The Clan, Culture, and The Numinous Way





According to The Numinous Way, both clan and culture - as defined by The Numinous Way and as manifest by and in individuals living according to the ethical guidelines of The Numinous way - are and can be expressions, manifestations, of the numinous. That is, both the clan and culture are regarded as supra-individual entities: as types of being, imbued with acausal energy; that is, imbued with life. As such, they are not causal abstractions, but rather living, changing, entities.

The Numinous Way is one means whereby new numinous clans, and new numinous cultures, can be brought-into-being, and thus not only a means whereby the numinous can be presenced in and through us, as individuals, but also whereby we as individuals, and such new communities and new cultures as arise, can evolve in harmony with themselves, in harmony with Nature, and in harmony with the Cosmos.



The Clan


Essentially, the clan, as defined and understood by The Numinous ous Way, is just a large extended family, where the individuals are personally known to each other and/or related to each other by family ties, such as marriage. Importantly, what distinguishes a clan is: (1) this personal knowing, these personal, direct, living, relationships; and (2) a certain honourable loyalty, a certain "clannishness", based on this personal knowing and this personal loyalty. [ See Footnote 1 below ]

Thus, the clan is living: growing, changing, evolving; and it is not tied to or dependant upon any static, causal, un-numinous abstraction such as "race". It is a coming-into-being, and the criteria for "membership", if you will, is not determined by some causal abstraction, such as perceived (outward) ethnicity, but by personal interaction, a personal knowing, based on personal (individual) character. Hence, it is individual empathy - individual personal judgement of individuals, based on a personal knowing - which in important; a relating to individuals directly and personally; and not the classification, and judgement, of an individual or individuals according to some abstract, causal, un-numinous, criteria, such as ethnicity, status, sexual orientation, occupation, gender, and so on, etcetera.


Furthermore, the clan is the basis for establishing new, numinous, communities based on The Numinous Way itself. That is, new numinous clans can express, manifest, presence, the numinous itself by the members of such new clans living according to the numinous principles of empathy, compassion and personal honour. They are thus nexions, regions where numinous law, based upon honour, can be established, to the benefit of the individuals of such new communities. A numinous clan ceases to be numinous - ceases to presence the numinous and thus ceases to be a living, changing, evolving, being - when individual empathy, individual knowing, individual character, and individual honour, cease to be the basis for inclusion, and there is, instead, a reliance and dependence upon causal abstractions. For a living, numinous, clan is not some ideal or some static abstraction "to be loyal to" or a means whereby self-identity is felt and known and obtained, but rather a living, changing, evolving  symbiotic-being personally-known via empathy with the individuals who are that living being.


When several clans liaise or co-operate together for their mutual benefit, on the basis of the ethical and numinous principles of empathy, compassion and personal honour, then a new and numinous culture arises, distinguished as such a culture is or can be by a specific, and numinous, ethos. In essence, therefore, a numinous culture is a natural evolution of the clan.



Numinous Culture


A numinous culture is regarded, by The Numinous Way, as a type of being: some-thing which has Life; a presencing of acausal energy here on this planet surrounding our star, the Sun, which star is one star among millions in one Galaxy among billions upon billions of Galaxies in the Cosmos. 

A numinous culture arises over causal time, usually through a small group of individuals (usually clan-based) ethically and numinously living in a certain area - which becomes their homeland and thus their ancestral territory - and there, n such places, having shared experiences, and thus partaking of a common heritage, a common history and so on. Over time, this specific culture developes a certain character: a certain nature, which in general serves to distinguish it from other cultures. This character may be manifest in the way of life of the people of that culture, in their spiritual outlook, in their literature, in their natural music (that is, their "folk music"). Thus, a numinous culture is not an abstract, easily defined, static, "thing" but rather is a living, changing, evolving, being - a unique type of life. Such a culture is thus a living symbiotic being - in symbiosis with the being which is (or rather which is presenced in) the land of the individuals who dwell in that certain locality; in symbiosis with that community or that collection of communities and in symbiosis with the individuals of such clans as make such communities. And it is this life, this living, which is numinous, which presences the numinous.


One of the distinguishing features of a numinous culture - of a living culture - is its smallness; its clan-like nature. Another is that those dwelling in its communities still possess an empathy with life and especially with Nature, and often also with the Cosmos, beyond. That is, there is an awareness of "The Numen"; a desire to not commit hubris, to not profane or destroy or undermine what is numinous. A culture ceases to be numinous once it strives for abstractions, and once the ground of its morality moves from the individual, the community, to something dogmatic, abstract, and idealized. That is, it ceases to be numinous when personal empathy and personal honour become replaced by causal thinking: by individuals identifying themselves with, and judging others by, abstract, lifeless, un-numinous abstractions.





Evolution and Acausal Science


The Numinous Way considers that it is such new cultures which can aid the evolution of the individual, establishing - over a certain amount of causal Time - a more evolved, more cultured, more empathic, more compassionate, more honourable, human species. Such cultures, and their clan-communities, are, or rather should be, the genesis for the next stage of our human evolution, where we leave this planet, which is currently our home, and so live and evolve and diversify among the stars of this and other Galaxies.


However, given that such numinous cultures are small - and may often be rural in nature - how can this Galactic, extra-terrestrial, development be achieved, especially since a numinous culture would most certainly not involve large national or supra-national industries, as it would not be reliant upon the usury, and the supra-national trade and commerce, which all modern States and nations depend upon?

It could and should be achieved by means of the development of a new acausal science, and the development of a new type of technology, based on acausal energy. For a numinous culture - and all empathic human beings - are, both in principle and in practice, opposed to the exploitation of the Earth, and the exploitation of the living beings of the Earth, which exploitation is inseparable from capitalism and the modern industries, and technologies, deriving from, and dependant, upon such capitalism, on such supra-national commerce, and on other causal un-numinous abstractions.


The basis for the new acausal technology is the science of causal and acausal, of the apprehension of acausal energy emanating from the acausal universe by means of living nexions [See Footnote 2 below].  In its beginnings, this new acausal science would involve the identification of acausal energy by acausal means, sans causal scientific concepts and causal scientific terms.  In its beginnings, this new acausal technology would be the control and application of acausal energy itself, sans lifeless, causal, "machines" which require an input of some fuel or some causal energy (such as electricity) to make them work.

In respect of Space Travel, there are two possibilities. The first is the development of entirely new types of machines which generate and use acausal energy, and then the further development of the new technology underlying such machines in order to use acausal energy as the source of propulsion. The second is the development of living, organic "machines" - which are acausal energy, or acausal beings - and thus the creation, or discovery, of a new type of being capable of travelling, with us or taking us, among the stars. Of these two, the most likely - at least in foreseeable future - is the development of machines which use acausal energy as a means of propulsion.



For it is this new acausal science and technology - based on acausal energy - which will finally liberate us from our present cumbersome, destructive (of Nature, and of The Numen), interventionist and un-empathic, non-living, causal technology, just as the numinous principles of empathy, compassion and personal honour - manifest in numinous clans and numinous cultures - liberate us from causal thinking, causal abstractions, and thus enable us to establish new ways of numinous, evolving, conscious life: beyond the artificial restrictive abstractions of the past, most evident today in the tyrannical State, in lifeless concepts such as that of the nation, in judging, and pre-judging, individuals, according to some lifeless. abstract, category, some term, some -ology or some -ism, and especially in our un-numinous need to seemingly identify ourselves with some particular lifeless, abstract, category, term, or -ism.


Thus, for perhaps the first time, we conscious evolving empathic human beings can attain, individually, and collectively through our new clans, and new cultures, a genuine freedom.




DW Myatt





Notes:

(1) The origin of the word clan shows its original numinous nature - the word passed into common usage in Middle English, being from Scottish Gaelic clann, meaning family, from the Old Irish cland, meaning offspring.


(2) This "new acausal science" is briefly - and somewhat tentatively - outlined in the now dated essay Acausal Science: Life and The Nature of the Acausal.

The acausal is considered to be a natural part (one particular Universe) of the whole that is the Cosmos, consisting as the Cosmos does of both Causal and Acausal Universes. It is the Causal Universe which we know through causal sciences such as Physics and Astronomy - defined as the causal is by three (causal) spatial dimensions and one, linear, causal Time dimension. The Acausal Universe can be considered as possessing n acausal Time dimensions, and n non-linear and non-spatial dimensions, where the number n is currently unknown, but conceivably is infinite.

As mentioned in several other essays, all living entities, or beings, in the causal, phenomenal, pyhsical Universe, are nexions - regions where acausal energy, from the acausal Universe, is manifest, or presenced, in the causal. The amount of this energy so manifest in the causal has some relationship to causal complexity of the living being, and it is this acausal energy which "animates" the physical matter of beings, making them "alive". So far as we know, we human beings - by virtue of our evolution and our consciousness - manifest more of this acausal energy than the other living beings with whom we share this causal planet, Earth.

Thus, nexions are regions, or places, where the Causal and the Acausal Universes interact, or coincide, or come into contact.