Excerpt from Meditation on the

Eleventh Major Arcanum of the Tarot

FORCE

______________

LA FORCE

Haec est totius fortitudinis

fortitudo fortis:

quia vincet omnem rem subtilem

omnemque solidam penetrabit.

(This is the strongest of all powers,

the force of all forces,

for it overcometh every subtle thing

and doth penetrate every solid substance.)

(Tabula Smaragdina, 9)

Virgo potens

Virgo Clemens

Virgo fidelis

(Powerful Virgin

Merciful Virgin

Faithful Virgin)

(Lauretanian Litany)

Dear Unknown Friend,

In the preceding Letter the transformation of fallen animality into holy animality discussed, where the latter is spontaneous obedience to God, without the hindrance of reflection, doubt or motives of interest. Such obedience is basically an instinct. This is why holy animality is represented in the Hermetic tradition, in vision of Ezekiel, in the Apocalypse of St. John, and in Christian iconography, four holy animals, whose synthesis — the sphinx — is divine instinctivity, or the kingdom of God in and through the unconscious. For God reigns — i.e. he is worshipped, obeyed and loved — not only through explicit theologies and philosophies, or through explicit prayer, meditation and cult-acts, but also in general through the "hunger and thirst for righteousness", for truth, and for beauty, and likewise through each act of generosity and every expression of respect, admiration and adoration ... Yes, the world is full of implicit religion, and the inspired saints and poets, who say that the birds "praise God" when they sing, are in no way mistaken. Because it is their tiny life itself which sings the "great life" and makes heard, through its countless variations, the same news which is as old as the world and new as the day: "Life lives and vibrates in me." What homage to the source of life is expressed by these small streams of life: the birds which sing!

Religio naturalis, natural religion, certainly exists and fills the world. Its waters emanate from the throne of God because — in filling beings, great and small, with the prodigious hope and faith which underlies vital élan — they cannot flow out from anywhere else other than the immediate presence of God. The cascades of hope and faith which are revealed by the great "yes" that all living beings say, by the very fact that they are living and that they prefer life to death, these cascades cannot bear in themselves anything else other than certain testimony of the fundamental Presence of God, i.e. the meaning and purpose of being alive.

The waves of this testimony reach the unconscious nature of beings and take effect there as this prodigious conviction which underlies vital élan. The "primal revelation", which is referred to by theology and to which natural religion is due, is the hope and faith, which vibrates both in the whole world and in each particular being (generally as a subconscious conviction), that life proceeds from a holy source, that it flows towards an end of supreme worth, and that it is "gift, benediction and vocation".

The mystery of natural religion, which is at the same time that of vital élan, is found expressed with remarkable clarity in the Apocalypse of St. John:

Before the throne there is as it were a sea of glass, like crystal. And round the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and within, and day and night they never cease to sing: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come! (Revelation iv, 6-8)

This gives a tableau of the working of natural religion, and its structure and elements. It is the Presence which is reflected in the limpid sea "like crystal", and it is Holy Animality, which never ceases to sing: "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!"

The "sea of glass" is the eye of the whole of Nature for God; the four creatures "full of eyes all round and within" — what they are and what they do — represent the natural reaction to the divine Presence. Perception and reaction — here is the essence of the natural religion which fills the unconscious core of creatures and which manifests itself through vital élan. Because all that lives participates in the collective perception of the "sea of glass", and in the collective reaction of the chorus: "Holy, holy, holy ... ", for this participation is the Life of life and the source from which the Élan of vital élan springs forth.

The saying "Nature is fundamentally supernatural" is therefore profoundly true. For natural and supernatural life always originate from the same source. The source of all life is religion, conscious or unconscious, i.e. perception of the Presence and reaction to the Presence.

In so far as my heart beats, that I breathe, that my blood circulates — in so far, in other words, that faith and hope work in me — in so far do I take part, thereby, in the great cosmic ritual in which all beings participate, all the hierarchies from the Seraphim down to butterflies ... namely, in natural religion's "sacrament of baptism", which is immersion in the waters of the "sea of glass", and natural religion's "sacrament of confirmation", which takes place day and night through the chorus of choirs of animated Nature: "Holy, holy, holy. . ." All beings are baptised and confirmed in natural religion. Because, in so far as they live, they have faith and hope. But the baptism and confirmation with "fire and Spirit", the sacraments of love, surpass those of natural religion. They bear forgiveness and healing to fallen nature.

Fallen Nature also has its unconscious mystery, i.e. its collective instinctivity of perception (its "waters") and its collective instinctivity of reaction (its "creatures"). Again, it is the Apocalypse of St. John which reveals this. The following is the origin of the "sea" of fallen Nature according to the Apocalypse:

The difference between the waters of the "sea of glass" before the throne and the waters poured forth by the serpent is that the former are the calm, peace and stability of contemplation, or pure perception — they are "as glass", "like crystal" — whilst the latter are in movement, "poured forth", "like a river", in the pursuit of an aim, namely that of sweeping away the woman.

In the world there are therefore two different kinds of arriving at a conviction: one can be illumined by the serene clarity of contemplation, or one can be swept away by an electrifying flood of passionate arguments aiming at a desired end. The faith of the illuminated is full of tolerance, patience and calm steadfastness — "like crystal"; the faith of those who are swept away is, in contrast, fanatical, agitated and aggressive — in order to live it needs conquests without end, because it is conquest alone which keeps it alive. The faith of those who are swept away is greedy for success, this being its reason for existence, its criterion and its motivating force. Nazis and communists are of this faith, i.e. that of those who are swept away. True Christians and true humanists can only belong to the other faith, i.e. that of the illuminated.

In the world there are therefore two kinds of faith, two kinds of instinctivity, two different ways of seeing the world, two different ways of looking at it. There is the open and innocent look which desires only to reflect the light — i.e. which wants only to see — and there is the scrutinising look, which seeks to find and lay hold of its desired prey. There are spirits whose thought and imagination are put to the service, without reserve, of that which is true, beautiful and good -and there are spirits whose will, infatuated with an aim, make use of thought and imagination so as to win others to their cause, so as to sweep them away by the river of their will. A Plato has never had success as a revolutionary and will never do so. But Plato himself will always live throughout the centuries of human history — he has lived there for twenty-three centuries — and will be in each century the companion of the young and old who love pure thought, seeking only the light which it comprises. Karl Marx, in contrast, has had one century of astonishing success, and has revolutionised the world. He has swept away millions — those who went to the barricades and trenches in civil wars, and those who went to the prisons, either as jailers or as prisoners. But you, as a solitary human soul, a soul of depth and sobriety, what do you owe to Karl Marx? You know quite well that despite the intellectual fracas and the blood and dust provoked by Marx, when once appeased it will be Plato, anew, to whom the young will turn, and also the old, who will love the light of thought in centuries to come. For Plato illumines, whist Marx sweeps away.