The Third Eye: Value in the Structure of Mind
August 7, 2024
Today, we’re going to be combining two of the broader subjects I’ve covered. First, we have the series I began with Value in the Highest, and the articles I wrote on the three core values, Love, Will, and Truth. Next, we have the Pieces of Mind series (0.1, 0.2, and 0.3)- both series will be suggested reading for this article, as well as The Desert of Nihilism and the Throne of God. I’ve talked about how the values are important, and how the mind seems to have some overarching structure, but in this article I’m going to attempt to join the two concepts and show how the values actually emerge from the structure of the mind itself. Along the way, we’re going to talk about the “Third Eye” symbol, polarity, submission and dominance, and more.
Let’s get it.
If you remember from Pieces of Mind 0.2, I broadly split the two modalities of Self into the Chaos mind and the Order mind. The Chaos mind is responsible for dealing with situations in which the individual does not have a set of rules for the situation, or does not feel a sense of control. The Order mind is the opposite- it is rule based and feels that it is in control of the situation.
These broadly map to the qualities of submission and dominance, as well as to feminine and masculine, though not perfectly- not every man operates out of the Order mind primarily, not every woman is purely based in the Chaos mind. People are different, but trends exist. (Additionally, there’s no inherent moral judgement implied here, but if you’re bothered anyway, go somewhere else, I do not care.)
Next, we come to the values. First, we have Love (Agape), which is the highest expression of the Chaos mind. Perfect love is perfect submission- but before you make some assumption about what I mean like that, let’s go deeper.
Historically, most religions have two components, the exoteric (almost always more popular) and the esoteric (generally significantly less well-known). Eastern religion tends to be more esoteric on average than Western religion, but even the Eastern religions are practiced mostly in an exoteric manner.
The exoteric components of religions (mainstream Christianity, orthodox Judaism, and Sunni and Shiite Islam, for example) are primarily focused on rules, conduct, traditional rituals, and the communal activity of public worship. Exoteric religion is an expression of the Order mind- it’s a social system for explaining the world, based on rules, structure, and hierarchy.
The esoteric components, however, (Christian mysticism and Gnostic Christianity, Kabbalah, Sufi Islam, Tantra, and the Yogic traditions) are focused on the interior experience of the person, and a direct relationship with the deity being worshipped. The purpose of the esoteric practice (among other lesser goals) is to achieve a dissolution of both self and the perceived separation that comes from ego into the divine, a mystical union (explored more in my Syzygy series). Meditation, contemplation, and prayer are at the forefront, and the esoteric traditions explore much more of the subjective experience than the exoteric religions do. The esoteric pursuits are an expression of the Chaos mind- the emphasis is on the seeker’s state of not being in control, a la “be still and know that I am God.” This is also where we see the Christian concept that God is Love really make sense.
Agape is the perfect love of God, the divine concept of truly unconditional love. For the person seeking to embody this, this requires absolute submission to the Will (see, we’re tying it together) of God. The perfect expression of this is embodied by Christ’s prayer in Gesthsemane “not my will, but thine be done.” Christ, as a mythic figure, is the absolute embodiment of Agape- he submits completely to the Will (Thelema, the divine Will) of God, does not retaliate, and even after being tortured and crucified, asks God to forgive those who martyred him.
This is what I meant when I say that Love’s fullest expression is in complete submission. I won’t require it as reading because I don’t want to spoil the show, but in my Westworld article I characterized (imagine they’re people or archetypes for this bit) the two components of the mind (Chaos and Order) as The Disciple and The Master. Christ is the perfect Disciple- he does all that is asked of him, and completely embodies the Will of God (who, in this particular mythic version, represents The Master).
This calls to mind Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV):
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”
Because the Chaos mind does not possess a sense of ultimate agency (in that it doesn’t believe itself in perfect control of any situation), the ideal scenario for it is one in which it can submit to a guide or protector (the Master)- it “always trusts” and “always hopes.” As such, faith is an attribute of the Chaos mind and The Disciple. It looks beyond itself for structure, guidance, and security- something that it can have faith in.
Now for the highest expression of the Order mind- Will (Thelema), the perfect Will of God. This is absolute control, both over self and surroundings. The Will demands submission of others, but is also a protective element, because to attack the Will’s subjects is to challenge the Will’s dominance. This is embodied in the archetype of The Master, which in a perfect world would be something like a Zen kung-fu monk. However, in reality, the human embodiments of the Will are often controversial, violent figures. In Value in the Highest, I used Adolf Hitler as the primary example, because he represents the exact opposite of Christ- dominating, murderous, authoritarian, and dispassionate.
I do want to clarify a few things. First, the Will is not inherently evil, though Hitler is. I used him as an example in the first article to show why Will alone is not sufficient as the highest value, because without something to aim itself at, the Will takes on the role of God. If we want to get more specific, the highest member of any hierarchy is effectively God (“all memes aspire to the position of God” comes to mind). This was mitigated for much of human history, because the belief in an external deity (mostly) limited the capacity of any man to claim to embody the deity, but after the Death of God, the throne lays empty. Thus, we see the desire for a dictator emerge, because the Order mind requires something to sit on the throne.
Hitler essentially embodied his Will so effectively (and his Will mirrored that of the Will of the German people at the time) that (whether it was explicitly acknowledged or not) he effectively became a living deity for the Nazi party. If you want to get into some truly bizarre shit, go look up esoteric Hitlerism- there’s literally a religion that claimed ol’ Adolf was an incarnation of a Hindu deity. This nonsense’s existence is an expression of the Chaos mind’s desire to submit to the divine, which is the basis of all esoterica.
As the Will is the means by which power operates in the world, it is the more dangerous of the two. Love can be dangerous in that submission to the wrong people gets you killed very easily, as well as because it’s wild and sometimes irrational, so conflict can arise when it shifts. Love tends to gravitate to the strongest Will- most people don’t want to serve a lesser God. This is more of a survival method, though, because if you’re not in control, you’re better off submitting to someone strong enough to be. Will, however, seeks to overcome other, lesser wills, because the rational mind seeks to obtain the most accurate map of reality possible.
The Order mind runs into issues when it believes itself to be the most superior possible force, because it very quickly falls in Love with itself. This can be expressed in a number of forms- narcissism, psychopathy, megalomania, and so on. The Chaos mind runs into problems when what it chooses to submit to is not ideal- abusive relationships, joining cults, neediness, and unhealthy systems of attachment stem from dysregulation here.
Now, I mentioned at the beginning of the article that men tend to be most comfortable when operating from the Order mind, and women tend towards being comfortable in the Chaos mind. For most of human history, this worked well enough for us to survive.
However, I think we’re seeing a massive inversion.
Men seem to be moving more to the Chaos mind- look at the great number of dudes following the Manosphere, the IDW, traditional religions, self-improvement gurus (he said, without a trace of irony), MAGA bros, Yang Gang, and other such stuff. I’d argue that because of the seemingly insurmountable problems of the modern world, the average man does not feel confident in the embodiment of his Will, and thus is looking for an external Will to submit to. This is a dangerous game, because when men start looking to submit to a cause, it becomes increasingly easy for a dictatorial figure or ideological cause to rise up and suck them in.
Women are doing the opposite- they’re seeking independence, rejecting traditional roles, and oftentimes doing the sort of things that were once reserved for men. This inversion seems to come from the fact that there is not an adequate expression of Will in the world. As a result, submission becomes impossible because the trust/faith required for such submission is now impossible. Ironically, women deal with the inversion better than men, because they default to relying on themselves where the men go looking for someone to guide them.
Now, these inverted men and women both have a narrative to explain the state of things. Men end up with the Red Pill, which isn’t meant to be a narrative so much as a tool set of facts about evolutionary psych. However, because there’s no superordinate source of meaning (a context in which to place the information- a role once filled by religion), this takes the role of God by becoming the highest value. Thus, you see lots of these lost young dudes trying to build their entire personality and worldview around something that is fundamentally not capable of doing so.
Imagine liking cars so much your entire persona became “the Mustang guy”- that’s the issue.
Now, conversely, we have the women’s response. Because they’re now inhabiting the Order mind, they’re trying to construct a grand narrative (since the Order mind builds systems and determines rules) around the intuitive knowledge that something is wrong. Feminism (specifically very recent, modern feminism) emerges as such a system- women must have been historically oppressed intentionally, hence the patriarchy. This is effectively a demonization of the masculine Order mind’s failure to prevent the circumstances that brought this inversion. The problem with all of this is that the root cause is the Death of God (meaning an external source of value), not some imagined conspiratorial system of oppression.
What’s really interesting here is that this tracks really well with the Autism-Schizophrenia spectrum I proposed in Pieces 0.2. The men, despite inhabiting the Chaos mind and looking for someone to rule them, are still seeking a logical system (which is an autistic tendency), just from an external source. The women, though they’re operating in the Order mind, still characterize the Patriarchy as some sort of conspiracy, which is a schizophrenic tendency.
This is because, as I said, both men and women possess both, and in differing proportions. Some women are more masculine than some men (and vice versa), but on average, most men are more based in the Order mind than most women, and most women are based in the Chaos mind.
Remember that while our culture tends to demonize Chaos, it is, in fact, equally important to our existence as Order, and the same goes for the feminine qualities associated with it.
It’s all well and good that we know this, but we have a problem to solve. It’s pretty obvious that we can’t look backwards, because “God is Dead” and all that- even if the traditional value systems worked in their time, the core variable has changed and thus we’re playing a different game. The alternative proposed is the Nietzschean/Postmodernist offering of “transvaluation of values,” which is basically “make up whatever rules you want, Dad’s not home.” However, we’re seeing that play out now, and it’s playing out poorly.
Fortunately, there has been a third option mapped out and waiting the whole time- and we can find this in the esoteric traditions:
This is where the “Third Eye” comes in.
I want to clarify before we get into this that there are a lot of stupid interpretations of what the third eye means. This is always the case in esoterica- hippies ruin all kinds of shit by thinking they’re being, “like, super spiritual, dude,” so be wary in any extra research you may do on the topic. When I use the term here, I’m referring specifically to the ability to detach from an Order mind or Chaos mind dominant worldview. The Third Eye is thus largely synonymous with the phrase “True Self” from Pieces 0.1.
In The Meaning of AION, Part I, I mentioned that a core component of the symbol was “two blind eyes coming together to produce one that can see,” or something to that extent.
This is represented by the symbol of the Vesica Piscis:
The Vesica Piscis (lit. “fish bladder”) traditionally represents the union of heaven and earth, and is also the source of the Jesus fish (ICHTHYS) symbol.
If the Chaos mind values Love, and the Order mind values Will, then the Third Eye/True Self’s value is Truth (Aletheia). Both the Order and Chaos minds assume that they are correct in their perceptions of the world, because in a sense, they are. Each is a circuit designed for one of two scenarios- “I’m in control” and “I’m not in control.” However, because of the Death of God, we lost the old Truth that guided them.
See, it’s not so much that the Order mind controls the Chaos mind and that the Chaos mind submits to the Order mind. In reality, the two of them are meant to serve the Truth. The Will serves the Truth by embodying it and acting it out, and the Love serves the Truth by submitting to it and its expression in the world.
Truth guides Will, Will protects Love, and Love loves the both of them.
This requires us, however, to find a new approach to the Truth, one fit to take its place on the Throne. If the Death of God represents the death of the external source of values, then it seems almost obvious that these new values have to come from within.
In the broadest sense, what this signifies is the transition from the exoteric “old religion” to an esoteric “new religion,” with the joke being that none of this is new to any of the esoteric traditions. What it means, though, is that the average person can no longer simply practice the old rituals and go through the motions. What it means is that we will have to look within.
The pursuit of Truth is the remedy- not a ready made truth of facts that can be read, recited, and understood, but the place where the objective reality of facts and the subjective experience of our consciousness come together to give us a new perspective on life. This Truth can only be met alone by one who would genuinely seek it. In the seeking, you will find both Order and Chaos, within and without, and you will be changed.
You will become something more.
This is what is required of us- to change, to grow, to become more than we once were. Whether one calls it enlightenment, metaconsciousness, the Third Eye, Christ-consciousness, the realization of Atman and Brahman as one, or some other term, it is all the same. We cannot simply worship the old way, and we cannot simply follow the old rules. We need to go deeper, to determine the “why” buried beneath all of existence, buried in the very heart of our being.
This fractured world calls out for reconciliation. We see each other as adversaries, when in fact we are complementary. Order and Chaos may be opposites, but even opposites require each other to exist.
We find ourselves somewhere in the between, in the great dance of polarity.
We may be lost now, but soon, we will meet again in Truth.