Kant tells us that "the world is empirically real but transcendentally ideal", and in terms of the dyad, one could say that this describes the eidolon and the daemon. I have often thought that - philosophically speaking - the distinction between will and consciousness is an extremely important one when viewing the daemon (as Tony has conceived it). A text which I have been reading lately - by Chris Hedges, author of American Facists, and now a polemical speaker against both fundamentalist Christians and atheists in America - points out the contrast most aptly. In the model which Hedges uses - and he draws on Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Samuel Beckett to make his point - will is the ground of life, and not consciousness. This leads to a very important and telling conclusion: Memory is not what we conceive it to be in the rational mind, not at all. For concsiousness is a surface and a pretense; thus does memory in its authentic state arise from willing alone. Schopenhauer - and Nietzsche after him - has said that our true self is " a secret self, which knows only willing." Memory in this sense works secretly, and comes and goes unbidden by our rational constructs. It is "not consciouss recollection of life" says Hedges. It is rather, "wisdom". Hedges asserts that knowledge is the domain of science, but wisdom belongs to "real memory".
I had often thought, after "meeting" Tony through email, that it would be a profound debate, to question him on whether he believed his "daemon" conception is conscioussness or will. This feeling of mine increased several-fold when it became clear to me some months ago that Tony had a philosophical partner at his side ( Le Marcs). That this question is one in which the entire debate between science and spirituality hangs, to my thinking flags it as material for public discourse.
