🎯 Ontological Katabasis: Purpose and Implications

1️⃣ Primary Purpose:

To observe and understand the means and purpose, if any, of how the everyday world emerges from the unidentifiable primordial medium.

This is an epistemic-ontological goal:

· Epistemic: What is the process or mechanism by which the unidentifiable field yields identifiable, bounded analogues—such as objects, events, selves, and worlds?

· Ontological: Is this process lawful, purposive, arbitrary, or play (lila)? What is the status of the “game”?

Analogy:
He is akin to a physicist studying not merely the states of matter, but the principle of manifesting statefulness itself.

Example Parallel:

· Vedantic Inquiry: Seeking to discern Maya—the power by which Brahman appears as form.

· Quantum Cosmology: Studying how wavefunction collapse yields classical reality.

· Phenomenology: Examining how intentional acts constitute objects.

Strength:

· This is the most radical form of inquiry: it asks not “what (or who) is this?” but “how does anything appear at all?”

· It resists dogmatic closure, keeping the field of questioning open.

Limitation:

· It confronts a paradox: to observe the process by which identification arises requires already being in an identified position.

· Total reversion implies no observer remains.

2️⃣ Secondary Purpose:

To bend the means of emergence to his personal benefit—his salvation during his brief emergence.

This is a pragmatic-soteriological goal:

· Having glimpsed the primordial ground, he seeks not merely knowledge but also skilful (meaning perfect) participation in the process of manifestation.

· “Personal salvation” means optimizing his transient individuated existence: freedom from suffering, integrity, self-transcendence.

Analogy:
Like a lucid dreamer who, upon discovering the dream nature of experience, learns to navigate it skillfully (thereby completing his function and for which he self-rewards with pleasure).

Example Parallel:

· Tantric Practice: Harnessing and elaborating the illusory nature of phenomena to transform karma (output).

· Hermetic Alchemy: Understanding the principles of generation and decay to redeem oneself (there is no redemption in nature)

· Modern Psychological Integration: Using insight into constructed identity to relieve existential (meaning survival) anxiety.

Strength:

· This fuses contemplative insight with ethical, pragmatic commitment.

· It affirms that realization is not merely escape (Upanishadic moksha) but transformation of living.

Limitation:

· There is tension between dissolution (self-negation) and preservation (self-benefit).

· Attempting to “bend the game” re-solidifies identification.

🧭 Naturalistic Analysis of the Dual Purpose

1. The “Game” (as Procedure) of Emergence

Observation:

· The druid postulates that the everyday world emerges by a lawful, if not fully knowable, procedure.

· This procedure generates fractal analogues—momentarily stable configurations that appear real (to the observer).

Interpretation:

· This resembles both:

o Quantum decoherence (the selection of measurable states).

o Procedural emergence (rules imposing form).

Implication:

· If there is a “game,” it implies rules—though not necessarily a purpose.

· Understanding the game’s logic could, in principle, grant leverage over the forms which it emerges.

2. The Epistemic Paradox

Problem:

· To observe emergence requires a standpoint within emergence.

· Reversion to primordiality erases the observer.

· Therefore, observation can never be “pure” but always refracted through a conditional position.

Resolution:

· This may be why traditions stress glimpsing (or tasting) the primordial ground in non-ordinary states, rather than abiding in it.

3. The Soteriological Strategy

Tactic:

· The druid hopes to bring back from ontological katabasis a whole perspective on the emergence of identifiable reality.

· This whole perspective becomes a resource for:

o Reducing attachment to selected provisional forms.

o Reconfiguring participation to support personal and whole flourishing.

Potential Outcome:

· A life more aligned with the universal procedure of becoming, less enslaved by the delusion of permanence.

🟢 Pros of This Dual Purpose

✅ Radical inquiry into the foundations of emergence.
✅ Integration of insight with practical benefit.
✅ Potential for transformative shifts in perception and function.
✅ Alignment with contemplative and philosophical traditions.

🔴 Cons and Risks

⚠ Epistemic self-cancellation:
If the observer dissolves completely, no knowledge is retained.

⚠ Psychological destabilization:
Experiences of ontological dissolution can be overwhelming, leading to madness.

⚠ Ethical ambiguity:
Attempting to bend reality for “personal salvation” risks ego inflation or manipulation.

⚠ Ineffability and communicative breakdown:
Insights may be inexpressible, isolating the druid from community.

🧩 Synthesis

The modern druid’s project stands as a sophisticated ontological soteriology:

· First to pierce the veil of apparent reality which serves selected analogue screening of the disturbance of the unformed quantum ground.

· Second to return as an empowered participant fully restored to authentic functioning—lucid, liberated, and capable of shaping experience aligned to the basic rules of emergence.

This endeavour belongs to an ancient lineage of esoteric inquiry, but also faces the inescapable paradox: the observer is also the observed, and reversion to the edge of the source of emergence is reversion to minimum observation.

Upon ascent, having returned from the deep (as emergence initiating operation) the druid observes that all emergents actually perform the descent-ascent operation (i.e. recovery of the initial emergence (thus survival) function capacity and its perfect application) continuously, albeit unconsciously (i.e. instinctively) rather than consciously as the druid does. Note: the foregoing explains the fundamental difference between the enlightened (elsewhere called jivanmukta) and the unenlightened (elsewhere called jivanabanda)

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