GENIUS FORUMS

Talking Ass to Diebert wrote:Yes, anti-literary. As for example Kelly's statement that Huxley 'mucked around' in literary endeavors and the early critiques of my fine self as an 'aesthete', as a pathological term (extended to all artists).

My stance is similar to Kierkegaard's. Aesthetic realm activities contain a lot of different medicines to help shift a person out of the animal realms of immediacy, or states of hellishness and chaos. They can be very beneficial by stabilising the agitated mind, or uplifting the apathetic. But these are low-level medicines. So I don't reject all literary activity: I only reject the purposeless, gratuitous type. There is plenty of aesthetic appeal in almost all spiritual writings, because the aesthetic realm - properly used - focusses on ideas, and therefore ideals. But one shouldn't forget that this is medicinal. It's not the highest.

this is not the same as having a broad relationship with literary traditions. In these recent pages, Kelly took a crap on Huxley, and quite unfairly so, and in my opinion reveals her lack of relationship---ability to comprehend---his relevance and importance. This is typical *here*: what you don't understand or what makes you uncomfortable, you feel free to diss.

I am all for educating oneself about the history of humanity, but for the purpose of redeeming the past. I fully understand the desire to surround oneself in "culture", and I know it's a cheap, empty thrill compared to becoming wise. It's a rich taste that quickly turns sour in samsara.

What is your relationship to the religious (Christian) position of Chesterton in relation to existential issues? In what way do I give evidence of 'post-modernism' in my views, and in what way do you (et al) not? How has the QRS circumnavigated this funnel, if may I know?

You must explain yourself in relation to every one of Chesterton's assertions. I am certain you will not be able to do it, or will avoid it.

It's you who does not understand the ongoing chase for aesthetic stimuli to be spiritual death. That's your own failing, not mine. You need to prove that God is always changing. You cannot, so you attack people who tell you the truth.


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Talking Ass wrote: if the topic is me, how could you be leveling an essentially religious critique of my (as you see it) similar-to-Huxley's post-modern philosophies?

The topic isn't you and I'll gladly drop it if you only would admit you were the one inserting your person in the first place, positioning it center stage with your "ship" analogy, which also started to list all your targets at this forum by name. Ho ho. Torpedoes away! Can we take you off the table now?

The paradoxical truth is that, were Chesterton here, he would likely level a terrible critique against the dissolving views of QRS(J)(vR).

As he should. But then again he was miles ahead of others around him at the time and he might have found in this modern time and place an alternative to his mystical Christianity, his need to align himself with the largest of traditions. The largest tradition of course being wisdom, for the ones having eyes to see the leitmotif. Chesterton had the eyesight but a too great of attachment to belong, which watered his eyes. It's crucial to become more of an individual on this path (compare how much further it took Kierkegaard and Nietzsche!)

Schaeffer also does a number on Huxley.

Thanks, Schaeffer being also part of my past road! Really, Christian thinkers might be mistaken terribly about a few things but the heart was often found at the right place, more than enough to demolish the modernists.

Are you saying that your position, or that of QRS or that of Kelly and others here is a similarly-oriented position? I.e. essentially old-school religious? Are you saying that the famed QRS position is essentially the same as a religious position?

This is rather obvious, do you still need to ask after years of reading here? The religious positions are nothing but derivatives from philosophical thought systems, which contained, like some vessel, a cargo of wisdom. People keep on getting attracted to its light. It's why some people stick around here arguing, as at heart they're really modern religious: they hear the bells ringing but are at a loss finding out about the clapper.

the place and value of the novel (in the widest sense of meaning) as integral to the formation of our intellectual, spiritual and cultural traditions.

Fallout. In worst case poisoning, radio-active! In best case: a deep red sunset. It doesn't form anything although bad artists always keep insisting it does. Of course when one travels back further in history, the lines are getting blurred: nearly everything was voiced dramatically, poetically, analogically. But those were specific cultural circumstances: stronger attachment to traditional formats, violent repression of competitive thought, low education and abstraction abilities in target audience (too much cognitive distances), lack of any tradition developing historical awareness, and as such Story and history always blurred. Novel and fiction are more recent developments really.

No brother, you transformed the topic to be about me with this:

Diebert wrote: "But it's not hard to see your own flotilla has no goal, never had any real direction here so you end up swarming around a forum where a few people do appear to have set some high-post goals (not all the same ones though, but applying a similar masculine direction nevertheless). All the posturing and word dropping you call posting is just a way to make yourself at home, not to contribute (this is how you justify it perhaps, when you're not laughing it away) but to live of. And I've said it before: it's not healthy, especially not for yourself. You have in the end nothing to bring here, only to take away but you cannot carry that out, even, the tiniest of principles is simply too heavy for your ghostly arms; in the end being just another child of modernity who at best can phrase his dilemma in powerless reactionary or postmodern terms."

As I predicted, you have side-stepped all the questions I asked in relation to your Chesterton quotes. You say I have no goal, and you quote Chesterton to 'prove' it. Then, you say that others here have some 'high-post goals' that are distinctly NOT 'post-modern' ('ghostly') and imply solidities and certainties like unto those available to a Chesterton or a Schaeffer and in your position and that of QRS(J), which are also 'masculine': i.e. more masculine than mine. You are saying---like Chesterton is saying in his critique of Huxley (which must be similar to Schaeffer)---that I am unable to perceive the 'substance' here, that which has such wonderful value for you, and your Chesterton quotes are intended also to indicate this. But then when you are asked to clarify, to explain, you cannot.

You are confused, Diebert. And in truth your own position is non-solid and possibly more 'post-modern' in the sense you want to level against me. You are 'name-dropping' and you cannot back up your assertion.

Diebert: "But then again he was miles ahead of others around him at the time and he might have found in this modern time and place an alternative to his mystical Christianity, his need to align himself with the largest of traditions. The largest tradition of course being wisdom, for the ones having eyes to see the leitmotif. Chesterton had the eyesight but a too great of attachment to belong, which watered his eyes. It's crucial to become more of an individual on this path (compare how much further it took Kierkegaard and Nietzsche!)"

Horse shit! Here you are talking out of your asshole. An 'alternative' to (what he would likely, if at all like Schaeffer, never describe as) 'mystical' Christianity? Now you are really getting confused and demonstrating it. For a confessing Christian there is nothing 'mystical' in the affirmation of the existence of God and the offer of Salvation to man. It either is or it is not. And, according to Schaeffer, it 'is' and it is rational. Oddly enough, it is here with these 'mystical' solidities, these 'absolutes', that we witness an sleight-of-hand where a concept is substituted for the salvation-agent, and of course this is what I have been writing about for months and months. The 'mystics' are you, Kelly, and the QRS! And the strategy is decidedly 'post-modern'. But you insist that it wear a different dress! You place *her* (your insistance) in an 'absolute garb' and you defend her with shallow 'reasonings'---emotional reasonings?

Your mysticism, Diebert, your trick, is here: "The largest tradition of course being wisdom, for the ones having eyes to see the leitmotif." Here, no doubt, both Chesterton and Schaeffer would jump down on you with both feet. For the obvious reason: 'wisdom' is a mental position, an arrangement within the mind, an 'agreement'. But Life and Salvation are strictly Divine gifts and are not 'constructed'. Your own (mystically advantaged) eyes perceive what other lowly humans cannot: the leitmotif shining through the shifting forms, and with this you have made the post-modern leap!

You fool! Not because it is not 'reasonable' or even necessary to have post-modern ideas, to flounder in it like in a trap, but because you huff and puff about me as a 'post-modern' when in fact you have far exceeded me.

The thing about you, Diebert, is you are rather third-rate. Once one unravels your *tactics* and also your own antics, one sees that your 'reasonings' are shallow.

Diebert: "It's crucial to become more of an individual on this path (compare how much further it took Kierkegaard and Nietzsche!"

Love the exclamation point, especially as it puts a halo around the memory of your (dare I say it!) post-modern Heroes! You say that it's crucial to become 'much more' an individual on this 'path', but isn't this a rather empty statement? It sounds good, I'll grant you that, but what is really behind it?

This is of course what you are unable to explain.

Diebert writes: "This is rather obvious, do you still need to ask after years of reading here? The religious positions are nothing but derivatives from philosophical thought systems, which contained, like some vessel, a cargo of wisdom. People keep on getting attracted to its light. It's why some people stick around here arguing, as at heart they're really modern religious: they hear the bells ringing but are at a loss finding out about the clapper."

First, I have never agreed with the tactic, solution and strategy of you and the QRS. I've always seen it as a sublimation of a non-rational religiosity, doped-up with post-modern confusion, and drunk with certainty and adolescent arrogance. Second, it is absurd to say that religious views derive from philosophical views. With this, for example, you have side-stepped the entire thrust of the apologetics of Chesterton and Schaeffer---which you have quoted for your own purposes---and have invented your own pseudo-rationalism, or more likely a pseudo-mysticism.

I lOvE this: "People keep on getting attracted to its light. It's why some people stick around here arguing, as at heart they're really modern religious: they hear the bells ringing but are at a loss finding out about the clapper."

Modern religious, but not post-modern religious, old boy?

You are a peice of work, Diebert.

Never mind, Alex. This isn't going anywhere and really.... wisdom "a mental position, an arrangement within the mind, an 'agreement'"? No wonder your posts end up being such a mess. What's not an arrangement within the "mind"? Even Christians do realize that. Back to square one with you one again, I'm afraid.

The reason 'it isn't going anywhere' is because you have put yourself in an alley in such a way there is no getting out. There is no sense in recapping it; it is obvious and evident. The only avenue open to you is to bail on the whole conversation.

I won't continue with the other part of your last post since you have side-stepped all you yourself brought up with Chesterton, and all the pertinent questions I asked.

Kelly writes: "In this entire post, long as it is, you still didn't engage with any of my ideas. You have only presented a long stream of ad hominems. But an argumentum ad hominem is no substitute for a rational argument. You can claim that I have a narrow-minded, adolescent attitude, but you don't provide the evidence. Namely, you should prove that the wisest of the wise must not speak plainly and simply, but must always hide their messages in multilayered meanings and complex poetic symbols. You should provide reasoning as to why this is wise and effective at helping others to become wise."

It is really more to the point that I could, I most certainly could. I suggested this, in a roundabout way, by indicating the 'simplistic and binary' system that operates at the core of your perception and all your thinking. However, you---and many players here---are experts at weaseling argumentation, and some of you are so fortified in your views that, no matter if a pure and rational argument is offered to rebut a given assertion, you have an almost metaphysical and magical talent to disregard it, and slog on. You also work in teams to bolster your pet ideas, obsessive though they often are, and when an individual TB finds herself in trouble, another runs to her rescue. For this reason it is, in truth, a waste of time to *reason* with you.

I am not opposed to the ad hominem approach, if it is taken to mean, literally, 'to the man'. Sometimes, it is necessary. I don't believe in arguments argued in a vacuum, or those abstracted from our persons. The person must always appear. Though there is little doubt that my critique of you had elements of ad hominem, and a touch of something close to or bordering in 'mean', there are moments when ad hominem (a critique of the person itself, the psychological structure of that person) is necessary. Maybe it is the only way to get through to them.

In this sense, to argue with you is the same as arguing with a head strong girl-child, a girl who decks herself out as a man (complete, adult and responsible). The way I see you---at least I am honest---is to see you as a young girl who has significantly deluded herself, to the point of doing herself harm. If I were dealing with an actual nine or ten years-old, say if I were a parent or an uncle to her, I would most certainly not have to present a 'rational argument' that would satisfy her bratty little mind if I felt she were a danger to herself. No. She would be reprimanded, her behavior reproached, corrected, controlled, and she would be monitored to see if the message got in. This is really the crux of the problem: 'Life' as both an abstract and a personal force that comes to bear on us, does not engage in *reason* with us: it simply applies its corrective.

You desperately need a corrective.

I say that 'the evidence', which I do not intend to submit, is something you'll have to find in yourself. The object was to circumvent any false-rational argumentation and strike right through it to the core.

You will likely not agree---publically---but I am becoming convinced that an attitude and activity such as mine is really the most *masculine* position in regard to an essentially *feminine* deluded structure. (Forgive me for absconding your own nomenclature!).

Talking Ass wrote:The reason 'it isn't going anywhere' is because you have put yourself in an alley in such a way there is no getting out.

It's an alley only present in your thoughts, a twisted tunnel you want to impose on others. You don't really debate, for example you say things like "for a confessing Christian there is nothing 'mystical' in the affirmation of the existence of God and the offer of Salvation to man". What can I say to that? You're here in one blow redefining all what's commonly understood, by Christians as well as philosophers as 'mystical' and as 'faith', putting everything upside down and in conflict while accusing the other of having placed himself in the alley! There's no discussion possible this way as it only draws the attention to the wizard.

Diebert wrote:It's an alley only present in your thoughts, a twisted tunnel you want to impose on others.

Look who's talking!

More tactic on your part, Diebert. The strategy here is to make me look like the insoluble problem. But, I asked you to explain yourself in regard to those quotes by Chesterton, and you could not do it. Now you want to make it appear 'reasonable' that you are exiting the conversation. The further you are able to get away from your inability or unwillingness to respond to the questions I asked, directly in relation to quotes that you supplied to describe myself (and Huxley), the better it will be for you. It is a standard tactic. It is fairly transparent that it is a bad-faith tactic on your part, as I see it.

Mystic, mystical and mysticism, I grant you, are complex words. It is not that I negate the value of these words and regard nothing as 'mysterious' or 'mystical'. More than anything else I was referring to Schaeffer and his view of mysticism as a deleterious influence within Christian doctrines. It might have read: "For a confessing Christian---for Schaeffer for example---there is nothing 'mystical' in the affirmation of the existence of God and the offer of Salvation to man".

And I stand by that.

That 'mystical' was put in quotations was to indicate a special usage: Schaeffer's. He regards mysticism as a kind of acid that leads to an innefective or diluted post-modern apologetics. For him it would be part of a slippery slope leading away from the rationality of the Christian decision to nebulousness.

These quotes:

• �They are not opening the gates either of heaven or hell; they are in a blind-alley, at the end of which there is no door.
  
  �They have not reached that reality, that reason of things, or even that fully realised unreason of things, for which they are obviously and indeed avowedly seeking.
  
  �But, what is here more to the point, they do not (like the old revolutionists) even know the direction in which they are to seek it. They have failed to discover, not only any purpose in the world, but even any purpose in the will.
  
  �They are witty, brilliant and fashionable bankrupts. They have come to an end; and they have not come to an End.

These quotes, in my way of seeing, would indicate that Chesterton too would take issue with a 'mystical' Christianity of the sort you supposed he would have were he a little more 'modern'. One supposed that if he were 'a little more modern', his views might have shifted toward what you hold dear: 'wisdom doctrines' (and whatever you mean by this). In this sense, I supposed that he would not describe himself as a mystical Christian.

Diebert: "...while accusing the other of having placed himself in the alley!"

The 'alley' you put yourself in was in using Chesterton quotes to attack what you feel are my 'post-modern' assumptions.

I had written:

"What is your relationship to the religious (Christian) position of Chesterton in relation to existential issues? In what way do I give evidence of 'post-modernism' in my views, and in what way do you (et al) not? How has the QRS circumnavigated this funnel, if may I know?

and

"You must explain yourself in relation to every one of Chesterton's assertions. I am certain you will not be able to do it, or will avoid it."

Alex wrote:I wrote: You can claim that I have a narrow-minded, adolescent attitude, but you don't provide the evidence. Namely, you should prove that the wisest of the wise must not speak plainly and simply, but must always hide their messages in multilayered meanings and complex poetic symbols. You should provide reasoning as to why this is wise and effective at helping others to become wise.

Alex: I suggested this, in a roundabout way, by indicating the 'simplistic and binary' system that operates at the core of your perception and all your thinking.

You mean, the fact that logic is the core of my thinking is proof of not being wise? You've got to be kidding.

However, you---and many players here---are experts at weaseling argumentation, and some of you are so fortified in your views that, no matter if a pure and rational argument is offered to rebut a given assertion, you have an almost metaphysical and magical talent to disregard it, and slog on.

If you're claiming the wisest of the wise aren't logical, then you need to argue why logic doesn't lead to wisdom.

You also work in teams to bolster your pet ideas, obsessive though they often are, and when an individual TB finds herself in trouble, another runs to her rescue. For this reason it is, in truth, a waste of time to *reason* with you.

I never rescue anyone, and no one needs to rescue me. This is simply pure evasion on your part. Deal with the crux of the matter: what wisdom is.

I am not opposed to the ad hominem approach, if it is taken to mean, literally, 'to the man'. Sometimes, it is necessary. I don't believe in arguments argued in a vacuum, or those abstracted from our persons. The person must always appear. Though there is little doubt that my critique of you had elements of ad hominem, and a touch of something close to or bordering in 'mean', there are moments when ad hominem (a critique of the person itself, the psychological structure of that person) is necessary. Maybe it is the only way to get through to them.

This use of argumentum ad hominem is irrelevant and incorrect, because you didn't provide any supporting evidence for the (false) conclusion that led you to assume it, namely, that the core of my thinking (the reliance on logic) is simplistic, and, by implication, unwise.

In this sense, to argue with you is the same as arguing with a head strong girl-child, a girl who decks herself out as a man (complete, adult and responsible). The way I see you---at least I am honest---is to see you as a young girl who has significantly deluded herself, to the point of doing herself harm. If I were dealing with an actual nine or ten years-old, say if I were a parent or an uncle to her, I would most certainly not have to present a 'rational argument' that would satisfy her bratty little mind if I felt she were a danger to herself. No. She would be reprimanded, her behavior reproached, corrected, controlled, and she would be monitored to see if the message got in. This is really the crux of the problem: 'Life' as both an abstract and a personal force that comes to bear on us, does not engage in *reason* with us: it simply applies its corrective.

This is another ad hominem, incorrectly used. You are merely repeating your earlier claims, and still failing to provide any evidence or reasoning to support the core point - that I am deluded. You need to provide supporting reasons for this claim.

You desperately need a corrective.

Why are you so frightened of reasoning directly and plainly?

I say that 'the evidence', which I do not intend to submit, is something you'll have to find in yourself. The object was to circumvent any false-rational argumentation and strike right through it to the core.

So, you are happy to slander me, making claims without providing evidence, because you hate the idea of applying logic to every aspect of one's being? Not a very pleasant way to lead your life, I would think.

You will likely not agree---publically---but I am becoming convinced that an attitude and activity such as mine is really the most *masculine* position in regard to an essentially *feminine* deluded structure. (Forgive me for absconding your own nomenclature!).

I actually see you as someone who formed strong ties to the psychologically-soothing offerings of the aesthetic realms, probably in his teenage years. I think you also had some early, and unusual, insights into human self-deceit. Inevitably, your teenage peers would have treated you differently - some regarded you as wierd, and left you alone, while others were attracted to you, and more often than not, you weren't attracted to them. I think that, back then, you were proud of your skill with language, and of your insights into human nature, but you were also ambivalent about these talents because of the social effects. But as you aged, you found more and more dead authors of the past to confirm you in your attitudes and separateness, and still others - those who were living, who like you, had formed a strong companionship with the past literary 'illuminati' - to buffer their fears of becoming excessively eccentric. You learnt from them how to be charming, and how to fit in. Moreover, a surfeit of women were hanging around in the book clubs, and at poetry readings, and attending theosophical society meetings. With such reinforcement, you had no qualms about attaching yourself to this little ledge of literary ooh-ing and aah-ing, and have never looked back. If anyone dared to rip the safety blanket away, you would pile on ten more blankets - calling the blanketless tormentor a cold, empty, and comfortless creature devoid of culture and the warmth it brings....


...

Kelly wrote: "I actually see you as someone who formed strong ties to the psychologically-soothing offerings of the aesthetic realms, probably in his teenage years. I think you also had some early, and unusual, insights into human self-deceit. Inevitably, your teenage peers would have treated you differently - some regarded you as wierd, and left you alone, while others were attracted to you, and more often than not, you weren't attracted to them. I think that, back then, you were proud of your skill with language, and of your insights into human nature, but you were also ambivalent about these talents because of the social effects. But as you aged, you found more and more dead authors of the past to confirm you in your attitudes and separateness, and still others - those who were living, who like you, had formed a strong companionship with the past literary 'illuminati' - to buffer their fears of becoming excessively eccentric. You learnt from them how to be charming, and how to fit in. Moreover, a surfeit of women were hanging around in the book clubs, and at poetry readings, and attending theosophical society meetings. With such reinforcement, you had no qualms about attaching yourself to this little ledge of literary ooh-ing and aah-ing, and have never looked back. If anyone dared to rip the safety blanket away, you would pile on ten more blankets - calling the blanketless tormentor a cold, empty, and comfortless creature devoid of culture and the warmth it brings...."

I had, while growing up, no relationship at all to aesthetic pursuits, but it is true that I am sort of an artistic person though you wouldn't read that in me were you to meet me. Most people ntice my practical and responsible aspect or 'face'. Well, that is I guess not completely true about aesthetic pursuits: I liked to draw. Since I grew up in a place of extraordinary beauty it was the relationship to nature that I felt most strongly. In my teenage years---quite unhappy and confusing---it was all really a question of survival: spiritual and psychological survival. If I had 'insights' into human self-deceit it only came about through an understanding of my own labyrinthian self-deceits. Under those conditions, it is doubtful how well one can actually *see* another. At that time, I was largely a 'black sheep' from my High School community, but I did have at least a few solid friendships with people of tremendous solidity and moral strength. I've often thought that they saved my life. I was attracted to many people, and often for the *right* reasons (I suppose I could see virtue in people, and I certainly see virtue in you, lots of it), but it was as if I was ostracized, mostly by my own attitudes toward myself. I might have had, well, yes, I suppose I did, have some skill with language, but nothing really to speak of. The essential experiences, that literally rocked my life to its foundations, were spiritual and intensely revelatory. These occurred around the age of 14. Fate would have it that, less than a year later, my parents abandoned the US for a year's period and we all went to live in India (and other places in S. Asia). THAT experience, coupled with my own inner experiences, more or less destroyed my relationship with 'the conventional'. It will sound absurd (it is just a way of talking I suppose, a symbol) but you could say that 'my whole life', my incarnation, was dominated by a planet of transformation: 'Pluto'. Life and Death, pheonixes rising out of ashes, that sort of thing. There was not much room to breathe. I have grown used to the influence of 'Pluto'. In those phases there were very few 'dead authors' to access. All stories of other's experiences, as for example Dostoyevski and some of the Russians (near and dear now to my heart) simply could not have registered. I wound up in Mexico City in my mid-twenties reading Notes from Underground and sensing it was something relevant, or necessary, but it was like there were a gauze around me: the message couldn't get through. I was in my own underground realm. That went on for a long time. But, that has certainly changed. There are now numerous 'dead authors' whose work feels very very relevant to me, not in the sense of a 'spiritual manual' as you gravitate to, but just as fellow observers in life's processes, along the road as it were. I think I would say now that the Bible is a core document of literature for me, and I see many authors as minor versions, or as those who seek ways to work with Biblical values. (I know this likely requires more explanation). The 'illuminati' is, I think, awareness itself, God itself. As a 'person' we can interact with. I was perhaps afraid of 'eccentricity' but more simple weirdness. I tend to be rather self-conscious in that sense and, insofar as I can, to keep a low profile. Never, ever went to book clubs, or poetry readings (except a few when 17-18), or anything resembling a Theosophy Meeting. My 'metaphysics' were trying to make sense of what had *happened* to me (huge psychic events that turned my world upside-down). I could never see as if from the outside and it seemed, always, like affliction, like it would never end. Unfortunately for me, all this high, revelatory material and influence was also blended together with 'sin' and human error. It only made the whole process that much more difficult. I was never, ever even remotely connected with any artistic or literary groups. 'I've crawled through life like a rat, clinging to walls, scampering down rusting stairwells...' Safety blankets? In that peculiar 'nakedness' of strong psychic experiences that tear one open, there certainly has been a desire to find some covering. To be quite truthful I would (confess to you and) say that I used women for that. Not once, not twice but many, many times.

What do you think?

Diebert? There is some nice material here...

;-)

Talking Ass wrote:What do you think?

I think you seem a lot more human and interesting when you aren't playing the fool. The above exposition was insightful, open, honest, courageous, and down-to-earth --- almost nothing like the rather whiny, self-important jester character you usually hide behind.

I'd like to explore it a bit more with you. To start with, you spoke a couple of times of something you call "sin":

if I was ostracized, mostly by my own attitudes toward myself.

it was like there were a gauze around me: the message couldn't get through. I was in my own underground realm. That went on for a long time.

all this high, revelatory material and influence was also blended together with 'sin' and human error. It only made the whole process that much more difficult.

'I've crawled through life like a rat, clinging to walls, scampering down rusting stairwells...'

What was all that about, do you think?


The other thing I'd like to explore is, of course, the essential experiences of which you said:

The essential experiences, that literally rocked my life to its foundations, were spiritual and intensely revelatory. These occurred around the age of 14. Fate would have it that, less than a year later, my parents abandoned the US for a year's period and we all went to live in India (and other places in S. Asia). THAT experience, coupled with my own inner experiences, more or less destroyed my relationship with 'the conventional'. It will sound absurd (it is just a way of talking I suppose, a symbol) but you could say that 'my whole life', my incarnation, was dominated by a planet of transformation: 'Pluto'. Life and Death, pheonixes rising out of ashes, that sort of thing. There was not much room to breathe. I have grown used to the influence of 'Pluto'.

Can you describe what happened, and what your insights were? I don't actually believe that your relationship with conventionality was destroyed, by the way.


A couple of other interesting quotes:
1.

I was perhaps afraid of 'eccentricity' but more simple weirdness. I tend to be rather self-conscious in that sense and, insofar as I can, to keep a low profile.

This statement about yourself seems dissonant with your behaviour on the forum, and especially with the following quote:

2.

Safety blankets? In that peculiar 'nakedness' of strong psychic experiences that tear one open, there certainly has been a desire to find some covering. To be quite truthful I would (confess to you and) say that I used women for that. Not once, not twice but many, many times.

It seems like you were deeply ambivalent about those teenage insights. Relationships with others, and especially emotional ones with women, would have made you feel "normal" and "safe", and not "weird". It seems like you didn't trust the revelations. If you had faith in them, you would have made your life intricately woven with them, loved their guidance, and resented the intrusions of conventionality. That you repeatedly sought to push them away makes me think that they weren't reliable.


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Talking Ass wrote: But, I asked you to explain yourself in regard to those quotes by Chesterton, and you could not do it. ... quotes that you supplied to describe myself (and Huxley)

It was a way to summarize the problem with modernism and offspring. This in response to your remark about how my earlier post would relate to the topic (Huxley) and the phrase "child of modernity" which I used to describe a more general problem with you, as well Huxley when it comes to philosophy. I thought it was a relevant, powerful description while at the same time introducing an other interesting, witty but religious writer. But you disagree with its relevance, that's okay. No need to get all prissy over it. You appear to be upset about the postmodern bit but I said "powerless reactionary or postmodern terms", and I'd put you in the reactionary camp. That's because most of your remarks on religion, society, politics are remarkably "knee-jerk" conservative and radiating hostility toward fundamental change, toward which are for you clearly unknowns. Again, you can disagree but we have been over this so many times in so much detail. Do you want to bring it up again and again?

"For a confessing Christian---for Schaeffer for example---there is nothing 'mystical' in the affirmation of the existence of God and the offer of Salvation to man".

Well, my context was Chesterton while you seem to prefer to shift it to Schaeffer. It's clear to me you didn't really read Chesterton, for example his inspiring little book on Francis of Assisi whom he really identified with, especially some of the direct, life-altering experiences with "up-side-down-ness" (a recurring theme with Chesterton), and the intensely private, "aloneness" with God. In my experience within the Christian world and theology, this is a common, accepted view. They might not always call it mystical considering all the connotations but leave it to Christians to be all too deceptive with their terminology.

Within the Christian tradition there's this amazing form of territorial behavior when it comes to rejecting the outwardly mystical and especially occult or paranormal manifestations while at the backdoor introducing them as core elements in their imitatione Christi, but under different non-offending flags.

Chesterton however is promoting:

• "the opening the gates either of heaven or hell"
• "a fully realised unreason of things"
• "purpose in the will".
• "come to an End."

These are rather mystical ideas essentially, yet you somehow introduce them as evidence for "taking issue with mystical Christianity"?

Talking Ass wrote:The essential experiences, that literally rocked my life to its foundations, were spiritual and intensely revelatory. These occurred around the age of 14.

My 'metaphysics' were trying to make sense of what had *happened* to me (huge psychic events that turned my world upside-down). I could never see as if from the outside and it seemed, always, like affliction, like it would never end.

'I've crawled through life like a rat, clinging to walls, scampering down rusting stairwells...' Safety blankets? In that peculiar 'nakedness' of strong psychic experiences that tear one open, there certainly has been a desire to find some covering.

Diebert? There is some nice material here...

Since you ask for it, indeed there is. Did you ever consider looking at those "essential experiences" at the age of 14 as possessing a more non-spiritual nature? At that age, one interprets things a certain way, often because our emotional framework is rather underdeveloped ("impressionable"). Look, I had a close friend at 16 who just came out of a period with (possibly) a similar set of vivid experiences. But in his case the fundamentalist environment of his family "demonized" it and "helped him" with a combination of prayer, ritual and medication. The symptoms faded, although the timing might have had more to do with violent reactions to the biophysical changes of puberty than anything else, and he had another rocky decade of work, religion and briefly starting a family before he suicided.

cousinbasil wrote:I was struck by his ability to encapsulate the way women can spend their energy and time:

in interfering with other people's affairs, in working up emotional scenes, in thinking about love and making it, and in bothering men till they cannot get on with their work.

yet not blanketly apply it to all women all the time. For instance, you pointed out that the narrator is married to what seems to be a soul mate.

I agree that he is not a misogynist. But you define a misogynist as

someone who understood feminine psychology deeply, and, understanding, necessarily rejected it.

He seems to be able to take individual cases, rather than inductively characterizing entire sets of people.

This is why this short story interested me vis a vis GF. Huxley is able (somewhat melodramatically) to show the vacuous, ego-driven psychology of many women and the negative effects on others it has, yet not permit that knowledge itself to change himself such that he is not able to interact with women who do not "interfere with men's work."

Interact with women, he can still do it, and for this you hold him up?!
How ridiculous.
There are countless men who degrade women (use your own word here, "degrade" seems fitting enough att) while at the same time using them to fullfill egotistical needs. And with their full endorsement, no less.
No big deal.

First, the Dutchman.

If it works for you to shift to a more general critique of modernism and 'post-modern problematics', I suppose I will go along with it. It seems a little shady considering that, in truth, you really have a desire to 'sink my boat': to expose me. (Me!)

• Quoting Chesterton would be/could be a 'relevant, powerful description' if you indeed did relate it either to Huxley or to me. You intended to use it as a way to take a jab at me but you did not follow through.
• I don't at all feel I am unaware of the 'problem of modernity' or the 'post-modern problem' as a kind of pathology, as an illness. I think I devoted a good deal of time writing about my relationship to this in David Quinn's Woman Exposition Thread that was begun by Kunga.
• This post-modern problem is a a problem that interweaves through all of us.
• And you too. And this forum and everyone who writes here and certainly Quinn Solway and Rowden.
• I am certain that you suppose you have transcended this problem, but I assert that you certainly have not. My impression is that you have invented band-aids to cover the 'post-modern wound'. BUT, you-all ACT as if you have floated over the abyss! In this sense you have deceived yourselves! It is in this deception that one really sees 'who you are'. There is a phenomenal underpinning of arrogance that runs through this (adolescent) assumption of having transcended the 'post-modern problem' (what essentially Chesterton is pointing to which, combined with the false assumption of having solved or resolved it, 'afflicts' people here, you included).
• I do not AT ALL have issues with the relevance and 'usefulness' of either Chesterton's or Schaeffer's critiques. I regret that I don't know a great deal about Chesterton, and for that reason shifted to someone I do know something about: F. Schaeffer. I assume that their critique is similar, and from Chesterton's quotes, it certainly seems so.
• What I disagree with is YOUR using Chesterton's critiques against ME when, in truth, they more aptly apply to the GF (general) position(s). The whole group of quotes could be turned on QRS and Kelly and you. In this sense more so than against me.
• I would suggest that it is 'knee-jerk' on your part to assume, without questioning, that my politics is 'reactionary' or that I am opposed to 'change'. It must be clear to you, though perhaps it isn't, that most of the politics I have discussed here---since the first when I encountered Faust and Leyla goin' wacko on 'the Jews'---have had to do with Israel.
• So here is a key for you, use it as you see fit: Over the course of some years, and on other forums, I have encountered the most strange and most bizarre attitudes and ideas about Jews and Israel, when in fact my politics were quite left of center, and I would have expressed opinions somewhat close to yours, say, or some others. So many of you---and it is obviously pathological---have turned Jews and Israel into your own little demons. No one, I repeat NO ONE, has any level of accurate assessment about Jews, the Jews or Israel. Ninety percent of it is simply madness, and madness of a dangerous sort. In the course of listening to it, and for other reasons too, I reassessed all of the left-leaning notions and I went deeply through my own ideas and attitudes. As a result of the madness I perceived in the obsession so many have toward Jews and Israel, I resolved to correct my own attitudes and to establish them on a different foundation. That foundation is similar to what you are calling 'a knee-jerk conservative and radiating hostility toward fundamental change, toward which are for you clearly unknowns', but it is not identical to it. Israel is now entering---and thanks to people like Faust (a mad-man unconscious anti-Semite) and Leyla (similar)(and I am using these two as emblems of a quite common attitude, but ALSO to people like you and others like you with your high-faluting 'idealism' (you should click those links, btw!)---I am in the process of resolving to relocate myself, that is to say to go and live in Israel. The reason I do this is because I recognize---and I am not alone in this---that Israel is entering a dangerous period, and that there is something necessary to defend. All that I mean by this is that I have taken 'all this' to heart, and if you notice a 'conservatism' in my views that you now have some more information to interpret it. I am quite convinced that 'you' (this unseen, unconscious mass of 'yous') would and possibly WILL do harm to Israel, but when/if this happens you will never see yourself as blameworthy. In truth, the issue has little immediate relevance to you-all. It is manufactured 'concern' that hides other and darker interests. Surely you don't agree with me (this view I here express), but this is what I perceive, and I act on it.
• True: a waxing of conservative attitude in one area will often produce 'encroaching conservatism' in others, but this is another topic.
• What is brought up or which 'comes up' time and time again should not be recoiled from---if only for the sake of good exposition on both/all our parts---but explored honestly. That is the best way to get mileage out of it.
• You brought it up this last round, FYI. But I don't have any problem with it. Why the hell else would we (all of us) engage in conversations?

• But in regard to:

• "the opening the gates either of heaven or hell"
• "a fully realised unreason of things"
• "purpose in the will".
• "come to an End."

• I would rather say that he is not PROMOTING opening the Gates of Hell but rather PREDICTING that by turning away from God and Salvation (which is just as relevant in Jewish theology as it is in Christian) one necessarily moves toward Hell (no quotation marks).
• Like Schaeffer, I am supposing, the 'fully realized unreason of things' would be the logical outcome of modern atheistic and strict materialistic doctrines. That is one of Schaeffer's better points: the Biblical revelation as a value-structure, has so interwoven itself that, even if society were to become 'atheist', mechanical and materialist, still they couldn't take it, nor would they want to take it, to its logical extremes. To go to the logical extremes, in the view of Schaeffer, is literaly to embody Hell (no quotation marks).
• For Chesterton and Schaeffer, to become 'purposeful in the will' would be to reanimate human rebellion against God all over again. They both seem to say that no one (consciously) wishes for such results, and they likely don't, but there is a challenge to really and truly investigate what the 'logical outcomes' of modernistic, materialistic trends would be. For Huxley: Brave New World. For Schaeffer and Chesterton, more or less the same, in fact. Don't you think?
• Coming to an End, for Chesterton and Schaeffer, is coming back into the fold of relationship and service to a process and a service.
• If you think that this 'end' and your 'end' and the QRS 'end' are the same, I suggest you think again.
• And I disagree with you: from the perspective of Chesterton and Schaeffer they are not 'mystical' ideas; they are ideas that have to do with absolute and concrete FACTS.

Kelly, certainly our weltanschauungs differ, likely at a basic level, and the ideas and perceptions that stem from that also differ. Every man's life has certain 'embedded lessons' in it, which he has to grapple with and unravel and, one hopes, master. Yet, even as I say that yours and mine are likely different, I think one could also say they are similar, and in that sense we are both by and large products of the Judeo-Christian culture, and outcomes of it. But we are outcomes too of a process of atomization as this weltanschauung is pulverized, crushed, dug under---composted. Keep in mind that this is essentially how I see you: a Christian girl from a Christian culture, in late modernism, torn away from a link to her Christian culture and her femininity defined by her Christian culture---a femininity that 'made sense'---and tossed from all that connotes onto a really rather strange 'rocky ground' that does not have an underground and nourishing spring. I say this because it is quite obvious that you'd like me to answer your 'questions' so that you can dissect them according to these Buddhist (?) doctrines you have taken on and wear like New Clothes over the old clothes, and it is not so much that I mind if you do this, but please know that if I cooperate with you it will just have to be a little bit like pulling teeth: I see no reason to make it easy on you or to become pliant in your hands.

Look at that [handsome] fellow on the left of your screen and tell me it will be easy to pull teeth out of his head...You know it won't.

It should not by now be hard to discern that my weltanschauung is basically Judaic. True, like so many of us, I questioned my relationship to this 'God', to the Father of Existence, the creator of Fate, 'the owner of Destiny', but---and I am really not sure exactly *why* it turned out like this (for many reasons a different outcome should have arisen)---but at the most core level of core levels, when I look inside myself, when I feel deeply into myself, this grasp of reality is there and it operates. That means that I exist in this plane of existence, that it is real, and that I have a mission in it. It is a mission that I participate in to the degree that I chose to become responsible to it. It does NOT have to do with what you call 'enlightenment' (or Nirvana and Heaven knows what), but that certainly does not mean that 'enlightened attitudes' or the bliss arising from Knowledge of Self is not part of it. Unlike you, separation of myself from other people is not dictated, though like so many of us I 'suffer from' the separation or what I call 'atomization' that is part of a disintegration process rampant in the culture. As you know, I perceive you as a woman who is disintegrating and who is---masochistically?---participating in her disintegration process. It seems to me that the use of Buddhist doctrines is 'neurotic', in your case: and also for the QRS generally; as post-Christians, Christians who have 'thrown off the yoke', who resolve to return to a paganism (?). Or in any case, who respond to the ringing of some other sort of invisible bell (Diebert's metaphor: the bell that is heard but the mover of it which is unknown).

The 'essential experience' has/had to do with Awareness. Awareness of the nature of this place, of the unutterable miracle of creation and existence. It also had to do/has to do with encountering a personal, living Awareness, and one that makes demands on the individual, created being (myself and also 'us'). I would suppose that there are echoes of a mosaic experience in it: a thunderous revelation on a high promontory; the receiving of sacred 'information', and the fact that, resulting from that, nothing would ever be the same. But the revelation on mountains is pretty common as a motif. I couldn't but mention the notion of 'liberation from slavery in Egypt', that is to say an offer by the Creator to become part of a process of liberation from rank materialism and guidance to other possibilities...

Now, what it means to come under the weight of that experience, to *respond* to that, or what I had/have to go through in order to remodel my self and my life, and what *role* I have in this world---seems to be different than how you envision your relationship to The Totality. I suppose that could be talked about...

But you are going to have to talk about the core revelation that has motivated/is motivating you.

Alex, again this unreadable disjointed list of misrepresentations, misreading and a lot of other misses. Do you think I'm gonna wade through all that? Dream on. Taking the" wind out of your sails" has been an openly stated intention by me in our first exchange ages ago. So you should know exactly what I meant with addressing your own personal ship analogies.

A few points at the edges of the list however: Chesterton was writing specifically about Huxley there, otherwise I probably wouldn't have thought about quoting a section with the most universal potential. Perhaps this wasn't clear because you didn't know the source.

As for having "floated over the abyss", why do you think that? My views on the matter might be rather deep and clarifying to some but that doesn't mean it solves instantaneously all outstanding issues. But I guess it's results you want. Then again, solving or healing has never been a stated goal. It's all about going beyond human, the trans-personal, naturally. Nobody is floating over an abyss: we are these abysses!

And finally those "ideas that have to do with absolute and concrete FACTS" . For any mystic it's all about the absolute and concrete. Otherwise one would be just a dreamer. What makes it "mystical" sounding is the never-ending challenge in communicating the spirit.

It was the use of 'they' that threw me: it sounded like a critique, not of one person, but of a trend in modernism. If I were writing specifically about Huxley, I would use the 'he'. Don't worry though, I ordered a copy and I'll read it myself.

You can wade---or not wade---through whatever blows---or doesn't blow---your dress up, my fine friend. ;-)

Diebert writes: "As for having "floated over the abyss", why do you think that? My views on the matter might be rather deep and clarifying to some but that doesn't mean it solves instantaneously all outstanding issues. But I guess it's results you want. Then again, solving or healing has never been a stated goal. It's all about going beyond human, the trans-personal, naturally. Nobody is floating over an abyss: we are these abysses!"

Thje reason I think that is because, on this forum, there is no uncertainty expressed about 'the position' of the TBs. Take David. There is absolute certainty that he has discovered the one and only absolute road to the 'promised land'. It has tenets, it has an outline, it has recommended behavior and attitudes. I am not making this up. It is a 'system'. 'Rationality' and 'logic' is represented as THE road out of (what we are now calling) the post-modern morass, the 'abyss' to which I refer. You are not a stupid person, Diebert, surely you MUST see how this certainty represents itself as THE solution? Sometimes I quite honestly think that you are an intelligent retard.

Did you do a lot of acid in the old days?

You make certain assumptions and, from the look of it, you make them in absolute terms---like the QRS-tians.

With this: "Then again, solving or healing has never been a stated goal. It's all about going beyond human, the trans-personal, naturally. Nobody is floating over an abyss: we are these abysses!"

Whose stated goal? Where is this stated? To say 'we are the abyss' could be answered thus: 'They are witty, brilliant and fashionable bankrupts. They have come to an end; and they have not come to an End.'

Talking Ass wrote:It should not by now be hard to discern that my weltanschauung is basically Judaic. True, like so many of us, I questioned my relationship to this 'God', to the Father of Existence, the creator of Fate, 'the owner of Destiny', but---and I am really not sure exactly *why* it turned out like this (for many reasons a different outcome should have arisen)---but at the most core level of core levels, when I look inside myself, when I feel deeply into myself, this grasp of reality is there and it operates.

What grasp of reality? I have no idea what you're referring to. Are you saying that you believe Judaism is the strongest meme in humanity, and therefore, that it must be true? If so, what reasoning do you have to support this idea?

The 'essential experience' has/had to do with Awareness. Awareness of the nature of this place, of the unutterable miracle of creation and existence. It also had to do/has to do with encountering a personal, living Awareness, and one that makes demands on the individual, created being (myself and also 'us').

I don't see any reasoning as to why you think creation or existence is a miracle. It sounds as if you think nothing ought to exist.

But you are going to have to talk about the core revelation that has motivated/is motivating you.

I have been, almost non-stop. It's you who doesn't want to talk about it.


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Kelly wrote: "What grasp of reality? I have no idea what you're referring to. Are you saying that you believe Judaism is the strongest meme in humanity, and therefore, that it must be true? If so, what reasoning do you have to support this idea?"

This is your phrasing, not mine. I didn't say 'grasp of reality' I said 'weltanschauung' (*world-outlook*). I did not contruct my sentences or my paragraphs or my meaning on the basis of 'strongest memes', and therefor 'that it must be true'. It would seem you have taken what I wrote, passed it through your own mill, and rephrased it as questions. But the Talking Ass has no intention of answering your rhetorical questions. The Talking Ass suggests that, if it please you, that you should answer them. What 'reasoning' should I present to 'reasonably' answer your questions? (*Scratches head*)

"I don't see any reasoning as to why you think creation or existence is a miracle. It sounds as if you think nothing ought to exist."

(*Scratches head*). 1) Existence is a Miracle, take my word for it. 2) I think that things ought to exist. 3) Did you do a lot of acid in the old days? (*Uncertainty what to say next, how to proceed*)

Quick question: Kelly, do you know why I often resort to a 'mode of irony'? Could you explain in one sentence why I often resort to irony when I am on the GF?

"I have been, almost non-stop. It's you who doesn't want to talk about it."

You could cut and paste it? I don't read too many of your posts, though some I do. I want to talk about what I talk about. Generally, I do. Should I say: 'What makes you think I don't want to talk about it?'

Talking Ass wrote: Take David. There is absolute certainty that he has discovered the one and only absolute road to the 'promised land'. It has tenets, it has an outline, it has recommended behavior and attitudes. I am not making this up. It is a 'system'. 'Rationality' and 'logic' is represented as THE road out of (what we are now calling) the post-modern morass, the 'abyss' to which I refer.

Alex, I hope you do realise at some point that you are shadow-boxing. The Truth can not be ascribed to any particular individual, or collective group, it belongs to noone and everyone, all wise individuals who ever existed agree on what the truth is, and it boils down to a thorough comprehension of cause and effect, A=A,the absence of delusion and an appreciation of logic.

You seem to enjoy these debates you are having with Diebert and Kelly, your emotions and persona are engaged in it, but they are (as percieved individuals) articulating the same thing to you, and indeed anyone who cares to listen; The principles of wisdom. It is not a philosophy.

The Truth is simple Alex. There is no need to put on an appearance of learnedness or sophistication, it does you a disservice, and makes your writing turgid and of little real value.

Oh come on Prince, cut me some slack.

Talking Ass wrote:Alex: It should not by now be hard to discern that my weltanschauung is basically Judaic. True, like so many of us, I questioned my relationship to this 'God', to the Father of Existence, the creator of Fate, 'the owner of Destiny', but---and I am really not sure exactly *why* it turned out like this (for many reasons a different outcome should have arisen)---but at the most core level of core levels, when I look inside myself, when I feel deeply into myself, this grasp of reality is there and it operates

Kelly: What grasp of reality? I have no idea what you're referring to. Are you saying that you believe Judaism is the strongest meme in humanity, and therefore, that it must be true? If so, what reasoning do you have to support this idea?

Alex: This is your phrasing, not mine. I didn't say 'grasp of reality'

Check again.

I said 'weltanschauung' (*world-outlook*). I did not contruct my sentences or my paragraphs or my meaning on the basis of 'strongest memes', and therefor 'that it must be true'.

You said you believed Judaism was operating at the "most core level of core levels". Presumably, this means you think Judaism is true.

Kelly: I don't see any reasoning as to why you think creation or existence is a miracle. It sounds as if you think nothing ought to exist.

Alex: (*Scratches head*). 1) Existence is a Miracle, take my word for it.

If everything is a miracle, then there's no meaning to the word miracle. There is no meaning for ordinary if all existence is extraordinary. There goes awe, wonder, delight, etc.

2) I think that things ought to exist. 3) Did you do a lot of acid in the old days? (*Uncertainty what to say next, how to proceed*)

Quick question: Kelly, do you know why I often resort to a 'mode of irony'? Could you explain in one sentence why I often resort to irony when I am on the GF?

It's not irony, but sarcasm. It's how you attack others in order to evade a question. It's not hard to present your reasoning in response to a request from another, and I find it remarkable that you so often prefer to make things more difficult.

Alex: But you are going to have to talk about the core revelation that has motivated/is motivating you.

Kelly: I have been, almost non-stop. It's you who doesn't want to talk about it.

Alex: You could cut and paste it? I don't read too many of your posts, though some I do

I have been talking about ultimate truth in many of my posts to you. For instance, where I said your reasoning was flawed in thinking that no-self is best expressed by changing one's identity. You then launched into a series of ill-founded ad hominems for focussing on the importance of reasoning.


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Thanks for uploading this, great story!