Need readers for Hermeneutic of the World?

[Sci Patel]

Very interested in this Bernardo, anything you can say now would be appreciated.

And if you need readers for any upcoming work in this area let me know,

thanks,

Sci

[Bernardo]

Thanks Sci. Do you mean this paper https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/6/3/55 ? It was published in 2017...?

[Sci Patel]

That's the paper that mentions the possibility/plausibility of a Hermeneutic, but I thought you might be working on an argument for a specific reading of the world?

[Bernardo]

No, I don't think I could do that... it's beyond me...

[Sci Patel]

Ah gotcha - any suggestions on where a seeker of the world's heremeneutic might look, whether books/practices/etc?

I mean I've [seen] the most important philosophical film of our time, aka The Lego Movie...but besides that? :-)

[Lou Gold]

Sci Patel,

Being a philosophical illiterate, I don't grok your meaning of a "Hermeneutic of the World." Do you mean an interpretation of the world's symbols and texts, or what?

Here's the Wiki entry:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

[Sci Patel]

Lou - I was think of interpreting the world as symbols of something More...

The paper Bernardo links to above gets into the possibility of such a hermeneutics existing.

[Lou Gold]

Sci Patel,

I'm intrigued, especially in the sense that Archetypes are symbols and real in themselves (not fingers pointing) according to Becca Tarnas and others. They suggest the significance of the work of the French philosopher Henry Corbin on the existence of a Mundus Imaginalis. I'm not familiar with his work yet but I'm surely intrigued. Perhaps, Archetypes might be the Hermeneutic of the World that you seek? Is this the realm of great Myths? Is this why some cosmologists (Brian Swimme for example) have been calling for a new story? Perhaps we need a modern Myth no longer disenchanted by materialism?

[Lou Gold]

Sci Patel,

Hmmm. I just started reading the BK paper and the first quote he offers is from Henry Corbin. 

Nice coincidence. All I say is, "VIVA! Intuition."

Makes me hopeful that BK will in fact someday pursue a third PhD in Depth Psychology!

[Sci Patel]

Lou - yeah I think Corbin had the right idea. Also this quote from Borges:

Music, states of happiness, mythology, faces belabored by time, certain twilights and certain places try to tell us something, or have said something we should not have missed, or are about to say something; this imminence of a revelation which does not occur is, perhaps, the aesthetic phenomenon.

[Lou Gold]

Sci Patel -- wonderful Borges quote. Thanks!

[Lou Gold]

I LOVED BK's brief essay on hermeneutics!

He says,

Christian mystic and scientist Emanuel Swedenborg wrote extensively of the “correspondences” between the natural and spiritual worlds (Swedenborg 2007, p. 63). These correspondences imply that the things and phenomena of the natural world are symbolic images of deeper, transcendent truths. The “correspondences” were Swedenborg’s attempt to formulate a hermeneutic of the world.

I was immediately struck by the word "correspondences." When the anthropologist Jeremy Narby ("The Cosmic Serpent") asked Amazonian shamans how they communicated with plants about their curative powers, he was told that there were "correspondences." Interesting!

[Sci Patel]

From Kripal's Authors of the Impossible:

I have heard contemporary parapsychologists joke about what J. B. Rhine really accomplished at Duke University by operationalizing psychical research and insisting on controlled laboratory conditions and statistical approaches: he figured out how to suppress psi and finally make it go away. Bored sophomores staring at abstract shapes on playing cards is no way to elicit psychical phenomena.  But love and trauma are. Consider what we will encounter below as the classic case of telepathic dreams announcing the death of a loved one. Such dreams are not objects behaving properly in an ordered mechanistic way for the sake of a laboratory experiment. They are communications transmitting meaning to subjects for the sake of some sort of profound emotional need. They are not about data; they are about love. Obviously, though, when the object becomes a subject and brain matter begins to express meaning, we are no longer in the realm of the natural sciences. We are in the realm of the humanities and hermeneutics, that is, we are in the realm of meaning and the Hermes-like or Hermetic art of interpretation.

My goal in the pages that follow is not to demean or deride the sciences (quite the contrary, I will end with them), nor to arrive at some false sense of rational or religious certainty—I possess neither—but to expand the imaginative possibilities of contemporary theory through a certain authorization of the Impossible. I am not asking us to know more. I am asking us to imagine more. This ability to imagine more is precisely what defines an “author of the impossible” for me. I intend this key title-expression in at least three senses.  In the first and simplest sense, I intend to state the obvious, namely, that these are authors who write about seemingly impossible things: think telepathy, teleportation, precognition, and UFOs. In the second sense, I intend to suggest that these are authors who make these impossible things possible through their writing practices. They do not simply write about the impossible. They give us plausible reasons to consider the impossible possible. They thus both author and authorize it. In truth, they are authors of the (im)possible. Finally, in the third and deepest sense, I intend to suggest that the writing practices of authors of the impossible are intimately related to the paranormal itself, and this to the extent that paranormal phenomena are, in the end, like the act of interpretive writing itself, primarily semiotic or textual processes.  This is why “automatic writing” played such an important role in the history of psychical phenomena and why we still speak of “psychical readings.” That is, after all, exactly what they are. There is another way to say this. Although paranormal phenomena certainly involve material processes, they are finally organized around signs and meaning.

To use the technical terms, they are semiotic and hermeneutical phenomena. Which is to say that they seem to function as representations or signs to decipher and interpret, not just movements of matter to measure and quantify. This is my central point to which I will return again and again: paranormal phenomena are semiotic or hermeneutical phenomena in the sense that they signal, symbolize, or speak across a “gap” between the conscious, socialized ego and an unconscious or superconscious field. It is this gap between two orders of consciousness (what I will call the “fantastic structure of the Mind-brain” in my conclusion) that demands interpretation and makes any attempt to interpret such events literally look foolish and silly. We thus ignore this gap and the call to interpret signs across different orders of consciousness at great peril.  We might also say that such paranormal phenomena are not dualistic or intentional experiences at all, that is, they are not about a stable “subject” experiencing a definite “object.” They are about the irruption of meaning in the physical world via the radical collapse of the subject-object structure itself. They are not simply physical events. They are also meaning events.49 Jung’s category of synchronicity, for example, is all about what we could easily and accurately call meaning events, that is, a moment in space and time where and when the physical world becomes a text to be read out and interpreted, where and when the event is structured not by causal networks of matter but by symbolic references producing meaning. If, however, paranormal phenomena are meaning events that work and look a great deal like texts, then it follows that texts can also work and look a great deal like paranormal phenomena. Writing and reading, that is, can replicate and realize paranormal processes, just as paranormal processes can replicate and realize textual processes. This is what I finally mean by the phrase “authors of the impossible".

So look out.

Two more warnings before we begin. First, do not misread me here. I do not “believe” all the tales I will tell you in the pages that follow, however convinced I may sound in this or that passage. Indeed, as a professional scholar of religion, I consider it my job not to believe, and I take that professional commitment very seriously. Which is not to say, at all, that I discount these stories as unimportant, as simply fabricated or completely false. I do not. What I am trying to do is recreate for the reader what the field researcher calls “unbounded paranormal conditions,” that is, a place in space and time, in this case a text recreated and realized in your mind, where—to speak very precisely now—really, really weird shit happens. 

 

Second, I hope it goes without saying that I offer my hermeneutical model of the paranormal only as a contribution to the larger project of studying such phenomena, certainly not as any final or complete solution to these anomalous events. I am as baffled as anyone by this material, and I offer no rational or religious certainties here, only intuitive hunches and possible directions. The simple truth is that we simply don’t know what is going on here. I would go further. With our present rules of engagement, that is, with our present reigning materialist methodologies, faith commitments, objectivist scientisms, and absolute cultural relativisms, we cannot know. So I suppose I am also after those rules of engagement. I want a new game.

Kripal, Jeffrey J.. Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (p. 26). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.

 

 

[Leo]

That intro by Kripal is way too good. From my own personal notes (I added the last paragraph to stay in topic):

There´s reality in language constructs. The world of meaning that language evokes is the reality we inhabit in our everyday life, rather than any objective reality, which being uninterpreted is destined to remain unintelligible to us. The system we perceive and construct as reality accepts at each interpretation level data from an underlying level which comes preformed to be incorporated into or interpreted by the higher level. Consciousness relentlessly interprets itself layer after layer of interpretations built one on top of the other, a phenomenon which, at the level of physics, thermodynamics refers to as energy dissipation.

At the conscious level, this process takes the form of thought. To reach a certain thought, all the previous thoughts that lead to it and are required for its existence must be produced in sequence. In certain occasions, one can grasp a certain thought without the intermediate process. It's as if the intermediate thoughts leading to it are being processed in parallel by the mind. This is what happens during an epiphany, and in such cases the thought grasped is usually understood in a vague and fuzzy form.

When incoming information can´t be assimilated by our mental interpretative apparatus, emotional stress usually ensues. In our normal state, we welcome information as long as it suits well with our interpretative habits and our role as agents in the system (that is, our interpretation of ourselves).

Paranormal phenomena can be interpreted as irruptions of non preformed raw material into the upper interpretative strata, effusions of consciousness bypassing the normal energy dissipation/interpretation networks mediated by the physical world.

[Dana Lomas]

Yes, Kripal nails it ... Thanks for sharing SP

[Lou Gold]

Sci Patel and Leo,

SUPER quotes from Kripal.

Thanks

[RHC]

Another great book Sci.  Kripal is dead on. Hence the utter inadequacy of our models for living and all forms of True Belief.

[Sci Patel]

On Wednesday, April 3, 2019 at 11:00:10 AM UTC-4, RHC wrote:

Another great book Sci.  Kripal is dead on. Hence the utter inadequacy of our models for living and all forms of True Belief.

Yeah I'm flipping through it again, may convince myself to do a re-read of parts like the following:

The Perfect Insect of the Imaginal 

Such a threshold, however, cannot be crossed directly or literally, except perhaps at death. Before that, it can only be crossed through images, myths, and symbols. This, I would suggest, is also why the preeminent data fields of the supernormal lie in comparative mystical literature and the folklore and mythologies of the history of religions, that is, in those human expressions involving symbol and myth. Enter the category of the imaginal.  Those who are familiar with the term inevitably trace it back to the French historian of Iranian Islamic mysticism Henri Corbin, who famously used it to discuss the profound effects mystical experience is said to have on the powers of imagination within his Iranian sources. Following his textual sources (and his own initiatory transmission from a medieval Sufi saint), Corbin understood the imaginal to be a noetic organ that accessed a real dimension of the cosmos whose appearances to us were nevertheless shaped by what he called the “creative imagination” (l’imagination créatrice). The creative imagination is an empowered form of what most people experience in its simpler and unenlightened state as the imagination or the imaginary. The imaginal is not the imaginary, though. The imaginal is in touch with and translating a higher dimension of reality, what Myers would have called the extraterrene. The imaginary is the same organ working on a strictly naturalistic or mundane level, what Myers would have called the terrene.  Now it is true that Corbin brought the imaginal into contemporary scholarly prominence. But it is not true that he invented the term. Nor is it true that he was the first major scholar of religion to employ it. The seventeenth-century Cambridge Platonist Henry More appears to have coined the category, in 1642, as “the imaginall” in his Psychodia Platonica; or, a Platonick song of the Soul. The first major theorist of the imaginal in the study of religion to use the term in a consistent way, however, was none other than Frederic Myers. 

Drawing on over a century of Romantic poetry and literature that recognized the imaginative powers as capable of both floating fantasy and revelatory cognition, Myers understood that the human imagination works in many modes and on many levels. More specifically, he became convinced that in certain contexts, the imagination can take on genuinely transcendental capacities, that is, that it can make contact with what appears to be a real spiritual world or, at the very least, an entirely different order of mind and consciousness. The imaginal is the imagination imagination on steroids. The imaginary is Clark Kent, the normal. The imaginal is Superman, the supernormal. Same guy, different suits. The Human as Two. 

As with his categories of the subliminal, the supernormal, and the telepathic, Myers linked the imaginal directly to his evolutionary worldview. Thus in the opening, still Roman-numeral pages of Human Personality, Myers defined imaginal this way: “A word used of characteristics belonging to the perfect insect or imago;—and thus opposed to larval;—metaphorically applied to transcendental faculties shown in rudiment in ordinary life” (HP 1:xviii). That’s a bit elliptical. What Myers intended to communicate here was the idea that the human imagination under certain very specific conditions can take on extraordinary or supernormal capacities that represent hints of a more highly evolved human nature. In his own more technical terms, such altered states of consciousness were “preversions” that represented “[a] tendency to characteristics assumed to lie at a further point of the evolutionary progress of a species than has yet been reached” (HP 1:xx).  

Kripal, Jeffrey J.. Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (pp. 82-83). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.

[Lou Gold]

WOW!

I've actually had the book (unread) in my kindle for some time. It surely will be my next read.

This forum is such informative if uninformed play for me! I'm very grateful for it.

All best....

[Lou Gold]

Dana (and all),

Here's a good one including a suggested connection between the word "imaginal" and metamorphosis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJ2m729O7Y

[Lou Gold]

Perhaps Scott can comment on the video by William Rowlandson  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJ2m729O7Y

[Lou Gold]

This interview with Terence Palmer is also quite relevant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ6QIKnZBwM

Loved the notion of a continuum of experiences. 

[Scott Roberts]

On Wednesday, April 3, 2019 at 10:38:05 AM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

Perhaps Scott can comment on the video by William Rowlandson  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXJ2m729O7Y

I watched about half, but wasn't learning anything new. I have read Corbin et al, and have long accepted that there are imaginal worlds, so I'm not sure why you think I would have any comment to make.  

[Lou Gold]

Scott,  

Later, closer to the end he does quite a riff on both/and, which is what I was thinking you might want to comment on.

[Dana Lomas]

Enjoyed it Lou, much to resonate with, from a fellow Cortazar fan as well ... alas, with only 485 views ... the angels and daemons and the heralds of the imago have their work cut out for them ... Calling All Angels :)

[Dana Lomas]

This version by the Wailin' Jennys is oh-so-sweet too (if y'all can indulge this musical interlude)

[Scott Roberts]

On Wednesday, April 3, 2019 at 6:15:40 PM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

Later, closer to the end he does quite a riff on both/and, which is what I was thinking you might want to comment on.

Ok, I saw the rest of the video. My reaction is to say that there is no logical difficulty in trying to define "imaginal realm" in that normal waking physical reality is an imaginal realm. So another such realm is just as factual as this one, and reserve "fictional" for such places as Hogwarts. 

[Lou Gold]

Scott,

I'm glad there are no logical problems with the imaginal.

I have been frustrated in an over-simplified model of individual alters and M@L, that there seem to be obvious zones and/or levels in consciousness. At our mundane level, what is a species, or a culture or a civilization and ecosystem within an alteric model? Then, at the next step, what are souls, spirits and non-corporal or other-than- material realms. In other words, what's the difference between Hogwarts and Angels? Perhaps this has been dealt with or perhaps this is simply not the business of ontology? So many questions? :-)))

[Sci Patel]

Angels would presumably be entities that are themselves alters of a particular sort, whereas fictional beings are in consciousness but possess no consciousness.

Now this may not be the case, perhaps both are fictional or maybe even both are real...but that is for individuals walking spiritual paths to ascertain empirically, rather than being the job of ontology which can only show us a possible door to walk through...

[Dana Lomas]

Yes, I'm guessing a fictional castle in the Harry Potter series is not conscious  ;)

[Scott Roberts]

On Thursday, April 4, 2019 at 1:13:45 PM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

I have been frustrated in an over-simplified model of individual alters and M@L, that there seem to be obvious zones and/or levels in consciousness.

Yes there seem to be, but as Sci says, finding and categorizing these zones and levels are empirical questions.

 

At our mundane level, what is a species, or a culture or a civilization and ecosystem within an alteric model?

There might be empirical answers in terms of alterity to such questions in esoteric literature. For example, a culture or forest may have a "mind of its own", so to speak, or may not. Only particular experience of interacting with such minds can answer such questions.

 

Then, at the next step, what are souls, spirits and non-corporal or other-than- material realms.

Ditto.

 

In other words, what's the difference between Hogwarts and Angels?

Angels, if they exist, are a form of non-physically embodied alters. Hogwarts is a fictional school thought up by J.K.Rowling. It does not exist, except as an idea in the minds of her and her readers. Harry Potter is not an alter. Now I consider it a possibility that as millions of HP fans die and find themselves in the imaginal realm that Myers calls Illusion Land (which I think is the same as what Buddhists call the Western Land, or something like that -- anyway, a benign and carefree post-mortem existence) those fans could make Hogwarts real. But it does not exist in our reality.

 

Perhaps this has been dealt with or perhaps this is simply not the business of ontology?

It is in the sense that if the experience of non-physical imaginal realms or angels becomes established, then any ontology must account for them. Since materialism can't, it would drop out of contention.

[Lou Gold]

Scott,

I need to return to this:

My reaction is to say that there is no logical difficulty in trying to define "imaginal realm" in that normal waking physical reality is an imaginal realm. So another such realm is just as factual as this one, and reserve "fictional" for such places as Hogwarts. 

Firstly, although I'm glad that you see no logical problem with the imaginal, misses the point that in a consensual language disenchanted by materialism, entities such as angels or forest spirits have been exiled to fiction, folklore and fairy tales, thus making it damn difficult to effectively communicate that the realms are real, which seemed to me to be William Rowlandson's point.

 

Secondly, although the imaginal and normal waking physical reality are both mental and real, seems to miss the point that they are also different in the sense of following different rules. BK wisely defines the "physical" as that which follows the rules and logic of physics. But to enter the imaginal one may need to know something of the rules and logic of magic. Are you asserting that they are the same?

On Thursday, April 4, 2019 at 4:56:49 PM UTC-5, Scott Roberts wrote:

[Lou Gold]

Scott,

I grok your drift mostly in agreement and I'm, as always, full of questions.

I have been frustrated in an over-simplified model of individual alters and M@L, that there seem to be obvious zones and/or levels in consciousness.

Yes there seem to be, but as Sci says, finding and categorizing these zones and levels are empirical questions.

OK but does "empirical" carry a materialist bias? What is the non-materialist method of being empirical? 

At our mundane level, what is a species, or a culture or a civilization and ecosystem within an alteric model?

There might be empirical answers in terms of alterity to such questions in esoteric literature. For example, a culture or forest may have a "mind of its own", so to speak, or may not. Only particular experience of interacting with such minds can answer such questions.

I'm not sure what you mean by "particular"? Is it individualistic, personal and other than culturally consensual? Indigenous cultures can do this. Polynesian seafarers can navigate thousands of miles of open ocean without instruments by singing the songs, watching the currents and the stars. There's a collective mindset involved. Does "particular" include this?

I get your take on Angels and Hogwarts. No problem!

Perhaps this has been dealt with or perhaps this is simply not the business of ontology?

It is in the sense that if the experience of non-physical imaginal realms or angels becomes established, then any ontology must account for them.

How does it become established? My take is that the truth of Idealism leads to searching for the way. In this search it will have to compete with a very powerful materialist technology, which is no small challenge.

[Sci Patel]

Consensus mundane seemingly materialist reality is the stage, the jumping off point.

It has a very important purpose, it is the soil of imagination b/c its enforcement of the Veil means no religion, no metaphysics, can impose an outright tyranny on how we seek to find personal answers to the Great Questions.

"It wouldn’t hurt to light a candle for Jona.

We are, all of us, feeling for the worlds that move between the cracks in our senses.

Light a candle for your friend.

Good hearts push through many boundaries. Have faith, Christoff. Have faith in something.”

 -JM McDermott, Never Knew Another

[Scott Roberts]

On Thursday, April 4, 2019 at 5:57:08 PM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

Firstly, although I'm glad that you see no logical problem with the imaginal, misses the point that in a consensual language disenchanted by materialism, entities such as angels or forest spirits have been exiled to fiction, folklore and fairy tales, thus making it damn difficult to effectively communicate that the realms are real, which seemed to me to be William Rowlandson's point.

If I am talking to someone who thinks that angels are fiction, I will start at the beginning -- try to convince them of idealism, and introduce them to esoteric descriptions of imaginal realms. Thusly, one shows that one should reject that they are fictional, and are therefore factual. If I am talking to idealists who have experience, or accept reports of those with experience of imaginal realms, then we are all in agreement that they are factual. I don't see any audience where saying "both fictional and fact" helps. If of the first sort, they will just dismiss that as nonsense, since for them, it is all fictional.

 

 

Secondly, although the imaginal and normal waking physical reality are both mental and real, seems to miss the point that they are also different in the sense of following different rules. BK wisely defines the "physical" as that which follows the rules and logic of physics. But to enter the imaginal one may need to know something of the rules and logic of magic. Are you asserting that they are the same?

 No. They each have their own rules, or "root assumptions" as Seth calls them. 

[Lou Gold]

Scott,

I think we are at a language impasse here:

If I am talking to someone who thinks that angels are fiction, I will start at the beginning -- try to convince them of idealism, and introduce them to esoteric descriptions of imaginal realms. Thusly, one shows that one should reject that they are fictional, and are therefore factual. If I am talking to idealists who have experience, or accept reports of those with experience of imaginal realms, then we are all in agreement that they are factual. I don't see any audience where saying "both fictional and fact" helps. If of the first sort, they will just dismiss that as nonsense, since for them, it is all fictional.

My understanding of Rowlandson's point was that given the limitations of our disenchanted language and logic there was no adequate way for him to respond other than something like "all of the above." He wasn't asserting a solution to the dilemma as much as surrendering to and affirming the mysteriousness of an imaginal realm that for the time being is pretty much separated from consensual communication except in fiction. Ursula Le Guin often offered this explanation for why she became a fantasy writer, saying that it was the only way she could speak of the deeper truths she knew. 

As I've mentioned before, there's an entirely different cultural take on true and false stories possible. The Pawnee Indians say false stories are offered for the aggrandizement of the storyteller whereas true stories are intended to help the listener learn something. Interestingly, false stories can be created entirely of selected facts and true stories may be pure fiction.

How might one explain the tremendous appeal of tales like HP other than acknowledging that they touch something people want very much but have no consensually factual language to provide? I know that Idealism offers a better door-opener than Materialism but I'm not sure that ontology can itself address the challenge of needing a great story. 

[Scott Roberts]

On Thursday, April 4, 2019 at 6:25:01 PM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

OK but does "empirical" carry a materialist bias?

Only if one is a materialist. Berkeley is considered an empiricist.

 

What is the non-materialist method of being empirical?

"Empirical" means drawing conclusions from experience. The materialist only pays attention to experience of physical reality. The non-materialist will pay attention to physical and non-physical experience.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "particular"? Is it individualistic, personal and other than culturally consensual?

The experience of an individual communicating with whatever one thinks one is communicating with.

 

Indigenous cultures can do this. Polynesian seafarers can navigate thousands of miles of open ocean without instruments by singing the songs, watching the currents and the stars. There's a collective mindset involved. Does "particular" include this?

It does for them, and is consensual for them.

 

It is in the sense that if the experience of non-physical imaginal realms or angels becomes established, then any ontology must account for them.

How does it become established?

By becoming common, or at least prevalent enough that one considers them legitimate, and not crazy delusions of a few.

 

My take is that the truth of Idealism leads to searching for the way. In this search it will have to compete with a very powerful materialist technology, which is no small challenge.

I suspect that technology has peaked, and we shall soon find that we lack the resources to maintain what we have, much less see it grow. But that's another topic.

[Lou Gold]

Scott,

I'm not sure what you mean by "particular"? Is it individualistic, personal and other than culturally consensual?

The experience of an individual communicating with whatever one thinks one is communicating with.

How do you understand an ant colony or a forest or a Polynesian culture? Is just a collection of individuals communicating their particular experiences?

I understand your definition of "empirical." Seems that the materialist bias toward quantification may be the rub that distorts the more ideal definition of empirical.

[Scott Roberts]

On Friday, April 5, 2019 at 2:11:16 PM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

How do you understand an ant colony or a forest or a Polynesian culture? Is just a collection of individuals communicating their particular experiences?

How should I know? I haven't communicated with them. 

[Scott Roberts]

On Friday, April 5, 2019 at 1:22:05 PM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

My understanding of Rowlandson's point was that given the limitations of our disenchanted language and logic there was no adequate way for him to respond other than something like "all of the above."

What limitation of language and logic? Our language and logic is perfectly capable of referring to imaginal realms. Dreams, for example. It is only limited in being able to describe what one finds in other realms.

 

He wasn't asserting a solution to the dilemma as much as surrendering to and affirming the mysteriousness of an imaginal realm that for the time being is pretty much separated from consensual communication except in fiction.

There is strangeness and weirdness, which is very difficult, if not impossible to describe. But it is just as difficult or impossible to describe in fiction.

 

Ursula Le Guin often offered this explanation for why she became a fantasy writer, saying that it was the only way she could speak of the deeper truths she knew. 

With the result that her deeper truths could be dismissed as fantasy.

 

As I've mentioned before, there's an entirely different cultural take on true and false stories possible. The Pawnee Indians say false stories are offered for the aggrandizement of the storyteller whereas true stories are intended to help the listener learn something. Interestingly, false stories can be created entirely of selected facts and true stories may be pure fiction.

But I'm concerned with our take on true and false stories. We have left the mythos period behind. Do you really think that the way to address the Problem of Evil is to just recite the first chapters of Genesis?

 

How might one explain the tremendous appeal of tales like HP other than acknowledging that they touch something people want very much but have no consensually factual language to provide?

I have no idea what this has to do with the question of how to refer to imaginal realms. Yes, we would all like to be able to do magic. Well, if we can convince people that there are realms where what we consider to be magic is normal, then shouldn't we be saying that such realms are factual, and not "fictional and factual"? We can read a fictional story about living in such a realm, or we can read Geraldine Cummins' The Road to Immortality (medium communication from a post-mortem Myers) and read of such realms as actually existing.

 

I know that Idealism offers a better door-opener than Materialism but I'm not sure that ontology can itself address the challenge of needing a great story. 

You're right, and ontology can't boil eggs either. Ontology serves a purpose. Stories serve another purpose. 

[Lou Gold]

Scott, 

I hope you are not just being flippant. Ant colonies have been fascinating both biological and social scientists because they display a disciplined networked behavior with elaborate task specialization without direct communication or leadership. In this case, the colony rather than individuals is the "active agent" or whatever it might be called in the DID model. There's a whole emerging science of a forest as a networked system rather than just a collection of plants, critters and soil. Similarly, human culture often determines more of the behaviors of its members than individual conscious choice. My pointing to Polynesian culture was only because its navigational skills are extraordinary but I suspect that all cultures have some unique qualities that are not explained at the level of individualism. My general question was aimed whether the alter model was biased in the directions suggested by individual psychology? I think it's a reasonable question.

[Lou Gold]

Scott,

My understanding of Rowlandson's point was that given the limitations of our disenchanted language and logic there was no adequate way for him to respond other than something like "all of the above."

What limitation of language and logic? Our language and logic is perfectly capable of referring to imaginal realms. Dreams, for example. It is only limited in being able to describe what one finds in other realms.

Then why is it so hard for mystics to describe their experience, assigning it instead to the "ineffable"? Just because of formlessness or are the language forms lacking? Of course, mythology or an archetypal system like tarot are full of language for this. Cosmologies as well. But try to use these forms to communicate with the grocer or your neighbor.  Physicalism has exiled such language to fiction and fantasy thus disenchanting or desacralizing our common world and leaving us with a language problem.

He wasn't asserting a solution to the dilemma as much as surrendering to and affirming the mysteriousness of an imaginal realm that for the time being is pretty much separated from consensual communication except in fiction. 

There is strangeness and weirdness, which is very difficult, if not impossible to describe. But it is just as difficult or impossible to describe in fiction.

I disagree. The author of fiction simply creates a magical realism which is then assigned by common consensus a status of entertaining but unreal (fictional).

But I'm concerned with our take on true and false stories. We have left the mythos period behind. Do you really think that the way to address the Problem of Evil is to just recite the first chapters of Genesis?

Of course not! I believe we need a new mythos relevant in modernity and re-enchanted. 

How might one explain the tremendous appeal of tales like HP other than acknowledging that they touch something people want very much but have no consensually factual language to provide?

I have no idea what this has to do with the question of how to refer to imaginal realms. 

The appeal has to do with a longing for an enchantment that's been exiled, called in this conversational context "imaginal realms." Sounds on-point to me.

Yes, we would all like to be able to do magic. Well, if we can convince people that there are realms where what we consider to be magic is normal, then shouldn't we be saying that such realms are factual, and not "fictional and factual"? We can read a fictional story about living in such a realm, or we can read Geraldine Cummins' The Road to Immortality (medium communication from a post-mortem Myers) and read of such realms as actually existing.

Or we could do rituals where so-called "magic" is performed and directly experienced as real. Walking barefoot across 10 meters of hot coals comes to mind. Or we could ourselves communicate with and/or incorporate disincarnate entities as a direct experience.

I know that Idealism offers a better door-opener than Materialism but I'm not sure that ontology can itself address the challenge of needing a great story. 

You're right, and ontology can't boil eggs either. Ontology serves a purpose. Stories serve another purpose. 

I would add that ontology does try to put some cracks in the cosmic egg in order to let more light in. I wish it well. And when the new great story arrives, hopefully the cracks will be healed.

As always, thanks Scott for joining the mental meander with me.

[Lou Gold]

Scott and others,

I want to clarify that I'm not just mind-messing here. There's a meaning in my madness. I'll try to grab hold of it.

I know that you've tackled the form/formlessness issue and that BK has addressed the mind/body problem . My purpose is not to quarrel with what has been dealt with. Perhaps my terminology is weak but I want to raise what I'm beginning to see as the consciousness/container problem, which may be a collective version of set/setting(?).

It seems to me that, when formlessness is born into form, there is a lot more than individualism involved. It matters whether one is born an ant, a plant, a human (and of which variety). In the case of humans it matters what mythos one is born into. It is already present in the womb of the mother and probably carries epigenetically the mythos of the grandmother.  Can the DID analogy, based on individual psychology, handle this adequately? Are there unaddressed structural or systemic issues involved?

[Sci Patel]

If there are gradations between the individual alter and the One it seems to me that would account for family constellations, ka-tets, morphogenic fields, whatever word one wished to describe the mental "aura" of societies.

That said, I don't think BK or anyone else thinks DID is the last word on every possible aspect of reality, anymore than physics is the last world on the phenomenal. Ontology can't make scrambled eggs, to turn a phrase on what Scott said.

[Scott Roberts]

On Friday, April 5, 2019 at 5:32:21 PM UTC-10, Lou Gold wrote:

What limitation of language and logic? Our language and logic is perfectly capable of referring to imaginal realms. Dreams, for example. It is only limited in being able to describe what one finds in other realms.

Then why is it so hard for mystics to describe their experience, assigning it instead to the "ineffable"?

Reread what I just said: language is limited in being able to describe imaginal realms. It is not limited in saying whether or not imaginal realms are fictional or factual.

 

Just because of formlessness or are the language forms lacking?

This is getting into a different topic. Visiting imaginal realms is not, of itself, what I would call mysticism. (It's the same subject/object consciousness but with different and often indescribable objects.)

 

Of course, mythology or an archetypal system like tarot are full of language for this. Cosmologies as well. But try to use these forms to communicate with the grocer or your neighbor.  Physicalism has exiled such language to fiction and fantasy thus disenchanting or desacralizing our common world and leaving us with a language problem.

So? I thought we were debating whether to call imaginal realms "factual" or "fictional and factual".

 The author of fiction simply creates a magical realism which is then assigned by common consensus a status of entertaining but unreal (fictional).

Where it stays, without a change in the reader's ontology.

 I believe we need a new mythos relevant in modernity and re-enchanted. 

We also need a new logos. If you want to concentrate on mythos, go ahead, but why do you keep complaining that the new logos isn't doing the story-teller's job?

 

Or we could do rituals where so-called "magic" is performed and directly experienced as real. Walking barefoot across 10 meters of hot coals comes to mind. Or we could ourselves communicate with and/or incorporate disincarnate entities as a direct experience.

Sure, do that as well. but one does that to convince people that imaginal realms are factual, while saying they are fictional and factual just confuses things.

 

[Lou Gold]

Scott,

I guess, not surprisingly, we aren't getting anywhere. It is what it is.

You might like this Oren Lyons talk which I posted in a separate thread: 

https://parliamentofreligions.org/videos/chief-oren-lyons-gives-keynote-address-2015-parliament-worlds-religions

[Lou Gold]

Sci Patel,

I think we mostly agree.

I'm just highlighting what I consider as not-yet-addressed issues of structural or systemic constraints. I'm starting to call this the container/consciousness problem, which is surely not the "last word." Indeed, I don't believe there's ever a "last word" because I see even Paradise as a process requiring active participation.

[Lou Gold]

Scott,

I should add that at bottom-line the determination of fact or fiction is experiential, which you taught me is the meaning of "empirical." Here we agree! 

Perhaps, our difference might be that I argue that "empirical" requires participation. I dunno for sure. My pragmatic way is to simply say that there are my stories and the stories of others. 

I do know that I have language for describing my dreams generally but when it comes to the most impactful dream moments I often have no commonly shared language for them. I call this lack of a common language a disenchantment. Possibly not the best term. 

[Sci Patel]

Musteria—mysteries; the proceedings of initiatory and sacred rites; the Eleusinian festival is known simply as ta musteria or arrhetos tele-tai; the initiates—mustai and bacchoi—walk a sacred way, the goal of which is inner transformation and eternal bliss: “happy and blessed one, god will you be instead of a mortal”; the Orphic mysteries have striking parallels in the Egyptian Book of the Dead and the Coffin Texts; the mysteries are characterized as esoteric, secret, forbidden (apor-rheton) and unspeakable (arrheton); the special states, attained through initiation (telete), are claimed to be valid even beyond death; the mystery language is adopted by Plato and used by his followers; even the Stoic Seneca speaks of the initiatory rites of philosophy, “which open not some local shrine, but [the] vast temple of all the gods, the universe itself, whose true images and true likeness philosophy has brought before the mind’s eye” (Ep. 90.28).

The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Pythagorean and Platonic Philosophy (Treasures of the World's Religions) (p. 288). World Wisdom. Kindle Edition.

=-=-=

Muthos—myth, tale; legomena, “things recited,” in the Eleusinian mysteries, i.e. the recitations of the hieros logos belong to the sphere of myth; the one-sided opposition between an irrational muthos and rational logos in Hellenic philosophy and culture, established by modern scholarship, is erroneous— even in Plato, myth constitutes an essential part of philosophy; all true myths require a proper cosmological and metaphysical exegesis; according to Proclus, the hieratic myths have certain inner meanings (huponoia) and conceal secret or unspoken (apporrheton) doctrines, sometimes inspired or revealed by the gods themselves; Sallustius associates the highest level of myth with the transcendent divine reality and the lowest with the deceptive perceptions within the realm of the senses; thus a Myth (like the Hindu Maya) is tantamount to the manifested cosmos itself, understood as the visible veil of the hidden invisible truth.

The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Pythagorean and Platonic Philosophy (Treasures of the World's Religions) (p. 288). World Wisdom. Kindle Edition.

[Sci Patel]

The Secret of the Veda

Here’s the translation people see on the Internet:

I laud Agni, the chosen Priest, God, minister of sacrifice,
The hotar, lavishest of wealth. (translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith, 1896)

Agni is fire, but how can it be Priest, God, minister of sacrifice, and the rest that follows. And why is it important to have a priest or minister of sacrifice? What is the meaning of sacrifice? What is God, if we don’t see him anywhere? Why is Agni “God” and why is lauding him important or relevant? Why speak of things that cannot be tested?

It is a jumble of words that takes you nowhere. You stop and give up.

Deeper Meaning

To get to the deeper meaning, we must first understand who Agni is. To the uninitiated, Agni is the physical fire that one can see. But the deeper meaning of Agni is the light (or spark) within that lifts the veil on the lamp of consciousness; yet another meaning is Vāc or speech.

Agni and Vāc are two manifestations of the same deeper reality. This is expressed in the poetic expression that Vāc and Agni both reside in the waters and in trees. The waters of materiality hide the spark of Agni and the sounds of their waves; from trees comes fire as well as the wood for flutes and other musical instruments. There is also a deeper connection between the elements of tejas and vāyu that I have discussed elsewhere (see my book Matter and Mind).[Note 1]

Devam, translated by Griffith as “God” is from the root div which means light. (Many years ago, I showed in my book The Gods Within that the devas are the cognitive centers in the mind. [Note 2]) The word “God” is meaningless here excepting in its primary meaning of Light. The devas are the centers of agency that are the constituents of our mind.

So here is the deeper meaning of words and the translation is:

I venerate Agni, the priest [purohita] who is the light [devam] and invoker [ṛtvij] of the sacrifice, the one who chants [hotṛ] and bestows treasure.

Imagine that your habits and conditioning have thrown a veil on your consciousness, which they do, but this is something that I am not going to go further in here. This veil can be penetrated by using the human manifestation of fire (that is speech of Agni the purohita in the chants as hotṛ) to connect with the inner spark (devam), so that the veil is dissolved and you are in touch with your true self.

It is only momentarily lifted just like you are only momentarily in the present moment. Most of the time, we inhabit either our past (which is dead and gone) or make dreams about the future (which doesn’t exist). The idea of spiritual practice is to make that dissolution of the veil persist for ever longer period of time.

The process of connecting from speech to inner light needs a bridge and that is the mysterious role of Agni as invoker. Why mysterious? Because we are not talking of things, but rather of the workings of consciousness, which is not a material entity. This process of invocation requires a mastery of the processes that are symbolized by the Goddess.

What about treasures that are bestowed? The process of connecting to the source, if I may use that phrase, is transformative. It is also punarjanman, the rebirth, the end of the yajna, the sacrifice. When connected to the source, capacities that lay latent, come alive. The treasures that one comes by were within one’s reach all the time excepting one wasn’t aware of them, or one didn’t know where to look for them.

In physics, it is like the directing of evolution by observation (something called the Quantum Zeno Effect that I have discussed elsewhere [Note 3]). 

What are the many divinities of the Ṛgveda? These are the lights at different points in the inner space of the mind, the embodiments of various cognitive capacities...