Scott, Bo and y'all:
Scott concluded a fascinating post with.....
Barfield also makes the point, as I believe you do in the SOLAQI, that
SOL is a necessary stage on the way to the next stage, which he calls
"final participation" and which mystics call the transcendence of
subject-object duality. Again, is this a fair characterization. So even
though we are more out of touch with Reality (Quality) than those in
"original participation" (as of course Pirsig is saying in Lila) we are
in a progression of some sort (and nevermind how all this looks from
outside of space and time :)
DMB has just one related idea to share...
Your post raises lots on interesting issues, but I'd like to focus on just
one, what the "mytics call the transcendence of subject-object duality". I
think the MOQ is the "final participation", the next stage that transcends
SOM. As you may have noticed, I've been trying to make the case that we can
find particular myths from which Pirsig's system is DERIVED. (There's that
word again.) This time I'd like to suggest one specific myth that closely
resembles the MOQ's transcendental nature; The Greeks refered to it as
Hermes and the Romans called it Mercury. This ancient archetype was
considered a messenger of the gods.
He carries a certain kind of staff called a caduceus.(Merlin the magician of
Arthurian lore carries a kind of caduceus too. Today this magnificent symbol
has been reduced to a Halloweenish magic wand. Abra Kadabra!) You've seen a
slightly less insulting version of this symbol many times. Today it also
serves as an emblem of the medial profession. (The evolution from
shamanistic healers to modern doctors is an interesting story, but I won't
go there today.) The emblem is basically a staff or wand with two snakes
wound around it as if they were slithering upward toward the pair of wings
at the top of the staff. (Mercury also has wings on his shoes - gotta get me
some of those.) In the dualistic near eartern "old religious nonsense" the
snake is a symbol of evil, as in the garded of eden myth, but in the
Greco/Roman mythology the snake is a symbol of transformation and change
because of the way the snake sheds its' skin. The symbolic meaning of those
wings at the top of the caduceus is fairly obvious; they represent flight,
upward movement and therefore transcendence. Taking a these element
together, the messenger himself, the staff as a kind of world axis, the two
transformational snakes and the wings of flight, this emblem can easily be
seen as a symbol of transcendence beyond duality. See?
DMB
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