There are two doors open to us: the last man (or ultimate man), and the superman.
Our favorite Last Man is the normie, but there are many other kinds. They all share blind dogmatism in common, whether of the physicalist or organized faith variety. Unfortunately, physicalism attracts many of the top minds of the world. This means all of the highest IQ people, such as in places like East Asia which have weak religious standing, become atheist materialists. As an aside, this is one reason I have great hope for India as it is the superpower with the brightest spiritual light. A high IQ person who is also metaphysically gifted is an incredibly rare find. This is the type of differentiated man that Evola writes about because it is only he who can become a superman himself in this life or a future one, and whom knows how to bring about the conditions for superman.
The Last Man is dispositionally unable to appreciate the peaks of human consciousness because he lives on a Flat Earth, spiritually speaking. As a 2-D planewalker, he has no means to connect events, phenomena and effects from third-dimensional depth together. He sees them as random accidents and mutations without a cause. Because he can only perceive causes that lie within his 2-D plane. When an object appears on his world with an extension beyond his plane, he can only see a flat line that moves as he walks around it. Then this object would seemingly vanish out of existence for him when it leaves contact with his plane. This is how the Last Man perceives reality. He is a 2-D planewalker who is incapable of making sense of extensions into spirit and consciousness that lie beyond him. This also makes the Last Man a vulgar rationalist who can’t appreciate music, poetry or art. Unconsciously his beliefs subjugate his experience to the immediate likely and reasonable. He would never dare to feel in the way Nietzsche feels when he listens to music.
“I become a better man when Bizet speaks to me. Also a better musician, a better listener. Is it at all possible to listen still better? I continue to bury my ears beneath this music; I hear its wellsprings. It seems to me that I experience its development, its evolving. I tremble in face of dangers which accompany any daring adventure. I am delighted with happy fortunes for which Bizet is not responsible. And, strange, fundamentally I do not think about it, nor do I even know how much I ponder about it. For, meanwhile, entirely different thoughts run through my head. Has one noticed that music frees the spirit, gives wings to the thoughts, that one becomes more of a philosopher, the more one becomes a musician, that the grey heavens of abstraction are lighted by flashes of lightning, that the light is strong enough for all the tracery of things, the large problems near enough for grasping, and the world is seen as from a mountain? I have just defined philosophical pathos. And, inadvertently, answers fall into my lap, a small hail of ice and wisdom, of solved problems. Where am I? Bizet makes me fruitful. All good makes me fruitful. I have no other gratitude, I also have no other measure for that which is good.”
Nietzsche, Case of Wagner
“My objections to Wagner’s music are physiological objections… As a fact, my petit fait vrai is that I no longer breathe easily when this music first begins to work upon me; that soon my foot becomes angry with it and revolts: it desires to beat, dance, march. It demands first of all from the music the pleasures which lie in good walking, striding dancing. But doesn’t my stomach also protest? My heart? My circulation? Do not my intestines also grieve? Do I not become unknowingly hoarse? And so I ask myself, ‘What does my entire body really want from this music?’ I believe that it seeks levitation. It is as if all animal functions become accelerated through these light, bold, abandoned, self-sure rhythms; as if the brazen, leaden life would lose its weight through the golden tender flow of oily melodies. My melancholy heaviness could rest in the hide and seek and in the abysses of perfection; but for that I need music.”
Nietzsche, Contra Wagner
The last man believes reality is seen from the first-person-brain perspective. We are brains plugged-in to two-legged bodies who strive through every field of human study and civilizational endeavor to grow our brains bigger. The experiences of life are but the (magical) self-awareness of material recompositions of brain matter itself. The particularities of this self-awareness are governed by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: ‘The ever productive and destructive surge for energetic equilibrium or structured dissipation’. That which advances structured dissipation (of the solar gradient) is the evolutionary survival of the fittest brains (and their extension into technologically advanced civilizations).
The occult goal of the superman remains but it is for the superbrain, and it is accomplished by the established social orders which compete in geopolitical and historical dialectics. Man’s brain grows progressively bigger through generations of eating nutrition dense food and moving along the Tech Tree.
Hence the Last Man doesn’t have any hope for himself as an individual brain. His existence is an illusion created by the cold teleology of physicalist science which sees life on earth, in its infinite splendor and mystery, as a mere reaction to the sun’s heat. All spirituality is an illusion because there are no higher orders to reality beyond the forseeable horizon of known science, and because he is only a brain and his entire realm of experience is modulated by material brain conditions. The Last Man doesn’t need to consciously will evolution because physicalist science has implicitly assured him the species is compelled to adapt due to thermodynamic laws irregardless of his individual efforts.
“The more valuable type has been described often enough, but as a happy fortune, as an exception, never as consciously willed. Moreover, he specifically is most feared; until now he was almost the most terrible one; and out of the terror the reverse type was willed, bred, achieved: the domestic animal, the herd animal, the sick animal man—the Christ.”
Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ
The superman is dangerous because of the charismatic force of his self-hypnotic suggestive delusions. This is the Last Man’s view.
The superman’s view is that reality is seen from first-person-spirit or first-person-spiritual-reality. And superman has walked the earth before and will walk it again. And it has nothing to do with scientific, civilizational or collective innovation. It is a hyper-individualistic attainment that happens in spite of global social orders. Thus evolution doesn’t refer to the biological migration of the masses over time towards a more fit future. For the esoterist, there is no evolution of the masses at all - only devolution from brief peaks. The only evolution is of the individual during his lives present and future.
The occultist thinks in terms of species of devolution from the superman: Christianity is the devolution from the Christ superman, Buddhism from the Buddha superman, and so on. The masses either belong to these spiritual Last Man species or they belong to the atheistic Last Man species. The only meaning of religion is the esoteric one which reads the doctrine as a way towards the superman. These are what the prophets and their messengers represent, as well as do other Hegelian World Historical Figures, in a lesser way. They are all emissaries of the superman archetype which is the meaning of man and the meaning of the earth.
“We, the new, the nameless, the incomprehensible, we firstlings of a yet untried future, we require for a new purpose a new means, namely a new health, a stronger, sharper, tougher, bolder, more audacious health than any previous states of health. The one whose soul bursts to experience the whole range of hitherto recognized values and wishes, and whose soul thirsts to sail around all shores of this ideal ‘Mediterranean,’ wants to know from his most personal adventures how it feels to be a conqueror and discoverer of ideals… he requires one thing above all, health… And now, after having been long on the way, we Argonauts of the ideal, more courageous perhaps than prudent, it will seem to us as recompense for it all that we have before us a still undiscovered land… After such outlooks and with such a craving in our conscience and consciousness, how can we allow ourselves to be satisfied with the man of the present day?”
Nietzsche, Joyful Wisdom
Man does not resemble mineral or plant processes found in nature until his body becomes a corpse. While he is alive there are witnessed effects whose causes are born on another plane. Thus there is unpredictability in his action and that becomes even bigger as he reflects on it within himself. There is seemingly a background nothingness from which suddenly springs into action a plethora of impulses, intuitions, thoughts and sensations. We can observe our inner life as a kind of chaos and as we watch we must choose. We must decide on behalf of this or that emotional state. We choose on the basis of what pleases us.
What pleases the superman is an entirely different array of emotional instincts than what pleases the Last Man. The superman is not such a vulgar rationalist as to decide on the basis of a presumed ultimate truth. He decides on the basis of what pleases him as the inheritor of the earth. He doesn’t need to justify his freedom to the Last Man because to do so would be submitting against self-apparent truth. The Last Man meanwhile would like to be comforted and reassured by an external, objective proof for his convictions. He would like Mother and Father to approve of his freedom.
The superman knows and feels, and he doesn’t care less about convincing the Last Man with words and proofs that appease his shallow intellect. Instead he demonstrates with deeds and leaves his mark in History. And at the same time, he speaks of his own as God’s work because that’s the language the others will understand. Because the Last Men are always looking outwardly for approval the superman has invented the ultimate Father figure to give himself authority over the meek. It is a curious fact that all of the superman have agreed on this tactic of the Noble Lie. The Last Man doesn’t see and he doesn’t hear, but he knows what he wants to believe. And he will believe it regardless of wherever whomever is leading him is going. So the few who attain to superman inherit the role of leading the blind whom are the spiritual equivalent of children.
This isn’t to say ‘God’ is ultimately unreal, but in its basic caricature to the Last Man it is unreal, a noble lie. No belief can ever capture reality. Only the superman knows and he cannot convey it except through the sacred made frozen. What we call the sacred (e.g. an object or word) is already but a memory of that presence which passed through. The real sacred isn’t limited by any language, thought, sensation or concept of man. It is just as the 2-D planewalker could have no concept of the blood flowing through the hand of five moving flat circles which touched upon his plane. The superman knows because he is not of this 2-D plane, he is not of the world. He thus seems to be a god.
How did the superman attain to this? We must remember that the words of a superman are always esoteric instructions, he does and says nothing meaninglessly. As far as the records are true, every notation we have from their lives is a coded instruction. All we know from their own tongue are the parables and words a superman exchanged to groups of Last Man whom he thought were a cut above the rest. From these records it appears that the Last Man can at least stop being ignorantly ignorant and acknowledge his ignorance so as to walk towards knowing. This initial shedding of insistent not-knowing is a quality in-itself rare to a few, the kind of rarity the superman found in immediate disciples.
At the same time, these initial followers were somewhat ordinary people which shows how common this quality or potential must be. These chosen Last Men were supermen-to-be, perhaps in a future life, and were tasked with handing down the Message (e.g. esoteric doctrine) to later generations. Having been closer to the masses themselves, both in-birth and psychologically, these disciples could more readily communicate to the next step-down in spiritual calibre: the possible-yet-knowers. After some time the disciples too died, and the circle of influence grew less concentrated, the Message itself is lost in translation.
If we really examine the Last Man, the standard for overcoming him is not so high. The first hurdle is self-awareness of your irrevocable freedom as consciousness. Taken to its conclusion, this freedom spells the psychological death of the Last Man. The next trouble is the entrenched power of the Last Man over all institutions to block any ascension. As technology develops so does the establishment of the Last Man tighten and control to limit its liberatory potential. Only a few loopholes exist like what we have here. The superman that appears today will be a danger to all established social orders. He cannot be welcomed by any nation, church or political association. Because these all belong to termites.
The purpose of the Noble Lie in religion is esoteric instruction. The Last Man is psychologically a child. If you want a child to be hardworking rather than a lazy smartass who-thinks-he-knows-it-all you have to scare him. You implant visions in his head where he is alone and must rely upon himself, and others where he is deprived of all of the things he likes if he doesn’t obey. You do this because otherwise the child won’t follow his own best interest. In learning to obey adults who know his best interest, you hope the child learns what is right without being told.
That’s what ideal development would look like. But it doesn’t happen that way because it is too convenient to keep a person on a psychological leash for his whole life. The lesson the child often learns is how to please his master to get what he wants. The pedagogical relationship between adults and their children worldwide is one of symbolic prostitution.
The pedagogy of superman is more robust because he knows exactly how differently his message will be taken by each being who hears it. He teaches about Hell, and hellish realms, to scare the Last Man into following his instruction for his own best interest. Superman knows the Last Man is a vulgar rationalist who thinks literally, just like a child, and so he clothes his doctrine in terms appropriate to the psychology of the Last Man. If he doesn’t frighten him then the Last Man will continue blinking and taking care not to get indigestion while neglecting all the potential inherent to him.
The Superman must act with infinite love and patience just as a parent towards a small child. It isn’t for lack of trying that children around 3 years old are terrible at just about everything. Likewise the Last Man detects there is much that he cannot do and that which he attempts always ends in blunder. Whereas the Superman, like an adult to the child, is as if a god who moves effortlessly and gracefully over obstacles. The Last Man cannot even detach from his own opinions in order to consider a matter objectively. Whereas Superman is without any self, ego, or opinions and yet speaks immaculately about the highest truths.
The Last Man’s life is filled with romantic problems, family problems, personal grievances, petty differences with colleagues and coworkers, he stresses over everything, he can’t sleep, he suffers imposter syndrome and from every other possible disorder. Yet the Superman is villified by empire, cast out of society, openly mocked and slandered, threats are constantly made against his life and yet he is a beacon of integrity, peace and strength. The Superman is seemingly untroubled by all of the conflicts that surround him.
One of the defining traits of superman is he can see the plane of invisible causes hidden from Last Man. How is this possible? We can consider an analogy from physiology. We are able to objectively observe the cause of a disturbance in our liver (or, our stomach) because the facts of our observation do not interfere with the facts of the disturbance. However, when an ego tries to observe a problem it never does so objectively, detached and from a distance. The ego already arrives to the scene with an intention. It has a plan to make this go away, make that come back, give me more of this, and give me less of that.
The psychology of the Last Man is such that he is by-definition unable to observe himself. Any attempt to watch his own mind is a covert attempt to change his own mind. Even in recognizing this fact, which is a considerable achievement, he doesn’t know how to fix it. His problem is that he always seeks for a how, a method, or a new technique. It is like he is morally restricted from arriving to the scene of a tragedy without bringing tools to come and help the survivors. But the tragedy is himself and any tools will just cause the cave to collapse faster.
This perplexes him because it goes against all of the principles which serve him in his worldly life. He should be able to do something about it, so he thinks. However, superman says, there is nothing to be done. If anything is to be done, says superman, it is that you must renounce your name, your possessions and all of your relationships. The superman challenges Last Man into a corner to press the issue of psychological death. Yet he is fully aware that only a select few will be up to the task.
Superman then gives esoteric instruction in the doctrines of Good and Evil, karma, dependent origination and rebirth. The purpose isn’t to elucidate a comprehensive scientific model of cosmology as the Last Man inevitably interprets it as. The superman knows this will happen and thus he teaches in such a way to discriminate a few from amongst the many. The many are literalists who seek to build a model of reality to feign security from the random chaos of life and death. The few will see deeper into the doctrine and walk its path. The very few will realize the walking of the path is too but an esoteric method or device.
This is analogous to how some enjoy social media to become popular, others to build a niche and others to data-mine demographic data to run simulations on future consumer behavior to plan how to manipulate a public into mass formation psychosis under the pretense of a pandemic. There are levels to using the internet. At the highest level, PUBG is a datamining service that feeds behavior from different population sectors into wargaming scenarios ran by think tanks. Likewise the belief in Good and Evil, for example, cultivates the psychological conditions for certain kinds of action, thoughts and moods. And superman sees how these will be extended into civilization.
Thus he presents to not one but at least three audiences, and every word must be understood three different ways. The first audience is the never-knowing masses who interpret literally, and will later reject faith for a different dogma. The second audience is the yet-knowers who will reform and teach the first audience from a higher understanding. The third audience is those who can see and hear and will carry on the Work of bringing the conditions for revelation closer and closer.
The next trait of the superman is their masterful keeping of the pulse of the people of their time. They knew the psychology of their people greater than any one else ever has. They knew exactly how far to push, how to speak, how to conduct themselves and how to relate. They were flawlessly of their own time while spiritually residing in eternal truth.
