The mystery of space

by Robert T. Browne

[CHAPTER VIII]

The Mystery of Space

The Thinker and the Ego—Increscent Automatism of the Intellect—The Egopsyche and the Omnipsyche—Kosmic Order or Geometrism—Life as Engendering Element—The Mystery of Space Stated—Kathekos and Kathekotic Consciousness—Function of the Ideal—The Path of Search for an Understanding of the Nature and Extent of Space Must Proceed in an Inverse Direction.

The fragmentariness of the Thinker's outlook upon the universe of spatiality is due to the inhibitive action set up by the constrictive bonds which his complicate mechanism of intellectuality interposes between himself and reality. The Thinker, who stands back of and uses the various media of objective consciousness, such as the neural mechanisms, brain, emotions, his individualized life-force and the mind which together make up the instruments with which he contacts the sensuous domain, by adapting his consciousness to these means, as the artisan utilizes his tools, constitutes his own intellectuality. The intellectuality, then, is the totality of media by which consciousness effects its entrance into the sensuous world and by which it receives impressions therefrom. In other words, it is the sum of all those qualities, operations, processes and mechanisms which are recognized as constituting the modus vivendi of man's intellectuality, and these are, in reality, nothing more than the ego himself.

Many have been inclined to regard that which has been called the ego as the highest sovereign power in the state of manhood. He has been looked upon as the final consideration in the constitution of the human being. But the ego is an evolutionary product and the concomitant of self-consciousness which is the I-making faculty in man's psychic life. It is that quality of consciousness which makes man conceive of himself as a separate, detached and independent being. It is a purely intellectual or tuitional product, and, as such, is to be differentiated from the intuitional or life-quality which is the essence of man's real selfhood. With respect to the Thinker, the ego occupies precisely the same status as the agent to his principal. As the agent is the representative of the principal in all matters which come within the scope of his prescribed jurisdiction so is the ego the agent of the Thinker who is a spiritual intelligence. Accordingly, from an ethical viewpoint the Thinker is responsible for the acts of the agent and can in no wise escape the penalties accruing as a result of the agent's violations. Just as a commercial firm sends out a representative for the collection of data concerning certain phases of its business or it may be of any business or the entire world market so the Thinker projects his own consciousness into the mechanisms which are in their totality the egoic life. That is, he sends out his agent, the ego, into life and into the objective world of facts and demands that he shall convey to him, from all points of the territory which he is expected to cover, reports of his findings. Of course, these reports which are transmitted by the ego (the intellectual mechanism of the Thinker) are more or less well prepared summations of his individual observations and deductions. These are the percepts which the ego presents to the Thinker's consciousness. Concepts are formed by the Thinker in his treatment of these sense-presentations. It very frequently happens that the ego transmits reports which, for one reason or another, give very imperfect knowledge of the matter which his reports are designed to cover. Often it is necessary that additional and supplemental reports be made about the same thing, and even then, it is well-nigh impossible, if not quite so, for him fully to cover every detail of the matter under consideration and in no case is it possible for him to do more than report on the superficialities of the question under scrutiny. If the ego, in his operations, be imagined to be hampered by similar circumstances and difficulties as those which would ordinarily beset a commercial attaché it will then be clear that his reports must ever be fragmentary because of the inaccessibility of much of the data which would be necessary for a full report, and further, because of the inadequacy of his methods and means of gathering data due to the inherent limitations of his capabilities, endurance and perspicacity and innumerable other limitations and difficulties which must be faced in all search for the real. So that, while the sufficiency of the means which the ego enjoys at this stage for all practical purposes is granted no hesitancy is entertained when it comes to a discovery of the reals of knowledge in declaring their insufficiency.

Then, too, when it is remembered that these egoic reports are in the nature of neurographical communications which are similar to telegraphic despatches and must pass through several stations, as ganglia, etc., often being relayed from one to another, it will be quite apparent that much, even of the original quality of the missives forwarded, will have been lost or radically changed in some way before it is finally delivered for the inspection of the Thinker himself. It not infrequently happens, even in perfectly normal beings, that the ego in filing, recording, transcribing, interpreting, translating and otherwise preparing these data for the Thinker's use, lets a cog slip, misplaces some of the data, loses or destroys fragments of it and so is unable to maintain a complete portfolio of his materials.

As the Thinker is entirely dependent upon his agent, the ego, for the trustworthiness of his information covering the matter of the sensuous world it is obvious that at best his information is very fragmentary indeed, and necessarily so when it is considered that the modus operandi of his agent and the difficulty of his operations are so complicate as to magnify the obstructions in the way to complete freedom in this regard.

To continue the similitude of principal and agent it may be asserted that it is also true that the commercial house that sends out its attaches frequently will send letters containing directions as to procedure, sometimes censuring for past delinquencies and sometimes commending for praiseworthy deeds; and this, too, in addition to the original instructions which were given at the outset. It even comes to pass that the home office, because of some meretricious accomplishment, as the marked increase of efficiency shown by the agent's close application to his duties and the consequent success of his operations, confers certain favors upon the agent or removes some of the restrictions which were originally imposed, gives an increase in salary or promotes the agent to a higher and more lucrative office with larger powers and greater authority. This is analogous to what the Thinker does for the ego. For he not only receives reports from the ego, but often, in the shape of intuitions, gives additional information as to the proper manner of doing things, sheds more light upon some obscure operation, commends for duty well performed, condemns for failures or for wrong-doing, rewards arduous toil with greater powers of vision, keener insight, greater capabilities; in fact, promotes the ego in the sight of other egos by marking him out as an exceptional ego. But the curious aspect of this procedure is that, in time and after the ego has been repeatedly commended and promoted and otherwise favored by the Thinker, he begins to think that he owns the firm, that he is the life and main support of the whole corporation. He becomes arrogant, self-willed and finally falls into the illusion that he alone is responsible for the phenomenal success of the firm. This is the source of that illusion of the intellect which makes itself think that it, the ego, is all there is to man, that his instruments of operation in the objective world are the only kind of instruments that may be used; that his method of gathering data about things is the only safe and sure method; and so it develops that the intellectuality is the source of man's separateness, his individuality and his apparent aloofness from other men and things. It is, of course, needless to point out that in this way the intellect comes to be the tyrant of man, ruling with a rigid monopoly and as an all-exclusive autocracy.

From the above implications it would appear that the intellect and the intuitive faculty are two separate and distinct processes, and so they are. One is the inverse of the other. The tendence of the egoic life or the intellect is for the external while the intuition is an internal process. The intellect acts from without towards the interior while the intuition acts from within outward. The intellect is the product of the intuition which is another term for the consciousness of the Thinker on his own plane. Just as the child lives a separate and distinct, though dependent, life from the parents so the intellect has a modus vivendi which is distinct and separate from that of the Thinker, and yet it is in all points dependent upon the life of the Thinker. Here again, we find an analogy in the relation of the child to the parent. As some children are more amenable to the will of the parent than others, so, in some persons, the intellect is more amenable to the action of the intuition than in others. Yet it is a certain fact that the more the outward life is governed by the intuition, i.e., the more the intellect responds to the intuitive faculty of the Thinker, the higher the order of the life of the ego and the more accurate his decisions and judgments. In fact, it assuredly may be asserted that the place of every individual in the scale of evolution is determined in a very large measure by the degree of agreement between the intuition and the intellect or by the ease with which the intuition may operate through the intellect as a medium. At least, the quality of one's life may be determined directly by these considerations.