Metaphysical Phototropism

On Planet Earth, the light of the Sun imposes order upon the chaos of the dirt and water. The rays of the Sun are the metaphysical masculine that imbues the metaphysical feminine with life and energy. As the feminine is devoted to the masculine, so does life on Earth show its devotion to the Sun by growing towards it.

Plants that grow towards light sources are called phototropic. Phototropism is the quality that enables the shoots of seeds to grow upwards out of the soil. It is why trees grow to be tall and upright. Phototropism is so common that it can be stated, as a general rule, that plant life seeks the light (although vines tend to be an exception).

The light of the Sun is responsible for all life on Earth by way of providing the base of the food chain. Photosynthesis is the process by which plant life grows. Without it, there would be no animals, no humans, just bare rocks. In this sense, the Sun is very much something divine. This divinity inspired the Roman cult of Sol Invictus to celebrate the return of the Sun on December 25th, three days after the Winter Solstice.

The Second Hermetic Principle, the Principle of Correspondence, teaches us that as below, so above. The patterns we observe in the physical world are replicated in the metaphysical world. Applying this to the workings of plants gives us the concept of metaphysical phototropism. This is the phenomenon of growing towards metaphysical light.

Most human beings naturally grow towards the light, only here it is not meant the light of the Sun. Most humans, being spiritual creatures, grow towards metaphysical light. This means spiritual wisdom, that which is often referred to as “enlightenment”.

If one looks at the life story of a great number of people, a common theme of growing towards the light becomes evident. Most people were born into a state of fear and confusion, and suffered greatly as a consequence. Most of these people were able, at some point in their lives, to develop enough wisdom so that they could act to avoid the worst of the suffering.

It’s common for people drift through years of hatred, bitterness, trauma or pain before they experience enough divine light to see the metaphysical truth: that only actions towards the cessation of suffering have value. Because of this confusion, people often cause great harm to themselves or others. But an inbuilt tendency to grow spiritually towards the light seems to be part of the human condition, and so most people overcome.

Physical phototropism has two separate components: positive phototropism, in which plants grow towards the light, and negative phototropism, in which plants grow away from the light, and which is much less common. This division is also replicated in the metaphysical realm.

In metaphysical terms, positive phototropism describes the phenomenon of individuals whose consciousness grows towards the light. These are people who seek out enlightened others, make friends with them, and esteem them. These people are drawn to spiritual places and spiritual texts, and they intuitively understand that wisdom is as precious as gold.

Negative metaphysical phototropism describes the phenomenon of individuals whose consciousness grows away from the light. For whatever reason, these people elect to shy away from wisdom and reject it. Wisdom is for them as pearls to a swine. These people are rare, being more like demons than natural beings, but they exist in all times and places.

In the same way that some plants are more phototropic than others, so too are some people more phototropic than others.

Most people are mildly phototropic, in the sense that they understand and appreciate the value of wisdom. A smaller number are moderately phototropic, and study wisdom like they study other subjects. An even smaller number are majorly phototropic, and devote their lives to seeking wisdom like men dying of thirst devote themselves to seeking water.

Furthering the plant analogy, human society could be compared to an ecosystem. Most people are shrubs and bushes, some others are trees, and some others are like great oaks that stand so tall they give everything else in that ecosystem something to look up to.

In the same way that the physical health of a plant is a function of the force that compels it to grow towards the Sun, the spiritual health of a human is a function of the force that compels it to seek out wisdom. As below so above: in the same way that the life force of a plant will wither and die without sunlight, so too will the human life force wither and die without spiritual nourishment.

If you enjoyed reading this essay, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

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Everyone That Exists Is Descended From Someone Evil

Some people, we are told, are the beneficiaries of unearned privilege. Their ancestors performed evil acts in order to gain power and wealth, then they passed that power and wealth to their descendants. As a result, those descendants are obliged to share their wealth with those whose ancestors were not evil. The reality, as this essay will explain, is that everyone on Earth is descended from someone evil.

The nature of life on this Earth is kill or be killed. At every single level of life, one must kill in order to continue. Life feeds on life, and the only alternative is starvation.

Even if a creature doesn’t eat meat, but only eats plants, they still have to kill for mating opportunities or for territory.

Mating opportunities don’t necessarily come easily – males fight to the death over fertile females in a great number of species. Even if a female goes willingly with a male, there are other males ready to kill him and take his place. Killing a male and raping his female is, as far as Nature is concerned, a perfectly legitimate mating strategy. All Nature cares about is that the female carries to term.

Even if a creature doesn’t try to reproduce, their body’s metabolic demands require that they eat, and this requires that they control territory. This territory will invariably be contested by other creatures who also seek food. Those other creatures are happy to kill their opponents if resisted. So control of territory requires a willingness to kill those others who would control it.

The nature of human history is little different. Humans might be different to animals, but the major behavioural differences between us and them didn’t arise until recently. Before then, the vast majority of us were as vicious, callous and opportunistic as any animal.

Men have always fought over breeding partners. The emotion of jealousy evolved to help motivate us to kill our rivals for them. At times in the human biological past, this rivalry was so intense that a small minority of men controlled a majority of the women. The others usually died in the attempt to get laid.

Men have also always fought over territory (or at least for the resources in those territories). This was an established fact well before the Age of Colonisation began. The first recorded war was some 4,700 years ago, and the warring has never stopped. Any king or ruler who calculated that they could conquer their neighbouring territory usually did. The need to spill blood did not deter them.

Ruthless conflict for ultimately biological causes has been an inescapable feature of human history from the beginning. In truth, even World War II – portrayed as the ultimate struggle between good and evil – boiled down to the control of territory and the resources that came with it. The first man ever to kill a member of the neighbouring tribe probably did so for lebensraum – nothing has ever changed.

World War II was a slaughter for resources, World War I was a slaughter for resources, the Napoleonic Wars were slaughters for resources, the Crusades were slaughters for resources, Julius Caesar slaughtered for resources, Alexander slaughtered for resources. All of these endeavours may have been framed as other things, but fundamentally they were about one’s tribe winning access to land and women.

Everyone who succeeded in this struggle was a killer. This they had to be by virtue of the fact that their aspirations were violently opposed.

The idea that someone can be meek and still thrive is a delusion brought about by the influence of slave cults such as Christianity. Throughout the entirety of human history, the meek were simply cast aside. Those casting them aside won the women, the land and the reproductive opportunities. All who exist today are descended from them.

Today, one can argue that it’s truly possible to be civilised. Kindness is outperforming aggression in an increasing number of work environments, as proven by the fact that women are doing better in them. But this is an extremely recent phenomenon.

The long peace that we have enjoyed since World War II does not change the fact that each and every single one of us, without exception, are descended from grievous criminals. Murderers, rapists, land thieves: those are our ancestors. Had that not been the case, they would not have survived. They would have been killed by other people’s ancestors.

Consequently, it’s pointless to try to make another person feel guilty for supposedly inherited privilege. No matter what class a person occupies, they are descended from those who killed to gain wealth. The best thing would be to widely acknowledge this, and then work towards finding an end to the suffering of all sentient beings.

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Writing Characters Of Gold

The highest possible spiritual level is the element of gold. This represents perfection. Gold is the most precious of the metals known to the ancients. As such, its presence had the greatest influence on their behaviour. Gold is very much the fulcrum around which the world turns, and for this it has long been worshipped.

In the ancient world, gold represented the Sun, the life-giving force. The Sun was also worshipped by all of the ancients at some point or other, most notably in the Roman cult of Sol Invictus. This was due to the realisation that if the Sun did not return to the world after the Winter Solstice then all life on Earth would perish.

In an alchemical sense, gold represents God. The uppermost pole of the alchemical spectrum belongs to God, and the raising up of any of the lesser elements is to imbue them with God’s energy. Characters of gold, then, are divine. Characters of mercury might be messengers of God’s will, but characters of gold are direct expressions of it.

Viewed metaphysically, a character of gold is every bit as important to the world as the light of the Sun. Without the moral rectitude afforded by the character of gold, the human race would regress into a pre-civilised state. We would go back to being animals, God’s light being entirely absent. The characters of gold, and their messengers in the characters of mercury, are the force that imposes moral order upon the world.

The real power of the element of gold is its subtlety. Being perfect, it need not use any force or coercion. It is already in accordance with the Will of God, and consequently it acts without resistance. Its power is exemplified in the fable of Aesop, in which the Sun and the wind compete to induce a man to take off his coat. The Sun wins, because its gentle power does not inspire resistance.

The essential characteristic of characters of gold is radiance. Whereas the characters of silver are learned and the characters of mercury brilliant, the characters of gold radiate a divinity that comes from a consciousness that is perfectly attuned to the Will of God. They are wise – a quality that is not appreciated by all, although all benefit from it.

This radiance will set all of the other characters in their presence at ease. Being around a character of gold will incline the anxious to calmness, the angry to peace and the lustful to temperance. The ambitious characters of mercury will switch to enjoying their lives rather than exulting themselves. This is the power of the character of gold – to create peace.

In contrast to the characters of iron, who dominate with physical force, and to the characters of silver, who dominate with psychological force, the characters of gold dominate with spiritual force. They have no need to twist other characters’ arms or trick them with contracts; they influence the world by living in accordance with the Tao. This causes other characters to look up to them.

A character of gold will be one that other characters tend to speak about very fondly. This is a reflection of the generous personal warmth that the characters of gold exude. The character of gold will recognise the gold in others. As such, it will feel good to be around them.

The greatest motivation of the character of gold is to alleviate the suffering of all sentient beings. This is true to a lesser extent of the characters of mercury, silver and copper, but only the character of gold represents the perfect expression of this. The character of gold wants for nothing more than an end to the suffering in the world, and they are happy to put themselves second to this goal.

Gold is the most malleable of all metals. This softness is one of its prime characteristics. A character of gold will seldom be prickly, bad-tempered, abusive or impatient. If directly insulted, they will be extremely slow to take offence or to show anger. This may not work out to their advantage when other characters, interpreting the situation through their own base lens, come to think them weak.

This malleability is such that, in the physical word, one gram of pure gold can be beaten into a sheet one square metre in size. That the tiniest piece of gold can create something that shines so brightly captures the essence of metaphysical gold. The smallest amount of it is potentially enough to completely upend the order of the world.

Concomitant with this softness is a reluctance to cause divisions or separations. However, gold is still a metal, and still has enough of an edge to cut if necessary.

The ability to expand itself beyond the capabilities of the other elements is reflective of the ability of characters of gold to see the bigger picture. A character of gold will never be motivated by short-term instincts. They have perfected themselves to the degree that impulses not in accordance with their true will no longer arise.

Characters of gold, despite their glorious radiance, are entirely capable of being destroyed by the envy of baser characters. Characters of iron can run a sword through them; characters of silver can destroy their social standing. In no sense are characters of gold superheroes with special powers. They are simply people of a higher spiritual frequency to all the others.

A character of gold can be of any age. Young or old doesn’t matter because alchemical gold is an expression of the spirit. As long as they are good, they are gold. In practice, a character is more likely to be of the gold if they are either very young or very old, because the former will not have been corrupted yet and the latter will have entire lives to mine for wisdom.

In practice, it will be almost impossible to portray a character of gold with true accuracy if the author themselves are not of the gold. This doesn’t matter, as long as the reader can be induced to believe that the character of gold is perfect.

Perhaps the closest example fiction has seen to a character of gold is that of Michael Valentine in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land. A modern real life example might be Jiddu Krishnamurti, an ancient one Socrates.

A character of gold in your story might be a legend that informs your story world, rather than an actual character that appears and speaks lines. They might be the legendary founder of the state in which your protagonist resides, someone whose perfection has created a space for an entire nation to thrive.

A character of gold might otherwise be someone who only makes a fleeting appearance, and that to change the direction that a character or the story is going in. Like Gandalf in Lord of The Rings, they appear to move the other characters in the direction of absolution.

Characters of gold have warm feelings towards characters of all of the baser elements, but they have a special fondness for the characters of mercury, who are their messengers. Characters of gold are often in opposition to characters of silver or below, on account of that the latter are frequently acting under the influence of baser instincts.

This article is from Viktor Hellman’s The Alchemy of Character Development, the sixth book in VJM Publishing’s Writing With Psychology series. This book will show you how to use alchemy to create deep, realistic and engaging characters for your creative fiction.

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Clown World Chronicles: Who Are The ‘Alt Centre’?

The Taoists are fond of telling us all that, even in the darkest of times and places, there is always a spark of light that will expand to illuminate the entire world. The same is true of Clown World. Despite that things are grim and that the trends suggest they will get worse, there are a small number of men and women who represent the light shining in the darkness. They are the alt centrists.

Understanding alt centrism first requires that one understand the alt right and the alt left, and that means understanding the Fourth and Fifth Acceptances and the Fourth and Fifth Rejections.

The alt centre accepts that the alt right has a point when they say that multiculturalism has failed on a number of levels, that mass Muslim and African immigration has brought misery to the West and that Clown World is primarily a spiritual phenomenon. In other words, the alt centre shares many of the masculine sentiments that the alt right possesses.

The alt centre, however, rejects the alt right’s proposed solution to Clown World, which is segregation. The alt centre considers this a denial of life. Ultimately, the desire for segregation is motivated by a will to cruelty (this doesn’t necessary apply in places like South Africa). This Fourth Rejection is held at the same time as the Fourth Acceptance, which accepts that multiculturalism has failed.

Likewise, the alt centre accepts that the alt left has a point when they say that neoliberal capitalism has failed on a number of levels, and that inequality has increased to the point where the social fabric is becoming torn and civilisation is starting to break down. This is known as the Fifth Acceptance in alt-centrist thought.

Also likewise, the alt centre rejects the alt left’s proposed solution to Clown World, which is forced wealth redistribution and anti-white resentment. The alt centre explicitly rejects all slave moralities under the Second and Fifth Rejections. Intersectionality is explictly rejected under the Fifth Rejection. Collective resentment is not a solution.

This might sound like a contradictory set of opinions to hold, especially to anyone who is used to letting the mainstream media define what’s what. But the alt centrist embraces these apparent contradictions. Simple rhetoric is for simple minds, and the political scene doesn’t need any more dumb people in it.

It isn’t easy to describe the demographics of alt centrists, because a person only becomes one if they see the flaws and merits in all of the other positions. As such, alt centrists are hard to distinguish by race, sex or social class. The most one can say is that they are not the same demographics that are commonly found in Establishment institutions.

It’s certainly true that alt centrists tend to be intelligent, because a person needs to have a certain level of historical knowledge to have noted the positives and negatives of the other five political positions. But intelligence, or at least education, is not enough. There are plenty of great intellects justifying the horrors of all of those other positions.

Alt centrism is more a matter of wisdom than intelligence. As such, it does not attract followers on the basis of education or ideological fashionability. Alt centrism is more a position one comes to once one has become too wise to fall for the rhetorical and emotional trickery of the other five positions. When a person is no longer swayed by appeals to order, or freedom, or peace, or revenge, or justice, that person can become an alt centrist.

A person is most likely to become an alt centrist if they have amassed an uncommon amount of life experience.

If a person has done a lot of world travel, they will have experienced a great variety of other cultures, and will no doubt have noticed some good things and some bad things about each one. If they are wise, they will have allowed this to influence them, so that they became good where other people were good but resisted becoming bad where other people were bad. This will have made them a more well-rounded person.

This is also true of people who have moved between social classes over the course of their lives, or whose occupations have brought them into contact with a large number of people from a variety of classes. The more reality one has been exposed to, the greater the power one has to correctly mold oneself into the desired form.

Alt centrism works in a similar fashion. The alt centrist is one who has tried out all the other political positions, and found them all wanting. They have argued for monarchy, they have argued for revolution, they have argued for capitalism, they have argued for neoreaction and they have argued for social justice. So they are aware of the shortcomings of each, but they also know why people are inclined to assert these positions.

This almost Luciferian approach is in harmony with alt centrists’ fundamental belief in the value of independence and freethinking. As such, it is rare to find them in popular mass movements. An alt centrist is liable to support a universal basic income and drug law reform at the same time as opposing open borders and affirmative action. So they don’t fit into boxes neatly enough to be someone else’s tools.

Fitting with their anti-Establishment sentiments, alt centrists tend to be against modernism. Being also against totalitarianism, they are happy to hearken back to the distant past, to the Classical Age, whether the Greco-Roman, the Chinese or the Hindu one. People who read Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Chanakya and Chuang Tzu are often alt centrists.

In summary, the alt centre are Clown World’s good guys. They outright reject political fanaticism on account of that it ignores the human will to avoid suffering, but they are just as fanatical about increasing their intellectual and spiritual depth. They are the philosopher-kings whose revolution overthrows tyranny and institutes a new Golden Age. Let us hope that one day they can lead us out of Clown World.

This article is an excerpt from Clown World Chronicles, a book about the insanity of life in the post-Industrial West. This is being compiled by Vince McLeod for an expected release in the middle of 2020.

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