From: John Beasley (beasley@austarnet.com.au)
Date: Sun Oct 06 2002 - 13:23:27 BST
Hi Scott,
I liked your bit on faith to Erin.
However I am still struggling with your take on intellect.
SCOTT: "My position (following Barfield) is that it is the intellect that
creates that objective reality *as* objective in the first place, but this
is merely a stage that intellect has to go through to become aware of
itself. The ego, however, depends on the SOM understanding, since it is the
ego that does the "understanding and manipulating of objective reality". So,
on the one hand, we need to appreciate the intellect as the shaper of
reality, and so in a way "more real" than what is shaped, and on the other,
be aware that the intellect can work on itself to move beyond the limited
subject/object form."
I have feeling that you are using intellect to stand for what I might call
'soul', that aspect of the person which gives continuity, that is imprinted
by early experience, and so on. Does this fit at all? I really have a
problem with seeing intellect as "more real" than what is shaped.
SCOTT: "It is the SOM attitude, in my opinion, that leads one to see the
intellect as a hindrance to mystical awakening. Rather, the hindrance is
the SOM attitude."
I see the intellect as a hindrance in that it leads to obnubilation; it
turns us in the wrong direction. The SOM attitude undoubtedly is part of the
barrier, but in my reading of mysticism it is often the last barrier to
fall, not the first. I continue to doubt that there is an intellectual
'turn' which undoes the subject/ object divide. I suspect it is just a
dangerous fantasy, a form of mental gymnastics. If your experience is
different, can you elaborate on your experience, as directly and concretely
as possible, avoiding generalities. Perhaps communication is possible at
this level.
Can you flesh out an "ironic metaphysics"?
SCOTT: "The intellect as it currently is (locked in SOT) has to experience*
its futility, and not just declare itself futile. The latter is nihilism.
The former is a path."
We agree here. We seem to share some fundamental assumptions, but get hung
up on labelling each other's position.
Regards,
John B
PS I enjoyed your bit on Barwick. I have long been a Jaynes fan. A little
book by Francis Barker, "The Tremulous Private Body - Essays on Subjection",
is very good on the transition in consciousness which he locates in the
seventeenth century. It's a hard book to read, though.
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