3.1 Eonic Models, Relative Transforms
Last modified 07/01/2008
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It is time to adjourn to the text of World History And The Eonic Effect
where a more complete account is constructed. But we can conclude with a series
of references thereto, beginning with the idea of a 'relative transform'. The
reason the Old Testament is so confusing is revealed fairly clearly by
constructing the eonic model around it. This 'discrete-continuous' model shows
us the way in which an alternation process takes place, stretched across a mainline of world
history in a series of selected regions following a frontier effect. The early
redactors of the Old Testament and the Christians who followed were hard-pressed
to unravel these facts, and, remarkably, almost succeeded, but the greater
abstraction of an eonic model might help modern men sort out the many
misunderstandings that arose nonetheless in that unfolding history. Those who
followed saw clearly the basics of the eonic effect, in that case, but in terms
of a theological account that simply couldn't resolve all the paradoxes. They
considered the Axial interval an 'age of revelation', an apt metaphor indeed,
but one that led to a series of miscalculations about what that meant. And the
question of the status of monotheism was left in limbo, almost, as its greater
significance and yet localized source confounded the attempted globalization.
The eonic effect is thus rightly an account of evolution, in all its rough edges
and formal dynamics.
It is helpful to stick to our eonic 'stream and sequence' analysis, and to add to that one further analogy, that of a 'relative transform' The idea is simple. If we have a plant in a greenhouse, and we apply fertilizer, or an extra sunlamp, or some accelerant, we create a discrete-continuous model of its growth. Growth is continuous and occurs steadily in the life of a plant, but if we apply some accelerant it will exhibit the evidence of a 'relative transformation' of its growth, a 'spurt' of growth. That simple. The reason Old Testament history is thus confusing is that we are seeing an accelerant at work producing a 'relative transformation' of a stream of a cultural zone in Canaan. Monotheism seemed to exist before, yet surges during and after, the phase of transformation. There is simply no way to sort out the confusion behind that contradiction save by a discrete-continuous model. We have the clue in the eonic model to the entire overall framework, keeping in mind that its interior content requires a renewed analysis on its own basis, for, as we have seen, the basic dynamics is isomorphic in all the cases visible in the Axial Age.
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