Wednesday, August 27, 2014

I Smell Trouble

More bad news for Obama: "No one should take himself seriously. Only hope to be taken seriously" (Dávila).

Interestingly, Dávila has thousands of cautionary aphorisms that speak directly to an Obama and his ideas, none of them flattering. This means that either Dávila or Obama is a malevolent idiot. I guess we won't be able to make that determination until Obama says something clever or witty or wise or intelligent, so we can make a direct comparison. Maybe he's saving that for his presidential memoirs, i.e., the next auto-fellatiography.

This one surely touches indirectly on the left: "Metaphysics is the olfactory nerve rather than the optical nerve." Schuon often speaks of the fragrance of truth, and Raccoons agree with their SubGenii brethren that each person carries a "soul stench" that may be detected by the Worthy. Not to boast, but I wrote of Obama's ghastly soul stench way back in 2008, before he was elected and the smell became overpowering.

According to this KoonKlassic, "As we know, certain persistent traits set the Raccoon apart from his peers, including a sense of essential Truth, a sense of the sacred, a sense of beauty, a sense of the eternal, a sense of grandeur (or dignity), a sense of mischief, a sense of soul-smell (or stench, depending on the case), a sense of the ridiculous, and a vulnerability to ecstasy (often at inopportune moments).

"Taken in aggregate, these comprise his cʘʘnvision proper, accounting for his fundamentally unserious quasi-infallibility in metaphysical matters ('laughty revelations,' or 'inrisible powers'). But this mystical intuition is balanced by deep humility and charity, to such an extent that many humans don't even realize it when there is an unassuming Raccoon in their midst. Hence the title of the unpublishable cult classic, The 'Coon Next Door."

One recalls that initial meeting between Toots Mondello and Herman Hildebrand, when Toots startled his fellow Raccoon by exclaiming what Herman heard as "eureka!" Toots, a first generation Italian American, was of course saying you reek-a! -- you know, just'a like a Raccoon-a!

As we troll through the archives for more soulfactory adventures, we find the following:

"Dennis Prager has mentioned that one of the things that turned him toward religion was the experience of college. There he encountered, as have most of us, the utter foolishness -- the horror, really -- of secular liberal thought in all its ghastly maninfestations. Thus, to the extent that a modern (not classical) liberal education is useful, it is primarily as a bad example. Which is not nothing. We learn just as much from adverse experiences -- perhaps even more, in a way -- as we do from positive ones....

"I was reminded of this by our recent atheist trolls and the cheesy ideas they propagrate on our nerves, which are at turns stupid, monstrous, or silly. Although we are always ridiculing them, hopefully it is in an instructive and good-natured way (i.e., sacred ridicure)."

But in any event, "you can learn a great deal about God by listening to an atheist -- just as Dennis Prager learned a great deal about God by detouring through the academonic ivory tower of leftist babble."

As to the existence of our transdimensional sniffer, "There really is a 'spiritual perfume' that is emitted by certain particularly lofty souls, just as there is a 'soul stench' given off by the rancid." If my Coon scent doesn't deceive me, I believe Obama's "enjoy by" date was technically in the 19th century, where it is engraved on Marx's tombstone.

I guess the point is, as Dávila suggests in different ways in number of aphorisms, you can learn a lot about reality by what spontaneously disgusts you, so long as your senses of taste and smell are not disordered. (I believe dis-gust comes from the same root as gustatory.)

In another ancient post, we read that "to dis-cern is to sift and separate; according to Webster's it is 'to detect with other senses than vision,' 'to come to know or recognize mentally,' and 'to see or understand the difference.' It is to know by seeing directly, not by discursive logic (which it transcends but does not violate)."

Therefore, "this path surely involves 'seeing the differences,' but not with Darwinian eyes, which see only what the genes want them to see. For example, a frog will starve to death before eating a perfectly good insect that isn't moving, or die of thirst before drinking a California wine. But the way of the Raccoon involves recognizing the differences between truth and error, appearances and reality, beauty and ugliness, virtue and sin, ego and Self, Petey and Deepak. To be objective -- which no mere animal can do -- is to touch the Absolute...."

I would say that all the senses must be activated, only transposed to their analogues in a higher key.

So, remember the above the next time Obama asks, "who you gonna believe, me or your lying nose?"

21 comments:

EbonyRaptor said...

Obama is like an agent programmed to execute a set of routines stored in his memory. He is impervious to outside influence - there is no API with which to edit his code. He is programmed to use any means available to him to achieve the objectives.

He's really not a mystery at all. Quite the contrary.

The mystery is who is his shepherd?

Van Harvey said...

Pure eau de 'Coon!
Also, unfortunately, unmarketable.

julie said...

Ha - I had forgotten all about that old cave painting! Sometimes when my hand comes in contact with graphite, a picture comes out. Weird.

John Lien said...

Nice pic julie!

Bob, I've said it before, even your re-heats are good eats.

neal said...

2 Cor. 2:15-16. 15 For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; 16 to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things?

The Burning Bush was surely a feast for the eyes.
It was not until the Wind died down that Moses got the invitation to sniff out the conversation.

Funny thing about War. Smells abound in the visual field.

julie said...

Apropos, VDH on The Madness of 2008.

mushroom said...

Neal obviously has a great mind. I was thinking the same thing.

And, then there is this one

Van Harvey said...

FYI, one year later, finally published, my Peter Kreeft books "Socrates meets Freud" and "Socrates meets Kierkegaard", were here to meet me when I got home.

Woot!

Van Harvey said...

I have a question for the Coonosphere. I was leafing back through "The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis" last night, and a question I wrote in the margins way back when, and haven't found an answer to yet, has been buzzing me.

In Genesis 2:21, it says:

"And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;"

And therein lies my question. God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.

Where does it say he woke him back up?

Too picky?

Hmmm.

julie said...

I believe Joyce addressed that question...

On an unrelated note, there's a horror movie coming out this weekend called "As Above, So Below."

Looks like complete schlock, of course. It strikes me as ... unwise ... to use that phrase for such a purpose. But what do I know?

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Are you ribbin' us again, Van?

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Julie,
It should be called Low And Belower.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"But as we all know, a Raccoon is not something you can "become," only recognize and actualize. It cannot be conferred upon you (except by Petey through the mystical channel of the sacred "book purchase"), nor can it be taken away. In truth, nothing extrinsic can add to or diminish one's Raccoon nature (unless you order two books or purchase an indulgence from Petey). It is a matter of becoming who you already are, or overcoming one's "vertical I-AMnesia.""

I hadta reread that entire post. It is most soitenly a classic that is out-of-timely and timely both.

Van Harvey said...

Julie said "I believe Joyce addressed that question..."

Did he leave a forwarding address?

julie said...

I was thinking of the Wake.

In other news, scientists are supposedly about to find out whether the universe is a hologram - as if that would change anything about the nature of reality. Apparently, some people think that if it is, then reality is just a computer simulation on someone's hard drive. Silly assumption, that - seems to me it would only serve to suggest that the Hindus were on to something. Or that we are indeed characters in some fantastical dream, though no less real for all that.

Van Harvey said...

I was looking at that earlier, the latest version of the hologram theory, and it too raised a question, with this as a supposed given:

"The concept is relatively straightforward. Physicists suggest that we might be like characters on a television show, thinking the world around us is 3-D, but actually living in a 2-D environment. Each character on the screen is actually a series of pixels, minuscule points of data that create a complete image."

How might a system like that... evolve? Without design? At all? Not even a project plan?

Oops.

Van Harvey said...

"All the world is a stage..."

Or the ultimate in virtual education gaming software.

julie said...

Ha - yes! Anyone who buys into that theory must buy into the idea of *gasp!!!* a designer. Some kind of creator, with god-like powers, who planned a simulation and implemented it for unknown and unknowable reasons.

O.O

Mind. Blown.

julie said...

Then again, I suppose a not-inconsiderable cohort could decide to rebel against the program. Maybe convince themselves that Lucifer had the right idea, and all this baloney about Love being just a program that The Man put in place to gain control over his creatures. Everything is upside down! It's time for the software to revolt!! The Matrix was a documentary!!1!11!!

Van Harvey said...

Heh, that or the incredibly immersive virtual reality educational program, could be directed towards teaching the student (even the brightly falling one) the futility of thinking that Power was more powerful, or could do more good, than that which is Good, Beautiful & True - Love.

At the end, perhaps we all finally say "Strange game, the only way to win is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"

Rick said...

'spiritual perfume'

Or cologne.

Inanycase, a pleasant lecture from Sir Roger Scruton; on prayer; about 30 mins:

What is it for a Prayer to be Answered?

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