Manly P. Hall writes that there are “two fundamental groups of human intellect- one philosophic, the other incapable of appreciating the deeper mysteries of life.” Hall is referring to the two basic paths of understanding the universe and consequently ourselves. There is the initiated and esoteric doctrine of union with the object of knowledge, the gnosis of the classical Philosopher. And, there is the uninitiated and exoteric doctrine of relativism whereby knowledge arises from external sensible perceptions.
Unfortunately, for the most part, the modern mind falls under the later, not because we are incapable of greater Philosophical thought, but because we fail to see reality as a spectrum of truths, opting instead for discrete units of quantification. From a very young age we are taught to quantify experience into two opposing buckets of information: 1) the rational, conscious, and “real”, and, 2) the irrational, subconscious, and “imaginative”. We not only learn to separate experience, but also to rank it on an arbitrary and rather biased scale of “reality”. The prevailing sentiment in the western world is that experiences that can be analyzed and understood rationally are more “real” than those that are irrational and “imaginative”.
This “left-brain”/” right-brain” schism does not exist in the initiated Philosophical Mind, which instead accepts the Unity of all things. It does not differentiate between the physical manifestation and the metaphysical principle; the symbol does not represent meaning, the symbol IS the meaning.
Reality for the Philosophical Mind is the “bubble” in which both the rational and the irrational are merely manifestations of underlying transcendent principles.
Instead of struggling between the dualities of sacred being and profane existence, the “rational” and the “irrational”, the “real” and the “imaginative”, etc., etc., etc. ; the Philosophical Mind will only see in these polarities different perspectives through which to perceive the spectrum of transcendent truth.
One who desires to break the bindings of material and physical existence and truly explore the realm of the Spiritual and Eternal must first transmute their modes of thinking from the mind of relativism to the universal Philosophical Mind. Only with this Promethean power of Mind, can one aspire to steal the immortal Fire from the gods.
Originally published October 10, 2009 in Reflections from the Black Stone