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REFLECTIONS
ON THE STONE
By
Robert Anthony Bolton
(Originally
published in The Sacred Web)
Therefore
thus says the Lord God, Behold I am laying in Zion for a foundation a
stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: He
who believes will not be in haste. Isaiah
Ch.28, v.16 R.S.V.
Tradition,
Philosophy and Gnosis
The
orthodox interpretation of the above text in Christian tradition is always
that the stone represents Christ, the promised Messiah, as is also the
case in comparable texts, such as "the stone which the builders
rejected," in the Psalms. This symbolism of the stone was adopted
from more ancient uses, however, and the latter may be the means of
connecting it with the so-called Philosophers' Stone, especially as
historical revelation will normally correspond to a universal and
atemporal order. The idea of the "stone" naturally evokes the
idea of philosophy and its creative endeavors in a traditional context,
and we may wonder what place it has there,
For
most of those who follow the ideas of Guénon and
Schuon, the emphasis in
traditionalist thought is overwhelmingly on gnosis, rather than on either
philosophy or empirical knowledge, because the modern deviation from
tradition is attributable to the reduction of metaphysical truths first to
matters of individual speculation, and then finally to the fads of public
opinion. There is no doubt that changes of this kind have taken place, and
their negative results are only too well known, so that advocacy of more
human forms of knowledge may seem to be in conflict with the restoration
of tradition.
To
some, there may appear something absurd about the implicit claim that gnosis
is not enough. how should the highest and completest knowledge need to be
supplemented? One answer to this can be seen to lie in the very exactitude and
finality of gnosis, which link it inseparably to the realm of the finite, a
defect which indicates that it needs to, be completed by something else, since
man was made for the infinite. (This finitude characterizes the mode of being
of gnosis, not its theoretical content, of course; these two things should not
be confused). Conversely, while the outreach of philosophical thought lacks
the ordered perfection of gnosis, it does answer to man's dynamic relation to
the infinite. There should thus be an overall equality between the two, that
is, between a precise and complete, but finite, knowledge, and one which is
untidy and ever-incomplete, but adapted to the infinite in its
operation. The distinction highlighted by this simple dichotomy comprises
something which must always be felt as long as mankind is in a temporal state.
These
reflections are prompted by what has been written on this subject by
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in recent years, especially where he says that
gnosis alone is the negation of philosophy for the reasons just mentioned,
that philosophy is a pursuit of truth where the results are never
predictable or final. It thus expresses a conjunction between knowledge
and the flowing process of life lived in time, whence it is adequate to
the whole human state on its temporal and intellectual levels. Quite apart
from the weight we allow to theoretical comparisons between philosophy and
gnosis, there remains the undoubted fact that philosophy was always a part
of both Christian and Moslem civilizations throughout the middle Ages,
where it existed alongside both gnosis and religious belief. It had a
mediating role between the individual and the universal truths of religion
and gnosis, enabling the individual to make the received truths his own in
a fully personal manner, without having to be just a receptacle of truths.
In
view of its role in the traditions alone, then, we should not have the right
to equate philosophy as a whole with the purely individualistic exploration of
reality without revelation which it has become today. But if we are to allow
that it is ultimately a dimension of the spirit without being gnosis, what
would its validity derive from? There is no doubt that for the traditions it
was the expression of a substantial reality, which was called the
Philosophers' Stone or the lapis, and a good many other things besides, such
as the Unique (or One) Thing, the Divine Water, the Lion, and the Sodic
Hydrolith. Under this diversity of names it was not distinguished from the
prima materia, as I shall try to show. Attempts to explain what these terms
mean always run the risk of ending up in a quagmire of obscurities which has
to some extent been caused deliberately, but the attempt is necessary if we
are to clarify the spiritual role of philosophy, that is, its relation to
revealed religion in a traditional context.
This
subject would become less obscure if it could be shown to be connected with a
generally acknowledged reality, albeit one which is usually thought of only in
connection with gnosis. Despite the references in scripture like the one under
the heading, the lapis (understood as the philosophers' stone) is not
so much conveyed by revelation as presupposed by it, as the receiver which
corresponds by nature to the Divine initiative. It is something more than a
creature, but equally it is not God, an idea which is familiar in traditional
thought where it is a question of an element in the human soul which
transcends creation and relates directly to God. This is frequently to be
found in Eckhart, as where he says:
"there
is an agent in the soul such that if the soul were wholly this, it would be
uncreated."
It
is understood theologically that it is only in the innermost realm of the
human spirit that the image of God can be said to reside. This is immovably
part of us, so that failure to live in harmony with this divine principle must
result in an ultimate inner conflict and self-contradiction. (See von
Balthasar, In the Triune Life)
A
modern expression of the same idea is given by Philip Sherrard where he says
that:
"patristic
theologians do recognize the presence in man of something which, if it is not
divine, is yet not undivine; which, if it is not uncreated, is yet not
created."
Sherrard
emphasizes the point that this principle is not just another name for God, as
simplistic ways of thinking might
take it to be. On the contrary, the peculiar nature of the consequences which
follow from it is owing to the fact that it is neither God nor nature, but
something sharing the attributes of both, and that human nature can be to
varying degrees conformed to it. Nevertheless, most of the things said about
it have been outside mainstream theology, if we take alchemical writings into
account, and it is from them that we can learn more about the role of this
"divine spark" in the life of the spirit.
The
Stone in Tradition
Traditional
accounts of the Stone do not always distinguish it from the prima
materia, as where both are referred to as the Unica
Res (the unique or
only thing) and "Adam and Microcosm."
This implies that the usage of Hermetic thought differs here from
that of Neoplatonism, for which matter is the lowest of realities, a mere
empty and unstable receptivity. Instead, it is said to be "the first hyle
of the wise, the prima materia of
perfect body," and is said to be a substance in which
everything is contained in a positive way, by which it has a creative
power as a source principle in nature.
Jung
quotes Mylius' statement that it is "the pure subject and the unity
of forms," with both passive and active aspects. We are also told
that this mysterious substance is called "radix
ipsius" (root of itself), and that " Because it roots in
itself it is autonomous and dependent on nothing."
But the supremacy it has in relation to other creatures does not
include any question of its creating the world or itself; it has therefore
a necessary autonomy in relation to nature, whereas in relation to God,
this autonomy is something delegated. There are obviously close analogies
between it and both God and the world, as might be expected of something
which is -a focal point for so many realities:
"The
definition of this spherical being as…’the most serene God,’ sheds a
special light on the perfect 'round' nature of the lapis which arises
from and constitutes the primal sphere; hence the prima materia is
often called lapis."
At
the same time, it is distinguished from God in this text as having arisen,
like the world, from a massa confusa comprising all the elements. But
this does not help us to understand why, in view of its subtlety,
"stone" should have been so prominent among the names used for this
subject, when in its religious context it never had a name at all, except
where it was referred to as the "divine spark" in an unofficial
manner.
James
Hillman's explanation
is that this is because, like a physical stone, it has the power to force its
presence on our attention by its impenetrable and irreducible quality.
Everything in nature from flowing water to roots of trees must yield to the
presence of stones, which combine a certain power with inactivity. They can
often punish those who ignore their presence. Stone-like properties, he
says, are an emblem of freedom from subjectivity, and not merely as a quantity
of hard and enduring material, but as a unique individuality, different from
that of every other stone. Thus it evokes the idea of the monad.
The
last point shows that it is not overly paradoxical that a very subtle
reality could force itself on our attention as a stone does. The essential
point here is individuation. Persons or souls encounter one another as
quasi-atomic realities, which
is why
the
soul is referred to in philosophy as a "simple substance." Just
as the physical stone shows the qualities of impenetrability and
irreducibility, so the individual soul is impenetrable inasmuch as it is
the container of all natural forces in its representation of the world, to
which it is not itself external
Here,
then, are some representative observations about the Stone, which must now
be linked with what was said above about the quasi-divine principle
in the soul, and the resulting implications for philosophy. If this
"naturally supernatural" principle, as Schuon would call it,
were considered, not in relation to God, but as a normative principle for
both man and nature, much that has been said of the lapis would be
relevant to it. Contradictory attributes like those of "stone"
and "water" would not be surprising in an archetype and epitome
of the complex range of realities making up the natural order. On the one
hand, a deepening understanding of this interior reflection of the divine
must be implicitly redemptive, as historically it was taken to be, while
on the other, the redemption and regeneration brought by revealed religion
must inter alia bring the individual into a closer communion with
this same interior reality. These two movements of the soul, far from
being exclusive, have always been conceived of as working together in the
same persons, at least when understood in a context of Hermeticism.
The
Lapis and the Monad
There
is a significant double meaning in this interior agency: because the lapis
mediates between God and creation, it can be seen with equal reason as
either the base of a mystical or gnostic ascensus
to God, or as the apex of an integrating movement in the natural
order. Such a conception would suffice to connect the mysterious, protean
Stone with a basic idea accepted in most forms of traditional wisdom. This
duality is no more than that implied in the duality of the human state,
consisting as it does of body and soul, and residing on the boundary of
nature and supernatural. On this basis, I shall try to account for some
consequences which would naturally be realized by the creative work of
philosophy.
While
the lapis is unique in itself, it exists in as many instances as
there are persons, so that something qualitatively equivalent to the Whole
exists in every being that forms part of the Whole, giving a special
meaning to the idea "all is one." In this case, the One would in
some sense be present in every part of the All, an idea which Leibniz
expresses in the Monadology where
he says that souls are, "living mirrors
of the universe of created things, . . each mind being as it were a little
divinity in its own department.”
This matches the idea that "the sulphur
philosophorum
is
one
substance in which everything is contained."
Such
an interpenetrating view of the one and the many has always found a place in
Christian cultures, because the doctrine of the Eucharist follows a similar
pattern. Each consecrated host becomes the Body of the Lord, and at the same
time, so does each particle of each host; the unique One is infinitely
multiplied, and not merely as a symbol. At the same time, the Incarnation and
the Ascension reflect the relation between the divine and the material which
is a model for each human life inasmuch as it is true to its destiny. Leibniz'
philosophy is deeply influenced by the Hermetic tradition, which is
distinguished as a meeting place of philosophy and magic, with its idea of a
reality that is microcosmic through and through. Parts not only reflect the
whole, but have powers of attraction and influence among themselves, in
proportion to the similarities between the ways and degrees in which they
reflect the world. From thence come the evocative powers of magic and the
influences of astrology.
"Each
portion of matter may be conceived as a garden full of plants, and as a
pond full of fish. But every branch of each plant, every member of each
animal, and every drop of their liquid parts is itself likewise a similar
garden or pond.”
The
power of reflecting the whole of things has implications which are
relevant to the idea of the lapis, because the soul, in reflecting in its
own mode the nature of an indestructible universe will itself be
indestructible in the same way
(11), a way which belongs among the stone-like properties.
Similarly, this goes with a certain impenetrability, which results simply
from the fact that it is in a real sense a whole and not a part, and so
cannot be directly subject to external natural agencies in the way that
the contents of sense perception are. By definition, then, souls or monads
can be subject only to God in a direct sense, while their interactions
could only take place by the indirect way of interior changes which create
new sets of relations or weaken or strengthen existing relations among
them.
Such
properties as the above are the context in which philosophy becomes a
condition for the realization of the human state as such, not least
because the subject of philosophy is reality as a whole, while a
representation of the world as a whole is part of the essence of each
rational being. Such is a primary aspect of the spiritual soul, as
compared with souls of animals which relate only to parts of the world and
so are necessarily peripheral to the human state. A microcosmic being must
philosophize judge reality as a whole) in order to be itself therefore.
This has consequences for religion because the perspective of faith also
places man in relation to reality as a whole just as much as to God. Both
faith and philosophy involve a positive relation to infinite.
Implications
for the Esoteric
The
above consequences apply particularly to a strange commonality between
exoteric and esoteric religion. However much they differ in other ways, they
both see the individual person as a negation, or as a blank to be filled in,
so to speak. Thus both are equally dominated by the idea that God is
everything and man is nothing, although there are doubts as to how literally
this is meant. In exoteric religion there is a need to give first place to the
personal relation between God and the individual, which is taken simply as a
relation between the infinite and the finite. This is balanced, but only in an
ad hoc manner,
by the understanding that this relationship is of importance to God.
It
is very strange that most contemporary forms of esoteric religion should
espouse this same view of God and man, since, for them, simplified
conceptions are neither necessary nor appropriate. On the contrary, where
man's relation to God is seen in a full context of impersonal realities
which transcend the usual limitations of understanding, the spiritual
meaning of the individual should be explicable with a new depth and
clarity. That this is so often not the case indicates that even some of
the most intelligent exponents of the esoteric remain subject to the
mindset of modern times, which does not see the meaning of the microcosm
in relation to God. Thus they still think instinctively in terms of a
relation between something huge and something tiny, as though that was all
there was to it. The Hermetic objection to this is that it springs from a
quantitative view of the world, usually an unconscious side effect of
modern science, unconcerned with the qualitative infinity in beings who
are only parts in an external way. The more we are distanced from a
mistaken use of quantitative thought, the more we shall be free from
defeatist views about the value of the individual as such. The reality
that transcends the person is still a function of the person, because he
is in a way equivalent to the Whole. The truth is that an individual’s
intentions, actions, and self-restraints have an effect on the world which
goes far beyond our perceptions.
Only
like can truly act on like, and in this case it is the rational being who
is in a real sense equivalent to a world, and who can therefore act
significantly on the world of which his ego is outwardly a part.
Conversely, the actions of animals have no such
independent power over nature because they are solely parts in
relation to the Whole, having no share in man's central place in nature.
There are both spiritual and magical implications for this kind of
relation which mankind has to its world, connected
with
the idea that there is a point at which religion, philosophy psychology
and magic have a region in common. Jung believed in the reality of such a
convergence, and it was the basis of his idea of the necessary role of the
individual, to which he opposed collectivistic beliefs. He regarded the
latter as irrational, because no religion, philosophy, or ideology could
exist without consciousness, and the individual person is the only
possible vehicle for consciousness. Consequently, all systems that
downgrade the individual are ultimately self defeating; neither
collective entities nor mystic systems can of themselves supply the
consciousness necessary to make them work. Equally, the higher forms of
knowledge can have no direct power over individual consciousness, but only
what latter can see it right to concede. This may appear too obvious, but
there are many who are so blinded by the external and quantitative aspect
of things that they hardly see it all, or regard it as a delusion.
A
Meaning for Autonomy,
What
has been said about the basis of individuality can be linked to the
question of whether the person or monad can be said to have autonomy. Two
pillars of received wisdom are that man must be open and receptive to what
Providence sends or allows, and he is responsible for the control of his
own thoughts. There is a flat contradiction between these two precepts, if
openness were misunderstood to be a degree of passivity that would be
untrue to our essential nature. The reception of things and selection
among them are separable only for thought, not in practice. These two
processes correspond to the autonomy of the radix ipsius and to the
fact that it did not create itself, and so must always accept an aspect of
relativity. Here again,
it is for philosophy to mediate between the absolute and the relative
that is manifest in our own constitution.
While
every mind is active in selecting its objects, passive in the reception of
them there are many possible differences in the proportions between the
two. The more the active power of selection is developed, the greater the
degree of free will, since the degree of freedom of the will is in
practice dependent on the size of the sphere in which it operates,
although in principle it is present in everyone. The complexities of this
function are apparent not only because there are many degrees of this
selective activity, but also in the innumerable criteria by which it can
operate. The process of selection is thus a form of
"self-expression" in an exact sense of the word. The least
effective form of it follows the broadest of all criteria, that of
pleasure, but without trying to judge the reasons why it is pleasurable,
or to compare different kinds of pleasure. Whatever its degree or quality,
this expression of autonomy is not just a matter of culture; it is a
characteristic of mind as such. It is reflected only partially by the
senses, because on the one hand they automatically convey to us the same
things as long as we are present to them, regardless of our choice; in
this respect they are passive, while on the other hand choice must depend
on the removal either of the objects or of one's physical presence.
As
the mind selects among its perceptions, these choices of object not only
express and reinforce its existing quality; they determine the objects that
are attracted to it, as it were ab extra, at future times. While there
is a clear common sense distinction between things we choose to perceive
and think about, and things which come to us unbidden and without warning,
this is only because the latter seem not to be chosen, but nevertheless they
are chosen in the same sense as we choose the experiences comprised in a
journey simply by our initial decision to travel from A to B. In a more subtle
way, the things that engage the mind and will at a given time will place one
in the "qualitative locality" of those things, so that others
coherent with them will later be encountered, apparently by accident. The more
purposive our selection of mental objects or stimuli, the more clearly this
effect on future experience will be felt, while in proportion as we fall short
in this respect, the more future events will assume a random character.
The
contents of the world appear in the mind as so many different determinations
of it, rather as clay is made into innumerable pieces of pottery. The mind is
in effect an infinite substance which receives an infinity of modifications
ranging from basic sensations to the subtlest kinds of insight. If the
autonomy attributed to it appears to be contradicted by experience, the
relation of the mind to its world must be seen in the light of the different
possibilities offered by the power of control. The chances and missed chances
of individual lives are exemplified by apparently uncontrolled happenings
which are in reality under exactly as much control as are orderly constructive
occurrences, with the difference that in the former it is an ignorant and
foolish use of control. So with the human mind and its relation to life in the
world; even its worst failures never amount to a loss of its directing role,
but prove to the flaws in its direction. This intrinsic autonomy of
the self in relation to its world finds a typical expression in philosophy,
and this does not imply any conflict with the authority of religion, because
orthodox religious teachings, if lived out, lead to a state of freedom in
relation to the natural basis for philosophy.
The
Relation to Grace
The
properties of consciousness have implications on the traditional role of
philosophy that are inconsistent with the majority views of tradition today,
because it cannot coincide with the understanding of gnosis. The necessity of
this role would imply that a spiritual realization which was solely universal,
as is maintained by Ananda Coomaraswamy,
for example, would be no more of an ideal than a solely individual
realization. Instead, individuality would have spiritual potentialities just
as much as the profane ones it is usually associated with, while conversely
there would be nothing to prevent anti-individualistic systems from
serving profane delusions as well as wisdom, as modern history shows.
Finally,
what has been said in regard to the potentialities of the individual has
been said from a specifically human point of view, that is, without its
being directly related to God, who alone can act on the human will. But
the fact that man is nevertheless dependent on grace to make positive
choices has not been referred to, only because the factor of Divine
causality does not detract anything from the reality of an independent
principle in mankind, nor from the fact that every tendency to realize it
increases the natural autonomy of the person. Neither does it call for any
modification to the idea that each soul or monad contains a representation
of its world, which is as it were the theatre of its spiritual progress.
There is a point at which man's control coincides with that of God, as
might be expected from the nature of the lapis, inasmuch as it is
said to be, "the water which rules everything, in which errors are
made and in which the error itself is corrected."
The
implications are that these things are so profoundly part of human nature
that they express the plan of creation-not a result of the Fall--so that
all attempts to realize the possibilities involved in it will necessarily
be a cooperation with the will of God.
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