[MD] new blog

[MarshaV]

An excellent post, Dave!



At 03:29 PM 2/2/2009, you wrote:

>"The whole stance of science is hostile to 
>mysticism." (letter from Robert Pirsig to Anthony McWatt, March 29th, 1997)
>
>Marsha said to Michael:
>I like the quote very much, but I do not think 
>it is relevant to theism because mysticism is not dependent on theism.
>
>Paco said to all:
>Can/will there be a metaphysics or ethics that 
>can handle handle mystical experience and the transpersonal world?
>
>
>dmb says:
>Yes, the MOQ is meant to handle mystical 
>experience and that's one of the reasons it 
>rejects traditional empiricism for radical 
>empiricism. And DQ (the primary empirical 
>reality) refers to mystical experience. That's 
>why I find assertions of theism so objectionable 
>in this forum. Chapter 30 of Lila is especially 
>rich. There Pirsig writes, "Phaedrus thought 
>sectarian religion was a static social fallout 
>from DQ and that while some sects had fallen 
>less than others, none of them told the whole 
>truth. ...From what Phaedrus had been able to 
>observe, mystics and priests tend to have a 
>cat-and-dog-like coexistence within almost every 
>religious organization. ...In all religions 
>bishops tend to gild DQ with all sorts of static 
>interpretations because their cultures require 
>it. But these interpretations become like golden 
>vines that cling to a tree, shut out its sunlight and eventually strangle it."
>
>William James puts the same idea this way; "A 
>survey of history shows us that, as a rule, 
>religious geniuses attract disciples, and 
>produce groups of sympathizers. When these 
>groups get strong enough to 'organize' 
>themselves, they become ecclesiastical 
>institutions with corporate ambitions of her 
>own. The spirit of politics and the lust of 
>dogmatic rule are then apt to enter and to 
>contaminate the originally innocent thing; so 
>that when we hear the word 'religion' nowadays, 
>we think inevitably of some 'church' or other; 
>and to some persons the word 'church' suggests 
>so much hypocrisy and tyranny and meanness and 
>tenacity of superstition that in a wholesale 
>undiscerning way they glory in saying that they 
>are 'down' on religion altogether."  He also 
>says, "when a religion has become an orthodoxy, 
>its days of inwardness are over; the spring is 
>dry; the faithful live at second hand 
>exclusively and stone the prophets in their 
>turn. [They] can be henceforth counted as a 
>staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the 
>spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all 
>the later bubblings of the fountains from which 
>in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration."
>
>I think this idea goes a long way toward 
>explaining how the MOQ can be anti-theistic and, 
>at the same time, a form of mysticism. I think 
>it's worth pointing out that when James says 
>"religious geniuses" he's not necessary talking 
>about people with extremely high I.Q.s, although 
>that's certainly the case with Pirsig. He's 
>talking about those who have a fresh and 
>original vision, who've actually had a mystical 
>experience or otherwise seen it for themselves. 
>This is what Arlo is getting at, I think, in 
>following Campbell and saying we don't need 
>faith if we have experience. Here, faith refers 
>to those static interpretations or, as James 
>refers to them, orthodoxies. Not only do the 
>exoteric religious forms "stifle the spontaneous 
>religious spirit", they even sometimes kill 
>people for saying the sorts of things that 
>Pirsig, James and even Jesus said. (I and the 
>father are one.) Socrates was killed for not 
>believing in the state sanctioned gods too. How 
>many other geniuses have we lost this way?
>
>And so what is the mystical experience, exactly? 
>Well, you can't say in advance what it will be 
>like. That's what makes it fresh and original. 
>That's what makes it Dynamic as opposed to 
>static. That's what makes it ineffable and, like 
>mel was saying in connection with Taoism and 
>Judaism, why the divine cannot be named. 
>Enlightenment is different for every person. 
>They are, so to speak, tailor made for each 
>person and so it totally depends on who you are, 
>where you are and when you are. It'll present 
>itself in such a way as to be meaningful for 
>you. So it's not a singular or specific 
>event.  It's more like a category of experience.
>
>Sadly, the golden vines that strangle and darken 
>the original vision are very lethal in our own 
>time. For the most part this pollution take the 
>form of concretizaton. So much of the bloodshed 
>we've all seen in the middle east comes from 
>taking a symbolic idea literally, namely "the 
>promised land". It has been taken to mean that 
>an actual supernatural being likes to make a 
>gift of actual real estate. What is supposed to 
>be a symbolic reference to a transformation of 
>consciousness is confused with dirt. Same thing 
>happens in India with the Ganges river, which is 
>taken as a literal source of the divine so that 
>now it's littered with corpses in an attempt to 
>make the trip to heaven shorter, or some such 
>nonsense. And in our own culture we have a 
>situation where almost every Christian believes 
>that Jesus literally rose from the dead but this 
>again is a symbol of that transformation of 
>consciousness. Even "transformation of 
>consciousness" is a static idea and can be taken the wrong way.
>
>"In every country and in every age, the priest 
>has been hostile to Liberty." Thomas Jefferson
>
>
>
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