In a lengthy phone discussion last evening, a friend was talking to me about our propensity to inject meaning into all we experience. The notion of things being what they are without us - the absence of participation mystique - is frightening: it feels like we would be staring into an abyss of absurdity. As a result, we maneuvre our thinking (i.e., the superficial part of mental activity, not the core of it) to sustain our pre-existing assumptions. If there is no God, we must replace it with sovereign reason.
Many of the spiritual systems, as opposed to faith-based beliefs, aim to create an awakened condition of being. Qabalah looks to awaken the ruach, the self-consciousness that embodies individual selfhood. That, ultimately, can be only a provisional reality, since the wholly illumined being would see its ruach subsumed into the supernal consciousness of the neshamah. But for most of us slogging our way through mortal existence, a ruach sufficiently guided by the neshamah that it can adequately govern the nephesh, the animal soul or instinctual self, is a worthwhile attainment.
Prior to the emergence of that guided state, the half-awakened ruach can see only itself, and to some extent the nephesh with its body-based urges (food, sleep, sex, booze, chocolate, scratch that itch). The neshamah, if the idea of it enters consciousness at all, tends to resemble the Freudian superego, feeling oppressive and demanding. My theory on militant atheism is that since the neshamah's apparent or dimly sensed requirements are so counter-intuitive and unpleasant, denying it can well seem to be the only available road to freedom. Kindly note that this does not mean I believe (nor disbelieve) in “God” - I consider that topic to lie beyond conscious comprehension.
There are men and women who have reported spending much of their time in contemplation or union with God. But reaching directly for such transcendence of the mortal condition is far more likely to lead to fantasy and obsession than to mystical illumination. The way of the occultist, who works through invocation of lesser entities than a cosmic All-Being, can lead to delusions, but properly pursued, can also lead to a threshold of deep understanding.
Jean Piaget once observed: “The philosopher is usually interested in a central idea that evolves over a long period of time, which may never be successfully completed and formulated into words, one that may appear to be mysterious and beyond scientific validation.” That is, the idea does not derive from observed exterior circumstances, but comes of its own accord, and without a clear formulation. He's close here to the Thelemic concept of True Will, which calls for a lifetime of working out and practical application. Often, when the True Will's nature is grasped, it's distasteful or frightening to the conscious personality, and only over time does it resolve itself into a road to freedom. But if the strict conscious criteria of reason are used to address it, it cannot formulate its totality. It is made into something less than it should be, and our life-passage becomes stunted and warped.
Or, more simply put, we never become happy.
I'm compelled here to concede that there are people whose True Wills might well require them to adopt what, to me, would be a hopelessly restrictive use of reasoning power. They are most effective and most fulfilled by living in that way. They're different to me; though I don't feel this negates my primary supposition, which is that such reasoning is being guided by the non-rational or the supra-rational.
But every time I reflect on what I have done well and done poorly, I'm struck by the fact that, in major life changes, when I did the “wrong” thing, the most interesting things happened. When I've been sober and sensible, and done the “right” thing, I've often trapped myself in miserable and life-defeating situations.
Reason is always useful as a servant in small matters or in large corporations. But as a master, in my own experience, it is mean-minded, unwise and loyal only to itself.