Roger Jonathan and Y'all:
Well, the dictionary definition isn't wrong but its almost certainly
inadequate. We're digging pretty deep here and so standard definitions are
just a good place to start. We could say it is a necessary but insufficient
condition.
Of course you already know I'm a huge Ken Wilber fan and he shows that there
are different levels of mystical experience. Its a rich and complex topic
all on its own, and I think its association with Dynamic Quality puts it
very much at the center of Pirsig's MOQ. I mean, in the MOQ it is the force
behind evolution, the source and ground of all static patterns, the source
of freedom and also our ultimate identity. If religious mysticism is
associated with Dynamic Quality, then it is also associated with evolution
and identity.
Much of what follows was posted in the focus forum under a slightly
different topic (freedom and order), but I've added some stuff and taken
alot out.
Pirsig said his insights in the teepee weren't sentimental, narrow or
familiar, but that there was "something new opening up"...
I think the teepee ceremony was definately a mystical experience, and
Pirsig says later in the book that understanding religious mysticism will
produce "an avalanche of information as to what Dynamic Quality is." This is
the and the source of freedom in Indian values. I think Pirsig's sense of
freedom is connected to open space, and mysticism because they are both
associated with DQ. Its about freedom from static patterns, not just
political liberty, although that's relevant and important too.
And there seems to be another theme connected to Indian freedom and
European order; directness and imitation. Pirsig contrasts the direct
honesty and unceremonious attitude of the Indians with Lila's total lack of
originality, with her fake red nails and dyed blonde hair. I think he's
asking us to see the dynamic way of being as a more authentic way and that
the static way of life only leads to an imitation of life. In contrasting
freedom and order Pirsig is introducing his main metaphysical themes AND
he's connecting them to the historical realities of Western culture.
OUR MYSTICAL PAST
He certainly seems fond of the Sophists, those ancient, ancient
pre-Socratic lovers of Excellence. (For a little insight into the mystical
pre-Socratic cults, check out Orpheus or Dionysis.) And he goes to the very
oldest roots in Sanskrit like a linguistic archeologist to trace the orgins
of RigHTness. Pirsig uses these things to find out where we've come from. It
allows him to investigate the layer that's been buried by modern Western
culture. Its not a regression to a earlier more primitive time so much as a
return to our own origins and as a way to clear some open space, because
"there's no space here. Its all filled up with history."
And the evidence shows that almost all pre-historic cultures used some kind
of hallucinogen in their religious ceremonies. In effect, the world was once
a much more mystical place and the price of evolution in Western societies
has been to lose touch with that. SOM has pretty much stamped it out and
there is tremendous fear and misunderstanding about both mysticism and the
plants that are often used in conjunction with it.
PRESERVED PRE-HISTORY
I recently discovered some interesting things about Peyote use among
the Indians. No one knows how far back it goes but fossilized peyote buttons
in a ceremonial context have been found in western Texas. They're 7,000
years old. There are older sites with different hallucinogens like Red bean
seeds and Texas buckeye. Some of those are more than ten thousand years old.
The tribe that has the longest known practice say that "Peyote-Deer brother"
is their oldest god and it is believed that the peyote ceremony incorporates
some of their oldest myths and rituals. Anthropologist Weston La Barre says
their society is like a "mesolithic fossil", and that by examining it "one
can creep up on Eurasiac history and protohistory so to speak from the
flank, and along an immense time depth." Imagine that. The peyote hunt they
do to this day (harvesting the plant in a desert between the Pecos and Rio
Grand) reveals aspects of their culture that go all the way back to Siberia,
before they even crossed the land bridge into North America!
An anthropologist named Prem Das was one of the first to join the Huichol
Indians on their traditional peyote hunt in the early seventies, just about
the time ZAMM was going to the publisher, and gives this account...
"I heard an answer that seemed to come from all around me, and it
rose in my mind's eye like a great time-lapse vision. I saw a human being
rise from the earth, stand for a moment, and then dissolve back into it. It
was only a brief moment; and in that moment our whole lives passed. Then I
saw a huge city rise out of the desert floor before me, exist for a second,
and then vanish back into the vastness of the desert. The plants, rock, and
earth under me were saying, Yes, this is how it really is, your life, the
city you live in. It was as if, in my peyotized state, I was able to
perceive and communicate with a resonance or vibration that surrounded me...
An overwhelming realization poured throught me - that the human race and
all technologhy formed by it are nothing other than flowers of the earth."
(He had wept and wondered why Western society had become so estranged from
the Earth) The painful problem which had confronted me disappeared
entriely, to be replaced with a vision of people and their technology as
temporary forms through which Mother Earth was expressing herself."
His central realization just blew me away; "that the human race and
all technology formed by it are nothing other than flowers of the earth".
When I read that I grabbed my paperback copy of Zen and the Art and looked
at the cover. There is a small image of a mechanic's wrench spouting up out
of some leaves, just as a flower would. The idea that technology is a
"divine flower" is also expressed within the pages of ZAMM. How does it go?
"The Buddha, the Godhead, resides just as comfortably in the gears of a
motorcycle as it does in the petals of a lotus flower", or something like
that.
Thanks for your time, DMB
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