From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Tue May 06 2003 - 04:03:46 BST
Sam, Paul,
>
> This is an interesting thread (and I really should get hold of Barfield).
Unfortunately, I believe all his books are out of print in his homeland,
Britain, so it may not be easy.
> Two minor comments
>
> Scott said:
> : Selected mysticism, the criterion for selection being whether the
mystical
> : pursuit incorporates the intellectual level or not. I see those who
don't as
> : yearning for original participation rather than final participation (or,
> : same thing, the former are falling into Wilber's pre/trans fallacy).
>
> By the distinction between original and final, is this the same as saying
that you need to have
> something (a self) before you are able to surrender it?
Well, yes, sort of. In original participation, one participated with (what
we now call) physical objects. "Pneuma" meant both breath and spirit
because breath was perceived as spirit, not because the word for breath was
used metaphorically for spirit. But, since one didn't have a strong ego, one
was also somewhat at their mercy (and at the mercy of what we would now call
mental objects). So for humanity to advance it was necessary to lose that
participation (lose it to consciousness -- it is still there in the
unconscious figuration, or we wouldn't be able to perceive them at all) in
order to become detached from them. This, as I interpret it, is what the
intellectual level is all about. And why it is incomplete, since we are,
alas, still all to attached to things. And this is why I interpret
meditation as *strengthening the intellect*. Not in the sense of making us
better at manipulating symbols, but as making us ever more detached
observers, so even our normal thoughts and feelings become objects. Once
this is done, we are ready to restore participation (or participation is
restored to us -- mystical awakening, transcending the S/O divide), but now
as free beings. New Age stuff (a lot of it, anyway) just wants to restore
original participation.
>
> Scott said:
> : One of the fallacies of modernism, in my mind, is to think that one can
> : separate religion from the rest of one's life. So, yes, it is only
religion
> : that needs to catch on. However, postmodern religion will be a very
> : different thing, but that is for another day.
>
> As you might expect, when another day comes along, I'd be interested to
know what shape you think
> postmodern religion might take.
So would I :) I suppose most everything I've posted to this forum are notes
toward that, but putting it all together is another matter. Along with
Barfield, my other main source is Robert Magliola's "Derrida on the Mend"
(Magliola is a Catholic theologian), and other writers who recognize
deconstruction as a modern form of the Buddhist logic of emptiness. Magliola
is particularly interesting because he applies this to the Catholic teaching
on the Trinity (which I somewhat whimsically take as "if you understand it,
you're wrong").
- Scott
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