Religion and the Rebel

1. The Outsider: A Rebel Against Spiritual Futility in Civilization

Essentially, he seemed to be a rebel; and what he was in rebellion against was the lack of spiritual tension in a materially prosperous civilisation.

Defining the Outsider. The Outsider is a figure haunted by a sense of life's futility, feeling lonely and alienated in a world of perceived mediocrity and degraded intellectual standards. This rebellion stems from a deep dissatisfaction with the narrow range of everyday consciousness and a yearning for something more.

Symptom of decline. The Outsider is seen as a symptom of a civilization's spiritual sickness and decline, appearing when society lacks spiritual tension despite material prosperity. They are individuals healthy enough to fight against this sickness, unlike those who passively succumb.

Extending consciousness. The core urge driving the Outsider is the desire to extend the range of human consciousness beyond its usual limited scope. This pursuit is seen as man's primary business, a quest for intuition of "unknown modes of being" and a sense of purpose lost in modern life's noise and routine.

2. Autobiographical Roots: Philosophy as Self-Analysis and the Quest for More Life

Philosophy is nothing if it is not an attempt to take one’s own experience apart under a microscope.

Personal starting point. The author's own experiences of boredom, futility, and self-contempt formed the groundwork for his analysis of the Outsider. Early encounters with science (Einstein, Jeans, Eddington) and philosophy (Adler, Nietzsche) sparked a realization that conventional notions of 'right' and 'wrong' were relative, and human conflict often stemmed from a will to self-assertion driven by inferiority complexes.

The 'Superiority' essay. A pivotal moment came at age twelve with an essay analyzing human motivation, leading to a terrifying insight into the futility of life and the destructive nature of 'truth' without life-intensifying power. This period was marked by a sense of being cut off and a gloomy certainty that life was an escape from horror.

The suicide insight. A turning point arrived during a moment of contemplating suicide, where the vivid sensation of drinking acid brought a sudden, clear realization: what was truly desired was not less life, but more. This experience, though fleeting, revealed the possibility of mastering destiny and striving for increased vitality and insight.

3. Civilization's Decline: Outsiders as Symptoms of Lost Purpose

The Outsider only exists because our civilisation has lost its religion.

Spengler's vision. Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West" is presented as a historical existentialist work, arguing that civilizations, like organisms, are born, mature, and die. Spengler saw history not as linear progress but as a series of distinct "cultures" (like the Faustian West) with unique mathematical, artistic, and philosophical expressions, each destined for inevitable decay.

Anti-abstract stance. Spengler, like the Outsider, revolted against "abstract philosophy" and materialism, which he saw as symptoms of Western decline. He emphasized intuition over logic, viewing great thinkers and artists as possessing a vital sense of meaning, unlike the academic "dust-grubbers."

Loss of purpose. The core connection is that the Outsider's sense of urgency and doom mirrors Spengler's view of civilization's approaching collapse. Both see the loss of a unifying religious or spiritual purpose as the fundamental problem, leading to a focus on material concerns and a decline in spiritual vitality.

4. The Visionary Path: Seeking Intensity and a Different Way of Seeing

Complete isolation—that is what the Outsider is driving at.

Rilke's struggle. Rainer Maria Rilke is presented as an Outsider poet who, despite personal struggles and effeminate tendencies, achieved profound insights through intense self-creation and a deliberate effort to see the world differently. His early life and military school experience shaped a sensitive temperament, but his encounters with Russia and Rodin brought spiritual and artistic focus.

Making oneself a visionary. Rilke's core idea, shared with Blake and Rimbaud, was that the poet must "make himself a visionary" through intense experience and a conscious effort to assimilate it. This involves cutting oneself off from conventional ways of seeing and striving for a radical transformation of perception.

Affirmation despite suffering. Rilke's concept of "dennoch preisen" (to praise in spite of) and his Duino Elegies embody the struggle to affirm life and beauty even amidst terror and suffering. This existentialist affirmation, seen also in Joyce's Ulysses, represents a striving for super-consciousness by embracing, rather than avoiding, difficult experiences.

5. Religious Outsiders: Mysticism as a Science of Inner Exploration

The mystic’s view of the world is a view that sees everything as beauty.

Boehme's insight. Jacob Boehme, the German mystic, is presented as an early psychologist who sought to understand how to become a visionary. His mystical insights, sparked by visions like the reflection in a pewter dish, led him to explore the inner world and its connection to the divine.

Psychology of the soul. Boehme's work, though often obscure, is interpreted as an attempt to map the human soul and its latent states of consciousness. Unlike modern psychology focused on neurosis, Boehme's "real psychology" is concerned with supernormal states and the process of self-transformation through will and discipline.

Inner warfare. Mysticism, in this context, is not passive contemplation but an active "unseen warfare" against the "cold and half-dead body" and the limitations of ordinary consciousness. The goal is to achieve a state of intense vitality and perception, where the world is seen as a manifestation of divine glory, a vision accessible through disciplined inner exploration.

6. Existentialism: The Philosophy of Will and Self-Transformation

Existentialism states that the most important fact about man is his ability to change himself.

Pascal's quest. Blaise Pascal, a scientific genius turned religious thinker, embodies the existentialist struggle for meaning and certainty. His conversion to Jansenism and subsequent spiritual crises, culminating in the "fire" vision, highlight the Outsider's craving for purpose and the rejection of lukewarm existence.

Beyond logic. Pascal's Pensées, though incomplete, represent an attempt to justify religion by exposing the "misery" of man without God. He argued that logic alone is insufficient for grasping ultimate truth, which is found through intuition, conscience, and a passionate search for meaning, anticipating existentialist critiques of abstract thought.

Self-creation. The core existentialist idea, shared by Pascal, Kierkegaard, and Sartre, is that in man, existence precedes essence – man is not born with a fixed nature but creates himself through his choices and will. This philosophy emphasizes self-transformation as the highest purpose, a deliberate effort to evolve beyond the limitations of the "average man."

7. Critique of Materialism: The Bifurcation of Nature and the Reign of Knowledge

The ascendancy of Faith may be impracticable, but the reign of Knowledge is incomprehensible.

Whitehead's concept. Alfred North Whitehead's idea of the "bifurcation of nature" describes the modern separation of scientific, objective knowledge from subjective, intuitive experience. This split, exacerbated by the rise of rationalism and materialism, leads to a view of the world as dead and mechanical, devoid of inherent meaning or purpose.

Science vs. Wisdom. The author argues that while science provides power over the external world, it offers no power over oneself and fails to address the fundamental human need for meaning. Materialism, in its various forms (Marxism, logical positivism), reinforces the idea that man is merely a product of his environment, denying the possibility of spiritual self-change.

The Outsider's opposition. The Outsider, driven by a hunger for reality and a sense of inner vitality, instinctively rebels against this materialistic worldview. They see the "reign of Knowledge" without wisdom as leading to a shallow, meaningless existence, and advocate for a return to a holistic understanding where intuition and subjective experience are valued alongside scientific inquiry.

8. Christianity: A Prophet's Vision Distorted by Compromise and Dogma

Paul, from all the evidence, was as different from Jesus as it is possible to imagine.

Christ's original message. Jesus's core teaching is interpreted as an Outsider-prophet's call for men to become more alive, more conscious, and to strive for godlikeness through self-discipline and a focus on spiritual purpose. This message, similar to Nietzsche and the Buddha, emphasizes individual responsibility for moral well-being.

Pauline transformation. St. Paul, a figure of different temperament, transformed Christianity by emphasizing the Vicarious Atonement and Christ as a universal scapegoat. This shifted the focus from "Redeem yourself" to "Let me redeem you," making Christianity accessible to the masses but, from the Outsider's perspective, diluting the original message of self-mastery.

Church and compromise. The Christian Church, built on Pauline doctrine, provided a sense of purpose and refuge for Outsiders but eventually became an institution of "closed religion," compromising with the world and suppressing individual revelation. This led to the Reformation and the eventual rise of scientific scepticism, leaving modern man without a universally accepted spiritual framework.

9. The Modern Challenge: Success, Inanity, and the Outsider's New Problems

Fitzgerald’s life is the tragedy of a romantic Outsider in a mechanised civilisation.

Fitzgerald's downfall. F. Scott Fitzgerald's life exemplifies the modern Outsider's struggle with success and the inanity of a materialistic age. His romantic idealism and craving for intense experience clashed with the superficiality of the Jazz Age, leading to self-destruction through alcoholism and a sense of failure despite literary acclaim.

Success as a new problem. Unlike past Outsiders who faced indifference and lack of recognition, the modern Outsider confronts the insidious danger of being embraced and flattered by society for expressing its own underlying anxieties. This can dilute the Outsider's purpose and lead to a loss of the critical distance necessary for genuine insight.

Newman's struggle. John Henry Newman, though not a spectacular Outsider, faced similar challenges in a Victorian age increasingly dominated by Insider attitudes. His defense of religion and critique of scientific materialism, particularly in the "Apologia" and "Grammar of Assent," show a sensitive mind grappling with the loss of faith and the difficulty of making spiritual truth comprehensible to a secularized society.

10. Shaw: The Existentialist Prophet of Vitalism and Conscious Evolution

Shaw once said that he had solved every major problem of our civilisation, and that people still go on propounding them as if they are unsolved.

Artist-philosopher. Bernard Shaw is presented as a rare existentialist thinker, akin to Plato and Goethe, for whom thought and life were inseparable. His work, rooted in a romantic craving for seriousness and a hatred of triviality, explores the Outsider's struggle against mediocrity and the quest for a higher quality of life.

Vitalism and purpose. Shaw's philosophy, termed "Vitalism," asserts that life is driven by an incessant aspiration towards higher organization, wider consciousness, and clearer self-understanding. This contrasts with materialistic views and emphasizes the importance of will, discipline, and a "highly developed vital sense" as the essence of true religion.

Back to Methuselah. Shaw's most ambitious work, "Back to Methuselah," tackles the Outsider problem in a historical context, proposing that man must evolve to live longer and become more conscious to save civilization. Though flawed dramatically, it presents the core idea that the Outsider's struggle for self-creation is the key to the future of the human race.

11. Towards a Science of Living: The Outsider's Drive for Inner Mastery

The art of the Outsider is essentially a movement towards a science of living.

Inner exploration. The Outsider's quest is fundamentally an attempt to develop a "science of living," a systematic exploration and mastery of the inner world. This involves self-observation, experiment, and the disciplined cultivation of intuition and insight, akin to the methods of mystics like Boehme and Swedenborg.

Beyond personality. The goal is to escape the limitations of the "ordinary personality" and access deeper levels of being, the "powerhouse of vitality" that fuels creativity and provides a sense of ultimate purpose. This process, described as achieving higher "degrees of concentration," is seen as the source of genius and the antidote to boredom and futility.

Existentialist method. This "science" is existentialist because it is based on the concrete reality of subjective experience, not abstract logic. It recognizes that man's ability to change himself is the most important fact and that true education involves exploring and transforming one's inner landscape.

12. The Problem of the Masses: Bridging the Gap Between Outsider Vision and Insider Reality

Society is not made up of Outsiders, and never has been.

The Grand Inquisitor's challenge. The fundamental problem remains how to communicate the Outsider's vision and sense of purpose to the "Insiders," the majority who are content with conventional life and lack the Outsider's intense craving for meaning. The Grand Inquisitor's argument highlights that most men prefer comfort and authority to the burden of radical freedom and self-mastery.

Religion as simplification. Historically, religions have served to bridge this gap by translating the prophet's vision into myths, dogmas, and rituals accessible to the masses. However, in a secular age, this traditional function is undermined by scientific scepticism, leaving the Outsider's insights isolated and without a means of universal transmission.

The future challenge. The question is whether a new form of "open religion," based on the Outsider's insights into vitalism, will, and conscious evolution, can emerge and gain ascendancy. This would require an unprecedented effort of historical introspection and self-knowledge, potentially led by a minority of Outsiders, to revitalize a civilization facing disintegration due to its loss of spiritual direction.

Last updated: July 8, 2025