Eautology
Allow me to propose that there is something more fundamental than psychology, more fundamental than philosophy, which underpins one’s thought. Something more fundamental than psychology or philosophy influences or determines which worldview, one adopts, and to which one adapts oneself.
This most fundamental of foundations is one’s selfhood and one’s sense of self. It defines the basic anthropology and cosmogony of one’s sense of what man is and what is man’s place in the cosmos.
It is the study of “himselfhood.”
I propose the term eautology (from the Greek εαυτός ) to refer to the study of man’s sense of self, sense of life, sense of the world.
Other terms, such as “meta-psychophilosophy”, would be awkward, and the term “anthropology,” outside of theological discussions, has taken on another meaning.
Why is such a term needed?
The need for the term is merely because other likely terms are inexact.
A term is needed for the foundational selfhood belief and worldview. Such a foundation is not like a model or system one holds a true, as might the nonpartisan judge or rigorous scientist of the Nineteenth Century who examines evidence objectively. His sense of the world changes him by imposing duties on him.
A man possessed of a sense of life is not like a judge in a beauty contest, intellectually assessing the charm and grace of contestants in bathing suits to compare them; he is more like a bridegroom who woos and weds a beauty whose charms compel him to true faith and fealty.
Philosophy is the disciplined investigation of the fundamental questions of life, as concerns metaphysics, nature, reason, knowledge, virtue, politics, art and theology. Philosophy is an artifact of the intellect, and is influenced by irrational considerations only when it becomes undisciplined hence becomes less philosophical.
Psychology is the study of the irrational influences in the soul of man, the hidden structures of his appetites and passions, forgotten memories or mental wounds, that inform his personality type, cognitive or emotive behaviors, or adherence to cultural influences.
Philosophy might be a suitable word for one’s sense of self and sense of life, but only when used loosely or metaphorically. We might say a phlegmatic man who underreacts to threats or insults has a pacific philosophy, but we are actually talking about his psychology or temperament.
So the term is inaccurate. A man who converts from atheism to monotheism must change in his theology, but might not in his philosophy. A determinist can become a Calvinist, for example, without reconsidering his stance on free will. A unitarian who becomes a trinitarian does not necessarily change his stance on monarchy versus republicanism.
Likewise, conversion might affect and be affected by his psychology or personality traits, but to consider the worldview to be merely a side effect of one’s psychology would be absurd: as if Mad Hamlet were to say a book is merely words, words, words.
A Darwinian atheist, if his psychology is pessimistic, he might see himself as merely a hairless ape with a hypertrophied cortex, hence meaningless. If optimistic, he sees the intricate dance of atoms in his body and brain as forged in stars, himself insignificant in the vastness of eternity, but paramount nonetheless as the only part of this vast blind machine of galaxies and molecules we call the universe which is aware and self-aware. His psychology does not determine his theory of biology.
He believes, in part, because his reason is convinced of the facts. He believes, in part, because the worldview suits him, and because he wants to believe. As with all things in man, the logic is the form of belief, the matter is the substance.
Logic would tempt a man of this belief to adopt the epistemology, ethics, and politics consistent with this dismal vision. But the Darwinist may escape the temptation of reason, and maintain belief in rationality, virtue, and liberty regardless of what the logic of his position dictates. Such is the paradox of man.
Likewise for the monotheist. His view that the cosmos is a creation by omnipotent providence, who granted a divine image and likeness to man, is not determined by his psychology. He may quail to discover himself not the highest being in creation and may tremble at fears of hellfire; contrariwise, he may rejoice to discover his world upheld by eternal and inescapable love. Monotheism does not make a pessimist optimistic, nor an optimist pessimistic.
However, the one thing that must distinguish atheist to monotheism is one’s sense of oneself, and one’s place in the life, because this is the point where the two differ.
An atheist can be culturally Christian, that is, maintain the conclusions of Christian philosophy while lacking Christian axioms; likewise a Christian can be culturally atheist, that is, be a Pharisee or Laodicean.
And one’s culture is a shared participatory myth and ritual, custom and law, which affects and is affected by one’s own psychology and philosophy. But the shared myth shares a sense of life and view of the world.
To be sure, some worldviews are more well fitted, more suitable, for one psychology or philosophy than another, and it would be rare that one’s worldview did not incline a man toward or away from certain personality traits, denominations, or political factions.
The term worldview, which I use here, is also inadequate and unclear, for it implies merely a viewpoint, perhaps a matrix or lens through which one views of the world, or it implies merely the model, heliocentric or geocentric, atheist or monotheist, by whose precepts one judges and interprets the events of life and the meaning of eternity.
But a viewpoint or a model is not alive. It might suggest that certain acts or certain ways of life are more prudent and admirable than others, but a viewpoint makes no demands. A sense of life does makes such a demand. A sense of the world demands fealty. One enters the world and one lets oneself change and be changed by it.
One obvious example is that the faithful Christian swears fealty to God, kneels in prayer, recognizes duties of charity and good works, goes to confession, amends his life, attends ritualized public worship, embarks on private devotion. Likewise, the avowed Marxist swears fealty to Baphomet, promotes propaganda, urges division in his culture, encourages chaos, promotes sexual perversion, and recognizes duties of riot, arson, mass-murder.
A useful idiot in the press or in academia, or a good-hearted spinster living alone with a clowder of cats, might share the same socialist economic philosophy as any balaclava’d bloodthirsty revolutionary, but if he does not act on it, it remains his philosophy, not his sense of life. It is not actually part of his life, not part of his self-hood.
Likewise, the devils in hell, and their spokesmen in the press, know full well that Christ is King, but they are not baptized Christians. They swear war and enmity, not love and fealty. Their philosophy is monotheist but not their lives.
It is more fair to say that one’s sense of life possesses one, rather than that one possesses a sense of life.
So there should be a word for one’s sense of self and sense of life distinct from one’s intellectual philosophy or one’s psychological personality type or predisposition, and even distinct from one’s culture.
The need for such a word was brought to my attention by my recent study (prompted by the writings of James Lindsay) of the traditions of Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Theosophy, Esoteric Nazism, Hegelianism, Marxism, and Cultural Marxism, currently mislabeled by the several names of Political Correctness, Wokeness, Diversity, Nihilism, Extinctionism.
I call these labels misleading because each is incomplete.
Let us list the ways:
Marxism, technically speaking, is an economic theory based on a collectivist worldview with eschatological elements. It is an ideology, in other words, an ersatz religion.
Political Correctness, technically speaking, refers only to a speech code that prefers propaganda to truth, promoting falsehood as virtue. By extension it is an ethical code based on the unreality principle: i.e. the principle that unreality is morally preferable to reality, falsehood to truth.
Wokeness, technically speaking, is a political program aimed at becoming awake to (or, rather, creating the appearance of) hidden yet systematic racial oppression. This awakening is meant to provoke unrest and rebellion, in order to promote race-collectivism, and hence suppress classical liberalism, and its notions of individual rights and the dignity of man.
Diversity, which springs out of Wokeness, is a demographic program aimed at diminishing and replacing Caucasians. It is also called Anti-Whiteness.
Nihilism is an epistemological theory that no overarching or general truths exist, for all is opinion, and, by extension, the philosophical theory that all human reason is in vain.
Extinctionism is a mass psychosis seeking the depopulation of the human race, seeking the end of civilization and the mass-extinction of the species.
All these things spring, ultimately, from Gnosticism and the esoteric tradition, which is a religious heresy, or, rather, a pre-religious worldview embracing the belief in magic.
All these labels are incomplete. What we are discussing is more than just a belief in magic, more than just a heresy, more than a speech code or ethical theory, more than a political or demographic program, more than a epistemological or philosophical theory, more than a mass psychosis.
It is all these things and, more to the point, it is the sense of self which adopts and adapts to the worldview promoting these things. It is a spirit.
The only truly accurate label for this spirit, unfortunately, is Antichrist, the spirit that rejects both heaven and earth, rejects both human reason and human nature.
Antichrist is the only word that holds the meaning of rejecting the incarnation of God, rejecting both the mortal and the divine. This is the only word that refers to one who rejects both life and afterlife.
I call this unfortunate, because, despite its excruciating accuracy, the word antichrist has religious and historic denotations and connotations incidental to the current point, so using it would create needless confusion.
Using this word would also give the game away, and spook the muggles. Better to persuade the unwary by slow steps, not showing at first the church spire behind the hill about whose foot the path by patient curve must lead.
Since the heresy of Gnosticism itself exists only as a historical oddity in the modern age, the haunt of crackpots, I hope I can be excused if I use these word to refer to the whole Esoteric tradition springing from it, and to refer to whole anti-life and anti-reason spirit, and especially to refer to the anti-life and anti-reason spirit animating the modern advocates of Cultural Marxism, Wokeness, and Nihilism.
But there are other spirits at loose in the world, other men with another sense of life opposed to the anti-life spirit. It would be unwise to use the word spirit to refer to the psychological and philosophical underpinnings that give rise to one’s worldview, one’s sense of self, one’s sense of life.
Once again, using the word spirit will give too much away, and sound as if we are discussing mediums and shamans, saints and satanists. So we may coin the term eautology instead.
Apply this terminology to the current case, we can say that while the theology, philosophy and psychology of Gnosticism and Marxism differ, or say that economic Marxism differs from cultural Marxism, it should be clear that the eautology is the same. Both promote the same view of man and of his place in the world.
Hence, it should be easily seen that the philosophy of Marx and Hegel differ, and neither are open advocates of esoteric beliefs like Hermeticism or Gnosticism. But the eautology is the same.
The Gnostic and the Marxist both rely on ineffable inner enlightenment from which their certainties come: a matter of gnosis, or inner light, in the first case, a matter of inevitable historic dialectic in the second. Both see man as oppressed by a world-system, a demiurge in the first case, the capitalist system in the second. Both are conspiracy theorists, holding that they alone see what is hidden from the eyes of lesser men. Both have contempt for the benighted: the hylic souls in the first case, the bourgeoisie in the second.
Both seek to overthrow the world-system, both reject conventional morality, both maintain the pretense of immense moral superiority to the common ruck of mankind, and so on.
More to the point, both reject the notion than man is subordinate to any higher power. In Hegel, society is seen as a godlike force that is ultimately controlled by the state which is ultimately controlled by man, who is shaped by society. By controlling the state hence society, man can remake man into a more perfect being, becoming godlike, and unifying man and god.
The idea of a perfect but ignorant God who creates imperfect man in order to understand his own perfection, who then unifies himself to man, is reflected in Hegel and Marx, but has its roots in Alchemy, Rosicrucianism, and Hermetic lore. The theology differs between Marx the atheist and Simon the Magician, but their view of the man and of man’s role in life — that is, their eautology — is the same.
Feminism follows the same model as Marxism, merely substituting other terms for the oppressor group and the oppressed group, the patriarchy rather than the capitalist, the female rather than the exploited proletarians. Sex rather than class is used as the collectivist identity.
It is not a coincidence that feminism springs from occultism and witchcraft. The feminists of the first wave practiced tarot-reading and spirit-medium magic, advocated for the dissolution of the Church, and wished God to be a Goddess. Feminism is social and political movement, and witchcraft is a pre-religious cult belief or practice, but their eautology is the same: the desire of Eve to rule over Adam, for her eyes to be opened, or “woke”, and to be like unto god.
Gender Ideology substitutes the sexually deviant for the female, and seeks to erase the definition of female from reality. Females who resist (e.g. JK Rowling) become oppressors. Gender, that is, sexual fetishism, rather than sex is used as the collective identity.
Critical Race theory likewise, but with White and Non-White as the collective identity.
In the modern world, there are only two basic eautologies at work: the Christian and the Antichristian. The Christian view of man is that man is the child of God, made in his image and likeness, and possessing individual worth and dignity, regardless of worldly pelf, position, power.
The Antichristian view is that man is oppressed as a slave, perhaps of God, perhaps of Society. The Jihadist antichristian holds it good to be a slave of God, and to submit, and to force others to submit, whereas the modern Gnostic in his several forms and masks, Marxist or Neomarxist, holds it to be good to replace god, assume the prerogatives of godhood, and force others to submit to oneself. The eautology of these two are the same in class, but differ in species. For the Jihadist calls God what the Christian calls the Devil, whereas the Marxist is the Devil.
Jihadist and Marxist should be natural enemies, for their philosophy and theology contradict at all points. And yet we see the paradox of protestors calling themselves “LGBT for Palestine.” But there is no paradox. Despite other differences, their view of man and his role in life is the same. Their eautology is the same, and so they make alliance against Christendom.
In either case, the Christian eautology views man as subject to moral laws, whereas the Antichristian sees only power. In the Jihad case, the power is Allah, and none may question Him, and in the Gnostic case, power replaces moral considerations. This is why Marxists in particular and Leftists in general always speak of empowering themselves, gaining power, feeling powerful, affirming their own power.
They are possessed by a spirit, a eautology what craves only power and hates moral judgment, moral discrimination, discrimination of taste, differentiation between male and female. It is a spirit of pride, older than mankind, disembodied and sexless. It is a prince and a potentate of implacable evil and self-will, who yearns to set his throne above the highmost.
Those who follow this spirit share the same sense of life and view of man. Their psychology or philosophy may differ: the eautology is the same.
The “himselfhood” of such men abandons mankind. Such men become little devils, and remake their self image to suit their idols.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
