Reign Array
Continuing on the previous post where I gave a brief introduction to the figure of Kel Valhaal in the Arkwork system of thought by Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, I will in this text look into Reign Array, the other part in the split subject. Reign Array (RA) corresponds to rational thought, deductive and synthetic derivations within a frame of suppositions. Hunter recently tweeted that KV is body and RA is mind, and The Genesis Caul is the caesura between the two - the primordial wound. You’ll see that Hunters vision of mind and body doesn’t quite follow what most would think of these two concepts relating to Descartes or who-have-you, so the exploration of KV and RA:s place in the system is to inform our understanding of mind and body rather than letting our understanding of KV and RA be determined by our preconceptions of mind and body.
RA is depicted as an eagle, with it’s talons stuck to the head of Kel (KV), the molten crown of the Caul being what binds them together, talons to scalp. RA is the lost child of the mother eagle of OlOlOn (a complex figure being something like a cross between Jesus and Heavenly Maria -Sophia). RA carries the Sword of Renihilation, which has four blades named after each of the cardinals: ascesis, catharsis, fervor and majesty.
The four cardinals have correspondence both with the Lacanian personality types and with the objects of the main currents Hunter is crossing through his system:
Ascesis — Psychosis — Theology
Catharsis — Obsession — Dialectical Materialism / Science
Fervor — Hysteria — Psychoanalysis
Majesty — Perversion — Art (in a Nietzschean-Wagnerian sense)
It is also possible to see a link with the Lacanian modes of discourse, but it becomes sort of tenuous and besides the point that the name of this fourfold points to: ‘cardinals’, implying a sort of fundamental dimensions or modes of gauging. Relating this to the Visionary, Self-development and Action aspects of KV we see that the role of RA is to evaluate a certain vision, a certain act etc. against the four cardinals. Does an intuited vision make theological sense? Does it further the overcoming of capitalism as well as the project of enlightenment? Does it harmonize with a healthy psychoanalytic structure? Is it good art-culture practice to establish? This is why RA carries a sword: To dissect and to cut away that which does not measure up. Now, I won’t go into more detail on the cardinals, they each deserve an essay on their own, for now it is enough to know that these are something like measuring sticks as well as domains of inquiry, each with their own kind of truth, they are wielded by the mind (RA), and they are supposed to cover all the plains of inquiry on structural linguistic grounds (Lacan).
The cardinals furthermore connect to the Qabalistic element through correspondence with the Four Worlds as follows:
Ascesis — Eternity — World of Emanation
Catharsis — Reality — World of Creation
Fervor — Existence — World of Formation
Majesty — Nothingness — World of Action
As such the cardinals can be seen as four different vantage points on the Tree from which the armistice (the conceptual - material scaffolding connecting the Surplus of Keter with the Void of Malkuth), as well as the Ark (the temporal-traditional vehicle for escaping the capitalistic Armistice of Varizen to reach the Utopian Armistice of Haelegen) can be evaluated. On arkwork.org the section called ‘Transcendental Qabala’ has another fourfold: ‘Axiology’ - ‘Metaphysics’ - ‘Cosmogony’ - ‘Eschatology’, but this fourfold does not so much correspond to the cardinals as being orthogonal to them: the cardinals extend from above to below along the tree, the other fourfold extends spatio-temporally: from past to the future. More precisely they are coextensive with the succession of Armistices and can be seen as forming the Ark itself: Axiology concerns the interior, Metaphysics the exterior, Cosmogony the past, and Eschatology the future. What they do correspond to is the hermetic-qabalistic tetragrammaton YHVH, but I digress.
There’s a lot more to be said about Reign Array, but this text is long enough as it is. I intend to look more into the dynamics between KV and RA in the next post of this series, and connect them to the Hyperborean and the Transcendental. For now I strongly recommend that you read what Hunter himself has to say about this: