Post by david on Oct 20, 2020 15:38:18 GMT
Dear friends,
We take it for granted but it is a peculiarity of chess that it is the powerful queen and the weak but invulnerable king which are the most important pieces. The two pieces are not meant to symbolize male and female principles but levels of authority. Queen and king are misleading names due to attempts to understand a concept matriarchal in origin within patriarchal thinking while being reluctant to tamper with ancient custom. There is a known historical application of the principal in the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor was, at least theoretically, the junior partner to the Pope. Secular authority was supposed to be subordinate to spiritual authority. The idea behind it can be reduced to common sense. When you have a job to do you want someone in charge who understands the practicalities but a civilized society requires understanding at a higher level than the practical.
The highest level is the Spirit Who governs all things. This is manifested at the centre of each created thing and unfolds into the archetypal activity of Creation but everything material has a tendency to disintegration. The queen symbolizes a reflection of the activity of Creation into the world of physical action which is the most powerful form of action possible.
The king shares with the queen the ability to move in all directions but the king's limitations of movement are due to the fact that the Spirit cannot manifest directly in the world
but has to be mediated. The king contains the possibilities of every action while the queen is the actualisation of these possibilities. The king is invulnerable because the Spirit is beyond all material force but spiritual manifestations can be suppressed which is why the king can be checked and forced to retreat. The meaning of checkmate is that the powers of the soul take their potency from the Spirit and lose that potency when the Spirit cannot manifest. Everything good has its inverse reflection and beyond the selfishness which motivates crime is a fascination with power and evil. Every manifest soul is between Heaven and Hell and until absolute perfection is attained there is an element of evil caused by the tendency of material forms to disintegrate and it will be there until the end of the manifest universe.
Absolute existence takes three states: Potential, Essence and Form. Matter is the reflection of Potential into manifestation. Pure ideas are impressed upon it to create the manifest
world which is maintained as a reflection of the Spirit by Psyche Who contains all Form. Psyche governs the intersection of Spirit and matter. These states create three possible forms of action which are symbolized by the rook, bishop and knight. The possible movements of the rook take the form of the cross of matter and in battle it is symbolized by the chariot which is the heaviest and most descending traditional military weapon. The bishops are closest to the centre and symbolize the path of light which manifests as the intellect and the straight path of the archer. The name bishop is misleading as the piece is not meant to symbolize religious authority.
The bishops work as a pair. There is a black square bishop and a white square bishop. When one is lost it has a crippling effect on the other. We need to see both sides to a question and without that ability we fall into intellectual partisanship. A chess player who loses one bishop generally tries to exchange off the other. If the only use you can put your intellect to is winning arguments you are better off without it. Unload your intellectual junk.
There is also a double level to spiritual understanding. Antirationalists complain that the intellect is dualistic but this attitude is itself the result of a lack of binocular vision. The lower manifestations are an outer guise of the higher and we have to understand these manifestations and act from this understanding in order to make the lower conform to the higher. It is not true that the purpose of intellect is to discover opposites (Of what use is that to anyone?) but to discover the correct inter-relationship.
It might be argued that the rook is more mobile and therefore lighter than the bishop but care has to be taken in translating pure idea into its manifestations. The bishop is capable of the longest possible movement but this freedom is lost when moved from the centre. Intellect can lose its vision when spiritual awareness is lost and becomes less effective. The rooks are awkward pieces to get moving and are mobilized last.
The knight comes between the bishop and the rook and symbolizes the governing of the lower by the higher. It is achieved in the soul by purifying the emotions in spiritual devotion making this piece more appropriate to the religious life than the bishop. This piece at least is appropriately named since the harmony of horse and rider and the chivalry practised by the medieval knights are related to this path, as are all acts of love.
The knight is limited in range of movement because it is not the part of
the emotions to understand. The power of this piece is its ability to surmount obstacles which are more often than not created by our own pieces. A fragmented psyche makes us our own worst enemy and the solution is to raise our passions to the refined heights and detach ourselves from the lower.
The queen combines the powers of the rook and the bishop which gives the power to govern matter from knowledge of the Spirit. It is the ability of the queen to act as a rook
which gives it the ability to act as both a white square bishop and a black square bishop. The eight directions of movement correspond to the main seasonal festivals. The solstices and equinoxes correspond to the horizontal plane of matter being actualised by the direct descent of the Spirit which give rise to the rectilinear movement of the rook. The cross quarter festivals symbolize the movement from one state to another which is possible because each state is an unfolding of the centre which the direct perception of the Spirit enables us to understand.
If we are to follow true military tradition we must think of the infantry last. The pawns symbolize the human souls. Each pawn is attached to a piece because each soul reflects an
archetypal state. We have a true self which is unique and we are always trying to act from our true self. Through the loss of spiritual awareness we have fallen into a world of conflict through which we progress with the correct balance of courage and prudence. If we surmount all dangers we attain to perfection with the same freedom of action as the queen.
The battle is fought by the correct moves by which the pieces support each other which reflects the inter-relationship of the power of the archetypes. No material thing has power of itself. Archetypal relationships are flexible and can be adapted to circumstances but are not arbitrary. It must be a relationship that works. Sound tactics consist of getting all the pieces active. There should be no inactive powers of the soul. The mutual support of the pieces is also reflected as moral behaviour. It is always a sounder tactic for the pawn to take inwards than outwards. Decisions should always take us to the centre. The fact that two pawns cannot pass proves the limitations of force. The principle tactic is to occupy the centre of the board where the greatest freedom occurs. There has to be a readiness to sacrifice.
There is no centre square on the board. The Spirit does not manifest openly in the world of action but is intangible and indiscernible. Worldly activities move round the Spirit.
Every move we make is dictated by a situation created by our past moves to which our opponent has adapted. We are oppressed by our own faults from which we must free ourselves by heroic effort. The object is to checkmate the opposing king by which we surmount all conflict and attain spiritual harmony. Since this harmony can only be attained by pursuing the opposing king this piece, though seen as evil, can be none other than the Spirit in perfection. By penetrating the opposing defence we are penetrating illusion. All things, however evil they may seem, are all part of the same cosmic order but because our lower nature fragments it rebels against us. The conflicts of our life are outer manifestations of the chaos of the lower psyche. However maliciously intended our suffering it cannot be other than fate and fate cannot be other than good because it corresponds exactly to the present imbalances of the soul. Each of the opposing pieces represents a particular aspect of our passionate nature and its taking is a penetrating through the tangle of illusions to clearer perception.
If we lose the game we are simply withdrawing into a state of equilibrium which is the best means of spiritual development when we are unable to act. The triumph of evil and even of ignorance and crudity force the development of aspects of character which we would not normally cultivate.
The final stage of the game has something in common with hunting which is a stalking of the quarry. At every stage of the game it is necessary to predict your opponent's movements
which emerge from the logic of the situation but at the final stage we are trying to head off a movement before it occurs. It is ironic that modern antirationalism started with Noble Savage theories because the whole point of hunting is harmony of action through intellect. It takes a rationalist to be a Noble Savage. Think like your opponent, act like your opponent, be one with
your opponent. Attain this and you will have no opposition to your actions. If you have no opposition you must be perfect.
May She be with you,
David.
We take it for granted but it is a peculiarity of chess that it is the powerful queen and the weak but invulnerable king which are the most important pieces. The two pieces are not meant to symbolize male and female principles but levels of authority. Queen and king are misleading names due to attempts to understand a concept matriarchal in origin within patriarchal thinking while being reluctant to tamper with ancient custom. There is a known historical application of the principal in the Holy Roman Empire. The Emperor was, at least theoretically, the junior partner to the Pope. Secular authority was supposed to be subordinate to spiritual authority. The idea behind it can be reduced to common sense. When you have a job to do you want someone in charge who understands the practicalities but a civilized society requires understanding at a higher level than the practical.
The highest level is the Spirit Who governs all things. This is manifested at the centre of each created thing and unfolds into the archetypal activity of Creation but everything material has a tendency to disintegration. The queen symbolizes a reflection of the activity of Creation into the world of physical action which is the most powerful form of action possible.
The king shares with the queen the ability to move in all directions but the king's limitations of movement are due to the fact that the Spirit cannot manifest directly in the world
but has to be mediated. The king contains the possibilities of every action while the queen is the actualisation of these possibilities. The king is invulnerable because the Spirit is beyond all material force but spiritual manifestations can be suppressed which is why the king can be checked and forced to retreat. The meaning of checkmate is that the powers of the soul take their potency from the Spirit and lose that potency when the Spirit cannot manifest. Everything good has its inverse reflection and beyond the selfishness which motivates crime is a fascination with power and evil. Every manifest soul is between Heaven and Hell and until absolute perfection is attained there is an element of evil caused by the tendency of material forms to disintegrate and it will be there until the end of the manifest universe.
Absolute existence takes three states: Potential, Essence and Form. Matter is the reflection of Potential into manifestation. Pure ideas are impressed upon it to create the manifest
world which is maintained as a reflection of the Spirit by Psyche Who contains all Form. Psyche governs the intersection of Spirit and matter. These states create three possible forms of action which are symbolized by the rook, bishop and knight. The possible movements of the rook take the form of the cross of matter and in battle it is symbolized by the chariot which is the heaviest and most descending traditional military weapon. The bishops are closest to the centre and symbolize the path of light which manifests as the intellect and the straight path of the archer. The name bishop is misleading as the piece is not meant to symbolize religious authority.
The bishops work as a pair. There is a black square bishop and a white square bishop. When one is lost it has a crippling effect on the other. We need to see both sides to a question and without that ability we fall into intellectual partisanship. A chess player who loses one bishop generally tries to exchange off the other. If the only use you can put your intellect to is winning arguments you are better off without it. Unload your intellectual junk.
There is also a double level to spiritual understanding. Antirationalists complain that the intellect is dualistic but this attitude is itself the result of a lack of binocular vision. The lower manifestations are an outer guise of the higher and we have to understand these manifestations and act from this understanding in order to make the lower conform to the higher. It is not true that the purpose of intellect is to discover opposites (Of what use is that to anyone?) but to discover the correct inter-relationship.
It might be argued that the rook is more mobile and therefore lighter than the bishop but care has to be taken in translating pure idea into its manifestations. The bishop is capable of the longest possible movement but this freedom is lost when moved from the centre. Intellect can lose its vision when spiritual awareness is lost and becomes less effective. The rooks are awkward pieces to get moving and are mobilized last.
The knight comes between the bishop and the rook and symbolizes the governing of the lower by the higher. It is achieved in the soul by purifying the emotions in spiritual devotion making this piece more appropriate to the religious life than the bishop. This piece at least is appropriately named since the harmony of horse and rider and the chivalry practised by the medieval knights are related to this path, as are all acts of love.
The knight is limited in range of movement because it is not the part of
the emotions to understand. The power of this piece is its ability to surmount obstacles which are more often than not created by our own pieces. A fragmented psyche makes us our own worst enemy and the solution is to raise our passions to the refined heights and detach ourselves from the lower.
The queen combines the powers of the rook and the bishop which gives the power to govern matter from knowledge of the Spirit. It is the ability of the queen to act as a rook
which gives it the ability to act as both a white square bishop and a black square bishop. The eight directions of movement correspond to the main seasonal festivals. The solstices and equinoxes correspond to the horizontal plane of matter being actualised by the direct descent of the Spirit which give rise to the rectilinear movement of the rook. The cross quarter festivals symbolize the movement from one state to another which is possible because each state is an unfolding of the centre which the direct perception of the Spirit enables us to understand.
If we are to follow true military tradition we must think of the infantry last. The pawns symbolize the human souls. Each pawn is attached to a piece because each soul reflects an
archetypal state. We have a true self which is unique and we are always trying to act from our true self. Through the loss of spiritual awareness we have fallen into a world of conflict through which we progress with the correct balance of courage and prudence. If we surmount all dangers we attain to perfection with the same freedom of action as the queen.
The battle is fought by the correct moves by which the pieces support each other which reflects the inter-relationship of the power of the archetypes. No material thing has power of itself. Archetypal relationships are flexible and can be adapted to circumstances but are not arbitrary. It must be a relationship that works. Sound tactics consist of getting all the pieces active. There should be no inactive powers of the soul. The mutual support of the pieces is also reflected as moral behaviour. It is always a sounder tactic for the pawn to take inwards than outwards. Decisions should always take us to the centre. The fact that two pawns cannot pass proves the limitations of force. The principle tactic is to occupy the centre of the board where the greatest freedom occurs. There has to be a readiness to sacrifice.
There is no centre square on the board. The Spirit does not manifest openly in the world of action but is intangible and indiscernible. Worldly activities move round the Spirit.
Every move we make is dictated by a situation created by our past moves to which our opponent has adapted. We are oppressed by our own faults from which we must free ourselves by heroic effort. The object is to checkmate the opposing king by which we surmount all conflict and attain spiritual harmony. Since this harmony can only be attained by pursuing the opposing king this piece, though seen as evil, can be none other than the Spirit in perfection. By penetrating the opposing defence we are penetrating illusion. All things, however evil they may seem, are all part of the same cosmic order but because our lower nature fragments it rebels against us. The conflicts of our life are outer manifestations of the chaos of the lower psyche. However maliciously intended our suffering it cannot be other than fate and fate cannot be other than good because it corresponds exactly to the present imbalances of the soul. Each of the opposing pieces represents a particular aspect of our passionate nature and its taking is a penetrating through the tangle of illusions to clearer perception.
If we lose the game we are simply withdrawing into a state of equilibrium which is the best means of spiritual development when we are unable to act. The triumph of evil and even of ignorance and crudity force the development of aspects of character which we would not normally cultivate.
The final stage of the game has something in common with hunting which is a stalking of the quarry. At every stage of the game it is necessary to predict your opponent's movements
which emerge from the logic of the situation but at the final stage we are trying to head off a movement before it occurs. It is ironic that modern antirationalism started with Noble Savage theories because the whole point of hunting is harmony of action through intellect. It takes a rationalist to be a Noble Savage. Think like your opponent, act like your opponent, be one with
your opponent. Attain this and you will have no opposition to your actions. If you have no opposition you must be perfect.
May She be with you,
David.