Named groups and barbarous tongues

There is no question of speaking or not-speaking: there is only speaking finitely and speaking in-finitely. To speak of not-speaking is to speak. Only in the lacunae do the spirits dwell, and they speak in barbarous tongue. About which we cannot speak, says Wittgenstein, we must pass over in silence. The caesura is not a lack of meaning but an excess of meaning, it flows out and empties.

Pure negation is only consummated in unending, paradoxical affirmation – the endless circumambulation of negative space – a festival of flagellant procession to banish the haunting of the Sign.

Shall the rupture be named? It must and it must not be. Convention holds that the Above is not like the Below, that the Above names and orders the Below. By our secret teachings we know that the Above is the Below, between them there is a radical identity, a non-duality as it were. The name names itself. It is within the name that the name is undone. In the circle-A is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Infinitesimal and the Infinite, the Moment and the Eternity. This is the reddening by fire.

Similia similibus curantur, says Paracelsus, the like cures like – the hair of the dog cures the bite of the dog. By a great play of symbols, words, names, and lodges, we can efface the idolatry of these and achieve the Great Work. The vulgar eye sees both the name and the unnamed (which is named the “unnamed”) – it sees objects and relations between objects. But embracing mystic ambiguity — the liminal space between these — the vulgar eye sees naught but opaque, esoteric imagery: dancing sylphs.

Names are ritual implements: we falter not in their use, but in their worship. Offerings on the altar should be replaced promptly and often, when flowers wilt and figs rot. Like a raft used to cross a turbulent stream, we leave our names at the shore when we cross over to the other side.

The liar speaks the truth. Hurry to play. Hurry to arm yourself!