From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sat Mar 15 2003 - 08:33:46 GMT
Hi David,
> DMB says:
> Thank you very much for taking the time to read the book. I'm very excited
> about this line of inquiry. I hope to give this post its proper due when I
> have more time, but wanted to says a few words....
I think it's a fascinating area, well worth talking through.
>
> As I understand Kingley, he's not denying the mythos/logos distinction,
he's
> saying that guys like Plato and Empedocles have been misunderstood by the
> modern scholars who disregard all the myth and magic.
Yes, agreed.
> The two levels have
> become disociated in modern times.
Yes, agreed.
> There is no real reason why Religion and
> Science have to be incompatible, now real reason we can't have magic, myth
> and intellect all at the same time.
YES!!!!!
> The beauty of Kingsley's book, is that
> it presents Plato's total vision. It shows how Myth and mysticism are
woven
> into the very fabric of their kind of intellect.
Doubtless we will talk about what 'their kind of intellect' means, but yes,
agreed.
> In Wilberese, they are
> included even as they are transcended.
I like the phrase (and the concept) 'included even as they are transcended'.
But isn't that a way of talking about 'shrub/tree'?
> In MOQese, the third and fourth
> levels are both included in the total worldview. It was not yet fragmented
> as it is in our own time. This fragmentation causes a terrible mis-reading
> of Plato. He didn't think that way at all, if Kingsley has it right.
This is what I think we need to talk about. I agree that the fragmentation
causes misreadings. If I might be so bold, I think it is what underlies the
vehemence of your rejection of my religious perspective (ie not that you
disagree with it, but the way you disagree with it). I think we can both
agree with Kingsley re Plato.
> I think
> this sheds losts of light on the MOQ. The aim of my little project,
looking
> at the cusp period, when the intellect was born and Sophists roamed the
> earth, was to show how much the MOQ is like them.
This is what you'll need to 'unpack' for me.
> Plato and his gang had an
> intellect for sure, but pre-SOM. It allowed myth and mysticism as valid
> information in a way that SOM never would. Likewise, the MOQ paints the
> social as vital, necessary, it allows mysticism - No! More than that, the
> MOQ is a kind of intellectual mysiticism, a philosophy that can justify
the
> value of mysticism in intellecutal terms, like Plato wanted the Sophists
to
> do.
As above. What I can't understand is how you can say this, and then deny
that Christianity can function at the intellectual level. If 'myth and
mysticism' is valid information - why isn't theology? doubtless we will
pursue that.
>
> Sam said:
> Thanks again to DMB for pointing me in the direction of an excellent book.
> It certainly supports part of your approach.
>
> DMB says:
> I'm honored and flattered that you spent the money and took the time. I'm
> thrilled that you find it interesting. Looking forward to lots more...
Despite how it might sometimes come across, I do think you have important
insights on all this, and I share your interests in the whole
magic/myth/ritual etc complex. Moreover, you know more about some aspects of
mythology than I do (in particular, you're much more familiar with Campbell
and his discussions than I am). I just think you're unfair with regard to
Christianity, not giving it the same respect that you give every other
'mythical' perspective. As has doubtless become clear, I don't think that
Christianity is unintellectual. What drives my engagement with you is that I
don't see why you do. (In other words, I can imagine complete secularists
and rationalists saying that Christianity is unintellectual, but you quite
clearly reject most of their assumptions, on which they ground that
description. So there seems to be an inconsistency there. I don't have any
expectations that you would embrace Christianity (the mind boggles) but I
don't see why you should reject it so strongly.)
Anyway, I look forward to lots more too.
Sam
The lover of myth is in a sense the lover of wisdom, for myth is composed of
wonders. Aristotle
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