[MF] Mysticism again

[Sam Norton]

Hi people, particular hello and welcome back to Marco,

It's been pointed out that there is a great waste of effort when discussing 
Pirsig's metaphysics when one group (a) wants to explore the implications, 
whereas another group (b) wants to examine the presuppositions. Seems to me that 
it is perfectly legitimate to have two separate groups pursuing the different 
agendas, so that the projects of group (a) aren't always undermined or drowned 
by the concerns of group (b) - which are often more vocal!! (said as someone who 
is often a group (b) person) - as long as there is periodic feedback or coming 
together to share insights.

That's the precise same reason, though, why I wanted to separate out a general 
'mysticism' discussion from a specific 'moq from a Xn point of view' discussion. 
Those of you familiar with my many-year-long discussion with DMB on the subject 
of mysticism will know that we are never likely to agree on the presuppositions 
(the equivalent of group (b)) and my interests at the moment are much more to do 
with exploring the inter-relations and tensions between the MoQ and 
Christianity, ie the equivalent of group (a). That's all - which is why I think 
they need to be separated.

Is there a reason why we can't 'let the thousand flowers bloom' and allow 
different fora to be started up as people wish, and then those which prosper get 
set up formally, and those that don't prosper wither away? Seems quite 
evolutionary to me, and moqish.

I have in mind this experiment done for putting paths across a town square 
(might have been a university quad actually) whereby there were no paths put in 
to begin with, but then, as people crossed the green, they tended to take 
particular paths, which wore down the grass and then became the 'official' 
paths - duly stamped by those in authority. I have something similar in mind.

Sam
http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lorenz Gude" <lgude at fastmail.fm>
To: <moq_focus at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2005 1:49 PM
Subject: [MF] Mysticism again


> Hi Sam Maggie and all
>
> I know I want to engage mysticism most of all the suggested topics and
> after rereading Sam's essay of Dec 2004 on mysticism find Sam's wanting
> a Christian discussion understandable. I hope it wouldn't be too
> limiting because I want a serious discussion of mysticism as Sam clearly
> does. He would find me not Christian although highly respectful of the
> Christian tradition and distinctly not new age. I would hope that the
> thread system will be robust enough to accommodate these kind of
> differences. Sam's essay has already been extremely helpful to me in
> better understanding the history of mysticism in the West and where I
> might look for newer ideas about mysticism. I am trying to anticipate
> the kind of problem that can arise from too limited a discussion while
> recognising the experience we have all had of the chaos in too broad a
> discussion.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> moq_focus mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_focus-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_focus-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_focus_archive/
>
>