Occultism’s spiritualism severs body and soul more cleanly than Descartes did

Evidence

The great religions have either, like Judaism after the ban on graven images, veiled the redemption of the dead in silence, or preached the resurrection of the flesh. They take the inseparability of the spiritual and physical seriously. For them there was no intention, nothing ‘spiritual’, that was not somehow founded in bodily perception and sought bodily fulfilment. To the occultists, who consider the idea of resurrection beneath them, and actually do not want to be saved, this is too coarse. Their metaphysics, which even Huxley can no longer distinguish from metaphysics, rest on the axiom: ‘The soul can soar to the heights, heigh-ho, / the body stays put on the sofa below.’ The heartier the spirituality, the more mechanistic: not even Descartes drew the line so cleanly. Division of labour and reification are taken to the extreme: body and soul severed in a kind of perennial vivisection. The soul is to shake the dust off its feet and in brighter regions forthwith resume its fervent activity at the exact point where it was interrupted. In this declaration of independence, however, the soul becomes a cheap imitation of that from which it had achieved a false emancipation. In place of the interaction that even the most rigid philosophy admitted, the astral body is installed, ignominious concession of hypostasized spirit to its opponent. Only in the metaphor of the body can the concept of pure spirit be grasped at all, and is at the same time cancelled. In their reification the spirits are already negated. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 264

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The argument that only through the metaphor of the body can pure spirit be grasped and simultaneously cancelled — and that reified spirits already negate themselves — is a compressed radical thesis about the impossibility of a contentless spirituality.
• XREF: Connects to the ban on graven images and the body-spirit inseparability theme that threads through Adorno’s engagement with Judaism and negative theology. — connects to: Descartes’ cogito was partly motivated to prove the soul immortal — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of…, 359; Descartes’ indubitable ‘I’ redirected philosophy inward toward certainty of the self.; The soul is the prison of the body, not its freeing essence — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 79 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The soul is the prison of the body, not its freeing essence #corroborates (0.82) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 79
• Descartes’ cogito was partly motivated to prove the soul immortal #complicates (0.80) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 359
• Spiritualism and materialism are two halves of one Cartesian dualism, not opposites #expands (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 293
• The intuition of mind-body dualism underpins belief in disembodied supernatural agents #corroborates (0.78)
• Descartes’ indubitable ‘I’ redirected philosophy inward toward certainty of the self. #qualifies (0.75)
• Descartes grounded certainty in thought, establishing mind as primary over matter. #qualifies (0.72) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2069
• Augustine anticipated both Descartes cogito and Kant time theories #qualifies (0.72) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 1394