A Glossary of Some Numinous Way Terms
Version 2.03 (2011 CE)
Introduction
The Numinous Way (also known as The Philosophy of The Numen) employs a variety of specialized terms, philosophical and otherwise, and several of which terms derive from Ancient Greek. This Glossary provides brief explanations of some of these terms, and appended to some of these explanations is the title of an article (or articles) in which a more detailed explanation and/or some context may be found.
Abstractions [aka Causal Abstractions]
An abstraction is a manifestation of the primary error of conventional causal thinking; that is, of assuming only a causal linearality – of using causal reductionism: that simple cause-and-effect that excludes the acausal knowing that empathy provides and which knowing the numinous is a manifestation of. Implicit in abstractions is the notion of – the illusion of – the separateness of beings.
An abstraction is the manufacture, and use of, some idea, ideal, “image” or category, and thus some generalization, and/or some assignment of an individual or individuals – and/or some being, some “thing” – to some group or category with the implicit acceptance of the separateness, in causal Space-Time, of such being/things/individuals. The positing of some “perfect” or “ideal” form, category, or thing, is part of abstraction.
Abstraction-ism – and the ideation that derives from it – can be philosophically defined as the implementation, the practical application, of ὕβρις.
Suggested further reading: On The Nature of Abstractions.
Acausal
The acausal is the wordless apprehension (the knowing) which empathy reveals and which a personal πάθει μάθος often inclines us toward. That is, the acausal is a direct and personal (individual) revealing of beings and Being which does not depend on denoting or naming (and thus does not depend on abstractions). What is so revealed is the acausal nature of some beings, and the connexion which exists between living beings.
This apprehension suggests (and only suggests) some axioms in order to try and elucidate the nature of the acausal. One of these axioms is that the acausal differs from the causal by reason of being a continuum of acausal Space and acausal Time, in contrast to the causal geometrical Space and linear causal Time of the causal continuum of Phainómenon. This in turn leads to the postulation of acausal energy, which is assumed to be ‘that-which’ might be a possibly observable attribute of a living-being having the hitherto causally-observed attributes of life.
Suggested further reading: (1) Understanding The Acausal. (2) An Introduction To The Ontology of Being
Acausal-Knowing
This is a type of knowing (of knowledge) that is provided by empathy and πάθει μάθος. Part of this acausal knowing is the knowledge of our self as the (illusory) product of the separation of beings inherent in all causal abstractions, and thus a knowing of ourselves as but one microcosmic mortal nexion of and to Life.
Acausal knowing is in contrast to – and can compliment – the causal knowing revealed by conventional philosophy and experimental science, and it is acausal knowing (complimented by a correct, a reasoned, causal knowing) which can guide us toward being a friend of σοφόν.
Suggested further reading: Some Notes Concerning Causality, Ethics, and Acausal Knowing
ἀρετή
In general, by ἀρετή is meant excellence – of personal character, for example. More specifically, in The Numinous Way, by ἀρετή is meant the acceptance and the upholding of the virtue that is personal honour, since it is such personal honour which can breed such excellence of personal character, and be the genesis of a culture of ἀρετή.
Suggested further reading: (1) Quid Est Veritas? (2) Some Notes on Πόλεμος and Δίκη in Heraclitus B80. (3) The Balance of Physis – Notes on λόγος and ἀληθέα in Heraclitus
Cosmic Being
The Cosmic Being is the Cosmos (the unity of causal and acausal universes) conceived as a living, evolving, being. All sentient life is regarded – by virtue of being sentient nexions – as not separate from this Being, but rather as manifestations/emanations of this Being, in evolution: that is, as evolving in the causal to become the consciousness of this Being, the awareness of this Being. Similarly, Nature – the life dwelling with us on our planet, Earth – is one particular manifestation of this Being.
This Cosmic Being is not perfect, nor omniscient – not God and not any human-manufactured abstraction – but rather a burgeoning of Life, which Life [ψυχή] we aid when we live with empathy, compassion and honour, when we respect other life, and which we diminish, or harm, when we do the opposite. Hence, there is not, nor cannot be, any “prayer” to this living Cosmic Being; no “reward” or “punishment” from this living Cosmic Being. Instead, there is only an empathic awareness, often – or mostly – beyond words, and presenced, manifested, sometimes, in some numinous music, or some work of Art, or in a personal love or by some honourable deed, or even by a numinous/living/ancestral culture.
Culture of ἀρετή
The culture (the ethos, the way) of ἀρετή is, in essence, the education of discovering and knowing, intellectually and personally, that noble balance between our natural human tendency to commit ὕβρις – to go beyond the respectful, noble, limits of behaviour – and the necessity of learning the hard way, from πάθει μάθος, from direct personal experience. Δίκα is this balance; a balance manifest in us – or which can be manifest in us – through thoughtful reasoning, that is, by a well-balanced, fair, noble, personal judgement.
This culture of ἀρετή is thus a particular and an acquired balance – born from personal honour, from πάθει μάθος (from the personal knowing of the error, the unbalance, that is ὕβρις) and from using reasoned judgement (σωφρονεῖν), and both of which make us aware of the true nature of our φύσις [our own individual character] and of the nature Φύσις itself.
A culture of ἀρετή is or can be the genesis of a numinous culture (a new ancestral/tribal culture) for individuals.
Suggested further reading: Quid Est Veritas?
Δίκα
Δίκα (a form or type of δίκη) implies the balance, the reasoned judgement, the thoughtful reasoning – σωφρονεῖν – that πάθει μάθος brings and restores, and which accumulated πάθει μάθος of a particular clan or πόλις (community) forms the basis for their ancestral customs. δίκη is therefore, as the numinous principle Δίκα, what may be said to be a particular and a necessary balance between ἀρετή and ὕβρις – between the ὕβρις that often results when the personal, the natural, quest for ἀρετή becomes unbalanced and excessive.
Δίκα is spelt (and written) thus – in this modern way and with a capital Δ - to intimate a new, a particular, philosophical principle of The Numinous Way devolving around the concepts of the numinous, of balance, and of πάθει μάθος, and to differentiate it from both the more general usage of the older term δίκη and from δίκη personified as the goddess, Judgement.
Empathy
Empathy is a natural faculty possessed by human beings, and reveals (dis-covers) a type of knowing – a perception – distinct from the knowing posited by both conventional philosophy and experimental science. A numinous philosophy – such as The Numinous Way – adds the faculty of empathy to our physical senses, and adds the perception of empathy to the perception of Phainómenon, and thus to the Aristotelian essentials of conventional philosophy and experimental science.
The perception which empathy provides [ συν-πάθοs ] is both of acausality and of the personal immediacy-of-the-causal-moment. The essence of the faculty of empathy is a sympathy, συμπάθεια, with other living beings arising from a perception of the acausal reality underlying the causal division of beings, existents, into separate, causal-separated, objects and the subject-object relationship which is or has been assumed by means of the process of causal ideation to exist between such causally-separate beings.
Empathy – and the acausal knowing/knowledge that derives from a combination of empathy and πάθει μάθος – are the basis for the ethics of The Numinous Way, and predispose us to avoid the error, the disruption, that is ὕβρις.
Honour
Honour is defined by a personal Code of Honour, and is the practical means whereby we can live in an empathic way, consistent with the Cosmic perspective of The Numinous Way. Honour is thus a means for us to cease to cause, and to alleviate, suffering to the other life which exists in the Cosmos. Honour is how we can change, and control, ourselves in a moral way, and it is the moral basis for giving personal loyalty (or allegiance) and undertaking obligations relating to one’s personal duty, which duty we pledge (or swear) to do on our honour. One of the most obvious outward expressions of living by honour is the possession of personal manners.
The cultivation of personal honour is the cultivation of ἀρετή.
Ideation
The process of using, of applying, or relying on some causal abstraction (such as some posited idea or ideal) in order to acquire knowledge and/or as a guide to living/morality.
Ideation includes both the ‘idea’ of there existing ‘conflicting opposites’ and the notion (the abstraction) of there existing (or there should exist) some dialectic and which dialectic can lead to ‘truth’ and explain the nature of Being and beings.
Suggested further reading: The Abstraction of Change as Opposites and Dialectic
Immediacy of the Moment [aka the Immediacy of the Living/Personal Moment]
An expression concerning the nature of empathy. Empathy is dependant on (and is a natural faculty of) what lives, on the living being apprehending such knowing. Thus, empathy is always individual and personal: a personal, unique, and immediate apprehension by one living and sentient being of another living being.
As such, empathy cannot be abstracted out of the immediacy of the personal moment of such an empathic apprehension. In practical terms, this means that such numinous knowing as empathy reveals to us, as individuals, cannot form the basis of any abstract theory, of any dogma, of any ideology, or of some religion – to be applied to or used by others – for all such things are abstractions, devoid of numinosity, since such numinosity is grounded (presenced) in acausal knowing.
Numinous
As used by The Numinous Way, the term numinous means a presencing of acausal energy, in the causal. In a more ordinary sense, what is numinous is what we might regard as ‘sacred’; as special, as τὸ καλόν. The numinous thus contains, or manifests/presences, beauty, harmony. It reminds us that we are but a single nexion, among many. It reminds us of Nature, and the Cosmos, beyond us – it provides us with perspective. It presences the true meaning of life, the true meaning of our causal existence, since it is manifestation to us, for us, of the essence of Life itself, of The Cosmic Being.
Knowledge of and experience of the numinous is what predisposes us not to commit hubris, and this knowing and experience of the numinous often derives from pathei-mathos [ πάθει μάθος ] – that is, from our own learning from the errors of our personal experience.
πάθει μάθος
Pathei-mathos (qv. Aeschylus – Agamemnon,174-183) is the process of learning from personal adversity/personal suffering/hard personal experience. It is thus a means of developing good, a fair, personal judgement – that is, thoughtful (balanced) reasoning [ σωφρονεῖν ] – and of knowing and of aiding/maintaining the natural balance, the harmony [ἁρμονίη] of the Cosmos, manifest in Δίκα.
The Numinous Way considers that πάθει μάθος possesses a numinous authority: that is, that πάθει μάθος is both a means for us to know and appreciate the numinous, and also the basis for us to live ethically, as individuals.
Thus, an alternative term for The Numinous Way might be The Philosophy (or the Way) of Pathei-Mathos.
Suggested further reading: From Aeschylus To The Numinous Way – The Numinous Authority of πάθει μάθος
Φύσις [Physis]
In general, physis is the character – the nature – of a being, such as ourselves, or the character, the being, of Nature. This nature is one of causal change, deriving as this change does from acausality, from the nature of ψυχή.
Suggested further reading: (1) The Abstraction of Change as Opposites and Dialectic. (2) Physis, Nature, Concealment, and Natural Change [Some Notes on Heraclitus Fragment 123 ]
The Numen
The Numen is the source, the origin, of the numinous, and may be considered to be The Unity (the Being) that is hidden by causal abstractions, since causal abstractions are based upon/derive from the illusion of the separation of living beings.
The acausal knowing that empathy provides is a revealing of the being that is The Numen – and thus of ourselves (our being) as but one nexion of and for The Numen. Thus, Being is revealed as a-causal: as beyond all causal apprehensions/abstractions, with ψυχή as one manifestation of Being in the causal.
In one sense, The Numen is The Cosmic Being: that is, all life changing/flowing and possibly moving toward sentience.
The Numinous Way
The Numinous Way is the individual Way of Empathy, Honour, and Compassion. Since empathy may be said to be the quintessence of this particular Way, it is the numinous (or mystical) philosophy of both acausal and causal knowing, and the practical cultivation of – or the development of – a culture or cultures of ἀρετή where πάθει μάθος replaces abstractions, dogma, ideations, and all -isms and -ologies.
Suggested further reading: Introduction to The Philosophy of The Numen
ὕβρις
ὕβρις (hubris) is the error of personal insolence, of going beyond the proper limits set by: (a) reasoned (balanced) judgement – σωφρονεῖν – and by (b) an awareness, a personal knowing, of the numinous, and which knowing of the numinous is provided by empathy and πάθει μάθος.
Hubris upsets the natural balance – is contrary to ἁρμονίη – and often results from a person or persons striving for or clinging to some causal abstraction.
ψυχή [Life]
ψυχή as used by The Numinous Way (qv. the usage of the term in Homer, Aeschylus, Aristotle, etcetera) implies Life qua being; or more specifically, what makes us and keeps us mortal (alive) – that is, our being, its essence. According to The Numinous Way, this essence (of our mortal being) is acausal energy emanating from the acausal continuum.
Way
A Way is regarded as a tradition/weltanschauung which manifests the numinous, based on the acausal knowing and the πάθει μάθος of a particular person or persons, and which has a distinct ethos (that is a distinguishing character, or nature).
Many Ways change over durations of causal Time to become religions, replete with dogma and causal abstractions.
Suggested further reading: Religion and The Numinous Way – Three Essays Concerning The Nature of Religion.
cc David Myatt 2011 CE
This article is covered by the Creative Commons
(Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0) License
and can be freely copied and distributed, under the terms of that license.
Image Credit: Orion Nebula – NASA (Hubble Space Telescope)
