[MD] Teachings from the American Earth

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

Hi Ant, 

You asked about "double vision" and "single vision", and how these may (or may
not) relate to SQ/DQ. This is an interesting question that I'll need some time
to think about. Just don't want you think I'm avoiding the question.

Some additional items to consider.

I found reference to a book by Northrop Frye, "The Double Vision: Language and
Meaning in Religion". I'm looking into this, but found this in quick search of
the web.

"For Frye, this "new poetics" is to be found in the principle of the
mythological framework, which has come to be known as "archetypal criticism".
It is through the lens of this framework, which is essentially a centrifugal
movement of backing up from the text towards the archetype, that the social
function of literary criticism becomes apparent. Essentially, "what criticism
can do," according to Frye, "is awaken students to successive levels of
awareness of the mythology that lies behind the ideology in which their society
indoctrinates them" (Stingle 4). That is, the study of recurring structural
patterns grants students an emancipatory distance from their own society, and
gives them a vision of a higher human state "the Longinian sublime" that is not
accessible directly through their own experience, but ultimately transforms and
expands their experience, so that the poetic model becomes a model to live by.
In what he terms a "kerygmatic mode," myths become "myths to live by" and
metaphors "metaphors to live in," which ". . . not only work for us but
constantly expand our horizons, [so that] we may enter the world of [kerygma or
transformative power] and pass on to others what we have found to be true for
ourselves" (Double Vision 18)."

What intrigues me here is the obvious tie between Campbellian myth, metaphor and
(in the last sentence, Frye's quote) the allusion to what appears to be
something like DQ, which is precisely what the Tedlock's imply, the entering
the pre-intellectual "realm" and returning with a "transformative gift". That
does sound a lot like DQ/SQ to me.

Joseph Campbell says it this way in Hero, "A hero ventures forth from the world
of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there
encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this
mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."
(Campbell).