Aesthetic experience as a 'mini-me' of enlightenment?

[Alex Jacob]

What I meant, Trevor, is that I assume there are redeeming features, perhaps many, to those of the QRS-H clan, and there are likely additional dimensions to what they think, feel and believe, and further that it might all be different if we were present together physically having conversations. It is a known and studied phenomenon that the remove of Internet communication has a strange effect on people, and they say things, jump to conclusions, assume things, assume the worst, but they are often wrong, or not complete in their judgments.

And contradiction, it seems to me, is the beginning where some level of understanding likely begins. Contradiction is a sort of truth in and of itself, don't you think?
_______________________________________________

Jason,

I bet it could be demonstrated---if we were really going to pursue the dichotomy of 2 different 'minds'---that there are as many escapists in each mindset and it is not the internal tendency, the typology, that inclines one to escape into non-fruitful avenues, and also that fear can exist in each type and every type. I think we tend to use the tools at our disposal, if you will, and we follow our tendencies.

The main downside, as I see it, of this 'analytical' frame of reference and 'lens' is that it limits itself, often very sharply. It seems to me that if one imagines that one could approach life wholly through the reasoning faculty---like some sort of distorted Spock---there is a great deal one would miss.

I can understand how this mind can be seen as a weakness, I have often cursed this part of myself and wished the spontaneous, instinctive and intuitive parts of me were more dominant.¨

(As a sort of aside, in Jungian psychology, the opposites that we need to incorporate are often represented in dreams and other events, and they challenge us to 'incorporate' different modalities).

In any case, we all have to work with what we have, and what we are, but doesn't it seem a sort of wisdom when we are aware of the way different 'types' function? I remember reading an essay of Aldous Huxley, writing about Jung's typology, and his stating that he felt it was a very important and far-reaching.

Your suggestion that this type of mindset is a refusal "to participate in life 'as it is'" is to limit what life can be. Why is the hedonistic spontaneous artist living, while the controlled calculating analytical philosopher is dead? Why limit living to your particular prescription of it? Do you mean that the philosopher is denying and suppressing his nature or inherent inclinations? What constitutes really living and why? I may actually sympathize with this view in some ways but perhaps born of different reasons.

Well, I am saying that much of what I read on these pages, and significant aspects of thew QRS-H 'philosophy' seems starkly to recommend a retreat from life. I do understand that they mean to refer to the stupid and low aspects of extant life, and they call for an increase in sobriety and awareness, but they seem to fail to grasp that sobriety, awareness, the spirit of creativity, and an engaged spirit of life, can interact with anything and all things.

You see, again it is y'all who set up and 'work' the dichotomy. I am all for a balance in the use of the tools or the modalities of consciousness. But the way you describe it is more a caricature than anything. My impression of the general philosophy of these fellow here, and Hopalong Hindenmarsh who includes herself, who serves the movement, is a sort f intellectual and spiritual death-trip. And it certainly wouldn't be the first time it has happened, since people of all categories and typologies---for fear or for who knows why?---try to shut themselves down to Life, or turn off their own circuits of life internally. And they always have 'good' reasons why they do it, and they are often impelled by religious and spiritual motivators. This is pretty standard stuff.

But what they found deeply frightened them, and lacking the strength or other characteristics necessary to enter these realms, they were repelled rather than attracted, and so retreated back into their warm, comfortable, distracting and fuzzy worlds.

I certainly agree with you, and when QRS-H speak in these terms they get no disagreement from me. Yet, I am pretty sure that I exhibit more compassion toward all those who are running and hiding, who are simply terrified of the fullness of what life means. You talked about fear earlier. And it is also true that many, when they have successfully beat a retreat to their 'fuzzy world' have all sorts of excellent reasons why they opted for that.

I'm not sure you are aware of the depth and length of suffering, and the massive levels of doubt that confront many who choose the path that I and others like me have. Yes it's possible that this path is initially chosen out of fear, and a desire to avoid the world, its suffering and deep feeling. But, and perhaps unintentionally, this path can eventually become one of destruction of everything that is dear and taken for granted. Such a path certainly requires a lot of strength and courage, and it's an aspect of this path that you may not fully appreciate.

It could be that I am just wired differently when it comes to the very core of these questions. 'Enlightenment', it seems to me, is something of the East. My core link in terms of tradition is to Messianic Judaism and the whole Judeo-Christian complex, as of course was Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. To talk about a kind of eastern 'enlightenment' in the context of prophetic values and the horizontal motion of Judeo-Christianity, seems to me quite absurd, and it doesn't fit together. This is perhaps the main reason why I don't 'get' these boys: we speak radically different language. My whole struggle---and there very much is a struggle---takes place within a vitally different set of concerns. (I did say this right at the very beginning, maybe even in my first few posts here, when some of our favorite local Jew haters were tearing things up, unimpeded I might add by our noble sponsors...)

If the truth were told, it is quite possible that I have more in common with QRS than with some pansy dandy Oscar Wilde with silk undies all powdered and fuzzy painting impressionistic hedonistic murals in some mid-town NY loft...(riffing off your caricature).

They really are you know, more than anything else, Christians of a peculiar stripe. I just think that that stripe can be far widened, FAR widened.

The best philosophers are merciless destroyers. They utterly eliminate all that is false, and in their wake all that is left is truth. The truth is simply what is. What's left when the dust settles.

Your view is pretty intensely romantic, I will point out to you. :-) I think we all have an attraction to the prophets and to this sort of desert-spirit of ruthlessness that would destroy everything to make its point known.

Sorry, I have run out of time...(your post was cool and I appreciated it).

[Trevor Salyzyn]

AJ,

What I meant, Trevor, is that I assume there are redeeming features, perhaps many, to those of the QRS-H clan, and there are likely additional dimensions to what they think, feel and believe, and further that it might all be different if we were present together physically having conversations.

Kevin visited the States a while back. Most memorably, Elizabeth said of this trip, "Kevin's explanation of some things that I'd misunderstood what he meant, that I get the impression he never would have told me except in person, was far more enlightening than reading every word Kevin ever wrote could possibly have been. For example, after reading "Letters Between Enemies" where when he was young, he mentioned to David that he heard a voice with an American accent complimenting him on what he had done so far. Neither Americans nor Canadians would have understood that hearing something with an American accent is actually Australian slang for a lie. That changes the whole meaning of that passage."

(By way of contrast, if you were physically having a conversation with me, you'd quickly notice that I'm probably talking about comic book movies or the latest Doctor Who episode. In a crowded room, you'd have to pay me to get me to explain the intricacies of Nietzsche rather than why it's totally badass that Edward Norton is cast as The Incredible Hulk. I don't chat philosophy.)

And contradiction, it seems to me, is the beginning where some level of understanding likely begins.

If you begin your understanding with a contradiction, it better be the negation of that contradiction.

Contradiction is a sort of truth in and of itself, don't you think?

In that a contradiction is always false, there is some measure of truth that can be found in contradiction. When the corresponding tautology is found, there you have a blunt truth.

[David Quinn]

Really, this is a dichotomy that the QRS have set up, established for their own purposes. I never, ever have set up such a polarization, not is it useful to polarize any of the typical dichotomies, the opposites, the poles, the different modes of dealing with life, operating in life. You say, David, that I remain in some sort of 'fog of uncertainty', and I do this because I am a 'poet' who wilfully confines himself in unreal, dreamy, 'foggy' visions.

But you are setting up a dichotomy. Those who speak about enlightenment simply and clearly are third-rate preacher types who avoid life, while those who speak passionately, romantically, and poetically about it in a tangential manner are moved by the spirit of genius and seize life.

What people seem to do, and you certainly do it, is to 'take possession' of some philosopher, some great, directing mind, and turn that person into the poster-child of whatever personal and private philosophy one is selling. It seems to me as clear as day that no one can take possession of the process of a Kierkegaard or a Nietzsche (or any mystic, any artist, and any of the great men you admire). You take the idea of 'enlightenment' and you totally reduce it...to the things that you do, the ideas you have, the ethical principals you wish to represent and communicate.

Again, I make no attempt to reduce it. What I have done is opened myself up to enlightened consciousness - expanded myself, if you will - and then distilled in the clearest possible manner the nuts and bolts of how that opening up process is performed.

Nietzsche and Kierkegaard are men who entered into a process with some of the core questions and the manner in which they did this, it honestly seems to me, is as huge, vast, soaring artists.

They may have been soaring artists, but I dwell in outer space and send messages back to earth.

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche tried to express the flavour of outer space through passionate, artistic language. They mixed outer space with forms that appeal to ordinary humans, such as passion, romance, idealism, beauty, poetry, etc. And they did that very well. But I think it is better to guide people with clear instructions on how to build their own little rocket ships, so that they can travel up to space themselves.

Both methods have their uses. Not everyone can recognize the value of pragmatic instruction. Many people need to be swept up by the romance of it all before they can begin to turn their attention upwards.

I was like that once. I used to be swept up by the passion of Nietzsche in particular, as well as the romance surrounding eastern religion. That kind of art did serve a purpose for me and so I do recognize its value, particularly for younger people. Such art can help mold the younger, less-formed ego into valuing truth and genius, which can then be used as a springboard when they are ready to kick on to the next level. That is when they have to leave art behind.

It is not One Thing, there is not One Conclusion to be drawn from this contact with Spirit, with potential, with Ideas and with Truth, it is a multitudinous path. You have this absurnd penchant to couch these endeavors in reduced terms---that this is 'coming into a well-lit glade', or coming into a beam of sunlight, which sunlight is some sort of reduced thing, and produces a reduced thing. It's like some fucking third-rate preacher. I guess you are substantially unaware that this is one of the core messages one gets from these pages: a sort of puritanical reduction of the magnifiscent, indefinable, free-roaming, uncontainable spirit of consciousness that moves through the great minds, through great attainments, great discoveries.

I'm well aware that this is how many people see me. They are better off ignoring me and using the Kierkegaards and Nietzsches of this world to inspire them.

(You have no knowledge of and seemingly no interest in these matters and these traditions in art and ideas, only your greatly reduced area of concern, up in some eucalyptus forest).

I see artistic expression as largely self-indulgent and not all that effective as a pointer to enlightenment. But then, as I say, many people aren't able to take advantage of the pure, crystalline method of pointing. They need to have their ego's love of romance involved before their minds can be roused.

And YES, all of this takes place in a realm of life and death, and all of it, in so many ways, is an absurd dance. But you don't seem to get this, because if you were to get it you wouldn't continually denigrate and diminish the multitudinous possibilities of human attainment; the myriad ways that the spirit operates.

You're only able to see the light of truth after it has been fractured into a multitude of rays by the prism of egotism. You haven't yet experienced it in its pure form, before the fracturing, and so you dismiss it out of hand. That is why you can't see any value in the rational process which takes one there.

-

[Ataraxia]

You're right,David.

In my experience anyone who can't get their point accross in a few well chosen sentences,or at most a a couple of paragraphs : doesn't now what the're talking about,is stroking your ego(and their own) or is a dissembler.

Poetry is for the birds.

[Jason]

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche tried to express the flavour of outer space through passionate, artistic language.

There seems to be as many interpretations of Nietzsche as people who read him. If he was trying to relay any concrete ideas he did a shit job of it.

[bert]

hahaha...
your Ids have triumphed!
I see a vestige of emotional ugliness and no vestige of the humane - I am amazed and non-plussed for there is so much I would destroy... too much to reconcile. Ideals seem remote and become imperative. yes, Your Ids have triumphed!

end this transmission......

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Jason,

There seems to be as many interpretations of Nietzsche as people who read him. If he was trying to relay any concrete ideas he did a shit job of it.

Nietzsche's problem is that he seems accessible to novices, when he's really not. There's a lot of background knowledge required to place his ideas in context; among those who bother to read the original works of authors that Nietzsche alludes to, there is considerable consensus about what Nietzsche means. (For instance, if you've never read Schopenhauer, fat chance trying to figure out why Nietzsche thought the Will to Power was important... and then, to understand the bulk of Schopenhauer's work, you've got to be intimate with Plato, Kant, and Eastern mysticism. And universities often reserve Kant until fourth year.)

Don't shy away from Nietzsche because he's a bad writer; rather, don't read him unless you're willing to put a couple years into it. Else you'll just come across as one of those morons who misinterpret him.

[David Quinn]

Kierkegaard and Nietzsche tried to express the flavour of outer space through passionate, artistic language.

There seems to be as many interpretations of Nietzsche as people who read him. If he was trying to relay any concrete ideas he did a shit job of it.

The main problem was that he wasn't willing to give up his attachment to iconoclasm. Even his least iconoclastic work (Zarathustra), and thus the closest he came to promoting wisdom in a positive sense, was steeped in iconoclasm. He couldn't quite bring himself to stand out in the open, for fear of being torn down by some other iconoclastic upstart.

He knew the dangers of being exposed. Being a hunter, becoming the hunted would be humiliating. Safer to stay hidden within the labyrinth of iconoclasm where no one can touch you.

Alas, you failed, Nietzsche. For I have spotted you and now I am tearing you down.

-

[Jason]

The main downside, as I see it, of this 'analytical' frame of reference and 'lens' is that it limits itself, often very sharply. It seems to me that if one imagines that one could approach life wholly through the reasoning faculty---like some sort of distorted Spock---there is a great deal one would miss.

Is it inherently bad to miss certain things? Is intentional limitation some inherent negative? If you want truth, missing untruth might make perfect sense.

I do understand that they mean to refer to the stupid and low aspects of extant life, and they call for an increase in sobriety and awareness, but they seem to fail to grasp that sobriety, awareness, the spirit of creativity, and an engaged spirit of life, can interact with anything and all things.

There's a difference between interacting with all things and being those things. I can interact with a dog without being that/a dog.

You see, again it is y'all who set up and 'work' the dichotomy. I am all for a balance in the use of the tools or the modalities of consciousness. But the way you describe it is more a caricature than anything. My impression of the general philosophy of these fellow here, and Hopalong Hindenmarsh who includes herself, who serves the movement, is a sort f intellectual and spiritual death-trip. And it certainly wouldn't be the first time it has happened, since people of all categories and typologies---for fear or for who knows why?---try to shut themselves down to Life, or turn off their own circuits of life internally. And they always have 'good' reasons why they do it, and they are often impelled by religious and spiritual motivators. This is pretty standard stuff.

I think you're engaged in a dichotomy as much as you claim others here are. Your "balance" forms a dichotomy with imbalance. You're limiting yourself from being imbalanced.

It could be that I am just wired differently when it comes to the very core of these questions. 'Enlightenment', it seems to me, is something of the East. My core link in terms of tradition is to Messianic Judaism and the whole Judeo-Christian complex, as of course was Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. To talk about a kind of eastern 'enlightenment' in the context of prophetic values and the horizontal motion of Judeo-Christianity, seems to me quite absurd, and it doesn't fit together. This is perhaps the main reason why I don't 'get' these boys: we speak radically different language.

They really are you know, more than anything else, Christians of a peculiar stripe. I just think that that stripe can be far widened, FAR widened.

My advice, if you want to try to better understand some of the philosophy that goes on here, is to drop your apparently habitual contextualizing and interpreting of things through cultural, historical and religious paradigms. I'm not claiming that I or we are exempt from the influence of these things, but some of us here try our best to get beyond that in the depths of our philosophy. The deepest philosophy here is a pointer toward something more personal, vital, living, and authentic than those impersonal cultural stories.

[Jason]

Sue,

The main problem was that he wasn't willing to give up his attachment to iconoclasm. Even his least iconoclastic work (Zarathustra), and thus the closest he came to promoting wisdom in a positive sense, was steeped in iconoclasm. He couldn't quite bring himself to stand out in the open, for fear of being torn down by some other iconoclastic upstart.

He knew the dangers of being exposed. Being a hunter, becoming the hunted would be humiliating. Safer to stay hidden within the labyrinth of iconoclasm where no one can touch you.

This is completely out of the blue, but so be it. Sue, what David wrote above about Nietzsche reminds me of the vibe I get from you. Constant attack, constantly on the offensive, quite possibly so that no counterattack can ever seriously threaten you. I've had this sense about you for a long time, David's words just finally moved me to share it.

[Alex Jacob]

David wrote:

"But you are setting up a dichotomy. Those who speak about enlightenment simply and clearly are third-rate preacher types who avoid life, while those who speak passionately, romantically, and poetically about it in a tangential manner are moved by the spirit of genius and seize life."

For the record, I am deeply suspicious about the whole notion of 'enlightenment', the way the term and the 'achievement' is used in discourse, and the fact that it remains always a vague and indefined 'state'. Also, I am aware that some bright people, such as Krishnamurti (the Theosophist) mentioned at some point that any state of mind could be attained through certain practices of dyana, and it could all be looked upon as 'trance'.

Therefor, for simple reasons, I reject the term as one useful to discourse. But it would be a lie if I said that the idea, in my own visionary experiences, has not been relevant, and perhaps it still is. But in my case---and any writing about what I think is simply a clammoring for my own point of view, it is as simple as that---any mentioning of 'enlightenment', as if it were a 'real thing', MUST have a context: the life we live, the historical sweep of history, and must have VITAL links with the living, breathing protoplasm.

Jason wrote:

"My advice, if you want to try to better understand some of the philosophy that goes on here, is to drop your apparently habitual contextualizing and interpreting of things through cultural, historical and religious paradigms. I'm not claiming that I or we are exempt from the influence of these things, but some of us here try our best to get beyond that in the depths of our philosophy. The deepest philosophy here is a pointer toward something more personal, vital, living, and authentic than those impersonal cultural stories."

...and in the context of the above, I simply have to say, I am 'constitutionally incapable' of doing that, nor do I think anyone can really do it. To attempt such a thing is folly, and in my opinion this is one of the hallmarks of post-war alternative spirituality movements, specifically 60s and 70s NewAge Movements. When the subject loses, drops, abandones, is deprived of, loses touch with, or remains ignorant of his cultural heritage, and takes up exotic new traditions that are overlays on his own self, tremendous and fantastic distortions take place. Our whole language is totally contextual. I thought this was a basic tenet of modern philosophy...

My opinion---for the time being---is that in no sense is it a good idea to 'get beyond' the currents that have made us what we are, and the long lines through which we are connected to original ideas. Rather, I think that we need to vitally understand those currents that inform us, and yet (possibly) expand the meaning and potential of these currents, bringing them more and more into the present.

What you have recommended Jason, interestingly, is anathema to my whole sense of 'relevant project'. If we are to hold up people like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche as examples to emulate, only proves my point, only makes it more incisive and in that sense acutely demanding. Do you think that these 2 men did what it is you are recommending? (That's a genuine question BTW).

So, what I am saying is that through divorcing themselves from these currents and traditions, through unawareness of the miriad ways that these currents function in so many different areas; through not caring about it, through denigrating those who seek to maintain the connection or to strengthen it and contextualize it, they seem not to gain greater connection with Reality but to spin away from reality into irreality.

David wrote:

"Again, I make no attempt to reduce it. What I have done is opened myself up to enlightened consciousness - expanded myself, if you will - and then distilled in the clearest possible manner the nuts and bolts of how that opening up process is performed."

I empathize with your project. I am sure it has relevancy for someone, perhaps many. Even an extreme and narrow evangelism will have some value for someone, somewhere. For someone, getting the copy of The Watchtower maybe changed their whole life, maybe saved their life.

...but there is a difference between getting the little comic-book Watchtower...and receiving, through direct transmission, the 'innerspace' content of the meaning of Jeremiah 31.31 (Just playing a bit...)

You can't help but to 'reduce it' because you likely don't have the preparation to understand and to express how this 'priceless thing' has functioned and will continue to function in so many different ways. In this sense you are simply ignorant, unknowing, but what makes matters worse is that you deliberately shut away from yourself the possibility of opening up. You come out and say things (this is one example, a sort of template for your whole general pattern of thinking) like 'poets can never be wise', thereby asserting that you HAVE wisdom, that you and only you recognize it, handle it, dole it out, etc. For the record I never identified myself as a 'poet', that was your doing, and I am not even talking, ultimately, about art, aesthetics or any of that stuff. I am talking about something far more closely akin to what you are attempting to talk about, but I see far more vast dimensions than you seem to. All this, of course, you must shoot down, but more than anything, I think, because you simply do not understand.

Speaking of you plurally this is the main and recurrent fault of y'all: you think you have all the answers and therefor you CORRECT everyone else, but when you do this you only demonstrate what crass fools you are. I literally sacrifice myself trying to help you but to no avail!)
_________________________________________

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for they abode not in my covenant, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord. For this is my covenant which I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will surely put my laws into their mind, and write them on their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not all teach every one his fellow citizen, and every one his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them: for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins I will remember no more.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

They may have been soaring artists, but I dwell in outer space and send messages back to earth.

But what if the moment of launch, the countdown reaching zero, the breaking of the wave about to crash in the surf, the balancing of the acrobat above the abyss.... if this is where genius is active, this is where life exists and nowhere else? A fraction of a moment or two in a lifetime after ages of build-up.

What then follows is just afterthought, dive into the sun, fruition, sunset summer-evening lounging, merely following the path now opened until time runs out. Not life - it's at most a memory of life, like some Major Tom propelled by things set in motion long ago.

Could still make for interesting transmissions, no doubt.

[Jason]

My advice, if you want to try to better understand some of the philosophy that goes on here, is to drop your apparently habitual contextualizing and interpreting of things through cultural, historical and religious paradigms. I'm not claiming that I or we are exempt from the influence of these things, but some of us here try our best to get beyond that in the depths of our philosophy. The deepest philosophy here is a pointer toward something more personal, vital, living, and authentic than those impersonal cultural stories.

...and in the context of the above, I simply have to say, I am 'constitutionally incapable' of doing that, nor do I think anyone can really do it. To attempt such a thing is folly, and in my opinion this is one of the hallmarks of post-war alternative spirituality movements, specifically 60s and 70s NewAge Movements. When the subject loses, drops, abandones, is deprived of, loses touch with, or remains ignorant of his cultural heritage, and takes up exotic new traditions that are overlays on his own self, tremendous and fantastic distortions take place. Our whole language is totally contextual. I thought this was a basic tenet of modern philosophy...

I don't think you understand what I meant. I wasn't talking about abandoning or ignoring the cultural forces that were pivotal in forming us. I was referring to philosophical ideas and understandings of existence that are extremely fundamental, such that they cross all times and places, so much so that viewing them through religious, cultural and historical filters is to miss their point and power. Let me give you an example:

Experiences are happening.

It doesn't matter if you're a modern, a dark ager, or from prehistory. It doesn't matter if you're an atheist, a Christian or a shaman. It doesn't matter if you're African, Japanese or Icelandic. Experiences are happening.

Ok, maybe some influential German philosopher from the 19th Century wrote about this. Maybe an ancient Chinese sage composed beautiful poetic aphorisms about experiences happening. That's all fine and dandy(emphasis on the dandy.) But to view it through the lens of some culture or time is to distance yourself from the primal immediacy and truth contained within it.

Experiences are happening TO YOU. Right now. For as long as you can remember. The other stuff is dead people and dead words in dead books.

Times change. Cultures evolve. Religions die. But some of us seek after(and some even think they have found) things that transcend this.

[Carl G]

David Quinn wrote:

They [ Nietzsche and Kierkegaard ] may have been soaring artists, but I dwell in outer space and send messages back to earth.

This is interesting. Apparently a move to space, even if metaphorical, is part and parcel with becoming Enlightened. I take it as a dimensional shift of some sort. Yet, Kevin and David have not alluded to this. I wonder if they experience Enlightenment as a move to outer space, too.

[Alex Jacob]

To me the language, the metaphor, is where the 'error' (my sense of error) is located. The whole mood of what they present as 'enlightenment' (enlightment, enligtenement, elnightenment---it's all the same in my book), speaks of something occuring in some hyperreal, imagined, wished for, invented space that is essentially not here. It has taken me tooooooo damn long to get 'here', to finally decide to be here, or to resign myself to being here when the metaphorical rainbow beckoned, to allow myself to be tricked by charlatanism to get in some jerry-rigged space ship to travel to some other dimension.

On the other hand, in the language of symbols, in the language of omens, I have often gotten the sense that what comes to me (as vision, omen, sign, message, voice), seems always to come from The Great Beyond. From someone or some place or something outside of Time (thyme, tyme, tayme---it's all the same to me), in some other dimension, someone touching the upper surface of the fishbowl and leaving mysterious signs in the firmament (firmament, furmamint, etc.)and always there is some gentle personality, some Cosmic Hippy Chick who communicates to me, as if to say: So, how are you liking things down there? what have you been up to, eh? how's it all working out?

I was reading a little Kierkegaard; well, one of those pithy Kierkegaard quotes that they put in bubble gum wrappers these days (been chewing alot of gum lately, who knows why), and he was saying that 'Mysticism is for those without the patience to wait for God's revelation'...and it struck a chord in me. Mysticism (misticism, mystasism, whatever) as a forcing of the hand of God, a reaching into the forbidden cookie jar, a naughty going where you did not have permission to go. And now this comes up...this outerspace metaphor...Captain Tom in a tincan hurdling through space sending back messages to Earth (why bother? the dead can bury the dead, can't they?)

Alright so where am I going with this?

Just brings to mind the metaphor of the space capsule from a distant galexy that crashes over the hill when you had Sue Buttons pinned next to the haystack and you were going to make a very important point you'd been wanting to make for so long, but along comes the Falling Star or the Returning Star having crossed and recrossed Eternity (don't think about it too much, Kevin, smoke will come out of your ears...) that ruined the whole evening, and you run over the hill with all the rest of Christendom---all of us on on crutches---to see what the heck is going on, and when the capsule door opens its all blinding light and pulsing, angelic chords and all you end up saying is:

'I await further orders!'

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Speaking of you plurally this is the main and recurrent fault of y'all: you think you have all the answers and therefor you CORRECT everyone else, but when you do this you only demonstrate what crass fools you are.

It's a strange thing then: here you are correcting people with your own beliefs. Your personal answers that somehow undo the answers/truth/wisdom they assert.

Actually you're positioning that you might:

- vitally understand those currents that inform us
- have the preparation to understand
- see far more vast dimensions than others here

By which method do you want to verify your greater understandings and insights? Just asserting will not lead anywhere. Repetition doesn't seem to work either. Are you sure it's the other that lacks opening up? Are you fighting against your own shadow perhaps here? What is this problem you have with reduction and simplifications, is it so horrible that some 'historical' fact might become twisted?

[Alex Jacob]

Every man has the right to die in his own way, and every man has the right to come back to life too, in the way he sees fit, Diebert.

You certainly know this: that when you are going to fry an egg you can't be timid when you strike the egg against the pan to crack it. You either crack the egg or you fail, though timidity. True, you can't either be too aggressive. The whole art of it, therefor, is in how you use your force. You want to get something done, all the elements and ingredients are there at your disposal, now the challenge is just to start. Just to give it a shot. To make your best effort.

And anyway, did I ever say I was essentially different from these fellows here? You surely have noticed that---in tremendous and at times embarrassing self-abnegation---I have pointed out why and how I am similar to them, and that we share a disease, that we are dealing with pathologies and not medicines, or rather we might all be wrapped-up in pathology, that we may want the Holy Cure, but we don't know what, exactly, it is anymore.

You suggest that I:

- vitally understand those currents that inform us
- have the preparation to understand
- see far more vast dimensions than others here

But what you might not see is that I am attempting to speak from the perspective of an entire tradition, that I enter into different thinkers and artists who I hold in my mind (because I know their work to a certain extent) and I attempt---through a vicarious channeller's art---to enter into their spirit and then respond to the QRS-H. It is an essay, an attempt, but there is nothing conclusive in it. It is ONLY in that sense that I presume to speak of 'vital currents', that is, literary currents, certain theological currents.

In respect to 'preparation to understand' I DO think we can refer to some of the great synthesizing minds who have built bridges. It is not that we necessarily have to follow their conclusions, but something of the method can be very useful to us. I understand the value of exclusion, of separation, of unitary focus, but we do have among us some Great Minds who have also worked inclusively. I do at times think that I understand some things that the QRS do not, and that is when I storm around like a prophet of old, but that is histrionics mostly. This is theatre, isn't it?

Now, I have been rereading Kierkegaard and so much becomes clearer to me, so much that I'd forgotten. I am just now reading Attack on Christendom so how could you be surprised that I wouldn't come up with my very own Attack on QRS-tendom? In the end, and at the start, that is what Kierkegaard wants, isn't it? He says Be Honest. Just Tell Me the Truth. Don't make your Lie a Truth, and don't cover over the Raw Facts with Pretty Fibs. But what these boys have done, it seems to me, is just to attire themselves in Kierkagaardian Robes. They turn themselves into the Contemptible Professors, the Docents, that Kierkegaard so much detested. Let us go down on our knees, Diebert, before the God singing Hymns on the other side of the Rainbow, the God who Sings through the light of the stars that course through our nerves, and let us affirm that we avoid this Fate Worse Than Death.

Funny, Nietzsche wanted with all the fibers of his body his beloved Lou Salome, and it nearly killed him that he never got her, that he could never envelope his darling, his treasure, in his arms and in his life. What a sad loss. And odd it is that Kierkegaard attained Regina, and then cast Regina aside. The contrast is telling, I think. Nietzsche wanted to live, as a man, and he wanted a woman to love him. In that sense, he wanted to Be Alive, he wanted to Come Back To Life, he wanted to exist in this plane. His whole intellect, his body, his being fought like a tiger to live!

Kierkegaard wrote that the demand of Christianity is to make geldings out of stallions, and I just note how quickly and reflexively our QRS-tendom took up the Gelding Challenge. To geld is a virtue, I take it. But who asks for this? WHO ASKED FOR THIS! Not no one! So you see, one feels one has located this perverse pathology in QRS-tendom: the willingness and desire to sacrifice their testicles to their God-Idea. So, when you are careening through outer space at the very least you will NOT be thinking about young pussy! I guess that is an advantage for space-voyagers!

But humor aside---and this accords with the Kierkegaardian Mission---we have to go back over all this stuff, all these myths, all these assumptions, all this patterning, all this calling pathology a virtue, all these mistaken conclusions, and we have to grapple, personally, with all the elements. Don't you see!?! QRS-tendom sacrifices Testicles, Love, Companion, Spring, Beauty...for an artificial hurtling into a death-fantasy! And you think that the Earth shouldn't rumble!? You think I should just sit passively by and say nothing?!

We are talking about GENUINENESS, we are talking about the REAL THING, we are talking about God and Love and Life and Eternity and What It All Means, and it certainly ain't no joke---or is it?

Kierkagaard said that to leave Regina he took the harder road, but then he said it was really the easier road because to be with her when she was not really his would have been infinitely harder, so really he took the EASY road.

The harder road---I assert---for all of us is not to merely mold ourselves back into patterns some dickless priest determined was the best road for himself, when maybe it was a cowards road. And when I say 'dickless' I mean that in all its ramifications, as one who gives up vitality, the living spark, the gift of life, life as a great chance.

It seems to me to be a weeding out of 'poisonous philosophies' that do harm, and to find the Living Philosophy of a Living and Vital God.
_____________________________________________

I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes.
---Hosea, 8.10

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.
---Ecclesiastes, 9.10

. . . it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
---Acts, 9.5

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I have pointed out why and how I am similar to them, and that we share a disease, that we are dealing with pathologies and not medicines, or rather we might all be wrapped-up in pathology, that we may want the Holy Cure, but we don't know what, exactly, it is anymore.

Not sure about that. You assert so easily similarity but you seem more like an alien in a strange land.

But what you might not see is that I am attempting to speak from the perspective of an entire tradition, that I enter into different thinkers and artists who I hold in my mind (because I know their work to a certain extent) and I attempt---through a vicarious channeller's art---to enter into their spirit and then respond to the QRS-H.

It seems more often like you channel your vision of a thinker or an artist. An entire tradition? Give me a break! They all struggled with reality, perception and emotion, that's the only tradition relevant here!

It is an essay, an attempt, but there is nothing conclusive in it. It is ONLY in that sense that I presume to speak of 'vital currents', that is, literary currents, certain theological currents.

So what's conclusive for you about lets say Quinn's essay? Does he claim authority on what Nietzsche or Jesus actually meant or who they were? Perhaps you misunderstood boldness or self-assurance for certainty.

I do at times think that I understand some things that the QRS do not, and that is when I storm around like a prophet of old, but that is histrionics mostly. This is theatre, isn't it?

Yeah, that seems to be the purpose of the forum. Many here write like they know better, understand more deeply or see more. They get all the room to demonstrate too.

Funny, Nietzsche wanted with all the fibers of his body his beloved Lou Salome, and it nearly killed him that he never got her, that he could never envelope his darling, his treasure, in his arms and in his life. What a sad loss.

You really believe this? The relationship seemed a bit more subtle. Anyway I believe Lou acted more like a mirror, that was her genius. This way Nietzsche saw his highest ideal reflected. Very clever!

Nietzsche wanted to live, as a man, and he wanted a woman to love him. In that sense, he wanted to Be Alive, he wanted to Come Back To Life, he wanted to exist in this plane. His whole intellect, his body, his being fought like a tiger to live!

Such was his relationship to his whole world until he gave that up - tired of the struggle.

QRS-tendom: the willingness and desire to sacrifice their testicles to their God-Idea.

It's more like the other way around. Only the biggest balls desire to climb the highest mountains. To explore unchartered territory is one thing but to aim for conquest inside the heartland is really way more dangerous, more insane, less rewarding and one could say, lets not be afraid: more manly.

QRS-tendom sacrifices Testicles, Love, Companion, Spring, Beauty...for an artificial hurtling into a death-fantasy! And you think that the Earth shouldn't rumble!? You think I should just sit passively by and say nothing?!

The lady doth protest too much, methinks. The only reason to sacrifice anything is when a higher love, a more splendid beauty and something way beyond companionship is known to be at stake. Only then!

Kierkagaard said that to leave Regina he took the harder road

He knew he took the road outside worldliness, because with her would have come all the rest.

[Alex Jacob]

D van R wrote:

"So what's conclusive for you about lets say Quinn's essay? Does he claim authority on what Nietzsche or Jesus actually meant or who they were? Perhaps you misunderstood boldness or self-assurance for certainty."

Whenever Jesus is to represent the abstractions of 'enlightenment' they trot-out a group of quotes attributed to Jesus to support their conclusions about the Jesusonian mission. Jesus is understood conclusively. There is no question about it, no broaching of a question, and hardly any humility in the face of a question. For example, they see fit only to endlessly correct even the Christians themselves, like Father What's-His-Name of last summer. The conclusion is that everyone else in the universe is wrong and we are the ones with the correct conclusions.

Diebert, if this is not plainly obvious to you I am not sure what to say.

Nietzsche too---whose philosophy as a reaction against the anti-life strain in Christianity (the idea that you must 'die' to life, to your own life, which if that's not a mind-fuck I don't know what is...)---often seem directly opposed to the QRS-tian message. Yet they select from his work and bend it, somehow, to fit their own doctrines. That's conclusiveness, Diebert.

"Yeah, that seems to be the purpose of the forum. Many here write like they know better, understand more deeply or see more. They get all the room to demonstrate too."

And? If that is true, I am quite in line with tradition here.

"You really believe this? The relationship seemed a bit more subtle."

Yes, I personally really believe this. I really and truly believe it. Based only on what I have read in various biographies.

Only QRS-tians get turned on in 'subtle' relationships. In this sphere, in this life, part of being a man is knowing a woman, and that means from the top down, or from the bottom up, depending on your bent.

You see, in the Jewish tradition we don't seem to have this woman-fear. It is all foreign to us this Christian asceticism. I have some essays of Huxley where he very harshly, bitingly and humorously writes about early Christian asceticism. It is really a very, very freaky pathology when you think about it.

"It's more like the other way around. Only the biggest balls desire to climb the highest mountains. To explore uncharted territory is one thing but to aim for conquest inside the heartland is really way more dangerous, more insane, less rewarding and one could say, lets not be afraid: more manly."

Okay...okay. When you write I feel my skin a-tingling.

When are you going to really come forth and reveal your doctrines, your hopes, your desires, your views?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Whenever Jesus is to represent the abstractions of 'enlightenment' they trot-out a group of quotes attributed to Jesus to support their conclusions about the Jesusonian mission.

It doesn't seem to be there in a role of authorizing their conclusions. But if you and others interpret it that way, it might be better for them to limit such references or discard them altogether. Although I think it's already fairly limited overall.

Even if ones interpretation of sage such-and-such would be flawed, why would it matter? One recognizes similarities and they are reported. It's all about function. History after all is also written mostly by the victors or at least the pathologists we call historians.

For example, they see fit only to endlessly correct even the Christians themselves, like Father What's-His-Name of last summer.

Well, that's what the prophets did as well. And wasn't their criticism correct? Isn't it just another strand of endless reform?

Yet they select from his work and bend it, somehow, to fit their own doctrines. That's conclusiveness, Diebert.

I'm quite familiar with Nietzsche's work, background, letters, biographies and have read it in all kinds of translations and interpretations. And I can tell you they don't bend it much when compared to almost everyone else touching it. Your concerns seem hollow to me, unsubstantiated.

When are you going to really come forth and reveal your doctrines, your hopes, your desires, your views?

Why would I do that when all I'm doing is giving these things a rest ? Well, I'll give you my view as we all have views. We are what and how we view, after all.

[Alex Jacob]

All I can say, Diebert, is that I am authentically extremely interested in all these questions and issues. I am also happy with my thoughts, my questions, my approach, my conflicts, contradictions and paradoxes, in short I like what I offer to these pages. One has to satisfy oneself, don't one?

"Well, that's what the prophets did as well. And wasn't their criticism correct? Isn't it just another strand of endless reform?"

Good grief, now you are really opening up a difficult question, and one that, I bet, is of no interest at all to this entre forum. The prophets? Kevin will spend, it seems, a week or more getting clear in the expression that there is an amorphousness to any entity or object in the universe, and uncertain, indefinite borders. And you want to throw into this...the prophets?

And the difference here, and it is a vital and important distinction, is that it all hinges in in what way one values life, and what sort of ethic one is going to put emphasis on. Very specifically, and I think very relevantly, I take issue with the nebulousness of the focus of their philosophy. Yes, that is it. Let's put it in those terms then: What is the relationship of this QRS-tian (you didn't acknowledge this clever pun) to the prophetic tradition? and also to the Jesus tradition, and Jesus as an extention of the Jewsih tradition?

QRS-tian philosophy, it seems to me, is a perversion and an insult to the whole core.

That is my view. But---I know this now---you can't really comment because you are giving it a rest. (But always, the question is the most relevant thing).

[David Quinn]

David Quinn wrote:

They [ Nietzsche and Kierkegaard ] may have been soaring artists, but I dwell in outer space and send messages back to earth.

This is interesting. Apparently a move to space, even if metaphorical, is part and parcel with becoming Enlightened. I take it as a dimensional shift of some sort. Yet, Kevin and David have not alluded to this. I wonder if they experience Enlightenment as a move to outer space, too.

I created that metaphor in response to Alex's metaphor of "soaring artists". The more a person becomes a genius, the less he is recognized to be a genius by the human race, and that is essentially because he has soared too far away for them to see. It is as though he has become invisible.

Conversely, what the world calls "geniuses", and this applies to Nietzsche and Kierkegaard to some extent as well, are those who move beyond the ordinary in small measure. Were they ever to attempt to go further than this, they would quickly disappear off the radar. I think with Nietzsche, in particular, this realization held him back.

Having said that, enlightenment is a bit like dwelling in outer space, in that the enlightened person is infinitely removed from all things, while at the same time infinitely in tune with all things.

-

[David Quinn]

Funny, Nietzsche wanted with all the fibers of his body his beloved Lou Salome, and it nearly killed him that he never got her, that he could never envelope his darling, his treasure, in his arms and in his life. What a sad loss. And odd it is that Kierkegaard attained Regina, and then cast Regina aside. The contrast is telling, I think. Nietzsche wanted to live, as a man, and he wanted a woman to love him. In that sense, he wanted to Be Alive, he wanted to Come Back To Life, he wanted to exist in this plane. His whole intellect, his body, his being fought like a tiger to live!

The funny thing about this story was that Nietzsche wanted to believe Lou Salome was his intellectual heir and that she would carry on his work after he was dead. When she laughed in his face, he went into a rage and called her a "filfthy monkey with false breasts".

Not one of his better moments, but hey, he was a real man. Not like the odd Kierkegaard.

QRS-tian philosophy, it seems to me, is a perversion and an insult to the whole core.

Spoken like a true poetician.

(Did you see my cleverness there, Alex. Poetician, politician - you know, pompous, dull, mealy-mouthed, evasive .... I'm so clever it astounds me. )

-

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Funny, Nietzsche wanted with all the fibers of his body his beloved Lou Salome, and it nearly killed him that he never got her, that he could never envelope his darling, his treasure, in his arms and in his life. What a sad loss.

The funny thing about this story was that Nietzsche wanted to believe Lou Salome was his intellectual heir and that she would carry on his work after he was dead. When she laughed in his face, he went into a rage and called her a "filfthy monkey with false breasts".

Actually it was closer to ""This scrawny dirty smelly monkey with her fake breasts - a disaster!". But in an unsent letter.

Even funnier is this photo taken from Lou, Nietzsche and Rée together. It's authentic and perhaps shows a glimpse of self-mockery but perhaps also of other philosophies that were yet to come.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I am also happy with my thoughts, my questions, my approach, my conflicts, contradictions and paradoxes, in short I like what I offer to these pages. One has to satisfy oneself, don't one?

No, I really think there's more to life than deriving happiness out of contradictions or arriving at self-satisfaction by offering them to others as discourse. It's what everybody already is doing anyway! Why not try something absolutely different for a change?

What is the relationship of this QRS-tian (you didn't acknowledge this clever pun) to the prophetic tradition? and also to the Jesus tradition, and Jesus as an extention of the Jewsih tradition?

QRS-tian philosophy, it seems to me, is a perversion and an insult to the whole core.

Well, in that perversion and insult lies certainly a clue? Were Jesus and before him the prophets and in generally the Jewish people not seen as perversion and insult for those still stuck in older ways? And certainly being seen as perversion or insult is therefore not necessarily a sign of ignorance or error. It can also hold a promise for new wine in new wine bags. But perhaps it has to develop in the cellar for a few more years?