A Brief Numinous View of Religion, Politics, and The State


The Numinous View


The essence of the numinous view - of the ethical way posited by the Philosophy of The Numen - is empathy and thus the acausal (the affective and effecting) connexion we, as individuals, are to all life, sentient and otherwise, with empathy being the foundation of our conscious humanity.

The practical criteria which empathy implies is essentially two-fold: the criteria of the cessation of suffering, and the criteria of the individual, personal, judgement in the immediacy of the moment. For the Philosophy of The Numen, these two criteria manifest the natural character of rational, conscious, empathic, human beings and thus express the nature of our humanity and of human culture, and which nature is manifest in a practical way in compassion and in personal honour.

Hence these two criteria are used, by The Numinous Way - by the Philosophy of The Numen -  to judge our actions, our personal behaviour, and also all the abstractions we manufacture or may manufacture and which thus affect us, as individuals. Among such abstractions are The State, organized religions, and those things that have been described by the term politics.

Empathy thus has no rules; no dogma; no guidelines; as it cannot be or become the object of any "official" recognition, examination, certificate, or award - or be the subject of any academic study. For such things miss, or try to make abstract, what is always and only numinous and living and directly personal, since empathy - correctly understood - is a human faculty, like our sight and smell.

Empathy, therefore - and the pathei-mathos which derives from it [1] - establishes a new weltanschauung, a new perspective for individuals, and has important implications for the way individuals lead their lives and how they view and judge such human-manufactured things as The State, organized religions, and what has been described by the term politics.



A Numinous View of Politics


For The Numinous Way, politics is irrelevant - because (1) empathy does away with all artificial, human-manufactured, divisions and categories based upon a causal separation of beings, and (2) empathy itself, and the judgement arising from it, can only and ever be personal, direct, and in the immediacy of the living moment, and thus cannot be collective, or be organized in any supra-personal manner, with some other person or persons, or some group or organization (or whatever) making judgements on our behalf.

Politics, of whatever kind or orientation, is a process -


The goals, objectives and aims of politics are, by their very nature, based on human-manufactured divisions and categories deriving from a causal separation of beings: that is, which involve denoting individuals on the basis of some principle of inclusion/exclusion, and which principle of inclusion/exclusion (of separation of human beings) is immoral because un-numinous.

This principle is un-numinous because at best it obscures the acausal connexions between human beings which empathy reveals, while, at worst, it severs that connexion and replaces living empathy with lifeless causal abstractions. [2]

Since the numinous view is, as mentioned above, that empathy is the basis, the measure of, the criteria for, our conscious humanity, so it is by means of empathy, in the immediacy of the personal moment, that we manifest our true human nature and our conscious, our sentient, humanity: that wisdom, that understanding, which pathei-mathos has revealed to us over millennia, and which wisdom, which understanding, we manifest when we use our conscious will, our faculty of reason, to act in a compassionate and honourable way.

Our true human nature, our sentient humanity, is not therefore manifest - and cannot ever be manifest - in any causal abstraction deemed political, such as the causal abstraction that has been termed "human (or unalienable) rights", which it has been said can be contained in some creed, pronouncement, declaration, charter, or laws. Instead, our humanity is manifest in our individual, our living, personal and direct interactions with other human beings and with other life - in our awareness of ourselves as one affective and effecting nexion to the living being or beings we so interact with.

Thus, to be human is to be empathic, in the immediacy of the living moment, and to act upon the knowing that empathy reveals to us and which is manifest in a practical way by means of compassion and personal honour. There is therefore no need for "political action", no need for emotive speeches, rallies, or political manifestos, or even for any political organizations or movements for "social change". All that is needed is the cultivation, and the practical application of, empathy, by individuals.


In effect, therefore, empathy renders politics, and all political asbrations, obsolete, and in place of the old, un-numinous, way of politics there is the numinous way of individuals developing and using their individual, unique, faculty of empathy, and thus using and relying on their own natural judgement and reason.


A Numinous View of The State


The State has been defined as:

" The concept of both (1) organizing and controlling – over a particular and large geographical area – land (and resources); and (2) organizing and controlling individuals over that same geographical particular and large geographical area by means of the use of physical force or the threat of force; by means of the central administration and centralization of resources (especially fiscal and military); and by the mandatory taxation of personal income."  [3]

The State, by its very nature, is predicated upon the immoral (the un-numinous) principle of inclusion/exclusion of human beings. That is, it occupies, or claims to occupy, a certain designated territory (most often with defined borders), and which territory it seeks to control by the use of force or which territory it has come to control by the use of force, and which force almost without exception involves or has involved the suffering and the killing of human beings.

The State by its supra-personal nature usurps both empathy and our personal judgement, and thus is inherently immoral, unethical, and contra to our humanity.

For instance, and in respect of judgement, The State appropriates to itself - to its Institutions and its savants, its officials - the right to judge, to punish, and to inflict suffering on other human beings, as it also demands, on pain of the use of force, loyalty and obedience from its citizens, for its citizens are expected to obey the laws The State makes.

In brief, The State demands that individuals relinquish their own judgement and instead rely upon the judgement of others - that of some leader or dictator, or that of some representative, elected by vote or otherwise chosen; and which leader or dictator or representatives are said to embody or represent "the will of the people" or some such abstract nonsense.

In addition, The State is almost the complete antithesis of empathy - for its very raison d'etre is supra-personal organization, the control, of individuals, and a centralized planning imposed upon people.

In addition, The State - and the nation, preceding it [4], and the Tyrannos preceding the nation - has and have been responsible for appalling human suffering and deaths, from the horrors of the French revolution, to the brutality of the Russian revolution, to the nationalist First and Second World Wars, to the ideologically-driven Vietnam war and the recent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

       
        Empathy, however, nullifies all causal abstractions, and in place of abstract supra-personal goals, manufactured or imposed by others, there is only the awareness of the personal moment, a personal dwelling in a particular locality, and the personal exercise of compassion and honour.

In effect, therefore, empathy renders The State (and by extension, the nation) obsolete, and in place of the old, un-numinous, way of The State there is the numinous way of individuals developing and using their individual, unique, faculty of empathy, and thus choosing for themselves - based on a direct and personal knowing of people - how to interact with, and rely on, other human beings in a social manner.

Possibly one of the best ways for individuals to so numinously interact is by means of extended families co-operating in their own local areas - that is, by clans and tribes, and which clans and tribes are defined by a numinous dwelling in a particular locality, by living ties of kinship, and by a personal loyalty deriving from a personal judgement and a direct personal knowing of the individual so given such loyalty. For it is through such a local dwelling, such ties, and such a personal loyalty that we can best express - and have best expressed - our human nature.




A Numinous View of Religion


Just like The State, an organized religion by its very nature is predicated upon the un-numinous principle of inclusion/exclusion of human beings, with an individual human being relying on this organized religion for guidance (moral and otherwise); with the individual expected to conform in certain matters of personal behaviour, and belief; and with the individual expected to perform certain duties and obligations, often of a public or social nature.

In essence, an organized religion provides an individual with certain answers to questions about life - a means whereby individuals can view, and come to relate to, Reality; to understand themselves, and their relation to other human beings. It is estimated that almost three-quarters of all human beings rely on conventional organized religions (such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) to provide some answers to fundamental questions about life and/or to provide them with some guidance on how to behave and interact with other human beings.

Organized religion is quite distinct from a particular localized and numinous Way of Life by virtue of such a Way of Life being based on a quite local distinction between what is regarded as sacred (the numinous) and the profane, with such a distinction involving Nature; that is, a certain area or areas of land where, or near to where, the folk upholding such a Way dwell or have dwelt for generations. That is, such a numinous Way of Life involves an individual and communal understanding - sometimes intuitive or empathic, and sometimes by means of myths, legends, and local ceremonies - of their connexion to Nature (manifest in the area or area of their dwelling), their connexion to other human beings, and often thence to the Cosmos beyond, with this understanding involving an awareness of the necessity for balance, for maintaining the natural harmony of Life. Often this awareness of balance becomes expressed in a reverence for ancestors who are considered to connect the individual, the family, the local community, to Nature (or to have become embodied in or become a part of Nature). To upset this natural balance is regarded as unwise, and the bringer of misfortune - either personal, or for one's descendants. For there exists a natural feeling of continuity with - a connexion to - one's descendants, with one's ancestors, one's dwelling in a certain locality, and with the perceived cycles of natural phenomenon, such as weather, and with personal and communal good fortune and misfortune.

In contrast, an organized religion abstracts meaning and understanding into precepts and dogma, independent of a localized dwelling and a direct feeling for the numinous, as there is reliance upon and/or a veneration of texts, with the consequent need for such "sacred texts" - or some written words of guidance - to be interpreted.

Thus, instead of a personal engagement with the numinous - instead of the direct, and of necessity local and natural, knowing of our connexion to Nature, to other Life, to the Cosmos that empathy directly reveals - there is or there arises an attempt to explain or define or understand the numinous either by reference to some text (revealed or otherwise), or by  means of some causal abstraction: that is, as being the effect of some posited and general cause. This attempt to so explain or define or understand the numinous either actually obscures the numinous, or abstracts it out of individual awareness, substituting instead precepts, dogma, and ritual - and thus obscures, or severs or comes to sever, the living connexion that the individual is to all other Life: to the acausal. In place of the numinosity of the personal acausal moment - the understanding of a personal and of an ancestral pathei-mathos founded in a local dwelling - there arises a lifeless cause-and-effect.

Hence, an organized religion such as Christianity posits God as the ultimate cause, with it being said that this cause led to the incarnation (the revelation) of Jesus to effect our salvation - that is, which enables we human beings to achieve the goal which is Heaven. To achieve this effect - of our salvation - we need only to follow or do what has been laid down or prescribed for us, by others: some guidelines contained in scripture; some prayers said or some ritual religiously undertaken; and so on. All this is entirely un-numinous because independent of both the pathei-mathos and the dwelling, ancestral or otherwise, of the believer. That is, the connexion to and the knowing of the numinous is or is required to be or is expected to be other than ours; other than deriving from our empathy, our personal experience, our intuitive knowledge derived from longevity of our local dwelling. Instead, the personal experience, the pathei-mathos, of the believer has to or should be related to the tradition or some tradition within or of such a conventional religion, so that, for instance, personal pathei-mathos has to be comparative, compared to similar experiences of past believers and accepted or rejected based on such a comparison.


        Empathy, however, nullifies this lifeless cause-and-effect and such an un-numinous impersonal required comparison. For empathy by its acausal immediacy of nature reveals the numinous to us directly. There is no need for some posited cause-and-effect, or some posited causes-and-effects - for there is only our personal awareness of ourselves as an acausal connexion to other Life: to the locality of our human, terrestrial, dwelling; to other human beings known and interacted with in the immediacy of the personal moment; to our own pathei-mathos, and to the pathei-mathos of our ancestors, our folk.

What thus becomes numinously revealed by such connexions is the simple need for a personal balance, for the compassion and the personal honour which manifest such a balance and which are always, by their very numinous nature, direct, personal, and of the immediacy of the interacting moment.

In effect, therefore, empathy renders organized religion obsolete, and in place of the old, un-numinous, way of such religions there is the numinous, empathic, way of individuals and the learning deriving from pathei-mathos: our own, and that of others.



Conclusion

Politics, The State, and religion have contrived, by their causal nature, their breeding of abstractions, to distance us from the immediacy of the numinous moment - from that intuitive and empathic knowledge derived from longevity of our local dwelling and from our own pathei-mathos, our own learning deriving from the personal experience of suffering and from sympatheia. Sympatheia makes us aware - makes us feel, know - the suffering of others, so that there is an acausal connexion between the pathei-mathos of our ancestors, manifest in a particular human culture, in human culture in general and our own pathei-mathos, so that such cultures can learn us, as our own pathei-mathos can.

Having this knowledge of culture, accumulated over millennia, having the gifts of such culture, and having the faculty of empathy which we can and should develope, we simply no longer need politics, The State, and religion.

The primal mistake of the past has been to seek to strive after illusive abstractions rather than to seek to change ourselves in the necessary numinous way, with such a striving after such abstractions being the primary cause of the suffering we human beings have inflicted upon others, upon ourselves, and upon the other life with which we share this planet.

To be human - to manifest the reasoned humanity that our pathei-mathos and the pathei-mathos of human cultures have revealed to us - is, quite simply, to be empathic in the immediacy of the living moment, so all that is needed is the cultivation, and the practical application of, empathy, by ourselves, as individuals. This is wu-wei: a living numinously, and a living which, over a certain duration of causal Time, will aid the cessation of suffering and bring-into-being new, more human, ways of living. To attempt to speed this process up - to abstract it - would only cause more suffering and undermine and then remove us from our numinous, human, essence. For the numinous future we so desire only and ever begins with and within ourselves.




David Myatt
February 2011 CE


Footnotes


[1] Pathei-mathos (πάθει μάθος) means a learning from adversity. That is, the personal learning and understanding that arises from direct, often harsh, personal experience - and which may also be numinously understood (felt), and thus appreciated, by some numinous work of Art or and importantly through some intuitive understanding of - a sympatheia with - the pathos-mathos of another human being, recorded or transmitted in some form or recounted by some means.

Pathei-mathos thus possesses a numinous authority over and beyond the supposed authority of conventional religions, and all other abstractions, such as politics.

For a brief overview of pathei-mathos, refer to my essay Quid Est Veritas? and my The Classical Foundations of The Numinous Way.

[2] For more in respect of the principle of inclusion/exclusion (a principle also prevalent in conventional philosophy) see, for example, my Notes Concerning Causality, Ethics, and Acausal Knowing, and also Introduction to The Philosophy of The Numen.

[3] The definition is taken from my somewhat polemical article, The Failure and Immoral Nature of The State.

[4] The origin  and nature of the modern Nation is outlined in The Failure and Immoral Nature of The State.