INTRODUCTION BY PARA DEPT.

Spiritual escalation, the understanding of the Being, the interrogation of the innermost aspects of Nature and human essence, the ongoing investigation about the Great unsolved questions of the World; the truth behind the phenomena, the mainspring of reality, the comprehension of Totality; all of this, in one way or another, can lead to a single, monumental concept: Metaphysics - the attempt to permanently explain, dissect and absorb a higher reality that transcends everyday existence; an eye on the complete essence of The All and, if necessary, even reshaping our mundane world.

Let's face it, we can't deny the fact that we are prisoners of this enigmatic world. We can barely perceive our miserably cryptic essence, groping in the dark, struggling for ultimate certainties, whilst centuries of different support mechanisms such as philosophy, religion, mysticism, theology, esotericism, religion, art and science have barely scratched the surface! Nevertheless, this so called prison is still a colossal question mark for all of us, whilst there is little our progress and achievements can do to solve the ontological escatological-creationist-anthropologic-cosmogonic puzzle (even the inevitable usage of such big words further disclose, as if we needed any more proof, how complex this puzzle is). Therefore we have to finally admit there are still bars in front of us, accepting the fact that no empirical conquests will probably ever help us to escape. The questions are numerous, indeed: Is the world a mere illusion filtered by our own human element? A reality covered by a veil that leads to a series of falsifications and mistakes from whom we are slaves? What about the almost mythical "thing-in-itself", as well, the no less mythical gods, ideals, demiurges, moralities, omnisciences, original sins and so on? Is there actually a 'realm of ideas' and, on the other hand, an imperfect, hideous, fallen material world to shun? Is it right to put 'a world behind the world' like Plato and many others did, founding a distinct philosophical/christian position directed towards the devaluation of the mundane world? Are arts, reason or mind a key to understanding the otherwise unanswerable questions? What is the role of human beings? Barely a point in this Vast universe, such that so many thinking heads like to perceive as innately anthropocentric? Is there a moral law governing the world and offspring of the Supreme Good, and is it a Divine law within us, or rather, a human invention originated by usefulness and instinct of self-preservation?

The List of subjects is potentially infinite; god, soul, immanence, afterlife.. here is where the endless charm and potential of metaphysics appears, helping us to just escape from the aforementioned 'prison', rather than serving a sentence that assumes the proportions of immortality! Man, in general, has always been divergent about metaphysics as a whole, and even philosophy itself. And throughout its glorious history, there has always been a distinct split between meta-thinkers and skeptical reactionaries. How many times, in fact, a purpose of understanding the All has led to a hurried evasion of our own world, favouring the ideal dimension to the material one, through ambiguous acrobatics, tricky accommodations, flights of the mind and abstractions detached from reality? Post-Kantian idealists, lifeless academic philosophy, certain aspects of platonism, christianity and obstinate dogmatics, a-la Leibniz, are particularly guilty of this! They have often, indeed all too often, repudiated the ground, OUR solid ground. They are 'The Despisers of the Body', like the highest Nietzsche would have said in his Zarathustra. Not all of the Meta-Physicists go so far as adopting such sterile repudiation. It's perfectly possible to discuss metaphysics from certain more skeptical angles, extrapolating constructive or practical outcomes, starting with fact, not obscuring reason with fable, showing a logical or empirical basis. A key to elevated knowledge then, is not just religious flights or resigned skepticism.

"Metaphysical Hinterland" tries to explore a certain borderline position toward metaphysics. A small yet interesting interconnected cross section of theories which looked into the unknown through a metaphysical lens, yet retaining its feet within our tangible world. Globally, are also introduced underrated affinities between Schopenhauer's writings and hermeticism, whilst maintaining an eye on the Kantian premises - which is indeed a necessity when looking into the Schopenhauer doctrines - and even the third implications under our specific position mostly centred around music. Certain parts of these lucid conceptual buildings are still, in some parts, hazardous - this at least is what a strictly reason-driven view would suggest to us - the same can be said for other doctrines - eg: buddhism or various esoteric trains of thoughts - that, even if not talked of here, certainly share a similar enlightened, human approach which, again, in no way can be compared with degrading christianity or pale dogmaticism. A concept such as Schopenhauer's 'Maya veil' for example, even though unmistakably metaphysical, is perfectly logical and understandable in our empirical world. It's not a matter of artificially creating gods, moral dogmas or truths filtered by ones own personality, rather simple indications that most of us will likely share because, well, they just make sense! To give another example: we all have probably experienced the aesthetical contemplation or ecstatic musical moments that Schopenhauer indicates as one of the keys to understanding a deeper reality and forgetting our own being; on the other hand, we would often hesitate with the arbitrary stances regarding Art which Plato taught. To be clearer with the point, Metaphysics as part of OUR world, Metaphysics as a Hinterland of the world, not as Another, promised land which is ordinarily behind the scenes. Clearly we will find a few contradictions and collisions in the systems of these theories (eg: the incompatibility between Hermetic forms of gnosis and Kantian conclusive denial of knowledge-by-revelation, the sporadic Plato analogies - notably regarding henology -, certain soteriological aspects, Schopenhauer's views on ascesis - perhaps one of the few unfortunate moments in his otherwise flawless philosophical make up - and so on - all of which is secondary if we consider the sides from whence we're exploring them.

A first clearer example of constructive methaphysics can be traced to the shining, pragmatical, mysterious Hermetic doctrines, in particular; the implications found in "The Kybalion"; the valuable completion of the deeply branched Hermes Trismegistus message; the initiatory chain of knowledge derived from the mystical-philosophical tradition of Ancient Egypt, through the oral transmission of its hidden wisdom of the lost, purest, higher truths that aim to refine Man by means of the mastery of Mental Transmutation, highlighting the qualities of inner enlightenment over mere dogmatic, religious obtuse and philo-divine chicaneries. They teach us that the Universe, in its essence is basically, a living mind, and so it must be possible to condition one's milieu with the power of mind, just as it is possible to perpetually shape our inner states, modifying one's vibrational state through the understanding of The Seven Principles, briefly: mastering the art of polarization, or 'mental alchemy'.

"Mind (as well as metals and elements) may be transmuted
from state to state; degree to degree, condition to condition;
pole to pole; vibration to vibration."--The Kybalion.

"All Is Mind" is the key axiom here, a concept which, along with the "Planes of Correspondence" and the "Principle of Polarity" is the furthest thing we can imagine from christianity, theism and a considerable chunk of western moral philosophies, despite their vile attempt of somehow absorbing and distorting these teachings through their own dogmas, a bad habit perpetrated especially by medieval christian agenda. Dualities are non existent, they're just shades of one reality in the same axis, de facto, restoring a more original, intimate connection between Man and Nature. The same nature which most religions and metaphysics reject - even spit upon to be more precise - in promise of an illusory Beyond. Thereafter it's particularly important to grasp the principles of Correspondences and Polarity in Hermeticism: The All itself is directly connected to our tangible world, reality is a segment within the harmonic totality, an unitary creation of the mind in each and everyone of its aspects. There's no such thing as the common theological dichotomies (good/evil, matter-spirit, body/soul...) since these principles logically null the latter. "As Above, So Below" says Hermes Trismegistus, the various planes of the universe are integrated as a part of one whole, where Below can be, among other things, body, atom, matter, lifeforms, microcosm, while Above is spirit, energies, macrocosm, the universe, etc.

The hermetic message is not always reason/logically-driven, also giving the non-unitary character of hermeticism in general (especially in its "Corpus" grounds), but there's no doubt its axiom are most precious for our spiritual path, frankly practical even on lower levels, since they're easily applicable both in existential-metaphysical fields and in everyday context. It's certainly no coincidence that the influences of said axiom can be found again in modern psychology to science and physics, while priestly eloquence remains a prerogative of a Metaphysics end in itself, actually worsening humanity, triggering the basics of decadence which have been delaying The Man, making him more steerable yet less able to cope with earthly existence, through a series of silly concepts such as sin, redemption, ascension and all of the well known fables, let alone guerrilla consequences, 'holy wars' and certain ambiguities we all know . Certainly, in the current process of secularisation things are slowly changing, but history can't be changed, and no one of right mind can overlook the mostly negative role of religion in much of history, especially within the western world.

There are impressive similarities between the Hermetic axioms and Arthur Schopenhauer's theories, as shown in his main writings, starting with "The World as Will and Representation", a relationship which outnumber the anyway present contradictions. To begin with, the Will role, positive in hermeticism, negative in Schopenhauer, workable in both, is very important in the two doctrines. A large chunk is in fact dedicated to analysing what is meant to be an often underestimated entity of the primary importance in the dynamics of the world; also it is not wrong to link the typically hermetic government of mind, impulses, temperaments and flexibility of vibrational moulding with that which Danzica's philosopher means as 'unveiling Maya' due to a result of 'control of Will', which for him, let's remember, is the actual "thing-in-itself", and can be influenced through practical moves (nullification, contemplation etc.) as well abstract acquisitions (awareness and deeper perception of its codes). Another point of contact is Schopenhauer's ourobotic, rather than antithetical, relationship between pleasure/pain, will/noluntas with the polarity/consequence/correspondence principles in hermeticism. Furthermore, the Schopenhauerian investigation regarding the character of Will as the ultimate essence of All, and the pantheistic image of "The All" examined in hermetic tradition are certainly interchangeable. The 5th axiom, the principle of rhythm, is strictly linked with the previous one, and again is in accord with the cycles of pleasure/pain/boredom so richly described in many Schopenhauer pages. In both theories we face an example of the pendulum: who has never noticed the succession of feelings, the unpredictability and oscillation of often heavily different states of mind? The understanding of the principle of rhythm, which applies to everything, even so on a mental level, along with the fine art of polarization, allows the self to reach a positive pole and stay on it as much as possible, bypassing the variations forthcoming in the successions of rhythm, with the benefit of being, in those successions, active more than passive; however, as it happens in Schopenhauer's Will - who asserts the advantages in finding a stable relation between the cycles, albeit the impossibility to dominate it totally - one has to keep in mind that, whilst one can conduct the rhythm and garner more control of its intermediate positions, one can't totally escape the principle of causality, nor influence the highest 'planes' of the Living Mind.

"The World as Will and Representation" deeply indicates how to gain the advantages and circumvent the endless chain of need and the cycles of desire/satisfaction/pain/will: the purpose is to achieve a stronger authority, a more comfortable life, an higher spiritual status or even 'salvation', if we want to underline more mystical meanings. These measures have already been outlined; they include artistic and aesthetic contemplation, compassion, justice and ultimately the buddhism/hinduism-tinged ascesis/noluntas/nirvana in Schopenhauer theory, and opposite to hermetic Gnosis, Power and inner-enlightenment. Both of these theories approach The All from the same angle, at bottom their intention is to dispense constructive teachings to elevate the man by Knowledge, helping him to polarize in his most fertile mindset, capitalising on his mental energies, letting him better understand his own nature, reality, and the connection which coexists between them.

Finally, if Metaphysics goes beyond the sensible experience of a single phenomena, we shouldn't overlook the role of Immanuel Kant and his sharp Enlightenment-tinged thought centred about a strong faith in rationality which leaves us with the possession of extra truth, as well as triggering further dilemmas. Remaining in our specific area, his findings highlight the vacuity of rationale for these metaphysical foundations, erecting an insurmountable wall for our knowledge. He says that traditional metaphysics, as known before him, with all its corollary of claims and convictions, could not be scientific, systematic or rational because it was conditioned by indemonstrable theological assumptions. The so called "Thing-In-Itself" (the independent and extraneous truth behind the phenomena - the latter being the only one our sensible intuition can perceive - is inaccessible, and the Noumeno (the "only thinkable", our human intuition of that same thing in itself) is indeed equally unknowable, postulated, hot air. Armed with his bold transcendental criticism he interrogates reason, determining what is part of its limitations and what is not, refusing to stumble into the religious/mystical sphere, despite shallow, hasty interpretations of the thing in itself as a surrogate of god. So, because of the limited cognitive faculties of the human mind there is no way to actually grasp the final truths, the absolute: it is impossible to know, experience, and least of all describe any final essence, it's simply outside of the empirical reality, and so is trivial to understand the thing in itself through one own Noumenal ideas of the unknowable par excellence; it may even exist, we can only think about it with intuition, but, in opposition to the revelation's paradigm, finally never demonstrate it.

It is indeed a denial of metaphysics but, as said before, is proclaimed with "a foot in the unknown and a foot in our tangible world", since Kant does not demolish all metaphysics in a Nietzschean way - who furtherly rejects even the existence of such things such as "thing-in-itself" and "Noumeno" -, he's instead leaving a little glimmer and a new route to traverse, perhaps starting from subject rather than object (like all the pre-kantian speculation did), moreover, beside the negative definition of metaphysical concepts as finally unknowable, there's a positive definition too, that he doesn't reject completely, rather it's the fact that men have the capacity to establish these metaphysical postulates, at least that we can deduce it conceptually - a priori - and here we return to a beginning of borderline Gnosis, at the very least a sense of wonder which oddly resemble the renowned Kantian "starry sky" symbolism : the presence of these transcendental concepts within humans - god, soul, transcendence and so on - is this exact glimmer. The man is a "metaphysical animal" would say Nietzsche; he himself, as stated even by the devoted Martin Heidegger, proves to be in part this same animal: with concepts such as "eternal return" or "amor fati", despite his unmistakably earthly thought, he embodies the final stage in the same metaphysics he has ultimately destroyed to make room for nine hundred Nihilism.

Back to Kant, his glimmers weren't really improper, and even his wise brain finally might have failed in some places: the main critique which has been expressed in the centuries following his writings is, indeed, the alleged basic contradiction when portraying the thing in itself as unknowable, yet at the same time existing, while the positive/negative aspects of Noumeno and transcendent concepts analysed before, although charming and actually nullifying the contradiction, may appear as the umpteenth philosophical accommodation or, at least, remaining a mere postulate, nothing more. Right about here is the greatness of Schopenhauer, who gloriously closes our ring! His doctrine is in fact the integration and finalisation of Kantian speculation, since the central point in his metaphysics is that the kantian "thing in itself" is Will; and no, this is not a dogma, this is something that, if we think about it, we have all experienced in one way or another: it's adequately demonstrated.

The Will, summarized, for Schopenhauer is the free irrational force that dominates everything, the essence of all, every life form, every phenomenon, the key to understanding the universe, equally chaotic and irrational and yet, of course, the innermost essence of ourselves. These claims are proven everywhere from the smallest to the biggest manifestations of everything in the world, most of all that vital instinct and blind attachment to life which permeates through us all. One of the ways to bypass Will, one of the essential means left to us for closure as well the major influence in the trilogy is, of course, music. Its grand, transcendent nature, is the closest mirror of Will we can experience! In fact, who can deny that the aesthetical and musical contemplation, inasmuch as pure and liberating and ecstatic knowledge of the eternal forms, produces the nullification of the principle of individuation, to the fall of the veil, to the direct disclosure of the Thing-In-Itself, the truth behind the phenomenon? Unlike other art forms which employ/portray/conceptualise/contextualise mundane elements (remaining in the phenomena sphere). With music we are able to penetrate and better understand the essence of the thing in itself, the realms of the Transcendent, ultimately forgetting not only Will, but even ourselves, because in the act of aesthetical/ecstatic contemplation our subject becomes OBJECT. The actual veil is still impossible to remove completely (especially in this age dominated by appearances) though, and so Schopenhauer took care to point out how this revelation is only possible for a short time span, through intense and powerful loss of the own being as subject of the 'representation', only to quickly return into the physical sphere. We all can agree that, with appropriate premises, what has just been said is definitely achievable but, since is far from a radical and enduring move, he proposes as a more ultimate and suitable solution a series of aesthetical and resigned paradigms which will lead to his infamous pessimism, the "extreme denial of the will to life and the world" concept, one which we won't deepen, neither really share. But this is just another unfortunate meta-religious flight, the outcome of an individual still lacking the most robust freedom that Nietzche will finally show to the world with his explosive, lucid, uncompromising "transvaluation of all values", ideally closing the blooming chain of loyal research of truth and knowledge, a big picture of German wisdom we all can embrace now, perhaps through an hermetic filter…... why not?

Which is the final truth then? Did the ancient egyptians really have access to higher forms of knowledge mentioned in hermeticism? Was there actually a Golden Age / Satya yuga where humans had a different, fuller, long since lost connection with the all? Who knows? Probably, we will never have definitive answers, the desire for greater awareness and understanding is now upon us, and so it's fascinating to ponder all of these interpretations of the world, with their respective pro and cons. Like a puzzle one could try to put together just to understand a bit more, if only one single radiant piece, at some point, even with the resolutest rational/skeptical mindset, as well the expected recondite certainty of a Nihilist ending, a look into the "metaphysical hinterland" is to be predicted!

In conclusion, the trilogy is the result of brief yet enlightening moments of unveiled, unforced aesthetical perception; musically it filters the inputs which have been discussed previously, within such expressive languages as techno, dub and ambient, through spontaneous, sincere production styles which care more about forms and expression rather than rules and mere technical views. Inspecting diverse cues and ideas ranging from the funky minimal grooves of "Kybalion" and the shoegaze fuzzyness of "I Hoped to Transcend The Mundane World", to the cavernous chords of "Through The Lens Of Unconscious" and the cold, murky translation of dub techno found in most of Akt 1. Furthermore, a new path appears in the Paranoia Department project itinerary: the longform psychedelic raga found in akt 3, an ideal dive into the arcane 'thing in itself', the attempt to outflank Maya.