The Death of God; the Fractured Human

Our times are plagued by many persistent epidemics. Examples of these are drug and alcohol abuse; obesity and other eating disorders; workaholism; compulsive shopping and gambling; sex and porn addictions; as well as obsession over youth, attractive surfaces and other's attention. From an inner perspective, the phenomena of depression, anxiety, passivity and loneliness are increasingly common. Things have escalated into this state despite the common people being materially as wealthy and comfortable as ever throughout human history. Why this immense success on the material realm is accompanied by such an abundance of unhappiness?

While each individual's tragedy has its unique particularities and features, all these epidemics stem from the same place: from a deep fracture within a human soul. These fractures run between the conscious and the unconscious, the body and the psyche, the intellect and the emotion, the internal and the external, the material and the spiritual. Once the wholeness within has been lost, one is left without a firm sense of oneself. This results into a painful sense that life is meaninglessness and purposelessness. This is alike to the sailing a ship in the darkened seas without an access to a functioning navigation system — getting lost or crashing on the reefs just beneath the water's surface is almost inevitable.

The fracture can get so wide that it feels like a bottomless hole. Into it we often try to shovel whatever it is that will bring us immediate pleasure, distraction or numbness. But this is not a solution to the problem we are facing — indeed, with such measures the fracture just keeps getting wider and the pain worse. For somewhere within ourselves we know that instead of this roaring black emptiness there ought to be a sense of wholeness, fulfillment and peace.

The proper way to address this predicament would be to face and attempt to heal the source of the pain. However, many of us lack the tools, capabilites or courage for such a seemingly Herculean task. Thus we become like a person who has stepped on a shard of glass and, instead of removing the shard, starts to limp so as to avoid the pain. We unconsciously develop strategies on how to go on with our lives with the minimum amount of pain. With these compensating behaviours, some people can lead more or less functioning life; but with others the self-destructive pattern hiding in this kind of behaviour is obvious. The wholeness of self has been hit by a destructive force and the resulting internal wound bleeds out to the external as unhealthy behaviours.

In many ways the culture we find ourselves in has been built precisely on the avoidance of the soul’s wound. We inherited a culture where God is dead — our ancestors, in their Promethean vigor, murdered Him. But it turned out this mighty power that could behead the divine was a feeble one when came the time for creation. Instead of becoming gods ourselves, we became slaves to our human limitations; without the animating breath of God we became but empty machines. But instead of admitting this failure we, in our Epimethean pride and ignorance, continue to stab the now-silent darkness. As a way to cope with the infinite emptiness within — the place that once filled by God — a reality of low-grade substitutes was created and the painful truth was hidden behind a shimmering façade. The spiritual energy, which is inherent part of our humanity, was redirected towards earthly pursuits. Myth was replaced by science; cosmic order by political order; and exalted states of experience by endless streams of entertainment. The suggestion here is not that the latter solutions are “wrong” in themselves; I simply state the fact that the unconscious spiritual expectations laid for them are far greater than what they are able to provide for.

Perhaps the latest development in this cultural malady of psyche is seen in the rise of the internet, and especially of the social media. The communication through digital means is not a negative phenomena itself, bu it is deepening the already existing fracture within. This is due to the lack of bodily presence of other people; the narrowing of sensual experience into that of the screen and speakers; the disrupted continuum between a word and its consquence; as well as the overall blurring between the fake and the authentic. In the digital realm, emotions get highly agitated and the fast pace encourages quick reactions instead of deep reflections. It becomes difficult in this space to make a distinction between the real and the unreal, which is effectively a state of psychosis; but when everyone is partaking in to the same psychosis, it is perceived as a state of normalcy.

While the digital world is a novel phenomena, the mass psychosis it promotes is not. Falling under such states of disrupted consciousness seem to happen quite often throughout human history and the digital and scientific age of today simply gives it an unique flavor. For not only are the masses partaking in a collective psychosis; but each individual also has their own little bubble of psychosis, created by the algorithms that form the personalized digital environment where an individual roams. This leaves individuals’ minds very vulnerable to the manipulations of those who, for their own ends, wish to influence their thoughts, emotions and actions.

By their nature, masses are like freely running water: they have no strong footing on anything and will take the easiest path to move forward. But this formation of a mass in itself is an indication of a lack of strong footing within individuals themselves, the lack of the firm sense of oneself. For these suffering people groups that encourage the dissolution of individuality emit a strong magnetic pull; they provide an easy and cheap approximation for a deep, personal sense of meaning and purpose in life. From this it follows that the inner fracture can never be healed on the level of the groups or masses. Any such event is only apparent — the dissolution of the self taking on a fancy pharisaic coating — and thus transient. The true healing of soul can only happen on the level of an individual.

In fact, while this essay refers to the epidemic of our times, the fracturing of soul itself is not unique to our times. On the contrary, it is a timeless struggle. The questions about suffering, meaning and purpose are shared universally by all human being through all times. While cultural frameworks can provide better or worse tools for the handling these questions, in the end this Jacobian wrestle always happens on the level of an individual. And while many of us are lost in the sea of meaninglesness, it is also true that also many individuals are actively seeking to re-find their inner unity. This, to me, speaks of the hope inherent in the human existence.

While the emphasis is on the individual, it doesn’t follow that the wrestle needs to be done all alone. Indeed, perhaps the best scenario is to be blessed by a precense of spiritually developed individual(s) who can help one to move forward on this inner path. If such a precense is lacking, it can be found in books and other resources — the marvels of today have made such resources accessible to almost anybody.

Indeed, let us not forget that even with its faults our inherited culture is a great achievement. It does wield incredible power over the realms of the material and the cognitive. In many parts of the world the material sufferings of the common people are vastly lesser than those of their ancestors. Information is far more accessible than it has ever been in history — almost everyone is able to access the Great Digital Library of Alexandria. The engine for this cultural success has been the scientific revolution — that is, the creation of rigorous system of intellectual inquiry and experimentation — which has proved to be a breathtakingly successfull tool in the humanity’s enterprise to conquer matter.

However, these incredible victories of science were culturally achieved through the denial of the realm of the soul. Our culture prides itself on the fact how, with a heroic feat of intellect, it rid itself of the superstitious and the supernatural. Matter – this word denoting objects which can be perceived by the five senses and/or mastered by the intellectual mind – is now taken as the ultimate measure of reality. This somewhat arrogant belief is based on a significant misunderstanding of how the human psyche operates, and has thus led to the scorning of the spiritual. For the powers of psyche are invisible to the five senses, and their foundations lie far deeper than where the rationalistic mind can reach. Indeed, just because the way these forces exist doesn’t fit into the metaphysical presupposition of our times it doesn’t follow that they are unreal. While the fracture in the soul cannot be seen in the X-ray, it still hurts — and this pain indicates that something isn’t as it should be.

Indeed, the matters of soul are as real as the material objects are — in a different way, but real nevertheless. To illustrate this invisible psychic reality, imagine the following scene:

With a gentle smile on her wrinkle-surrounded lips and a wise twinkle behind her eyeglasses, she'd been listening to my little worries for a while. Suddenly the melodies coming from a radio caught her attention. Her coffee-stirring hand froze into place and she now gazed into nothingess, listening to the sound which slightly crackling floated throughout the little room.

”This song...” she finally spoke, breaking the silence that had ensued. ”This is the song we danced with my late husband on the evening we first met. Oh... It has been years since I last heard it.” She went quiet again, completely absorbing herself into the velvety deep voice of the singer.

”Did you know” - while she was seemingly addressing me, I felt she was at least as much talking to herself - ”that he used to be an excellent dancer? He’d take me to dances as often as we could go. Which with the children and the shop was not very often at all.” She looked into somewhere far away, smile lingering on her light blue eyes and wrinkled cheeks. ”But he'd dance me around the kitchen table! A round or two before we sat down to breakfast... He knew how happy it made me, that little gesture of love. So he insisted on it, even after that car accident…”

She fell silent again. Her expression shifted through numerous subtle, almost impercievable changes. I could feel how she was travelling through time, through a multitude of memories, through a myriad of emotions. I sat silently, not dearing to say anything so as not to break something as fragile and complex as this moment.

After a short eternity the song faded into a new one. She slowly closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and when she opened her eyes the familiar twinkle was there again.”I am very sorry. I got lost in my memories”, she apologised to me and gave a warm touch on the back of my hand with her tubercled fingers. ”Thank you for listening. Now; please continue.”

From the material perspective, what happened in the story above? Audio waves travelling, neurons firings, muscles moving, the background processess of the intestines, chemical reactions, movement of atoms, quantum fields and photons... In other words, simply referring to the material explanations would not explain very well at all the contents of this particular scene. Of course we can bring in more complex approaches, such as evolutionary and psychological theories, to give us further enlightment on this matter. And yet even the most intelligently stringed words would only be abstract approximations lacking in depth and true understanding without something further being added to them.

It is only through our imagination and embodied sense of empathy that we glimpse into the significance, the meaning of the events described in the story. It is through these means that we can try to understand what does the song — bringing forth old memories — mean to the old lady. What did her marriage, with its joys and sorrows, mean to her. What did her husband, with his full human complexity, mean to her. And what her own lived life means to her, as she now looks at it through the lens of time. We can also glimpse into what kind of characters these three — the old lady, his late husband and the narrator of the story — are. But meaning, or even personality, cannot be pointed to anywhere in material reality as ”existing”. Yet such things do exist. And while this existence it deeply rooted into the realm of matter, it also transcends beyond the material.

This little example above is further complicated by the fact that it is completely fictional. These characters and the event described never existed anywhere but in the imagination. However, the story is based on real experiences I’ve had with real people; as well as on stories both actual and fictional events that I’ve come across. They raised in me to different kinds of sensations, emotions and thoughts. In the story above, I’ve attempted to mix pieces and fragments into a novel retelling that captures from my experiences certain aspects I’ve felt to be essential. In other words I’ve also attempted to bring forth some possibilities of human experience that are laying, more or less, dormant in the psyche of the reader.

This kind of attempt can be done because every individual holds in him- or herself the possibility of all human experience. While only a fraction of potentiality within each human being can be realized in the material existence of one lifetime, even the unrealized aspects can be simulated within the consciousness. This simulation happens mainly by two routes: through the genuine (human) connection and through the arts. The former works because the latent possibility for all human experience makes us capable of identificating with others’ experiences, and thus feel empathy towards them. The latter works because arts are external expressions of internal experiences, and it is possible for us to identify or project our own internal experiences in or onto them. These two roads can help to heal the fracture one existing between us and other people; as well as to bring light to the dark fracture between our conscious and unconscious mind.

Please note that the realm of imagination is also something that cannot be satisfactorily described through materiality — and neither can the phenomenal aspects of our feelings, thoughts or sensations. While we can explain the properties of a certain portion of the visible spectrum of light as well as describe the physiological processess of seeing, we cannot explain how the lightwaves stimulating neural activity can give a rise to the visual experience of blueness. Yet these qualitative experiences are the most fundamental ones we have — in fact, all our knowledge about anything come through this inner realm of consciousness. Even “the material reality” is experienced through the percpetions we have of it. In other words, the material world — which is supposedly more “real” than the psychic reality — is in fact knowable to us only through our psychic reality. Seeing things from this light, isn’t the materialistic assumption treating as secondary consideration the very foundations it is standing on?

Thus, philosophically this move from the spirit into the matter seems rather questionable. Psychologically it is proving to have disastrous consequences. But scientifically it did propel us into tremendous success. It was under the sharp light of scientific mindset that humanity gained the astonishing mastery over matter we now have. And under this unforgiving systematic gaze, the murder of God was propably inevitable. For God cannot be found under the lenses of the microscope; or above those in telescope; nor can His words be heard on any audio frequency. The proof for the existence of God, then, is seen to be resting on such flimsy basis that even questioning the assumptions behind the prevalent metaphysical paradigm seem ridiculous to many.

But we can rightfully ask: did God actually die? Or was it just our old conception of Him that bled to death?

Indeed — God never died. The trancendental force of inward unity never truly left us. It is only our conceptions, our ways of thinking, our ways of feeling that are keeping the fracture within us open.

We may compare this fractured relationship to God to be akin to the daily cycle of the Sun. In the evening this Great Heavenly Light, appearing old and weak, dies. The humanity — feeling fearful in the ensuing fracture of darkness — curses the Sun for it’s disappearance. As time goes on, and the night keeps getting colder, many start to feel that perhaps there never was this mythical bright light; that they simply have to learn to live in this never-ending darkness. And many perish in this harsh environment, some by freezing to death and others being eaten by the beasts of the night. But those who do survive might notice that a faint light is starting to shine beneath the Eastern curtains of stars. If they overcome despair and remain resilient, having witnessed these minute signs of morning, they will eventually get to experience themselves the glorious rising Sun. For the Almighty Giver of Life is once again reborn anew, and begins the slow ascend up to the position of highest power and vitality. This, of course, is the source of greatest relief and joy for those who have endured the horrors of night. — But if we’d be able to witness these events from a higher point of view, we could see that the Sun never died nor went away. We simply turned away from it for a while.

So for those who feel the coldness of the night and wish to find their way back into the warmth of light: where do they start? The essential ingredient for this task is adopting a correct attitude. This means sincere engagement and inquiry into the realm of spirit; as well as courage and willingess to change and grow. An aspirant must, through their personal and honest reflection, search for the higher truths and align their actions to the higher principles. These are necessary precondition for one to succesfully enter into the alchemical process of transformation. In this hidden metamorphosis the weak, ailing and neglected soul is cultivated into a healthy and well-developed one; into a spiritually vital character, whose great inner strength arises from the ever deepening understanding of the spirit both within and without oneself.

This kind of development in character doesn't come easy. Indeed, the first step in the Great Work is nigredo or the blackening. It is precisely through the facing of the root of the soul’d suffering — how it, ultimately, lies not somewhere outside but within the darkness within — that can malleate forth the better qualities laying dormant within the individual. But this is both terrifying and painful thing to face; and so it very is understandable why we usually try to avoid it. However, gutlessly running away from our difficulties will make the pathetic condition of our soul even worse. The dirt of sluggish cowardice needs to burned away by the noble fire of courage.

Indeed, if you have the eyes to see and ears to hear, you might’ve already noticed that there’s faint light at the horizon line. Perhaps you can already hear the words whispered by wind into the brisk nocturnal air:

”God is dead; long live God!”