While I have spoken of poesis quite extensively in my works, I have yet to create a fully systematic and well-delineated definition for this concept which has become key to Sodean Theology and Theurgical practices. I even have an article describing how one should use poesis to drive their life towards heaven, but what this does not describe is how poesis can be a model used towards truth in just about every metaphysical domain. Therefore, I will not tarry in introductions, but instead will tumble directly into the description of this concept, a concept which I believe guides human experience and social interactions, societal conflict, aufheben, and indeed even the entire universe.
The oft-used-and-abused aphorism that “history repeats itself”, may perhaps be named the seed of poesitical thought. However, the reality of history is quite obviously much more complicated, and indeed it is my position that this sort of eternal recurrence both extends to far more than just history, but also people, their behaviors, their lives, their societies, their national identities, etc. I would also contest that this motion is simply a repetition, but instead a sort of song. Sound, as we all know, travels in waves, and it is upon these waves that history and human life rides. Are these waves repetitive in nature? Yes, certainly — in the case of an instrument, the wave will roughly react inversely as it travels through space in some form resembling the initial impulse that the instrument created. The shape and qualitative properties of these waves vary, and in music I believe they call this timbre. This is what gives each instrument or vocal its own unique sound, distinct from merely a pure sinusoidal tone that happens to be at the same pitch.
So, with this sort of disruption to a perfect symmetry, if we continue applying this idea to poesis and the concept of a repeated history, and further extend it, as I have stated, towards, for a few examples: an individual’s own personal live, history, or universal eschatology, then one can both observe immediately that these things never repeat exactly, but they do have repetitive natures insofar as people’s lives are often occupied by some themes (a few examples could be certain emotional, sexual, or social themes), as can certain histories be of changing themes, tones, melodies, and so on. But there is always a sort of repetition that is happening, and it is really not hard to see when one studies history or even their own lives.
I initially chose the word poesis, because it is a word which has quite ancient origins in Greek and, indeed, this is the Latinized form — so very dear to my heart — but also because it is really poetry which is at the center of all such arts. Poetry or poetic brilliance is inseparable from music or any other representation of divine creativity, and indeed I am not a musician but instead a poet, so I am of course biased towards this end.
In any case, to return fully to the topic at hand, I believe that one piece of this where people are oft confused is when it comes to the orchestrating of one’s own personal poesis and how that affects their life. I would argue that it is an imperative of the Sod to produce the greatest of poetry out of their life, and indeed allow others to similarly produce such poetry, and even further beyond that, to build towards the great song of humanity as it passes through its dramatic or melancholy lows and ecstatic or euphoric highs.
However, these personal poeses are not in reality individual items, but rather strands in the great loom of the Fates through which the eschatology and song of the universe itself is weaved. If you imagine the tale of all creation as a sort of poetic epic, though something which exceeds an epic in all ways (timespan, dimensionality, depth, language, etc), then you have formed some filament with which you can begin to weave the idea of poesis in your own mind. Poesis has no end nor beginning, just as God, and represents the predestiny that is eminent from great circumstances borne of electio gravis — a serious or heavy decision.
Electio gravis is when free will prevails over predestiny, and it is when an individual diverges in color, shape, or weaving of this loom of eternity which indeed the fates eventually do weave. These are consequential decisions which cannot be brought back into equilibrium without great poetic forces acting upon them. This too, happens at different scales. The beginning of the first World War was certainly a massively impactful electio gravis, but so is one’s choices when it comes to their relationships, careers, arts as these pertain to that individual’s (or their collective social group’s) own poesis — their own artful state of life.
However, a great and beautiful life is not without its pitfalls, and it is in the aforementioned article in which I describe these, however, I describe the “ascendant” periods of life or history to be “In Caelo” , or “In Heaven”, whereas I like to call the descendent periods as “Ex Caelo”, or “[explosively] out of Heaven”. The reason for the contrast in these, ie. that one has some motion associated with it and the other does not. This is construed as such because I believe the natural timbre of poesis tends to result in very rapid declines followed by mellow and plateaued inclines. These inclines give way to more violent or dramatic collapses, sometimes to result in goodness but also sometimes to end in great pain and suffering. But without such experience of life, one cannot come to a true relationship with God.
Thus, poesis and our striving towards poesis, or poetic harmony, is a way for humans to commune with God in a meaningful way. Like Aeneas, we must delve into the depths of hell before we reach our ultimate glory, and we must have some triumphs before falling into hell or, in todays language, risk. But this model, because history is composed of human interactions, is also very useful for predicting history, and thus that is why “history always repeats itself”.
I suspect the cosmos are much the same way, but that is not my expertise.
To conclude, I will leave you with an excerpt from Polybius on the systematic way in which history moves forth.
For what gives my work its peculiar quality, and what is most remarkable in the present age, is this. Fortune has guided almost all the affairs of the world in one direction and has forced them to incline towards one and the same end; a historian should likewise bring before his readers under one synoptical view the operations by which she has accomplished her general purpose. Indeed it was this chiefly that invited and encouraged me to undertake my task; and secondarily the fact that none of my contemporaries have undertaken to write a general history, in which case I should have been much less eager to take this in hand. As it is, I observe that while several modern writers deal with particular wars and certain matters connected with them, no one, as far as I am aware, has even attempted to inquire critically when and whence the general and comprehensive scheme of events originated and how it led up to the end. 4 I therefore thought it quite necessary not to leave unnoticed or allow to pass into oblivion this the finest and most beneficent of the performances of Fortune. For though she is ever producing something new and ever playing a part in the lives of men, she has not in a single instance ever accomplished such a work, ever achieved such a triumph, as in our own times. We can no more hope to perceive this from histories dealing with particular events than to get at once a notion of the form of the whole world, its disposition and order, by visiting, each in turn, the most famous cities, or indeed by looking at separate plans of each: a result by no means likely. 7 He indeed who believes that by studying isolated histories he can acquire a fairly just view of history as a whole, is, as it seems to me, much in the case of one, who, after having looked at the dissevered limbs of an animal once alive and beautiful, fancies he has been as good as an eyewitness of the creature itself in all its action and grace. For could anyone put the creature together on the spot, restoring its form and the comeliness of life, and then show it to the same man, I think he would quickly avow that he was formerly very far away from the truth and more like one in a dream. 9 For we can get some idea of a whole from a part, but never knowledge or exact opinion. Special histories therefore contribute very little to the knowledge of the whole and conviction of its truth. It is only indeed by study of the interconnexion of all the particulars, their resemblances and differences, that we are enabled at least to make a general survey, and thus derive both benefit and pleasure from history.
Polybius I 4
Amore feliceque,
ARX