From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Tue Nov 02 2004 - 11:47:10 GMT
Hi David,
I've renamed the thread so that those who want to "tune out" from our debate have a chance to do so
easily. I was reviewing some old posts, and it seems that we just keep coming back to the same old
things all the time, without much of a progression - we've been hacking away at this for some three
years now..... Not quite sure why. Even when I tried to get 'clarity' rather than agreement between
us, we couldn't even achieve that. Anyhow, this is me settling in for the long haul. I think it's
interesting, even if it's only you, me and Google paying attention.
So, let's reply to your post of the weekend.
> Sam Norton said to dmb:
> You can claim that William James is irrelevant for as long as you like, but
> for as long as your position remains identical in all substantive aspects
> with what he invented I will continue to consider you as walking in his
> footsteps. If you want me to stop why don't you do some reading about him
> and come back to me listing where you disagree?
>
> dmb says:
> There you go again. I have to read a stack of books to defend a position I
> do not hold. I have to prove the validity of YOUR assertion. On top on that,
> you failed to say anything specific about "all substanstive aspects" and so
> honestly don't even know what you're talking about.
I think this is the most important thing. The truth is that I have several times outlined what
James' understanding is in our discussion. As you have forgotten it, I shall quote from my post of
11th April 2002: "What I call the 'Jamesian' account of mysticism has the following characteristics,
deriving from his 'The Varieties of Religious Experience'. He argues, "[I] propose to you four marks
which, when an experience has them, may justify us in calling it mystical", and the four 'marks'
(two major then two minor) are: 1. Ineffability - "it defies expression, no adequate report of its
contents can be given in words. It follows from this that its quality must be directly experienced;
it cannot be imparted or transferred to others. In this peculiarity mystical states are more like
states of feeling than states of intellect." 2. Noetic quality - "Mystical states seem to those who
experience them to be also states of knowledge. They are states of insight into depths of truth
unplumbed by the discursive intellect" 3. Transiency - "Mystical states cannot be sustained for
long." 4. Passivity - "when the characteristic sort of consciousness once has set in, the mystic
feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped by a higher
power."
I have also several times asked you to say where you differ from William James, and you have always
evaded the question - for some two years now. Seeing as how he is so crucial to understanding where
we differ, I'm not sure that it is beholden on me to say anything more. Surely two and a half years
is long enough for you to have thought about this?
It seems to me that the biggest obstacle to our having something like a fruitful conversation is
that on the one hand I see Christian mysticism and Jamesian mysticism as two very different things,
and you see the Jamesian account as an overall description of all sorts of mysticism, including the
Christian one (which I think lies behind your assertion that you are a Christian mystic. For a
Jamesian that might make some sense, but for a (traditional) Christian, it is nonsense). Are you
able to step back from your own 'tradition' and examine it dispassionately? Can you understand why I
differ on this?
> dmb answers:
> Your arguments seems to be contrary to the mystical experience and the
> insight it provides, that's why I asked. Its not about authority or
> credentials, its about experience, first-hand experience. I mean, if
> religion is a static portrait of DQ, it only makes sense to have some
> experience with the real thing. Wouldn't the static portrait be
> misunderstood without it?
>
> As I recall, you can only answer "yes" if the mystical experience is
> something other than the kind described by Pirsig. And that means the answer
> is really "no". Isn't that the truth, Sam? For God's sake, will you please
> be honest and direct for a change?
When you say above "Your arguments seems to be contrary to the mystical experience and the insight
it provides, that's why I asked. Its not about authority or credentials, its about experience,
first-hand experience" you are implicitly drawing upon the Jamesian understandings that I reject. So
every time you try and put me into a Jamesian box I will come across as 'evasive' and
'intellectually dishonest' for the simple reason that I reject the assumptions that you are making
in our disagreement. I don't believe there IS such a thing as THE mystical experience, and I think,
specifically, that a fixation on such experiences is exactly what the Christian tradition of
mysticism is opposed to (as is the MoQ, so far as I understand it - I think your perspective turns
DQ into an object, very SOM). Now I could be wrong, but I've not yet had any evidence that you're
able to step outside of the Jamesian framework and provide a higher Quality analysis. This - so it
seems to me - is the major reason why we are 'stuck'.
NB I think that Pirsig and James have some differences, and that you are reading Pirsig through
Jamesian spectacles. Two things from my post of 10 April 2002:
ONE: Pirsig's understanding comes out most clearly in Lila; in Ch 24 (the beginning of part 3) and
in an extended discussion at the end of the book. In the first instance he is discussing the
hippies, who have rejected social and intellectual patterns of value. In that situation they can go
in one of two ways: to the biological level, or directly to DQ. Pirsig pithily points out that the
Hippies confused the two options into one, and that to get to DQ *depends* upon strict social
practices (according to traditional Zen teaching): "Japanese Zen is attached to social disciplines
so meticulous they make the Puritans look almost degenerate." So: the experience of DQ is not to be
equated with a biological Quality (which is the distinction I was drawing between traditional
mysticism and Romantic mysticism, whereby the latter is a quest for particular experiences and/or
feelings)
TWO: He expands on this in his discussion of religious mysticism at the end of the book where he
states explicitly "The MoQ identifies religious mysticism with DQ." (p381 in my edition) He goes on
to describe the practice of dhyana, which is the evacuation of static patterns from conscious
awareness (in traditional Christian mysticism this corresponds quite closely with apophatic prayer)
and then grounds out his thinking in his discussion of ritual, and the Indo-European roots of Rta,
pointing out that the Zen monk's daily life is 'nothing but ritual'. So: Pirsig is arguing that you
get to DQ through high quality social and intellectual rituals; in a Christian context, as I
originally quoted, "'the mystics' were not those who had particular states of consciousness, but
those who were able to elucidate the spiritual interpretation of a passage of scripture, say, or
who were faithful participants in the Eucharist".
> dmb replies:
> I think we've already established that your idea of a christian mystic (a
> saint) has nothing to do with what I was saying. And I think its rather
> preposterous to assume that such words convey your idea first and foremost,
> especially since mysticism is a central theme in the MOQ and Pirsig doesn't
> use the word that way at all. Again, the position is that the christian myth
> presents a picture of mysticism just as all the great religions do, but
> christianity is the religion of my culture, of the church I grew up in, and
> is the mythological material I'm most at home with. And again, this a
> position, a point of view, not a claim about my achievements or whatever.
> This view is shared by all my intellectual heros; Campbell, Jung, Wilber,
> Watts and others.
> For whatever its worth, none of them cared much for theologians and the
> feeling was mutual, I suppose. And why is it not enough to ask a priest
> about these things directly? Sorry, but everytime you advise me to take up
> theology I will remind you how much it smacks of snotty evasion.
I read your answer here as your agreement that "you think you've extracted the kernel of its
teaching from it's mythology, incorporated it into your own perspective, and 'graduated' beyond it".
What I find bizarre - humorous in the end - is your total confidence that you can dismiss what I'm
saying *without actually understanding it*. Because what I'm saying is no different to what anyone
else who had some familiarity with the Christian tradition would say. In following your Jamesian
stance, you're *assuming* that all mystics are similiar, and you therefore interpret the Christian
mystics as supporters for your case, when, if you would actually stop and look at one for once, you
might discover that they don't fit into the Jamesian pattern. It's a bit like a Lamarckian saying
"I'm not going to look at genetics, it smacks of snotty evasion" - just because they want to hang on
to their guiding assumptions.
> dmb says:
> Huh? Now I have to find a christian thinker from the middle ages who
> supports my view. I guess you missed a flurry of posts on the topic of
> philosophical mysticism and the perennial philosophy.
Quite possible. I unsubscribed for six months remember. But you're the one who claims (following
William James) that Christian thinkers can be bracketed with the non-theistic. I'm merely asking you
to back up your claim with some evidence. (Don't be put off by the request, you should be able to
find some evidence for the assertion - try Eckhart - I just think you can only back up your claim if
you already accept the Jamesian methodology, not otherwise).
> I can see that you're
> understanding my terms through the filter of your church, but I'm not. I'm
> just looking at Pirsig and thinkers who make the same claims, but from
> different perspectives. And I think its only fair to assume that I'm using
> them as Pirsig does, rather than the way you do. You're all indignant like
> I've stolen your vocabulary, but this is the MOQ forum and so I think you
> have to take responsibility for the confusion this might cause. Its your
> baggage, not mine, that seems to be getting in the way. I realize these
> kinds of terms originate in traditional christianity, but that is not the
> context in which we are presently discussing them. We're talking about
> faith, theism and mysticism in the context of what Pirsig says. Let's agree
> on that, at least, ok?
Actually, I'd rather not. I think mysticism isn't confined to what Pirsig says, and as you're quite
happy to quote Wilber, I suspect such a constraint would hamper you more than me. But if I have to
accept Pirsig as an oracle in order to have a conversation with you we may as well stop this now!
> dmb says:
> I'm not claiming to be an Anglican or a Catholic or anything else and, as
> I've already explained, only mean christian in the broadest (and
> non-theistic) sense. I read a mystical message in the christian myth despite
> your disapproval. And in fact I am offended that, in this context, you claim
> some kind of ownership over what constitutes being a christian.
I don't OWN it, I just dispute that you understand it. People rejecting it doesn't bother me, what
bothers me is intellectual confusion. And I think you're very confused.
> See, from my
> perspective, the requirement that we hold certain beliefs (jesus was the
> word made flesh) is very much part of the problem. If I read Pirsig, Jung,
> Blake, Wilber, Watts and others correctly, the churches are like demons
> standing at the threshold PREVENTING us from knowing who and what we really
> are, to keep us from finding out that each one of us is the Christ. And
> before you dismiss this as bigotry, ignorance, or peculiarly American
> craziness, I would like to point out that this is what I'm seeing in your
> position as its presented here. This is not just a sweeping indictment of
> all religion or just the fundamentalists in America either. Its about you
> and your position, Sam. You have claimed to be a mystic,
Where?
> but then re-cast
> the meaning of the word so that it no longer resembles anything that Pirsig
> describes, or that is described by philosophical mystics of all sorts, and
> instead construed it as a series of tangible actions throughout a life.
In other words, I have articulated what it means in the Christian tradition, as opposed to the
Jamesian (what you call 'philosophical mystics of all sorts').
> Sam concluded:
> Pirsig's conception of the MoQ is incompatible with Christianity. That's why
> I think it needs to be amended ;-)
>
> dmb says:
> Amend a thought system to include what the author has already rejected? Wow.
> You really don't see anything wrong with that? Honestly? There is certainly
> such a thing as an intellecually creative synthesis and then there is
> smashing a square peg to fit in a round hole. This is exactly the kind of
> self-serving dishonesty that I find so offensive. I realize that I seem
> quite undiplomatic in these exchanges, but I have to tell you that if you
> know all the thoughts I am holding back, you'd realize that calling your
> position incompatible and your approach dishonest is the nicest I can be
> while still telling the truth. This is not about some abstract boogeymam,
> its a very specific response to the posts of the faithful like yourself.
I don't think Pirsig IS rejecting what I am trying to synthesise with the MOQ - I think he shares
some of your misconceptions. So no, I don't see anything at all wrong with it, moreover, I think
Pirsig would much rather be a source of fertile interaction with other thought than a whitened
sepulchre of pristine perfection (how un-DQ can you get?).
Cheers
Sam
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