Cosmotheism Trilogy, Parts 1-3
William Pierce
Part 1 - The Path (1977)
I
LIFE IS SHORT, our brothers and sisters. Must it also be empty? Must it also be bitter? Must its passing hold terror?
Where is fulfillment to be found in the midst of shallow and empty things? Where is peace to be found in the midst of chaos and strife? Where is serenity to be obtained in a spiritual wasteland?
Seek no more, our brothers and sisters, for we give you these answers, and more.
We show you the meaning and the purpose of things. We lead you from confusion and uncertainty to knowledge; from weakness to strength; from frustrated desire to fulfillment.
We lead you to the Path of Life. We bring your souls into harmony, with the Spirit of All Things.
We give you the Truth, which is this: There is but one Reality, and that Reality is the Whole. It is the Creator, the Self-Created.
II
The meaning of the Truth is this: Man, the world, and the Creator are not separate things, but man is a part of the world, which is a part of the Whole, which is the Creator.
The tangible Universe is the material manifestation of the Creator. All the blazing suns of the firmament; the formless gas between the stars; the silent, frozen mountain peaks of the moon; the rustling trees of earthly forests; the teeming creatures of the dark ocean depths; and man are parts of the Creator’s material manifestation.
But the Creator has a spiritual manifestation, which is the Urge toward the One Purpose. The Urge lies at the root of all things and is manifested in the relations between all things.
The Urge is in the tenuous gases of the void, for they have a purpose, which are the flaming suns and all the planets, which form from them. The Urge is in the earth, for it has a purpose, which is the realm of plants and animals which flourish on it. And the Urge is in man, for he has a purpose, which is higher man.
And the purposes of all these things are steps on the Path of Life, which leads to the One Purpose, which is the Self-realization of the Creator: the Self-completion of the Self-created.
And the matter and the spirit, the Universe and the Urge, are One, and it is the Whole.
III
Man is of the Whole, and his purpose is the Creator’s Purpose. And this signifies: Man is, in part, both the substance and the means of the Creator, and he is nothing else; this is his entire being and purpose.
And man serves the Creator’s Purpose in two ways. The first way is the way of all the other parts of the Whole; it is the way of sub-man; it is the blind way; it is the way of the deeply in-dwelling consciousness, the immanent consciousness; it is the way of instinct. The second way is the way of higher man; it is the sighted way; it is the way of the awakened consciousness and of true reason; which is to say, it is the way of the perfect union of the immanent consciousness with man’s reason, which perfect union we call Divine Consciousness.
IV
The meaning of the first way is this: The Purpose of the Creator is Self-completion; the Path of the Creator toward Self-completion is the Path of Life; and man is a step on this Path.
The Creator existed before man, and the Creator will exist after man has surpassed himself. The step on the Path before man was sub-man, and the step on the Path after man is higher man. But man is now, for a time, a part of the Creator, of the ever-changing, ever-evolving Whole.
There is a threshold on the Path at the step, which is man. It is the threshold of Divine Consciousness. Before man, each part of the Whole was blind, and it could not see the next step on the Path. The gases of the void could not foresee the suns which they were to become, nor could sub-man foresee man. The Urge carried the Whole along the Path, and each part of the Whole, though blind, served the Creator’s Purpose.
V
And the meaning of the second way in which man serves the Creator’s Purpose is this: The evolution of the Whole toward Self-completion is an evolution in spirit as well as in matter. Self-completion, which is Self-realization, is the attainment of perfect Self-consciousness. The Creator’s Urge, which is immanent in the Universe, evolves toward an all-seeing Consciousness.
Man stands between sub-man and higher man, between immanent consciousness and awakened consciousness, between unawareness of his identity and his mission and a state of Divine Consciousness. Some men will cross the threshold, and some will not.
Those who attain Divine Consciousness will ascend the Path of Life toward their Destiny, which is Godhood; which is to say, the Path of Life leads upward through a never-ending succession of states, the next of which is that of higher man, and the ultimate that of the Self-realized Creator. True reason will illuminate the Path for them and give them foresight; it will be a mighty aid to the Creator’s Urge within them.
And those who do not attain Divine Consciousness will continue groping in the darkness, and their feet will be tripped by the snares of false reason, and they will stumble from the Path, and they will fall into the depths.
For the threshold at which man stands is a dangerous threshold, a difficult threshold. And man’s reason is a dangerous achievement. Just as it can give eyes to his instinct, which is the immanent consciousness of the Whole acting in him, so it can confuse and mislead his instinct.
VI
And let us now understand the present state of man, so that we can distinguish true reason from false reason. Let us employ true reason, so that it can guide us across the threshold of Divine Consciousness.
The difference between true reason and false reason is this: True reason seeks to guide man’s actions in accord with the immanent consciousness of the Whole, while false reason does not.
The man or woman of true reason seeks order in all things, and he shuns chaos. He is pleased by a harmonious relationship between all the elements of his life and the world. He rejects that which clashes and does not fit, that which is alien.
He is happy in the knowledge that what was true and good yesterday will be true and good tomorrow. Through order and harmony, he seeks true progress, which is the ascent of the Path of Life; but he shuns frivolous change, which destroys the harmony between the past and the future.
He loves truth, and he hates falsehood.
He loves beauty, and he hates ugliness.
He loves nobility in all things, and he hates baseness.
And all these predispositions of the man or woman of true reason are like rays thrown out by the Divine Spark which burns in his soul. And this Divine Spark is the immanent consciousness of the Whole. It is the presence of the Creator’s Urge in him.
VII
The Divine Spark burns brightly in some men, and their reason is true. It burns less brightly in others, and in them true reason may give way to false reason.
For the Urge is in all things, but the state of consciousness of the Whole is more highly evolved in some things than in others. It is more highly evolved in living things than in non-living things; in man than in other animals; and in some men than in other men. There exists in the various living creatures a continuous hierarchy of states of the immanent consciousness of the Whole.
In the best of times men and women of true reason prevail, and there is true progress.
But in the worst of times false reason overcomes true reason. Then the self-seekers, the liars, and those of base motives prevail.
And then all the other evils come forth: Falsehood overcomes truth and is held up in the place of truth. Ugliness replaces beauty and is preferred over beauty. Baseness is everywhere and is praised as nobility. Disharmony rules all men’s lives, and those of true reason are frustrated in their desires.
Lies are heard everywhere, and no one has the power to speak against them. Evil deeds are seen everywhere, and no one can act against them. All that is good, valuable, and progressive is pulled down and defiled. All that is alien and discordant grows and multiplies. There is no true reason or peace in the masses of men, and they are without direction or purpose.
Then most men live from day to day, and their only thought is of themselves. Through idle amusements, through eating and drinking, through games and parties, through stupefying themselves with intoxicants, and through every other form of self-indulgence, they turn their thoughts away from the meaninglessness of their existence.
Some men attempt to give directions to their lives, but they are false directions. Their purposes may be to accumulate wealth or to wield power over other men or to become skilled in some art or craft. But unless these purposes are related to the Creator’s Purpose they are without merit and the lives of those who pursue them are as without meaning as the lives of those with no purpose.
For falsehood may often have the appearance of truth, but it remains false nevertheless. A man may pile up mountains of gold, or he may order nations to war, or he may acquire great knowledge or skill, but if he does not direct his life in accordance with the One Purpose, he may as well not have lived.
VIII
Death comes to the man or woman without Divine Consciousness as it comes to the sub-man: living matter becomes non-living matter; meaningless life becomes meaningless death; the personality is annihilated. Eternal nothingness is the destiny of those who are spiritually empty.
But he who has attained a state of Divine Consciousness partakes of the immortality of the Whole in the way of higher man: his body perishes, but his spirit remains with the Whole.
He who is a member of the Community of Divine Consciousness is not annihilated by death, because his consciousness is one with that of the Community. So long as the Community lives, his consciousness lives; and so long as the Community serves the One True Purpose, he who served that Purpose before the perishing of his body serves it in eternity.
IX
The Community of Divine Consciousness is the Community of the Awakened, the Community of the Climbers of the Path, the Community of the People of the Rune of Life, the Community of the Ordained Ones.
The gathering of those who would become members of the Community of Divine Consciousness is called the Cosmotheist Community; it is the Community of those who would become People of the Rune.
And the People of the Rune are known by these four things: knowledge, consciousness, discipline, and service; they are the things for which the members of the Cosmotheist Community strive.
By knowledge is meant understanding of the Truth. It is attained by the receptive learner through diligent study of the teachings of the Cosmotheist Community.
By consciousness is meant the awakened state of those who have gone beyond knowledge and have partaken of the immanent consciousness of the Whole which resides in their innermost souls; they have understood the inner message and have seen that it is the same as the outer message, which is the message taught by the Cosmotheist Community. The attainment of consciousness, like knowledge, requires receptiveness and diligence, and it also requires good will, which is to say, a pure motive.
Discipline comes from without and from within. From without it is imposed on the members of the Cosmotheist Community. By being so imposed it brings forth the growth of discipline from within. Without discipline, there is no mastery, and he who has not mastered the chaos of conflicting forces within himself cannot render full service. But discipline imposed and discipline which grows from within together give those who have attained knowledge and consciousness mastery over their own forces, so that those forces may serve the Creator’s Purpose.
X
Service of the Creator’s Purpose is the purpose of all things, and the purpose of the Community of Divine Consciousness is service which is conscious and disciplined. In this dangerous and difficult era of the threshold between man and higher man, many men have ceased serving the Creator’s Purpose in the old way, which is the way of sub-man, the unconscious way, and they have not begun serving in the new way. False reason leads them instead into the grievous error of contravention of the Creator’s Purpose.
But the members of the Community of Divine Consciousness, the Awakened Ones, the People of the Rune, serve in the new way, which is the way of higher man, the way of true reason. They are conscious agents of the Creator’s Purpose.
And they are ordained to overcome the men of false reason and to put an end to the works of all those who contravene the Creator’s Purpose.
They are the beginning; they are the first crossers of the threshold; they are the pointers of the way, of the Path of Life. Through their service, they resume the never-ending ascent toward their Destiny, which is Godhood.
XI
And this is our summons to you, our brothers and sisters; it is our call to all the men and women of our blood who are of good will:
Abandon falsehood and folly. Cast off alien ways and free yourselves from the snares of false reason. Turn away from the corruption of this decaying order of things.
Understand who you are and what your purpose is. Seek your Destiny. Put your life into the service of Cosmic Truth.
Enter now into the Cosmotheist Community. Partake of our joyful certainty that the Creator’s Purpose will be fulfilled. Lay with us the foundations for the new order of things, which will rise in the place of the old.
Cross with us the threshold of Divine Consciousness. Strive with us toward membership in the Community of the Awakened.
Part II - On Living Things (1979)
IFrom The Path we know these things:
There is but one Reality, and that Reality is the Whole. It is the Creator, the Self-created.
The material manifestation of the Creator is the tangible Universe, with all its non-living and living things, including man.
The spiritual manifestation of the Creator is the Urge toward the One Purpose. The Urge lies at the root of all things and is manifested in the relations between all things.
The One Purpose is the Self-Realization of the Creator: the Self-completion of the Self-created.
Man’s purpose is the Creator’s Purpose. He is a part of both the substance and the means of the Creator, and he is nothing else; this is his entire being and purpose.
Man serves the Creator’s Purpose in two ways: unconsciously and consciously. In both ways, he follows the Path of Life, which is the Creator’s evolutionary Path toward Self-Completion. He passes from step to step on the Path, from sub-man to man to higher man, and beyond.
In the unconscious way the passing is blind, an its driving force is instinct, which is a manifestation of the immanent consciousness of the Whole in man.
And in the conscious way the passing is guided by man’s awareness of his true identity and his true mission; this awareness illuminates the Path before him and allows him to choose his steps.
II
These things, which we know, lead us to an understanding of the significance and value of all living things: of the variety of animals, of the races of man, and the varying qualities of individual men.
We understand that the living things developed from non-living things through the all-permeating Urge toward self-realization: first, there was the Urge, and through it came the ordering of non-living things; and the highest ordered became living. And the Urge has ordered the living things, and through this ordering has come higher levels of consciousness. And the Urge continues its ordering.
All matter, living and non-living, is ordered in a hierarchy: animate above inanimate, conscious above unconscious. The Urge is toward higher consciousness; the purpose of all material things is the implementation of the Urge, the service of the One Purpose; and the value of each thing is its potential for serving the One purpose.
Now, our understanding of this truth must serve as a guide to us in evaluating all things living and on-living, animate and inanimate, human and non-human.
III
Some have taught falsely that all things, being of the Whole, are sacred and inviolable. They mean: sacred in the eyes of men; inviolable by men. They may be of good will, in wanting to restrain men from thoughtless destruction, in wanting to protect beautiful and noble living things, in wanting to preserve the harmony of the Universe. But their understanding is limited, and their teaching is contrary to the purpose of the Creator’s Purpose.
For man is not a spectator, but a participant; not a being apart, but a part of all Being. And every living part of the Whole lives only by violating other parts; every animal must take unto itself other living things and must cast away its wastes.
It is only the Whole which is inviolable, only the One Purpose that is sacred. The parts of the Whole come and go; they are subject to the eternal process of Creation, which annihilates some, preserves some, and transforms some.
And higher man, Divinely Conscious man, is an agent as well as a subject of this process. When a member of the Community of Divine Consciousness acts in accord with the One Purpose, the Creator is acting.
Others have taught falsely that man himself is sacred and inviolable; that all who are “men” are immune to the process of creation, that men stand aside from it and above it, and that all men are of one kind.
But the value of man lies not in his conformation, nor in his ability to speak or to reason, except as these things aid him in serving the One Purpose. If he does not serve the Purpose, his life is without value, his formation and reason meaningless. If he contravenes the One Purpose, then he is an abomination, his life a defilement of all life.
IV
Thus are men ranked in value: First in value are those with Divine Consciousness; they are those who walk the Path of Life with sure foresight; they are those who have crossed the threshold from man to higher man; they are those who serve the Creator’s Purpose in full consciousness that they are of the Creator and in full knowledge of the way in which they serve; they are the Awakened Ones.
Next in value are those of goodwill and awakening consciousness; they are those who strive for Divine Consciousness; they are those of the Cosmotheist Community.
After them are all those of the stock from which the Awakened Ones arise, those of the same race-soul; for they collectively are the reservoir in which higher man has his origin and from which he draws his replacements.
But in this reservoir men are also ranked in value: Those uncorrupted by false reason are higher, and those corrupted are lower.
Those of goodwill are higher, and those indifferent, self-seeking, or serving alien masters are lower.
Those who have mastered themselves are higher, and those who have not are lower.
Those with great capability for knowledge are higher, and those with less capability are lower.
Those who are of strong constitution and who are well formed are higher, and those who are weak, sickly, or ill formed are lower.
And those men who, even though of the stock from which the Awakened Ones arise, are corrupted, of ill will, undisciplined, without the capability for knowledge, weak, or ill formed cannot claim value by reason of their stock alone.
For they may threaten, through evil action, the One Purpose, if they are corrupted by false reason and of ill will.
And they may also threaten, through weakening of the stock, the One Purpose, if they lack the capability for discipline or knowledge or are of poor constitution.
V
And all other living things may also be ranked in value: men not of the stock from which the Awakened Ones arise; the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea; the smaller things which creep or crawl or fly; the large and small forms of inanimate life.
Each living thing has a potential for good effect and for evil effect, for serving the Creator’s Purpose and for contravening it. This potential is both inherent in a thing and dependent on its relationships with other living things, and it determines the value of the thing.
Let us now understand how this potential is judged: The Potential for good which is inherent in a thing is its potential for attaining Divine Consciousness or for giving rise to new things which may attain Divine Consciousness; its potential for good which is dependent on its relationships with other things is its potential for hindering the attaining of Divine Consciousness by other things.
A thing’s potential for evil, which is dependent on the thing’s relations to other things is its potential for hindering the attaining of Divine Consciousness by other things.
A thing may have a high potential for attaining Divine Consciousness, but it may also have a potential for hindering another living thing with a higher potential for attaining Divine Consciousness; or it may have a low potential for attaining Divine Consciousness, yet have a high potential for aiding another living thing in attaining Divine Consciousness.
We can deem a thing good or evil only after we have weighed together its potential for both good and evil effect. For this weighing, we must have knowledge; for this reason does the Cosmotheist seek knowledge.
VI
A living thing may realize its potential for good effect by proving either physical or spiritual sustenance for the stock of men from which the Awakened Ones arise:
It may provide physical sustenance, as the sheaf of grain or the steer provides bread or meat.
Or it may sustain those things which provide sustenance, as the grass of the meadow nourishes the steer or the microbes of the soil allow the grain to grow.
Or it may provide spiritual sustenance, as the trees of the forest, the flowers of the field, the strong and graceful beasts of prey provide beauty for the eye, instruction for the mind, and inspiration for the soul.
And a living thing may realize its potential for evil effect in all the ways it may harm the stock of men from which the awakened Ones arise:
It may weaken or destroy that stock physically, as the plague microbe or the debilitating parasite wreaks its havoc.
Or it may deny that stock sustenance, as the swarm of locusts destroys the sustaining grain.
Or it may corrupt that stock spiritually, as the stock of alien race soul spreads its spiritual poison.
Or it may corrupt that stock through a mixing of bloods.
The first two of these evil effects may come from things which have a low potential for attaining Divine Consciousness, but the latter two come only from things which are close in potential for attaining Divine Consciousness to the stock from which the Awakened Ones arise.
VII
Let us understand these latter evils:
The process of Creation is a process of developing self-consciousness in the Whole. Its way has progressed from blindness to foresightedness, from unguided groping to the threshold of consciously directed progress.
Because its way has been a groping, bound in the fog of imperfect consciousness, Creation has followed many channels; the Urge has taken many directions.
In some channels the current of progress has been slow, and in some it has been rapid. Some channels have ended in stagnant ponds, and the Urge has found no outlet. Some ponds have dried up altogether.
In other channels the current has been rapid, but the course of the channel has gone askew: reason has developed without consciousness, strength without discipline, action without service for the One Purpose.
Thus are we to understand the diversity of the forms of life.
In one channel the current has been sufficiently rapid and the course sufficiently true that the stream of life has reached the edge of the fog. Beyond lies the open water in which distant goals can bee seen and a straight course chosen with foresight.
But other currents also run near the edge of the fog, and the danger still exists of being swept into a false channel, of being carried back into the fog, of emptying into a stagnant pond. And the closer we are these false channels, the greater the danger.
VIII
And so, then, those living things which provide necessary physical and spiritual sustenance for the stock from which arise the awakened ones are good and should be preserved: the grain and the steer, just as the living forest, the flowers of the field, the eagle and the leopard, and all other living things necessary to these.
And those living things which weaken the stock from which the Awakened Ones arise, or deny it necessary sustenance, or pull down its potential for divine consciousness are evil, and measures must be taken against them; against the disease organisms which plague sustenance, against the lesser stocks which may mix or corrupt. And as the last of these evils is the greatest, so must the strongest measures be taken against it.
IX
In evaluating living things this also must be understood:
Our stock has reached a threshold, which separates the unconscious way of progress from the conscious way, and the values of all things change when this threshold is crossed.
In an age of immanent consciousness some living things served, through their very hostility, to advance our stock, as the wolf strengthens the stock of sheep by pruning away the slow and the infirm.
In an age of awakened consciousness, these things cease to serve; our stock will prune itself, and the pruning will better serve the One Purpose, because it will be done with foresight.
But at the threshold we must use the greatest care; its crossing is a time of danger, in which the old way no longer serves, and the new way still waits beyond the threshold.
X
And these are the qualities which man shall value in himself, both higher man and the stock from which higher man arises.
First, the brightness of the Divine Spark in his soul, which is the immanent consciousness of the Whole in him. The brighter it burns, the truer is a man’s inner sense of direction.
Second, the strength of his reason, for the perfect union of reason with immanent consciousness is Divine Consciousness. The stronger is a man’s reason, the more effectively can he implement the Creator’s Urge and the more truly steer his life’s course in the direction illuminated by the Divine Spark in his soul.
Third, the strength of his character, which is his ability to act in accord with his immanent consciousness and reason, overcoming the lesser urgings in himself, seeking consciousness rather than pleasure, knowledge rather than happiness, true progress rather than wealth. It is his ability to subordinate all the extraneous urgings, which are of the nature of sub-man and man, to the Creator’s Urge, which is the nature of higher man.
Fourth, the physical constitution of his body, that it might serve well the One Purpose. Thus are strength and soundness and keen senses to be valued, for they make the body a better tool; and beauty, for it manifests man’s Divine nature and inspires his efforts to act in accord with the urgings of his race-soul.
XI
These are the ways in which man shall consciously serve the Creator’s purpose, combining true reason with immanent consciousness in the advancement of his stock along the Path of Life:
He shall keep his stock pure; he shall not permit his blood to mix with that of other stocks, for each stock follows a different course along the Path of Life. When stocks are mixed, the inner sense of direction is lost, and with it the potential for attaining Divine Consciousness.
He shall increase the number of his stock, and he shall make every land wherein he dwells free of the danger of mixing with other stocks.
He shall so arrange his laws and his institutions so that in each generation men and women shall engender numbers of offspring in proportion to their own value: the best shall engender the most, and the worst none.
He shall guide the progress of his stock from generation to generation: He shall act as the wolf and the winter have acted, pruning and selecting; and he shall act as have all those forces of the Whole which changed the seed of his stock.
And he shall do these things in full consciousness of his identity as the substance of the Creator and the agent of the Creator’s Purpose.
Part III - On Society (1984)
I
Human social institutions, like all other things, are of the Whole, and they cannot be perfect while the Self-realization of the Whole remains incomplete. As men and all other things made by men they can only serve the One Purpose imperfectly.
While men lack consciousness, their society reflects their blindness and their groping; its service fails; it even may become an instrument of retrogression, contravening the Creator’s Purpose.
But when men are awakened, then their society should reflect their consciousness and their true reason; it should become an instrument of progress; it should manifest in its structure and in its institutions the Urge toward the One Purpose.
How, then, should men who have been awakened constitute their society so that it may best serve the Creator’s Purpose? How should they govern their community, which is the Cosmotheist Community? What should be the forms and functions of their institutions?
We know that men who are members of the Community must keep their stock pure, increase their number, and make every place where they dwell secure for these purposes; they must strive for knowledge, consciousness, discipline, and service; they must judge themselves by their qualities and order themselves accordingly; and they must elevate the value of their stock from generation to generation. (See On Living Things and The Path.)
These four concerns of men — survival, right striving, order, and progress — are the proper determinants of human social institutions. Accordingly, society has four proper functions: defense of the Community and of the stock in which it is based; guidance of the striving of the Community’s members; organization of the Community for the maintenance of order and the effective pursuit of its Purpose; and elevation of the value of the Community’s stock.
II
The Community defends itself and the stock in which it is based by providing collective means for countering the many dangers with which the individual man alone cannot contend.
The Community must protect the purity and healthfulness of the air men breathe and the water they drink. It must concern itself with the quality of the food they eat. It must beware of every threat to the physical health and fitness of men, and it must have the means to prevent any man from poisoning the common air, water, or land, whether from greed, malice, negligence, or ignorance.
The Community also must have the means to promote those factors in the lives of men which lead to sounder, stronger, and more beautiful bodies; to build health is to defend against illness.
Vigilance against famine and disease, the conservation of common resources upon which the survival or welfare of the Community and its stock depends, and armed protection of the Community against those who would harm it are necessary elements of society’s defensive function.
Likewise are those elements concerned with defense against the corruption of men’s spirits necessary, for survival depends not on the physical aspects of men’s lives alone: Just as the defense of the physical health and welfare of the Community is a proper social function, so is the defense of its spiritual health and welfare.
Thus, it is proper that the Community use all needed means to exclude the purveyors of doctrines which would have men act against the Creator’s Purpose, and that it oppose diligently all influences which corrupt men’s spirits and turn them from the Path of Life.
If a man teaches others that the mixing of stocks is permissible or that all men are of equal value or that human life has no purpose, then the Community shall make him an outlaw and drive him out.
And, whether a man teaches falsehood or not, if his behavior or his manner of life is such as to lead others astray or to weaken the order of the Community, then he may not remain in the Community. For it is a proper function of society to safeguard the Community against indiscipline as much as against falsehood.
III
The Community guides its members in their striving for knowledge, consciousness, discipline, and service by providing a social framework and social institutions within which each striver learns and grows and is shaped into an effective agent of the Creator’s Purpose. These support and direct him; they give him both necessity and means.
Men’s knowledge comes not from their individual endeavors alone, but from the collective striving of the race over the endless course of generations. The Community must preserve the knowledge gained in each generation and make it the basis for further gain in the next generation; it must impart to the members of the Community knowledge gained by past generations; and it must facilitate the gain of new knowledge to be bequeathed to future generations.
The Community must provide a framework, which encourages and rewards scholarship, and it must provide the institutions — the libraries, the schools, and the laboratories — within which scholars can seek knowledge effectively.
The Community must concern itself with the imparting of knowledge outside of its schools as well as inside. The Community’s customs and practices, its celebrations and festivals, its songs and rituals, all the work and the play of its members should impart knowledge of identity, of mission, and of means.
Above all else, the Community must give direction to the gain of knowledge; for it is not mere knowledge itself for which the members of the Community strive: it is knowledge which leads to understanding, knowledge which complements consciousness, knowledge which abets service of the One Purpose. The Community must ensure that the efforts of its knowledge-seekers are purposeful and coordinated; that every member remains aware of the Community’s direction and of its goal in his quest for knowledge, so that what he gains will be the gain of the Community.
Those entrusted by the Community to supervise the guidance of its members, however, must ever be mindful that the path to knowledge takes many unexpected turns. The course of wisdom, therefore, is to avoid narrowness and to be ever ready to accept new ways to the goal, if they were better ways.
Consciousness and discipline, like knowledge, are better acquired with guidance than without, and the Community also must provide this guidance through its institutions.
Many of the same institutions which guide the members of the Community in their striving for knowledge also will guide the awakening of their consciousness and the building of their control over themselves. Schools must impart consciousness along with knowledge, and they must impart both in a manner which trains the awakening learners in self-mastery.
Festivals and rituals, likewise, must raise consciousness, and they must demand self-discipline of the celebrants: in practice for song and recitation; in demonstration of grace, skill, and strength. The Community must glory in the self-mastery of its members and in their achievements, valuing these things so highly that all will strive mightily for them.
Service, above all else, requires guidance, so that the service of each member of the Community complements and reinforces that of every other member. The Community itself is an instrument of service; the performance of service is its reason for existence, and its every institution must manifest that reason.
The Community, therefore, must have order and structure: each member has his place in the Community, each place serves its purpose, and the purpose of every place is comprehended by the One Purpose. Each member of the Community serves according to his qualities: one in his way, and another in his — and it is good that there be many ways. But each way is guided; each member accepts the guidance of the Community in the performance of his service.
IV
The Community is not merely the sum of its members, its institutions, and its material assets; it is an organization, and its ability to perform its service depends upon the effective coordination of its components.
Without order, by which is meant the placing of members in accordance with their qualities, the Community is incoherent, and it cannot progress.
Without structure, by which is meant the body of rules defining the relationships between its members and governing its institutions, the Community has no strength, and it will fail.
The qualities of men and women grow from within; but the growth of these qualities is ruled both from within and from without. The Community rules the growth from without, and it judges the qualities according to its standards.
Some qualities are manifest even in an infant. These include beauty, strength, vigor, and fidelity to the physical norms of the stock. Other qualities — intelligence and disposition — show themselves in the growing child; and some become visible only in full maturity, when the mind and character of the man or woman have developed for many years and been proved in attainments and in service.
The Community must judge all of these qualities, throughout the life of each member, and it must act on its judgment in such a way that the order in the Community best serves the Creator’s Purpose. It must judge the infant, and decide whether or not his future lies in the Community; it must judge the child, and train him according to his ability; and it must judge the adult, so that he is fitted to his task and to his station.
In every society men are ranked, in high station or low: some by the criterion of wealth, some by age, some by the favor of the mob, some by the qualities of their friends or associates, some by their mental or physical skills. But the Community stands apart from other societies: its members attain their stations, and they ascend from one station to the next, according only to their value in the Community’s performance of its service.
In every aspect of the Community’s service, those who are ranked high guide those who are ranked beneath them, and the latter return respect for guidance. Authority to guide is granted by the Community to those whose qualities, manifested in their prior attainments and service, provide assurance that the authority will serve well the Community’s purpose, and it is granted in a measure corresponding to the assurance provided. With each grant of authority, a corresponding degree of responsibility is imposed.
And these are the four essential institutions of the Community: the family, the academy, the corps of guardians, and the hierarchy.
The family is the institution by which the Community regenerates itself. For the Community the name of the institution has a special meaning. Others may call a man and a woman living together who are beyond the childbearing age a “family,” or they may use the name to designate an extended group, including grandparents and other related persons. But by “family” we mean a man and a woman united by the Community specifically for the purpose of engendering and nurturing children, and the children so engendered until they attain adulthood.
Over each family so defined the Community exerts its authority: it judges the children of each family; it limits their number when that serves the Community’s purpose; and it sets the pattern for nurturing them.
The Community does these things in order to ensure that the value of its stock will increase from generation to generation, and it charges each man and each woman who are united in a family to keep this purpose ever in mind and to govern themselves accordingly.
The Community honors each man who is a father and each woman who is a mother, and the family in which the two are united, in a measure corresponding to the value of the children they engender; and this value is measured both by the qualities inherent in the children at their birth and by the development and strengthening of their qualities through proper nurture.
The academy is the institution by which the Community educates its members, throughout their lives.
In the academy the children of the Community receive a uniform grounding in language, history, music, and the other elements of their cultural heritage; they are made conscious of the spiritual basis of their existence and of the Cosmotheist Truth; and they begin the lifelong process of building will and character through discipline.
In the academy the youth of the Community receive the training necessary to prepare them for their work in the Community, in accord with their qualities.
And in the academy those adult members of the Community who serve it as scholars carry on their work.
The corps of guardians is the institution by which the Community defends itself against its enemies, both within and without: against those who would harm any of the things upon which the life of the Community depends, both its physical life and its spiritual life.
The men of the Community who are chosen to become guardians shall be trained and proven. They shall come only from among those ordained to a life of service to the One Purpose, and they shall be only of the best of those: of the most disciplined, the most conscious, and the most capable. They shall be the strong right arm of the Community, a sworn brotherhood of sentinels ever vigilant against the enemies of the Community.
The hierarchy is the institution by which the Community orders itself, rules itself, and holds itself to its proper course along the Path of Life.
The hierarchy is a community of priests within the Community; in structure it is a series of steps leading upward. When a man enters the first step, he is ordained to a life of service to the One Purpose.
Thereafter he may be the father of a family, or a scholar in the academy, or a guardian, or a worker in another field of service to the Community, but he remains also a hierarch. As he advances in knowledge, in consciousness, in discipline, and in service, he is judged by those above him; and, according to their judgment, he may progress upward, from step to step, throughout his life.
The hierarchy guides and judges. It shapes structures and makes or changes rules, when those things are needed; otherwise it preserves what it has made. It looks to the future, foresees the needs of the Community, and strives to fulfill those needs. Above all else, it keeps the Community moving ever upward: toward new knowledge, higher levels of consciousness, greater strength and discipline, more effective service of the Creator’s Purpose.
The Community may have other institutions which serve its needs, but it must have these four: the family, by which it breeds and builds itself; the academy, by which it trains itself and grows in knowledge; the corps of guardians, by which it defends itself; and the hierarchy, by which it governs and guides itself.
V
The Community progresses by traveling upward along the Path of Life from generation to generation: it elevates itself in both its physical and its spiritual aspects.
It strives toward higher man by pruning and selecting the stock in which it is based. It orders its men and women according to their qualities, and, in the family, it combines and propagates those qualities that best serve its purpose. It ensures that the children born in each generation manifest those qualities more strongly than those of the preceding generation.
The Community also elevates itself by awakening more fully in each member the immanent consciousness of the Whole and by building in him the discipline needed to render more effective service; through the family and the academy it does these things, and it strives always to do them better.
And the Community elevates itself by refining and strengthening all of its institutions, by striving always to make them more nearly perfect: to make the family an institution able to engender children of higher quality and to nurture and train them more suitably in their earliest years; to make the academy a more effective institution for raising these children to conscious, disciplined, and knowledgeable adulthood; to make the corps of guardians a stronger and more vigilant institution for safeguarding the physical and spiritual welfare of the Community; and to make the hierarchy wiser, truer, and more effective in its guidance of the Community, with each passing year.
Thus, the structure of the Community, the form of its institutions and the rules, which govern them, evolve, just as does the stock in which the Community is based. But they do not evolve blindly; they are guided with an ever-growing self-consciousness, with an ever-surer sense of direction along the Path of Life, with an ever brighter and clearer vision of the Godhood which is the destiny of the stock whose members follow the Path.
https://nationalvanguard.org/2010/09/cosmotheism-on-society/