Spencer Heath Archive

Item 728

Pencil notes by Heath on 3×5 cards.

Sometime after 1936?

 

Original is in item 727.

 

 

/THE SPIRITUAL LIFE/

     The animal technique is seizure and mutual destruction — by necessity adjustments to nature with adaptations of nature to the desires… 

     Human technique is exchange with division of labor. This gives command over materials and forces of nature. This raises the subsistence of all and is the basis of all social values.

     Democratic process of exchange in the market deals only with what can be measured — with services embodied in concrete physical things. The market gives physical abundance — biologic security for all.

     Out of this abundance and security the spiritual life must arise. Spiritual life has to do with values that cannot be measured or exchanged. At this level it is more blessed to give than to receive. The motivation is aesthetic — inspiration from the beauty found in Nature and in the aesthetic arts — the Muses — the nine daughters of religion as practiced in symbols and rituals.

     This giving under inspiration is more blessed than receiving. The more inspiration one gives the more he has. This is the spiritual life — the inspirational life. This lifts men to the level of creative artists — makes them divine.

     Exchange of services lifts men above the animal state of strife and destruction into the human state of democratic freedom and abundance.

     The ministry of all the aesthetic arts — the giving of inspiration under inspiration — lifts men above mere security and abundance of physical things into their divinity as creators of values that it is more blessed to give than to receive. It is the final function of social organization to enable men to become divinely creative artists and thus participate in the joy and glory of God.