From: Monkeys' tail or (elkeaapheefteen@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Nov 04 2002 - 12:41:34 GMT
Sam,
I agree with David on the experience/generator simmilarity you seem to
reject, I want to reply on your friday post and make a further elaboration
of the relation between social level and mysticism and a few other subjects
you mentioned. But as I am quite a nitwit on this matter I want to take
caution before posting so hope you do not mind that it will take a few days.
You have been generating a lot lately thanx for sharing that experience
davor
>From: David Buchanan <DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org>
>Reply-To: moq_discuss@moq.org
>To: "'moq_discuss@moq.org'" <moq_discuss@moq.org>
>Subject: RE: MD Sophocles not Socrates
>Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 13:09:07 -0700
>
>Sam and all mystery lovers:
>
>I'm glad you asked me to comment on this one. Its one of my favorite
>topics.
>Unfortunately, I deleted those two big paragraphs in the middle, the ones
>about Christian forms of mysticism. There's enough material to post a fat
>one. I have a zillion objections and hardly know where to begin. I moved a
>little piece of it to the end of this reply and will make some comments so
>you at least have a clue or two about those objections. The bulk of this
>post focuses on your broader comments about mysticism and the mystical
>experience itself.
>
>Sam said:
>............... see Evelyn Underhill as someone who teaches great
>distortions, descending from the 17th Century via William James, and
>concentrating on the mystical as being about an experience, rather than the
>generator of higher quality understandings.
>
>dmb says:
>One of the most striking and essential features of the mystical experience
>is the sense that you've realized something profound. It has a noetic
>quality. This is what generates "higher quality understandings". The trick
>is making is last, making it latch, such as Pirsig did in writing Lila. He
>eventually made a different choice, but the author considered making the
>peyote ceremony the very center of the book because the MOQ was born there,
>so to speak.
>
>"...because at one time it looked as though the book would center around
>this long night's metting of the NAC. The ceremony would be a kind of spine
>to hold it all together. From it he would branch out and show in tangent
>after tangent the analysis of complex realities and transcendental
>questions
>that first emerged in his mind there." page 36
>
>"The other side, the "good" analytic side, just watched, and before long it
>slowly began to spin an enormous symmertical intellectual web, larger and
>more perfect than any it had ever spun before." page 39
>
>My point is only that there is no contradiction between mystical experience
>and mystical understanding. They're not mutually exclusive. Quite the
>opposite. One is a feature of the other.
>
>Sam said:
>My criticism of much contemporary writing about mysticism is broadly that
>it
>mistakes the finger for the moon - the intense and dynamic experience of
>growing from one stage to another becomes a search for intense and dynamic
>experiences. To my way of thinking, it is only when the growth is embedded
>in a tradition of understanding that it is possible to discriminate between
>experiences which are exciting and experiences which actually foster
>spiritual growth (ie growth in Quality).
>
>dmb says:
>The false dilemma appears here too, but beyond that there is the issue of
>"tradition". I'd ask you to be more specific. Mainstream Western religion
>frowns upon mysticism, to say the least. Some churches even associate it
>with the devil. The experience bears far more fruit if it can be made to
>last, to have a real effect on one's life and mind. On that I think we
>agree. But I'm skeptical of your phrase, "embedded in a tradition of
>understanding". Such traditions seem more likely to thwart and distort,
>than
>to be of any help. That's why the bishops get so damn nervous when a Saint
>walks in.
>
>Sam said:
>Pirsig suggests that Zen is about seeking 'spontaneous' enlightenment (as
>well as having some structured paths analagous to the Christian one), so
>you
>don't have to have the guidance of a tradition. I don't fully understand
>this, but I wouldn't want to limit God's freedom. I'm sure it's possible,
>just unlikely.
>
>dmb says:
>I think the whole point of a mystical experience is to transcend tradition,
>to enlarge your view to see your true self and your true place within that
>tradition and maybe even to improve upon tradition. Its the obstacle to be
>overcome., the thing to be mastered and put to sleep. What you see as
>unlikely and barely possible, I see as a necessary step. Moving beyond
>tradition is precisely what the hero does. He ventures out of the ordinary
>world, across the threshold and into a world of supernatural wonder. There,
>he wins the great treasure, the boon, the secret that will save us all and
>returns with it to the ordinary world. In the middle part of the journey,
>the mystical part, the hero often has to go where there is no path, a
>dangerous and forbidden road and generally has to go where no body has ever
>been and thru which no one is qualified to quide. The hero is totally on
>his
>own. This is the perfect dipiction of an encounter with DQ, the great
>mystery.
>
>Sam said:
>Similarly, the transcendence above the social level, to develop what I call
>the
>'eudaimonic' individual, that was a DQ experience. ... This new 'fourth
>level'
>individual - 'free' from the law, justified by faith, living by grace - is
>still called to journey deeper into God, ...
>
>dmb says:
>This is a snippet of the deleted paragraphs. I pick it out because it seems
>to be the main source of a number of disagreements. OK, maybe its only a
>half a zillion. I agree with whoever it was that pointed out that your
>"eudaimonic" individual actually describes the social level excellence,
>even
>if it is expressed in rational Aristotelean terms. I should add that the
>thespians of ancient Greece, like Sophocles?, are also prime examples of
>the
>very height of the social level. Eudaimonic individuals are those who
>approximate heros, no? In any case, I think "free from the law, justified
>by
>faith, living by grace" is very far away from an accurate description of
>the
>fourth level or mysticism.
>
>Thanks for your time,
>DMB
>
>
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