Science et Conscience: une Théorie Quantique de la Conscience

Les paramécies sont des organismes composés d’une seule cellule. Elles peuvent nager, trouver de la nourriture, s’accoupler, se reproduire, se souvenir de leurs expériences passées, en tirer des schémas de conduite, et donc « apprendre », – tout cela sans disposer de système nerveux, n’ayant ni neurones, ni synapses… Comment de tels comportements nécessitant une forme de conscience et même d’intelligence sont-ils possibles dans un organisme monocellulaire sans réseaux neuronaux ?

La question est importante, car elle ouvre des perspectives nouvelles sur la nature de la « conscience ». En effet, on pourrait inférer de ces observations qu’une partie de nos propres capacités cognitives ne sont pas d’origine neuronale, mais se basent sur d’autres phénomènes biologiques, plus fondamentaux, se situant en deçà du niveau des réseaux neuronaux.

Selon l’hypothèse de Stuart Hameroff et Roger Penroseⁱ, la faculté d’apprendre des organismes monocellulaires et l’émergence de formes de conscience élémentaires au sein de nos propres cellules neuronales pourraient prendre leur source dans les microtubules qui en forment le cytosquelette, au niveau des dendrites et du corps cellulaire (soma).

Les microtubules seraient le lieu de l’éclosion de moments infimes de « proto-conscience », – moments infimes mais constamment répétés, des millions de fois par seconde, et dont l’agrégation et l’intégration à un niveau supérieur par les réseaux neuronaux constitueraient la « conscience » proprement dite.

On pourrait tout aussi supputer que ces moments de « proto-conscience » qui émergent en permanence dans les milliards de microtubules des dendrites de chacun de nos neurones forment non seulement la source de la conscience mais aussi la base de notre inconscient (ou du moins de son substrat biologique).

On a montré que les ondes du cerveau détectées par l’électro-encéphalographie (EEG) dérivent en fait des vibrations profondes qui sont produites au niveau des microtubules composant le cytosquelette des dendrites et des corps cellulaires des neurones.

Les activités des membranes neuronales peuvent aussi entrer en résonance à travers les diverses régions du cerveau, selon les fréquences des ondes gamma qui peuvent varier entre 30 et 90 Hz.ⁱⁱ

Les phénomènes vibratoires qui s’initient au sein des microtubules (plus précisément au niveau des « tubulines » qui les composent) modifient les réactions et les potentiels d’action des neurones et des synapses. Ils participent à l’émergence initiale des processus neurobiologiques conduisant à la conscience.

Or ces phénomènes de résonance, considérés du point de vue de leur nature profonde, sont essentiellement de nature quantique, selon la thèse présentée par Roger Penrose et Stuart Hameroffⁱⁱⁱ.

Les molécules des membranes des cellules neuronales possèdent un moment dipolaire et se comportent comme des oscillateurs avec des quanta d’excitations. Par ailleurs, selon les lois de la mécanique quantique, elles peuvent donner lieu à des phénomènes d’intrication quantique liant et corrélant de cette manière les particules des microtubules de plusieurs neurones adjacents, permettant une intégration croissante de réseaux à l’échelle neuronale.

Hameroff et Penrose affirment que les événements de proto-conscience sont donc en quelque sorte le résultat de « calculs quantiques » effectués dans les microtubules (ce terme de ‘calcul quantique’ est associé à l’image de la microtubule comme ordinateur quantique). Les résultats de ces ‘calculs’ sont ‘objectivés’ après leur ‘réduction’ quantique (d’où le terme employé de ‘réduction objective’, ou « Objective Reduction », dite de Diósi–Penrose, notée O.R., pour qualifier cette théorie).

Mais cela a-t-il un sens de parler de « moments de proto-conscience » ? La conscience n’est-elle pas précisément d’abord le sentiment d’une unité subsumant un tout, un tout fait de myriades de possibles continuellement intégrés ?

La conscience est décrite par ces théoriciens de la neurologie quantique comme une séquence de micro-moments discontinus, des quanta de conscience émergente.

Or la conscience se définit aussi, macroscopiquement, comme présence à soi, comme intuition de la réalité du soi, comme capacité de faire des choix, de disposer d’une mémoire fondant la persistance du sentiment du soi, et comme ‘pensée’, capable de préparer et de projeter l’expression d’une volonté.

Les deux positions, celle de la succession de moments discontinus, quantiques, de proto-conscience et celle de la conscience unitive du Soi sont-elles compatibles ?

L’école Sarvāstivāda, l’un des courants majeurs du bouddhisme ancien, va dans ce sens, puisqu’elle affirme qu’adviennent 6.480.000 « moments » de conscience en 24h, soit une micro-salve de conscience toutes les 13,3 ms (fréquence de 75 Hz). D’autres écoles bouddhistes décrivent pour leur part l’apparition d’une pensée toutes les 20ms (50 Hz)^iv.

La conscience consisterait donc en une succession d’événements discontinus, synchronisant différentes parties du cerveau, selon des fréquences variées.

Du point de vue philosophique, on peut distinguer trois grandes classes de théories de l’origine et de la place de la conscience dans l’univers, comme le font Penrose et Hameroff :

A. La conscience n’est pas un phénomène indépendant, mais apparaît comme une conséquence naturelle, évolutive, de l’adaptation biologique du cerveau et du système nerveux. Selon cette vue, prévalente en sciences, la conscience émerge comme une propriété de combinaisons biologiques complexes, et comme un épiphénomène, un effet secondaire, sans existence indépendante. Elle est donc fondamentalement illusoire, c’est-à-dire qu’elle construit sa propre réalité plutôt qu’elle ne la perçoit effectivement. Elle a pu surgir spontanément, puis ensuite être conservée car elle apporte un avantage comparatif aux espèces qui en bénéficient. Dans cette vue, la conscience n’est pas une caractéristique intrinsèque de l’univers, mais résulte d’un simple hasard de l’évolution.

B. La conscience est un phénomène séparé, elle est distincte du monde physique, non contrôlée par lui, et elle a toujours été présente dans l’univers. L’idéalisme de Platon, le dualisme de Descartes, les points de vue religieux et autres approches spirituelles posent que la conscience a toujours été présente dans l’univers, comme le support de l’être, comme entité créatrice, ou encore comme attribut d’un « Dieu » omniprésent. Dans cette vue la conscience peut influencer causalement la matière physique, et le comportement humain, mais n’a pas (pour le moment) de base scientifique. Dans une autre approche le ‘panpsychisme’ attribue une forme de conscience à la matière, mais sans identité scientifique ni influence causale. L’idéalisme affirme que la conscience est tout ce qui existe, le monde matériel (et la science) n’étant qu’une illusion. Dans cette vue, la conscience est en dehors et au-delà des capacités cognitives des ‘scientifiques’ (mais pas des philosophes, des mystiques ou des poètes).

C. La conscience résulte d’événements physiques distincts, qui ont toujours existé dans l’univers, et qui ont toujours donné lieu à des formes de ‘proto-conscience’, résultant de lois physiques précises, mais qui ne sont pas encore pleinement comprises. La biologie a évolué pour tirer avantage de ces événements en les « orchestrant » et en les couplant à l’activité neuronale. Il en résulte des « moments » de conscience, capables de faire émerger du ‘sens’. Ces événements de conscience sont aussi porteurs de ‘cognition’, et donc capables de contrôler causalement le comportement. Ces moments sont associés à la réduction d’états quantiques. Cette position a été présentée de façon générale par A.N. Whitehead^v et est maintenant explicitement défendue dans la théorie de Roger Penrose et Stuart Hameroff, par eux baptisée de théorie « Orch O.R. » (acronyme pour « orchestrated objective reduction »).

Les trois grandes classes de théorie sur la conscience que l’on vient de décrire peuvent se résumer ainsi :

A. Science/Matérialisme. La conscience ne joue aucun rôle distinct, indépendant de la matière.

B. Dualisme/Spiritualité. La conscience reste au-delà des capacités cognitives de la science.

C. Science/Conscience. La conscience joue en fait un rôle essentiel dans les lois physiques, bien que ce rôle ne soit pas (encore) élucidé.

On pourrait leur ajouter une théorie D, qui reprendrait certains aspects saillants des trois théories précédentes, mais pour en tirer une synthèse originale, en trouvant le moyen d’éliminer les incompatibilités apparemment dirimantes qui semblent les éloigner radicalement les unes des autres.

Personnellement, c’est la voie qui me semble la plus prometteuse pour l’avenir.

La théorie Orch O.R. représente d’ailleurs un premier pas sur la voie de l’intégration des théories A, B et C.

Elle tente d’expliquer comment la conscience peut émerger de ce que Penrose et Hameroff appellent la ‘computation’ neuronale.

Mais comment des événements de proto-conscience peuvent-ils surgir spontanément d’une complexité computationnelle synchronisée par ‘éclairs’ successifs, et réunissant de façon coopérative des régions diverses du cerveau?

L’observation montre que les EEG des ondes gamma (au-dessus de 30 Hz) sont le meilleur corrélat avec les faits de conscience, en ce qu’ils dénotent un synchronisme avec les potentiels intégrés des dendrites et des corps cellulaires des cellules neuronales.

Les protéines associées aux microtubules (MAPs) interconnectent les microtubules des cellules neuronales en réseaux récursifs. Elles facilitent l’« intégration » de l’activité des dendrites et du soma de ces cellules.

La théorie Orch OR innove en posant que cette intégration complexe, dans le temps et dans l’espace, est en fait rendue possible par des phénomènes d’intrication quantique des particules des tubulines des microtubules appartenant à des neurones adjacents.

Par ces phénomènes quantiques d’intrication, les réseaux de dendrites intègrent donc collectivement leurs capacités propres de computation. Cette intégration n’est pas déterministe, passive. Elle implique des traitements computationnels complexes qui utilisent les connections latérales entre neurones et la synchronisation différenciée de la polarisation de leurs membranes.

Les neurones connectés par leurs dendrites synchronisent en effet leurs potentiels de champs locaux (LFPs) en phase d’intégration, mais ils ne synchronisent pas nécessairement ensuite leurs décharges électriques dans les axones. D’autres facteurs sont donc à l’oeuvre

On peut observer d’ailleurs que les molécules utilisées en anesthésie ‘effacent’ sélectivement la conscience en s’associant à certains sites spécifiques dans les dendrites et le soma post-synaptiques.

Ce qui est établi, c’est que l’intégration dendritique et somatique est donc étroitement en relation avec la conscience, et c’est elle qui est à l’origine des salves électriques des axones qui ‘convoient’ les processus porteurs de « proto-conscience », lesquels seront finalement intégrés par le cerveau pour permettre le contrôle « conscient » du comportement.

Descartes considérait la glande pinéale comme le siège possible de la conscience ; Penrose et Hameroff estiment que ce siège est en fait délocalisé dans l’ensemble des microtubules.

Cette théorie a aussi l’avantage d’expliquer comment le traitement intracellulaire dans les cyto-squelettes des organismes unicellulaires est le moyen par lequel ceux-ci peuvent disposer de fonctions cognitives alors qu’ils sont dépourvus de synapses…

Cependant cette théorie n’explique absolument pas la nature même de la « proto-conscience ». Elle ne fait que décrire la conjonction de deux phénomènes, la réduction des états quantiques liant par intrication des ensembles de microtubules, et l’apparition de moments supposés de proto-conscience.

Mais la relation causale entre la « réduction objective orchestrée » et la proto-conscience n’est pas prouvée. Il n’y a aucune preuve de la « production » de proto-conscience à l’occasion de cette « réduction ».

Il se pourrait tout aussi bien qu’il y ait à cette occasion une « transmission » d’éléments de proto-conscience, venant d’une sphère d’une autre nature que matérielle.

C’est là que la théorie D me paraît propre à venir à la rescousse, en proposant une synthèse active entre les théories A, B et C.

Comme le pose la théorie B, on peut considérer la conscience comme une « nappe » pré-existante dans tout l’univers, et environnant de toutes parts la matière.

La conscience universelle peut être représentée comme étant une « nappe » de points d’existence, de quanta de conscience connectés.

La matière peut s’interpréter quant à elle comme une « nappe » de points d’existence énergétique.

Ces diverses sortes d’existences (spirituelle/consciente, et matérielle/énergétique) ont en commun le fait d’« être ».

La réalité du fait d’« être » serait alors leur socle fondamental, leur essence « ontique » commune, et par conséquent, aussi, le cadre de leurs potentielles interactions mutuelles.

Dans certains cas, par exemple lors du changement instantané d’état (comme lors de la réduction quantique intervenant dans les microtubules des cellules neuronales), les nappes de conscience et de matière interagissent au sein de ce que j’appellerais un « qubit d’existence ».

Ce qubit ne serait pas sans rapport avec certaines constantes fondamentales, comme la constante de Planck ou encore avec les rapports sans dimensions qui existent entre les phénomènes fondamentaux de l’univers (comme le rapport entre l’influence de la gravitation universelle et des champs électromagnétiques en tous points de l’univers).

Dans le qubit d’existence, ou qubit ontique, co-existeraient deux formes d’être, de l’« être » fondé sur une énergie associée à la conscience ou à l’esprit, et de l’« être » fondé sur l’énergie associée à la matière.

Ces deux formes d’énergie, qui sont sans doute aussi deux phases d’une même énergie plus fondamentale et plus originaire encore, peuvent interagir ou bien entrer en résonance dans certaines conditions.

Comme leur point commun est l’« être », selon les deux modalités énergétiques citées, l’une matérielle, l’autre spirituelle, il n’est pas inimaginable de supposer que ces deux modalités énergétiques peuvent s’intriquer mutuellement.

On connaît la fameuse formule d’Einstein, E=MC², où E est l’énergie, M la masse et c la vitesse de la lumière. Cette formule représente une sorte de quintessence d’un résultat de la science dure.

J’aimerais proposer une formule comparable, qui vaudrait comme une tentative de la science molle de transcender les séparations des mondes :

E=M©²

E représente ici l’énergie spirituelle. M représente la ‘substance’ spirituelle, c’est-à-dire la conscience. Et le signe © représente la « vitesse », le « vent », le « souffle » de l’Esprit.

L’Esprit, qui se déplace à la vitesse ©, crée par là-même une nappe ou un champ de conscience qui enveloppe l’univers dans ses moindres anfractuosités et ses confins les plus éloignés.

La vitesse © est bien plus grande que la vitesse de la lumière, c, laquelle ne dépasse pas 300.000 km/s.

La vitesse © est peut être même infinie. On sait du moins expérimentalement que l’on peut penser beaucoup plus vite que la vitesse de la lumière. Ainsi une métaphore peut rapprocher instantanément deux visions du monde aussi éloignées que l’on veut. … En un éclair, l’esprit de l’homme peut lier le petit chien qui aboie et la Galaxie du Grand Chien, qui est à 25 000 années lumière du système solaire…

Si l’on continue l’analogie, un qubit d’énergie primordiale peut se moduler, en tous points de l’Univers, en un qubit spirituel et un qubit matériel, selon plusieurs phases, se combinant en proportions variées, et qui peuvent à l’occasion entrer en résonance, comme on l’a suggéré.

Les vibrations énergétiques (esprit/matière) sont le moyen de coupler les deux mondes matériels et spirituels par le biais de leurs vibrations « ontiques » (les vibrations associées à leur manière d’« être »).

Le lieu où s’opère ce couplage se trouve par exemple dans les microtubules qui concentrent une extraordinaire densité de molécules actives, et qui sont par le biais des forces de Van der Waals, en résonance, intriquées.

L’apparition de la conscience au sein des microtubules ne serait donc pas le résultat d’une production locale de proto-conscience, initiée par la réduction quantique, comme le posent Penrose et Hameroff.

Elle serait le résultat d’une transmission, entre le monde préexistant de la conscience et le monde matériel, ici interfacés au niveau des microtubules.

C’est l’hypothèse connue comme théorie de la transmission, qui a été formulée par William James en 1898^vi…

« The brain is represented as a transmissive organ.

(…)

Matter is not that which produces Consciousness, but that which limits it, and confines its intensity within certain limits: material organization does not construct consciousness out of arrangements of atoms, but contracts its manifestation within the sphere which it permits.

(…)

One’s finite mundane consciousness would be an extract from one’s larger, truer personality, the latter having even now some sort of reality behind the scenes.

One’s brain would also leave effects upon the part remaining behind the veil; for when a thing is torn, both fragments feel the operation. »^vii

« Le cerveau peut être représenté comme un organe de transmission.

La matière n’est pas ce qui produit la Conscience, mais ce qui la limite, et ce qui confine son intensité dans certaines limites : l’organisation matérielle ne construit pas la conscience à partir d’arrangements d’atomes, mais elle réduit sa manifestation à la sphère qu’elle construit.

La conscience de tout un chacun, finie, commune, ne serait qu’un extrait d’une conscience plus grande, d’une personnalité plus vraie, laquelle posséderait, même maintenant, une sorte de réalité derrière la scène. Notre cerveau pourrait produire des effets, laisser des traces, sur la partie [de la conscience] qui demeure derrière le voile ; car quand quelque chose est déchiré, les deux fragments subissent l’opération. »

La conscience dont nous disposons lorsque nous sommes éveillés, et à laquelle nous renonçons en dormant ou en mourant, n’est que l’une des faces, l’une des phases d’une conscience bien plus large à laquelle nous sommes liés en permanence (par exemple par le truchement de la réduction quantique des microtubules…).

Cette conscience bien plus large est encore la nôtre. Son nom est le Soi.

Elle prolonge notre conscience d’ici-bas, et en est peut-être aussi à l’origine. Elle se nourrit de notre conscience terrestre, et en retour nous nourrit aussi, en permanence, de façon subliminale, ou parfois, illuminante.

Elle ne doit pas être confondue avec un ‘océan’ infini de conscience indifférenciée dans laquelle nous ne serions que des ‘nageurs morts’ suivant son cours ‘vers d’autres nébuleuses’^viii.

L’esprit peut donc ainsi interférer avec la matière sous forme d’ondes ou de chocs de proto-conscience, à l’occasion de la « réduction quantique ».

De quoi cette « réduction » est-elle la métaphore ?

J’avancerais volontiers que le spirituel influe sur le monde dit « réel » par le moyen de la « réduction » des possibles, et précisément leur « réduction » au réel, la « réduction » du potentiel à l’actuel.

Une «réduction» représente une certaine fermeture de l’indéterminisme quantique local, mais aussi l’ouverture infiniment rapide d’un immense champs de potentialités nouvelles, à venir…

_____

iStuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose. Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’ theory. Physics of Life Reviews, Volume 31, December 2019, Pages 86-103

ii« The best measurable correlate of consciousness through modern science is gamma synchrony electro-encephalography (EEG), 30 to 90Hz coherent neuronal membrane activities occurring across various synchronized brain regions ». Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose. Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’ theory. Physics of Life Reviews, Volume 31, December 2019, Page 41

iiiStuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose. Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’ theory. Physics of Life Reviews, Volume 31, December 2019, Pages 86-103

ivA. von Rospatt. The Buddhist doctrine of Momentariness. : a Survey of of the origins and early phase of this doctrine up to Vasubandha. Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1995

vA.N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1929. Adventures of Ideas, 1933.

viWilliam James. Human Immortality : Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine.Ed. by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1898.

viiWilliam James. Human Immortality : Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine.Ed. by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1898.

viiiGuillaume Apollinaire. La Chanson du mal-aimé

Raw Light (A Tactical Psalm)

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Detail of blue mosaic at Bibi-Khanym (Bibi-Xonum) Mosque, Samarkand, Uzbekistan

In Samarkand, I picked the green fruits of an old tree.

All of them had given their juice, as every soul has its taste.

Who has seen in himself the moons, the cracks, the lava?

The grounded boats, the slumped sails, the hoped-for capes?

Like a dung beetle rising in the dune, I am a mirage.

You spread your absence everywhere.

What would I know of your presence?

You empty everything from your sky.

Today I love bread and salt.

Tomorrow I will be a friend of millet and wine.

I will lap up dreams and drink open waters.

Everything comes back one day, what use is time, for what memory?

Tonight I am ruin, dust, grave, gas, shard of earth, sandy port, blind worm, logical continuation.

Spastic heart, knotted throat, living soul.

I neither hide nor do I show. I wait for the slow one.

Already game, promised prey, drunk with nothing, I sing the shadow of a pean, the echo of an hallali.

Streams and rivers, horizontal leaks. On the horizon, the sea is so vertical.

On the pebble, water flows, far from thirst.

I don’t know the existence and the essence. I don’t know the weight of the mountains to come.

Of the possible heaps, the future number is very large.

My hands form a cup, filtering drunkenness, and the caress is a pain.

I didn’t believe in the flood, at the top of the hill, but it came, without words.

Beauty, joy, life: moons, curves, teeth, breaths, shadows.

Drink it all, and forget all that is missing and forgotten.

See: they see, and they do not see.

Give the pain a name of sweetness, a sure sign.

Cherish your peace. Hate that which kills.

Find the thread, and the eye of the needle, in the raw light.

Morning and Evening Knowledge

Publié par Philippe Quéau

The sun was created on the fourth day of Genesis. Before the sun was created, what did the first « mornings » and « evenings » look like? In what sense was a “dawn” without a morning sunbeam? An “evening” without twilight?

Genesis speaks of « evenings » and « mornings »ⁱ, but not of « nights », except at the very beginning. « God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.”ⁱⁱ

Why? Perhaps to suggest that the « Night » cannot be entirely given over to « Darkness ». Or because the Night, being absolutely devoid of any « light », cannot have an existence of its own. Nights = Darkness = Nothingness?

There is another possibility. The Night does exist, but the angels of light cannot have « knowledge » of it. Being made of light, they are incompatible with night. Therefore they cannot talk about it, let alone pass on its existence to posterity.

This is the reason why one passes, immediately, from evening to morning. « There was an evening, there was a morning”ⁱⁱⁱ.

Another question arises, that of the nature of the « day ». Since the sun had not yet been created, perhaps we should imagine that « day » implied another source of light, for example an « intelligible light », or metaphorically, the presence of « angels of light », as opposed to « night », which would shelter the « angels of darkness »?

In any case, before the sun was born, there were three days – three mornings and three evenings – that benefited from a non-solar light and a quality of shadow that was intermediate and not at all nocturnal.

When the angels « knew » the creation (waters, heavens, lands, seas, trees, grasses…) in the first three days, they did not « see » it, nor did they get attached to it. They would have run the risk of sinking into the darkness of the night, which they did not « see », and for good reason.

In those evenings and mornings, they could also « know » the light of the spirit.

Only the “night angels” could remain in the night, this “night” which Genesis avoids naming six times^iv.

Nothing can be said about this night and this occultation of the spirit. Besides, the Bible does not even mention the word itself, as has already been said.

What is certain is that during the first three days there were no lights other than those of the spirit. Nor were there any nights other than those of the spirit.

During these three days and nights, creation received the original, founding memory of this pure light and this deep darkness.

We can also derive these words (mornings, evenings, days, nights) into other metaphors: the « mornings » of consciousness, the « nights » of the soul, – as S. Augustine who wrote about the « knowledge of the morning » and the « knowledge of the evening »^v.

S. Thomas Aquinas also took up these expressions and applied them to the « knowledge of the angel »: « And as in a normal day morning is the beginning of the day, and evening is the end of the day, [St. Augustine] calls morning knowledge the knowledge of the primordial being of things, a knowledge which relates to things according to the way they are in the Word; whereas he calls evening knowledge the knowledge of the created being as existing in its own nature.” ^vi

Philosophically, according to Thomistic interpretation, ‘morning’ is a figurative way of designating the principle of things, their essential idea, their form. And the « evening » then represents what follows from this essence subjected to the vicissitudes of existence, which results from the interaction of the principle, the idea, the form, with the world, reality or matter.

“Morning knowledge” is a knowledge of the primordial being of things, a knowledge of their essence. “Evening knowledge” represents the knowledge of things as they exist in their own nature, in the consciousness of themselves.

Let us take an example. A tiger, an eagle or a tuna, live their own lives, in the forest, the sky or the sea. Perhaps one day we will be able to write about the unique experience of a particular tiger, a particular eagle or a particular tuna. We will have taken care to arm them with sensors from their birth, and to scrupulously record all the biological data and their encephalograms every millisecond of their existence. In a sense, we will be able to « know » their entire history with a luxury of detail. But what does « knowing » mean in this context? Over time, we will surely acquire the essence of their vision of the world, their grammars, their vocabularies, as a result of systematic, tedious and scholarly work. But will we ever discover the Dasein of a particular animal, the being of this tiger, this tuna or this eagle?

Since Plato, there has been this idea that the idea of the animal exists from all eternity, but also the idea of the lion, the idea of the dove or the idea of the oyster.

How can we effectively perceive and know the essence of the tiger, the tigerness? The life of a special tiger does not cover all the life possibilities of the animals of the genus Panthera of the Felidae family. In a sense, the special tiger represents a case in point. But in another sense, the individual remains enclosed in its singularity. It can never have lived the total sum of all the experiences of its congeners of all times past and future. It sums up the species, in one way, and it is overwhelmed on all sides by the infinity of possibilities, in another way.

To access the « morning knowledge », one must be able to penetrate the world of essences, of paradigms, of « Logos« . This is not given to everyone.

To access the « evening knowledge », one must be ready to dive into the deep night of creatures. It is not given to everyone either, because one cannot remain there without damage. This is why one must « immediately » arrive in the morning. S. Augustine comments: « But immediately there is a morning (as is true for each of the six days), for the knowledge of the angels does not remain in the ‘created’, but immediately brings it [the created] to the glory and love of the One in whom the creature is known, not as something done, but to be done.”^vii

We can see that there are in fact three kinds of knowledge: diurnal knowledge, vesperal knowledge and morning knowledge.

The diurnal knowledge here is that of daylight, but one has yet to further distinguish between a daylight without the “sun” (like in the first three days of Creation), and a daylight bathing in sunlight.

As for the difference between vesperal and matutinal knowledge, it is the same as the difference between knowledge of things already done and knowledge of things yet to be accomplished.

iGn 1,5. Gn 1,8. Gn 1,13. Gn 1,19. Gn 1,23. Gn 1,31

iiGn. 1, 5

iiiGn 1,8. Gn 1,13. Gn 1,19. Gn 1,23. Gn 1,31

ivGn 1,5. Gn 1,8. Gn 1,13. Gn 1,19. Gn 1,23. Gn 1,31

vS. Augustine. IV De Gen. ad litt. 22 PL 34, 312. BA 48,III

viS. Thomas Aquinas. SummaTheol., I a, Q. 58, a 6

viiS. Augustine. De Gen ad litt. Livre IV. XXIV, 41. Ed. Desclée de Brouwer. 1972, p. 341

Creation, Death, Life

Publié par Philippe Quéau

According to Genesis, taken literally, man was created twice.

Genesis, in chapter 1, describes a first creation of « man » called ha-adam. The word ha-adam includes the definite article ha and literally means « the earth », metaphorically « the red » (for the earth is red), and by extension « man ».

In Chapter 2, Genesis describes a second creation of man (ish), accompanied by a creation of woman (isha). These two words are not preceded by the article ha.

The most immediately noticeable differences between the two creations are as follows.

First of all, the names given to the man differ, as we have just seen: ha-adam on the one hand, ish and isha on the other.

Secondly, the verbs used to describe the act of creation are not the same. In the first chapter of Genesis we read: « God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness' » (Gen. 1:26). The Hebrew word for ‘let us make’ is נַעֲשֶׂה from the verb עֲשֶׂה, ‘asah, to do, to act, to work. In the second chapter of Genesis we read: « And the Eternal God planted a garden in Eden toward the east, and there he placed the man whom he had fashioned. « (Gen. 2:8) The Hebrew word for ‘fashioning’ is יָצָר , yatsara, to make, to form, to create.

Thirdly, in Genesis 1, God created man « male and female » (zakhar and nqebah). Man is apparently united in a kind of bi-sexual indifferentiation or created with « two faces », according to Rashi.

In contrast, in Genesis 2, the creation of woman is clearly differentiated. She is created in a specific way and receives the name ‘isha‘, which is given to her by the man. The man, ‘ha-adam‘, then calls himself ‘ish‘, and he calls his wife ‘isha‘, « because she was taken from ‘ish‘ ».

Rashi comments on this verse: « She shall be called isha, because she was taken from ish. Isha (‘woman’) is derived from ish (‘man’). From here we learn that the world was created with the holy language, [since only the Hebrew language connects the words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ with a common root]. (Berechith raba 18, 4).”

I don’t know if it can be said with impunity that only the Hebrew language connects the words « man » and « woman » to a common root. English, for example, displays such a link with « man » and « woman ». In Latin, « femina » (woman) would be the feminine counterpart of « homo » (« hemna« ).

But this is a secondary issue. However, it shows that Rashi’s interest is certainly not exercised here on the problem of double creation and on the triple difference between the stories of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2: two nouns (adam/ish), two verbs to describe creation (‘asah/yatsara), and two ways of evoking the difference between genders, in the form ‘male and female’ (zakhar/nqebah) and in the form ‘man and woman’ (ish/isha).

The double narrative of the creation of man and woman could be interpreted as the result of writing by independent authors at different times. These various versions were later collated to form the text of Genesis, which we have at our disposal, and which is traditionally attributed to Moses.

What is important here is not so much the identity of the writers as the possible interpretation of the differences between the two stories.

The two ‘ways’ of creating man are rendered, as has been said, by two Hebrew words, עֲשֶׂה ‘to make’ and יָצָר ‘to form’. What does this difference in vocabulary indicate?

The verb עֲשֶׂה ‘asah (to do) has a range of meanings that help to characterize it more precisely: to prepare, to arrange, to take care of, to establish, to institute, to accomplish, to practice, to observe. These verbs evoke a general idea of realization, accomplishment, with a nuance of perfection.

The verb יָצָר yatsara (to shape, to form) has a second, intransitive meaning: to be narrow, tight, embarrassed, afraid, tormented. It evokes an idea of constraint, that which could be imposed by a form applied to a malleable material.

By relying on lexicon and semantics, one can attempt a symbolic explanation. The first verb (עֲשֶׂה , to do) seems to translate God’s point of view when he created man. He « makes » man, as if he was in his mind a finished, perfect, accomplished idea. The second verb (יָצָר , to form) rather translates, by contrast, the point of view of man receiving the « form » given to him, with all that this implies in terms of constraints, constrictions and limits.

If we venture into a more philosophical terrain, chapter 1 of Genesis seems to present the creation of man as ‘essence’, or in a ‘latent’ form, still ‘hidden’ to some extent in the secret of nature.

Later, when the time came, man also appears to have been created as an existential, natural, visible, and clearly sexually differentiated reality, as chapter 2 reports.

S. Augustine devoted Part VI of his book, Genesis in the literal sense, to this difficult question. He proposes to consider that God first created all things ‘simultaneously’, as it is written: ‘He who lives for eternity created everything at the same time. « (Ecclesiasticus, 18,1) The Vulgate version says: « in aeternum, creavit omnia simul« . This word ‘simul‘ seems to mean a ‘simultaneous’ creation of all things.

It should be noted in passing that neither Jews nor Protestants consider this book of Ecclesiasticus (also called Sirach) to belong to the biblical canon.

For its part, the Septuagint translates from Hebrew into Greek this verse from Ecclesiasticus: » o zon eis ton aiôna ektisen ta panta koinè « . (« He who lives for eternity has created everything together. »)

This is another interpretation.

So shall we retain ‘together’ (as the Greek koinè says) or ‘simultaneously’ (according to the Latin simul)? It could be said that it amounts to the same thing. However it follows from this difference that Augustine’s quotation from Sirach 18:1 is debatable, especially when it is used to distinguish between the creation of man in chapter 1 of Genesis and his second creation in chapter 2.

According to Augustine, God in the beginning created all things ‘in their causes’, or ‘in potency’. In other words, God in chapter 1 creates the idea, essence or principle of all things and everything in nature, including man. « If I say that man in that first creation where God created all things simultaneously, not only was he not a man in the perfection of adulthood, but was not even a child, – not only was he not a child, but was not even an embryo in his mother’s womb, but was not even the visible seed of man, it will be believed that he was nothing at all.”

Augustine then asks: what were Adam and Eve like at the time of the first creation? « I will answer: invisibly, potentially, in their causes, as future things are made that are not yet.”

Augustine takes the side of the thesis of the double creation of man, firstly in his ‘causal reason’, ‘in potency’, and secondly, ‘in act’, in an effective ‘existence’ which is prolonged throughout history.

This is also true of the soul of every man. The soul is not created before the body, but after it. It does not pre-exist it. When it is created, it is created as a ‘living soul’. It is only in a second stage that this ‘living soul’ may (or may not) become ‘life-giving spirit’.

Augustine quotes Paul on this subject: « If there is an animal body, there is also a spiritual body. It is in this sense that it is written: The first man, Adam, was made a living soul, the last Adam, the ‘newest Adam’ (novissimus Adam), was a life-giving spirit. But it is not what is spiritual that was made first, it is what is animal; what is spiritual comes next. The first man, who came from the earth, is earthly; the second man, who came from heaven, is heavenly. Such is the earthly, such are also the earthly; and such is the heavenly, such are also the heavenly. And just as we have put on the image of the earthly, so shall we also put on the image of him who is of heaven.”

And Augustine adds: « What more can I say? We therefore bear the image of the heavenly man from now on by faith, sure that we will obtain in the resurrection what we believe: as for the image of the earthly man, we have clothed it from the origin of the human race. »

This basically amounts to suggesting the hypothesis of a third ‘creation’ that could affect man: after adam, ish or isha, there is the ‘last Adam‘, man as ‘life-giving spirit’.

From all of this, we will retain a real intuition of the possible metamorphoses of man, certainly not reduced to a fixed form, but called upon to considerably surpass himself.

It is interesting, at this point, to note that Philo of Alexandria offers a very different explanation of the double creation.

Philo explains that in the beginning God « places » (וַיָּשֶׂם שָׁם ) in the Garden of Eden a « fashioned » man (‘The Eternal God planted a garden in Eden towards the east and placed the man he had fashioned in it’). Gen. 2:8). A little later he ‘established’ (וַיַּנִּח ) a man to be the worker and the guardian (‘The Eternal-God therefore took the man and established him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and care for it’. Gen. 2:15).

According to Philo, the man who cultivates the garden and cares for it is not the « fashioned » man, but « the man [that God] has made« . And Philo says: « [God] receives this one, but drives out the other.”ⁱ

Philo had already made a distinction between the heavenly man and the earthly man, by the same verbal means. « The heavenly man was not fashioned, but made in the image of God, and the earthly man is a being fashioned, but not begotten by the Maker.”ⁱⁱ

If we follow Philo, we must understand that God drove the ‘fashioned‘ man out of the garden, after having placed him there, and then established the ‘made‘ man there. The man whom God ‘fashioned‘ was ‘placed‘ in the garden, but it seems that he was not considered worthy to cultivate and keep it.

Moreover, in the text of Genesis there is no evidence to support Philo’s thesis of a cross between a ‘fashioned’ man and a ‘made’ man.

Philo specifies: « The man whom God made differs, as I have said, from the man who was fashioned: the fashioned man is the earthly intelligence; the made man is the immaterial intelligence.”ⁱⁱⁱ

Philo’s interpretation, as we can see, is metaphorical. It must be understood that there are not two kinds of men, but that there are rather two kinds of intelligence in man.

« Adam is the earthly and corruptible intelligence, for the man in the image is not earthly but heavenly. We must seek why, giving all other things their names, he did not give himself his own (…) The intelligence that is in each one of us can understand other beings, but it is incapable of knowing itself, as the eye sees without seeing itself »^iv.

The ‘earthly’ intelligence can think of all beings, but it cannot understand itself.

God has therefore also ‘made‘ a man of ‘heavenly’ intelligence, but he does not seem to have had a happier hand, since he disobeyed the command not to eat of the fruit of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’.

But was this tree of ‘the knowledge of good and evil’ really in the Garden of Eden? Philo doubts it. For if God says, « But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it », then « this tree was not in the garden »^v.

« You shall not eat of it.” This should not be interpreted as a prohibition, but as a simple prediction of an all-knowing God.

This can be explained by the nature of things, Philo argues. The tree could have been present in « substance », but not in « potency »…

The man ‘in the image’ could have eaten the substance of a fruit of this tree. But he did not digest all its latent potency, and therefore he did not benefit from it in any real way.

There is yet another possible interpretation. Knowledge is not found in life. It is found only in potency, not in life, but in death.

The day in which one eats from the fruit of the tree of knowledge is also the day of death, the day in which the prediction is fulfilled: « Thou shalt die of death » מוֹת תָּמוּת (Gen. 2:17).

In this strange verse the word « death » is used twice. Why is this?

« There is a double death, that of man, and the death proper to the soul; that of man is the separation of soul and body; that of the soul is the loss of virtue and the acquisition of vice. (…) And perhaps this second death is opposed to the first: this one is a division of the compound of body and soul; the other, on the contrary, is a meeting of the two where the inferior, the body, dominates and the superior, the soul, is dominated.”^vi

Philo quotes fragment 62 of Heraclitus: « We live by their death, we are dead to their life.”^vii He believes that Heraclitus was « right to follow the doctrine of Moses in this ». As a good Neoplatonist, Philo also takes up Plato’s famous thesis of the body as the ‘tomb of the soul’.

« That is to say that at present, when we live, the soul is dead and buried in the body as in a tomb, but by our death, the soul lives from the life that is proper to it, and is delivered from evil and the corpse that was bound to it, the body.”^viii

There is nevertheless a notable difference between the vision of Genesis and that of the Greek philosophers.

Genesis says: « You shall die of death! «

Heraclitus has a very different formula: « The life of some is the death of others, the death of some, the life of others.”

In Genesis death is deemed as a double death.

For Heraclitus, death is mixed with life.

Who is right?

iPhilo of Alexandria, Legum Allegoriae, 55

iiIbid., 31

iiiIbid., 88

ivIbid., 90

vIbid., 100

viIbid., 105

vii Philo quoted only a part of fragment 62. He omitted: « Immortals are mortal; mortals are immortal ».

viiiIbid., 106

Angelus novus

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Paul Klee’s Angelus novus has an undeniably catchy title. « The new angel », – two simple words that sum up an entire programme. But does the painting live up to the expectation created by its title? A certain ‘angel’, with a figure like no other, seems to float graphically in the air of mystery, but what is he? What does he say? It is said that there are billions of angels on the head of a single pin. Each boson, each prion, has its angel, one might think, and each man too, say the scholastics. How, under these conditions, can we distinguish between new and old angels? Aren’t they all in service, in mission, mobilised for the duration of time? And if there are « old angels », are they not nevertheless, and above all, eternal, timeless, always new in some way?

Walter Benjamin has commented on this painting by Klee, which undoubtedly ensured its paper celebrity more than anything else.

« There is a painting by Klee entitled Angelus novus. It depicts an angel who seems to have the intention of moving away from what his gaze seems to be riveted to. His eyes are wide open, his mouth open, his wings spread. Such is the aspect that the angel must necessarily have of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where a sequence of events appears before us, he sees only one and only one catastrophe, which keeps piling up ruins upon ruins and throwing them at his feet. He would like to linger, awaken the dead and gather the defeated. But a storm is blowing from paradise, so strong that the angel can no longer close its wings. This storm is constantly pushing him towards the future, to which he turns his back, while ruins are piling up all the way to heaven before him. This storm is what we call progress.”ⁱ

Striking is the distance between Benjamin’s dithyrambic commentary and Klee’s flatter, drier work. Klee’s angel actually appears static, even motionless. No sensation of movement emanates from him, either backwards or forwards. No wind seems to be blowing. His ‘wings’ are raised as if for an invocation, not for a flight. And if he were to take off, it would be upwards rather than forwards. Its « fingers », or « feathers », are pointed upwards, like isosceles triangles. His eyes look sideways, fleeing the gaze of the painter and the spectator. His hair looks like pages of manuscripts, rolled by time. No wind disturbs them. The angel has a vaguely leonine face, a strong, sensual, U-shaped jaw, accompanied by a double chin, also U-shaped. His nose seems like another face, whose eyes would be his nostrils. His teeth are wide apart, sharp, almost sickly. It even seems that several of them are missing. Do angels’ teeth decay?

Klee’s angel is sickly, stunted, and has only three fingers on his feet. He points them down, like a chicken hanging in a butcher’s shop.

Reading Benjamin, one might think he’s talking about another figure, probably dreamt of. Benjamin has completely re-invented Klee’s painting. No accumulated progress, no past catastrophe, seems to accompany this angelus novus, this young angel.

But let us move on to the question of substance. Why should history have only one ‘angel’? And why should this angel be ‘new’?

Angelology is a notoriously imperfect science. Doctors rarely seem to agree.

In Isaiah (33:7) we read: « The angels of peace will weep bitterly. » Do their renewed tears testify to their powerlessness?

In Daniel (10:13) it is said that an archangel appeared and said to Daniel: « The Prince of the Persians resisted me twenty-one days ». This archangel was Gabriel, it is said of him, and the Prince of Persia was the name of the angel in charge of the Persian kingdom.

So the two angels were fighting against each other?

It was not a fight like Jacob’s fight with the angel, but a metaphysical fight. S. Jerome explains that this angel, the Prince of the Persian kingdom, opposed the liberation of the Israelite people, for whom Daniel prayed, while the archangel Gabriel presented his prayers to God.

S. Thomas Aquinas also commented on this passage: « This resistance was possible because a prince of the demons wanted to drag the Jews who had been brought to Persia into sin, which was an obstacle to Daniel’s prayer interceding for this people.”ⁱⁱ

From all this we can learn that there are many angels and even demons in history, and that they are brought to fight each other, for the good of their respective causes.

According to several sources (Maimonides, the Kabbalah, the Zohar, the Soda Raza, the Maseketh Atziluth) angels are divided into various orders and classes, such as Principalities (hence the name « Prince » which we have just met for some of them), Powers, Virtues, Dominations. Perhaps the best known are also the highest in the hierarchy: the Cherubim and the Seraphim. Isaiah says in chapter 6 that he saw several Seraphim with six wings « shouting to one another ». Ezekiel (10:15) speaks of Cherubim.

The Kabbalists propose ten classes of angels in the Zohar: the Erelim, the Ishim, the Beni Elohim, the Malakim, the Hashmalim, the Tarshishim, the Shinanim, the Cherubim, the Ophanim and the Seraphim.

Maimonides also proposes ten classes of angels, arranged in a different order, but which he groups into two large groups, the « permanent » and the « perishable ».

Judah ha-Levi (1085-1140), a 12th century Jewish theologian, distinguishes between « eternal » angels and angels created at a given time, for a certain duration.

Among the myriads of possible angels, where should we place Klee’s Angelus novus, the new angel whom Benjamin called the « angel of history » with authority? Subsidiary question: is a « new angel » fundamentally permanent or eminently perishable?

In other words: is History of an eternal essence or is it made up of a series of moments with no sequel?

Benjamin thinks, as we have seen, that History is represented, at every moment, at every turning point, by a « new Angel ». History exists only as a succession of phases, it is a wireless and random necklace of moments, without a sequel.

Anything is always possible, at any moment, anything can happen, such seems to be the lesson learned, in an age of absolute anguish, or in a serene sky.

But one can also, and without any real contradiction, think that History is one, that it builds its own meaning, that it is a human fabrication, and that the divine Himself must take into account this fundamental freedom, always new, always renewed, and yet so ancient, established since the origin of its foundation.

—–

iWalter Benjamin, Thèses sur la philosophie de l’histoire. Œuvres III, Paris, Gallimard, 2000, p. 434

ii Summa Theol. I, Q. 113 a.8

Metaphysics of the Other

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Wittgenstein famously wrote in his Philosophical Investigations that if a lion could speak we could not understand him.

Why only a lion? Isn’t it also true of the tuna, the dragonfly or a rattlesnake’s nest? Or even of a pile of dust, a block of granite or a cluster of galaxies? Or a prion, a plasmid, a boson? Or an angel, a seraphim, and even God himself?

The living, the non-living or the beyond-living speak languages that cannot be translated into each other. They live or non-live in their own worlds, – while living or non-living side by side in the common world. The lion smells the blood of the impala, hears its terror, feeds on its scent, and the whole surrounding savanna learns an immemorial lesson from this feast.

God fills the world with His subtle grammar, but a single boson, too, fills the universe, in its own very tenuous way.

It is an ancient dream to speak all languages, past, present and all those yet to come.

But it is an unspeakable dream to desire to speak the language of all the aeons, all the universes.

One might say: but a stone doesn’t speak, nor a proton or a star! Only beings endowed with reason do speak.

This is, of course, a short view. Can we conceive what we are not?

The Leonine language seems closer to the Human language than to a mineral language, because there is no lack of animal metaphors, that could bind the two worldviews.

Isn’t the crushing of bones in the jaws a kind of sentence? Isn’t the agony of the victim, the smell of fear and death part of the universal volapük?

The lion « leonises ». The snake « snakes ». Man « anthropomorphizes ».

What about the aborted dream of the fly? What about the photon’s fatigue? The angel’s grief?

All these lives, these feelings, — outside of all syntax, all lexicon, but not totally out of all intuition.

If we put a million Champollions on the spot, to finally decipher the roar of the panther, the cry of the whale or the vibrato of the lizard, wouldn’t we be able to determine non-thought of structures, shapes, meaning? Wouldn’t there be some hope of establishing correspondences between languages eminently « other » than, say, Greek, Hebrew or Sanskrit? Is it certain that we will never find a new Rosetta Stone one day revealing that the languages of the living are living their own lives?

And life is not reserved for the living, by the way. The non-living, or at least what the living call it, also lives a life that is undoubtedly more secret and more fundamental, initiated at the borders of time and space…

All languages have one thing in common. They survive those who speak them. They form a world apart, which also lives its own life.

How can we understand ourselves if we cannot even understand the nature of the language we think we speak?

If we could really understand ourselves, and our language itself, would we understand better all the infinite otherness in the silent worlds, all that is obscure (to us) in the universe?

There is talking and talking. There is speaking without saying anything, and there is speaking without looking like it; there is speaking with covered words, or between the lines.

There is the music of words and there are tones. The high tone, the firm tone, the beautiful tone, the warm tone, the acid tone, the fat tone. So many tones! You need the ear, you need sensitivity.

In the slightest breath, there are ignored palimpsests, impassive, waiting for their time. And the stars also breathe.

‘Words’ are also the dark and shiny reflections, the muffled flashes of a latent fire, a fire of meaning, inaudible, unhoped for, smouldering under the ashes of appearances.

Surviving Self

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Are we essentially alone in the face of the porous mysteries of the unconscious? Are we always alone in front of what could suddenly be discovered or revealed there, after long and slow maturation? Are we alone in front of the flagrant repression of what will remain buried there forever?

Many wander in sorrow in the deserts of their own minds, they wander lonely in the ergs of understanding. Fleeing the austerity of the silent void, they flee to the hubbub.

Others think alone, against the norm, against opinion, against the crowd. « I cross the philosophical space in absolute solitude. As a result, it no longer has any limits, no walls, it doesn’t hold me back. This is my only chance.”ⁱ

But if it is difficult to think alone, it is even more difficult to think with others.

The common brings us closer and warms us up. It doesn’t encourage people to try to reach cold peaks. The community compensates for isolation, and offers fusion in the mass. But something resists. It is the haunting, extreme, demanding feeling that the ‘self’ is not the ‘us’. The ideological, collective, social ‘us’ does not intersect with the inner, personal, singular ‘self’…

Cultures, religions and civilizations are ‘us’, fleeting in essence.

They fictitiously envelop billions of solitary ‘selves’, in essence. All these ‘us’ become lifeless shells, skinless drums, after a few millennia.

The mystery is that only the ‘self’ will survive them.

A deeper mystery yet: how to survive our Self?

______

iCatherine Malabou, Changer de différence, – cit. in Frédéric Neyrat , Atopies.

The Union of Breath and Word

Publié par Philippe Quéau

The Vedic rite of sacrifice required the participation of four kinds of priests, with very specific functions.

The Adhvaryu prepared the altar, lit the fire and performed the actual sacrifice. They took care of all the material and manual aspects of the operations, during which they were only allowed to whisper a few incantations specific to their sacrificial activity.

The Udgatṛi were responsible for singing the hymns of SâmaVeda in the most melodious way.

The Hotṛi, for their part, had to recite in a loud voice, but without singing them, the ancient hymns of Ṛg Veda, respecting the traditional rules of pronunciation and accentuation. They were supposed to know by heart all the texts of the Veda in order to adapt to all the circumstances of the sacrifices. At the end of the litanies, they uttered a kind of wild cry, called vausat.

Finally, remaining silent throughout, an experienced Brahmin, the ultimate reference for the smooth running of the sacrifice and guarantor of its effectiveness, supervised the various phases of the ceremony.

These four kinds of priests had a very different relationship to the word (of the Veda), according to their ranks and skills.

Some murmured it, others sang it, others spoke it loudly, – and finally the most senior among them kept silent.

These different regimes of expression could be interpreted as so many modalities of the relationship of speech to the divine. One could also be content to see in them an image of the different stages of the sacrifice, an indication of its progress.

In the Vedic imagination, murmurs, songs, words, cries, and finally silence fill and increase the divine, like great rivers wind ‘safe to the sea’.

The recitation of Ṛg Veda is an endless narrative, weaving itself, according to various rhythms. One can recite it word for word (pada rhythm), or mime a path (krama) according to eight possible varieties, such as the « braid » (jatā rhythm) or the « block » (ghana rhythm).

In the « braid » (jatā ) style, a four-syllable expression (noted: abcd) became the subject of a long, repetitive and obsessive litany, such as: ab/ba/abc/cba/bc/cb/bcd/dcb/bcd…

When the time came, the recitation would « burst out » (like thunder). Acme of sacrifice.

In all the stages of the sacrifice, there was a will to connect, a linking energy. The Vedic word is entirely occupied with building links with the Deity, weaving close, vocal, musical, rhythmic, semantic correlations.

In essence, it represents the mystery of the Deity. It establishes and constitutes the substance of a link with her, in the various regimes of breath, in their learned progression.

A hymn of the Atharvaveda pushes the metaphor of breath and rhythm as far as possible. It makes us understand the nature of the act in progress, which is similar to a sacred, mystical union.

« More than one who sees has not seen the Word; more than one who hears does not hear it.

To the latter, she has opened her body

like her husband a loving wife in rich attire. »

It is interesting, I think, to compare some of these Vedic concepts to those one can find in Judaism.

In Genesis, there is talk of a « wind » from God (רוּח, ruah), at the origin of the world.ⁱ A little later, it is said that God breathed a « breath of life » (נשׁמה neshmah) so that man became a « living being » (נפשׁ nefesh).ⁱⁱ

God’s « wind » evokes the idea of a powerful, strong hurricane. In contrast, the « breath of life » is light as a breeze, a peaceful and gentle exhalation.

But there is also the breath associated with the word of God, which « speaks », which « says ».

Philo of Alexandria thus commented about the « breath » and « wind » of God, : « The expression (He breathed) has an even deeper meaning. Indeed three things are required: what blows, what receives, what is blown. What blows is God; what receives is Intelligence; what is blown is Breath. What is done with these elements? A union of all three occurs.”ⁱⁱⁱ

Breath, soul, spirit and speech, in the end, unite.

Beyond languages, beyond cultures, from the Veda to the Bible, a profound analogy transcends worlds.

The murmurs of the Adhvaryu, the songs of Udgatṛi, the words of Hotṛi, and the very silence of the Brahmin, aim at an union with the divine.

The union of these various breaths (murmured, spoken, sung, silent breaths) is analogous in principle, it seems to me, to the union of the wind (ruah), the soul (neshmah), and the spirit (nefesh).

In the Veda and in the Bible, — across the millennia, the union of the word and the breath, mimics the union of the divine and the human.

_____

iGn 1,2

iiGn 2,7

iii Philo. Legum Allegoriae 37

Cosmos Hole

Publié par Philippe Quéau

The WISEA J171227.81-232210.7 black hole — several billion times as massive as our sun, exploding in Ophiuchus galaxy cluster,

Claude Lévi-Strauss is a good representative of contemporary thought. He displays its salient characteristics: despair of thought, insignificance of being, erection of non-knowledge as the ultimate « knowledge », universal doubt (doubt of meaning and doubt of doubt itself), all this in a sardonic and cheerful tone. « Let humanity disappear and the earth disappear, nothing will be changed in the march of the cosmos. Hence a final paradox: we are not even sure that this knowledge that reveals our insignificance has any validity. We know that we are nothing or not much, and, knowing this, we no longer even know if this knowledge is one. To think of the universe as immeasurable to thought forces us to question thought itself. We don’t get out of it.”ⁱ

What will be the thought of the universe in a thousand or two thousand years from now, who can claim to know it today? And who can think in the languages of the day what will be thought here and there, in the universe, in eight hundred thousand years or in a hundred million centuries? These ages seem distant only because of a lack of imagination.

We are really tired of the old marquis who are tired of dreaming. Post-modern doubt is a paper origami. We yearn for fresh and lively intuitions, for other universes, for horizons with naked orients, for stars without north, and the worn-out metaphors of extra-galactic confines or exo-biological chimeras already bore us with their brash roundness and frank blandness.

To think far away, however, little is enough. We need to change the signs, to swap the senses, and to dream of hurricanes. Everything quickly becomes different then. The thoughts of the day seem like slow caterpillars, far from the butterfly that is sensed, and very unworthy of the pensive eagle, high in the cloud.

It is tempting to believe that thought is immeasurable to the universe, and, diagonally agonistic, line of fire, that it transcends it easily. The humblest thought goes further than the white dwarves stars, and it pierces the fabric of the world with a hole blacker than the whole dark matter.

Any thought that is a little audacious obliges us to question the universe itself, its meaning and its essence. Every thought then cries out: « We are getting out of it immediately », – and not: « we are not getting out of it ».

The whole universe is in itself « insignificant ». By contrast, thought “means”, it has “meaning”, and it gives “meaning”.

If the entire universe ever receives one day some meaning, that meaning will not come from cosmic background noise, the shape of nebulae, or the sanctification of the boson (the so-called « God’s particle »).

If a demiurge created the world, the cosmos has no meaning of its own. Its meaning is obviously to be found elsewhere than in it.

And if the world created itself, by some kind of automatism, how could it give itself its own meaning, suck its own blood? Does the baby child at the breast suck herself?

The cognitive and ontological pessimism of post-modernism is equivalent to its opposite, from the point of view of the free play of radical hypotheses. The pessimism of insignificance has no logical weight of its own.

The existence of human consciousness, the irrefutable manifestation of being, must be placed far above the imperfect dreams of putative multiverse.

Universe, multiverse, it doesn’t matter what they are or how many they are, because in reality « you can’t get out of it ».

Consciousness, in essence, its deepest mystery, is that the deeper you get into it, the more you « come out », — as from an eternal Egypt.

iClaude Lévi-Strauss, De près et de loin. Ed. O. Jacob, Paris, 1988

Modern Marranos

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Esther before Ahasuerus. Giovanni Andrea Sirani (1630)

The « Hidden Jew » is an ancient figure. Joseph and Esther hid for a time. Esther’s name (אֶסְתֵּר) means « I will hide ». But, somewhat paradoxically, it is because she revealed her secret to Ahasuerus, that she saved her people.

Forced to hide under the Inquisition, and again paradoxically, the Marranos were « adventurers », « pioneers who can be counted among the first modern men », according to Shmuel Triganoⁱ. They were the ferment of Jewish modernity. They are even said to be at the origin and the foundations of modernity in general.

« The Marrano experience reveals the existence in Judaism of a potentiality of Marranism, of a predisposition to Marranism, which has nothing to do with the fact that it also represents a decay of Judaism. The ambivalence is greater: imposed by force, it is also a high fact of the courage and perseverance of the Jews. The real question is this: is Marranism structurally inherent to Judaism, was it inscribed in Judaism from the beginning? (…) How could Jews have thought that they were becoming even more Jewish by becoming Christians (basically this is what Jewish-Christians have thought since Paul)?”ⁱⁱ

This question goes beyond the scope of Jewish-Christian relations alone. It goes further back to the origins. Did not Moses live for a time in ambivalence at the court of the Pharaoh?

Philo of Alexandria died around 50 AD. He had no connection with Christianity, of which he was a contemporary. Of Greek and Jewish culture, he knew the Greek philosophers and was well-learned in the texts of Judaism, which he interpreted in an original way. He was also interested in the religions of the Magi, the Chaldeans and the Zoroastrians.

A man of crossroads, he sought higher syntheses, new ways, adapted to the mingling of peoples, whose progress he observed.

Philo was certainly not a « hidden Jew ». But he pushed the analysis of tradition and its interpretation to the point of incandescence. Neither a Pharisee, a Sadducee nor an Essene, what kind of Judaism was he then representing?

Philo, two thousand years ago, and the Spanish and Portuguese marranos, five centuries ago, represent two unorthodox ways of claiming Judaism among the Gentiles. They seem to be moving away from it, but only to better return to it, by another kind of fidelity, more faithful perhaps to its spirit than to its letter. In this way they serve as bridges, as links, with the world of nations, offering broad perspectives.

Royaly ignored by the Synagogue, living in a troubled period, just before the destruction of the Second Temple, Philo professed advanced opinions, which could shock the orthodox traditionalists, and which bordered on heresy. Moreover, it was the Christian philosophers and theologians of the first centuries who preserved Philo’s writings, finding a posteriori in his synthetic thinking enough to feed their own reflections.

There was clearly then a difference in perspective between the Jews of Jerusalem, who prayed every day in the Temple, unaware of its imminent destruction, and the Jews of the Diaspora, whose freedom of thought was great.

Let us find an indication of such freedom of research by this line of Philo, typical of his style :

« God and Wisdom are the father and mother of the world, but the spirit cannot bear such parents whose graces are far greater than those it can receive; it will therefore have as its father the right Logos and as its mother the education more appropriate to its weakness.”ⁱⁱⁱ

Philo clarifies the scope of the metaphor: « The Logos is image and eldest son. Sophia is the bride of God, whom God makes fruitful and who generates the world.”

The Logos, « image and eldest son of God »? This was written by a Jew from Alexandria, a few years after the death on a cross of an obscure rabbi from Nazareth, a self-called Messiah? It is not difficult to imagine the reaction of the Doctors of Jewish Law to these stirring words. It is also easy to understand why the Judeo-Christians of the 1st and 2nd centuries decided that Philo would be a precious ally for them, because of his audacity and philosophical interpersonal skills.

In another writing, Philo evokes Wisdom, both a « spouse of God »^iv, and a « virgin », of an undefiled nature. How is it possible? It is precisely because the union with God gives the Soul its virginity. Other metaphors abound: the Logos is father and husband of the Soul.

The idea of a mother-virgin wife was not so new. It can be found in various spiritual traditions of Antiquity, especially among the Orphics. The symbolic fusion between the wife and daughter of God corresponds to the assimilation between Artemis and Athena among the latter. Korah, a virgin, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, unites with Zeus and is the life-giving source of the world. She is the object of the mysteries of Eleusis. In the Osiriac tradition, Osiris is the « principle », Isis the « receptacle » and Horus the « product », which is translated philosophically by the triad of the intelligible, the material and the sensible.

Tempted by daring syntheses, Philo was certainly not an orthodox Jew. So what was he then the symbol, the prefiguration of? Of the eternal vigour of Marranism? Of the temptation of an effluence of the spirit? Of an avid search for universals?

Is Marranism so absolutely modern, that it becomes universal? Shmuel Trigano writes: « The dual identity of the modern Jew may well be akin to the Marrano score.”^v

But the « Marrano score » is not reserved for « hidden Jews ». It is much more general. It touches on the very identity of modern man. « Marranism was the laboratory of Jewish modernity, even among the Jews who escaped Marranism. Let us go further: Marranism was the very model of all political modernity. »^v

A political Marranism? But why not go further, and postulate the possibility of an anthropological attitude fundamentally « Marrano« , potentially touching everyone, and hiding in the heart of all human groups?

What, in fact, does Marranism bear witness to? It testifies to the profound ambivalence of the worldview of messianic belief. « Messianic consciousness encourages the Jew to live the life of this world while waiting for the world to come and thus to develop a cantilevered attitude towards this world.”^vi

This feeling of strangeness in the world, of being put off, is not specific to Judaism, it seems to me.

Hinduism and Buddhism, for example, see this world as an illusion, as Māyā. This has also been the feeling of shamans since the dawn of time. The feeling of strangeness to the world is so universal, that it can be considered as a foundation of human consciousness. Man’s heart remains hidden from himself, and from this concealment he has a restless and troubled conscience. Man is for himself a mystery, that the magnificence of this world and its wonders verges on it without really reaching it, and certainly without ever filling it.

Man, shall we say, is fundamentally, anthropologically a « marrano« , torn between his inner and outer selves, his ego and his id, his soul and his abyss. Here is man, apparently complete, in « working order », and he is also aware confusely of all what he is lacking of. A Dasein pursued by doubt.

He discovers, again and again, that the world denies him, that the immense, eternal cosmos welcomes him, one day, we don’t know why or how, and makes a fleeting consciousness emerge from nowhere, which will end up broken, humiliated, by the tumult of unanswered questions. But over time, he also discovers the means to resist alienation, the necessary tricks, and acquires the ability to thwart the game of illusions.

This is a political lesson and a philosophical lesson.

Politics, first of all. At a time when the most « democratic » nations are actively preparing the means of mass surveillance, intrusive to the last degree, at a time when the prodromes of totalitarianism are rising on a planetary scale, we will always need this very ancient lesson of duplicity to survive, simply to remain human.

Philosophical, too. In order to prepare a better, more universal world, we will have to follow Philo’s example, navigate freely among religions and nations, thoughts and languages, as if they all belonged to us and were our own.

—–

iShmuel Trigano. Le Juif caché. Marranisme et modernité, In Press Eds, 2000

iiIbid.

iiiPhilo, De Ebrietate

ivPhilon, Cherubim 43-53

vShmuel Trigano. Le Juif caché. Marranisme et modernité, In Press Eds, 2000

viIbid.

China Divine

Publié par Philippe Quéau

In the Fayan (« Master Words ») of Yang Xiong, written two thousand years ago, the chapter entitled « Questions about the divine » begins laconically:

« The question is about the divine.

– The heart.

– What do you mean by this?

– Immersing itself in the sky, it becomes heaven. Immersed in the earth, it becomes earth. Heaven and earth are divine clarity, unfathomable, and yet the heart plunges into them as if it were going to fathom them.”ⁱ

The divine is indefinable, unintelligible. However, the heart does not care. It tries to form an idea of it, by its impetuous and passionate way of searching for it. It knows that it has no chance of grasping it in its essence or in its existence, in heaven or on earth. Yet he does not hesitate, he throws himself into the bottomless abyss, as if he could reach the bottom.

The heart knows that it cannot reach a bottom that is bottomless. But it rushes into the abyss. It drowns in the immensity, and by guessing the immensity, it becomes immense. It immerses itself in the sky and grasps the sky in itself, it enters the earth and everything in it becomes earth, it jumps into mystery, and mysteriously metamorphoses into mystery.

Only by plunging into the abyss does it discover that it becomes an abyss, and that it has always been an abyss, that it is still an abyss, and will be even more so.

All knowledge of the divine begins with the as if it were possible to know this knowledge. The as if carries the faith of the heart forward or backward. The as if carries the heart beyond what it is and beyond what it knows.

Why does the heart bet on the as if?

Yang Xiong explains it in a commentary on the Tài Xuán Jīng (« The canon of the supreme mystery »):

« The heart hidden in the depths, beauty of the sacred root. Divination: the heart hidden in the depths, the divine is not elsewhere.”ⁱⁱ

Compact, unmistakable style.

In Chinese, « divine » is shen, 神. This ambiguous word also means soul, spirit, mystery, alive, and even God.

« Heart » is xīn 心. Three tears around a blade. Three moons on the mountain. Three gods near a tree.

Shen is xīn. Xīn is shen. The heart drowns in the divine. The divine drowns in the heart.

This idea is classical in Confucianism. It is found in the Mengzi, which quotes Confucius, and Yang Xiong takes it up again in this form:

« The divine in the heart of man! Summon it, it exists. Abandon it, it disappears.”ⁱⁱⁱ

It is the idea, therefore, that the holy man makes the divine exist in the world through his action. He stands on the border between heaven and man. Participating in both worlds, he fills the gap between them.

Yet another image:

« The dragon is writhing in the mud. The lizard basks there. Lizard, lizard, how could you understand the dragon’s aspiration?

– Must the dragon have this desire to rise into the sky?

– When it’s time to rise, it rises. When it is time to dive, it dives. There is both rising and diving at the same time.”^iv

When it comes to research, no time form basking in the sun. Or in the mud.

iYang Xiong. Master Words. Les Belles Lettres. Paris, 2010, Ch.5, 1, p.39

iiIbid. p.39, Note 1

iiiIbid. Ch5, 3, p.40

ivIbid. Ch5, 5, p.40

Icy Skies

Publié par Philippe Quéau

It is important to know whether the world is one or not. On this difficult matter Henri Michaux is quite assertive: « There are four worlds (apart from the natural world and the alienated world). Only one appears at a time. These worlds categorically exclude the normal world, and exclude each other. Each of them has a clear, unique correspondence with a place in your body, which is taken to another level of energy, and receives instantaneous nourishment, rejuvenation and warmth.”ⁱ

Why only four worlds then, and not many more ?

The human body possesses, in several precise points within the spinal cord, energy nodes, moose nests, areas of illumination, seats of pleasure, sacred vertebrae, unfolded plexuses, where perhaps some special and subtle gateways, wirelessly connected to other worlds, are initiated. In India, these points are known as chakras.

The spinal column is not alone, moreover, in concealing mysteries (in this case medullary ones). The human brain welcomes other secrets, lodged between the medulla oblongata and the thalamus. But there is not enough room to describe them here, and the words are too worn and connoted.

Misunderstood, Michaux the poet is too much elsewhere, dilated, honest. He is really elsewhere than in an Orient or an Occident of paper. He pays with his person, takes risks, puts himself in danger.

Michaux has taken drugs like a taxi. How can one go higher than the stars when the meter is running, when time is running out, when the arteries are congested?

How to describe what has never been put into words, the unstoppable?

There are undoubtedly other ways than spinal or synaptic, freer, less congested.

Michaux knew this, in a sense. He kept a cool head when the force rose. He went very far, very high, and came back. He wandered for a long time in the tangled infinity, slipped into the sealed space. Others would have perished, got lost. He drew some maps of it. He thickened his blood, he marked his trace, accumulated reminiscence, then came back to lay down his nights on paper.

« There are still two other ‘beyond’, equally exclusive, closed, where one only enters thanks to a kind of cyclone, and to arrive at a world that is itself a cyclone, but the center of a cyclone, where it is liveable and where even it is Life par excellence. You get there by transport, by trance.”ⁱⁱ

One transport for two ‘beyond’. What a masterstroke.

The « cyclone » is a meteorological phenomenon whose characteristic feature is the whirlwind.

« Life » is a biological phenomenon whose image is the spiral, such as that of DNA, or the kundalini.

« Trance » is a psychological phenomenon whose trajectory can take the form of a parable, hyperbola or ellipse, among others. These mathematical figures are also figures of speech. This leads to a more difficult question: what is the trance itself the figure of?

Trance is a ‘transport’, Michaux asserts.

Every expanse requires a means of transport. Trance meets this need. It is a means of transport, a figure of tension towards transcendence. « If the expanse is one of the characters of the divine, much more so is the tension.”ⁱⁱⁱ

It’s a desire to see the truth, to see the whole of nothingness. « The insignificance of the constructions of the mind appears. Contemplation without mixing. We no longer think about affiliations, designations, determinations, we can do without them; the wind has passed over them, a psychic wind that undoes them before determinations, categories are born. “^iv

A finding of sarcastic impotence. The spirit means nothing by itself. It is free like a whip antenna.

A « wind » passes far above the human brain, undoing everything that is not born, everything that is content with the static. In exchange, without mixing, what Michaux calls « contemplation ». Undoing rather than doing, the lot of the poet on the hunt.

« Every man is a « yes » with « no ». After the unheard of and somehow unnatural acceptances, one must expect returns of « no », while something continues to act, which cannot be erased, nor can it go back, living in the shadows of the Unforgettable. Ongoing evolution… »^v

Man is a « yes », with « no », and perhaps with « maybe », and no doubt with doubts. But surely there is something else again, that neither « yes » nor « no » can say, and « perhaps » even less so, and doubt, not at all.

Man is also, without knowing it, that « something » living in secret.

This living « something » separated from the unforgettable.

That unforgettable, which we have never seen, and which we have forgotten, and which is alive.

In close order, on the white sheet of paper, many small pieces of black diamonds. Badly cut, they vibrate in obtrusive variations, they play with accents and margins. This is all that remains of « mescaline speed »:

« Drugs, let us remember, are more revealing than creative.”^vi

The poet dreams alone, but we can think, being many.

Let’s go back for a moment: « I would like to unveil the ‘normal’, the unknown, the unsuspected, the incredible, the enormous normal. The abnormal has made it known to me (…) I would like to unveil the complex mechanisms that make man above all an operator.”^vii

« Normal »… « Operator »… « Mechanisms »…

How do these standard, normal words fit in with the mescaline experience?

« It was always about going beyond, superhumanizing, transmuting, transubstantiating everything, sometimes opening up to the sacred, the sacred is a mode, the one according to which we receive.”^viii

The poet is a mystery to himself and to others. He opens doors and worlds, takes away their veils from the heavens, strips the spirit from his herds, fills the books with black and ochre battalions, and sets up his fame as an ascetic. And yet nothing, really nothing of what really matters, shows through the tidy fog of the pages.

Man, poet or not, still has a long way to go, before reaching parallel universes, which are far beyond « icy skies »^ix, and which no language has ever touched.

—–

iHenri Michaux Les Grandes Épreuves de l’Esprit. Œuvres complètes, tome III .Gallimard, 2004. p.418

ii« Il existe encore deux autres « au-delà », tout aussi exclusifs, fermés, où l’on n’entre que grâce à une sorte de cyclone, et pour arriver à un monde qui est lui-même un cyclone, mais centre de cyclone, là où c’est vivable et où même c’est par excellence la Vie. On y accède par transport, par transe. » Henri Michaux Les Grandes Épreuves de l’Esprit, et les innombrables petites. Œuvres complètes, III .Gallimard, 2004. p.422

iiiIbid. p.425

ivIbid. p.425-426

vIbid. p.428

viIbid. p.327

viiIbid. p.313

viiiHenri Michaux Émergences-résurgences. Œuvres complètes, tome III .Gallimard, 2004. p.682

ixHenri Michaux Déplacements, dégagements. Œuvres complètes, tome III .Gallimard, 2004. p.1322

The Abyss and the Mountain

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Not only prophets have visions. Poets also are « seers ». Thus, Henri Michaux. He has gone up to the « silent theater of the heights (…) towards the beyond that appears, disappears and reappears.”ⁱ

But what did Michaux really « see »?

The afterlife is not within everyone’s reach. One needs calm eyes, gentle nerves. Rare are the direct witnesses, those who have seen the beyond of the world, the infinite, acute, nascent, initial abyss, rising straight up beyond the heavens, effortlessly eluding all known peaks.

The effort is above all in coming back. The memory is overwhelmed. Intelligence wavers in its doubt. Faith is blind. Returning, whoever has seen it recognizes it here and there, in obscure verses, heard silences, allusive sentences.

In the middle of a page, a word, an echo perhaps, an infinitesimal resonance.

« Perhaps the heavens are opening up.”ⁱⁱ This is not a hypothesis, it is an observation. « An Auguste Presence came to the destitute.” The following question is not formal:

« For the daughter of the mountain

secret, reserved

the apparition was a person,

a goddess? » ⁱⁱⁱ

Then comes the answer:

« especially light,

only light

as light it remained ».

Only word, only light. It’s not much, but it’s everything. Without end, this key opens all doors. Millions of doors.

« Simultaneously

as the ground on the slopes of an awakening volcano tears away

the general unzipping inside and around it took place.

singular retrenchment, unknown

that can’t be compared to anything

……..……………………………… » ^iv

Michaux, who knows the weight of words, finally gives up and multiplies the « suspension points », as many points as it takes to equal the last line.

Perhaps they are more suitable than ‘unzipping’?

The poet takes the risk of words. He tries to say what he may not have seen, what he may have sensed. He embarks on a narrow path, in the Paris of the avenues, the city of lights. He calls for his help, the skilful writer, words in capital letters:

« In the young and pure face, the initiated gaze,

Mirror of Knowledge

contemplation of the True, ignored by others ».^v

The ‘True’! The ‘Knowledge’!

How daring to say these words in a nominalist time!

Capital letters are used to dot the page:

LAMP ^vi

How could Michaux, with his capital letters, have lived in « modern » times? There is so much inaudibility, so much darkness in the false lights.

And who is this « daughter of the mountain »?

Perhaps it is Pârvatî, daughter of Himavân (the Himalayas), and wife of Çiva? Indeed, in Sanskrit Pârvatâ means « of the mountain ».

Perhaps Lokenath Bhattacharya had spoken about her to Michaux?

Or, more likely, was it Rita of Cascia, born in Umbria in the Middle Ages, and beatified by Urban VIII?

The end of the text is in fact hagiographical, and includes some elements from the life of the saint:

« Near the inert stranger

became helpful

we come for LIFE.”^vii

Capital letters, again, this is a serious matter. Michaux found his mistress in vision, without mescaline, — and he asks questions:

« To whom does the supernatural appear?

Commonly to children, not at all brilliant, far from the cities, from the walls. Not very enviable, one would not distinguish them, neither too studious, nor very pious, without any special quality, from a modest environment, knowing especially the discomfort, in a small lost village. They are not liars.”^viii

But the appearance does not stop there. The vision is only a step. There is the rest. The healing, which strikes the crowds, and even the devious clergymen:

« And who heals? In whom does the supernatural healing take place? »

We are no longer in the realm of convention. Already in their afterlife.

« In a multi-religious country, while many pious people pray in vain near the tomb of a Catholic monk, as they themselves are, a Shiite woman who knows nothing about the Christian religion is healed in the moment (but does not convert). She had confidence and a faith as one should have it, overwhelming, a rare, exceptional treasure.”^ix

Michaux wonders: « In whom exactly did she have faith? Secret.”^x

Can « modern » people help to see things clearly?

« What about scientists?

One day perhaps, taking the embarrassing problem from another angle, science will find in the brain, thanks to a more precise location of a point in the organism that controls a self-healing function (under the effect of intense emotion), and will in turn approach the miracle with its own means and will even want to produce it coldly, in some cases replacing in its own way the exaltation of faith. Spoiling here, improving there in the unexpected, opening the door to new mysteries.”^xi

Miracle, exaltation, unexpected, mystery: all the words point to still other questions. There is never an end to it. It’s better this way. The victories (in this case putative) of science would be, in this matter, pyrrhic. Or a miracle point nested at the bottom of the pineal gland. What if it is? Why does this point activate? Under the effect of an « intense emotion »? But where does this emotion come from? What creates it, what gives it its energy? The body is not an island. The soul is linked to the body, a little, and to the beyond, even more so, if we believe the « daughter of the mountain ».

Not that she said anything later. She discouraged questions. She avoided declarations of faith. Her silence still speaks.

« If she doesn’t speak any more,

it is out of respect

for Unknown Beauty

from the sight of which she was gratified

to which it was united, conjugated

Beauty as knowledge

a higher degree of knowledge. »^xii

Michaux. Pârvâti. Rita.

An improbable line linking worlds, times. This great poet, lost in the century, wanders for a long time in « abysses », and recognizes the strength of what is born of the mountain.

_____

iHenri Michaux. Fille de la montagne. (1984) [Text dedicated to Lokenath Bhattacharya]. (in Œuvres complètes, t.3, Gallimard, 2004, p.1290)

iiIbid. p.1291

iiiIbid. p.1291

ivIbid.p.1291

vIbid.p.1292

viIbid.p.1292

viiIbid.p.1293

viiiIbid.p.1298

ixIbid.p.1299

xIbid.p.1299

xiIbid.p.1299

xiiIbid.p.1292

You Must Emigrate

Publié par Philippe Quéau

A French antiriot police officer tries to prevent illegal migrants from hiding in trucks heading for England in the French northern harbour of Calais, on June 17, 2015. AFP PHOTO / Philippe Huguen

A little over two thousand years ago, Philo of Alexandria advocated radical emigration. He did not care about land borders, historical nations, geographical territories. « You must emigrate, in search of your father’s land, the land of the sacred word, the land of the father of those who practice virtue. This land is wisdom. « ⁱ

He was looking for access to another world, whose foreboding had come to him in a strange way, and whose presence seemed irrefutable to him. « Sometimes I would come to work as if I were empty, and suddenly I was full, ideas fell invisible from the sky, spread out inside me like a shower. Under this divine inspiration I was so excited that I no longer recognized anything, neither the place where I was, nor those who were there, nor what I was saying or writing.”ⁱⁱ

Philo had been seized several times by divine inspiration, he had « seen » it. « To see », at that time, was « to know ». In the old days in Israel, when people went to God for advice, they would say, « Come, let us go to the seer! For the one we call the prophet today was once called the seer.”ⁱⁱⁱ

After his long fight in the dark night, Jacob too had wanted to « see ». He had wanted to hear the name of the one he had fought, to finally « see » him. But the name he asked for was not revealed to him. He only heard his own name, what was to be his new name. A name given by the one who kept his own name silent. Only then did Jacob « see ». But what did he see? A name? An idea? A future?

All we know is that he heard a voice in the night that gave him his name, his new and true name.

This voice is a light in the night. A voice of wisdom, no doubt, which sees itself, a splendour, of which the sun would never be but a faint image.

Jacob heard his « name », and he was no longer Jacob. He heard, – and then he « saw ». The important thing was not the name, but that he « saw ».

Philo explains this: « If the voice of mortals is addressed to the hearing, the oracles reveal to us that the words of God are, like light, things seen. It is said, ‘All the people saw the voice‘ (Ex. 20:15) instead of ‘heard the voice’. For indeed there was no shaking of the air due to the organs of the mouth and tongue; there was the splendor of virtue, identical with the source of reason. The same revelation is found in this other form: ‘You have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven’ (Ex. 20:18), instead of ‘you have heard‘, always for the same reason. There are occasions when Moses distinguishes between what is heard and what is seen, hearing and sight. ‘You heard the sound of the words, and you saw no form but a voice’ (Deut. 4:12).”^iv

Seeing the voice, hearing the word, the « sound of the word ». These words have a double meaning.

In the original Hebrew we read: « kol debarim atem shome’im » ( קוׄל דְּבָרׅים אַתֶּם שֺׁמְעׅים ), which literally translates as : « you have heard the voice of the words ». This is a veiled indication that the « words » in question are like living beings, since they have a « voice ». This voice is not embodied in « air shaking », but is given to be « seen ». This « voice » inhabits the interior of the words, it makes their immanent nature, their « secret » dimension visible, it reveals an enigmatic background, of which they are the living mirror.

Whether they are Kabbalists, Vedic or Sufi, the mystics all know their own path towards this nature, this secret. Rûmî, John of the Cross or Jacob Boehme have followed this path of discovery as far as possible. Great writers of language, they showed how the language of the gods (or of God) could marry with that of men, and give birth to manifest secrets. Everything that is, everything that is said, everything that is presented to reason, has a background. These mystics have shown, as far as men can do it, that part of the essence of the world is in language, or, better said: « is » language.

i Philo, De migratione Abrahami, 28

ii De migr. Abr., 35

iii 1 Sa 9,9

ivDe Migr. Abr., 47

Vedic Genesis

Publié par Philippe Quéau

In the Beginning…

One of the most beautiful and deepest hymns of the Ṛg Veda, the Nasadiya Sukta, begins with what was and what was not, even before the Beginning:

« Ná ásat āsīt ná u sát āsīt tadânīm« ⁱ.

The translation of this famous verse is not easy. Here are a few attempts:

« There was no being, there was no non-being at that time. « (Renou)

« Nothing existed then, neither being nor non-being. « (Müller)

« Nothing existed then, neither visible nor invisible. « (Langlois)

« Then even nothingness was not, nor existence. « (Basham)

« Not the non-existent existed, nor did the existent then » (Art. Nasadiya Sukta. Wikipedia).

“Then was not non-existent nor existent.” (Griffith)

How to render with words what was before words? How to say a « being » that « is » before « being » and also, moreover, before « non-being »? How to describe the existence of what existed before existence and before non-existence?

We also begin to think by analogy: how can we hope to think what is obviously beyond what is thinkable? How can we think possible even to try to think the unthinkable?

How can we know whether words like sát, ásat, āsīt, mono- or bi-syllabic messengers, which have reached us intact over the millennia, and which benefit from the semantic precision of Sanskrit, still live a real, meaningful, authentic life?

The Nasadiya Sukta anthem is at least 4000 years old. Long before it was memorized in writing in the Veda corpus, it was probably transmitted from generation to generation by a faithful oral tradition. Its verses are pure intellectual delight, so much so that they stand slightly, far above the void, beyond common sense, a frail bridge, a labile trace, between worlds :

नासदासीन्नो सदासीत्तदानीं नासीद्रजो नो व्योमा परो यत् |

किमावरीवः कुह कस्य शर्मन्नम्भः किमासीद्गहनं गभीरम् ॥ १॥

न मृत्य्युरासीदमृतं न तर्हि न रात्र्या अह्न आसीत्प्रकेत | आसीत्प्रकः

आनीदवातं स्वधया तदेकं तस्माद्धान्यन्न परः किञ्चनास ॥२॥

Louis Renou translates these two verses as follows:

« There was no being, there was no non-being at that time. There was no space or firmament beyond. What was moving? Where, under whose guard? Was there deep water, bottomless water?

Neither death was at that time, nor undead, no sign distinguishing night from day. The One breathed breathlessly, moved by himself: nothing else existed beyond.”ⁱⁱ

Ralph Griffith:

“Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it. What covered in, and where? And what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed depth of water?

Death was not then, nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day’s and night’s divider. That One Thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was nothing whatsoever.”ⁱⁱⁱ

Max Müller :

« Nothing existed then, neither being nor non-being; the bright sky was not yet, nor the broad canvas of the firmament stretched out above it. By what was everything wrapped, protected, hidden? Was it by the unfathomable depths of the waters?

There was no death, no immortality. There was no distinction between day and night. The One Being breathed alone, taking no breath, and since then there has been nothing but Him. “^iv

Alexandre Langlois :

« Nothing existed then, neither visible nor invisible. Point of upper region; point of air; point of sky. Where was this envelope (of the world)? In which bed was the wave contained? Where were these impenetrable depths (of air)?

There was no death, no immortality. Nothing announced day or night. He alone breathed, forming no breath, enclosed within himself. He alone existed.”^v

From these various versions, it appears that the translators share a certain consensus on the following points:

Before there was nothing, there was « the One », also called « Him ».

Before the world was, the One existed, alone, and He breathed – without breath.

The Rig Veda claimed that « the One is », long before the time came of any Genesis, long before a « wind of God » came over the waters.

The following verses then take flight, using words and images that may evoke memories of the Genesis in the Bible (- which appeared later than the Veda by at least two millennia, it should be noted):

Renou :

« Originally darkness covered darkness, everything we see was just an indistinct wave. Enclosed in the void, the One, accessing the Being, was then born by the power of heat.

Desire developed first, which was the first seed of thought; searching thoughtfully in their souls, the wise men found in non-being the bond of being.

Their line was stretched diagonally: what was the top, what was the bottom? There were seed bearers, there were virtues: below was spontaneous energy, above was the Gift.”^vi

Griffith:

“Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness this All was indiscriminated chaos. All that existed then was void and formless: by the great power of Warmth was born that Unit.

There after rose Desire in the beginning. Desire, the primal seed and germ of spirit. Sages, who searched with their heart’s thought discovered the existent’s kinship in the non-existent.

Tranversely was their severing line extended: what was above it then, and what below it? There were begetters, there were mighty forces, free action here and energy up yonder.”^vii

Müller :

« The seed, which was still hidden in its envelope, suddenly sprang up in the intense heat.Then love, the new source of the spirit, joined it for the first time.

Yes, the poets, meditating in their hearts, discovered this link between created things and what was uncreated. Does this spark that gushes out everywhere, that penetrates everything, come from the earth or the sky?

Then the seeds of life were sown and great forces appeared, nature below, power and will above.”^viii

Langlois :

« In the beginning the darkness was shrouded in darkness; the water was without impulse. Everything was confused. The Being rested in the midst of this chaos, and this great All was born by the force of his piety.

In the beginning Love was in him, and from his spirit the first seed sprang forth. The wise men (of creation), through the work of intelligence, succeeded in forming the union of the real being and the apparent being.

The ray of these (wise men) went forth, extending upwards and downwards. They were great, (these wise men); they were full of a fruitful seed, (such as a fire whose flame) rises above the hearth that feeds it.”^ix

Note that, for some translators, in the beginning « darkness envelops darkness ». Others prefer to read here a metaphor, that of the « seed », hidden in its « envelope ».

Is it necessary to give a meaning, an interpretation to the « darkness », or is it better to let it bathe in its own mystery?

Let us also note that some translators relate the birth of the All to « warmth », while others understand that the origin of the world must be attributed to « piety » (of the One). Material minds! Abstract minds! How difficult it is to reconcile them!

So, « piety » or « warmth »? The Sanskrit text uses the word « tapas« : तपस्.

Huet translates « tapas » by « heat, ardour; suffering, torment, mortification, austerities, penance, asceticism », and by extension, « the strength of soul acquired through asceticism ».

Monier-Williams indicates that the tap– root has several meanings: « to burn, to shine, to give heat », but also « to consume, to destroy by fire » or « to suffer, to repent, to torment, to practice austerity, to purify oneself by austerity ».

Two semantic universes emerge here, that of nature (fire, heat, burning) and that of the spirit (suffering, repentance, austerity, purification).

If we take into account the intrinsic dualism attached to the creation of the « Whole » by the « One », the two meanings can be used simultaneously and without contradiction.

An original brilliance and warmth probably accompanied the creation of some inchoate Big Bang. But the Vedic text also underlines another cause, not physical, but metaphysical, of the creation of the world, by opening up to the figurative meaning of the word « tapas« , which evokes « suffering », « repentance », or even « asceticism » that the One would have chosen, in his solitude, to impose on himself, in order to give the world its initial impulse.

This Vedic vision of the suffering of the One is not without analogy with the concept of kenosis, in Christian theology, and with the Christic dimension of the divine sacrifice.

The Judaic concept of tsimtsum (the « contraction » of God) could also be related to the Vedic idea of « tapas« .

From this hymn of the Rig Veda, the presence of a very strong monotheistic feeling is particularly evident. The Veda is fundamentally a « monotheism », since it stages, even before any « Beginning » of the world, the One, the One who is « alone », who breathes « without breath ».

Furthermore, let us also note that this divine One can diffract Himself into a form of divine « trinity ». Dominating darkness, water, emptiness, confusion and chaos, the One Being (the Creator) creates the Whole. The Whole is born of the Being because of his « desire », his « Love », which grows within the « Spirit », or « Intelligence ».^x

The idea of the One is intimately associated with that of the Spirit and that of Love (or Desire), which can be interpreted as a trinitarian representation of divine unity.

The last two verses of the Nasadiya Sukta finally tackle head-on the question of origin and its mystery.

Renou :

« Who knows in truth, who could announce it here: where did this creation come from, where does it come from? The gods are beyond this creative act. Who knows where it emanates from?

This creation, from where it emanates, whether it was made or not, – he who watches over it in the highest heaven probably knows it… or whether he did not know it? “^xi

Langlois :

« Who knows these things? Who can say them? Where do beings come from? What is this creation? The Gods were also produced by him. But who knows how he exists?

He who is the first author of this creation, supports it. And who else but him could do so? He who from heaven has his eyes on all this world, knows it alone. Who else would have this science?”^xii

Griffith:

“Who verily knows and who can here declare it, whence it was born, and whence comes this creation? The Gods are later than this world’s production. Who knows then whence it first came into being?

He, the first origin of this creation, whether he formed it all or did not form it, whose eye controls this world in highest heaven, he verily knows it, or perhaps he knows not.”^xiii

Müller:

« Who knows the secret? Who here tells us where this varied creation came from? The Gods themselves came into existence later: who knows where this vast world came from?

Whoever has been the author of all this great creation, whether his will has ordered it or whether his will has been silent, the Most High « Seer » who resides in the highest of the heavens, it is he who knows it, – or perhaps He Himself does not know it? »^xiv

The final pun (« Perhaps He Himself does not know it? ») carries, in my opinion, the essence of the intended meaning.

That the Gods, as a whole, are only a part of the creation of the Most High, again confirms the pre-eminence of the One in the Veda.

But how can we understand that the « Seer » may not know whether He Himself is the author of the creation, how can He not know whether it was made – or not made?

One possible interpretation would be that the Whole received an initial impulse of life (the « breath »). But this is not enough. The world is not a mechanism. The Whole, though ‘created’, is not ‘determined’. The Seer is not « Almighty », nor « Omniscient ». He has renounced his omnipotence and omniscience, through assumed asceticism. His suffering must be understood as the consequence of risk taking on the part of the One, the risk of the freedom of the world, the risk involved in the creation of free essences, essentially free beings created freely by a free will.

This essential freedom of the Whole is, in a sense, « an image » of the freedom of the One.

iNasadiya Sukta. Ṛg Veda, X, 129

iiṚg Veda, X, 129, 1-2. My translation in English from the translation in French by Louis Renou, La poésie religieuse de l’Inde antique. 1942

iiiRalp Griffith. The Hymns of the Ṛg Veda. RV X, 129,1-2. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. Delhi, 1073, p. 633

ivṚg Veda, X, 129, 1-2. Max Müller. Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion (1878)

vṚg Veda, X, 129, 1-2. My translation in English from the translation in French by . A. Langlois. (Section VIII, lect. VII, Hymn X)

viṚg Veda, X, 129, 3-5. My translation in English from the translation in French by Louis Renou, La poésie religieuse de l’Inde antique. 1942

viiRalp Griffith. The Hymns of the Ṛg Veda. RV X, 129,3-5. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. Delhi, 1073, p. 633

viiiṚg Veda, X, 129, 3-5.. Max Müller. Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion (1878)

ixṚg Veda, X, 129, 3-5.. My translation in English from the translation in French by. A. Langlois. (Section VIII, lecture VII, Hymne X)

xNasadiya Sukta, v. 4

xiṚg Veda, X, 129, 6-7. My translation in English from the translation in French by Louis Renou, La poésie religieuse de l’Inde antique. 1942

xiiṚg Veda, X, 129, 6-7. My translation in English from the translation in French by. A. Langlois. (Section VIII, lecture VII, Hymne X)

xiiiRalp Griffith. The Hymns of the Ṛg Veda. RV X, 129,6-7. Motilal Banarsidass Publ. Delhi, 1073, p. 633-634

xivṚg Veda, X, 129, 6-7. Max Müller. Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion (1878)

Agni, a Vedic Messiah?

Publié par Philippe Quéau

The most remote historical traces of the appearance of monotheistic feeling date back to the time of Amenophis IV, born around 1364 BC. This Egyptian pharaoh, worshipper of the unique God Aten, took the name of Akhenaten, as a sign of the religious revolution he initiated in the Nile valley. The abbreviated fate of his monotheistic « heresy » is known.

Around two centuries later, monotheism reappeared in history with the strange figure of Melchisedech (in Hebrew מַלְכֵּי־צֶדֶק ), high priest of El-Elyon (‘God the Most High’) and king of Salem. It was Melchisedech who gave his blessing to Abram (Abraham), when Abram came to pay him homage and tribute.ⁱ

Coming long after Akhenaten, neither Melchisedech nor Abraham obviously « invented » monotheism. The monotheistic idea had already penetrated the consciousness of peoples for several centuries. But they can be credited with having embodied the first « archived » trace of it in the biblical text.

The pure, hard, monotheistic idea has an austere beauty, a shimmering, icy or burning one, depending on the point of view. Taken philosophically, it is the intuition of the One mingled with the idea of the Whole. This simplicity of conception and abstraction reduced to the essential have something restful and consoling about them. Without doubt, the mineral lines of the deserts helped to overshadow the confused and abundant vegetal multiplicity of animism or polytheism, which had blossomed in less severe, greener, landscapes.

A simple idea, monotheism has a revolutionary power. The idea of a single God inevitably leads to the idea of a universal God, which can disturb acquired habits, hinder power interests. In principle, the idea of the « universal » may also have as an unintended consequence the crush of more « local » cultures and traditions.

But Abraham and Moses were able to combine the idea of a single, transcendent, « universal » God with the idea of a « tribal », « national » God, committed to a “chosen” people as « Lord of Hosts », Yahweh Tsabaoth.

The covenant of a “universal” God with a particular, « chosen » people may seem a priori an oxymoron. The election of Israel seems to contradict the universal vocation of a God who transcends human divisions. There is one possible explanation, however. This seemingly contradictory idea was, according to all appearances, the very condition for its deployment and epigenesis, as witnessed in history. It was necessary for a specific people – rather than any particular people – to embody and defend the idea, before it was finally accepted and defended in the rest of the nations.

The monotheistic idea also leads, by an almost natural derivation, to the idea of a personal God, a God to whom man may speak and say « you », a God who also speaks, hears and answers, who may appear or remain silent, present all His glory, or remain desperately absent. The idea of a “personal” God, through its anthropomorphism, is opposed to that of an abstract God, an inconceivable, perpendicular, inalienable principle, transcending everything that the human mind can conceive. What could be more anthropomorphic, in fact, than the concept of « person »? Isn’t this concept, therefore, fundamentally at odds with the essence of a God who is absolutely « Other »?

When, within Judaism, a young village carpenter and rabbi, a good orator and versed in the Scriptures, appeared in Galilee two thousand years ago, Abrahamic monotheism took a seemingly new direction. The One God could also, according to Rabbi Yehoshua of Nazareth, become incarnate freely, « otherwise », through a new understanding of His revelation, His Essence, His Spirit.

But to be fair, from ancient times, other people of different lore had already been thinking about the idea of a Deity with multiple manifestations – without contradiction.

The Indian grammarian Yāska reports in his Nirukta, which is the oldest treatise on the language of the Veda, that according to the original Vedic authors, the deity could be represented by three gods, Savitri, Agni and Vâyu. Savitri means « producer » or « Father ». His symbol is the Sun. Agni, his « Son », has the Fire as his symbol. Vâyu is the Spirit, with Wind as its symbol.

The oldest historically recorded form in which the idea of the divine trinity appears is therefore based on an analogy, term by term, between the material world (the Sun, Fire and Wind) and the metaphysical world (the Father, Son and Spirit).

The Sanskritist Émile Burnouf reports that when the Vedic priest pours clarified butter on Fire (Agni), “Agni” then takes the name of « Anointed One » (in Sanskrit: akta).

Note that « Anointed » is translated in Hebrew as mashia’h, meaning « messiah ».

Agni, the Fire who became the Anointed One, becomes, at the moment of the « anointing », the very mediator of the sacrifice, the one who embodies its ultimate meaning.

Burnouf noted the structural analogy of the Vedic sacrifice with the figure of the Christic sacrifice. « The center from which all the great religions of the earth have radiated is therefore the theory of Agni, of which Christ Jesus was the most perfect incarnation.”ⁱⁱ

Agni, – universal paradigm, « mother idea »? Agni is for the Aryas the principle of all life. All the movements of inanimate things proceed from heat, and heat proceeds from the Sun, which is the « Universal Engine », but also the « Celestial Traveller ». During the Vedic sacrifice, a sacred fire is lit which is the image of the universal agent of Life, and by extension, the image of Thought, the symbol of the Spirit.

Long after the first Vedic prayers had been chanted to Savitri, Agni, Vâyu, some (Judeo-)Christians believers said in their turn and in their own way, even before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem had occurred: « I believe in the Father, the Son and the Spirit ».

However this Trinitarian formula was admittedly not “Jewish”, since Judaism presented itself as fiercely monotheistic.

But from the point of view of its formal structure, we can say with some level of credibility that it was partly the result of Zoroastrian, Avestic and, more originally, Vedic influences.

In yet another cultural area, the Chinese, the ancient Trinitarian intuition of the divine is also proven. The highest gods of the Tao form a trinity, the « Three Pure Ones » (Sān Qīng , 三清 ).

The first member of the supreme triad is called the Celestial Venerable of the Original Beginning (元始天尊 Yuanshi Tianzun). This God has other names that it is interesting to list: Supreme God Emperor of Jade (玉皇上帝 Yuhuang Shangdi), Great God Emperor of Jade (玉皇大帝 Yuhuang Dadi), or Celestial Treasure (天寶 Tianbao) and finally God of Mystery (玄帝 Xuandi), which is an abbreviation of Supreme God Celestial Mystery (玄天上帝 Xuantian Shangdi).

From these various names it can be deduced that this God is at the « beginning », that He is at the « origin », that He is « supreme », that He is « mystery ».

By analogy with the Christian trinitarian system, this first God of the Taoist trinity could appear as the « Father » God.

The second member of the supreme triad, the Venerable Heavenly One of the Spiritual Treasure (靈寶天尊 Lingbao Tianzun), is also called Lord of the Way (道君 Daojun).

In Christianity, God the « Son » said of Himself that He is « the Way, the Truth, the Life ». The analogy of the « Son » with the « Lord of the Way » is obvious.

The third God of the supreme triad is the Venerated Heavenly One of the Divine Treasure (神寶天尊 Shenbao Tianzun). He is also called the Most High Patriarch Prince or the Old Lord of Supreme Height (太上老君 Taishang Laojun), better known as the Old Child (老子 Laozi).

In Christian symbolism, the Holy Spirit is represented by a dove, flying through the air. The analogy allows for a certain approximation of the Holy Spirit with the Lord of Supreme Height.

Vedism, Taoism and Christianity share, as can be seen, the intuition of a supreme and unique divine entity which diffracts into three representationsⁱⁱⁱ.

—-

iGn 14,18-20

iiEmile Burnouf. La science des religions. 1872

iii In my opinion, it may be possible to also find a possible equivalent to this trinitarian intuition in Judaism, with the Eternal (YHVH), the Torah and the Shekhinah. The Torah is « divine ». It is said that the Torah existed before the world was even created. And the Torah was also able to « incarnate » itself in some specific way. The Zohar ‘Hadach (Shir haShirim 74b) teaches that there are 600,000 letters in the Torah. If we do an exact count, we find that the Torah actually contains 304,805 letters. In any case, it is certain that the divine Torah has allowed itself to « incarnate » in a « certain number » of Hebrew letters… The Shekhinah also incarnates the divine « presence ». A single divine entity, therefore, and three representations.

The Trans-Human Essence of Humanity

Publié par Philippe Quéau

There are cultures that value prose, argument, dialectics and rhetoric in the search for clear truths. Others prefer hymns, psalms, symbols, enigma, and seek first of all to praise and honor mystery.

Some peoples have pushed reason, wisdom and philosophy as far as possible – as maieutic powers.

Other peoples have preferred revelation, prophecy and mystery, subordinating the work of the spirit to transcendence, to its criticism and interpretation.

The paths of truth are multiple.

Perhaps one day one will describe how favorable climates, comfortable summers, open landscapes may help change worldviews. Scattered archipelagos, alluvial plains, secret deserts, wide and ample valleys, have respective affinities for different ways of thinking. Do the plains of the Indus have the same light than the islands of Greece? Does the Nile valley compare with the Jordan valley?

The tribes of Noah, Shem, Cham or Japhet each had their own way of seeing the sea and the stars, the sun, the mountains, the cow, the lamb and the night, fire, milk and sacrifice. These are only facts and images for some, but metaphors, intuitions, for others. The arid desert fits in with a mineral religion. The linear, naked horizon leads geometrically to monotheism. The smiling myriads of sea waves and the profusion of scattered islands probably may evoke more easily polytheistic thoughts – the solar unit diffracts into billions of labile splinters, and the earth crumbles into the sea.

The idea of a single God does not belong to the mind alone; the climate also exudes it, the landscape shapes it, and a suitable language is needed to exalt it.

The Semitic religions did not recognize the divine essence of variety; they did not admire the plurality of the divine within them. The names El, Eloh, YHVH, Adonai, Baal, Elion, El Shaddai, or Allah concentrate all the intuition, all the meaning, in the One.

But the multiple names of the One proclaim it, they repeat it in all tones: their number bears witness to this: – all these names of the One are not themselves one.

All these names of the One are as many multiple veils.

The Elohim, a plural noun of the One – proclaimed this in the language itself.

Of pure and clear monotheism, one can undoubtedly say that it requires, to put it bluntly, intransigence. One, only one, not two, three, twelve, a thousand or billions. How could one be the two? Or the three? Or infinity?

But is God only One? Isn’t He also Infinite? If He is One and Infinite, then He is also Two, at least conceptually-wise. And One, and Two and Infinite make Three. Etc.

The world is wider than flat deserts, deeper than open seas. Over there, towards the Indus, or near the banks of the Oxus, people have for millennia seen the divine wherever they looked, wherever the spirit set its wing.

The complexity of grammar, the richness of words, the spirit of research, the freedom of thought, the critical capacity, were not an obstacle, but other wings still, making the divine glimmer through many other prisms.

Finesse is not useless in these matters. The mind must become tolerant when one becomes aware of human destiny, of its variegated unity.

Only the north makes the south possible. East and west stand together at both ends of the day. The one and the multiple find their complement, their inner duality in each other.

The infinity of possibilities is said to be found in the unity of being.

If God is really One, why is humanity not yet One? For what reason? For what purpose?

Renan said in his provoking style: “Who will dare to say that by revealing the divine unity and definitively suppressing local religions, the Semitic race has not laid the fundamental stone for the unity and progress of humanity?”ⁱ

In the Semitic system, God, in essence, is far from mankind, immensely far. But God chose a Nabi, a prophet, an anointed one, and revealed Himself to him, and through the Nabi to mankind. The Semites see in the world, always, everywhere, only the fulfillment of this unique revelation, the revealed will of a unique Being infinitely transcendent to those multiple beings to whom the revelation of unity is made.

The One revealed the “Oneness”.

And yet, by essence, the multiple, the diverse, the far, the near, are not « one ». They are here and now, or there and far. And the here and there are essentially multiple. Only the One is not “multiple”.

Fundamental contrast. One must then recognize a double state of being, the multiple here or there, and the One elsewhere.

Mankind in the future will no doubt try again to « unify » by some transcendental intuition, this double state of being, the One and the Multiple, the far and the near, transcendence and immanence.

The earth and the stars, the desert and the seas, the mountain and the plain – are all multiple metaphors of this unique intuition, – the universe is also a multi-verse, i.e. it hides its essence.

By analogy, we may infer that a unique and diverse humanity is bound to be, in essence, trans-human.

iErnest Renan. Histoire générale et système comparé des langues sémitiques. (1863)

La lutte de Jacob avec l’Ange

Publié par Philippe Quéau

L’origine du nom « Israël » repose sur quelques passage de la Genèse consacrés à Jacob. On y découvre pourquoi il fut d’abord nommé « Jacob », puis la façon dont il fut renommé « Israël ».

Cette célèbre histoire, commentée tout au long des siècles, est évoquée lapidairement par le prophète Osée, de la façon suivante : « L’Éternel va donc mettre en cause Juda, il va faire justice de Jacob selon sa conduite et le rémunérer selon ses œuvres. Dès le sein maternel, il supplanta son frère et dans sa virilité il triompha d’un Dieu. Il lutta contre un ange et fut vainqueur, et celui-ci pleura et demanda grâce. »ⁱ

Osée affirme que l’Éternel va faire justice de Jacob. Pourquoi ? Parce qu’il a « supplanté son frère », il a « lutté contre Dieu », et il en a été« vainqueur », le réduisant à « pleurer » et lui demander grâce.

Voyons ces points.

Dès avant sa naissance, dans le sein de sa mère, il est écrit que « Jacob supplanta » son frère. On lui donna ce nom, Jacob, parce qu’il était sorti du ventre de sa mère en tenant le talon de son frère. « Le premier sortit entièrement roux pareil à une pelisse ; on lui donna le nom d’Esaü. Ensuite sortit son frère, et sa main tenait le talon d’Esaü, et on le nomma Jacob. »^ⁱⁱ

En hébreu le mot Jacob est tiré du verbe עָקַב, qui signifie « il supplanta », « il trompa », « il frauda ». « Jacob » semble un nom difficile à porter, même si on peut euphémiser son sens propre en lui donnant une signification dérivée, tirée du passage de la Genèse : « celui qui a attrapé (son frère) par les talons », au moment de sa naissance.

Mais Jacob mérita à nouveau son nom en supplantant une deuxième fois Esaü, par « l’achat » de son droit d’aînesse^ⁱⁱⁱ et une troisième fois, en se substituant à lui pour obtenir la bénédiction de son père Isaac, sur son lit de mort.

Jacob est conscient du sens négatif attaché à son nom, et il est aussi conscient de la portée de ses actes. « Peut-être mon père me tâtera et je serai à ses yeux comme un trompeur, et je ferai venir sur moi la malédiction et non la bénédiction »^{^iv}, s’inquiète-t-il auprès de Rebecca. Jacob craint d’être vu « comme un trompeur ». C’est donc qu’il ne se considère pas vraiment comme tel, malgré les apparences et les faits. Il pense sans doute avoir réglé l’aspect juridique de la supplantation par l’acquisition du droit d’aînesse pour une soupe « rouge ». Il se repose aussi sur sa mère Rebecca qui lui dit : « Je prends sur moi ta malédiction, mon fils. Obéis-moi. »^{^v}

Mais ce sont des soucis mineurs. Jacob finit par assumer personnellement la fraude lorsque son père, aveugle et mourant, lui demande : « Qui es-tu, mon fils ? » et qu’il répond : « C’est moi, Esaü, ton premier-né. »^{^vi}Isaac le bénit alors, mais saisi par le doute, demande une seconde fois : « C’est toi, là, mon fils Esaü ? » Jacob répond : « C’est moi. »^viiAlors Isaac le bénit une deuxième fois, le confirmant dans son héritage : « Sois le chef de tes frères, et que les fils de ta mère se prosternent devant toi ! Malédiction à qui te maudira, et qui te bénira sera béni ! »^{^viii}.

Esaü survient sur ces entrefaites et demande : « Est-ce parce qu’on l’a nommé Jacob qu’il m’a supplanté deux fois déjà ? Il m’a enlevé mon droit d’aînesse et voici que maintenant il m’enlève ma bénédiction ! »^{^ix}

On voit par là que le nom de Jacob portait tout son destin en résumé, du moins pour la première partie de sa vie.

Maintenant voyons comment Jacob changea de nom, pendant la scène du combat nocturne.

« Jacob étant resté seul, un homme lutta avec lui, jusqu’au lever de l’aube. »^{^x}Jacob est seul, mais un homme est avec lui. Comment concilier cette apparente contradiction ? Est-ce que cet « homme » n’est qu’une apparition, un mirage ? Ou bien est-ce un ange ? Un esprit divin?

Il pourrait y avoir une troisième piste. Il pourrait s’agir d’une présence intérieure, ou d’un combat de Jacob avec sa propre conscience.

Mais alors comment expliquer ce combat forcené contre lui-même? Délire nocturne ? Crise mystique ? Il faut se raccrocher à des détails infimes. « Voyant qu’il ne pouvait le vaincre, il le toucha à la hanche et la hanche de Jacob se luxa tandis qu’il luttait avec lui. »^{^xi}Le texte hébreu dit que Jacob fut touché au creux de la « hanche » : כַּף-יֶרֶךְ, kaf yérek. Mais ce mot peut prendre plusieurs sens. Si l’on adopte l’idée qu’il s’agit d’une lutte physique, virile, il se pourrait que ce soit là un euphémisme pour « parties génitales ». Un bon coup dans les parties peut donner un avantage.

Mais si l’on adopte l’interprétation d’une lutte intérieure, mystique, il faut trouver autre chose. Or, cette expression composée peut aussi vouloir dire, prise mot-à-mot : « le creux (kaf) du fond (yarkah) », c’est-à-dire le « fond du fond », ou le « tréfonds ».

Si Jacob s’est livré à un combat intérieur, il a atteint à ce moment le fond extrême, abyssal, de son âme.

A cet instant l’homme, ou l’ange, (– ou ce qui demeure dans le tréfonds abyssal de son âme?) supplie Jacob : « Laisse-moi partir, car l’aube est venue. » Jacob répondit : « Je ne te laisserai pas que tu ne m’aies béni. » Il lui dit alors : « Quel est ton nom ? » Il répondit : « Jacob ». Il reprit : « Jacob ne sera plus désormais ton nom, mais bien Israël ; car tu as lutté avec Dieu et avec des hommes, et tu as triomphé. »^xii Israël : ki-sarita ‘im elohim ve ‘im enoshim va toukhal.

Selon cette interprétation, « Israël » signifierait donc: « Il a lutté contre Dieu », en prenant comme base du mot Israël le verbe שָׂרָה, sarah, lutter.

Mais le «très savant » Philon d’Alexandrie, commentant le même passage, est, pour sa part, d’opinion que le nom « Israël » signifie « Voyant Dieu », s’appuyant sur le verbe רָאָה, raah, « voir, avoir des visions ».

Quelle interprétation semble la meilleure ?

S’il s’est agi d’une bataille mystique, l’interprétation de Philon paraît nettement préférable, dans le contexte d’une « vision mystique ». Mais pour avancer, on peut aussi se rapporter à Rachi, qui ne traite pas directement de cette question, mais l’aborde cependant par un autre biais.

Rachi commente le verset « Jacob ne sera plus désormais ton nom, mais bien Israël » de la façon suivante: « Il ne sera plus dit que tu as obtenu ces bénédictions par ruse et supplantation (עקבה, même racine que יעקב), mais en toute dignité et ouvertement. Le Saint bénit soit-Il Se révélera un jour à toi à Béthel, il y changera ton nom et te bénira. J’y serai et je te les confirmerai. C’est ce que dira le Prophète Osée : Il a lutté avec un ange et a eu le dessus, il a pleuré et l’a supplié (Os 12,5). C’est l’ange qui a pleuré et a supplié. Que lui demandait-il ? A Béthel Il nous trouvera et là Il nous parlera (ibid.). Accorde-moi un délai jusqu’à ce qu’il nous parle là-bas. Mais Jacob n’a pas voulu et l’ange a dû, malgré lui, lui donner confirmation des bénédictions. C’est ce que signifie ici au verset 30, ‘Il le bénit sur place’. Il l’avait supplié d’attendre, mais Jacob avait refusé. »

Rachi s’appuie pour ce commentaire sur l’autorité d’Osée. Osée lui-même cite simplement un texte de la Genèse, qui indique que Dieu apparut encore à Jacob à son retour du territoire d’Aram, au lieu qui devait être ensuite nommé Béthel, et qu’il le bénit là, en lui disant : « Tu te nommes Jacob ; mais ton nom, désormais, ne sera plus Jacob, ton nom sera Israël. »^xiii

A l’occasion de ce nouveau récit du changement du nom de Jacob en Israël, Rachi se livre à sa propre interprétation du sens du nom Israël. « ‘Ton nom ne sera plus Jacob.’ Ce nom désigne un homme qui se tient aux aguets pour prendre quelqu’un par surprise ( עקבה ), mais tu porteras un nom qui signifie prince (שׂר) et noble. »

Rachi propose donc là une troisième interprétation du sens du nom « Israël ». Après la ‘lutte’ (contre Dieu), la ‘vision’ (de Dieu), voici la ‘royauté’ ou la ‘principauté’ (en Dieu, ou par Dieu?).

Immédiatement après ces événements, le récit reprend avec un nouvel épisode, fort mystérieux. « Le Seigneur disparut d’auprès de lui, à l’endroit où il lui avait parlé. Jacob érigea un monument dans l’endroit où il lui avait parlé, un monument de pierre. »^{^xiv} Pourquoi dis-je que ce fut ‘un épisode mystérieux’ ? Parce que Rachi lui-même avoue au sujet de ce verset : « Je ne sais pas ce que ce texte veut nous apprendre. »

Tentons cependant notre chance. On lit après l’expression « d’auprès de lui », une autre expression circonstancielle de lieu : « à l’endroit où il lui avait parlé ».

A Béthel, Dieu se tient « auprès » de Jacob, alors que sur la rive du Jaboc, lors de son « combat », au lieu nommé Pénïêl, Jacob tient son adversaire étroitement enlacé, dans une lutte au corps à corps.

C’est une première différence. Mais ce qui est surprenant, c’est que Dieu disparaît « d’auprès de lui » (c’est-à-dire s’éloigne de l’endroit proche de Jacob) pour aller « à l’endroit où il lui avait parlé » (bi maqom asher diber itou). Tout se passe comme si Dieu disparaissait, non pas « de », mais « dans » l’endroit où il venait de parler.

Élaborons. Il faut distinguer ici le lieu où Dieu se tenait « auprès » de Jacob, – et le « lieu où Dieu avait parlé », qui n’est pas un lieu géographique, mais plus vraisemblablement l’âme même de Jacob. Ce que le texte nous apprend, c’est donc que Dieu a disparu « dans » l’âme de Jacob, en s’y fondant, s’y mélangeant intimement.

Après ce détour anticipatif par Béthel, revenons à la scène de Pénïêl, près du gué de Jaboc. Jacob vient d’y être nommé pour la première fois « Israël ». Il veut alors savoir le nom de celui qui vient de l’appeler ainsi : « ‘Apprends-moi, je te prie, ton nom.’ Il répondit : ‘Pourquoi t’enquérir de mon nom ?’ Et il le bénit sur place. »^xv

L’homme, ou l’ange, bénit Jacob, mais ne lui révèle pas son propre nom. En revanche, on peut inférer du texte qu’il lui montra sa face. On lit en effet : « Jacob appela ce lieu Penïêl : ‘Parce que j’ai vu un ange de Dieu face à face, et que ma vie est restée sauve’. »^{^xvi}Penïel signifie en effet, mot-à-mot, « face de Dieu », ce qui semble en faveur du fait que Jacob-Israël a bien « vu » Dieu, lors de son combat nocturne.

C’est ici l’occasion de noter une sorte de symétrie inversée entre l’expérience de Jacob et celle de Moïse. Jacob a « vu » Dieu, mais il ne lui a pas été donné d’entendre son nom. Pour Moïse c’est le contraire, Dieu lui a révélé l’un de ses noms, ‘Eyeh asher Eyeh’, « Je suis qui je suis», mais Il ne lui a pas montré sa « face », — seulement son « dos ».

Qu’est-ce qui est le signe le plus manifeste de l’élection et de la grâce : voir la face de Dieu ou entendre son nom ? Les interprétations de cette difficile question sont légion. On ne les évoquera pas ici.

On relèvera seulement un autre mystère, devant lequel Rachi lui-même a dû s’avouer vaincu: pourquoi Dieu a-t-il disparu là où Il avait parlé ?

Pourquoi le lieu de ce qui fut Sa présence est-il désormais le lieu de Son absence ?

Et qu’est-ce ce que cela nous apprend sur la nature de Sa ‘parole’, qui semble concilier à la fois la présence (au passé), et l’absence (au présent) ?

i Os 12, 3-5

iiGn 25, 25-26

iiiGn 25,31

ivGn 27,12

vGn 27, 13

viGn 27, 19

viiGn 27, 24

viiiGn 27, 29

ixGn 27, 36

xGn 32,25

xiGn 32, 26

xiiGn 32, 27-29

xiii Gn 35, 10

xivGn 35, 14

xvGn 32, 30

xviGn 32, 31

The Soul of Languages

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Ancient languages, such as Sanskrit, Egyptian, Avestic, Chinese, Hebrew and Greek, possess a kind of secret spirit, an immanent soul, which makes them develop as living powers, often without the knowledge of the people who speak them, and could be compared to insects foraging in a forest of words, with fragrant, autonomous and fertile scents.

This phenomenal independence of languages from the men who speak and think with them is the sign of a mystery, latent from their genesis. « Languages are not the work of a reason conscious of itself”, wrote Turgotⁱ .

They are the work of another type of ‘reason’, a superior one, which could be compared to the putative reason of language angels, active in the history of the world, haunting the unconscious of peoples, and drawing their substance from them, just as much as from the nature of things.

The essence of a language, its DNA, lies in its grammar. Grammar incorporates the soul of the language. It represents it in all its potency, without limiting its own genius. Grammar is there but it is not enough to explain the genius of the language. The slow work of epigenesis, the work of time on words, escapes it completely.

This epigenesis of the language, how can it be felt? One way is to consider vast sets of interrelated words, and to visit through thought the society they constitute, and the history that made them possible.

Let’s take an example. Semitic languages are organized around verbal roots, which are called « trilitera » because they are composed of three radical letters. But these verbs (concave, geminated, weak, imperfect, …) are not really « triliterated ». To call them so is only « grammatical fiction », Renan assertedⁱⁱ. In reality, triliteral roots can be etymologically reduced to two radical, essential letters, the third radical letter only adding a marginal nuance.

For example, in Hebrew, the two root letters פר (para) translate the idea of ‘separation’, ‘cut’, ‘break’. The addition of a third radical letter following פר then modulates this primary meaning and gives a range of nuances: פרד parada « to separate, to be dispersed », פרח paraha « to erupt, to germinate, to blossom », פרס parasa « to tear, to split », פרע para’a « to reject, to dissolve », פרץ paratsa « to destroy, to cut down, to break », פרק paraqa « to break, to tear », פרס perasa « to break, to share », פרש parasha « to break, to disperse ».

The keyboard of possible variations can be further expanded. The Hebrew language allows the first radical letter פ to be swapped with the beth ב, opening up other semantic horizons: ברא bara « to create, to draw from nothing; to cut, to cut down », ברה bara’a « to choose », ברר barada « to hail », בבח baraha, « to flee, to hunt », ברך barakha, « to bless; to curse, to offend, to blaspheme », ברק baraqa, « to make lightning shine », ברר barara, « to separate, sort; to purify ».

The Hebrew language, which is very flexible, may also allow permutations with the second letter of the verbal root, changing for example the ר by צ or by ז. This gives rise to a new efflorescence of nuances, opening up other semantic avenues:

פצה « to split, to open wide », פצח « to burst, to make heard », פצל « to remove the bark, to peel », פצם « to split, to open in », פצע « to wound, to bruise », בצע « to cut, to break, to delight, to steal », בצר « to cut, to harvest », בזה « to despise, to scorn », בזא « to devastate », בזר « to spread, to distribute », בזק « lightning flash », בתר « to cut, to divide ».

Through oblique shifts, slight additions, literal « mutations » and « permutations » of the alphabetic DNA, we witness the quasi-genetic development of the words of the language and the epigenetic variability of their meanings.

Languages other than Hebrew, such as Sanskrit, Greek or Arabic, also allow a thousand similar discoveries, and offer lexical and semantic shimmering, inviting us to explore the endless sedimentation of the meanings, which has been accumulating and densifying for thousands of years in the unconscious of languages.

In contrast, the Chinese language or the language of ancient Egypt do not seem to have a very elaborate grammar. On the other hand, as they are composed of monosyllabic units of meaning (ideograms, hieroglyphics) whose agglutination and coagulation also produce, in their own way, myriads of variations, we then discover other generative powers, other specific forms generating the necessary proliferation of meaning.

Grammar, lexicography and etymology are sometimes poetic, surprising and lively ways of accessing the unconscious of language. They do not reveal it entirely, however, far from it.

A psychoanalysis of language may reveal its unconscious and help finding the origin of its original impulses.

For example, it is worth noting that the language of the Veda, Sanskrit – perhaps the richest and most elaborate language ever conceived by man – is almost entirely based on a philosophical or religious vocabulary. Almost all entries in the most learned Sanskrit dictionaries refer in one way or another to religious matters. Their network is so dense that almost every word naturally leads back to them.

One is then entitled to ask the question: Is (Vedic) religion the essence of (Sanskrit) language? Or is it the other way round? Does Vedic language contain the essence of Veda?

This question is of course open to generalization: does Hebrew contain the essence of Judaism? And do its letters conceal an inner mystery? Or is it the opposite: is Judaism the truth and the essence of the Hebrew language?

In a given culture, does the conception of the world precede that of language? Or is it the language itself, shaped by centuries and men, which ends up bringing ancient religious foundations to their incandescence?

Or, alternatively, do language and religion have a complex symbiotic relationship that is indistinguishable, but prodigiously fertile – in some cases, or potentially sterile in others? A dreadful dilemma! But how stimulating for the researcher of the future.

One can imagine men, living six or twelve thousand years ago, possessing a penetrating intelligence, and the brilliant imagination of a Dante or a Kant, like native dreamers, contemplating cocoons of meaning, slow caterpillars, or evanescent butterflies, and tempting in their language eternity – by the idea and by the words, in front of the starry night, unaware of their ultimate destiny.

iTurgot. Remarques sur l’origine des langues. Œuvres complètes . Vol. 2. Paris, 1844. p.719

iiErnest Renan. De l’origine du langage. 1848

Le jour du sang

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Les chrétiens fêtent Noël le 25 décembre. Pourquoi cette date particulière? Elle fut empruntée au culte de Mithra. La date de la fête chrétienne de Pâques coïncide aussi avec celle d’une autre fête païenne, celle du culte d’Atys et de Cybèle, qui avait lieu au moment de l’équinoxe du printemps. Cette grande fête phrygienne commençait le 24 mars. Elle était appelée le « jour du sang ».

Pour leur part, les Juifs célébraient au début du printemps la fête de Pessah en sacrifiant un agneau, en souvenir de l’Exode. Les musulmans devaient, plus d’un millénaire et demi tard, reprendre la symbolique du sacrifice du mouton lors de l’Aïd el Kebir, en souvenir du sacrifice de son fils demandé par Dieu à Abraham. Les musulmans pensent que c’est Ismaël (le fils de sa concubine Agar) que Dieu avait demandé à Abraham de sacrifier. La Bible juive indique qu’il s’agissait d’Isaac, le fils premier-né d’Abraham et de Sara. Les musulmans, assez tard venus dans l’histoire des religions, accusent les Juifs d’avoir falsifié les Écritures à ce sujet.

Quoi qu’il en soit, le sang d’un animal (taureau, agneau, mouton) doit couler chez les adeptes d’Atys et Cybèle comme les juifs et chez les musulmans.

On constate que des religions diverses, païennes et monothéistes, trouvaient le printemps fort propice à leurs dévotions, apparemment, et qu’elles partageaient un certain attrait pour la symbolique du sang versé.

Le sang coule, mais le sens est différent.

Le « jour du sang » d’Atys et Cybèle était le jour où les prêtres impétrants et néophytes devaient s’émasculer volontairement. « Ils jetaient ces parties retranchées d’eux-mêmes sur la statue de la déesse Cybèle. On enterrait ces instruments de fertilité dans la terre, dans des chambres souterraines consacrées à Cybèle. » explique James George Frazer.ⁱ

On procédait après coup aux cérémonies d’initiation. « Le fidèle couronné d’or et entouré de bandelettes descendait dans une fosse recouverte d’une grille. On y égorgeait un taureau. Le sang chaud et fumant se répandait en torrents sur l’adorateur. »ⁱⁱ

L’initié passait la nuit, seul, dans la fosse sanglante. Le lendemain, le 25 mars, on célébrait la résurrection divine.

Les prêtres châtrés d’Atys étaient appelés les « galles », en référence au fleuve Gallus en Galatie. Rien d’exceptionnel à la castration des prêtres. Artémis à Éphèse ou Astarté à Hiéropolis en Syrie étaient aussi servies par des prêtres eunuques. Divinité phrygienne, Atys est à la fois le fils et l’amant de Cybèle. Cette situation peut se comparer à celle d’Adonis, associé à Aphrodite-Astarté ou à Tammuz, parèdre d’Ishtar.

La mythologie nous renseigne sur l’origine de ce culte sanglant. Zeus a donné naissance à l’hermaphrodite Agdistis, en laissant couler son sperme à terre, ensemençant ainsi Gaïa, la Terre. Mais les autres dieux effrayés par cet étrange hermaphrodite, à la fois homme et femme, l’émasculent. Privé de son sexe mâle, Agditsis devient alors Cybèle.

Selon Pausanias, du sang qui coula de la blessure de l’émasculation, naquit l’amandier. Puis, d’une amande de cet arbre, Nana, fille du dieu-fleuve Sangarios, conçut Atys. Atys devint un beau jeune homme. Cybèle, qui était en quelque sorte son géniteur, par amande interposée, tomba amoureuse de lui. Mais Atys devait épouser la fille du roi de Pessinus. Jalouse, Cybèle le frappa de folie. Alors Atys s’émascula lui aussi. Regrettant son acte, Agdistis-Cybèle obtint de Zeus que le corps d’Atys ne se décompose jamais.

Il est assez tentant de faire un rapprochement (purement analogique) entre le mythe d’Atys et Cybèle, le sacrifice de l’agneau pendant la Pâque juive, et le sacrifice du Christ suivi de sa résurrection chez les Chrétiens.

Le sacrifice du taureau dans le culte d’Atys et Cybèle (lui-même hérité de traditions certainement bien plus anciennes, comme en témoigne le Véda) fait couler le sang sur le néophyte qui doit passer la nuit dans un caveau aux allures de tombeau, pour ressusciter symboliquement le lendemain en tant qu’initié aux mystères.

Le Christ, « l’Agneau de Dieu », a été mis à mort le premier jour de la Pâque juive, son sang a coulé, puis il a été mis au tombeau pour ressusciter le 3ème jour. L’analogie paraît patente. Les différences abondent aussi. Le culte d’Atys et de Cybèle ne demandait pas le sacrifice de l’homme, mais seulement celui de ses parties, avec en complément le sacrifice du taureau.

Il y a un indubitable point commun entre les mystères d’Atys et de Cybèle, l’ancienne fête de Pessah du judaïsme, les Pâques du christianisme et l’Aïd el kebir de l’islam: le sang y coule, réellement ou symboliquement, celui du taureau, de l’agneau ou du mouton, le sang du sexe tranché des prêtres, ou encore le sang du Christ.

Le sang coule. Pour quelle soif?

iJames George Frazer. Atys et Osiris. Étude de religions orientales comparées. 1926

ii Ibid.

Who Invented Monotheism?

Publié par Philippe Quéau

The fables that people tell each other, the myths they construct for themselves, the stories that clothe their memory, help them to build their supposed identity, and enable them to distinguish themselves from other peoples.

Through the magic of words, « barbarians », « idolaters », « savages » and « infidels » appear in the imaginations of some peoples.

But with the hindsight of history and anthropology, we sometimes find strange similarities, disturbing analogies, between peoples who are so diverse, so distant, separated from each other by a priori ostracisms.

Many peoples resemble each other in that they all believe that they only are « unique », « special ». They believe that they are the only people in the world who are who they are, who believe in what they believe, who think what they think.

We can apply this observation to the religious fact.

The « monotheistic » religion, for example, has not appeared in a single culture, a single people. If the primacy of monotheistic worship is often associated with the ancient religion of the Hebrews, it is because we often forget that another form of monotheism was invented in Egypt by Amenophis IV (Akhenaten), several centuries before Abraham. Moses himself, according to Freud, but also according to the recent conclusions of some of the best informed Egyptologists, would have been, in his first life, a defrocked priest of the God Aten, and would have taken advantage of the Exodus to claim the laws and symbols of what was to define Judaism.

The idea of monotheism, far from being reserved for the Nile valley or the foothills of the Sinai, appeared in other cultures, in Vedic India or in the Avesta of ancient Iran.

In Max Müller’s Essay on the History of Religion (1879), which devotes a chapter to the study of the Zend Avesta, but also in Martin Haug’s Essays on the Sacred Language, Scriptures and Religion of the Parsis (Bombay, 1862), one finds curious and striking similarities between certain avestic formulas and biblical formulas.

In the Zend Avesta, we read that Zarathustra asked Ahura Mazda to reveal his hidden names. The God accepted and gave him twenty of them.

The first of these names is Ahmi, « I am ».

The fourth is Asha-Vahista, « the best purity ».

The sixth means « I am Wisdom ».

The eighth translates into « I am Knowledge ».

The twelfth is Ahura, « the Living One ».

The twentieth is Mazdao, which means: « I am He who is ».

It is easy to see that these formulas are taken up as they are in different passages of the Bible. Is it pure chance, an unexpected meeting of great minds or a deliberate borrowing? The most notable equivalence of formulation is undoubtedly « I am He who is », taken up word for word in the text of Exodus (Ex. 3:14).

Max Müller concludes: « We find a perfect identity between certain articles of the Zoroastrian religion and some important doctrines of Mosaism and Christianity.”

It is also instructive to note the analogies between the conception of Genesis in the Bible and the ideas that prevailed among the Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians or Indians about « Creation ».

Thus, in the first verse of Genesis (« In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth »), the verb « to create » is translated from the Hebrew בָּרַא, which does not mean « to create » in the sense of « to draw out of nothing », but rather in the sense of « to cut, carve, sculpt, flatten, polish », from a pre-existing substance. Similarly, the Sanskrit verb tvaksh, which is used to describe the creation of the world in the Vedic context, means « to shape, to arrange », as does the Greek poiein, which will be used in the Septuagint version.

Some proper nouns, too, evoke borrowings across language barriers. The name Asmodeus, the evil spirit found in the biblical book of Tobit, was certainly borrowed from Persia. It comes from the parsi, Eshem-dev , which is the demon of lust, and which is itself borrowed from the demon Aeshma-daeva, mentioned several times in the Zend Avesta.

Another curious coincidence: Zoroaster was born in Arran (in avestic Airayana Vaêga, « Seed of the Aryan »), a place identified as Haran in Chaldea, the region of departure of the Hebrew people. Haran also became, much later, the capital of Sabaism (a Judeo-Christian current attested in the Koran).

In the 3rd century BC, the famous translation of the Bible into Greek (Septuagint) was carried out in Alexandria. In the same city, at the same time, the text of the Zend Avesta was also translated into Greek. This proves that at that time there was a lively intellectual exchange between Iran, Babylonia and Judeo-Hellenistic Egypt.

It seems obvious that several millennia earlier, a continuous stream of influences and exchanges already bathed peoples and cultures, circulating ideas, images and myths between India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Judea and Egypt.

And the very names of these countries, if they mean so much to us, it is probably because, by contrast, the cultures of earlier, « pre-historic » ages have left precisely little trace. But it is easy to imagine that the thinkers, prophets and magi of the Palaeolithic also had an intuition of the Whole and the One.

Trinité et Tétragramme

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Le christianisme revendique une position originale parmi les trois monothéismes, avec la conception d’un Dieu Un, en trois Personnesⁱ (le Père, le Fils, l’Esprit). Cette idée de la « Trinité » a fait couler des flots d’encre, et suscité des sarcasmes (dans le judaïsme) mais aussi des invectives mortifères, dans le Coran, lequel invite à tuer ceux qu’il appelle les « associateurs ».

Ainsi, le verset 5 de la sourate 9, Al Taoubah (le Repentir) ordonne, sans autre forme de procès:

فَٱقْتُلُوا۟ ٱلْمُشْرِكِينَ حَيْثُ وَجَدتُّمُوهُمْ

« Tuez (qtoulou’) les associateurs (al-mouchrikina) où que vous les trouviez ».

Qui sont les mouchrikina? Ce sont les Juifs et les Chrétiens, ainsi que le précise le verset 30 de la même sourate :

« Les Juifs disent : ‘Uzayr est fils d’Allah’ et les chrétiens disent ‘Le Christ est fils d’Allah’. Telle est leur parole provenant de leurs bouches. Ils imitent le dire des mécréants avant eux. Qu’Allah les tue, de quelque manière qu’ils mentent. »

قَٰتَلَهُمُ ٱللَّهُ

Qatala-houmou Allahou ! « Qu’Allah les tue ! »

Difficile d’entamer une discussion théologique sur la notion de « Fils de Dieu » dans ces conditions.

En revanche, avec les Juifs, les Chrétiens trouveraient peut-être plus facilement un terrain d’entente sur cette question controversée. En effet, si les Juifs critiquent durement l’idée de Trinité du point de vue de leur conception du monothéisme, ils n’ont pas hésité pour leur part à affirmer l’existence d’une « quaternité » divine, symbolisée et même incarnée par les quatre lettres du Tétragramme, YHVH, en hébreu, יְהוָה . Ces quatre lettres se lisent respectivement Yod, Hé, Vav, Hé. Chacune d’entre elle incarne un aspect de la génération et de la spiration divines, toujours à l’œuvre.

Un passage du commentaire du Livre de Ruth, dans le Zohar, explicite de façon détaillée cette filiation et cette spiration du divin en l’Homme, selon quatre hypostases:

« Le Saint béni soit-il a créé en l’homme YHVH, qui est son saint nom, le Souffle du souffle, qui est appelé Adam. Et des lumières se répandent en neuf éclats qui s’enchaînent depuis le Yod, elles constituent la lumière une, sans séparation ; aussi, le vêtement de l’homme est appelé vêtement d’Adam.

Le Hé est appelé Souffle, et il s’accouple avec le Yod, il s’épand en de nombreuses lumières qui sont une.

Yod Hé sont sans séparation, c’est ainsi que ‘Élohim créa l’homme à son image, à l’image d’Élohim il le créa… et il les appela Adam’ (Gn 1,27 et Gn 5,2).

Vav est appelé Esprit, et il est dénommé fils de Yod Hé ;

Hé (final) est appelé Âme et il est dénommé fille.

Ainsi y a-t-il Père et Mère, Fils et Fille.

Et le secret du mot Yod Hé Vav Hé est appelé Adam. Sa lumière se répand en quarante cinq éclats, et c’est le chiffre d’Adam mah, ‘quoi ?’ »ⁱⁱ

Dans la Cabale juive, les quatre lettres du Tétragramme divin sont associées à quatre sefirot. La lettre initiale Yod correspond à Hokhmah (la Sagesse), et au ‘Souffle du souffle’ chez Adam . Hé renvoie à la sefira Binah (l’Intelligence), symbolisée en l’Homme par son ‘Souffle’. Vav est associé à la sefira Tiferet (la Beauté) ou à la sefira Daat (la Connaissance), et son équivalent adamique est l’‘Esprit’. Enfin le Hé final est lié à la sefira Malkhout (la Royauté) correspondant à l’‘Âme’ de l’Homme.

Le Zohar donne des précisions supplémentaires, concernant la différence entre les « quatre âmes » de l’Homme, le souffle du souffle, le souffle, l’esprit et l’âme :

« ‘Mon âme (nefech) te désire la nuit, et mon esprit (rouaḥ) te cherche au-dedans de moi’ (Isaïe 26,9). ‘Mon âme te désire’ : le Saint béni soit-il déposa deux bonne couronnes en l’homme, pour qu’il en use dans ce monde : ce sont l’âme et l’esprit. L’âme pour la conservation du corps, grâce aux commandements auxquels elle l’incite. L’esprit, pour l’éveiller à la Torah et pour le guider en ce monde. Si l’âme réussit dans les commandements et si l’esprit parvient à lui faire étudier la Torah, alors une entité plus noble encore descend sur lui, en fonction de sa conduite. Avec ces deux âmes, l’homme chemine dans ce monde, faisant usage d’elles. L’âme (nefech) ne subsiste dans le corps que par l’incitation de l’esprit qui la surplombe. Quand l’homme parvient à servir et à rendre un culte à son Maître avec ces deux âmes, d’en haut s’éveille sur lui une sainte impulsion, qui s’établit sur l’homme et l’entoure de tous côtés, elle l’incite à la Sagesse supérieure pour le rendre digne d’être dans le Palais du Roi. Cette impulsion qui réside sur lui provient d’un lieu élevé. Quel est son nom ? Nechama (‘souffle’). Le souffle est une puissance supérieure à celle qui est appelée esprit. En effet le Saint béni soit-il a destiné celui-ci à l’usage de ce monde tandis que le souffle incite sans cesse à l’usage d’en haut. Il incite l’homme au repentir et aux bonnes actions. C’est une puissance d’en haut, puissance de repentir, mère de l’esprit, et l’esprit est un fils pour elle. Au-dessus de ce souffle il en est qui l’aime. Et quel est son nom ? Le Souffle du souffle. Il est appelé père de l’esprit, il incite l’homme à la crainte, à l’amour, à la Torah, au commandement, qui procèdent respectivement du père, de la mère, du fils et de la fille : Yod père, Hé mère, Vav fils, Hé fille. Et c’est le Tétragramme (YHVH) plénier. »ⁱⁱⁱ

Les Juifs (du moins ceux qui suivent l’enseignement de la Cabale juive) interprètent donc le Nom divin, יְהוָה, YHVH, le Tétragramme indicible^iv, comme étant le symbole de quatre sortes d’âmes, jouant respectivement leurs rôles dans l’économie de la Création, mais aussi dans l’économie des spirations propres à l’Éternel. Pour traduire ces spirations dans des images accessibles à l’intellect humain, le judaïsme de la Cabale utilise les métaphores de la génération (paternité, maternité, filiation), ou encore les figures de Père, Mère, Fils et Fille.

Les Chrétiens font référence à la même idée générale de « procession » divine ou de « génération en Dieu »^v, mais en se servant d’un symbole trinitaire, et non quaternaire.

Du Dieu Un « procèdent » deux « relations », une relation d’Intelligence et une relation de Volonté.

S. Thomas d’Aquin explique : « Il y a deux processions en Dieu : celle du Verbe et une autre. (…) La procession du Verbe appartient à l’acte d’intelligence. Quant à l’opération de la volonté, elle donne lieu en nous à une autre procession : la procession de l’amour, qui fait que l’aimé est dans l’aimant, comme la procession du Verbe fait que la chose dite ou connue est dans le connaissant. Dès lors, outre la procession du Verbe, est affirmée en Dieu une autre procession : c’est la procession de l’amour. »^vi

La procession du Verbe peut être appelée métaphoriquement une « génération », car elle correspond à l’image du Père (qui « engendre » le Verbe) et à sa « relation » avec le Fils (qui est le Verbe « engendré »).

Cependant, la seconde « procession » ou « relation » à laquelle on vient de faire allusion, la « procession de l’amour », ne doit pas être qualifiée de « génération ». Pourquoi ? Il y a une différence essentielle. La métaphore de la génération implique une relation de similitude ou de ressemblance entre l’engendreur et l’engendré, tout comme le fait de de comprendre ou de connaître implique une relation d’assimilation entre le connaissant et le connu, ou entre l’intelligence et l’intelligible.

Par contraste, la métaphore de l’amour s’inscrit dans un contexte de différence a priori, d’altérité, entre l’aimant et l’aimé, ou entre le voulant et le voulu.

« Entre l’intelligence et la volonté, il y a cette différence que l’intelligence est en acte du fait que la chose connue est dans l’intellect par sa similitude ; la volonté, elle, est en acte, non parce qu’une similitude du voulu est dans le voulant, mais bien parce qu’il y a en elle une inclination vers la chose voulue. Il en résulte que la procession qui se prend selon le caractère propre de l’intellect est formellement assimilatrice, et pour autant il est possible qu’elle soit une génération, car celui qui engendre, c’est le semblable à soi-même qu’il engendre. A l’inverse, la procession qui se prend sous l’action de la volonté, ce n’est pas sous l’aspect d’assimilation qu’elle nous apparaît, mais plutôt comme une impulsion et mouvement vers un terme. C’est pourquoi ce qui, en Dieu, procède par mode d’amour ne procède pas comme engendré, comme fils, mais bien plutôt comme souffle. Ce mot évoque une sorte d’élan et d’impulsion vitale, dans le sens où l’on dit que l’amour nous meut et nous pousse à faire quelque chose. »^vii

Mais y a-t-il seulement deux processions à l’œuvre en Dieu, celle de l’Intelligence (ou du Verbe) et celle de la Volonté (ou de l’Amour) ? Pourquoi pas davantage ?

Dans une objection que Thomas d’Aquin soulève rhétoriquement, il pourrait sembler « qu’en Dieu il n’y ait pas seulement quatre relations réelles : paternité et filiation, spiration et procession. En effet, on peut considérer en Dieu des relations de connaissant à connu, de voulant à voulu : relations réelles, à ce qu’il semble. Il y a donc plus de quatre relations réelles en Dieu ».

Et aussitôt il réfute cette objection :

« Il semblerait plutôt qu’il y en a moins que quatre. Car selon Aristote^viii, « c’est un seul et même chemin qui va d’Athènes à Thèbes et de Thèbes à Athènes ». pareillement, c’est une seule et même relation qui va du père au fils : celle qu’on nomme « paternité » ; et qui va du fils au père : on la nomme alors « filiation ». A ce compte, il n’y a pas quatre relations en Dieu. »^ix

Alors, combien y a-t-il de « personnes » (ou, ce qui revient au même, de « relations »^x) en Dieu ? Pour les Chrétiens, il n’y en a pas quatre, comme disent les Juifs cabalistes (Père, Mère, Fils, Fille), mais trois : Père, Fils, Esprit.

« On lit dans la 1ère lettre de S. Jean (5,7) : ‘Ils sont trois qui témoignent dans le ciel : le Père, le Verbe et le Saint-Esprit.’ Et si l’on demande : Trois quoi ? On répond : Trois Personnes, comme S. Augustin l’expose. Il y a donc seulement trois personnes en Dieu. »^xi

Il faut ici souligner que ces questions restent extraordinairement difficiles. D’où la nécessité de rester dans la prudence.

« Des formules inconsidérées font encourir le reproche d’hérésie, dit S. Jérôme^xii. Donc, quand on parle de la Trinité, il faut procéder avec précaution et modestie : ‘Nulle part, dit S. Augustin, l’erreur n’est plus dangereuse, la recherche plus laborieuse, la découverte plus fructueuse.’^xiii Or dans nos énoncés touchant la Trinité, nous avons à nous garder de deux erreurs opposées entre lesquelles il faut nous frayer une voie sûre : l’erreur d’Arius qui enseigne, avec la trinité des Personnes, une trinité de substances ; et celle de Sabellius, qui enseigne, avec l’unité d’essence, l’unité de personne. Pour écarter l’erreur d’Arius, on évitera de parler de ‘diversité’ ou de ‘différence’ en Dieu ; ce serait ruiner l’unité d’essence. Mais nous pouvons faire appel au terme de ‘distinction’, en raison de l’opposition relative ; c’est en ce dernier sens qu’on entendra les expressions de ‘diversité’ ou ‘différence’ des personnes (…) ‘Chez le Père et le Fils, dit S. Ambroise, la déité est une et sans divergence’^xiv. Et d’après S. Hilaire^xv, il n’y a rien de séparable en Dieu.

Pour écarter d’autre part l’erreur de Sabellius, nous éviterons le mot singularitas (solitude), qui nierait la communicabilité de l’essence divine : d’après S. Hilaire en effet, c’est un sacrilège d’appeler le Père et le Fils ‘un dieu solitaire’. Nous éviterons aussi le terme ‘unique’, qui nierait la pluralité des Personnes ; S. Hilaire^xvi dit ainsi que ‘solitaire’, ‘unique ‘ sont exclus de Dieu.»^xvii

Dans cet épais buisson de difficultés, une constante demeure : l’impossibilité de parvenir par la seule raison naturelle à la connaissance de la Trinité.

S. Hilaire écrit : « Que l’homme se garde bien de penser que son intelligence puisse atteindre le mystère de la génération divine ! »^xviii Et S. Ambroise : « Impossible de savoir le secret de cette génération. La pensée y défaille, la voix se tait. »^xix

S. Thomas d’Aquin explique : « Par sa raison naturelle, l’homme ne peut arriver à connaître Dieu qu’à partir des créatures. Or les créatures conduisent à la connaissance de Dieu, comme les effets à leur cause. On ne pourra donc connaître de Dieu, par la raison naturelle, que ce qui lui appartient nécessairement à titre de principe de tous les êtres. (…) La raison naturelle pourra donc connaître de Dieu ce qui a trait à l’unité d’essence, et non ce qui a trait à la distinction des Personnes.»^xx

Un. Deux. Trois. Quatre ?

Ces chiffres sont beaucoup trop simples au fond, et s’ils ne nous égarent pas toujours dans leurs apparentes explications, ils ne font qu’à peine effleurer la profondeur du mystère.

i« Nous avons montré que le terme ‘personne’ signifie en Dieu la relation en tant que réalité subsistant dans la nature divine. » S. Thomas d’Aquin. Somme théologique I, Q. 30 Art. 1, Rép.

iiLe Zohar. Le Livre de Ruth. 78 c. Traduit de l’hébreu et de l’araméen par Charles Mopsik. Ed. Verdier, 1987, p. 83

iiiLe Zohar. Le Livre de Ruth. 82 c. Traduit de l’hébreu et de l’araméen par Charles Mopsik. Ed. Verdier, 1987, p. 125-126

iv Le Tétragramme est « indicible », il ne peut être prononcé à voix haute, – sauf une fois l’an, par le Grand prêtre, dans le Saint des saints. Il n’est donc pas essentiellement indicible, mais son énonciation est réservée aux ayants-droit.

v« La procession du Verbe en Dieu prend le nom de ‘génération’, et le Verbe qui procède, celui de ‘Fils’. » S. Thomas d’Aquin. Somme théologique I, Q. 27 Art. 2, Rép.

viS. Thomas d’Aquin. Somme théologique I, Q. 27 Art. 3, Rép.

viiS. Thomas d’Aquin. Somme théologique I, Q. 27 Art. 4, Rép.

viiiAristote, III Phys. III 4 (202 b 13)

ixS. Thomas d’Aquin. Somme théologique I, Q. 28 Art. 4, Contr.

xComme déjà dit, pour Thomas d’Aquin : « Nous avons montré que le terme ‘personne’ signifie en Dieu la relation en tant que réalité subsistant dans la nature divine. » S. Thomas d’Aquin. Somme théologique I, Q. 30 Art. 1, Rép.

xiS. Thomas d’Aquin. Somme théologique I, Q. 30 Art. 2, Contr.

xiiCf. Pierre Lombard, Sent. IV, D.13, ch.2

xiiiS. Augustin, De Trinit. 3. PL 42, 822. BA 15,97

xivDe Fide I, 2. PL 16,555

xvDe Trin. VIII PL 10,233

xviIbid. PL 10,233

xviiS. Thomas d’Aquin. Somme théologique I, Q. 31 Art. 2, Rép.

xviiiII De Trin. PL 10,58

xixI De Fide 10. PL 16,555

xxS. Thomas d’Aquin. Somme théologique I, Q. 32 Art. 1, Rép.

Shameful Body Parts

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Louis XIV’s tutor, François de la Mothe le Vayer, wrote a text entitled « Des parties appelées honteuses aux hommes et aux femmes » (About the body parts of men and women called shameful) in his book Hexaméron rustique. Among other anecdotes, he notes: « As Pliny wrote that the Lampreys have a soul in their tail, a scandalous Poet dared to give a spirit to his own, by this infamous allusion, … et habet mea Mentula mentem (… and my dick has a spirit); which covers a libertine accompanied by impiety. ».

If the spirit, by some chance, can wander its power in these parts, it is nevertheless advisable not to succumb to the spectacle of the imagination, and to be fooled by purely external details.

La Mothe warns: « But one should not believe that the greatness of this part is as great as one imagines it to be. Aristotle maintains that it harms rather than serves the generation: Quibus penis immodicus, infoecundiores iis quibus mediocris, non refrigeratur longo itinere et mora genitura. » (Animals with an oversized penis are less fertile than those with an average size because the cold semen is not fertile and cools down by travelling too far).

We must act of parity here, it is the least we can do. As for the part that the women cover with so much modesty, the Ancients were not particularly stammering. At the festivals of the Thesmophoria in Syracuse, the whole of Sicily ate honey and sesame cakes, which had « the figure of the shameful part of the woman ».

I now come to the heart of the matter, with much more obscure, and no doubt more consequential, extensions.

La Mothe remarks that « Egyptian women exposed themselves with their skirts tied high up for forty days at their new Apis feast; as if they had been in the mood of that infamous Roman, ‘mirator cunni Cupiennus albi’ (Cupiennus, admirer of cunts veiled in white). And Origen reproaches them, refuting the Epicurean Celsus, that they believed that their Apollo entered the belly of the Sibylls to return his Oracles: « Mulierem numen concipere per eas partes, quas conspicere nefas prudens vir ducat » (A woman brings a divinity in through those secret parts which a wise man considers unholy to look at).

God’s ways are impenetrable, we are told, but his Spirit can enter wherever he wishes.

Far from being shocked, the wise man will think a thousand times about the penetrating power of (divine) ideas, for which no barrier can be erected for long. To say that the divinity can penetrate the bodies of women, or halo the Mentula of men, is nothing to be ashamed of. Rather, it seems to me a phenomenal, insidious, fertile, perfectly non-modern idea, and no doubt, by that very fact, promised to a great future, provided that it is taken in a different way than « veiled in white ».

Sôma

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Contrairement à la religion de l’Ancien Empire égyptien avec ses monuments et ses tombes, la religion du Véda n’a laissé aucune trace matérielle. Seule sa liturgie garde sa mémoire, conservée oralement pendant des millénaires.

La cérémonie védique est une liturgie du chant, de l’hymne et du cri. Il y a aussi le Feu et le Sôma. Le chant, le cri et l’hymne sont voix, voies. Le Feu et le Sôma donnent chaleur, lumière, souffle. Le Ṛg Veda en parle ainsi: « Par le Chant, Il crée le Cri, à ses côtés ; par le Cri, l’Hymne ; et par les trois invocations, la Parole. »ⁱ

Qui est cet « Il », qui « crée le Cri »?

L’un de ses noms est Agni. Agni est le Feu, qui allume, éclaire, enflamme, consume le Sôma. Le Feu s’embrase, crépite, gronde, et « crie » à sa manière, au milieu du cercle des sacrificateurs, qui chantent, crient et psalmodient.

Le Feu « chante » en s’embrasant, il « crie » en crépitant, il « parle » en grondant, – avec le Sôma. Le Feu s’en nourrit, il en tire puissance, lumière et force.

Le Sôma accomplit sa nature grâce au Feu.

Qu’est-ce que ce Sôma ? Il est composé d’eau, d’une sorte d’huile (issue du beurre clarifié) et d’un jus fermenté, enivrant – et doté de propriétés psychotropes. Il pouvait être produit à partir du Cannabis sativa, du Sarcostema viminalis, de l’Asclepias acida ou de l’Ephedra.

Cette union de substances est hautement symbolique.

L’eau vient du ciel ; l’huile vient du lait des vaches, qui sont nourries d’herbes poussant grâce à l’eau et au soleil ; le Cannabis sativa vient aussi de la terre et du soleil, et contient un principe actif qui crée des « soleils » et du « feu » dans les esprits.

Le Sôma, liquide, peut couler sur l’autel. Par sa graisse et son huile, il peut s’enflammer. Par ses principes actifs, il peut atteindre l’esprit des hommes, et les élever au-delà de toute compréhension.

La cérémonie est un microcosme. Elle n’est pas confinée à la scène du sacrifice. Les éléments nécessaires viennent des confins de l’univers. Et ses prolongements possibles, après la consommation du sacrifice, vont au-delà des mondes.

Trois cycles de transformations sont à l’œuvre, trois temps sont en jeu.

Un cycle long, cosmique, part du soleil et du ciel, et résulte en eau, en huile et en liqueur, formant le Sôma.

Le cycle court commence avec le feu nouveau, dont la première étincelle est produite par le « prêtre allumeur » au moyen de deux baguettes (l’une en bois d’acacias, l’autre en bois de figuier). Une baguette (appelée arsani) est en forme de flèche, et l’autre offre une fente pour la recevoir, le yoni. Le cycle court implique aussi la fabrication du Sôma « frais ». On élabore l’huile à partir du lait et du beurre clarifié. On écrase des feuilles de Cannabis dans le mortier à l’aide du pilon de pierre. Et il faut le temps de maturation, de fermentation.

Un troisième cycle, plus court encore, comprend le chant, le cri et la prière, ainsi que la consommation du Sôma par les sacrificateurs, avec ses effets psychiques.

Trois cycles de métamorphoses, entremêlés. Trois feux « crient » : le feu du soleil à l’origine, le feu du sacrifice ici et maintenant, et le feu de l’esprit, avec ses projections futures.

Tout, dans le sacrifice, est symbole et métaphore, et ce Tout vise l’unité, dans la contemplation de l’Un.

Le Tout, — la nature, la parole et l’esprit, s’unit à l’Un.

i « Gayatrena prati mimîte arkan ; arkeṇa sâma ; traiṡṭubhena vakam! » Ṛg Veda I, 164, 24

Wriggling Fry

Publié par Philippe Quéau

In a short, strange, visionary book, « Bible of Mankind », Jules Michelet wrote in 1864 about the future of religions, considered as a whole. His angle? The comparison, in this respect, between East and West.

« My book is born in the sunlight among the sons of light, the Aryas, Indians, Persians and Greeks”, says Michelet.

Goodbye fogs, goodbye dark clouds. The light! The light!

It’s all about returning to the dawn of the world, which is perhaps best celebrated in the Vedas. It is about evoking a « Bible of light », not a Bible of words.

For Michelet, who was stuck in a colonialist and imperialist century, it was above all a question of escaping as far as possible from the conceptual prison of stifling ideas, of escaping from too many conventional clichés.

« Everything is narrow in the West. Greece is small: I’m suffocating. Judea is dry: I am panting. Let me look a little at the side of high Asia, towards the deep East.”

Michelet, panting!

He was, though, a man who had a lot of breath. But no more. His ode to light came from an asthma of the soul.

One hundred and fifty years after Michelet, his naive cry is still moving. His panting signals a deep shortness of breath, for our entire era.

One hundred and fifty years after Michelet, we too are panting. We too are suffocating.

We would like to breathe. To fill our retinas with light.

But where are the sea winds? Where are the promised dawns?

The West is today, much more than yesterday, in crisis. But the East is probably not much better off. We are more or less persuaded of the absence of an enlightened horizon west of Eden. But one does not believe either in the supposed depths of Asia.

One may only be sure of the thinness of the earth’s crust, under which a sun of lava roars.

Everything is narrow in this world. The planet is too small. And we are all suffocating. The West? The East? Eurasia? Old-fashioned clichés. Simple and false slogans.

Where are the thinkers ? Where are the prophets?

We are suffocating. The breathing of the people is wheezy, hoarse, corseted… Everything is dry, cracked, dusty.

Water is lacking, air is scarce.

No depths in the crowded pools, where the crocodiles kindly bite themselves, while the fry wriggle.

Extases

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Le mathématicien Grothendieck a bouleversé la notion d’espace mathématique, comme Einstein l’a fait en physique. Il a inventé une géométrie nouvelle, dans laquelle « le monde arithmétique et le monde de la grandeur continue n’en forment plus qu’un seul ».ⁱ

Pour conjoindre le discontinu et le continu, le nombre et la grandeur, les faire s’unir intimement, Grothendieck a conçu la métaphore de leurs « épousailles ». Ce mariage de papier devait être suivi de la consommation en bonne et due forme, afin d’assurer la génération de nouveaux êtres (mathématiques) : « Pour les ‘épousailles’ attendues, ‘du nombre et de la grandeur’, c’était comme un lit décidément étriqué, où l’un seulement des futurs conjoints (à savoir, l’épousée) pouvait à la rigueur trouver à se nicher tant bien que mal, mais jamais des deux à la fois ! Le ‘principe nouveau’ qui restait à trouver, pour consommer les épousailles promises par des fées propices, ce n’était autre aussi que ce « lit » spacieux qui manquait aux futurs époux, sans que personne jusque là s’en soit seulement aperçu. Ce « lit à deux places » est apparu (comme par un coup de baguette magique. . . ) avec l’idée du topos.»ⁱⁱ

Grothendieck, le plus grand penseur de l’espace mathématique que le 20ème siècle ait produit, a expliqué une avancée révolutionnaire à l’aide d’une métaphore matrimoniale, et de tout ce qui s’ensuit.

A vrai dire, la métaphore du « mariage » a été utilisée de tout temps pour traduire des idées difficiles, dans des contextes philosophiques.

Il y a 2000 ans, le philosophe juif Philon d’Alexandrie utilisa cette même métaphore pour présenter le « mystère de la génération divine ». Pour traduire en grec l’idée de « génération divine », Philon emploie le mot τελετή (télétê).

Ce mystère de la génération divine est composé de trois éléments. Il y les deux « causes » initiales de la génération ainsi que leur produit final. Les deux causes sont Dieu et la Sagesse (qui est « l’épouse de Dieu », – restant « vierge »ⁱⁱⁱ). La Sagesse est la Virginité elle-même. Philon s’appuie sur l’autorité du prophète Isaïe, qui affirme que Dieu s’unit à la Virginité en soi^iv.

Philon précise ailleurs: « Dieu et la Sagesse sont le père et la mère du monde ».^v

Dans la tradition chrétienne, on trouve des métaphores similaires, dérivées des idées juives, mais transposées dans « l’union » du Christ et de l’Église.

Un cabaliste chrétien du 16ème siècle, Guillaume Postel, utilise la métaphore de l’amour du mâle et de la femelle pour décrire cette union: « Car comme il y a amour du masle à la femelle, par laquelle elle est liée, aussi y a-t-il amour et lien de la femelle au masle par lequel il est lyé. Cecy est le mistère du très merveilleux secret de l’authorité de l’Eglise sur Dieu et sur le Ciel, comme de Dieu et du Ciel sur icelle par lequel Jésus l’a voulu dire : Ce que vous lierez sur la terre sera lyé au Ciel. »^vi

Thérèse d’Avila, contemporaine de Guillaume Postel, parle par expérience de « l’union parfaite avec Dieu, appelée mariage spirituel » : « Dieu et l’âme ne font plus qu’un, comme le cristal et le rayon de soleil qui le pénètre, comme le charbon et le feu, comme la lumière des étoiles et celle du soleil (…) Pour donner une idée de ce qu’elle reçoit de Dieu dans ce divin cellier de l’union, l’âme se contente de dire ces paroles (et je ne vois pas qu’elle pût mieux dire pour en exprimer quelque chose) : De mon Bien-Aimé j’ai bu. Car de même que le vin que l’on boit se répand et pénètre dans tous les membres et dans toutes les veines du corps, de même cette communication de Dieu se répand dans toute l’âme (…) L’Épouse en parle en ces termes au livre des Cantiques : ‘Mon âme s’est liquéfiée dès que l’Époux a parlé.’ »^vii

Thérèse d’Avila parle de l’Épouse « brûlant du désir d’arriver enfin au baiser de l’union avec l’Époux », en citant le Cantique des Cantiques : « Là vous m’enseignerez ».

Le Cantique des Cantiques chante un désir d’union qui n’est pas sans résonances incestueuses: « Ah que ne m’es-tu un frère, allaité au sein de ma mère ! Te rencontrant dehors, je pourrais t’embrasser, sans que les gens me méprisent. Je te conduirais, je t’introduirais dans la maison de ma mère, tu m’enseignerais ! Je te ferais boire un vin parfumé, ma liqueur de grenades. »^viii

Ce passage piquant a été interprété par S. François de Sales, comme l’amorce de jouissances et d’extases mystiques à venir, se terminant étrangement en un « sommeil » de l’Épouse, de nature plus mystique et plus mystérieuse encore : « Et voilà les goûts qui arriveront, voilà les extases, voilà les sommeils des puissances ; de façon que l’épouse sacrée demande des oreillers pour dormir. »^ix

Le Père Joüon commente ce même passage dans un sens différent, — le désir de la Sulamite de voir la divinité s’incarner véritablement dans l’humanité: « L’émotion est trop intense pour un souhait qui aurait simplement pour objet une nuance particulière d’affection. Du reste, tout le mouvement du poème nous acheminait à ces deux versets comme à un point culminant. L’épouse voudrait que son divin Époux devînt semblable à elle, eût la même nature qu’elle, se montrât à elle comme un homme véritable, né comme elle de la même humanité. »^x

La tradition biblique conçoit les figures du Messie, de la « Sagesse » et de « l’Ange de Yahvé », comme des manifestations visibles du Dieu invisible. L’Amant-Époux de la Sulamite est Yahvé, mais Yahvé reste inaccessible. A défaut d’un Époux et d’un Amant bien réel, bien présent, elle souhaite qu’Il prenne au moins l’apparence d’un Frère, – le Messie, afin de jouir dans ce monde de sa présence sensible, tangible, charnelle. La Sulamite désire voir enfin le Messie venir en ce monde, comme un « frère ». Cette métaphore du « frère » semble mieux convenir au Messie, puisque la métaphore de l’Amant-Époux est réservée à Yahvé, – et sa possession attendue est promise dans la Nuit infinie de la dormition en Dieu.

____

i « On peut considérer que la géométrie nouvelle est avant toute autre chose, une synthèse entre ces deux mondes, jusque là mitoyens et étroitement solidaires, mais pourtant séparés : le monde « arithmétique », dans lequel vivent les (soi-disants) « espaces » sans principe de continuité, et le monde de la grandeur continue, où vivent les « espaces » au sens propre du terme, accessibles aux moyens de l’analyste et (pour cette raison même) acceptés par lui comme dignes de gîter dans la cité mathématique. Dans la vision nouvelle, ces deux mondes jadis séparés, n’en forment plus qu’un seul. » Récoltes et Semailles, §2.10.

iiRécoltes et Semailles, §2.13 Les topos — ou le lit à deux places

iiiPhilon d’Alexandrie. De Cherubim

ivPhilon ne cite pas la source précise chez Isaïe, comme à son habitude. Mais j’ai trouvé dans Isaïe des versets qui peuvent, peut-être, justifier l’analogie, et qui en tout cas l’enrichissent de nouvelles nuances: « Une voix qui vient du sanctuaire, la voix de Yahvé (…) Avant d’être en travail elle a enfanté, avant que viennent les douleurs elle a accouché d’un garçon. Qui a jamais entendu rien de tel ? Qui a jamais vu chose pareille ? (…) Ouvrirais-je le sein pour ne pas faire naître ? Dit Yahvé. Si c’est moi qui fais naître, fermerais-je le sein ? Dit ton Dieu. » Is. 66, 6-9

v De Ebrietate, 30

vi Guillaume Postel (1510-1581). Interprétation du Candélabre de Moïse (Venise 1548).

viiThérèse d’Avila (1515-1582). Le cantique spirituel.

viiiCt 8,1-2

ixFrançois de Sales. Œuvres complètes. p. 706

xP. Joüon, Le Cantique des cantiques, Paris, 1909, p.301-302

A Smell of Putrefaction

Publié par Philippe Quéau

« Already long before 1933, something like a scorching smell was in the air », recalled Carl Gustav Jung shortly after the Second World War, when a collection of his texts from the 1920s, 30s and 40s was republishedⁱ.

A scorched smell? What a euphemism!

In the trenches of the Great War, smells hovered over the dead and the living, but to smell the air then was to die.

Human memory is short and long. Short, in its race to the immediate, its fascination for the event of the moment. Long by its roots in the humus of cultures, in the unconscious of peoples, it even penetrates the memorable, un-forgetting DNA.

All the horrors in History, all the massacres, all the wars, all the infamies committed in the world, leave deep, mnemonic traces in the soul of the species and in the DNA of each man.

Jung attests to this: « An ugly thing generates something vile in our soul. We become indignant, we cry out for the punishment of the murderer, all the more vividly, passionately and hatefully, as the sparks of evil bawl more furiously within us.

It is an undeniable fact that the evil committed by others has quickly become our own vileness, precisely by virtue of the formidable power it has to ignite or fan the evil that lies dormant in our souls.

In part, the murder was committed on the person of each one of us, and in part, each one of us perpetrated it. Seduced by the irresistible fascination of evil, we have helped to make possible this moral attack on the collective soul […].

Are we morally outraged? Our indignation is all the more venomous and vengeful as the flame lit by evil burns more strongly within us.

No one can escape it, for everyone is so steeped in the human condition and so drowned in the human community, that any crime secretly causes a flash of the most intimate satisfaction to shine in some fold of our soul, with her innumerable facets… and – if the moral constitution is favorable – triggers also a contrary reaction in the surrounding compartments.”ⁱⁱ

When hundreds of thousands of dead, in the recent wars, begin to haunt the unconscious consciousness, the terrible soil of horror slowly prepares future germination.

When, day after day, migrants, chased away by wars waged elsewhere, drown in the blue waters of the Mediterranean or in any other of the Seven Seas, in deaf and blind indifference, a deleterious mutation operates its silent and deep chemistry in the stuffed souls of the weighed down peoples.

Yet the world migrants will arrive, whatever happens, and they will camp forever in the collective memory, – and no Styx will be wall, or barbed wire for them.

A wave of impotent pessimism has been sweeping the Western world since the beginning of the century. There is nothing to be done. TINA. « There Is No Alternative”, they say. The fall of confidence, the corruption of minds, the betrayal of politicians, the pursuit of lucre, the absence of meaning, are killing people’s souls, ill-informed, lost in complexity, deprived of light.

There is no national solution to global problems. But nationalist populism proliferates. The planet is too small, and they want to make it even smaller, to strangle it with partitions, with narrow stacks.

During the last centuries of the Roman Empire, paganism began to decline, along with virtues. A strange ideology, coming from the East, occupied people’s minds. The Gnostics preached the end of the ancient world. They proclaimed themselves « a chosen foreign people », they claimed « foreign knowledge » and wanted to live in a « foreign », « new » land.

The Epistle to Diognetus evokes the « strangeness » in a world that is coming to an end: « They reside each in their own country, but as foreigners in their own land, and every foreign land is a homeland to them, and every homeland is a foreign land.”

O prophetic words! And Rome was on the move, soon to succumb.

There is no more Rome now, nor virtues to destroy. Only smells, deadly, putrefied.

And the whole world is plugging its nose, thinking that it will pass.

i C.G. Jung. Aspects du drame contemporain (1947).

iiIbid.

Upaniṣad

Publié par Philippe Quéau

En Inde, le Brāhman est l’énigme suprême, – dont les Upaniṣad révèlent parcimonieusement quelques enseignements secrets.

Le mot Upaniṣad a plusieurs sens : le mystère sous-jacent à l’ensemble des choses ; une doctrine secrète, mystérieuse, mystique ; les écrits relatifs aux Brāhmaṇas, (dont le but est d’exposer la signification secrète des Védas) ; la source de la philosophie des Vedānta et des Sāṃkhya.ⁱ

Ṡaṅkara livre une explication plus déliée de ce mot à tiroirs : « En ajoutant upa (approche), et ni (déposer) à la racine SAD, le sens est « dissolution » (viṡaraṇa) ; on a un mouvement (d’approche ou d’atteinte/gati) et un déliement (avasādana)… Upaniṣad est la connaissance qui a pour objet le connaissable (vedyavastu). La connaissance est appelée Upaniṣad par association à son but. »ⁱⁱ

La racine SAD, qui est le cœur du mot, possède à elle seule un ample spectre de sens : « s’asseoir (pendant un sacrifice) ; observer attentivement; s’évanouir, s’effondrer de désespoir, de détresse, désespérer, périr ; affliger, ruiner, détruire. »

Dans ce mot, on entend les multiples résonances de l’attitude de l’officiant procédant au sacrifice, mais aussi des sentiments les plus extrêmes de ceux qui désespèrent, qui s’affligent ou qui détruisent…

La recherche de la connaissance n’est pas un long fleuve tranquille. Dissolution, déliement, détresse, désespoir, destruction, sont destinés à la côtoyer sans cesse.

Et il y a bien d’autres secrets encore à découvrir, en dehors des Upaniṣad, par exemple dans le chant brahmanique, dont l’enjeu est précisément « ce qui est secret » (guhā).

Il y en a aussi dans la parole : « La parole est mesurée entre quatre quarts que connaissent les Brāhmanes qui ont l’intelligence ; trois cachés sont immobiles ; les humains parlent le quart de la parole. » (Ṛg Veda I.164.45)

Pour chaque parole dite, trois parts sur quatre restent cachées, secrètement immobiles.

Qui peut les entendre ?

iA Sanskrit-English Dictionary Monier Monier-Williams. Clarendon Press. Oxford 1960

iiAlyette Degrâces. Les Upaniṣad. Fayard, Paris, 2014, p. 365, note 1483 (KaUB1)

Check Maat

Publié par Philippe Quéau

In Egypt, two Coptic churches suffered suicide attacks during Palm Sunday in April 2017. This Christian feast, a week before Easter, recalls the day when Jesus, riding on a donkey, entered Jerusalem, welcomed by jubilant inhabitants, brandishing branches and palms as a sign of enthusiasm. Jesus was arrested shortly afterwards and crucified.

Jihadists came to Tanta and Alexandria. They blew themselves up in the midst of the crowd of the faithful. The globalized jihad preferably chooses weak targets, and seeks to provoke hatred and rage, to inflame resentment between peoples, to set religions against each other.

The policies of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who had just been re-elected, undoubtedly had something to do with Daech’s radicalisation in that country. But many other, more distant, deeper causes contributed to this umpteenth attack.

The New York Times wrote an ambiguous and somewhat hypocritical editorial after the attack, an excerpt of which reads as follows: « The struggle against terrorism is not a ‘war’ that can be won if only the right strategy is found. It is an ongoing struggle against enormously complex and shifting forces that feed on despair, resentment and hatred, and have the means in a connected world to spread their venom far and wide.”ⁱ

For the columnist of the New York Times, « jihad » is not a « war » that could be won, for example, with a « good strategy ». It is not a « war », it is a continuous « struggle » against forces of « enormous complexity » that are constantly shifting and feeding on « despair, resentment and hatred ».

Not a word in the article, however, to attempt to shed light on this ‘complexity’ or to delve deeper into the origin of this ‘despair’, ‘resentment’ and ‘hatred’. The New York Times merely warns readers not to give in to despair, panic or hatred themselves. Not a word about the policies of the Western powers in this part of the world for more than a century. Not a word about the responsibility of countries like England or France for sharing the spoils of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War.

Not a word about decolonization, after the Second World War, or the consequences of the Cold War. The self-serving involvement of powers such as the United States and the USSR is not analyzed.

Nor, of course, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The collapse of Libya, facilitated by a coalition of Western countries, does not lend itself to any analysis either.

The New York Times cannot give a history lesson, and recapitulate all the woes of the world in each of its editorials. But the focus of this particular article on the « despair », « hatred » and « resentment » of the jihadists deserves at least the beginnings of an explanation.

Writing about these subjects is difficult, but it is not « extraordinarily complex ». Even a Donald Trump, in the midst of an election campaign, and with known success, was able to address some aspects of it through tweets, and to point to the direct responsibility of the Bushes, father and son, in this never-ending « fight ».

The White House spokesman had to apologize publicly for stating that even Hitler did not use chemical weapons during the Second World War. This statement, both fanciful and outrageous, was supposed to underline the seriousness of Assad’s crimes and to justify an increase in the bombing of Syria by the United States, increasing the general confusion and making it even more difficult to perceive a possible political outcome in that part of the world.

In a few centuries, perhaps, the distant descendants of the Western voters in whose name these policies were implemented will analyze the responsibilities and judge the strategies deployed in the Middle East throughout the last century, after the launch of the « Great Game » deployed for the greater good of the British Empire.

Today, this Empire is no more. The few crumbs that remain, like Gibraltar, could prove embarrassing to the British ultra-nationalists who dream of Brexit, and who are trying to regain the glory of yesteryear in splendid independence.

Let us try a little utopia. Tomorrow, or in a few centuries’ time, people may decide to put an end to the « long » history and its heavy consequences. All we have to do is look back to the depths of the past, to see the layering of plans, the differentiation of ages. Tomorrow, the entire modern era will be nothing more than an outdated and abolished moment of a bygone past, and an exorbitant testimony to the folly of mankind.

Islam has only thirteen centuries of existence, Christianity twenty centuries and Mosaic Judaism about thirty-two centuries.

Egypt, by contrast, is not lacking in memory. From the top of the pyramids, well over forty centuries contemplate the suburbs of Cairo. Two thousand years before the appearance of Judaism, Ancient Egypt already possessed a very elaborate religion, in which the essential question was not that of « monotheism » and « polytheism », but rather the profound dialectic of the One (the Creator, the original God), and the Multiple (the myriad of His manifestations, of His names).

In the Texts of the sarcophagi, which are among the oldest written texts of humanity, we read that the Creator God declared: « I have not commanded (humanity) to do evil (jzft); their hearts have disobeyed my words.”ⁱⁱ

The Egyptologist Erik Hornung gives this interpretation: Human beings are responsible for this evil. They are also responsible for their birth, and for the darkness that allows evil to enter their hearts.

The gods of Egypt can be terrifying, unpredictable, but unlike men, they do not want evil. Even Set, the murderer of Osiris, was not the symbol of absolute evil, but only the necessary executor of the world order.

« The battle, the constant confrontation, the confusion, and the questioning of the established order, actions in which Set engaged, are necessary characteristics of the existing world and of the limited disorder that is essential to a living order. Gods and men must, however, see to it that disorder never comes to overthrow justice and order; this is the meaning of their common obligation towards Maat.»ⁱⁱⁱ

The concept of Maat in ancient Egypt represents the order of the world, the right measure of things. It is the initial and final harmony, the fundamental state willed by the Creator God. « Like the wounded and perpetually healed ‘eye of Horus’, Maat symbolizes this primary state of the world.”^iv

The Egyptians considered Maat to be a substance that makes the whole world « live », that makes the living and the dead, gods and men « live ». The Texts of the Sarcophagi say that the gods « live on Maat« .

The idea of Maat is symbolized by a seated goddess wearing the hieroglyph of an ostrich feather on her head. Pharaoh Ramses II is represented offering this symbolic image of Maat to the God Ptah.

Maat‘s offering has a strong charge of meaning. What the God Ptah wants is to be known in the hearts of men, because it is there that the divine work of creation can acquire its true meaning.

Maat emanated from the Creator God at the time of creation. But it is through men that Maat must return to God. In the Egyptian religion, Maat represents the original « link » or « covenant » between God and man. It is this « link », this « covenant », that must be made to live with Maat.

If men turn away from this « covenant », if men remain silent, if they show indifference towards Maat, then they fall into the « non-existent », – according to the ancient Egyptian religion. This silence, this indifference, only testifies to their nothingness.

The Coptic bodies horribly torn apart by the explosions in Alexandria and Tanta are like the dismembered body of Osiris.

By the strength of her spirit, by the power of her « magic », Isis allowed the resurrection of Osiris. Similarly, the Palms announce Easter and the resurrection of God.

What could be the current global metaphor that would be equivalent to the « resurrection » of Osiris or the « resurrection » celebrated at Easter?

What current word could fill the absence of meaning, the abysmal absurdity, the violence of hatred, in this world?

Egyptian blood flowed again in the Nile Delta, and bodies were violently dismembered.

Where is the Isis who will come to resurrect them?

Where is hiding the Spirit of Maat?

iNew York Times, April 12th, 2017

iiErik Hornung. Les Dieux de l’Égypte. 1971

iiiIbid.

ivIbid.

Kabbale

Publié par Philippe Quéau

Instruit par des cabalistes comme Élie del Medigo, juif averroïste, Pic de la Mirandole, qui avait étudié entre autres langues l’hébreu, l’arabe et l’araméen, rapporte que Moïse a reçu, en plus de la Loi, un enseignement secret, qui en est la véritable explication.

Mais cet enseignement est assorti d’une obligation de silence à son sujet. La Kabbale révèle ce secret ancien, mais ce secret, il faut le taire. « Sile, cela, occulta, tege, tace, mussa ». « Garde le silence, tiens secret, dissimule, voile, tais-toi, murmure », résume Johannis Reuchlin, humaniste et premier hébraïste allemand non-juif, auteur du De Verbo Mirifico (1494) et du De Arte cabalistica (1517).

Les publications abondèrent pourtant, tant l’attrait de la question était irrésistible. Le rabbin Abraham Levita publia en 1584 une Historica Cabbale. Gedaliah ben Jedaïa suivit avec la « chaîne de la Kabbale», Catena Kabbala en 1587. La Kabbala Denudata de Christian Knorr von Rosenroth parût un siècle plus tard en 1677. Il s’agissait de « dénuder » la Kabbale devant le public européen de la Renaissance, et d’en proposer une interprétation chrétienne.

Jacques Gaffarel, principal représentant de la Kabbale « chrétienne » au 17ème siècle, édita un Catalogus manuscriptorum cabalisticorum. Il avait aussi publié plusieurs ouvrages savants dont Nihil, ferè nihil, minus nihilo : seu de ente, non ente, et medio inter ens et non ens, positiones XXVI (« Rien, presque rien, moins que rien : de l’être, du non-être et du milieu entre l’être et le non-être en 26 thèses ») à Venise en 1634 , et Curiositez inouyes sur la sculpture talismanique des Persans, Horoscope des Patriarches et Lecture des Estoilles (1650) dans lequel il se moque avec esprit du faible niveau de connaissance de ses contemporains en ces hautes matières, et particulièrement dans le domaine de l’exégèse biblique : « Que pouvait-on concevoir de plus grotesque, après n’avoir compris que le mot קרן keren était équivoque à corne et à lueur, ou splendeur, que de dépeindre Moyse avec des cornes, qui sert d’étonnement à la plus part des Chrestiens, & de risée aux Juifs et Arabes ! »

On trouve dans cet ouvrage un étrange « alphabet hébreu céleste » qui affecte des signes alphabétiques aux étoiles, et qui glose sur les « talismans » des Chaldéens, des Égyptiens et des Persans. Gaffarel explique : « Le mot chaldéen Tselmenaiya vient de l’hébreu צלם Tselem qui signifie image ; Et l’arabe Talisman en pourrait être pareillement descendu en cette façon, que Talisman fut corrompu de צלמם Tsalimam. »

Tout cela était pittoresque et instructif, mais la grande affaire était d’accéder réellement au mystère même, non de collectionner ses images ou ses symboles. On se rappelait, pour s’encourager, que cela avait été déjà réalisé, dans l’Histoire, par quelques élus.

Il y avait le témoignage de Daniel à qui « le secret fut découvert » (Dan. 2,19). Le Rituel parlait aussi des « secrets du monde » (רָזַי עוֺלָם). La Kabbale revendiquait un prestigieux héritage de recherches à ce sujet, avec le Sefer Ha Zohar (Livre de la Splendeur), et le Sefer Yetsirah (Livre de la Formation). Dans le Siphra di-Tzeniutha, le « Livre du secret », est utilisée une expression, mystérieuse au carré : le « mystère dans le mystère » (Sithra go sithra).

Le « mystère dans le mystère » est comme le Saint des saints de la Kabbale, – un secret (רָז raz) qui réside dans le nom même du Dieu d’Israël.

Dans le Tétragramme YHVH, יהוה, les deux premières lettres, י et ה, se rapprochent l’une de l’autre « comme deux époux qui s’embrassent » dit sans fards le Siphra di-Tzeniutha. Aux lettres sacrées, il est donné la puissance d’évoquer par leurs formes mêmes les concepts supérieurs, et les plus profonds mystères.

Dans le chapitre 4 du Siphra di-Tzeniutha, on apprend qu’il y a en sus des vingt deux lettres « visibles » de l’alphabet hébreu, vingt deux autres lettres, supplémentaires et invisibles. Par exemple, il y a un י (Yod) visible, révélé, mais il y a aussi un י (Yod) invisible, mystérieux. En fait, ce sont les lettres invisibles qui portent le véritable sens. Les lettres révélées, visibles, ne sont que les symboles des lettres invisibles. Considéré seul, le י (Yod) symbolise le masculin, le Père, la Sagesse (la 2ème sefira Hokhmah). De même, le ה (Hé) symbolise le féminin, la Mère, l’Intelligence (la 3ème sefira, Binah).

On peut chercher à creuser encore. D’où vient la lettre ה (Hé) elle-même? Observez-la bien. Elle est formée d’un י (Yod) qui « féconde » un ד (Daleth), pour former le ה (Hé). C’est pourquoi l’on dit que le principe masculin et le principe féminin émanent du Yod. Car la lettre « Yod » s’écrit elle-même יוד, soit : Yod, Vav, Daleth. Le Yod résulte donc de l’union du Yod et du Daleth, par le biais du Vav. Et l’on voit graphiquement que cette union produit le ה (Hé).

De ce genre de considérations, que pouvait-on vraiment conclure ?

Le Siphra di-Tzeniutha l’assure : « L’Ancien est caché et mystérieux . Le petit Visage est visible et n’est pas visible. S’il se révèle, il est écrit en lettres. S’il ne se manifeste pas, il est caché sous des lettres qui ne sont pas disposées à leur place. » Il y a ce qui se voit, ce qui s’entend, ce qui s’écrit et ce qui se lit. Mais il y a aussi tout ce qui ne se voit pas, tout ce que l’on ne peut entendre, tout ce qui ne peut s’écrire, et tout ce qui ne peut pas se lire, – parce que tout cela reste caché, absent ou invisible, et bien ailleurs que dans des livres. D’où l’ambiguïté. Le « petit Visage » se voit et ne se voit pas, s’entend et ne s’entend pas, s’écrit et ne s’écrit pas, se lit et ne se lit pas. Il se manifeste, ou bien il ne se manifeste pas. Mais « l’Ancien », quant à lui, reste absolument caché. De lui, on ne saura rien. C’est une tout autre histoire, que la Kabbale même a renoncé à raconter.

Qui est le « petit Visage » ? Qui est l’Ancien ?

	Trois questions fond… dans Chaos-Cosmos-Noos-Theos
	mosckerr dans The vacuum and the soul
	Philippe Quéau dans The ΞϔΘϪ Theory
	zumpoems dans The ΞϔΘϪ Theory
	Chaos-Cosmos-Noos-Th… dans Le vide et l’âme

	Trois questions fond… dans Chaos-Cosmos-Noos-Theos
	mosckerr dans The vacuum and the soul
	Philippe Quéau dans The ΞϔΘϪ Theory
	zumpoems dans The ΞϔΘϪ Theory
	Chaos-Cosmos-Noos-Th… dans Le vide et l’âme

Metaxu. Le blog de Philippe Quéau

Pour une anthropologie de la conscience

Science et Conscience: une Théorie Quantique de la Conscience

Raw Light (A Tactical Psalm)

Morning and Evening Knowledge

Creation, Death, Life

Angelus novus

Metaphysics of the Other

Surviving Self

The Union of Breath and Word

Cosmos Hole

Modern Marranos

China Divine

Icy Skies

The Abyss and the Mountain

You Must Emigrate

Vedic Genesis

Agni, a Vedic Messiah?

The Trans-Human Essence of Humanity

La lutte de Jacob avec l’Ange

The Soul of Languages

Le jour du sang

Who Invented Monotheism?

Trinité et Tétragramme

Shameful Body Parts

Sôma

Wriggling Fry

Extases

A Smell of Putrefaction

Upaniṣad

Check Maat

Kabbale

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :

Partage (et 'agitprop' ...) :