The Manichees…
believed that the body can be spiritualized
–or rather, that the body merely contaminates pure spirit
and must be rejected.

The Gnostic* perfecti (radical dualists)
starved themselves to death
to escape the body & return
to the pleroma of pure light.

So to evade the evils of the flesh
–murder, war, famine, greed
–paradoxically only one path remains:
murder of one’s own body,
war on the flesh, famine unto death, greed for salvation.

The radical monists however…
consider that the body & spirit are one,
that the same spirit pervades a black stone
also infuses the flesh with its light;
that all lives & all is life.

“Things are what they are spontaneously…
everything is natural
…all in motion
as if there were a True Lord to move them
–but if we seek for evidence of this lord
we fail to find any. (Kuo Hsiang)

Paradoxically, the monists path also
cannot be followed
without some sort of “murder, war, famine, greed”:
transformation of death into life (food, negentrophy)
–war against the Empire of Lies
–“fasting of the soul,”
or renunciation of the Lie, of all that is not life
–& greed for life itself,
the absolute power of desire.

Even more:
without knowledge of darkness
(“carnal knowledge”)
There can be no knowledge of the light
(“gnosis”).

The two knowledges
are not merely complementary:
say rather identical,
like the same note played
in different octaves.

Heraclitus claims that reality persists in a state of “war.”
Only clashing notes
can make harmony.
(“Chaos is the sum
of all orders.”)

—T. A. Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism by Hakim Bey, COMMUNIQUE #6 II. Murder—War—Famine–Greed, page 40 – 41.

How many years have passed since the terms Gnostic, Gnosticism have come to mind? When a much younger man in graduate school I learned that in late antiquity, the Mediterranean Greco-Roman world was one in which humanity lived their daily lives with consciousness of “the gods” in the psychological background.

Not so with us however. We 21st century Americans live in a secular time, our background consciousness is filled with a droning awareness of capitalism, of markets, of profit and loss. These are our gods. In past times however, humans were surrounded by reminders (temples, shrines) of gods and demons, that life was a contest/war between opposing forces: good vs. evil. Salvation, release and fulfillment for our ancestors meant they had to deal with a very personal, a very intimate conflict, a warfare involving their souls.

The Manicheans were one of the larger communities of antiquity seeking fulfillment of spirit. Their method was to purify their spirit, by repression of the body. In the world of antiquity Manichees stood in relation to Gnostics in general, – as the Evangelicals stand in relation to Christianity today. Purity minded folk, the truly serious ones felt (and feel) abhorrence for dancing, liquor, and women, as all were fleshly contaminants of the spirit. Evasion of these evils was paramount. Only the pure were saved! Salvation was understood as a condition of pure light.

Perhaps all of this strains your imagination. Take my word for it, there was a time when our ancestors believed and lived such aspirations…

The quotation from Bey segues from mention of a Gnostic headspace, entailing a repression of every feminine inclination, to describing another POV of this world and this life: that of radical monism. How radical you may ask? “Radical” is to say that body and spirit are different descriptions of the very same thing, both terms point to nothing less than a living essence that has no name!  I like that!

The thought that within all, in every single element of the environment that surrounds me, is life, everything lives in it’s own way! I am repeating what Bey has written.  The “good news’ however does not get us “off the hook”.  Life and death, darkness and light being intimately related will always be contesting within the fabric of reality. More to the point, – given human agency, our supreme purpose, our moral duty is to advocate life, an enthusiastic “yes” to our role as agent-provocateur opposing “the Empire of Lies.” Said differently, – as artists, it’s the artist’s passion for creation.

What is life, this earthly life?

Life is the harmony of chaos, the same note played in different octaves…

*Gnosis is a feminine Greek noun for knowledge. It is often used for personal knowledge compared with intellectual knowledge. It is best known for its implication within Gnosticism, where it signifies a spiritual knowledge or insight into humanity’s real nature as divine, leading to the deliverance of the divine spark within humanity from the constraints of earthly existence. -wikipedia