Krasis is a
Greek word originally referring to
mixing or
balance, reflecting the common practice of combining
wine with
sea water to infuse it with
medicinal properties. It was also used to describe a state in which the
Four Humours were in balance, and much later in
Christianity to describe the addition of
water into
Communion wine. However, that's not the
interesting part...
In the
cosmology of the 5th century
B.C. Greek
philosopher Empedocles, forces of the
Universe could be divided into two forces,
attraction and
division,
Love and
Strife (
yin-yang cosmic dualism, anyone?). According to
Philip K. Dick, in the mere fact that the universe exists, he saw the
divine balance, krasis, as a sort of binding
unity of love.
Now, this may sound like some hokey
new age crap, but to anyone who's had a mystical experience of
cosmic consciousness,
mushroom-induced or otherwise, the endless dueling of the two complementary forces
Ch'ien and
K'un,
Yin and
Yang,
Good and Evil,
+/-,
proton and
electron,
God and
Satan - whichever
cultural bias one wishes to attach to it - becomes manifested as a necessary process in the creation and maintenance of the Universe. What one realizes in these states, however, is that the conflict is at the same time a union, and that both seemingly
opposite poles are in actuality
complementary, since neither can exist without the other.
To get to the point, both of these entities, simultaneously attracted and opposed as if by
magnetism, are actually splinters of a
comprehensive whole, which some have called the
Godhead, the
Absolute (see
Vedanta),
the Great Magnet (see
Hunter S. Thompson),
Allah,
the Void. A fragment of this essentially living being, which could be best conceptualized as a
primordial vibration, lies within every
material thing.
What Empodecles failed to recognize, besides the
Oneness itself, was that although it encompassed within itself both love and hate, attraction and repulsion, its essential nature WAS a unity. Hence Empodecles' krasis was one-sided. In an alternate cosmology one could conceive of krasis as being the ultimate reality inherent in anything, living or not, matter or space, which transcends the either/or
dichotomies inherent in our
biocomputer programming.
Q.E.D.