radical
empiricism is the epistemological nucleus of the occult conception
of science.
Yet, science has not always labored under such epistemological
rigidity.
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In Confession of Nature, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
establishes the centrality of a supra-sensible God to
science. According to Leibniz, the proximate origins of "magnitude,
figure, and motion," which constitute the "primary qualities" of
corporeal bodies, "cannot be found in the essence of the body" (de
Hoyos, "The Enlightenment's Crusade Against Reason").
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Linda de Hoyos reveals the point
at which science finds a dilemma:
The problem arises when the
scientist asks why the body fills this space and not another;
for example, why it should be three feet long rather than two,
or square rather than round. This cannot be explained by the
nature of the bodies themselves, since the matter is
indeterminate as to any definite figure, whether square or
round.
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For the scientist who refuses to resort to an incorporeal
cause, there can be only two answers. Either the body has been
this way since eternity, or it has been made square by the
impact of another body.
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"Eternity" is no answer, since the
body could have been round for eternity also. If the answer is
"the impact of another body," there remains the question of why
it should have had any determinate figure before such motion
acted upon it. This question can then be asked again and again,
backwards to infinity.
�
Therefore, it appears that the reason for
a certain figure and magnitude in bodies can never be found in
the nature of these bodies themselves.
(Ibid)
The same can be established for the
body's cohesion and firmness, which left Leibniz with the following
conclusion:
Since we have demonstrated that
bodies cannot have a determinate figure, quantity, or motion,
without an incorporeal being, it readily becomes apparent that
this incorporeal being is one for all, because of the harmony of
things among themselves, especially since bodies are moved not
individually by this incorporeal being but by each other.
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But no reason can be given why this
incorporeal being chooses one magnitude, figure, and motion
rather than another, unless he is intelligent and wise with
regard to the beauty of things and powerful with regard to their
obedience to their command.
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Therefore such an incorporeal being
be a mind ruling the whole world, that is, God.
(Ibid)
Thus, Leibniz concludes that,
�corporeal phenomena cannot be
explained without an incorporeal principle, that is God"
(ibid)
In fact, the ontological plane of the
physical universe cannot be considered a subsistent form of
substance per se. It is underpinned by an immaterial order. The
manifestation of sensible objects within corporeality is the result
of the unseen interchange of transcendent principles outside of the
temporal spatial realm.
�
Rene Guenon recapitulates:
The truth is that the corporeal
world cannot be regarded as being a whole sufficient to itself,
nor as being isolated from the totality of universal
manifestation: on the contrary, whatever the present state of
things may look like as a result of "solidification," the
corporeal world proceeds entirely from the subtle order, in
which it can be said to have its immediate principle, and
through that order as intermediary it is attached successively
to formless manifestation and finally to the non-manifested.
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If
it were not so, its existence could be nothing but a pure
illusion, a sort of phantasmagoria behind which there would be
nothing at all, which amounts to saying that it would not really
exist in any way.
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That being the case, there cannot be
anything in the corporeal world such that its existence does not
depend directly on elements belonging to the subtle order, and
beyond them, on some principle that can be called "spiritual,"
for without the latter no manifestation of any kind is possible,
on any level whatsoever.
(213-14)
Deriving immaterial universals (e.g.,
mathematical axioms, God, etc.) from the sensible world is known as
abstraction.
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The apostle Paul demonstrates
abstraction in Romans 1:20:
"For the invisible things of him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power
and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."
Thus, while traditional science
concerned itself with the natural world, it simultaneously
recognized and acknowledged the reality of universals. Herein is
this researcher's working definition for traditional science.
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The rejection of universals, on the
other hand, paves the way for the occult conception of science.
The rejection of universals began with
nominalism, a philosophical
doctrine that was formulated in the Middle Ages. Nominalism
originated with William of Ockham, who was born in 1290.
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Ockham
confused ideas, which inhabited the Intellect, with the subjective
images that inhabited the imagination
(Coomaraswamy, "The
Fundamental Nature of the Conflict Between Modern and Traditional
Man� -Often Called the Conflict Between Science and Faith").
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As Aquinas made clear in Summa Theologiae, images only capture things in their singularity.
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Ideas,
on the other hand, capture things in their universality:
Our intellect cannot know the
singular in material things directly and primarily. The reason
for this is that the principle of singularity in material things
is individual matter; whereas our intellect understands by
abstracting the intelligible species from such matter. Now what
is abstracted from individual matter is universal.
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Hence our intellect knows directly
only universals. But indirectly, however, and as it were by a
kind of reflexion, it can know the singular, because even after
abstracting the intelligible species, the intellect, in order to
understand actually, needs to turn to the phantasms in which it
understands the species.
�
Therefore it understands the universal
directly through the intelligible species, and indirectly the
singular represented by the phantasm. And thus it forms the
proposition, "Socrates is a man."
(Pt. I, Qu. 86, Art. I)
Ockham failed to make this distinction,
thereby reducing ideas to mere impressions on the imagination
stemming from sense perception
(Coomaraswamy, "The Fundamental
Nature of the Conflict Between Modern and Traditional Man - Often
Called the Conflict Between Science and Faith").
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This epistemological confusion led
Ockham to reject universals
(ibid). Although Ockham still believed
in God, he denied the objective character of God
(ibid). Thus, God
became an unknowable abstraction fraught with ambiguities.
Such a nebulous conception of God leads one to regard faith as
"blind." Yet, true faith is not blind. The Greek word for "faith" in
the New Testament is pistis. The term was also invoked by Aristotle
and connotes forensic proof. Forensic proof is evidentiary, not
blind. Likewise, many of the Apostles made evidentiary appeals for
the faith.
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For instance, in Acts 2:22-36, Peter
makes three evidentiary citations in defense of the faith. He cites
Jesus' "miracles and wonders and signs." He cites the empty
tomb. Lastly, he cites the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
Thus, Peter's apologia was premised upon evidence or, as the term
pistis connotes, proofs.
In addition to casting faith in a rather derisive light, nominalism
led to the bifurcation of epistemology into what is quantifiably or
empirically demonstrable and what is believed (ibid). In turn, this
bifurcation is a slippery slope towards the belief that all things
quantifiable represent the totality of reality. Suddenly, all of
those entities that defy quantification (e.g., the "good," the
"beautiful," dignity, God, etc.) are relegated to impotent and
ambiguous subjectivism.
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Such epistemological rigidity underpins
scientism, which mandates the universal imposition of science upon
all fields of inquiry. The modern mind, chronocentric as it is,
might consider such an imposition favorable. However, it is very
dangerous.
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Michael Hoffman elaborates on this danger:
The reason that science is a bad master and dangerous servant and
ought not to be worshipped is that science is not objective. Science
is fundamentally about the uses of measurement.
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What does not fit
the yardstick of the scientist is discarded. Scientific determinism
has repeatedly excluded some data from its measurement and fudged
other data, such as Piltdown Man, in order to support the
self-fulfilling nature of its own agenda, be it
Darwinism or "cut,
burn and poison" methods of cancer "treatment."
(49)
When extended beyond its legitimate fields of application, science
becomes a rigid template to which even the most complex of entities,
like man, must conform. The scientific outlook acknowledges no moral
master. It gives no assent to moral or esthetic judgments.
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In the
words of B.F. Skinner, it "de-homunculizes" man, a being that was
originally "defended by the literatures of freedom and dignity"
(189-91).
Nominalism rode into epistemological dominance astride the
Protestant Reformation. The father of the first Reformation, Martin
Luther, was actually an unconscious agent of secularization. Under
Catholicism, the truth had become the province of priests and other
self-proclaimed "mediators of God." However, Luther made the mistake
of adopting nominalism as one of the chief philosophical foundations
for his doctrines.
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In The Western Experience, the
authors write:
[S]ome of Luther's positions had
roots in nominalism, the most influential philosophical and
theological movement of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
which had flourished at his old monastery.
(450)
By the time Luther's ideas were codified
in the Augsburg Confession, nominalism was already beginning to
co-opt christianity .
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Nominalism's rejection of a knowable God
harmonized with the superstitious notions of the time.
Misunderstanding the troubles that beset them, many peasants made
the anthropic attribution of the Black Death to God's will.
Following this baseless assumption to its logical conclusion, many
surmised that God was neither merciful nor knowable.
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Such inferences clearly overlooked the
sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which represented the ultimate act of
grace on God's part. Nevertheless, the superstitious populace were
beginning to accept the new portrayal of God as an indifferent
deistic spirit. Nominalism merely edified such beliefs. Invariably,
nominalism would seduce those who would eventually convert to
Protestantism.
Christians should have had more than a few philosophical misgivings
with nominalism, especially in light of its commonalities with
anthropocentric humanism:
Although nominalists and humanists were frequently at odds, they did
share a dissatisfaction with aspects of the medieval intellectual
tradition, especially the speculative abstractions of medieval
thought; and both advocated approaches to reality that concentrated
on the concrete and the present and demanded a strict awareness of
method. (424)
Suddenly, christianity was infused with materialism and radical
empiricism.
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There was an occult character to both of
these philosophical positions. Radical empiricism rejects causality,
thereby abolishing any epistemological certainty and reducing
reality to a holograph that can be potentially manipulated through
the "sorcery" of science. Materialism emphasizes the primacy of
matter, inferring that the physical universe is a veritable golem
that created itself.
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Despite their clearly anti-theistic
nature, these ideas began to insinuate themselves within
christianity .
With nominalist epistemology enshrined, man was ontologically
isolated from his creator. Knowledge was purely the province of the
senses and the physical universe constituted the totality of reality
itself. Increasingly, theologians invoked naturalistic
interpretations of the scriptures, thereby negating the miraculous
and supernatural nature of God.
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The spiritual elements that remained
embedded in christianity� assumed more of a Gnostic character,
depicting the physical body as an impediment to man's knowledge of
God and venerating death as a welcome release from a corporeal
prison. Gradually, a Hegelian synthesis between spiritualism and
materialism was occurring. The result was a paganized christianity ,
which hardly promised the abundant life offered by its savior.
Luther's unwitting role in the popularization of such thinking
suggests an occult manipulation. There is already a body of evidence
supporting the contention that occult elements had penetrated
christendom and were working towards its demise.
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Malachi Martin
states:
"As we know, some of the chief architects of the
Reformation - Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Johannes Reuchlin,
Jan Amos Komensky - belonged to occult societies"
(521)
Author William Bramley presents evidence that supports Martin's
contention:
Luther's seal consisted of his
initials on either side of two Brotherhood symbols: the rose and
the cross. The rose and cross are the chief symbols of the
Rosicrucian Order. The word "Rosicrucian" itself comes from the
Latin words "rose" ("rose") and "cruces" ("cross").
(205)
Luther's involvement in the Rosicrucian
Order made him an ideal instrument of
secret societies.
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Michael Howard reveals explains
the motive for this manipulation:
The Order had good political reasons
for initially supporting the Protestant cause. On the surface,
as heirs to the pre-christian ancient wisdom, the secret
societies would have gained little from religious reform.
However, by supporting the Protestant dissidents they helped to
weaken the political power of the
Roman Catholic Church, the
traditional enemy of
the Cathars, the
Templars and the
Freemasons.
(54)
However, occultism was not the only
belief system benefiting from the Reformation.
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Luther's also acted as an effective
apologist for oligarchical interests. Many of the secret societies
supporting Luther acted as elite conduits. While Luther was already
ideologically aligned with the elites in many ways, he officially
became their property in 1521. In this year, the papacy's secular
representative, Emperor Charles V, summoned Luther to a Diet at the
city known as Worms
(Chambers, Hanawalt, et al. 449).
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Luther was to defend himself against a
papal decree that excommunicated him from the church
(449).
At the Diet, Luther refused to recant any of his beliefs
(450).
This led to the Emperor issuing an imperial edict for the monk's
arrest (450).
However, Luther was rescued by the Elector Frederick III of Saxony
(450).
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Frederick staged a kidnapping of the
monk and hid him away in Wartburg Castle
(450).
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The regional warlord of Saxony had much to gain by protecting
Luther. Frederick represented a group of German princes that opposed
the influence of the Church and its secular representative, the
Emperor (450).
These elites would use Luther's teachings to justify defying the
ecclesiastical authorities and establishing their own secular
systems. In the end, the Reformation reformed nothing at all.
�
It caused a division in christendom and
paved the way for Europe�s secularization.
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Howard states:
Indirectly the Reformation gave the
impetus for the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth
century, which centred on Newton, and led to the founding of the
Royal Society after the English Civil War.
(148)
The "Scientific Revolution" facilitated
by the Reformation led to the popularization of nominalism, which
was radically scientistic and occult in character.
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Commensurate with this paradigm shift
was the rise of the rise of the Enlightenment. Not surprisingly, the
writers of
Encyclop�die, which was edited by
Enlightenment thinker Denis Diderot, "praised Protestant thinkers". The same secret societies that
managed the dialectical conflict between the protestants and
catholics played a prevalent role in the Enlightenment.
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Reiterating this contention, atheist
scholar Conrad Goeringer states:
[S]ecret societies and salons,
lodges of the Freemasons and private reading clubs would become
the focal points for the sedicious and "impious" activists of
the Enlightenment. Masonry required that novitiates pass through
a series of degrees, accompanied by symbolic ritual, whereupon
the secrets of the craft were gradually unfolded; the metaphors
of masonry, the remaking of humanity as early masons had remade
rough stone, soon served as a revolutionary allegory.
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This became the new model of
revolutionary organization � lodges of brothers, all seeking to
reconstruct within their own circle an "inner light" to radiate
forth wisdom into the world, to "illuminate" the sagacity of the
Enlightenment. So pervasive and appealing was this notion that
even relatively conservative and respected members of society
could entertain the prospect of a new Utopia, "or at least a
social alternative to the ancient regime...."
("The Enlightenment, Freemasonry,
and the Illuminati")
The Enlightenment, which acted as the
crucible for all modern sociopolitical Utopianism, represented the
codification of Gnostic occultism as revolutionary doctrine.
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The new gnosis was science, which
Enlightenment thinkers believed should be universally imposed upon
all fields of inquiry. For the violent, revolutionary wing of the
Enlightenment (e.g., the Illuminati, the Jacobins, etc.), the
universal imposition of science included governance. Herein is the
conceptual basis for all scientific totalitarianism.
In the context of governance, science invariably becomes an
oppressor. The scientifically regimented state must jettison the
concepts of freedom and dignity because they defy quantification.
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G.K. Chesterton elaborates on the
folly of applying the scientific method to governance:
The thing that really is trying to
tyrannize through government is Science. The thing that really
does use the secular arm is Science. And the creed that really
is levying tithes and capturing schools, the creed that really
is enforced by fine and imprisonment, the creed that really is
proclaimed not in sermons but in statutes, and spread not by
pilgrims but by policemen - that creed is the great but disputed
system of thought which began with Evolution and has ended in
Eugenics.
�
Materialism is really our
established Church; for the Government will really help it to
persecute its heretics. Vaccination, in its hundred years of
experiment, has been disputed almost as much as baptism in its
approximate two thousand. But it seems quite natural to our
politicians to enforce vaccination; and it would seem to them
madness to enforce baptism.
In the scientifically regimented state,
the citizen becomes little more than an amalgam of behavioral
repertoires whose every thought, feeling, and idea is the product of
external stimuli.
�
From the scientistic vantage point, the
populace's motivations can be calculated and systematized, thereby
allowing those few conditioners who are accountable to no moral
master to develop economic and technological stimuli that can
produce the desired patterns of mass behavior.
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Such a societal model is known as a
Technocracy, which Frank Fischer defines as follows:
"Technocracy, in classical political
terms, refers to a system of governance in which technically
trained experts rule by virtue of their specialized knowledge
and position in dominant political and economic institutions"
(17)
Aldous Huxley also posited such a
societal model, which he dubbed a "scientific dictatorship":
The older dictators fell because they could never supply their
subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles, and
mysteries. Under a scientific dictatorship, education will really
work with the result that most men and women will grow up to love
their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to
be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should
ever be overthrown. (116)
This societal model is exemplified by Henri de Saint-Simon's
physiological interpretation of the state, which extrapolated
radical empiricism to "the altogether new field of social
relations."
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Adherents of Saint-Simon's philosophy
contended that,
"the key to diagnosing and curing
the ills of humanity lay in an objective understanding of the
physiological realities that lay behind all thinking and
feeling"
(Billington 212)
Following this physiological
interpretation of governance to its logical ends, Saint-Simon
developed the precursor to Marx's "scientific socialism":
Believing that the scientific method should be applied to the body
of society as well as to the individual body, Saint-Simon proceeded
to analyze society in terms of its physiological components:
classes.
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He never conceived of economic classes in the Marxian
sense, but his functional class analysis prepared the way for Marx.
(213)
Friedrich Engels described Marx's theory as "scientific socialism"
because both science and Marxism bestowed epistemological primacy
upon observable phenomenon.
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Thus, radical empiricism provides the
epistemological basis for all modern forms of scientific
totalitarianism.
Interestingly enough, radical empiricism was embraced by many
members of the
Bavarian Illuminati. In his outstanding tome
Perfectibilists: The 18th Century Bavarian Order of the Illuminati
researcher Terry Melanson reveals that the complete works of
Venetian author and reformer Paolo Sarpi constituted recommended
reading for Illuminati initiates
(475).
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As is evidenced by his own
epistemological ruminations, Sarpi was a radical empiricist:
�There are four modes of
philosophizing: the first with reason alone, the second with
sense alone, the third with reason and then sense, and the
fourth beginning with sense and ending with reason. The first is
the worst, because from it we know what we would like to be, not
what is. The third is bad because we many times distort what is
into what we would like, rather than adjusting what we would
like to what is.
�
The second is true but crude,
permitting us to know little and that rather of things than of
their causes. The fourth is the best we can have in this
miserable life.�
(Qutd. in "How the Venetians Took
Over England and Created Freemasonry")
Numerous researchers have demonstrated
the ideological continuity that binds the Illuminati and communism.
�
For instance, Melanson exhaustively
details the revolutionary r�sum� of Filippo Michele Buonarroti, who
provides a,
�direct line of influence from the
Illuminati to the French Revolution to the Communist League of the Just.�
(134)
Not
surprisingly, all of the planks of Marx�s Communist Manifesto
virtually mirrored the objectives of
the Illuminati.
�
Likewise, both
the Illuminati and communism shared the same epistemological
predisposition: radical empiricism. Again, it is with radical
empiricism that one finds another occult element of sociopolitical
Utopianism. This epistemology stems from the Gnostic derision of pistis.
Moreover, radical empiricism arrives at conclusions that are
inescapably mystical in character. An exclusively empirical approach
relegates cause to the realm of metaphysical fantasy. This holds
enormous ramifications for science.
�
What is perceived as A causing B could
be merely a consequence of circumstantial juxtaposition. Although
temporal succession and spatial proximity are axiomatic, causal
connection is not. Affirmation of causal relationships is
impossible. Given the absence of causality, all of a scientist's
findings must be taken upon faith. Ironically, science relies on the
affirmation of such cause and effect relationships.
That such mystical elements pervade radical empiricism comes as
little surprise. Modern science, which finds its epistemological
foundations in radical empiricism, has all of the elements of a
myth.
�
Self-avowed "shaman of scientism"
Michael Shermer has proposed that the scientist should assume
the role of the modern mythmaker:
"...because of language we are also
storytelling, mythmaking primates, with scientism as the
foundational stratum of our story and scientists as the premier
mythmakers of our time"
("The Shamans of Scientism").
As mythmakers, modern scientific
materialists have sought to supplant the
traditional religious
systems of the past with their own theocratic order. This new
configuration of society demands a new myth.
�
Rene Guenon eloquently
synopsizes:
"Thus it comes about that there has
grown up in the 'scientistic' mentality... a real 'mythology':
most certainly not in the original and transcendent meaning
applicable to the traditional 'myths,' but merely in the
'pejorative' meaning which the word has acquired in recent
speech"
(151)
According to the late Joseph Campbell,
science functions as a cosmological myth:
"[T]he second function of a
mythology is to render a cosmology, an image of the universe,
and for this we all turn today not to archaic religious texts,
but to science"
(116)
The image of the universe as rendered by
science is an inherently mutable one. Matter, from the scientistic
vantage point, is malleable and can be manipulated through the
gnosis of science.
�
Comenius articulated this scientistic vantage
point in his 1668 tract entitled, The Way of Light.
Interestingly enough, the manifesto was dedicated to the British
Royal Society, which was, arguably, a Masonic institution:
Virtually all the Royal Society's
founding members were Freemasons. One could reasonably argue
that the Royal Society itself, at least in its inception, was a
Masonic institution - derived, through Andrea's Christian
Unions, from the "invisible Rosicrucian brotherhood.�
(Baigent, et al, 144)
The significance of this fact comes into
clearer focus when one considers the fact that Freemasonry
originated with "a network of Humanist associations" throughout
early-Renaissance Italy (Martin 518-19).
�
These early humanists, who would
eventually co-opt the operative Mason guilds in the late 1500s,
transplanted the concept of gnosis (i.e., special knowledge, not
standard epistemological knowledge) within the ontological confines
of the physical universe:
Whether out of historical ignorance
or willfulness of both, Italian humanists bowdlerized the idea
of Kabbala almost beyond recognition. They reconstructed the
concept of gnosis, and transferred it to a thoroughly
this-worldly plane. The special gnosis they sought was a secret
knowledge of how to master the blind forces of nature for a
sociopolitical purpose.
(519-20)
Famous atheist philosopher Bertrand
Russell reiterated this theme of mastering the "blind forces of
nature," emphasizing science as the new gnosis that could achieve
such an end:
The way in which science arrives at
its beliefs is quite different from that of medieval theology.
Experience has shown that it is dangerous to start from general
principles and proceed deductively, both because the principles
may be untrue and because the reasoning based upon them may be
fallacious.
�
Science starts, not from large
assumptions, but from particular facts discovered by observation
or experiment. From a number of such facts a general rule is
arrived at, of which, if it is true, the facts in question are
instances. Science thus encourages abandonment of the search for
absolute truth, which belongs to any theory that can be
successfully employed in inventions or in predicting the future.
�
"Technical" truth is a matter of
degree: a theory from which more successful inventions and
predictions spring is truer than one which gives rise to fewer.
"Knowledge" ceases to be a mental mirror of the universe, and
becomes merely a practical tool in the manipulation of matter.
(13 - 15; emphasis added)
The manipulation of matter is a
consistently recapitulated theme among sociopolitical Utopians.
�
This theme gains greater significance
when one ponders the etymology of the term "Technocracy." Not
surprisingly, most sociopolitical movements throughout history have
sought to instantiate technocratic forms of governance.
�
"Technocracy" is a very interesting
appellation to assign such a form of governance. It is attached to
the Greek word techne, which means "craft." Simply defined,
"crafting" is the skillful creation of something. Hence, expressions
such as "outstanding craftsmanship" or a "master of the craft." In
the context of sociopolitical Utopianism, "crafting" is the skillful
creation (or, more succinctly, re-sculpting) of reality itself.
�
The "special gnosis" of science has
provided the means through techne.
�
Mark Pesce, co-inventor of
Virtual Reality Modeling Language, elaborates:
"The enduring
archetype of techne within the pre-Modern era is magic, of an
environment that conforms entirely to the will of being"
("Ontos and
Techne")
Commenting upon techne's role in
manipulating matter, Pesce writes:
"Each endpoint of techne has
an expression in the modern world as a myth of fundamental
direction--the mastery of matter..."
(ibid).
From this distinctly occult vantage
point, technology, which represents the practical application of
science, is a form of sorcery for manipulating and mastering matter.
�
Modern science views matter as the
primary substance that constitutes the fabric of the physical
universe. In turn, modern science views the ontological confines of
the physical universe as the totality of reality. Thus, he who has
mastered matter through the gnosis of science has mastered reality
itself. Reality becomes a malleable lump of clay to be molded by the
omnipotent fingers of the scientific adept.
�
Of course, such an adept would qualify
as a deity. After all, shaping reality was originally the province
of God.
�
According to semiotician Elizabeth C.
Hirschman, man's apotheosis lies at the core of science as a
cosmological myth:
The rise of Science as a
cosmological mythology in the 1500's set up a struggle with the
prevailing metaphysical doctrine of Christian theology, which...
has never been resolved as a cultural discourse. At its core,
the conflict centers around the usurpation of god-like powers by
man. Armed with such supernatural abilities, humans can
manipulate and alter life in ways that are reserved by
Nature/God.
�
The first cultural myth
encapsulating the is conflict was, of course, the Faust legend,
in which a medical doctor (i.e., scientist) sold his soul to
Mephistopheles (i.e., the Devil) in exchange for knowledge and
power belonging to God.
(21; Emphasis added)
The Faust legend echoes the theme of
Genesis 3:5, where the serpent promises Eve that "...ye shall be as
gods."
�
The apostle John identifies the serpent
as Satan in Revelation 20:2. Not surprisingly, Satan was an object
of veneration for early sociopolitical Utopians, particularly those
of the Enlightenment. For instance, a picture of Lucifer (i.e.,
Satan's original angelic persona) adorned the title page of the
first edition of Diderot's Encyclopedie
(Goeringer, "The
Enlightenment, Freemasonry, and the Illuminati").
�
This veneration of the Devil under his
original angelic title constitutes the religion of Luciferianism.
�
Like some varieties of Satanism, Luciferianism does not depict the
devil as a literal metaphysical entity. Instead, Lucifer symbolizes
the cognitive powers of man. He is the embodiment of science and
reason. It is the Luciferian's religious conviction that these two
facilitative forces will dethrone the "superstitious" institutions
of God and apotheosize man.
However, Lucifer would assume yet another title.
�
The term Lucifer, as translated
by St. Jerome from the original hebrew Helel ("bright one"),
shares the same meaning as Prometheus who brought fire to humanity
("Lucifer"). The mythical character of Prometheus was central to the
Utopian vision of early socialist revolutionaries.
�
James A. Billington explains:
A recurrent mythic theme for
revolutionaries - early romantics, the young Marx, the Russians
of Lenin's time - was Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods
for the use of mankind. The Promethean faith of revolutionaries
resembled in many respects the general belief that science would
lead men out of darkness into light.
(6; emphasis added)
Of course, such a messianic view of
science is vintage scientism. One of the earliest exponents of this scientistic Weltanschauung was Sir
Francis Bacon, who coined the
famous aphorism:
"Knowledge itself is power."
According to Carl Raschke, this
dictum is thematically underpinned by Gnostic occultism:
"The well-known maxim of Bacon,
nam
et ipsa scientia potestas est ('Knowledge itself is power'), is
often commemorated as the credo of the new science, but it also
suits quite precisely the magico-religious mentality of
Gnosticism"
(49)
Bacon was a member of a secret society
called the Order of the Helmet
(Howard 74).
�
The organization's name was derived from
Pallas Athene, the Greek goddess of wisdom who was portrayed wearing
a helmet (Howard 74).
Although regarded as an innovator of science by orthodox academia,
Bacon's studies mostly embraced occultism.
�
In his youth, Bacon was "a student of
Hermetic, Gnostic, and neo-Platonist philosophy and had studied the
Cabbala" (Howard 74).
Allegedly, Bacon was also a Grand Master of the secret Rosicrucian
Order (Howard 74). The Rosicrucians were closely associated with
Freemasonry (Howard 50).
In fact, a Rosicrucian poem written in 1638 voices the
organization's close ties with the Lodge
(Howard 50).
�
It reads,
"For what we presage is not in
grosse, for we brethren of the Rosie Crosse, we have the Mason's
Word and second sight, things to come we can foretell aright..."
(qutd. in Howard 50).
In other words, Rosicrucians knew the,
"inner secrets of Freemasonry and
possessed the psychic power to predict the future"
(Howard 50).
In 1627, Bacon published a novel
entitled
The New Atlantis
(Howard 74).
�
The pages of Bacon's book
were adorned with Freemasonic symbols, such as,
"the compass and
square, the two pillars of Solomon's temple and the blazing
triangle, and the eye of God, indicating his association with the
secret societies who supported his Utopian concepts"
(Howard 75)
The novel "describes the creation of the
Invisible College advocated
in Rosicrucian writings" (Howard 74). This Rosicrucian mandate for
an "Invisible College" was realized with the formation of the
Royal
Society in 1660 (Howard 57).
Fischer synopsizes Bacon's "Utopian concepts":
For Bacon, the defining feature of
history was rapidly becoming the rise and growth of science and
technology. Where Plato had envisioned a society governed by
"philosopher kings," men who could perceive the "forms" of
social justice, Bacon sought a technical elite who would rule in
the name of efficiency and technical order.
�
Indeed, Bacon's purpose in The New
Atlantis was to replace the philosopher with the research
scientist as the ruler of the utopian future, New Atlantis was a
pure technocratic society.
(66-67)
Not surprisingly, the socialist
revolutionaries of the Promethean faith sought to tangibly enact
their own conception of Bacon's New Atlantis.
�
Sociopolitical Utopians, their various
ideological permutations notwithstanding, have always strove to
establish a "pure technocratic society." Sociopolitical Utopianism
is, in turn, derivative of Gnosticism. This derivation is
illustrated by sociopolitical Utopianism's rejection of pistis,
which the early Gnostics considered inferior to gnosis.
Yet, the sociopolitical Utopian's derision for cognitio fidei led
revolutionaries to conclusions that were even more radical than
those of traditional Gnosticism. For traditional Gnostics, the
transcendent held primacy over the immanent. The sociopolitical
Utopian, on the other hand, re-conceptualized transcendent objects
of faith as objects of immanent experience.
�
This re-conceptualization began with the
Gnostic desire to draw knowledge that was commonly associated with
the transcendent,
"into a firmer grip than the cognitio fidei, the
cognition of faith, will afford"
(Voegelin 124)
The resultant
Weltanschauung, however, bestowed metaphysical primacy upon the
ontological confines of the physical universe.
�
Thus, sociopolitical Utopians attempted
to transplant objects of faith within the finitude of human
knowledge and experience. In this sense, the sociopolitical Utopian
qualifies as a new Gnostic whose immanentist impulses find
affirmation in scientific materialism.
One object of faith that this modern incarnation of Gnosticism
sought to draw into human history was the Eschaton (i.e., the End of
Days):
"In place of an Eschaton which ontologically transcends the
confines of this world, the modern Gnostic envisions an End within
history, an Eschaton, therefore, which is to be realized within the
ontological plane of this visible universe"
(Smith 238; emphasis
added)
Herein is the conceptual basis for the Utopian vision of a
"heaven on earth."
�
It is premised upon Gnostic epistemology
and, as such, is inherently occult in character. Its adherents
spawned secular revolutionary movements that, sociologically,
behaved like religions:
In this century, with the
presentation of traditional religious positions in secular form,
there has emerged a secular Gnosticism beside the other great
secular religions - the mystical union of Fascism, the apocalypse
of Marxist dialectic, the Earthly City of social democracy. The
secular Gnosticism is almost never recognized for what it is,
and it can exist alongside other convictions almost unperceived.
(Webb 418)
Secular Gnosticism has manifested itself
throughout the 20th and 21st century in a myriad of forms.
�
Of course, the two most prominent
examples are the ideological kissing cousins of communism and
fascism. Other variants include neoconservativism, neo-liberalism,
secular progressivism, and technoprogressivism.
�
While many of these secular Gnostic
permutations have superficially feuded with each other over the
years, they all have shared a core dialectical commonality: the
Utopian vision of "heaven on earth."
�
In turn, this vision is couched in the
anthropocentric dictum of Protagoras:
"Man is the measure of all things."
This dictum echoes the promise of the
serpent in Eden:
"...ye shall be as gods."
In
The Hypostasis of the Archons, an
Egyptian Gnostic text, the serpent in Eden is portrayed as
humanity's benevolent "Instructor" and "incognito savior"
(Raschke 27).
�
Meanwhile, the Hypostasis caricatures
Jehovah as "the archon of arrogance"
(27).
Gnosticism's veneration of the serpent and misotheistic view of
Jehovah bespeaks the perennial ambition to usurp the throne of God.
The aspiration to achieve apotheosis was a defining feature of the
Mystery cults of pagan antiquity. It is also lies at the heart of
Gnosticism.
�
While Gnosticism's origins with the Ancient Mystery
cults remain a source of contention amongst scholars, its promise of
liberation from humanity's material side is strongly akin to the old
pagan Mystery's variety of "psychic therapy"
(28).
�
In addition, the Ancient Mystery
religion promised the,
"opportunity to erase the curse of
mortality by direct encounter with the patron deity, or in many
instances by actually undergoing an apotheosis, a
transfiguration of human into divine"
(28).
It is interesting to recall Billington's
observation that the young Marx venerated Prometheus as the
allegorical embodiment of science
(6).
�
Science, according to the Promethean
faith, was the new lantern of salvation that would "lead men out of
darkness into light"
(6).
Given this Promethean reverence for
science, it is interesting to recall that Engels described Marx's
theory as "scientific socialism".
�
Again, Engels' selection of this
appellation was predicated upon the common epistemological
foundations of Marxism and modern science: radical empiricism.
�
Saint-Simon's functional class analysis,
which,
"prepared the way for Marx," stemmed
from the extension of "radical empiricism into the altogether
new field of social relations"
(Billington 212-13).
Herein is the epistemological foundation
for all modern totalitarianism. In turn, that epistemological
foundation stems from the Gnostic rejection of pistis. Thus,
Gnostic occultism constitutes the epistemological heritage of almost
all modern socialist totalitarian regimes.
Returning to Marx's preoccupation with Prometheus, it is interesting
to recall that the mythic figure's name shares the same meaning with
the term "Lucifer," as translated by St. Jerome from the original hebrew Helel ("Lucifer"). Marx's possible
flirtation with Satanism
is an often overlooked, yet controversial topic.
�
It is not this researcher's contention
that Marx was a Satanist in the traditional sense. In all
likelihood, Marx probably denied the existence of Satan as a literal
metaphysical entity. Yet, it is important to remember that the
Luciferian conception of Satan is premised upon the same existential
contention. From Marx's neo-Gnostic vantage point, Lucifer or
Prometheus was probably rendered immanent by the cognitive powers of
man.
�
Ultimately, whether or not Marx was a
Satanist is irrelevant. Essentially, one needn't accept the
existence of Satan if one accepts the principles embodied by the
Fallen One.
�
In his poem "Human Pride,"
Marx
expressed the Luciferian aspiration to achieve apotheosis:
With disdain I will throw my
gauntlet full in the face of the world,
And see the collapse of
this pygmy giant whose fall will not stifle my ardor.
Then will
I wander godlike and victorious through the ruins of the world
And, giving my words an active force,
I will feel equal to the
Creator.
("Human Pride")
Ironically, Promethean revolutionaries,
whose Weltanschauung was heavily informed by Marxism, murdered
millions of the very species that they sought to apotheosize.
�
Marx's
words, when given "active force," apotheosized the State. The State,
in turn, subordinated the individual to the collective. The
individual could no longer lay claim to any intrinsic value.
�
Instead, meaning and purpose were only
found in the group. Thus, Marxism actually devalued humanity. Again,
it is extremely ironic that such devaluation stemmed from an
anthropocentric belief system. Yet, such contradictions proliferated
the Weltanschauung of the Promethean radicals and still persist in
the minds of the modern purveyors of socialism.
�
Chesterton enumerates the various
internal contradictions of the revolutionary
Weltanschauung:
All denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind and the
modern skeptic doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the
doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book
complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women,
and then writes another book, a novel in which he insults it
himself. As a politician he will cry out that war is a waste of
life, and then as a philosopher that all of life is a waste of time.
�
A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant,
and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the
peasant ought to have killed himself.
�
A man denounces marriage as a
lie and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a
lie.
The man of this school goes first to a political meeting where he
complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts. Then he
takes his hat and umbrella and goes to a scientific meeting where he
proves that they practically are beasts.
�
In short, the modern
revolutionist, being an infinite skeptic, is forever engaged in
undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men
for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality
for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt becomes
practically useless for all purposes of revolt.
�
By rebelling against
everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.
(41)
Thus, when the modern revolutionary tangibly enacts his Utopian
vision, it automatically qualifies as a dystopian nightmare for
others.
�
Promises of unlimited freedom begin to fade as the
apotheosized State confiscates the citizenry�s wealth in the name of
socioeconomic egalitarianism and imprisons dissidents. In the name
of facilitating evolution, a theory that the orthodoxy of science
has deemed infallible, those members of the human species who fail
to meet the arbitrarily established standards of biological and
genetic purity are expunged through eugenical regimentation.
�
Fanatical as they are in their scientism, modern revolutionaries
view man himself as a quantifiable entity.
�
The irreducible
complexity of humanity is overlooked as man is gradually transformed
into a paint-by-numbers schematic. Society, by extension, is also
considered a quantifiable entity.
�
Thus, modern revolutionaries work
to install their own bowdlerized form of democracy: the democracy of
�experts.�
�
By virtue of their own purported scientific and technical
expertise, these policy professionals calculate and systematize the
motivations of the populace and develop economic and technological
stimuli that can produce the desired patterns of mass behavior.
The final and most tragic casualty of this form of governance is not
the political dissident or the marginalized �dysgenic.�
�
Ultimately,
the final victim of scientific totalitarianism is the human soul.
Man, from the scientistic vantage point, is little more than amalgam
of behavioral repertoires. He is a tabula rasa whose value depends
entirely upon the final portrait rendered by the brush strokes of
his �enlightened� conditioners. If he cannot or does not conform to
the paint-by-numbers template of the �experts,� he is deemed a
product of retrograde evolution.
�
Because man�s soul defies
quantification, the content of his character is appropriated
absolutely no currency in the scientistic Weltanschauung. Again, it
is indeed ironic that, in their hopes of apotheosizing the human
species, modern revolutionaries devalue man.
�
This is the Faustian
face of modern science: the inhuman human race.
�
�
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