The New Pervitanism and Bowling with God

Where is the invisible line, exactly, and how do we know when we’ve crossed it? 

This itself can be tricksy, but it’s downright irrelevant in a culture that, perhaps for the first time in history, combines a depraved inversion of the vertical order with a sadistic and puritanical wokeness.

“Woke” is such a frivolous sounding term (as was its hideous mother, "political correctness"). Back in the early days of the blog, I called it “totolerantarian,” which is as frivolous, plus it’s a mouthful. 

The New Pervitans?

A word like “heresy” can mean literally nothing in an age that combines the absolute relativism of an antinomian nihilism with a boneheaded caricature of an "Old Testament God" with 613 impossible commandments. No one can avoid breaking them, but the Pervitans decide who will be punished. 

Anyway, if we’re going to bowl with God, we need to know where the lines and lanes are, not to mention the loons. For there are plenty of the latter as well, as anyone with even a little familiarity with religion as such can attest.

That last sentence adverts to a useful distinction we might make at the top, between “religion as such” and “such and such a religion.” (By the way, I’m going to approach this with a totally open mind, putting aside my own religious commitment.) 

Aaaand once again that last sentence adverts to another helpful distinction, which we might compare to the phenomenon of  music as such vs. playing such and such an instrument. 

Clearly, not only does music exist, but without it life would be a mistake. But the existence of music is not the same as learning how to play it. It doesn’t matter which instrument one picks -- guitar, piano, saxophone, etc. -- but you do have to pick one if you want to get anywhere. However, I would avoid the accordion.

Now, what if practicing a religion has the same relationship to Religion as Such as does an instrument to Music as Such? Schuon essentially says as much, but at the same time, this is by no means intended to denigrate religion or God. Rather, he always emphasizes that you can’t just skip the instrument and jump straight to the music.

Yes, there are exceptions to every rule, and the free jazz movement of the 1960s did attempt to make the leap into pure music without the structure of chords and harmony. It occasionally succeeded, but only if the player was already a musical genius such as John Coltrane or Eric Dolphy. Short of this, one can only generate noise and call it “music.” Lotta pretenders, and a lot more who pretended to understand it.

Speaking of which, how is this different from the realm of religion? For what is the New Age but a whole lotta pretenders, which comes down to trying to bowl with God in 'Nam, where there are no rules. I told that fucking Kraut Nietzshe a thousand times...

Now, is it possible to ascend all the way to God with no rules at all? Yes and no, for 1) it takes all kinds, and 2) anything that’s not impossible is possible, I suppose. 

Okay, name one. NAME ME ONE!

Hmm. Who is the John Coltrane of religion? I mean, other than John Coltrane?

There was a time when I would have said there are many, e.g., Plotinus, Lao Tse, Ramakrishna, even Krishnamurti if you’re desperate and stupid. To be honest, I myself dabbled in Advaita nondualism, until I discovered that I wasn’t.

What I mean by this is that I dabscovered (to my own satisfaction, anyway) that there are indeed rules that were there long before I arrived -- i.e., a vertical structure and axiological hierarchy that one can only pretend to avoid. 

This is why at various times I refer to The Great Attractor, Celestial Central, Nonlocal Operators standing by and ready to assist you, etc. In short, a pattern or phase space emerged out of… come to think of it, out of the supposedly formless void.

Which leads to the question -- again, since it was here when I got here -- who separates the darkness from the Light, the order from the chaos, the land from the water, the spirit from the matter, man from the animals, male from female, the normal from the Pervitans, etc., etc., etc.?  

Not I.

Then again, I, precisely.  

Here I want to highlight a distinction between I and I AM, for the I goes to the pure interiority beyond being, whereas the AM goes to being. Could this go to the Ultimate Structure?

I think so, but not without some additional yada yada.

Before closing our yappe for the day, I want to come back to the point about music and musician. Not only could I have chosen any instrument, but, you might say, I seem to be somewhat musically inclined, so I fooled around with a number of them. Including Zen. And there’s an old Zen saying, Chase two rabbits, catch none.

There is also an old Coon saying. Damn. I can’t remember how it goes, but it’s something to the effect that you can only explore one rabbit hole -- excuse me, vertical spring -- at a time. Moreover, it turns out that fully exploring just one of these literally takes longer than a single lifetime. So, how to choose?

A full account will try your patience again, so we’ll resume tomorrow.

John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy. One of my favorite things: