Notes from Last Rites (Yale University Press) 2009
p.56 "There was an American upperclass whose power and ambitions were limited, but whose prestige was extant and attractive. But the convictions of their members were regrettably superficial, and their self-confidence remarkably weak."
~In the 1960's the bourgeois and urban and urbane chapter in the history of the U.S. came to its end. Imperial presidency; nationalism. Note, p. 67: "I despair of this nation and many of its people."
~Puerility worse than decadence: "...decadence is ...full of dissolving maggots of maturity, of remnant memories that puerility does not possess." This statement was made in the context of discussing "...a puerile presidency may be but one symptom of the devolution of this republic into a military superstate." (p. 68)
~false spiritualism (p. 71) Says this is more dangerous than materialism but does not explain it.
~alienation from his profession (p. 76)
~not an inability but an unwillingness to think (note, p. 81)
~Modern Age is over (note, p. 100) of which the establishment of the USA was a part
~Christians "...must steel themselves against temptations of popularity and success, against actors who may become Antichrists, kissing babies, blessing believers, announcing that they are great champions of prosperity and heroic warriors againstg evil...(p. 102)
~p. 128: The past is the only thing we know.
~"the strange self-carved path of my life. Less than an honest pilgrimage. (An escape, rather.)" (note, p. 135) He is speaking about leaving Hungary - rather remarkable.
~Geocentrism, pps. 36-38. Said that Niels Bohr's recognition that the human observer cannot be separated from the things he observes (especially when it comes to the smallest components of matter) reversed the tendency from Copernicus et al to remove the earth from the center. "We and the earth on and in which we live are back at the center of the universe * - a universe which is - unavoidable - an anthropocentric and geocentric one." His note (asterisk) reads as follows:
D[iary] 20 Decemvber 2005: "All right: my knowledge that we on this earth are at the center of the universe, which (of course) is our invention. We have been inventing (and re-inventing) the universe. But God is more than our invention. And to those who think that God is nothing but our invention my question is: Why? What makes human b eings want such an invention? Is it not that a spark of God may exist within us?"
A second note, [Diary 13 January 2006, reads: "In the end my quick but strong vision that we are at the center of the universe, etc., has been - perhaps - an important recognition. Whether it will be later discovered by admirers does not matter. What matters, alas, is that I threw these things, these recognitions, off, without much insisting and developing and propagating them. This happened (and still happens) because of the frivolousness and failures of my character. My 'historical' philosophy, this new monism of our knowledge of ourselves and of the universe, may b e my great mental achievement. But I do not feel particularly proud of this."
See also "Thoughts on Last Rites," From the Catacombs, Nov. 13, 2009.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Radiant Matter
Georg Blattmann: Radiant Matter - Decay and Consecration. Floris, 1979.
1. The elements and the periodic table.
an imaginative-spiritual grasp of the states of matter, beginning with the first division of the primal unity into the hydrogen-helium polarity, leading through the realm of transformations (combination and separation) in the 'two genders of matter' (metals and non-metals). Then, the third stage or phase of matter is that of the heavy metals ('inner gravitational cohesion') and finally to that of the rare earths -- "so compressed that their enormous density makes it almost impossible to tell them apart." the last five elements in the series "have become so compressed that they are destroyed by their own inner weight." Example of a beached whale.
~p.20: "Certain limits exist in nature with respect to mass, size, and weight, and when they are exceeded, then stability disintegrates from within..." The heavy elements are so enormously compressed and complicated that they spontaneously disintegrate. When this happens, lethal forces are released.
~p. 21: "....the essence of matter 'escapes' from this exaggerated state of compression through the emission of destructive radiation... called radioactive decay...By carrying development to the point of absurdity, matter has naturally limited its own possibilities..." the creation of new artificial elements in the lab confronts this same problem - spontaneous disintegration due to over-complexity,
Stages in the development of matter:
i. polarity
ii. realm of transformations
iii. compression and density - weight
iv. monotonous repetition
v. deadly radiation
In the chronicle of matter, the development of the material realm ends in death. There is the need to infuse the descending curve with an ascending renewal of life. Intervention of Christ.
~p. 27: Christ revealed the mystery of renewal on Maundy Thursday - for the bread and wine transformed into the body and blood of the living and life-giving Word... transubstantiation is the profoundest and most important task of the Christian Church-- ~p.28: "Christ is not the path of inner development. Christ shows us how to let the spiritual forces of transformation stream into material existence...."
1. The elements and the periodic table.
an imaginative-spiritual grasp of the states of matter, beginning with the first division of the primal unity into the hydrogen-helium polarity, leading through the realm of transformations (combination and separation) in the 'two genders of matter' (metals and non-metals). Then, the third stage or phase of matter is that of the heavy metals ('inner gravitational cohesion') and finally to that of the rare earths -- "so compressed that their enormous density makes it almost impossible to tell them apart." the last five elements in the series "have become so compressed that they are destroyed by their own inner weight." Example of a beached whale.
~p.20: "Certain limits exist in nature with respect to mass, size, and weight, and when they are exceeded, then stability disintegrates from within..." The heavy elements are so enormously compressed and complicated that they spontaneously disintegrate. When this happens, lethal forces are released.
~p. 21: "....the essence of matter 'escapes' from this exaggerated state of compression through the emission of destructive radiation... called radioactive decay...By carrying development to the point of absurdity, matter has naturally limited its own possibilities..." the creation of new artificial elements in the lab confronts this same problem - spontaneous disintegration due to over-complexity,
Stages in the development of matter:
i. polarity
ii. realm of transformations
iii. compression and density - weight
iv. monotonous repetition
v. deadly radiation
In the chronicle of matter, the development of the material realm ends in death. There is the need to infuse the descending curve with an ascending renewal of life. Intervention of Christ.
~p. 27: Christ revealed the mystery of renewal on Maundy Thursday - for the bread and wine transformed into the body and blood of the living and life-giving Word... transubstantiation is the profoundest and most important task of the Christian Church-- ~p.28: "Christ is not the path of inner development. Christ shows us how to let the spiritual forces of transformation stream into material existence...."
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
St. Augustine
"The man who, knowing the right, fails to do it, loses the power to know what is right; and the man who, having the power to do right, is unwilling, loses the power to do what he wills."
De libero arbitrio, 3.19.53
"God made man upright and consequently with a good will. For if he had not had a good will, he could not have been upright. The good will... is the work of God... But the first evil will, which preceded all of man's evil acts, was rather a kind of falling away from the work of God to its own works than any positive work. And therefore the acts resulting were evil, not having god, but the will itself for their end..." The City of God (p. 457)
~"good can exist without evil, but evil cannot exist without good, because the nAtures in which evil exists, insofar as they are natures, are good. "
~ vice is of the will amd vice is contrary to nature (cf. entropy)
Gratia supponit et perfecit naturam. Aquinas. Grace presupposes Nature and brings it to perfection.
Foster-- "...beware of everything that could in any point injure the sacred cause" i.e., guard intact the faculty of saying yes to the good.
"On the Aversion of Men of Taste to Evangelical Religion," from Foster's Decision of Character. Paradox: Although to be able to sin is a consequence, or even a sign of freedom, "it does not belong to the essence of the free will to be able to decide for evil." [Aquinas]
"Sin is what one does not freely do" -- Andre Gide
Aquinas says that sin has its ground of possibility in the very creatureliness of man. "The creature is dark, insofar as it stems from nothing," i.e., it is created. Not because the will is free but becAuse the free will comes from notbhing, that is why it is inherent to it not to remAin in the good by nature. De Veritate.
Chesterton calls narrative romance [possible] because of theological free will - "man at the crossroads"
Siegfried Sassoon-- "Armed with our marvelous monkey innovations/ And unregenerate still in head and heart/ Deliver us from ourselves."
De libero arbitrio, 3.19.53
"God made man upright and consequently with a good will. For if he had not had a good will, he could not have been upright. The good will... is the work of God... But the first evil will, which preceded all of man's evil acts, was rather a kind of falling away from the work of God to its own works than any positive work. And therefore the acts resulting were evil, not having god, but the will itself for their end..." The City of God (p. 457)
~"good can exist without evil, but evil cannot exist without good, because the nAtures in which evil exists, insofar as they are natures, are good. "
~ vice is of the will amd vice is contrary to nature (cf. entropy)
Gratia supponit et perfecit naturam. Aquinas. Grace presupposes Nature and brings it to perfection.
Foster-- "...beware of everything that could in any point injure the sacred cause" i.e., guard intact the faculty of saying yes to the good.
"On the Aversion of Men of Taste to Evangelical Religion," from Foster's Decision of Character. Paradox: Although to be able to sin is a consequence, or even a sign of freedom, "it does not belong to the essence of the free will to be able to decide for evil." [Aquinas]
"Sin is what one does not freely do" -- Andre Gide
Aquinas says that sin has its ground of possibility in the very creatureliness of man. "The creature is dark, insofar as it stems from nothing," i.e., it is created. Not because the will is free but becAuse the free will comes from notbhing, that is why it is inherent to it not to remAin in the good by nature. De Veritate.
Chesterton calls narrative romance [possible] because of theological free will - "man at the crossroads"
Siegfried Sassoon-- "Armed with our marvelous monkey innovations/ And unregenerate still in head and heart/ Deliver us from ourselves."
Kingsley
Peter Kingsley. Reality. Essays on Parmenides and Empedocles.
thumos: passion, longing, energy of life - "all we ever do is reason with ourselves about the form our longing will take."
hesychia - stillness. trying to think about thinking is utterly futile. There is only one way to understand the nature of thinking - and that is to arrive at the hesychia, the stillness beyond thought. p. 47 for reasoning to accept this would be for it to accept its own destruction. cf. needleman
p. 117 the mind - a dog's bladder -
p. 118 "The art of knowing how not to impose ourselves on the things we see or hear or read is a hard one to discover. We are not aware that there are secret ways of allowing them to penetrate or change us, rather than us always changing them. For this one, essential art no schools or colleges exist to teach it. learning it takes either a long and lonely training - or just a few intense moments of searing honesty and sheer disgust with oneself."
p. 147 Teachings of the prophets - threads connecting us with reality - kept alive in Islam, in the West became the cult of reason.
elechos-- challenge, argument, testing, proof, refutation, process of demonstrating the truth about a matter, exposing the truth, getting to the real, 'exposing,' cf. aletheia, revealing deception or fraud.
pistis- result of being persuaded, evidence in a court of law
p. 185 By turning each impulse back on itself, we are returning thought and perception consciously to their source....instead of you perceiving reality what in fact is happening is that reality is perceiving itself through you...
toi pant'onom' estai - its name shall be everything
Persephone - Aphrodite - "the queen of death in the world of reality and the queen of life in the world of illusion"
p. 282 drink the deception we live in to the dregs - "to go the whole way through what one knows to be an illusion and not get caught in it is extremely tricky." And "extending the limits of knowledge" is only expanding the illusion that we live in.
p. 396 re Empedocles - "For consciousness, the consciousness of humans, is the blood around the heart."
p. 514 common sense ----- sensus communis ------ koine aisthesis ----
~"that consciousness which is able to hear, see, taste, touch, feel and taste at the same time."
Human mind 'distorts any reality it touches - converts it into something else, esp. 'common sense.' For Empedocles, training how to perceive oneself perceiving was part of the esoteric transmission from teacher to disciple. But Aristotle confidently asserted that this awareness is something we already have. "Just as Parmenides' divine logic was corrupted by being turned into reason, Empedocles' common sense was corrupted from the rarest experience of divine awareness and turned into something familiar..."
p. 550 no anonymous reality
thumos: passion, longing, energy of life - "all we ever do is reason with ourselves about the form our longing will take."
hesychia - stillness. trying to think about thinking is utterly futile. There is only one way to understand the nature of thinking - and that is to arrive at the hesychia, the stillness beyond thought. p. 47 for reasoning to accept this would be for it to accept its own destruction. cf. needleman
p. 117 the mind - a dog's bladder -
p. 118 "The art of knowing how not to impose ourselves on the things we see or hear or read is a hard one to discover. We are not aware that there are secret ways of allowing them to penetrate or change us, rather than us always changing them. For this one, essential art no schools or colleges exist to teach it. learning it takes either a long and lonely training - or just a few intense moments of searing honesty and sheer disgust with oneself."
p. 147 Teachings of the prophets - threads connecting us with reality - kept alive in Islam, in the West became the cult of reason.
elechos-- challenge, argument, testing, proof, refutation, process of demonstrating the truth about a matter, exposing the truth, getting to the real, 'exposing,' cf. aletheia, revealing deception or fraud.
pistis- result of being persuaded, evidence in a court of law
p. 185 By turning each impulse back on itself, we are returning thought and perception consciously to their source....instead of you perceiving reality what in fact is happening is that reality is perceiving itself through you...
toi pant'onom' estai - its name shall be everything
Persephone - Aphrodite - "the queen of death in the world of reality and the queen of life in the world of illusion"
p. 282 drink the deception we live in to the dregs - "to go the whole way through what one knows to be an illusion and not get caught in it is extremely tricky." And "extending the limits of knowledge" is only expanding the illusion that we live in.
p. 396 re Empedocles - "For consciousness, the consciousness of humans, is the blood around the heart."
p. 514 common sense ----- sensus communis ------ koine aisthesis ----
~"that consciousness which is able to hear, see, taste, touch, feel and taste at the same time."
Human mind 'distorts any reality it touches - converts it into something else, esp. 'common sense.' For Empedocles, training how to perceive oneself perceiving was part of the esoteric transmission from teacher to disciple. But Aristotle confidently asserted that this awareness is something we already have. "Just as Parmenides' divine logic was corrupted by being turned into reason, Empedocles' common sense was corrupted from the rarest experience of divine awareness and turned into something familiar..."
p. 550 no anonymous reality
Peter Medawar
Pluto's Republic (1982)
Comments on the attraction of Teilhard de Chardin- "philosophy-fiction...for people who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought."
~ on psychoanalysis: unbridled explanatory facility with conceptual barrenness.
Re the dogma of empiricism: "Everything that reaches consciousness is utterly and completely adjusted, simplified, schematized, interpreted, said Nietzsche, on one of his exhilarating bursts of common sense." We learn to perceive.
From "Ethology and Human Behavior" -- I think we shall have to get used to the idea that moral judgments should intrude into the execution and application of science at every level... Characteristics of human form of evolution: (1) Lamarckian in style, i.e., embodies a learning process; (2) cultural heredity mediated through non-genetic channels; (3) reversible. We could revert to the Stone Age in one generation. ... This characteristically human system of conceptual communication... places a high selective premium upon such capabilities as teachability and imitativeness (a word for which in this context... the term 'aping' seems uncannily apt) because these form the causal nexus of cultural heredity... for Homo docens...
~"On the efficacy of all things possible..."
"The 17th c. doctrine of the necessity of reason was slowly giving way to a belief in the sufficiency of reason - so illustrating the tendency of many powerful human beliefs to develop into an extreme or radical form before they lose their power to persuade us, and in so doing to create anew many of the evils for which at one time they professed to be the remedy." p. 327
..........Genes as messages........
Comments on the attraction of Teilhard de Chardin- "philosophy-fiction...for people who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought."
~ on psychoanalysis: unbridled explanatory facility with conceptual barrenness.
Re the dogma of empiricism: "Everything that reaches consciousness is utterly and completely adjusted, simplified, schematized, interpreted, said Nietzsche, on one of his exhilarating bursts of common sense." We learn to perceive.
From "Ethology and Human Behavior" -- I think we shall have to get used to the idea that moral judgments should intrude into the execution and application of science at every level... Characteristics of human form of evolution: (1) Lamarckian in style, i.e., embodies a learning process; (2) cultural heredity mediated through non-genetic channels; (3) reversible. We could revert to the Stone Age in one generation. ... This characteristically human system of conceptual communication... places a high selective premium upon such capabilities as teachability and imitativeness (a word for which in this context... the term 'aping' seems uncannily apt) because these form the causal nexus of cultural heredity... for Homo docens...
~"On the efficacy of all things possible..."
"The 17th c. doctrine of the necessity of reason was slowly giving way to a belief in the sufficiency of reason - so illustrating the tendency of many powerful human beliefs to develop into an extreme or radical form before they lose their power to persuade us, and in so doing to create anew many of the evils for which at one time they professed to be the remedy." p. 327
..........Genes as messages........
The Hand
The Story of the Human Hand. Walter Sorell, 1967
one of the more conspicuous signs of specialization in man's hand is the development from the two-line system of man-ape to a three-line system in our hand... This three-line system, conditioned by the different muscalature in the human hand, symbolized the clear separation of man's brain function from his emotional reactions, or, in other words, his growing ability to control his emotions through the process of thinking.
... the further back we look into prehistoric days, the more indications we find of left-handed prominence-- a surprising number of cave painting animals are depicted in their right profile.
Later Stone Age: ambidexterity
Bronze Age: the sickle - made for right hand only. Today about 4% of population is left-handed.
____________________________
Guenther Wachsmuth. The Evolution of Mankind. Philosophic-Anthroposophic Press, 1961.
~Lemurian period begins the process of incarnations. two principal centers for growth: first the continent of Atlantis; second the continent of Hyperborea, a land-complex that included Greenland, iceland, Ireland, England, Scandinavia, Northern Europe as far as the South of France.[ no mention of Russia?!] Re: the Atlantean period (Quaternary) preceded the Ice Ages - "... the most decadent human types completed the skeletonizing process. the more progressive men still held back from this." (71) This period - high point in the condensation of matter.
~p. 72: "In the Sun-Mysteries the initiate was taught to recognize cosmic, earthly and human evolution as a unity, to remain open to revelation from the spiritual worlds, and to communicate what he thus experienced in such a way that it could be grasped by men who had closed themselves to the cosmos." [my italics]
See on Ice Age art: Uehli, E. Atlantis und das Ratsel der Eiszeitkunst.
The types that evolved in the North "preserved their receptivity to the cosmic worlds." End of Lemurian period- evolution moved from southern to northern hemisphere.
one of the more conspicuous signs of specialization in man's hand is the development from the two-line system of man-ape to a three-line system in our hand... This three-line system, conditioned by the different muscalature in the human hand, symbolized the clear separation of man's brain function from his emotional reactions, or, in other words, his growing ability to control his emotions through the process of thinking.
... the further back we look into prehistoric days, the more indications we find of left-handed prominence-- a surprising number of cave painting animals are depicted in their right profile.
Later Stone Age: ambidexterity
Bronze Age: the sickle - made for right hand only. Today about 4% of population is left-handed.
____________________________
Guenther Wachsmuth. The Evolution of Mankind. Philosophic-Anthroposophic Press, 1961.
~Lemurian period begins the process of incarnations. two principal centers for growth: first the continent of Atlantis; second the continent of Hyperborea, a land-complex that included Greenland, iceland, Ireland, England, Scandinavia, Northern Europe as far as the South of France.[ no mention of Russia?!] Re: the Atlantean period (Quaternary) preceded the Ice Ages - "... the most decadent human types completed the skeletonizing process. the more progressive men still held back from this." (71) This period - high point in the condensation of matter.
~p. 72: "In the Sun-Mysteries the initiate was taught to recognize cosmic, earthly and human evolution as a unity, to remain open to revelation from the spiritual worlds, and to communicate what he thus experienced in such a way that it could be grasped by men who had closed themselves to the cosmos." [my italics]
See on Ice Age art: Uehli, E. Atlantis und das Ratsel der Eiszeitkunst.
The types that evolved in the North "preserved their receptivity to the cosmic worlds." End of Lemurian period- evolution moved from southern to northern hemisphere.
Salt
Salt: a crystalline substance which holds etheric magnetism better than any other substance
Dion Fortune, Psychic Self-Defense
Dion Fortune, Psychic Self-Defense
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