Second the above. I went to some of the Science and Nonduality (SAND) conferences in California - some of the speakers were genuine, but there was a lot of pseudo-mystical quantum woo being put about.

But as Rumi says, there would be no fool's gold if there were no gold.

But as Rumi says, there would be no fool's gold if there were no gold. — Wayfarer

I agree to that - as I said mysticism in Christianity is a reputable tradition, and is even the culmination of everything else. But some people apparently think that it is possible to have the peak of the mountain without its body! They want to do away with the Churches, away with the traditions, jump straight to the peak! This is nothing but modern arrogance and infatuation.

But, Agustino, this debate about who is legitimate or not is hardly a footnote. It is exactly the sort of "Law bringing" narcissism (which I partake in like anyone) that some notions of the mystic attempt to transcend. You make mysticism sound like a gym membership. "God has to be earned!" "Look at all of these fakes!" " Real Christians/mystics/philosophers/men/whatever do it THIS way, MY way." As I see it, this game (my Law projected as the authentic, universal Law) is what "Christ" transcends.(We see that this game cuts both ways.) But of course my Christ is a symbolic Christ. Yours is a man of the Law. (I'd use some other name for mine if my childhood occurred in a different religious context. )

You make mysticism sound like gym membership. — Hoo

But on the contrary my friend, gym membership isn't earned, you can just buy it and walk right into the gym. Mysticism isn't like that.

"God has to be earned!" "Look at all of these fakes!" Real Christians/mystics/philosophers/men/whatever do it THIS way, MY way. — Hoo

I never claimed Christianity is the only way though. I personally believe Christianity is the highest religion, but I can see nothing wrong with other religions being ways which lead to just the same divinity. The idea of there having been a single revelation is foolish. Certainly transcendence has revealed itself in different parts of the globe and in different ways. But all these ways involve order, the virtues, and humility. They don't involve reckless arrogance about the power and capacities of the human soul.

But of course my Christ is a symbolic Christ. Yours is a man of the Law. — Hoo

Yes indeed. In my mind the Law is required to achieve the symbolic Christ you talk of. I agree the symbolic Christ goes beyond the law - it fulfils the law. But it's not a negation of it. If the Law is the seed, then Christ is the flower :) The flower and the seed have a necessary connection with each other, even though the flower transcends the seed.

Apologies, written in haste.

My first encounters with the literature of mysticism, were with the Indian 'advaitins'. Advaita is a philosophical school of Hinduism which became very popular in the mid 20th Century - Somerset Maugham's 'The Razor's Edge' was written after he had visited the noted Hindu sage, Ramana Maharishi.

Anyway, one point about the Advaitins is that they were quite 'anti-nomian' in their attitude to conventional religion. They were dismissive of religious conventions, the caste system, rites and rituals - which in a culture like India made them quite radical figures.

There are anecdotes about encounters between Advaita sages and the conventionally religious which ofen culminate with the latter being shown up as credulous or hide-bound.

There's a similar dynamic in Chinese philosophy between the Taoists, often depicted as vagabonds and vagrants, and the upright Confucian sage, who represents civic piety and virtue. Quite often they end with the Taoist having a laugh at the sages' expense.

The reason I mention that, is because those anti-nomian figures represent the rejection of religious dogma in a way similar to the modern existentialists and other non-conformist philosophers in the 20th century. They are often colorful characters, free spirits, even rascals and rogues.

But I would contend that they're not atheist in the way that only becomes possible in the 20th Century. Certainly many of them were not what we would identify as 'theistic', but the idea of living beings as 'accidents of biochemistry' that is the basic tenet of 20th century materialism, would never have occured to them; it wouldn't have been a cognitive possibility.

That it is a discussion of exceedingly subtle matters. Personally I find it a bit unseemly. — Wayfarer

I'm still not clear as to what it is you find unseemly.

I enjoyed your post. I had a sense like that about Taoism, but I haven't heard much about the other antimonians of the East.
I don't know that atheism == materialism, but I see what you're getting at. On the other hand, there are atheists who lose interest in origins and even in science. For me these "accidents of biochemistry" are very abstract and distant from the world I live in of faces and voices. Only as technology does science interest me much these days. Math is another story! As Conway said, that's the stuff that we can understand. But we deeply live in language. I'd be there are lots of "literary" atheists out there, and maybe they aren't exactly atheists. I believe in deities in a roundabout way. I suppose it's about whether we expect the manifest image to change directly ( by divine intervention) or indirectly through world-shaping man's passionate imagination. (That I imply that deities [excepting Being itself?] are "just" imagination should be understood in the context of a great love for the "poetic genius" and "human form divine.")

these "accidents of biochemistry" are very abstract and distant from the world I live in...

Ask the proverbial man-in-the-street what is the basis of reality. I bet - haven't done the research - the answer will be 'atoms', and that we're a species that has evolved according to the 'laws of survival'. I think the majority assume something like that - it is the modern, scientific way to think. I don't think that is either abstract or distant, it's real and close up.

In the U.S. there's not as much pure atheism/scientism to be had. I know people with degrees who will talk of ghosts. How do ghosts fit in with atoms? Also, "global warming is a hoax" and then there's just lots of traditional religion available, too, though the millennials seem to be avoiding the churches.

I agree, however, that, if you frame the question a certain way, they will repeat the expert knowledge as it was told them. Later they may say that aliens built the pyramids, though, or fire up the Tarot app on their smartphone. My old man had a strange, personalized reincarnation belief, but he mixed it with science-fiction notions of the creation of humanity. He got something from it, but he only talked about such things a few times, mostly absorbed in projects for the back yard. My point is that most people don't care enough to synthesize something cohesive, as long as they feel good. Passionate, closed-minded materialism and atheism are rare in my experience. As you know, it's a new pop-atheist twist on humanism--another "religion." Just like scientism.

Prominent progressives do lean toward science (and altruism) as the grand authority. Traditional religion is lumped in with sexism, homophobia, and even (post Trump) racism. I've noticed little rainbow stickers on churches that feel the need to distance themselves.

You know the laughing thing, well it's the same with art, suddenly everything is art and you have to restructure what art means from a position of knowledge, aware of the futile struggling you were doing before the revelation, veiled in ignorance. — Punshhh

I sort of neglected this before, but I've had a vision along the lines of everything being art. I used to want to write a book, etc., and crystallize something, but now I think of the living, flowing unstable persona as a sort of dynamic sculpture. Water on fire, looking for fuel.

Well it certainly is much more likely as an explanation. Aquinas certainly did not renounce any of his writings as wrong. — Agustino

I haven't said that he declared any of his writings to be wrong, but merely inaccurate, in the sense that there can be no accurate description of the experience of God. And without any experience of God all descriptions are merely playing with more or less logical possibilities; such as we can imagine them.

No those "doctrinal" differences have practical significance. Becoming God can very easily be associated with anything being permitted for you. Like Osho Rajneesh having promiscuous sex with his disciples. Or poisoning a community. Or Krishnamurti having sex with one of his friend's wife behind his back, and having her have an abortion. — Agustino

I'm going to be blunt here: I think you are transforming yourself into a self-righteous fool.
This is all just malicious unsubstantiated gossip, unless you can show clear evidence for those claims about Osho and Krishnamurti . And again, even if those claims were true; so what? No man is perfect.
As Christ is recorded as saying in Matthew:

"Judge not, that ye be not judged.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

Moral teachings and philosophies are certainly necessary to societies just as laws are; I haven't anywhere denied that, or spoken about individuals becoming God in the sense of being raised above the rest of us to be beyond morality or the law. If you think that is what I am arguing then your own hysterical reading of what I have written has gotten the better of you.Laws pertain to those acts which are clearly of a criminal nature. Transgressors of laws are prosecuted and punished, but it will not do to prosecute and punish people for transgressing what are merely moral injunctions; who would want to live in such a society?

Those matters must be left up to the individual; they are between the individual and their God, so to speak; and the individual must live with his or her choices; the moral approbation or disapprobation their acts occasion in their fellows, and feel in their own hearts whether they have done right or wrong.

Only Gnosticism is heretical — Agustino

Gnosticism is not one monolithic standpoint. In its simplest form it is merely the claim that God can be known. All mysticism is a form of gnosticism in this basic sense. It is essentially contra to the established dogma of the Church fathers. Remember the official church position did not always recognize the mystics; it is only with time, distance and the softening of dogma that they have become incorporated into the official canon of the churches.

This is a very complex issue that you are apparently wanting to promote a very simplistic understanding of.

Funny that the person who says some things cannot be argued is then the one to suggest that fundamentalists can never be convinced by arguments — Agustino

You're taking my words out of context and running two different things said on two different contexts together. I had said that what Aquinas thought cannot properly be argued about. If he made a clear statement about what he was thinking then there would be no argument; and if he didn't then it may only be not very fruitfully speculated about.

The other point was about church dogma, and ultra-conservative fundamentalist interpretations thereof; which I think you are guilty of. My point there is that I don't want to waste time trying to make someone see reason; when their very position if it is any kind of self-righteous purism, is not at all based on reason. It is a waste of time because they will not likely be amenable to argument.

Unless a part of us, the part Eckhart is talking about, is also transcendent :) — Agustino

To say that would be to utter a contradiction. 'Transcendent" means something like "that which cannot be known or experienced'. If we can know or experience something then it is immanent to our knowledge and experience. What it 'might be' beyond that cannot be anything to us.

So, the following is inconsistent, contradictory and incoherent :

Experiences of the transcendent can be quite varying. That's why it's a personal relationship with the transcendent. No two people's experience will be the same, or even necessarily alik — Agustino

How could we have a relationship with something that is completely and utterly beyond us? That's a simple contradiction, and claiming that we could have such a relationship would be inconsistent with the meanings of the terms used to make the claim. How could we know, based on our experience of anything that it is transcendent, or even know at all what it could mean for it to be transcendent? It is because we cannot know what such claims mean that they are incoherent.

We are beings of flesh as well as spirit. Fulfilment of our nature requires divinization of the flesh, not its repudiation. You seem to ignore that we live in the world, and not in mystical flights of fancy - this is what typically happens when someone approaches mysticism on their own, not guided by the wisdom of tradition. So yes - order is necessary, without order there is no stability, and without stability nothing great can be achieved. — Agustino

What does "divinization of the flesh" even mean? The flesh is already divine, or not at all. I say it is already divine; it is only a matter of proper seeing. Your pronouncements are truly laughable, as if you know me! I have nowhere promoted dissolution of morals; on the contrary, I have said specifically elsewhere on these forums that it is the duty of each one of us to develop our own moral senses, instincts, imaginations and intuitions; and to be as mindful as possible of our own acts, not to worry about the acts of others, and sit in judgement of them, as you do. Of course, some order and stability is necessary for human life that is why we have laws, and why people need to be educated to develop their moral senses. But in the realm of ethics, because each one of us is a unique individual there will always be nuances in unique situations, such that it cannot be right to make blanket moral pronouncements such as "divorce is wrong", "adultery is wrong", "homosexuality is wrong" and other like ultra-conservative dictatorial claims such as the ones you make on these forums. You have, unfortunately it seems, become a wowser, as I see it, anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lives_in_the_Shadow_with_J._Krishnamurti

I agree with the point about gnosticism not being a single school, or even a school.

Incidentally, it's worth recalling what Jesus said to the woman he protected from being stoned:

'Go, woman - and sin no more'. Something often overlooked.

True, I think Jesus does call for repentance, but if the woman went and sinned again, he still would not judge, but patiently urge repentance again. Repentance is not some form of behavior simply taken on from without once it is shown to you, but something that must come genuinely from within, from the "still, small voice" of moral intuition.

If the Law is the seed, then Christ is the flower :) The flower and the seed have a necessary connection with each other, even though the flower transcends the seed. — Agustino

How does the flower transcend the seed? Isn't it more likely that the seed actually transcends the flower?

I hear you but I think an awful lot gets written off nowadays against 'judge not....'

Perhaps that's true; I don't know. I think it is probably more the 'slow insidious creep' of determinism which is undermining belief in free will and personal responsibility.

So, I am not saying that people should not censure others for acts that they understand to be morally wrong; I am saying that such censures should be made in light of one's own moral intuitions, not in light of some received and inflexible moral dogma. Also, the censuring of the behavior of others should be kept well separate from any desire to punish them, or any thought that they deserve punishment. For me, the idea that 'they know not what they do' should also be kept well in mind; as I think it applies in most cases where there is no malicious intent.

Second the above. I went to some of the Science and Nonduality (SAND) conferences in California - some of the speakers were genuine, but there was a lot of pseudo-mystical quantum woo being put about.

Yes and there are many false prophets these days. There was less of this in the past when the mystical traditions were cloistered.

I would point out here and in reference to the Eckhart quotes each being dwells in and expresses a reality in measure to their condition of evolutionary development*. So in a sense, it matters little what they say, provided they don't hinder others. So there may be two people in the same place talking the same words, of differing evolutionary positions, for whom their experience and meaning differs by orders of magnitude.

Also there may be people of high evolutionary development, true Mystics, living an ordinary life as an ignorant farmer or washer woman.

* by evolutionary development, I am referring to the development of the soul ( for want of a better word)

But as Rumi says, there would be no fool's gold if there were no gold

Nice quote.

Yes, the final work of art is one's self. Yes the realisation that all is art, or what someone says is art was a coming of age. Before this point I had struggled for years to get to the bottom of art, to understand the philosophy of art. Even to find the philosophy of art, if it was out there somewhere. All I found were historical, or sociocultural comment. Perhaps the most fruitful route was to look at the art itself, ignore the critics and see it's meaning, quite a pilgrimage.

Now I know and understand art, it is a joy, in all its guises* and history. I will be going to view the Abstract Expressionist exhibition at the Royal Academy in a few weeks, I can't wait. Some nice Pollock and Rothko to dwell on.

* unfortunately I do have a pet hate in the guise of degenerative Brit Art. But I see very little merit, I blame it on the ex hippy lecturers that frequented the art schools in the 80's.

Perhaps the most fruitful route was to look at the art itself, ignore the critics and see it's meaning, quite a pilgrimage. — Punshhh

It's a beautiful thing to just dare to see with one's own eyes. Lots of folks may nod at that concept in the abstract, but a little later they will appeal some grand authority. This art conversation really is related to the rest of the thread. The imagination I was trying to share is all about the liberation of one's genuine feeling and perception and even about one's own voice as a writer. I know people who write well when it's nothing they want to publish. But they switch into solemn mode and lose their unique voices. Incidentally, that's one of the reasons I embrace this medium. No, it's not like they did it in the old days. The internet has opened up something new. (I also love good TV and rap, but I can imagine a resistance to these forms because they aren't yesterday's Shakespeare but today's.)

"Unscrew the doors from their jambs." (I'll have to put some Whitman on this thread. He's a 'mystic' of the flesh that I tend to have in mind.)

Here's some great 'mystic' poetry, though perhaps too carnal for some tastes:

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from
them,
No more modest than immodest.

Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.

Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me the cur-
rent and index.

I speak the pass-word primeval, I give the sign of democracy,
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their coun-
terpart of on the same terms.

Through me many long dumb voices,
Voices of the interminable generations of prisoners and slaves,
Voices of the diseas'd and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs,
Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,
And of the threads that connect the stars, and of wombs and of
the father-stuff,
And of the rights of them the others are down upon,
Of the deform'd, trivial, flat, foolish, despised,
Fog in the air, beetles rolling balls of dung.

Through me forbidden voices,
Voices of sexes and lusts, voices veil'd and I remove the veil,
Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur'd.

I do not press my fingers across my mouth,
I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,
Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.

I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me
is a miracle.

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or
am touch'd from,
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of
my own body, or any part of it,
Translucent mould of me it shall be you!
Shaded ledges and rests it shall be you!
Firm masculine colter it shall be you!
Whatever goes to the tilth of me it shall be you!
You my rich blood! your milky stream pale strippings of my life!
Breast that presses against other breasts it shall be you!
My brain it shall be your occult convolutions!
Root of wash'd sweet-flag! timorous pond-snipe! nest of guarded
duplicate eggs! it shall be you!
Mix'd tussled hay of head, beard, brawn, it shall be you!
Trickling sap of maple, fibre of manly wheat, it shall be you!
Sun so generous it shall be you!
Vapors lighting and shading my face it shall be you!
You sweaty brooks and dews it shall be you!
Winds whose soft-tickling genitals rub against me it shall be you!
Broad muscular fields, branches of live oak, loving lounger in my
winding paths, it shall be you!
Hands I have taken, face I have kiss'd, mortal I have ever
touch'd, it shall be you. — Whitman

A little more, since, well, it's Whitman, America's new and improved Blake.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with
linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.
...


These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they
are not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next
to nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are
nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing.

This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This the common air that bathes the globe.
...


My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really
am,
Encompass worlds, but never try to encompass me,
I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you.

Writing and talk do not prove me,
I carry the plenum of proof and every thing else in my face,
With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.
...


You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you. — Whitman

I love Whitman. For some reason when I read these poems now (which I have read previously several times too) I was reminded of a poem I wrote five or six years ago which was inspired somewhat more by Ginsberg's 'Howl' than by Whitman. But then Ginsberg was certainly inspired by Whitman. I don't know if it's appropriate, it has some mystical undertones I think. I'll post the poem here anyways. It's pretty long, but no one has to read if they don't want to it, after all.


The Rhetoric of Intoxication


Daunted by nakedness, neutralized superheroes rattling chains,
shuddering in illuminated backyards struggling inside with oily creatures of the deep,
pouring forth ambiguous narratives of dour lands of solitude and hidden angels,
ecstatic visions in the midnight winter country town darkness.

lounging at ease absorbed with tasks of self-investigation; words flowing like lava,
and raining ash over narcotic, trembling corporeal machinery; an indifferent wind
blowing over seraphim, seafarers and love enacted in public parks.
That which roars out of the tomb of angels cut down and beaten unto death
by the one eyed dollars that swim like sperm in the golden bowl of plenitude
and extrude the silver threads that weave industry on that juggernaut loom
engineering the insatiate fires sustaining the midnight candle;
generations of humanity passing out upholding the torch of consciousness.

that which snatches dreams away, undresses them and plunges them naked in the icy
lake of observation. secret anti-heroes, who abolish solipsism without
trying, locked up lonely in iron dreams, sharing apartments with beasts and leeches
and walking through forests with boots full of blood.

That which dreams of snow on the ocean,
Of ghostly shipping ports and disused drydocks in the desert,
Of rainforest riverbanks in the city under floodlights and eternal days of enlightened ecstasis.
That which dives in dream to the muddy bottoms of rivers searching for pushcarts and surfaces,
gasping, under bridges, and whiles away endless hours in
city lofts, meditating, and breathing softly in the darkness. That which was hypochondriac,
believing it under bacterial siege, and black boxes of anachronistic theology.
That which scribbled incantations in fluorescent ink; obscenities on the ceilings of bedrooms,

That which rises in the late morning and cooks rotten animals for breakfast,
dreaming of the pure kingdom and growing old with tin whiskers, watching insects caught alive
on the pest strip struggling in their innocent slow death,
That which suffocated holy love under meat, and called
for a universal ballot and smashed alarm clocks while all the loyal supporters fell to work.

That which hears the endless growling of the seasons and the rattle of the steel battalions
in the soup kitchens or the crying in the loneliest streets, amidst putrefying
rubbish, shattered glass and giant gusts of foundational steam.
That which roars down the highways, searching for the incarnation of solitude
Anticipating the magical; brooding, lonesome for heroes, entering hopeful cathedrals
praying for salvation and large breasts and fairy lights then and now
and minds falling in the gloom

The years have removed the criminal charm from reality,
in those shining heads of ebony and gold, heads
of overcoming and celebration, remains a desire to cultivate a habit.
That which rode shotgun on the fast dark train hurtling heedlessly
towards daisy chain or grave, demanding trials of sanity on the crumbling steps
waiting for an instant lobotomy to be insulated in the concrete void, racked
with amnesia, wearing a symbolic wig and drowning in catatonia, guilty blood flowing
symbolically from nose, mouth, eyes, ears and fingers, repenting,
surrendering to the curse of the grey warders who administer mildewed halls
crying out to the moon, tormented by the suffering of midnight spirits prostrate
and helpless upon the cold, granite bench of solitude- far from dream-realms of selfless love.
winter forcing the invocation of mothers, to finally elicit some repose.

Those of sensations learned out of the book and watching people from tenement windows,
waiting for that fantastic first telephone call; and thinking it would never come,
like a lone hanger in the closet, standing empty, waiting for the departed coat to return or
new one to turn up, and barely staying afloat in the primordial animal stew of time.

That which dwells in cold twilight alleys obsessed with gnosis, a dream
always before the eyes, and recovering these dark hallucinations
that have formed incarnate tears in the fabric of
personality, that which forms images that are juxtaposed with empty clothes;
That which bagged archangels, joined elemental spirits and made ready
for perilous reincarnations. That which dashed through tragic set pieces
That which recreates the syntax that calmly measures all tentative steps and stands
lame and speechless, having found intelligence and shaking with guilt.

That which confesses the inability to dance to the rhythm set by naked and fearless leaders,
That which was a half-hearted maniac with a hairy bum aspiring to wed a pure, insane angel;
dreaming of putting down roots that may grow only after death; that which believes it will
duly rise reincarnate after the spirit blows to the four winds

Whose tortured naked mind flies free with a cry that would surely saturate the airwaves
and shake the sleeping cities if it only could find voice .
That which lay stifled; it will be the mute requiem of a life
made and mutilated by language, by a two thousand year cultural feast; tin-plated hearts
will be beaten and electric thoughts escape from cloven skulls.
Holding onto a concrete sphincter, until it turns to cold ashes in the mouth,
the streets are overflowing with garbage, lonely dogs and rapidly disappearing currency,
muffled sounds of screaming children; a distant evocation;
confinements in dark frigid basements,

In hard tenements or under stairways destitute children are sobbing in armies, homeless
elderly silently weeping, dying lonely in public parks. The loveless want to hear the proper
judgements of humanity, to forsake this unintelligible confinement in the heartless
penitentiary, this parliament of misery where even the architecture is outraged,

crushed beneath a vast slab of conflict, administered by impotent stunned reptiles whose pure
minds and hearts are unimpeachable mechanisms of probity, whose life blood is the slimy
mucous at the bottom of the public purse, whose fingers explore a thousand avenues, whose
breath and voice and action are like stains decorating nationalistic murals on the crumbling
sarcophagus of history, whose blind eyes stare from windows at rows of skyscrapers lining the
streets, dotting the habitat of administration; forests of well-lit uninhabitable mansions.
Despite dark accusing voices the underground workers of industry still dawdle and murmur
and stumble through the tedious days and insomniac nights, releasing poisonous vapours,
endlessly delivering land fill and soothing dreams of possession to legions of the dispossessed.
Billowing chimneys and stark transceivers punctuate their assigned territories, a perfect love
built on endless toil, forcing oil and precious stones from the mother

That which is forced to give and not receive, whose wealth means nothing until it’s in the bank,
whose fate is to be fingered mercilessly, whose light is swallowed by the darkness of machine
tenements and mute suburbs, waiting on the captains of industry to mount the spectral
campaign that will save and liberate all peoples and nations, captains who flaunt their invincible
insanity, who fuck all possibility itself with their lifeless monomaniac cocks breaking the back of
the dumb earth, buried beneath endless concrete pavements, firing the forests in an orgy of
celebratory masturbation to elevate the stone city to Heaven, transfigured into the city of god

transcending the native river of life, forced from domiciles, that which makes its farewells
in the beginning and at the end greets its kindred in the dark,
under the pretext of ignorance;
wishing to eliminate solitude, that entered the electronic kaleidoscope streets, imitated the
ghosts of its forebears, committed murders without lifting a finger or ever holding a weapon.

That which feasted like a sea of maggots on the senses,
drank the many nectars of oblivion,
threw the helpless urchins onto the highways of the juggernaut,
That which pours from the empty into the void,
Attempts to force harmony from a string-less guitar,
that which locked the gods in an armed jailhouse,
lurched like an army of sleepwalkers across the darkness
mouthing accusations against the wise
that which illuminates the dream experience and dissolves the non-existent boundaries.

That which emerged savage and still dripping from the ocean and started down the highway;
tumbled out of junked and broken cars and fell idiotically all over the rainy street,
fell asleep exhausted, woke in a cold sweat, as sobriety returned and yearned for safe haven
in the mediocrity of the civilized night.

Nice!

Reminds me of the work of Savador Dali.

Some Dali
free image uploading

free image uploading

free image uploading

self-righteous fool. — John

According to you one cannot uphold morality without being self-righteous? The two don't have a necessary connection together you know...

This is all just malicious unsubstantiated gossip, unless you can show clear evidence for those claims about Osho and Krishnamurti . — John

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack
Wayfarer has already provided evidence for Krishnamurti.

And again, even if those claims were true; so what? — John

The point is to show you possible effects of the statement "I am God" from people who have made the statement.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" — John

Said as a way to counter-act self-righteousness, which is different from upholding the law, asking people not to sin, and explaining why sin is wrong and its consequences.

I haven't anywhere denied that, or spoken about individuals becoming God in the sense of being raised above the rest of us to be beyond morality or the law — John

I agree, I just outlined to you the consequences of your discourse, whether you intend them or not. History teaches us that these are consequences of it.

but it will not do to prosecute and punish people for transgressing what are merely moral injunctions — John

Of course. That's why social means and social pressure is used to combat those. Although maybe some immoral things ought to also be illegal - say adultery. But that is a different debate.

Those matters must be left up to the individual; they are between the individual and their God, so to speak — John

Not only. Also between the individual and everyone else who is affected. The individual isn't some atom that is irresponsible with regards to how other people are affected by their actions.

the moral approbation or disapprobation their acts occasion in their fellows, and feel in their own hearts whether they have done right or wrong. — John

Yes.

Remember the official church position did not always recognize the mystics; it is only with time, distance and the softening of dogma that they have become incorporated into the official canon of the churches. — John

This is just not true. Which Church first of all? The Catholic? That's not the only church out there. You're using a simplistic narrative just because you need it to prove a point.

You're taking my words out of context and running two different things said on two different contexts together. I had said that what Aquinas thought cannot properly be argued about. If he made a clear statement about what he was thinking then there would be no argument; and if he didn't then it may only be not very fruitfully speculated about. — John

That wasn't what I was referring.

Voegelin, if I remember right, believes that the transcendent God cannot be known, which is contra the Gnostics and the whole Hermetic and Theosophical traditions, the whole tradition that I believe Hegel's philosophy reflects. Hegel believed in an evolution of spirit, and this is just what Voegelin rejects. He wants to adhere to the Orthodoxy of the religious institutions, which would keep God well away from the reach of man. I think this is absurd; God can either be experienced or else must be nothing to us.

I also believe there is a logical, reflecting a spiritual, trajectory to history. But, in any case, this is not the sort of thing that can be properly argued for or against; you either see it, and are thus convinced, or you don't. For me the same goes for God, and the spiritual dimension. — John

The other point was about church dogma, and ultra-conservative fundamentalist interpretations thereof; which I think you are guilty of — John

LOL! It's laughable if you think my interpretation are ULTRA-conservative FUNDAMENTALIST. Really - I can't be bothered to answer such nonsense. First of all fundamentalism... have I claimed the Earth was created a few thousand years ago? Have I claimed Christianity is the only way? Have I claimed evolution is wrong? No. So please get your concepts straight. Just because you don't like conservatives doesn't mean you get to throw with pejorative statements. There is a long, and respectable tradition in all religions. That isn't ultra conservative. That's just the wisdom that was passed through the ages.

self-righteous purism — John

Yeah. Good that I agree with Voegelin then that Puritanism is a form of gnosticism ;) . I guess that makes me very self-righteous and puritanical. Look - just because you unquestioningly take over the dominant stream of thought - liberalism and progressivism - doesn't give you a right to panzer over those of us who have spent time to think through these matters and question the assumptions that were given to us by the world. The fact that for you upholding moral values is purism - that is indeed very sad.

'Transcendent" means something like "that which cannot be known or experienced'. — John

Well not to me. Transcendent simply means something that is in some form "beyond us".

completely and utterly beyond us — John

I have never said "completely and utterly". These are strawmen.

Your pronouncements are truly laughable, as if you know me! — John

"as if". Read it again.

and to be as mindful as possible of our own acts, not to worry about the acts of others, and sit in judgement of them, as you do — John

I think that is quite naive. Others affect us, and therefore our well-being depends not only on us, but on our whole society. That's why in turn we care about our society. Because we understand that the pain of my neighbour is my pain.

But in the realm of ethics, because each one of us is a unique individual there will always be nuances in unique situations, such that it cannot be right to make blanket moral pronouncements such as "divorce is wrong", "adultery is wrong", "homosexuality is wrong" and other like ultra-conservative dictatorial claims such as the ones you make on these forums. — John

... For you, Orthodoxy is ultra-conservative. That's false. It is historically false to say the least. Adultery is wrong means it is harmful. Always. That's not ultra conservative. Please go research what ultra conservative is. Or read the article I have read just yesterday http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/conservatism/

Again, as I see things, you are just adopting liberal and progressive prejudicies without thinking about it. You are never even questioning them. You think saying adultery is wrong is ultra conservative. Hell - even saying sex before marriage is wrong isn't ultra conservative. Those are things that people have believed for most parts of history, and in most societies. Ultra-conservative are reactionary movements - such as Puritanism. There's a difference between the two. Apparently you don't think there is.

True, I think Jesus does call for repentance, but if the woman went and sinned again, he still would not judge, but patiently urge repentance again. Repentance is not some form of behavior simply taken on from without once it is shown to you, but something that must come genuinely from within, from the "still, small voice" of moral intuition. — John

Because you have divorced yourself from the culture of the time (and also from the Church which could have guided you), you have misinterpreted that part of the Bible, which people who had lived back then would have understood the way it was meant to be understood. First of all the law of the written Torah:

And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. — Leviticus 20:10

Second of all, the unwritten, oral Torah requires evidence regarding both the adulterer and the adulteress to be brought up before sentencing them to death. Now let us remind ourselves of the situation in the New Testament:

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”

They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

“No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” — John 8:1-11

Notice the progression. A woman (without the man with whom she committed adultery) is brought up by the Pharisees to Jesus and they ask him what shall be done with her, as she was caught in the act of adultery, which is against the law of Moses. Notice that if indeed she was caught in the act, then the man must have also been caught. Now they tried to put Jesus in a place where regardless what he answered, he would have answered wrongly. If he said "stone her" he would have broken the law because he would have preferentially punished just the woman. If he said "let her go" he would have also broken the law by not punishing adultery. Now Jesus outwits them and agrees with them "All right" (thus agreeing that adultery is wrong), and then adds "let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone" pointing to the fact that in bringing the woman alone, and not the man to be judged, the Pharisees themselves had broken the law of Moses, which demands that both be brought to judgement, especially if caught in the act as they said they were, and not preferentially, in this case just the woman. As no accusers are left, Jesus upholds the law and lets the REPENTANT woman go. Notice that she wasn't some feminazi claiming "I can do whatever the fuck I want with my body, these folks don't have any right over what I do with my body" yadda yadda yadda. She wasn't self-righteous like that. If she had been self-righteous we would have had quite a different story, as has been illustrated numerous times regarding self-righteousness in the Bible. There is nothing more despicable than self-righteousness associated with immorality. She was repentant, conscious, guilty and sorrowful of her sin, which is noticed from the way she addressed Jesus, by "Lord". The problem today is that people who commit adultery aren't most of the time that way - they are quite the opposite, self-righteous. Part of the problem brought on by rampant progressive liberalism. And again, it's a very big problem that people think they can just open the Bible and understand what is being said. That is very wrong. People need the guidance of an authority, which retains the customs and traditions in memory and can guide them. Religious texts aren't novels that can be read while being detached of the culture and environment in which they appeared, and the tradition through which they have passed.

I'm sorry to say it Agustino, but I find most of what you say highly disagreeable, even repugnant.

I cannot see anything in it that persuades me you would be open in the slightest to any alternative reason on these matters, so I feel no inclination to engage with you further; it would it seems just be a complete waste of time. Good luck with your life, man...

I'm sorry to say it Agustino, but I find most of what you say highly disagreeable, even repugnant.

I cannot see anything in it that persuades me you would be open in the slightest to any alternative reason on these matters, so I feel no inclination to engage with you further; it would it seems just be a complete waste of time. Good luck with your life, man... — John

Well it's quite clear that your mind isn't open to consider alternatives from what you have been taught by mainstream liberalism - hence finding what I say "highly disagreeable, even repugnant". That's a symptom of it - called in psychology avoidance, and the associated emotional reactions.

I don't find what you say repugnant - I just think you're wrong, and that's that. This is a philosophy forum, not a counseling forum. Here we're supposed to question things, even if they are cherished beliefs. I don't mind questioning for example whether tradition is important or not. Certainly you never brought the question up. I don't mind discussing the importance of authority in religion or in society - but again you never brought that up. You take your liberal principles as a priori truth, and aren't even willing to discuss them, much less question them. You consider them holy truth, and disgusting to even dare to question them! In fact principles which are different are emotionally repugnant to you. But hey - each to their own!

Also it seems to me that you don't want to admit that there is a mystical tradition at the very heart of Orthodoxy, which isn't against Orthodoxy, but is Orthodox itself. I don't see why not. You just want to monopolise mysticism for some progressive-liberal politics, but if you look at history this isn't the case in many actual cases.

And if you think I'm a proselytiser or fundamentalist, please then report me to the moderators. See what they think, as they have a rule against such people :) You can just drop them a line, they are decent and friendly people, and I'm sure they'll let you know, and also let me know if I am doing something wrong!
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