Just a side note about triggered by your reflections on the New Age
movement.
I, too, took a long look at the movement through the years, although not
in a systematic way. The reading material that falls under the huge New
Age umbrella is very heterogeneous. This is a logical consequence of the
peculiar absence of a concept of "truth": "for your discernment",
sistematically attached to most documents in the New Age literature,
invites the reader to accept or reject anything freely without feeling
detached from (or against) the movement for any specific rejection of
his/her choice; and on the other hand, causes the movement as a whole
never to reject anything - aliens, reincarnation, Atlantis, angels,
whatever.
The "for your discernment" motto (believe whatever you want to believe),
in turn, is a logical counterpart of what is probably the cornerstone of
New Age thought - the mentioned principle whereby the world is
responsive to human intention. For many people, this idea probably makes
your hair stand, or even provokes anger when you read sadly true stories
of people that ruined their lives while believing in this idea - or
believing that they believed in this idea - however.
On the other hand, a naive rejection of this principle stems from a SOM
attitude that considers the world "objective": an objective world that
bends to our subjective will(s) is a repelling concept for many very
good reasons. But, if Quality = Reality, and Quality isn't subjective
nor objective, it seems to me that a reasonable interpretation of the
basic New Age idea becomes at least viable. And then, many statements in
the New Age corpus tend to resemble MOQ ideas in such a close way that
one at least can wonder what the relation between these two movements
really are.
For these reasons, I personally think some discussion on New Age could
be interesting. I understand that people with a philosophical background
or a scientific-philosophical background, on the average, would even be
offended if they felt connected in any way to such an irrational
movement as New Age. This is probably one of the reasons why the phrase
"New Age" almost never makes it to this forum despite some similiarity
to MOQ. As I said above, the New Age umbrella is so vast that I for one
tend to believe it hosts a lot of incredibly meaningless absurdities. It
sure takes a lot of discernment to make a reasonable survey of such a
young and shapeshifting and "truthless" movement. But who knows. Some
books that appear in New Age shelves in libraries appear respectable
too.
By the way, if anyone has pointers to books or articles that try to
provide a critical review of New Age, I will be happy to have a look at
them.
A
Billy Dean wrote:
> Thanks for the url to your critiques of Wilbur. One
> request--would you add a button to turn off the music
> on the front page? Thanks...
>
> My responce to the Prologue is this: Years ago I took a
> long, in-depth look at what is often called the New Age
> movement. One of the first things which attracted me
> was the idea that the Cosmos is responsive to human
> intentions. My first impression was that it was like
> asking some "god" to change or to arrange things to
> match my preferences and expectations. To, in effect,
> alter reality on my behalf. Initially, I didn't think
> that idea had very much quality. How could my thoughts
> and desires change the world around me when they are in
> such intense competition with the thoughts and desires
> of millions of other people? Alot of new age crap?
>
> Now, many years later, I'm not so sure. Perhaps I don't
> have much evidence that it is true. But perhaps there
> are yet too few who have learned to integrate their
> intentions with the intentions of others? Perhaps our
> collective consciousness is not yet a critical mass? I
> think it was Carl Sagan who said, "Absence of evidence
> is not evidence of absence..." He also said, "I don't
> want to believe--I want to know..." So I try to believe
> in what still seems possible, but to continue working
> with what is. And that seems to be, for me, a quality
> approach.
>
> Without having read Wilbur, I will venture to say that
> he, like Pirsig and many others, are at the very least
> courageous explorers--perhaps even heroes and prophets
> (in the non-religious sense of the word). Andre Gide
> said it best: "If you want to see new worlds, you must
> be willing to lose sight of the shore for a very long
> time..."
>
> And when you return, you enlighten others by accurately
> describing what you saw, not by exaggerating it for
> your own purposes, and not by making up stuff about
> things you did not see...
>
> Billy Dean
> Info@billydee.com
> http://www.billydee.com
>
> "It is the journey that enlightens--not the
> destination..."
> Kwai Chang Caine
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <gmbbradford@netscape.net>
> To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
> Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2001 8:04 PM
> Subject: MD Lane and others critique Wilber
>
> > Trans-rational Seekers,
> >
> > Being that so many Pirsigians also are Wilberites,
> and that most
> > discussions of Ken Wilber here have been, to say the
> least,
> > positive, even to the extent that some prefer Wilber
> to Pirsig,
> > I thought I might dare to offer some critical views
> of Wilber
> > (and the transpersonal movement in general) to try to
> round
> > things out a bit. These come from the website of
> David Lane, a
> > professional philosopher residing in California whose
> main
> > interests are Eastern religion and surf-boarding. He
> calls himself
> > the Neural Surfer. He seems to have invested a lot in
> his hero
> > Wilber, but now finds reasons to be less, or no
> longer, enchanted.
> >
> > He wrote a multi-part critique (but it's not very
> long) of Wilber
> > that can be found at:
> > http://vclass.mtsac.edu:940/dlane/kendebates.htm
> > Links to other authors' critiques/reviews/defenses
> are also found
> > here.
>
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>
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-- Andrea Sosio RIM/PSPM/PPITMN Tel. (8)9006 mailto: Andrea.Sosio@italtel.itMOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
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