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In the last chapter, a contrast was made between two ways of looking at celestial signifiers. One way kept clear the different kinds of celestial light, while the other mixed and separated those kinds of celestial light in a particular way. Some planets are associated with the Sun and some with the Moon. We have associated this second celestial pattern with the Indo-Europeans, and have taken it to be the primal transformation of celestial signifiers. By this transformation, a fundamental difference between the Indo-European way and the prophetically inspired ways of the Chinese and the Muslims begins to come to light. Now we will attempt to drive to the heart of this difference in order to explicate the inner meaning of the two patterns.

In the Mahabharata, there are five brothers who are married to one wife. This one wife is in the Greek tradition Helen of Troy who is also said to have had five husbands. These five brothers in the India epic are the five Indo-European gods brought down to human scale. As Dumezil and his students discovered, the Mahabharata contains the basic Indo-European mythology. It is the story of a great war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. The five brothers represent the forces off light. They have their unity through their polyandrous marriage to a single woman. This same story is transformed by the Greeks into the Iliad in which a woman of many suitors and many husbands becomes the object of desire which brings whole nations into conflict. In the case of the Iliad, the fact that Helen has five husbands is suppressed, and the story is transformed. The story of the Mahabharata itself is too complex to retell or interpret here. For us, the key point is the unity of the five brothers through the woman, or in the case of the Iliad the dispersion and separation caused by one woman who is the object of desire for so many. This is a fundamental Indo-European theme of great significance.

In Islam, there is, in contrast, the concept of the "Qutub." The Qutub is the living axis of the Muslims. He is a single heart around which all the other hearts revolve.

Here we see a fundamental difference between the unity posited by the Indo-Europeans and that of the prophetic tradition.

TABLE 31
KUFR	ISLAM
EXTERNAL FEMALE GATHEREDNESS	INTERNAL MALE GATHEREDNESS
INTERNAL MALE SEPARATION	EXTERNAL FEMALE SEPARATION

In the anti-prophetic system, at its root there is a fundamental injustice by which it attempts to achieve unity. It attempts to achieve unity as something external by means of the female principle (YIN). Women are enslaved as the unifiers of the anti-prophetic society. This occurs as men take control of the biological means of production. This places the source of unity in the lowest well of the mythbody (HEL)². On the other hand, in the prophetic constellation, unity is not achieved externally. Unity is by lights overflowing from heart to heart, beginning with the heart of the Axis and descending through all the stations of the hearts among the Muslim and on to all the others of spirituality. This inward unity is male in its manifestation. Here male may be understood literally and in terms of Yang energy. The Yang is the unseen celestial cause that moves the Yin aspects of visible existence.. The Yang center of unity is active instead of passive. The unification by female or Yin energy is passive and accommodating. It relates to the anti-prophetic fixation of the visible aspects of the Pluriverse. The Kafir system attempts to unify the seen universe. This unity of the seen or Yin aspects of existence is directly opposed to the unity of the unseen Yang aspects of existence by the prophetic tradition. One system enslaves women as the external signifier of unity (or blames her as the external signifier of disunity as in the Iliad). The other system frees women from this role of unifying signifier. Things are exactly the opposite of the way they appear. This is the difference between what Sidi Ali al-Jamal calls Basic and Metaphorical. The anti-prophetic system appears to free women, when, in fact, it is based intrinsically on their slavery. The prophetic system does not enslave women in the first place, but moves to free them when it finds them enslaved. But has the reputation among the Kafir for just the opposite.

The anti-prophetic system, because of its externally female unity, entails necessarily internal male separation. This is interesting because it explains a significant feature of the Kafir system: uniformity. In order to achieve unity among men, their external appearance is controlled and rendered homogeneous. The unbiquitous suit and tie of corporate culture, the army uniform -- external homogeneity of appearance -- attempts to achieve some semblance of unity among men in the face of an intrinsic separation. The soldier's pin-up or the pornography of the stag party is the explicit group approach to unity through the enslaved female principle. The ultimate in this is gang rape or the shared prostitute. In the anti-prophetic system, the separation between men is a profound reality. The system attempts to cover over this deep separation by surface homogeneity and by group participation in the sexual encounter either in fantasy or reality. Thus, prostitution is a fundamental reality of the anti-prophetic system and is established wereever it goes in the world.

In contrast the prophetic system provides for external female separation. This takes a legal form as the practice of polygamy. In Islam, a man may have four wives if he can be just toward all of them! There is no competition over the reproductive resource because it is never made scarce. There can only be competition over scarce resources. Women are not made to bear the burden of unifying society. Men have an inherent unity through the reality they affirm together inwardly and their outward worship. Multiple wives cause the man to become the unifying element of society rather than the female principle. The Yang is inward, and the Yin is outward. This is the natural balance. The inward is in gatheredness, and the outward is in separation. This is the natural order. The anti-prophetic system reverses this natural order, placing the separation on the inward with gatheredness forced outward.

TABLE 32
1.	2.	3.	4.
INWARD	OUTWARD	INWARD	OUTWARD
MALE; YANG	MALE; YANG	FEMALE; YIN	FEMALE; YIN
GATHEREDNESS	GATHEREDNESS	GATHEREDNESS	GATHEREDNESS
Muslim Unity; Qutub	Uniforms; Homogeneity	Community	Kafir Unity; Aphrodite
Prophetic	Anti-Prophetic	Prophetic	Anti-Prophetic

FIGURE 113

TABLE 33

5.

6.

7.

8.

INWARD

OUTWARD

INWARD

OUTWARD

MALE; YANG

MALE; YANG

FEMALE; YIN

FEMALE; YIN

SEPARATION

SEPARATION

SEPARATION

SEPARATION

Natural Variety (Plumage)

Completion among women

Polygamy

Anti-Prophetic

Prophetic

Anti-Prophetic

Prophetic

TABLE 33
5.	6.	7.	8.
INWARD	OUTWARD	INWARD	OUTWARD
MALE; YANG	MALE; YANG	FEMALE; YIN	FEMALE; YIN
SEPARATION	SEPARATION	SEPARATION	SEPARATION
	Natural Variety (Plumage)	Completion among women	Polygamy
Anti-Prophetic	Prophetic	Anti-Prophetic	Prophetic

It is possible to elaborate on this picture by making explicit the entire field of trigrams based on the permutation of the opposites: Male/Female; Inward/Outward; and Separation/Gatheredness. Inward male gatheredness allows men to be diverse outwardly. When inward unity exists, there is no need to enforce outward homogeneity. In Kafir society, the women wear wildly different clothes while the men wear uniforms. Women attract attention to themselves in their competition to be the scarce resource fought over by the men. Men worship outward beauty in women which is worship of the perfect example that approximates the average best. Psychologically, the more average a woman's looks from a statistical point of view, the more beautiful she appears to her suitors. In nature, the male of the species is generally the one with spectacular plumage, and the female is normally duller in color in order to attract little attention from predators. No one ever asks why in the global Kafir society, it is exactly the opposite which is the cultural norm. This is because the Kafir society is out of balance with nature -- so far out of balance that it is anti-natural, i.e. artificial. In Islam, for instance, women go to extremes not to draw attention to themselves, whereas men do not need to do this. So in Islam, the natural balance is approximated. The natural variety in the outward looks of men is exactly the opposite of the homogeneity of outward male gatheredness approximated by the uniforms of the Kafirun.

Outward female gatheredness which unites Kafir society causes the inward female separation. This is the competition among women and their fundamental separation as they compete to be the scarce resource over which men will struggle. The beauty contest is the ultimate expression of this separation. Bringing together the statistically average females in an outward spectacle causes inward separation as they compete for the honors of their title. The chorus line is the more umbiquitous form of this outward gathering. By gathering, the women may be compared. The women are competing in something they have no control over -- their biological forms (except where they allow the plastic surgeon to do his work). This contention between women makes community impossible. Community is the expression of inward female gatheredness which comes from an outward female separation. Women are not to be compared. The man in the polygamous marriage does not go to bed with multiple women at once, which is the Kafir fantasy. This is forbidden. Each wife has a separate relationship with the shared husband. Each woman has her own night in which she has rights over the man. Because women are not brought together to be compared, each one is allowed to be themselves rather than attempting to live up to some impossible ideal image -- their uniqueness is allowed to flourish. It is not their approximation of Aphrodite which is valued, but their own unique qualities. Because women are not compared, they do not compete to be the scarce resource vied for by men. This means there can then be genuine friendship among women. The genuine friendship among women is the basis of community.

Community is defined as a group of people who share each other's fate. Community is based on the exchange between women and children of different households. Without this exchange between women in the course of daily life, no community is possible. When women compete to be the scarce resource for men, this exchange stops. The information flow stops, and the sharing of fate ceases. Thus, exchange is the outward sign of a healthy traditional society. It can only occur when there is a sharing of fate by women who are friends.

It may seem strange for a twentieth-century feminist to be among the few champions of the Family as a larger organization that the suburban dyad, for most Families are headed by men and men play the decisive roles in them or at any rate usually appear to, but there are reasons for such a paradoxical attitude. For one thing, if the family is to be a female sphere, then it is better for women's sanity and tranquility that they not be isolated in it, as they are in the nuclear family. The Family offers the paradigm for the female collectivity: it shows us women cooperating to dignify their lives, to lighten each other's labor, and growing in real love and . . . sisterhood, a word we use constantly without any idea of what it is. When I saw three little girls in a house in Bangalore hurrying to finish their separate tasks so that they could join their mother in pounding rice with a long pole, each skipping over and taking up the work in synchrony with the others, barely stroking the pole, guiding it as if it bounced with its own momentum by fingertips only, all the time keeping up the flow of satiric commentary on their uncle the sarpanch's unfortunate guest (me), formally seated on a diva like an honorary man, I saw something I had never seen before -- the dynamism of sisterhood in action.³

This dynamic sisterhood in action is broken by competition between Western women as they compete to be the most coveted embodiment of social unity -- the most statistically average beauty that is the object of desire which binds the male group together externally. Only in some prophetically inspired traditional societies is this freedom for women to be genuine friends based on their unique qualities still possible.

As we dive deeper into the difference between prophetically based society and its opposite, a strange picture becomes clear. It is a picture of the difference between surface fragmentation with depth unity as against surface unity with deep fragmentation. The anti-prophetic system strives for surface unity. Its mechanism for realizing this surface unity is logic by which various aspects of existence are connected together in a web of relations. The web of surface connections allows the appearance of unity to be built up. However, when this logic of connection plays itself out, as with the formal system, its ultimate result is deep fragmentation. We have seen the result of this in the fragmentation of Being. The fragmentation of Being is a very deep level of fragmentation. It is a fragmentation at the very root of Western reality. The opposite of this is the surface fragmentation which allows deep unity. That unity is the single source of all causation. The fact that this deep unity exists can only be appreciated when one gives up attempting to impose a surface unity. When one gives up the project of building a surface unity, then the deeper unity of the one true reality becomes apparent.

Our drive to produce surface unity is very strong. We must consciously avoid it by substituting a logic of discontinuity for the logic of connection fostered by Aristotle and his successors. The logic of discontinuity allows the pluriverse to exist as a myriad of interacting opposites. The prophetic science of holonomics understands the permutation of states defined by these interacting opposites. Each threshold of complexity (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 2n) gives another heruistic of interacting opposites. The logic of disconnection does not attempt to solve the puzzle, putting all the pieces of the system together, but allows the play of opposites to unfold. Deep unity is seen through the veil of interacting opposites. As long as we are engaged in the project of building the web of concepts (glosses) that unifies the world, that deep unity remains hidden.

The difference between surface unity and deep unity is the primary distinguishing characteristic of the two systems under study. The anti-prophetic system strives for a surface unity called "the system." From the prophetic perspective, there is no system. Unity does not lie in surface phenomena at all. There is a single source for all causation. Everything else is in utter separation. It is not possible to put it all together because it is intrinsically fragmented. We can only seek to appreciate the dynamics of the separation. The heuristics of the logic of disconnection allows us to understand that dynamic even though we cannot systematize it.

Understanding the logic of disconnection is simple. In Islam it is called the doctrine of Tawhid or "Unity." In this doctrine, there are two primal opposites. They do not mix. They are separated by a barrier which cannot be crossed. If one of the opposites is visible, then the other disappears and vice versa. Thus, if the opposites are Yin and Yang, then if the Yin can be seen, then the Yang is invisible and vice versa. We see this directly because in our world only Yin is seen. Yang never appears. Yang is the unseen cause. This is the same difference that is made between Mulk (kingdom) and Malikut (unseen realm). When one turns inward and leaves the Mulk, then the Malikut becomes visible as interior lights surrounded by darkness. These are opposite the darkness made visible by light in the external world. Likewise, if we were to see the Yang (unseen causes) all the visible Yin things of the world would disappear. The metaphor of this is the relation between heaven and earth. Looking at the heavens, one doe not see the earth and vice versa. The lights of the Heavens traditionally stood for the Yang unseen causes under this metaphor. They are only seen in the Malikut.

All the fundamental opposites in existence are mutually exclusive in this way. Inward and outward is another example. If you can see one, the other is invisible. The next step is to realize that both of these opposites have a single source. If you can see either of them, then the source is invisible. If the source is visible, then the opposites vanish.

The single source is the ultimate origin and goal from which the cause and caused arise and return. In the single source, all causes merge. Toward the single source, all forms evolve and eventually return. When one sees the source, everything else vanishes. By vanishing is not meant that the things of the world necessarily evaporate. Instead, our mode of perception changes. When we view the world from an outward perspective, it appears as if there were many independent things separately going their own way. When we change our mode of apprehension, we see that these things are being driven by unseen causes. We might take gravity as an example. Newton united the effects of gravity for us and identified an important unseen cause affecting every aspect of our lives. Newton says the same unseen cause controlling things dropping on earth control celestial mechanics as well. Newton united heaven and earth by identifying a powerful unseen cause controlling everything. Although gravitons have been hypothesized, they are still elusive. Gravity literally remains unseen. Identifying unseen causes makes one see things differently. The things controlled by gravity do not vanish, but they are seen as manifesting effects of the movement of unseen causes. Physical laws are one variety of unseen secondary causation. Other deeper levels that work on subtle levels of existence also may be apprehended. Many examples of approaches to these more subtle levels of unseen causation may be seen in other cultures.

A further change occurs when it is realized that all these invisible causes are really one single cause; and that the myriad things move through the fields created by the arising and return from this ultimate origin. At this point, all movements and transformations become unified with a deep gatheredness. All forms in their evolutions arise and return from one ultimate origin. Deep unity underlies and gathers everything. This is grand unification, the ideal of physics, on all levels of reality, material and subtle alike.

Tawhid is a sign that points toward Allah (the monotheistic God of the Muslims, Jews, early Zoroastrians and Christians). We must apply connection and disconnection simultaneously to understand Allah's relation/non-relation to the Model of Tawhid. Allah cannot be described by any Model. Allah is not limited by our conceptions of Him. We apply the Indian logic of the included middle to understand Allah's attributes in relation to the description of Tawhid.

The first statement corresponds to statements in the Quarn where it is said that Allah has a Right Hand or a Throne and Footstool. It is a statement of relationship -- relating something to Allah. If we do that, it is called Shirk (association). But, of course, Allah is not limited to our conceptions, so He may say these things of Himself. In Quran, for example, Allah says the Prophet Muhammand, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, came within two bows lengths. We do not know what this means but accept it at face value, explaining it as a way of speaking since the petitioner may only approach a king in traditional Arab society to this minimal distance. Likewise, the model of Tawhid comes from Quran in Surat Iklas. We accept it as Allah's description of Himself by which he takes into account our human limitations and gives us something by way of description to help us in the face of the incomprehensible.

The second statement is doctrine. "There is nothing like him." He cannot be related to anything in this world. He cannot be described by anything. He goes beyond the capacity of comprehension by our intellects, even in his own descriptions such as Tawhid. It is thought-proving that Unity or Oneness is the simplest possible concept, but in the case of Tawhid, has incomprehensible depth.

The third statement recognizes that both description and no-description co-exist. Allah describes Himself and simultaneously warns us not to associate anything with Him.

The fourth statement applies disconnection even to the relation between description and non-description. Allah is connected/disconnected to His descriptions of Himself. If double negatives cancel, then statements three and four would merely be a reversal of the same position. Statement four puts the question firmly beyond the realm of intellectual comprehension. It makes it supra-rational which is not the same as irrational. Tawhid is a pointer or sign directing us toward Allah. That sign points toward Him and fails to indicate him simultaneously. It fails if we get stuck in the conceptual structures of the pointer and do not travel to that which is indicated. Once one sees what is indicated, then the sign has served its purpose. One no longer looks at the sign when a glimpse of the goal has been obtained.

When you know what Allah means by the rope of Allah and perfect that action of submission, then one grasps "One True Reality" itself.

Tawhid is a means of freeing the mind of bondage to the logical project of building webs of systems. It is an anti-logic which says you can't control and conquer things with your intellect so look beyond them to the indicated One True Reality. This leads to understanding the deep unity of existence. That unity is inexpressible. Tawhid is prophetic wisdom. It is the heart of the message of the Prophets. It is the Heart of the Matter. The anti-prophetic system does not see the deep unity, and thus attempts to forge surface unity.

In Islam there has been a fundamental mistake committed by many Muslim scholars outside the Sufic traditions. That mistake was to deem that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, brought an imperfect message. They said to themselves and each other that the Prophet brought us the content of prophecy but not the Logic with which to understand that prophecy as a complete system. They, therefore, imported the logic of the Greeks, as defined by Aristotle. They used this logical mechanism to "make sense" out of what was seen as the hodgepodge of assorted records and teachings. The logic taken from the Greeks was seen as merely a tool by which to perfect the teaching brought by the Prophet (may Allah forgive them and us). Instead, they should have realized that the message itself was perfect already without needing any further perfection. The Prophet Muhammad's message contains its own "logic" which is opposite the logic of the Greeks. It is what has been described as the Logic of Disconnection, which is opposite the Logic of surface connection and relation defined by Aristotle. That logic of disconnection appears in the Sura IQLAS, third from the last, in the Quran. It is reported to be worth one third the whole Quran in its significance. This is because it specifies the Logic of Disconnection.

This Sura is very significant for understanding the Quran. It is the definition of Tawhid in the Quran stemming from the question "Who is Allah?" To understand it, we must read it in two halves, taking the second half first. The second half states that Allah did not come from anything nor did anything come from Him, and nothing is equal to Him. Notice that these are the three logically possible relations. Either something is above, below, or at the same level in a hierarchy. Thus, this part of the Sura denies any relationship between Allah and anything else, stated in a way that uses biological generation as the metaphor for precedence. Thus Allah is outside any net of relationships that might be constructed, using logic in our thoughts. It specifically denies the kinds of relations established and embroidered by logic. It denies logic of connection and relation. What does it give as the positive alternative? It says He: Allah: One; Allah: Samad. It gives a series of metonymic juxtapositions. "He" is juxtaposed to the Divine Name "Allah." Then the Divine Name is juxtaposed to His attribute One (al-Ahad) and another of His attributes "The Everlasting Refuge" (as-Samad). These juxtapositions set up the basic structure of discontinuities we have been discussing. The sign of the Essence of Allah -- "He" is disconnected from the two attributes. The two attributes are disconnected from each other. The Divine Name acts as an intermediary indicator which both connects and disconnects at the same time. So all we need to do is apply the dictum that only one of the elements may be "seen" at the same time in order to render the disconnection complete. We "see" Allah's opposite attributes one at a time. We either see Majesty or Beauty; the Inward or Outward. Or these vanish and those attributes associated with the Essence like Oneness, The High beyond association with high and low, become visible. This disconnection of Tawhid is the furthest the human intellect can go toward understanding our relation to Allah. Beyond these words and this Koan of disconnection there is only bewilderment. But in the description, that answers the question "Who is Allah?" In its most succinct form, Allah is giving us a fundamental teaching. It is saying between the lines, in one of its meanings, "Do not use the logic of relations to understand things. Instead consciously disconnect things and you will see a deep inner unity. If you make surface connection, you will obscure that deep unity and that will ultimately result in the fragmentation of the depths of the world." Many Muslim scholars missed this fundamental point. They turned Islam into its opposite by applying conventional Logic to something that it could not comprehend. The result was the inner decay of the Teaching, except for those in the Sufic tradition who kept the essence of the Teaching alive.

This logic of disconnection allows us to appreciate the Quran. There are those who would apply logic and ideation to the Quran in order to render it coherent. The non-Muslims have always criticized the Quran because it was, to their way of thinking, an imperfect narrative. There are many places where it seems to jump from one subject to another after just a few stanzas (ayats). This jumping around is seen as an embarrassment. Implicitly they ask, "Why couldn't God create a book that was a normal narrative? Why does it jump around from one subject to another so much?" The point is that a narrative is a surface continuity, which allows logic and ideation to glide along undisturbed. The Quran breaks all these rules and introduces discontinuities in the surface of the text. This is because it is constantly indicating a deep unity beyond the surface of the text. It is exactly the breaks in the textual flow that contain the inexhaustible meaning. They are the emptiness that make the text useful as a book for guiding our lives. Without those breaks, there world be no impact, and no endless flow of meanings which comes from the reflecting of the different ayats off of each other in myriad ways. The idea of producing conceptual glosses of each Sura in order to perfect the Quran, which has all those embarrassing discontinuities, is in fact, an attack on the heart of the Quran itself, by Muslims who have completely lost touch with their own tradition and only know how to apply the standards and techniques of understanding of the Western tradition to Quran.

Understanding Kufr and Islam can only be done when they are brought into close juxtaposition. Neither can be understood in isolation. Here we have narrowed the gap closer and closer until their fundamental opposition became clear. That opposition shows how Kufr inverts the natural relations posited by prophetic approaches to existence. This inversion is necessary, for without it, we, the configuration of the Prophetic, would not be visible. Allah leads astray and leads aright. Without the astray, the straight path could not be discerned. These are complementary mutually supporting opposites. The depth of our understanding of Kufr IS the depth departure for our deep understanding of Tawhid. The two understandings are intimately intertwined.

Kufr is intensified in the Indo-European tradition by the discovery of dynamic clinging. This dynamism comes from a transformation of the structure of Tawhid. There is an implicit wisdom at the root of the Indo-European approach to existence in which knowledge of Tawhid has been transformed into a kind of anti-knowledge. The Indo-European Kufr draws upon wisdom from its source of dynamism. It says to hold things loosely and let them change in your hand, and you will be able to hold on to them longer. This is a mixture of non-attachment with attachment to achieve an ultra-attachment. But dynamic clinging is only achieved by making basic changes in the structural elements of Tawhid. It is those changes that allow Western Kufr to be so very virulent. Other forms of Kufr exhibit only static clinging and betray ignorance of Tawhid all together. Only Western Kufr takes tawhid and twists it to its own purposes. This has good and bad effects. It is good in that we already have a deep appreciation of some aspects of existence carried over from the remnants of Twahid in our Western way. It is bad because it makes us unable to recognize Tawhid as different from our own approach to reality. The misuse of Tawhid both blinds us and allows us to see deeper into Islam at the same time.

The recognition of dynamic clinging as different from static clinging allows us to begin to see a pattern that would otherwise remain invisible.

When we ask what is the opposite of dynamic clinging, it becomes clear that it can only be a letting-go which is signified by the Void or emptiness (sunyata). Giving up clinging -- non-attachment -- is the de-intensifications or relaxation of clinging. If dynamic clinging is intensified even more, then it becomes a kind of magic. Allah sent the angels Harut and Marut with the magic of how to separate husband and wife to test mankind. That was a kind of anti-revelation which intensified the illusion of dynamic clinging even further, taking it beyond what could be achieved by men on their own. We have already recognized the angelic nature of vedic religion and might hypothesize that either angels like Harut and Marut came to the Indo-Europeans, i.e. Mithra and Varuna, or they came to the Sumarians who were in contact with the Indo-Europeans (the Ker). Proto-Indo-European has Sumarian loan words so this connection is not impossible. Harut and Marut might have been Enlil and Enki, the major gods and benefactors of the Sumarians. This would make the gifts of Harut and Marut the "ME" or the cultural artifacts that formed the basis of Sumarian society, and perhaps by diffusion, Indo-European society. It is of interest that the copula in Sumarian is also pronounced "ME." The magical knowledge of separating man from wife would play a crucial role in Indo-European society as that society used the female as the external unity which held the society together. We see a progressive devolution of Indo-European society from its origins with the five brothers with one wife.

At the other extreme, beyond the Void is the intensification of the Void which has been referred to as the "Rope of Allah." From non-attachment, we return to attachment -- but a very specialized attachment to the indicator of Allah. In this picture, each element allows its mirror opposite to be seen and recognized. Out of static clinging arises dynamic clinging which makes it possible to understand its opposite, the Void. Out of dynamic clinging comes a further intensification in which angelic magical revelation allow men to cut the bonds of the external female unity. This magic from beyond the Void also makes it possible to understand its opposite, the "Rope of Allah," which is also from beyond the Void. The angelic knowledge is a test which, if misused, leads to ultimate separation outwardly, whereas the Rope of Allah leads to ultimate unification inwardly. At each stage, there is a position and its opposite. They mutually elucidate each other. Without the mutual elucidation, man could not understand the difference between the right path and those who have gone astray called the Druj by Zoroaster and Kafir by the Muslims.

The degeneration of the dynamic clinging through the addition of the magic of separation is a whole story in itself. We will not indulge in that story because we are fundamentally interested in going the other way. We want, instead, to understand the Void and take the path beyond the Void. Of course, this way may only be understood in relation to its opposite way of degeneration. So in the remaining pages of this chapter, let us trace the downward journey briefly as a preparation for taking the upward way.

The best way to understand the downward journey is to study Zoroastrianism. Zoraster was the only known prophet to the Indo-European peoples. He originally came with a monotheistic prophecy which counteracted the Indo-European approach to reality very early. However, eventually this was turned into its opposite and became a religious duality of an extreme variety. Zoroaster identified certain aspects of the Indo-European worldview as the enemy. This he called the druj (drug). Primarily what he identified as evil was the Indra energy of the warrior, and the cult of the self-immolation of God that is unique to the Indo-European tradition. Zoraster turned the pantheon upside down, making the devas into devils and the asuras into angels. Indra was made chief of the forces of darkness who fought against the compatriots of the Wise Lord. In this, Zoraster made the fight between light and darkness something within the camp of the five brothers instead of between the five brothers and another host. It is the warrior energy in its phase as berserker who kill the cattle (the means of life) which is relegated to the forces of darkness. This energy is identified with the werewolf or centaur. The warrior goes outside his societal group to learn to kill by becoming a bandit preying on other societies. Today we call this segment of society, which is out of control, the CIA. It is precisely this out of control, berserk, warrior energy that Zoraster resists and centers on as the enemy of truth. Certainly the doctrine of the self-immolation of God was anathema to him, as it would be to any monotheist. It is only the reverse of the concept of ontological monism assumed by all modern metaphysics. By joining the centaurs, the warrior learns his trade in a no-holds-barred situation which breaks the rules of society but is "okay" because it occurs beyond the bounds of society. The magis that the initiate warrior learns from Cheron is how to separate man from wife. Thus, the returning warrior becomes the abductor who steals the reproductive means of production. The warrior initiate learns dynamic clinging which allows him to hold on longer by holding on loosely and allowing the held to change in hand.

Zoroastrianism deteriorated from its monotheistic original form into a duality which Angra Mainu and Spenta Mainu were continually at war under the auspices of the WISE LORD, Ahura Mazda. Soon Ahura Mazda and Spenta Mainu became inseparable, and they were seen to battle as one against Ahriman (Angra Mainu). Thus dualism created all sorts of theological problems for it begged the question of who created the warring twins. As an answer to this, the god Zurvan was created as the father of the twins. Zurvan was identified with endlesstime. He later was identified with Cronos / Saturn. Others did not accept the Zurvanite heresy and continued to believe in pure dualism -- the original monotheism was completely forgotten. This strain of Zurvanism gave rise to Manicheism, gnosticism and perhaps Mithrism. From it, we get our good guys / bad guys dualistic way of viewing existence. From it, we get our concept of romantic love -- the love of the unobtainable. It is the basic source of our nihilistic formulation of existence in terms of false oppositions which are ultimately two faces of the same thing. The sources of nihilism are deep in history. It is not just a modern phenomenon. Nihilism develops directly out of the fourfold balanced heuristics as is shown by Chinese medicine. Over and above the fourfold of Major / Minor Yin / Yang, the Chinese posit two further states of Closed Yin and Yang Splendor. Closed Yin is like the black hole which is so Yin its action is Yang. Similarly, with Yang Splendor, it is so Yang that its action is Yin. These two artificial out of balance states signify the rolling over of Yin and Yang into their opposites arrested at the point of transformation. Yang Splendor is too bright. Closed Yin is too dark. They are signifiers for life out of balance. They are the primal nihilistic opposites. The Zoroastrian Dualism portrays all existence as a clash between the forces of light against the forces of darkness, i.e. of Yang Splendor against Closed Yin. This is a warped view of existence. These categories are actually illusory; they come out of the action of opposites among the fourfold heuristic rolling over into their opposites. But because people resist that rolling over, they try to hold on to Yin and Yang too long. Thus, they go into the Yang Splendor state when they try to cling to Yang when it was already overdue for rolling over into the Yin. These two artificial states come about from clinging to existence "as it is now" and not rolling with the dynamics of the opposites. Nihilism is the way this sickness is expressed in our society. Nihilism is the direct result of clinging. It was initially formulated as a way of viewing existence by the Zoroastrians. It entered our Western culture through the Greeks, who were heavily influenced by the Persian worldview, especially through the syncretic Manichism which eventually turned into the Cathar Heresy by way of Gnosticism and Mithrism. Through the dialectical interaction of these heresys and Christianity, they became incorporated into Christianity as we know it today.

Nihilism is a way of living with constant dynamic clinging which ignores rolling over of opposites. The good guys are defined as ourselves, and our enemy is defined as the bad guys. We see ourselves as the forces of light against the forces of darkness. We cling to this interpretation no mater what atrocities are committed. The French soldiers during the Crusades ate children, but because they were on the Christian side, they are still seen as the "good guys." The creation of diametrically opposed camps locked into life or death struggle gives Western history its dialectical properties. Sartre explores the intelligibility of this struggle in his Critique Of Dialectical Reason, Volume 2. Dialectics is the interaction between nihilistic opposites. The movement from thesis and anti-thesis to synthesis is the transformation of the object of dynamic clinging.

As a society, we pride ourselves on analysis. Analysis is the magic of separating natural wholes. Separating a man from his wife is the deconstruction of a natural whole as well as the breaking of a non-nihilistic distinction. Analysis is the opposite of synthesis. By synthesis, transformation within dynamic clinging occurs; whereas by analysis, the products of synthesis are broken up again. The analytic philosophy of Kant floats above synthesis. The synthetic a priori is necessary before analysis can begin. Analysis is the magic of Harut and Marut as a counter force to the synthesis of dynamic clinging. Dynamic clinging itself is a bond between subject and object. Analysis breaks this bond, using the tools of ideation. By assuming transcendental object and transcendental subject, the bond is reduced, step by step, to a fragmented state which only the transcendental god can hold together.

In Zoroastrianism is the key to the emergence of nihilism which has become the dominant mode of thought in Western culture. It was Nietzsche who pointed this out for the first time. This is the downward path to the state of being unable to distinguish good and evil -- the inability to make non-nihilistic distinctions. By contrast, transforming and constant reductionism, nihilism reduces all distinctions to an indistinguishable mass. Unable to make distinctions, those lost in nihilism wander helplessly through life. Nihilism is the product of dynamic clinging joined to analysis. It is a constant churning which blurs all lines of demarcation and renders everything worthless. Nihilism is the opposite of the way we wish to go. It is the refuge of those who fear the Void and constantly seek to lay the foundations to cover up the Abyss. Foundations on foundations the stones are turned to gravel then dust, and the dust, blows away what is left is the face of the Void.