Monday, January 14, 2013

Metabolism V - Physiognomy (Pituitary)



The last character of this saga is known as the Ignorant Genius.  In the metabolism of time he is The Altered Future.  The Bloodless Being represents the last effects of the last moment, that go on to influence the future in order to release the next moment which is then 'reduced' into perception by the Ignorant Fool.

THE IGNORANT GENIUS
In the vision of my youth, the Ignorant Genius was revealed to dwell at the very top of the world, in the mountains, where great machines attached to his observatory pulled the clouds from the sky because they were obstructing his view of the stars*.  This desire to know, to push back the sphere of ignorance onto itself, quite literally creates time - as the twin rivers that flow from the machines to their source in the Great White Sea - and the habitats of the characters that accompany the various phases of it**, characters that we have been discussing in these sections on physiognomy.





In the web of the endocrine glands the Ignorant Genius is associated with the pituitary which is, if you forgive the colourful expression, 'the master alchemist' of the whole system.  It monitors the concentration of the various hormones in the blood and when they dip below their natural level, because of reabsorption, signals are sent from there to instruct the other glands to produce more of their own particular 'potions'.  The levels of hormones, once set at adulthood, are intent on keeping you yourself, for your age.

Typically these characters have rather large faces with large features (not just the eyes, but the nose and brow and pay attention to differences between them and thyroidal types, but also remember the paths...) and they are likely to be tall (because of the growth hormone produced here).  They are very interested in the identities of people and are good at leading them because of it - not necessarily in the front line, perhaps in the strategy department of a business, perhaps in the form of an electrifying writer or director.  Their sense of identity with the future leads them to be particularly interested in technology (sci-fi), progress and destiny.  Not necessarily spiritual they have clear vision of where things are going.


Qabalistically the Ignorant Genius is a personification*** of the Sefira Keter, the 'source' of the ToL, and associated with the tip of the Yod, also the World to Come, i.e. the Future.  A deeper understanding of how the future is associated with the start is in an interpretation of the first word of the Torah, Berashith.  The letter B is a prefix for 'in' (in Hebrew) the English translation leads us to read the first line as 'in the beginning' and consequently in our linear spatial-perception of such things as 'at the beginning'.  But equally that prefix of B could be seen to mean 'within', so we have this idea of being within the beginning.  The beginning is quite a grand mystical concept when seen in this light, it has the Buddhist notion of 'becoming' as an eternal state of the universe.  We can also change the notion of 'Elohim' as a male prefix and a female suffix to be something like 'Being(s)'.  Instead of 'At the beginning God created', we can read 'Within the Beginning, Being(s) Create(s)'.  This is closer to the reality of our situation and in one way or another the Ignorant Genius will carry it with them as a mantra.  Creation, human creation, is sacred to them, most particularly their own.

*Insight - this probably relates to the blood brain barrier.  Ah ha. Hmmmmm.

**The Ignorant Genius does not create the characters themselves.  The characters themselves are created by a process of the fragmentation of the 'Fool' a mythical being which once contained them all and which is now more of a husk in the form of the Ignorant Fool (i.e. serotonin) - an anthropomorphised 'shevirat ha kelim'.  The Prisoner for instance is the Fools conscience and sense of guilt, the Ignorant Genius his creative genius free of the restraint of the conscience and the sense of guilt.  One of the tasks in the remit of the Ignorant Genius is to endeavour to rectify the worlds by restoring the original mythical Fool.  In our lives this process is undertaken through a series of psychodramas where we meet the fragmented identity of ourselves in the characters we encounter and through dialogue and other action reconstruct what was lost.  Success in this endeavour, difficult though it is, is Eudaimonia.

***Partzuf.

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