Hi Erin, John,
John brings up the Diamond approach of Almaas, aka
Ridwhan school, and I mentioned Landmark. These
businesses, and they are businesses which I have no
problem with in fact I like it better than scientology
in that sense because they say they are businesses
[end fragment]. For example, a Ridwhan disciple pays a
fee for monthly sessions with a guru of the Diamond
approach. Then again I pay weekly fees for sessions
with supposedly Catholic priests. Anyway, these
businesses WORK on exposing you to your "other." What
is the "other?" It's nearly impossible to explain with
reason. But everyone has an "other" and if you can
find a technique to expose people to their other, they
will pay you money, ala Ridwhan, Landmark, and
Scientology. Again, I think these institutions are
fine if they remain acknowledging what they are:
therapy to expose you to your other and the fact that
you pay as opposed to donate. Here's a quote to give
you a taste of your other:
Bruns, on the tragedy of the hermeneutical experience
"Oedipus never misunderstands himself-he will always
be the man who solved the riddle of the Sphinx- but
this self-understanding cannot contain the other that
his fate inscribes. The story of Oedipus is about the
implacable reality of this otherness, its
inescapability as Fate. Fate is not just the
inevitability of events; it is the otherness of
identity or reality, that which we seek to avoid but
meet willy-nilly at the cross-roads. It is this other
that Oedipus must finally acknowledge; this is the
meaning of the recognition scene. Exactly what this
means, what it comes to, is that the self of Oedipus
must now abide with this other, who becomes his sole
society and the region of his exile."
And then I like this quote:
"One could, Cavell says, describe it this way: 'The
medium of tragedy is one which keeps all significance
continuously before the senses, so that when it comes
over us that we have missed it, this discovery will
reveal our ignorance to have been willful,
complicitous, a refusal to see', that is, a failure,
not of exegesis, but of acknowledgment...The progress
from ignorance to exposure, I mean the treatment of an
ignorance which is not to be cured by information
(because it is not caused by a lack of information)
outlines one motive to philosophy; this is a reason
for calling Shakespeare's theater one of philosophical
drama."
This hermeneutical stuff comes from Dilthey and
Gadamer and even Nietzsche. It is a great PostModern
expression, and helps you understand what therapy is
all about. It's all about the "other." Different
techniques work, I'm sure Ridwhan can work, and I know
Landmark can work. That is why I say the
Interpretation of Postmodernism is it's problem,
otherwise there is some great stuff happening in the
world because of it. I distrust Wilber for example
because his approach is NOT a witnessing of his other
like Pirsig did in Lila. A witnessing of the other is
the sign for me at least of someone who gets "it."
Someone who titles a book "A theory of everything" is
someone living in illusion and while there are good
things there, there are better things in Pirsig.
"Tragedy teaches, contra Plato, that there is no
sealing oneself off. It cures the philosopher of the
illusion of self-mastery (including mastery of
reality), even as it cured Oedipus of the illusion of
self-identity, including the self-sameness of mind and
world."
I'll go further and say that recent Pirsig work is
falling back into the swamp of his own illusion. It
just goes to show that our other is always there
waiting to swallow us back up. Hiccup. Where's Billy
Shakespeare when I need him?
Angus
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