Stuck Outside o' Destiny with the Fated Blues Again

Philo-sophy: love of wisdom. For Voegelin, this word pretty much says it all.

On a number of occasions -- ten occasions, to be exact -- we have discussed Christopher Bollas' conception of the "erotics of being," which covers some of the same territory.

For Bollas, one of the central purposes of life is to discover one's unique idiom, which you might say is the "signature" of the true self, each manifestivus different from the restivus, at least in potential. Whether this difference will make a difference -- i.e., become manifest -- depends upon the course of one's life (recall what we said the other day about the time and space aspects of the self):

"human idiom is that peculiarity of person(ality) that finds its own being through the particular selection and use of the object. In this sense, to be and to appropriate are one."

As I wrote back in 2008, idiom "is not limited to language, music, painting, etc., but can be anything through which we express our true self. For some people, their life itself is the idiom of expression, even if they leave no recorded traces of it. Parenting might be an example of this. My son has become an idiom for my self-expression in ways I had scarcely -- or only -- imagined. No him, no me!"

And it obviously works both ways: "Bollas speaks of his own child, and I am sure most of you parents out there will fully relate: 'What struck me was how he was who he is from scratch. He seemed to be in possession of his own personality, his very own unique configuration in being (what I term an idiom) that has never really changed in itself.'"

Boy, is that ever true. My son's personality is so strong, it is depressing to think of what might have happened if he had been in an environment in which he could not find -- i.e., his parents could not provide -- the objects (i.e., interpersonal relationships) he needs to express and contain it. Just the other day I saw a patient who was in the process of terribly deforming her five year old son, to the extent that he was already on psychotropic medication, when the real issue was obviously his environment (e.g., ten or twelve hours of daycare, disinterested father, poor early attachment, etc.).

More generally, I often wonder at the extent to which my own self would have found a way to discover its idiom irrespective of outward circumstances, vs. how much of it was pure happynstance. What I mean is that we can all look at the people and things that have become central to our identity, but which seem to have come into our life by sheer accident. Here is where an element of faith intrudes, and there is no way to resolve the question empirically.

However, I suspect that the process works in ways we do not understand, and that some things do indeed "happen for a reason," so to speak (I only place that phrase in scare quotes because of the way it tends to be vulgarized by the masses).

It very much reminds me of what Magnus said the other day in a comment, about praying and then patiently awaiting the answer in whatever form it comes. For example, if I look at my life from a certain angle, I can see that in a startling way, it contains everything I have ever prayed for in the deepest sense. And I suppose this could be reduced to love, truth, and beauty.

To continue: "you might say that the true self is a preconceptual logos, or nonlocal clueprint, that must discover those objects it requires in order to elaborate itself and 'live.' In this regard, Bollas says that the self's idiom is 'akin to a kind of personality speech, in which the lexical elements are not word signifiers but factors of personality.'

"There is no real being in the absence of this articulation of one's idiom, only a kind of paradoxical 'negative being,' i.e., (ø), which is very close to the patent nonsense of e-I-e-I-ø.

"When you cannot articulate your idiom, your life will feel somewhat like a prison, whatever the outward circumstances. For example, many feminists choose to live in this deformed manner, because it is less painful for them to imagine that the bars of their prison are outside their minds."

"Liberty and property are keys to the articulation of the self: "without private property, how can the self secure what it needs to speak its idiom? If those things are determined by the state, or by political correctness, or by the heavy hand of custom, or by scientistic fairy tales, the self is sharply constrained in its ability to find its real idiom.

"You could also say that when you fail to find your idiom, you will feel as if you are haunted by a kind of fate that blankets your life, and from which you cannot escape."

You know, this is kind of interesting. Plus I have very little time this morning. I think I'll just pluck some additional passages from the ten posts linked above, and try to connect them to what Voegelin is saying about how our lives are spent in the In Between space, and that within this space we must orient ourselves to the ground of being.

I'm still thinking of that poor kid mentioned above. It looks to me that some day he's going to end up a mental patient (after all, he already is) or a criminal (which he also already is, in a sense, in that he is inappropriately aggressive). If this happens, this would be an example of fate overtaking destiny. How many of these people become angry liberals in search of the Lost Entitlement? Others will get into therapy and gain some insight:

"A patient comes into therapy because they are bogged down by their fate. Something happened early in life that foreclosed their destiny, and now they don't know how to find it, because it is buried beneath so much life history, forced choices, defensive adaptations, etc. But the true self is still there, seeking a way to express itself and to be. This innate urge to articulate the true self is what Bollas calls the destiny drive. The therapist's job is to serve as a mediator, or midwife, in the birth of this latent self.

Now, what is this true self, phenomenologically speaking? I would suggest that it is "aliveness" itself, only transposed to the key of mind, or of subjectivity. Although difficult to define, one can see it as a kind of red thread that runs through one's life. You definitely know when it has been touched, and it is obviously critical to pay attention to these sometimes subtle moments of contact, in order to "find your way" in the world

The odd thing is that the true self is obviously a form of "knowledge" -- "patterned information," so to speak -- but it is more in terms of inclinations to "perceive, organize, remember, and use" the world in a certain way. When there is a good fit between idiom and world, it brings with it a very specific form of "joy," which Bollas has elsewhere called "the erotics of being."

For example, the joy some people apparently find in this blog is simply a case of discovering your idiom mirrored to you in a satisfying way, so that you become aware of your own true self. One can only wonder why our trolls are addicted to a foreign idiom that can bring them no joy or peace. I suppose the inane comments bring some sort of perverse satisfaction, or (-J).

We not only require people to help articulate our idiom, but material objects, books, films, music, hobbies. As Bollas says, we could conduct a kind of "person anthropology" by paying attention to the objects chosen by this or that person. I know that this blog is as unique as my fingerprint, in that it represents the fruit of my own peculiar selection of objects and subjects for the articulation of my being.

According to Bollas, only in modern times do we begin to see an increasing distinction between the terms destiny and fate, so that destiny begins to take on more positive connotations -- the idea that "one can fulfill one's destiny if one is fortunate, if one is determined, if one is aggressive enough."

The whole idea of destiny could only take root once people gained a degree of economic and cultural freedom, and were "able to take some control of their lives and chart their future." One can well understand why America is the land of the "true self," at least for conservatives, whereas liberal victimology represents the perverse erotics of fate.

Don't think for one moment that people don't take perverse and sadistic pleasure in their victim status, for it is oddly empowering to participate in the subjugation of oneself. In psychoanalysis it's called "identification with the aggressor." The latter is the stock-in-tirade of fatemongers such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the left in general.

A sense of fatedness results from being "pushed around" by the past instead of "lured" by the future. The more one is fated -- in particular, by mind parasites -- the less one can manifest one's destiny. (I am sure it would be fruitful to meditate on the implications of this as they pertain to the idea of predestination, which can either be enslaving or liberating, depending upon how it is understood.)

Now, when a patient comes in for treatment, it is again often because they are a victim of Fate, or the Curse of the Mind Parasites: "The person who is ill and comes to analysis either because of neurotic symptoms, or characterological fissures, or psychotic ideas and pains, can be described as a fated person. That is, he is suffering from something which he can specify and which has a certain power in his life to seriously interfere with his capacity to work, find pleasure, or form intimate relationships."

Bollas says that "we can use the idea of fate to describe the sense a person may have, determined by a life history, that his true self has not been met and facilitated into lived experience. A person who feels fated is already someone who has not experienced reality as conducive to the fulfillment of his inner idiom."

Or as Dylan sang, Your debutante just knows what you need / But I know what you want.

Well, this didn't go as planned. Gotta run!

Come For the Fate, Stay for the Destiny (1.05.12)

That could be the motto of the coonical pslackologist, for our mind parasites subject us to fate, while our true self reveals our destiny. Fate and destiny, although often used in the same way, are actually -- for our purposes, anyway -- opposites. You might say that fate is the destiny imposed by your dead past, while destiny is the fate opened up by your living future. Let me explain.

Or better yet, let Bollas explain. The term "destiny drive" is taken from his book, Forces of Destiny, but he's really reframing established psychoanalytic ideas in a more modern theoretical context that sees the mind as intrinsically intersubjective and "object related" as opposed to being more like a hydraulic machine driven to discharge instinctual tension.

(I hate to get all pedantic on your asses, but this is an important point to get out of the way. In modern psychoanalytic theory, "object" mainly means "subject"; this is because classical psychoanalysis regarded subjects as merely the object of an instinctual discharge. When they shifted the focus to the subject, they retained the old nomenclature. Hence, modern psychoanalysis is confusingly called "object relations," when it would be more accurate to call it "subject relations." The shift is as profound as the move, say, from Newtonian to quantum physics, but it is as if they retained the old language.)

I don't want to get too bogged down in theory, but the point is that modern psychoanalysis focuses much more on the discovery, articulation, and elaboration of the true self, as opposed, say, to instinctual conflict between id and ego. Instincts are still important, but they are understood to operate in an irreducibly interpersonal field.

Now, the question is, how does the true self actualize and grow? Bollas's thesis is that it is through the discovery of one's unique idiom, which you might say is the signature of the true self: human idiom is that peculiarity of person(ality) that finds its own being through the particular selection and use of the object. In this sense, to be and to appropriate are one.

In other words, you might say that the true self is a preconceptual logos, or clueprint, that must find the objects it requires in order to elaborate itself and "live." In this regard, Bollas says that the self's idiom is "akin to a kind of personality speech, in which the lexical elements are not word signifiers but factors of personality."

There is no real being in the absence of this articulation of one's idiom, only a kind of paradoxical "negative being." Or, to turn it around, when you cannot articulate your idiom, your life will feel like a stifling prison, whatever the outward circumstances.

Hence what I was saying yesterday about the centrality of liberty. In the absence of liberty, it is very unlikely that you will be able to discover your own unique idiom, which is again the key to the articulation of the true self. Private property is a fundamental expression of (and requirement for) liberty, and the most precious property is one's self. But without secure private property, how can the self appropriate what it needs to speak its idiom? If those things are determined by the state, or by political correctness, the self is sharply constrained in its ability to find its real idiom.

You could also say that when you fail to find your idiom, you will feel as if you are haunted by a kind of fate that blankets your life, and from which you cannot escape. More on which below.

In the introduction to the book, Bollas speaks of his own child, and I am sure most of you parents out there will fully relate: "What struck me was how he was who he is from scratch. He seemed to be in possession of his own personality, his very own unique configuration in being (what I term an idiom) that has never really changed in itself."

In cogitating on this common observation, Bollas simply transferred this awareness to the therapeutic setting, and realized that one of his primary functions as a therapist was to be of assistance to the patient "for private articulations of his personality potential -- which could only be accomplished by eliciting different elements of my own personality." Bollas realized that in order to do this, he had to temporarily ignore his own idiom so as to "be" what the patient required of him at any given time. (Here again, you parents out there will relate.)

Here you can see the problem. A patient comes into therapy because they are bogged down by their fate. Something happened early in life that foreclosed their destiny, and now they don't know how to find it, because it is buried beneath so much life history, forced choices, defensive adaptations, etc. But the true self is still there, seeking a way to express itself and be. This innate urge to articulate the true self is what Bollas calls the destiny drive. The therapist's job is to serve as a mediator, or midwife, in the birth of this latent self.

Now, what is this true self, phenomenologically speaking? I would say that it is aliveness itself, only transposed to the key of mind, or consciousness. Although difficult to define, one can see it as a kind of red thread that runs through one's life. You definitely know when it has been touched, and it is obviously critical to pay attention to these sometimes subtle moments of contact, in order to "find your way."

The odd thing is that the true self is obviously a form of "knowledge," but it is more in terms of inclinations to "perceive, organize, remember, and use" the world in a certain way. When there is a good fit between idiom and world, it brings with it a very specific form of "joy," which Bollas has elsewhere called "the erotics of being." For example, the joy some people find in this blog is simply a case of finding your idiom mirrored to you in a satisfying way, so that you become aware of your own true self. One can only wonder why our jester is addicted to a foreign idiom that can bring him no joy or peace.

We not only require people to articulate our idiom, but material objects, books, films, music, hobbies. As Bollas says, we could conduct a kind of "person anthropology" by paying attention to the objects chosen by this or that person. I know that this blog is as unique as my fingerprint, in that it represents the fruit of my own inimitable selection of objects and subjects for the articulation of my being. I don't have many readers, but I suppose it's surprising that I have any, given how personal it is.

Back to the idea of destiny vs. fate. According to Bollas, only in modern times do we begin to see an increasing distinction between the two terms, so that destiny begins to take on more positive connotations -- the idea that "one can fulfill one's destiny if one is fortunate, if one is determined, if one is aggressive enough" The whole idea of destiny could only take root once people gained a degree of economic and cultural freedom, and were "able to take some control of their lives and chart their future." (One can well understand why America is the land of the "true self," at least for conservatives, whereas liberal victimology represents the perverse erotics of fate; don't think for one moment that people do not take perverse and sadistic pleasure in their victim status.)

But fate has very different connotations. Again, it results in being "pushed around" by the past instead of "lured" by the future. The more one is fated -- in particular, by mind parasites -- the less one can manifest one's destiny. (I am sure it would be fruitful to meditate on the implications of this as they pertain to the idea of predestination, which can either be enslaving or liberating, depending upon how it is understood.)

Now, when a patient comes in for treatment, it is often because they are a victim of fate, or the Curse of the Mind Parasites: "The person who is ill and comes to analysis either because of neurotic symptoms, or characterological fissures, or psychotic ideas and pains, can be described as a fated person. That is, he is suffering from something which he can specify and which has a certain power in his life to seriously interfere with his capacity to work, find pleasure, or form intimate relationships."

Bollas says that "we can use the idea of fate to describe the sense a person may have, determined by a life history, that his true self has not been met and facilitated into lived experience. A person who feels fated is already someone who has not experienced reality as conducive to the fulfillment of his inner idiom."

Okay, let's pause, take a breath, and reflect on these ideas in more personal terms.

Nah, let's just stop for now. To be continued.

***

Related idiom @ American Digest, The Star:

To see something special. To see something beyond yourself and your imaginings. To follow it wherever it leads. To always remain prepared for miracle[s]. That is the inner music of the story of The Star. Like all stories that survive, it is the music of the heart and not of the head, and like the heart, it will endure.

Hey, I Look Familiar: Haven't We Met Before?

Arise you deadbeats and recall that "forgetting, sleep, and death are stages basically of the same process" (Tomberg). In contrast to them are remembering, awakening, and resurrection. Each of the latter is a reflection of the same process of "the return of what had been submerged in the darkness of the unconscious."

Memory is an everynow mystery that is easy to take for granted, since without it we could not be. In a way, it is everything; nothing can exist if it isn't somehow "remembered." In other words, to exist is to endure, and to endure is to be essentially remembered. What endures is the essence of the thing, through its various transformations.

Memory is also one of those things that the cold hand of scientism unwittingly disfigures as a result of the very manner with which it understands. For to reduce the magic of memory to a mechanistic process -- as if it were analogous to pulling up a file in one's hard drive -- is to do great violence to something quasi-sacred. With memory, one is ultimately touching on the mystery of time itself, which is the substance of our being.

Specifically, we are made of "lived time," which is nothing less than the extended or prolonged interior of the cosmos (the "moving image of eternity"); one might even say "word made flesh," to coin a money quote.

In order to be prolonged into the horizontal, this vertical interior must in some fashion be "remembered." True, we can continue to exist if we sever ourselves from this source, but only in the same way that the Alzheimer's patient goes on living despite being "outside" his personal memories.

I, for example -- and I'm sure you do too -- have certain memories that live inside me "in eternity." There is even some suggestion -- I've overheard Petey thinking about it -- that these moments stamped with eternity -- or is it the other way around? -- are what we "take with us when we go," so to speak. For when we have touched the eternal, the eternal has also in-formed us most deeply, which is what makes the moment eternal.

Of course, we always "live in eternity," for it could not be otherwise. But one might say that the point of life is to lend eternity the stamp of our personal essence -- or again, the reverse: to imbue our essence with the eternal. Not that many people bother to do this. But some do.

For example, I'm currently reading the wonderful Team of Rivals, and it is quite apparent that Lincoln was of this cast of mind, his apparently unorthodox religious views to the contrary notwithstanding. (In other words, he may have been outwardly unorthodox but was inwardly one hundred percent orthoparadoxical).

Interestingly, Schuon felt that Lincoln was a man of great spiritual attainment. There are numberless "false geniuses" whose works and ideas are worthless to man, but also "the true genius of which people are unaware: Lincoln is one such example, he who owes a large part of his popularity to the fact that people took him -- and still take him -- for the incarnation of the average American."

But in reality, his "intelligence, capacity and nobility of character went far beyond the level of the average." To think that just a couple of years ago people were comparing Obama -- who must strain his capacities just to be mediocre -- to Lincoln! It only demonstrates the absence of spiritual discernment in these inverted and O-ccluded times.

Interestingly, we usually don't know at the time it is happening that we are having an experience that partakes of the eternal, but we can call up these moments in hindsight. Often they are quite random. I know that for me, for example, there was a "golden time" between the ages of 9 and 12 that endures like a kind of touchstone of eternity inside of me.

Perhaps it is just the natural mysticism of childhood, but to look at it from the outside is to miss the point. It is impossible for me to put it into words, but perhaps a poet could do it.

In fact, that's why we revere and even tolerate poets, isn't it? -- because the less annoying ones conjure eternity within time, or reincarnate a hidden selfinus, or "take upon the mystery of things, as if they were God's spies" (Shakespeare).

Let us suppose that we have actually chosen to be here in this life and this incarnation. Who is the "we" that chooses? Yes, you could say it is our "soul," but what is that? It is not the same as the mind. In fact, the mind often interferes with the soul's project and mission, for if the soul has chosen to be here, it has done so for reasons of something it is impelled to accomplish, or experience, or learn.

What the soul ultimately wishes to learn about is itself, and the terrestrial condition of human embodiment is the only way -- perhaps -- to do this. Remember, we're just supposing, but let's further suppose that our soul thirsts for a lived experience of itself.

It is one thing to "have a self," but it doesn't really mean much -- that is, it is a rather dry and abstract thing, an "empty category" -- unless we are able to discover and articulate the unique "idiom" (as the psychoanalyst Bollas calls it) of our authentic self. (One is immediately reminded of the question of why God creates, which must be for analogous reasons.)

Now, just the fact that we are born with an unarticulated true self -- and essence -- is a great mystery to ponder. It is another reason why we reject the cosmically inverted ideology of leftism, for all forms of leftism are at war with the Self, which may only articulate itself under conditions of ordered liberty.

That is, the latent self specifically requires the existence of an open future, which is the necessary condition to live in the hope that we will eventually "re-member" ourselves and then truly use the time we are given as a medium for the self's joyful articulation. This is the "art of living": the exteriorization of the soul for the purposes of the interiorization of eternity. One might say that soul becomes person so that person might become soul.

Conversely, to indoctrinate people into identifying with their skin color, or their dopey culture, or their socioeconomic class, is to reverse the ontological order; ultimately it is to teach that the self is here to serve the collective, rather than vice versa.

This is the horror of liberal academia. The original meaning of "educate" is from the Latin educare, meaning to "draw out." But for our tenured radicals, it is the opposite: these are doctors who indoctrinate, or shove it in, big time.

This is why you will have noticed that radicals are always -- always -- such existential phonies and frauds. In fact, the more genuine they are, the more deeply phony. They are ontologically weightless, but weightless in such a way that it takes the form of a heavy, spiritually opaque darkness that pulls them and the luckless souls under their influence further into the abyss, 32 feet per second per second, to be exact. They incarnate the Fall of man.

We cannot pretend that this leftist brainwashing and soultarnishing don't do real harm. If I were a bitter man -- which a Coon never is -- I would be furious at what this indoctrination did to me -- specifically, the precious time it stole from my life, time that should have been spent discovering, "drawing out," and articulating my true self and its idiom.

My book and blog represent the culmination -- or let us say, the ongrowing fillfullment -- or maybe the detritus -- of this idiom, and it is truly a miracle of providence that I climbed off the bleak scaffolding of a spiritually empty academonic world which would have me be what I am not -- which no one truly is, as a matter of fact. For no person is actually a Darwinian machine, or a gender, or a race, or a talking monkey. But as always, Light is the best disinfuckedup, if you'll pardon the French, which I'll never do.

They say you never forget the face before you were born. Once the true self is remembered, one finds that it is generative, or "fruitful." It is as if it produces waves from a hidden but intelligent ocean that lap upon the distant shore of consciousness. Anything that denies the ocean and prevents our river from finding its shore is a priori satanic, whatever the context, for it is the foreclosure of the self and the end of our reason for being.

In the words of Bollas, "From the beginning of life one's idiom is rather like a vision-in-waiting, a preconception, as Bion would say, of things to come, which takes shape over time. Idiom seeks objects because they materialize form which realizes itself as it shapes these contents of a life. This is a deep pleasure [emphasis mine]. It is a manifestation of the drive to present the particularity of one's being, a form which suggests itself as a visionary movement through the object world."

In another book, Bollas characterizes the articulation of one's idiom as the "erotics of being," surely an accurate description. We live in strange times, for never before in human history have more people had the opportunity to enjoy the erotics of their being, and yet, they imagine they are deprived. They are deprived, because they are misusing their time and therefore abusing their self -- and punishing God. But really they're just cutting off the nous to spite the face before they were born.

When we find and live our authentic selves -- and therefore, God -- it is analogous to a highlight in one of the books in his vast liberatory: the famous Book of Life. It gives him great delight, for each human book is full of surprises. Sure, he "knows" us before we do, but so do we. That doesn't take away the fun. Rather, it just adds to it. For it is the first day of creation all over again.

Which is God's favorite rememberme, because it's the gift that keeps giving like One←→Two←→Three -- to oneself and to others and to the Creator. It's that feeling you get when you see your child growing up to become himself, someone good, true, beautiful, and unique.

The essential act of faith is the remembrance of God; “to remember,” in Latin, is recordare, that is re-cordare, which indicates a return to the heart, cor. --Frithjof Schuon

Parousing God's Liberatory (12.22.10)

I was between the sheets of the forgettery too long last night -- which is to say I was reborn at the wrong time and late to mysoph this morning. Therefore, I have less time, nor timelessness, to remumble something overhead. I'll do my best to hurry up and slow down before I fail to catch a lila big One.

Now, to quote Tomberg again, "Forgetting, sleep, and death are stages basically of the same process." In contrast to them are remembering, awakening, and resurrection. Each of these latter three are reflections of the same process of "the return of what had been submerged in the darkness of the unconscious."

Memory is one of those everynow mysteries that most grunts seem to take for grunted. It is also one of those things that the cold hand of scientism unwittingly disfigures as a result of its ravenous form of "understanding" -- because of the very manner with which it understands. For simply by virtue of reducing the magic of memory to a mechanistic process -- as if it were analogous to pulling up a file in your hard drive -- is to do great violence to something quasi-sacred. With memory, one is ultimately touching on the mystery of time itself, which is the substance of our being. Specifically, we are made of "lived time," which is nothing less than the "extended" interior of the cosmos.

I, for example -- and I'm sure you do to -- have certain memories that live inside me "in eternity." There is even some suggestion -- I've overheard Petey thinking about it -- that these moments stamped with eternity -- or is it the other way around? -- are what we "take with us when we go," so to speak. For when we have touched the eternal, the eternal has also in-formed us most deeply, which is what makes the moment eternal.

Interestingly, we usually don't know at the time it is happening that we are having an experience that partakes of the eternal, but we can call up these moments in hindsight. Often they are quite random. I know that for me, for example, there was a "golden time" between the ages of 9 and 12 that lives like a kind of touchstone of eternity inside of me. Perhaps it is just the natural mysticism of childhood, but to look at it from the outside -- to say, "oh, you're just remembering 1966," is to miss the point. It is impossible for me to describe the magical awesomeness of the feeling of 1966! from the inside. Perhaps a poet could do it. In fact, that's why we tolerate poets, isn't it? -- because the less annoying ones coonjure eternity within time, or reincarnate a hidden selfinus, or "take upon the mystery of things, as if they were God's spies" (Shakespeare).

Let us suppose that we have actually chosen to be here in this life and this incarnation. Who is the "we" that chooses? Yes, you could say it is our "soul," but what is that? It is not the same as the mind. In fact, the mind often interferes with the soul's gnocturiyanal omission, for if the soul has chosen to be here, it has done so for reasons of something it wishes to accomplish, or experience, or learn.

What the soul ultimately wishes to learn about is itself, and the terrestrial condition of human embodiment is the only way -- perhaps -- it may do this. Remember, we are just "supposing" for the purposes of fulfilling my sacred bObligation to come up with a post this morning, but let's further suppose that our soul thirsts for a lived experience of itself. It is one thing to "have a self," but it doesn't really mean much -- that is, it is a rather dry and abstract thing, an "empty category" -- unless we are able to discover and articulate the unique "idiom" (as the psychoanalyst Bollas calls it) of our authentic self.

Now, just the fact that we are born with an "unarticulated true self" is a great mythtery to punder. It is another reason why we cat- and dogmagorically reject the satanic ideology of leftism, for all forms of leftism are at war with the self, which may only articulate itself under conditions of liberty. That is, the latent self specifically requires the existence of an "open future," which is the sufficient reason to live in the hope that we will eventually "re-member" ourselves and then truly use the time we are given as a medium for the self's joyful articulation. This is the "art of living": the exteriorization of the soul for the purposes of the interiorization of eternity.

Conversely, to indoctrinate people into identifying with their skin color, or their dopey culture, or their "class" is to reverse the ontological order; ultimately it is to teach that the self is here to serve the collective, rather than vice versa. This is the horror of liberal academia. The original meaning of "educate" is from the Latin educare, meaning to "draw out." For our tenured radicals, it is the opposite -- doctors who indoctrinate, or shove it in, big time. This is why you will have noticed that radicals are always -- always -- such existential "phonies." In fact, the more genuine they are, the more deeply phony. They are weightless, but weightless in such a way that it takes the form of a heavy, spiritually opaque darkness that pulls them and the luckless souls under their influence further into the abyss, 32 feet per second per second, to be exact.

We cannot pretend that this leftist brainwashing and soultarnishing don't do real harm. If I were a bitter man -- which a Coon never is -- I would be furious at what this indoctrination did to me -- specifically, the precious time it stole from my life, time that should have been spent discovering, "drawing out," and articulating my true self and its idiom. My book and blog (and family, including the extended family of Coons) represent the culmination -- or let us say, the temporary fulfillment -- of this idiom, and it is truly a miracle of providence that I climbed off the bleak scaffolding of a spiritually empty academonic world which would have me be what I am not -- which no one is, as a matter of fact. For no one is a Darwinian machine, or a gender, or a race, or a talking monkey. But as always, Light is the best disinfuckedup, if you'll pardon the French, which I'll never do.

Once the true self is discovered, one finds that it is generative, or "fruitful." It is as if it produces waves from a hidden but intelligent ocean that lap upon the distant shore of consciousness. Anything that denies the ocean and prevents our river from finding its shore is a priori satanic, whatever the context, for it is the foreclosure of the self and the end of our reason for being.

In the words of Bollas, "From the beginning of life one's idiom is rather like a vision-in-waiting, a preconception, as Bion would say, of things to come, which takes shape over time. Idiom seeks objects because they materialize form which realizes itself as it shapes these contents of a life. This is a deep pleasure [emphasis mine]. It is a manifestation of the drive to present the particularity of one's being, a form which suggests itself as a visionary movement through the object world."

In another book, Bollas characterizes the articulation of one's idiom as the erotics of being, surely an accurate description. We live in strange times, for never before in human history have more people had the opportunity to enjoy the erotics of their being, and yet, they imagine they are deprived. They are deprived, because they are misusing their time and therefore abusing their self -- and punishing God.

For in the final unalysis, why do you think God set up this witness procreation program for cosmic selves? Petey once told me a story -- I'm not sure if it was one of his "eschcatall tales" -- but he said that he once checked out God's libarary when He was dictating something to Schuon. First of all, the library was huge, as you might imagine. But what most struck Petey was that none of the books had any highlighting. This was apparently because God already knew what was in all the books. There were no "surprises," nothing that provoked an inner journey down an unsuspected byway. Why, it reminds me of an enigmatic boblical passage from the Coonifesto:

One's upin in a timeless without a second to spore and noplace to bang anyway, only himsoph with nowhere to bewrong, hovering over the waters without a kenosis. Vishnu were here, but God only knows only God, and frankly, ishvara monotheotonous -- no one beside Him, no nous, same old shunyada yada yada. Ah, this old ombody's so philled with jehoviality, can't He create anamour? 'Elo, Him, what samadhi you? Stop deidreamoing and gita life, bodhi!

And that is what He did. It turns out that human beings are to God what a library is for a human being. We are God's liberatory of freedom and surprise. For human beings, reading is the "mystery school of individuation." The books we are attracted to and choose both reflect and shape the soul on its journey to itself. They are full of surprises, but the surprise is paradoxically just us terrestrial earth worms finding our teleological time tube in the tunneling passages of an unsuspected lifetome.

When we find and live our authentic selves -- and therefore, God -- it is analogous to a highlight in one of God's books: the famous Book of Life. It gives him great delight, for it is the only true novelty there is for him. Sure, he "knows" us before we do, but so do we. That doesn't take away the fun. Rather, it just adds to it. For it is the first day of creation all over again. Which is God's favorite rememberme, because it's the gift that keeps giving -- to oneself and to others.

The essential act of faith is the remembrance of God; “to remember”, in Latin, is recordare, that is re-cordare, which indicates a return to the heart, cor. --Frithjof Schuon

"Petey, are you sure this is the right planet?"

(TW: Todd)

*****

This excellent piece at American Thinker (this too) explains why so-called "progressivism" is always wrong from the cosmic point of view, or "cosmically f***ed up."

Chaos and Control, Destiny and Fate: You Can't Plan for the Surprise of Your Life

It's amazing how subtle some of these dead old white men could be. Augustine, for example, writes that "'To use' is to put something at the disposal of the will, whereas 'to enjoy' is to use a thing with satisfaction, which is no longer a matter of hope but actual reality."

So, we willfully "use" a thing in the hope that it will actually satisfy us. Obviously, satisfaction is not something we can will -- even for people who have the means to will just about anything they want. Indeed, everybody tells me so: can't buy me love.

This, I think, goes to why happiness is wrapped up in surprise as opposed to planning. To plan for happiness is to attempt to appropriate satisfaction into the will, but that's just a hope, not an actuality.

And many people would rather hope for happiness than actually live it. Or, more to the point, they are presently unhappy, but live in the hope that, with the right plan, it will occur in the future. Which it never does. Unless it is in some surprising and unplanned way.

Real enjoyment seems to be a matter of love as opposed to will; love is a kind of self-offering or self-opening, while will is more of a crystalized intent. I'm not expressing that very clearly, but think of the difference between, say, the perpetually self-offering God of Christianity vs. the permanent willfulness of Allah. One is always giving, while the other is always doing. The former is a lover, the latter a q'ntrol fariq.

Which reminds me. It seems that Boko Haram has pledged its allegiance to ISIS:

I pledge allegiance to the mahdi of the Islamic State of Iraq; and to the caliphate for which it stands, one world, under sharia, with tyranny and sadism for all.

What is our fundamental problem with the Islamic state, and with Islam more generally? That they are indeed control freaks. Not only are no surprises permitted, but technically they are impossible, being that everything issues directly from the will of Allah.

This is at antipodes to Christian liberalism, which is rooted in liberty. The Christian God creates; the Muslim god compels. Is it possible to compel creativity? Not really. One can compel the circumstances for bringing it about -- i.e., self-discipline -- but it is an oxymoron to force a surprise. Sergeant Pepper was a surprise. All the groups thereafter who tried to squeeze out their own Sergeant Pepper just produced kitsch or krap.

Why did Christendom vault ahead of the rest of the world, while Islam in particular is mired in backwardness? Backwardness is actually hard, while progress is easy. How is that?

Well, think, for example, of how hard it was for the Soviet Union to control its citizens. Impossible, really. And yet, I remember reading of how Kruschev asked Nixon how the US produced enough bread to feed its people without someone at the top commanding it. In the US it is easy to feed -- and overfeed -- our people. How? By doing nothing. It happens by itself, so long as the state doesn't interfere. State interference causes bubbles, shortages, and distortions, as in housing, medicine, and college.

All of this goes directly to what we have been saying about idiom and the destiny drive, for the soul requires freedom in order to discover and actualize itself. It needs a range of potential objects, ideas, and relationships to select from, because everyone is different. We are even big enough to tolerate the presence of people to whom the Koran speaks. Which is just another way of saying that Christianity is expansive enough to contain Islam, whereas the converse is impossible. There is a reason why there can be no churches in Saudi Arabia (and no God in public schools).

"The soul recognize[s] in material objects a harmony identical with that of its own structure, and this recognition [is] the genesis of aesthetic pleasure" (Eco, in Taylor). Exactly. Bollas calls it the "erotics of being," so we're back to loving-as-knowing:

"Certain objects, like psychic 'keys,' open doors to unconsciously intense -- and rich -- experience in which we articulate the self that we are.... This selection constitutes the jouissance of the true self, a bliss released through the finding of specific objects that free idiom to its articulation.... such releasings are the erotics of being..."

Well, this morning got away from me. To be continued....

The Great Cosmic Casting Couch and the Role of a Lifetime

Before we implement the caste system, a couple of readers wanted some clarification. I'm hardly an expert on the subject, but I'll give it the old Coonish try.

Rick asks, "So Bob, do you think a person can be built for two or more [castes]? I think you are saying there is a 'predominant' one for a person and that even then most will not be great at it. Which is fine. It’s the forcing yourself to be exceptional at it, and convincing yourself you are when you are not, that is not good. And you’re speaking 'generally.' But I look at the categories and I clearly see a little farmer and hunter and warrior in me too. Seems the blessings of modernity finally allow it. The real world outside of your predominant caste will provoke those lesser ones. In other words, you may need ‘em someday."

That's a good point. Reminds me of astrology, in which one has a dominant sun sign, but within the context of various other archetypes, aspects, houses, elements, transits, and cycles, so that each horoscope is as unique as a... a human being.

The second question is from an anonymous commenter who boasts of living "in an abandoned refrigerator carton in a vacant lot. My box is lined with carpet scraps and is quite snug and cozy. I use the computer at the public library. I turn in aluminum cans and so forth to get spending money."

What this resourceful man wants to know is, "So, what caste am I, anyway? Am I the lowest or is there an even lower one?"

Let's start with these latter questions, being that I sense they have more comedic potential. First of all, there is an unavoidable political dimension to the questions, in that the caste of which he speaks only exists during a Republican administration. During such Hard Times, hordes of these untouchables suddenly appear as if by magic, living in their cardboard boxes and pushing shopping carts around the city. But when a Democrat is in office, the problem just as suddenly "disappears," and there are no longer any members of this caste. This is the nature of "liberal compassion." It is so powerful, that mere good intentions are sufficient to make the problem go away, at least until a Republican returns to office.

Caste. Exactly what is it? Schuon writes that "in its spiritual sense, caste is the 'law' or dharma governing a particular category of men in accord with their qualifications." The Bhagavad-Gita says that it is "better to perish in one’s own law; it is perilous to follow the law of another.... [S]imilarly the Manava-Dharma Shastra says: 'It is better to carry out one’s own proper functions in a defective manner than to fulfill perfectly those of another; for he who lives accomplishing the duties of another caste forthwith loses his own.'” The point is, there is real existential peril and pain involved in failure to identify one's caste.

Of the castes, Schuon only mentions four, but as Rick implies, the modern world would seem to suggest that there are many more niches to fill within the pneumacosmic economy -- which is again one of the great blessings of America, not just that we are free to move from level to level (vertically) or category to category (horizontally), but may also make a "mid-course correction" at any age. It's never too late to discover your role in the Cosmic Adventure!

Regarding the four castes, "There is first of all the intellective, speculative, contemplative, sacerdotal type, which tends towards wisdom or holiness.... Next there is the warlike and royal type, which tends towards glory and heroism.... this type will readily be active, combative and heroic, hence the ideal of the 'heroicalness of virtue.' The third type is the respectable 'average' man: he is essentially industrious, balanced, persevering; his center is love for work that is useful and well done, and carried out with God in mind.... Lastly there is the type that has no ideal other than that of pleasure in the more or less coarse sense of the word; this is concupiscent man who, not knowing how to master himself, has to be mastered by others, so that his great virtue will be submission and fidelity."

Again, we are not interested in the institutional application of these principles in any top-down manner. Rather, for Raccoon purposes, their only value is in the idea that we do possess our own "soul imprint," so to speak, which must be "actualized" in this life. In the past, I have discussed this in terms of Bollas's idea of the "unthought known" and its relationship to the discovery of our own unique idiom of expression, which would represent the "exteriorization" of our inwardness, so to speak. This is where liberty and the sanctity of private property come in, because it is obviously quite impossible to discover oneself except under conditions of freedom, nor can this exteriorization of the interior occur unless the soul can choose those objects that "resonate" with it.

That probably sounds too abstract, but I think you will find that it is actually quite concrete and "experience near." For example, Bollas talks about how a person's dwelling is like a sort of "soul museum" -- like walking through an objectified dreamscape in which the "contents are visible," as Van Morrison put it in song. To say that a sanctuary is where the soul and intellect find their rest is to say that there is a "good fit" between the inward and the outward. Thus, one person's sanctuary can be another's dreary airport terminal. I am often shocked at what people call "home," since my soul would be quite restless, if not totally alienated, there; but there you go. Different cloaks for different blokes.

In my case, whatever the external trappings, I usually go straight for the books and CDs. That tells me everything I need to know about what kind of person I'm dealing with (although what is hanging on the wall -- i.e., what they call "art" -- is another dead giveaway). This may sound... I don't know, petty, but I am utterly disoriented if someone has the complete works of Michael Buble or Harry Connick, but no Sinatra. Frankly, I don't know what to say to such a person. Just make my apologies and slowly back away.

You see, it's a matter of essentials. I am reminded of Ray Charles, who said that he could tell everything he needed to know about a woman by holding her wrist. Someone said to him, "that's preposterous. How can you tell everything about a person by touching their wrist?" To which Ray responded: "I didn't say everything. I said everything I need to know." (Which reminds me: How does one become a Raelette? Easy. You let Ray.)

Some people have no clear or articulate idiom, and that is part of the problem. For if you haven't discovered the soul, then you will not have found its idiom. Or, to put it the other way around, to find the soul's idiom is to have found the soul, precisely. Look at me. I would say that I didn't fully discover my idiom and truly flesh it out until I began blogging. This is a critical point, and again goes to what Rick was saying about the diversity of modernity, and the many more opportunities to identify and occupy niches and sub-niches.

As I have probably mentioned before, my book was difficult -- or at least laborious -- to write, in large measure -- which I now realize in hindsight -- because I had no audience. It was as if I were trying to develop a unique idiom, but absent any context. It's analogous to an artist who must simultaneously express himself and invent the means to do so. Looking back on it, I can definitely say that for much of my life, I felt like "an artist without an art form," and now I know why: I had to invent the art form, or the idiom, for my soul's expression. And of course, it's an ongoing process. For example, in reading that post yesterday from early '06, I could see how far I've come since then. And where I've come is "toward me."

Again, not necessarily just in terms of "content," but in expression, which turns out to be a vital component of the content! For this reason, I would never worry about someone "stealing my ideas," because they would have to "steal me," which no one could ever do. Or, put it this way: it is obviously possible to steal a scientific idea, or just discover it before someone else does. But no one could steal my idiom, because it is unique to my soul. For this reason I say, to paraphrase Walt Whitman: This is no blog, comrade. Who touches this touches a man! Or a soul, to be precise; cut it, and it bleeds my blood. So I suppose it's a body as well: again, the exteriorization of my deepest interior, for what it's worth. It is my "image and likeness."

Another important point is what Bollas calls "the erotics of being." This refers to the deeply satisfying feeling of expressing the soul's idiom and having it understood by someone else. It is "erotic" in the sense that it is soul-to-soul touch. People occasionally or constantly ask me when I might write the next book, and the answer is "possibly never," one reason being that it could never be as satisfying as the blogging, through which I have the privilege of indulging in the "erotics of being" every morning. With a book, I would have to be too self-conscious and couldn't "pull out all the stops." Even as it is, I am surprised that my publisher went along with some of the unorthodox features of my existing book. No one knew back then about the lost tribe of Raccoons, and how we share a similar idiom.

Now, back to our box-dwelling reader. Is there a lower caste? First, he might be confusing caste with socioeconomic status, for one's essential caste doesn't change with material circumstances. There are obviously wealthy people who are outcasts (one thinks of Hollywood) and noble and dignified people of modest means who have a natural aristocracy about them. They know who they are. These are often the people for whom liberal outcasts have contempt that they express under the guise of "helping the little guy." In point of fact, liberals are "little guys," i.e., constricted and emaciated souls. We are not, for we contain the very cosmos that contains the liberal.

Regarding those Hollywood liberals, one has only to examine their idiom -- i.e., their dreadful films -- to know everything you need to know about them. They must live in a kind of grinding soul-poverty that is scarcely imaginable to a Raccoon. What kind of soul thinks that these projects needed to exist, or even have a right to?

The lowest caste is a kind of "anti-caste," being that it has to do with a person who has no center, or else has a completely exteriorized and therefore dissipated soul. He then chases his soul outward, which results only in additional fragmentation and further distance from himself, as his soul drains into the terminal moraine of the senses.

Nevertheless, such a person, according to Schuon, is "salvageable through submission to someone better than he, and who will serve as his center. This is exactly what happens -- but on a higher plane which may concern any man -- in the relation between disciple and spiritual master." Recall that a couple of weeks ago, I was discussing how this has worked in my life. I have repeatedly discovered "spiritual masters" who at once served as a "surrogate center" and a means to discover my own idiom. Once that occurs, then you can relinquish the model, because the center is now "inside," so to speak.

The other day, Hoarhey was asking about people who are (•••) or even (•••••). What about them? Schuon talks about the "pariah," who arises from a "mixture of castes." One thinks of Deepak, who combines the sacerdotal with the material, and is therefore "capable of everything and nothing." In fact, this probably applies to all cult leaders and spritual frauds, who may have some level of spiritual insight, only mixed with other factors and tendencies, and which results in the inevitable "acting out" that we always see in such people -- the abuses, the contradictions, the broken moral compass, the rules that apply to followers but not the leader, etc. L. Ron Hubbard, Da Love Ananda, Rajneesh.... One could think of dozens more.

"The pariah has neither center nor continuity; he is nothingness eager for sensations; his life is a disconnected series of arbitrary experiences." Again, one commonly encounters this type in new age circles -- those "masters" who confuse the absence of a center with a kind of false transcendence. One can always sense when one is dealing with such a person, because their teaching will have no true depth, continuity, or resonance. It is very ad hoc, and they nearly always reject and belittle tradition, because it calls their absence of a transcendent center to account. They are also "charismatically creepy" or "creepily charismatic."

For as Schuon notes, "there is a supra-human Center which is always available to us, and whose trace we bear within ourselves, given that we are made in the image of the Creator." So although manifestation is a kind of great casting couch, ultimately there is really only one Role, and that's all that matters.

You know what they say: it's Frank's world, baby. We just love in it.

Remystifying the World and Finding Your Center of Levity

Ah, remama when you was older than abraham and young as a babe’s I AM and the world was fresh anew, when heaven touched the earth and angels whispered their secrets through the wind, rivers, mountains and stars? I do. Who could forget?

But as we adapt to our baffling new conditions and lose our innocence, the world is increasingly demystified and we become subject to the brutal “reign of quantity” inside the prismhearse of the senses -- or the senses prolonged into mental space, i.e., materialism. Much of spiritual growth involves the reversal of this process, or what I call the remystification of the world. For if you're not amazed, you're just wrong.

As we dissipate outward, we gain a new "center of gravity" and lose the old center of levity. Returning to this eurhythmic center of groovity is the goal of life, or the final coonsummation. To put it another way -- Perry's way, to be precise -- God is always present. It is man who is absent. Which is why we say on our celestial birthday -- which is every day: Come in, open His presence, and report for karmic duty.

As we fall down & out, life at the center is exchanged for life at the periphery; or, we are booted from the spacious interior to the cramped and contracted exterior. Schuon compares it to being trapped below a sheet of ice: “Mistaking the ice that imprisons us for Reality, we do not acknowledge what it excludes and experience no desire for deliverance; we try to compel the ice to be happiness.”

As such, we inhabit an alien world built from the bottom up rather than the top down; or again, the outside in instead of inside out. But since this barren world contains no real or final Truth, it cannot satisfy the exiled soul, which begins its endless quest for greater thrills and excitement to fill the void. No wonder so many would-be humans Rage Against the Machine; the problem is they rage further down and out, where only one last barrier remains: blasphemy and destruction.

The Vital Beings are the ones who do not wish to recover their humanness and who are fully at home in this fallen world. Breaking up through the ice would involve surpassing themselves, the one thing the vital man is loath to do. For he loves -- or lusts after -- the world with all his heart, all his soul, and all his mind -- which is precisely to lack heart, soul and mind, or at least to deny their provenance. It is to be “born again from below," and therefore die to the Real.

Father Rose wrote his piece on nihilism in the late fifties, prior to the vast explosion in crime caused by lenient liberal social policies and a forgiving attitude toward evil. His words proved to be quite prescient: “Crime in most previous ages had been a localized phenomenon and had apparent and comprehensible causes in the human passions of greed, lust, envy, jealousy, and the like; never has there been anything more than a faint prefiguration of the crime that has become typical of our own century, crime for which the only name is one the avant-garde today is fond of using in another Nihilist context: ‘absurd.’”

That is an excellent point, for the absurd sadism of so many of our crimes mirrors the absurdity of an art that celebrates ugliness or “authenticity” and an educational system that promulgates the lie that ultimate truth and absolute morality do not exist. When your elites spend several generations creating an absurd world, don’t be surprised if you end up with absurd people and meaningless crimes, because existence itself becomes a sort of crime against Being.

I remember studying film noir back in film school. The professor divided it into several sub-genres that evolved -- or devolved -- over the years, and which seemed to reflect the societal degeneration of which Father Rose speaks. I won’t get into a whole dissertation here, but early film noir such as Double Indemnity depicts a man who is pulled down into circumstances beyond his control due either to bad luck or some identifiable motive such as greed or lust. But in late film noir, the entire world has become corrupt, both the criminals and law enforcement. In fact, every human institution has become corrupt. In such a world, the antihero or outlaw becomes the hero with whom we identify. The corruption extends even into the family, which becomes a breeding ground for psychopaths, as in White Heat (starring James Cagney) or The Godfather. In these films, evil merely fights evil, so we inevitably find ourselves identifying with evil. There is no “good.” There are only bad people and worse ones, i.e., hypocrites.

In the Real world, Spirit is substance, matter is accident. Spirit precedes matter, the latter of which is the final precipitate of God’s involution into time and space. A corresponding world of the senses arises, but this shifting and "centerless" realm is hardly the world of reality. Rather, the uncorrupted intellect-in-the-heart (which is our own true center) knows objective reality as the Spirit, which can only be here and now, where eternity descends into time. Thus, "To transcend time is to live in the moment and to transcend space is to dwell in the center" (Perry).

As mentioned in a previous post, a counter-religious movement gained steam in the 1950’s, led by the “Beats,” by confused psychoanalysts such as N.O. Brown, and by narcissists such as Timothy Leary and Alan Watts. Just as N.O. Brown wrote that repression was the essence of pathology and that we would live in a sort of eden if we would merely express our lower instincts in an unmediated way, the new age teachers created bastardized forms of Zen and Taoism to exalt “spontaneity” and “naturalism” so as to obscure the deeper desire to stay high and sleep with coeds under a veneer of spiritualism. (Rose was actually a student of Watts at the Academy of Asian Arts in San Francisco in 1955, but soon saw through him and moved on to more serious pursuits. I do give Watts credit for that, as he did at least serve as a pointer and pique an interest in the "real thing" in some of his readers.)

The human being has an animal nature which is not by definition beneath him. It only becomes so “when man renounces his humanity and fails to humanize what he shares with the animals” (Schuon). To humanize is to spiritualize, which is to “open the natural to the supernatural whence it proceeds ontologically.” In other words, this hardly represents repression, but a recovery and actualization of our true being. If anything, the uninhibited and shameless vital man represses and denies his humanness, for one can just as easily repress what is higher as what is lower. There is a "vital center" that is located vertically, and is subject to increased "subtilization."

The psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas writes of the "erotics of being," which refers to that blissful sensation of expressing oneself deeply -- or from the deepest part of oneself -- and being understood, center to center. Frankly, this is why I blog. You know, textual intercourse.

Just as sexuality, in order to be properly human, must be spiritualized, Schuon agrees that intellectual (i.e., spiritual) knowledge has an ecstatic dimension to it, if for no other reason than it is known with the heart (or mind in the heart, the “location” of the higher mind): “There is a spiritualization of sexuality just as there is, conversely, an animalization of intelligence [what we are calling the vital mind]; in the first case, what can be the occasion of a fall becomes a means of elevation; in the second case, intelligence is dehumanized and gives rise to materialism, even existentialism, hence to ‘thinking’ which is human only in its mode and of which the content is properly subhuman.”

But then, these subhuman philosophies become the justification to fall further into vital animality. Postmodern philosophies use the spirit to deny the spirit, leaving us with a wholly horizontal wasteland of matter and instinct. This intellectual operation is a complete success, even though the patient -- the human qua human -- does not survive it. A new kind of infrahuman is born, forgetful of his fall and “at ease in a world that presents itself as an end in itself, and which exempts man from the effort of transcending himself” -- which is to have shunned and bypassed our reason for being here.

The fall is nearly complete. But not before we drag this whole despiritualized existentialada down with us, which we will do tomorrow in discussing the final stage of the nihilist dialectic: destruction.

Getting Stuck on Smart with Deep Stupidity

I long ago noticed a pattern in myself between active and passive modes -- almost like the seasons, in which there is a time to plant and a time to harvest. Once I truly recognized the cycle, I tried never to harvest in planting time, nor vice versa. I mean, you could try to do that, but what happens? On the one hand, immature thoughtlets, green theories, inedible ideas, and on the other, moldy observations, overripe concepts, and squishy notions.

When I wrote the book, I very much respected this organic process, and never tried to force anything. Sometimes a couple of months would go by, and I wouldn't give it a thought -- at least not a conscious thought. In reality, it was below the soil, sending down roots and throwing up shoots. You might say that I was allowing the (↑↓) process to proceed at its own pace, like falling rain and budding leaves.

So when I started blogging over five years ago, I never expected the harvest to go on for this long. Problems only arise when I feel myself transition into that passive mode, but feel the pressure to produce something. At that point I'm faced with two options: either go on hiatus, or rework old posts.

This is a long way of saying that I hope no one minds if I spend some time in the arkive. In reality, the active and passive modes work together, almost like left and right brains. Any writer realizes this -- that there is a part that actively produces, and another part that passively critiques. I actually enjoy having the opportunity to pause and reflect on what I've harvested over the past five years, because when I consider it in the passive mode, I'm doing so for the first time. It's very much like being a reader of the blog, only with the added benefit of being able to tweak things to my liking, but also to gently massage them into conformity with the Current Truth. In other words, to eliminate any embarrassing errors or lame jokes.

Also, we have many new readers who weren't around three or four years ago, so these post will be novelgazes to them. And besides, when I began the blog, I did so with the explicit intention of writing things from a more timeless perspective, so that they would have no expiration date anyway. So without further ado.....

Unintelligent people are usually just plain wrong, so we don't have to worry much about them. On the other hand, in order to attain truly deep stupidity, one must generally be of above average intelligence. Therefore, in certain people, it is obvious that intelligence doesn't vary inversely with stupidity, but directly with it. Not for nothing has it been said that so much philosophy is simply "error on a grandiose scale"; one also thinks of Keynes' quip about practical men being slaves of some defunct economist such as Keynes.

A prime example of deep stupidity and grandiose error is Marxism and all of its many polluted streams, branches, creeks and crocks. That variants of this falsehood still proliferate on the left today means that, as always, intelligence alone is no inoculation against evil, darkness, and error. Hardly. Those who talk about how "smart" Obama is are only the latest incarnation of a perennial problem. After all, even Jimmy Carter wasn't mentally retarded (morally retarded, yes).

For conservative classical liberals, we are generally faced with an odious choice between the stupid party and the evil party. We generally align ourselves with the former, since the GOP is at least susceptible to our influence, whereas the left is not. Someone who has truly given himself over to darkness is not going to be persuaded by truth. His intelligence is in the service of forces he neither sees nor understands, and there is just no point of entry in dealing with him, since he is not lacking information as such but light. Truly, you can hand them the truth on a silver platter, and they will not only reject it but be quite hostile to it. It actually makes them angry, which is one of the reasons liberals don't know how to argue except deceptively.

There are many way to react to truth, only one of which is quiet acceptance. Truth is not just true, but a force. This is why it elicits such strong reactions in people. You will have undoubtedly noticed that when you comprehend a deep truth, there is a pleasant physical sensation that goes along with it -- hard to describe (Christopher Bollas calls it "the erotics of being"), but if you could amplify its vibrations, it would feel like getting the punch line of a joke, or the parts of your being lining up like iron filings, or perhaps properly hitting a baseball.

Another way of saying it is that Truth is a presence. This is something all Raccoons will know by experience, but will make no sense to the leftist -- for whom it will literally be a meaningless statement. To go so far as to suggest that Truth once walked among us -- and still does -- is the height of absurdity. But truth is the link between Being and knowing. Thus, to say, for example, that Christ is the truth is to say that he is a manifestation of the divine presence, or a bridge between God and human nature.

Truth is not only not accepted by most people, but engenders a counter-force that is actively hostile to it. This may seem like a controversial statement, but it is the stock in trade of psychoanalysis, which essentially comes down to a study of the varieties of self-deception, or the ways in which one part of the mind pulls the wool over another part. Think about that for a moment, and I think you'll agree that it is quite remarkable -- how the left brain literally doesn't know what the right brain is doing.

I say "literally" because there is good evidence that what we call the unconscious is actually "lodged," so to speak, in the nonverbal -- but also transverbal -- right brain. Every patient comes into treatment with what I call a "likely story." This explicit story is located in the left brain, the seat of language, aristotelian logic, and linear time. However, the right brain has its own story to tell, but how do you tell a story in the absence of verbal language? You do so in the form of symptoms, or quirky character traits, unexplainable likes and dislikes, unaccountable mood storms, irrational obsessions, compulsions, or self-defeating behaviors that the left brain is powerless to stop. This is because every self-defeating behavior is ipso facto a self-fulfilling behavior for a part of the mind of which we are not consciously aware.

Freud stumbled upon the method of free association with which to try to understand the various agendas of the mind that ran counter to truth and were the source of psychological pain and dysfunction. There is no great mystery to free association, in which the patient lies down and tries to say whatever comes to mind without censoring it. It is simply a way to try to lull the left brain to sleep and allow the right brain to come out of the shadows. Sounds easy, but every step along the way is met with resistance which can become labyrinthine in its ability to prevent the discovery of the truth.

Here again this is remarkable, for it means that the part of the mind that is resisting must know the truth on some level, otherwise there would be no reason to resist it. Therefore, as Bion pointed out, the truth is prior to the lie, just as light must be prior to the shadow. Indeed, Bion went so far as to say that only the Lie requires a thinker -- and actually brings the thinker into being. On the other hand, truth requires only our conformity with it. We simply "bow before reality" -- which, when you think about it, is an excellent way of putting it, for reverent bowing is one of the appropriate responses to the force, or presence, of truth.

Schuon said something similar when he wrote that "A truth is efficacious to the extent that we assimilate it; if it does not give us the strength we need, this merely proves we have not grasped it. It is not for the truth to be 'dynamic,' it is for us to be dynamic thanks to the truth. What is lacking in today’s world is a penetrating and comprehensive knowledge of the nature of things; the fundamental truths are always accessible, but they could not be imposed on those who refuse to take them into consideration."

Among other responses, truth engenders a dynamic sense of veneration -- a sense of the sacred. And this is why you will have noticed that the left attempts to surround so many of its smelly little orthodoxies with the penumbra of sanctity. But the sanctity is entirely bogus -- it readily slides into the sanctimony that is intrinsic to the left.

In a perverse way, this sanctimoniousness answers the human need for the sacred, but in an alternatively crudely sentimental or authoritarian manner enforced by the many varieties political correctness. You will notice that the left's replacement of moral/religious depth with sentimentality is just as evident as their replacement of transcendent truth with authoritarian mind control; they are not opposites but complementary. Scratch a leftist and you will always find a well of irrational, idealistic sentimentality that becomes the basis and justification for the omnipotent state, e.g., "social justice," "standing up for the little guy," "fairness," etc.

This is why the left doesn't really have ideas but icons -- including "iconic ideas." It is an insidious and sinister process, because there is great psychological pressure on all us of to bow down before these false gods, as if they were actually sacred (e.g., Mahatma Gandhi, Earth Day, FDR, Margaret Sanger). And there is absolutely no symmetry in this. For example, if a conservative steps on one of the left's many sacred cowpies, there is a good chance that his career will be ruined. But if a leftist offends what is actually sacred, he will be praised as someone who "speaks truth to power." There is no symmetry in the treatment of Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas.

The point is that nearly every one of the leftists's core beliefs is not a proper idea but an icon, whether it is manmade global warming, moral relativism, affirmative action, abortion, homosexual behavior, "peace," "progress," multiculturalism, "diversity" -- in fact, "progressive" is the quintessence of a meaningless icon, since it bears no relationship to progress and promotes economic and social policies that ensure not just a lack of progress, but regression. For example, the "peace movement" can only bring about more war, just as affirmative action can only bring about harm to blacks.

And this is why it is so easy to be a conservative, because you no longer have to contort yourself with so many lies in order to be thoroughly consistent, both internally and externally, vertically and horizontally. The left confuses their contortions with "nuance," but nuance is simply the left brain's feeble attempt to grapple with its own incoherence, and to come up with a narrative cover story that isn't completely offensive to normal people.

Speaking Truth to unKnown Powers & Principalities

Some very provocative responses to yesterday's post, including Robin's recollection of his personal exile from the timeless Eden of infancy -- the loss of his temporally infanity -- and his rude awakening to the constricting and chafing reality tunnel of time:

I was playing in my sandbox, creating roads and imaginary buildings, an activity I loved doing for hours. This particular day something happened. I stood up and walked towards our willow tree and suddenly felt something change. I instantly “forgot” everything. I knew that just 10 seconds ago I had full knowledge and remembrance of everything past, and now it was gone. And I knew the loss was permanent, which filled me with sadness. The memory of that step into linear time has stayed with me my entire life.

Time. You can't live with it, and can't live without it. Unless he had entered time, Robin wouldn't remember those traces of the timeless. But he heard the pied piper's forbidden flute, and his temporal ears and I were opened.

Where are you before you're in time? You're in eternity, the atemporal, and to the extent that you are, you'll have no recollections of it, since there was no time for events to have taken place. The events Robin remembers are not actually in eternity, but in what is called a transitional space, an area of overlap between time and eternity, consciousness and unconsciousness (a good place -- perhaps the only place -- to be -- more on which tomorrow).

The real eternity of infancy is not conscious, but fuses with the Background Object of Primary Identification. It leaves its traces in the general way we experience the world for the rest of our lives, as a threatening place, a secure place, a hopeful place, a disappointing place, a hostile place, a loving place, etc. It's no doubt what causes someone to be a loony dailykosbag or huffpo' boysandwitch, since they can't help seeing and experiencing the ugly world they perpetulantly create.

I was reminded of this while watching Teletubbies with my son this morning. For those of you who haven't seen this inane program that has a hypnotic effect on babies, it begins with a sun with an infant's face rising over the horizon. The sun has always been associated with the light of consciousness, and we can see that this operates on a deeply symbolic level, as the baby, in his infantile omnipotence, believes that he creates the reality that actually created him. He is the Central Sun who even gives birth to his own parents, Adam and Eve. How could it be otherwise in the deep unconscious, where there is no knowledge of beforeafter?

You might say that eternity is "colorless," but that it takes on a certain emotional color based upon unKnown experiences during our first three years of lives, beyond the horizon of articulacy. If you are left with a "bad color" that tinges everything in a negative way, it's extremely difficult to change it. It's like a mind parasite that is not so much a content as a toxic context -- not the contained but the container.

But it can be changed, and I believe this is one of the purposes of a spiritual practice -- to uproot one unconscious narrative and replace it with another. Importantly, you can't do this with just any old narrative that you invent. You can't just look in the mirror every day and repeat, "I'm good enough. I’m smart enough, and gosh darn it, Al Franken loves me."

For one thing, in order to "speak" to the timeless unconscious, you must do so in a language it understands. This is the language of myth and symbol, puzzling paradoxables and smoking puns -- and revelation. Revelation is specifically revelation because it "reveals" things to the deep unconscious mind. It doesn't speak to the ego -- indeed, many aspects of religion make no sense to the the ego -- but to a much deeper part.

This is the reason, I believe, that Christianity spread so rapidly among the people who first heard it. To a historian of the era, it doesn't really make any logical sense, so they invent "rational" reasons why people heard "the word" and embraced it. But at the time, people obviously weren't hung up on the modern distinction between "fact" and "symbol," since the concept of factuality hadn't even really been discovered. Therefore, it was easier to embrace something that simply made sense to the soul.

The real reason most people are drawn to religion is that it bypasses the cramped illusions of the surface ego and speaks to them at a deeper and more expansive level. Once you understand this, you see how obvious it is. The ego has certain cognitive needs, but the ego is not the whole of our personality. Indeed, it is only a small part. Our Total Being has other cognitive needs, which include spiritual food.

How does one "engage the attention" of the unconscious? Clearly, this is the purpose of great art, poetry, or music. Indeed, the reason we call it great is that it somehow reaches deep within the reader, viewer, or listener, and engages the vast realm of the unthought known, as Christopher Bollas calls it.

Bollas also coined the phrase erotics of being for that disinct feeling that occurs when we discover or engage with an object in the external world that helps us to articulate an aspect of our Unthought Known. Without these objects, our Unthought Known would be unthinkable, and known only in potential. Or, you might say that it would be known by a nagging sense of its absence -- an absent presence.

Again, one of the purposes of religion is to resonate with this absent presence -- to flesh it out and give it body, blood, and voice. As I began exploring Christianity a decade or so ago, this was one of the realizations that dawned on me. I discovered so many luminous intellects -- Denys the Areopagite, Meister Eckhart, and others -- that I would have prevously dismissed as sadly superstitious mythtery mongers. Why would someone with a first class mind waste it on religion?

Because religion was simply the way they articulated the depth and greatness of their genius. It was the language they spoke in order to articulate the deepest aspects of reality. Once I realized this, Christianity suddenly "clicked" for me in a way it never had before. Now I understand why it is so much deeper than science, and why people will always have a need for genuine religion, without which they are condemned to superficiality and circularity. Like the obligatory atheist, they simply fall off the shallow end.

In a previous lifetime, I wrote a number of papers demonstrating that this way of looking at things was actually far more in accord with the latest findings of physics, let alone psychology. No one believes any longer that the world is constituted of material objects interacting like billiard balls in a deterministic way.

In my book, I go into this at some length, so I won't repeat myself here. The bottom line is that, if we base our metapsychology and metatheology on models emerging from modern science, we do not visualize an objective ego being buffeted from below by drives and instincts. Rather, we visualize an unbroken and ceaselessly flowing holographic field of energy-consciousness with implicate (unconscious, O) and conscious (explicate, (k)) dimensions.

But you knew that already.

But to the extent that you don't, it is highly likely that you will overemphasize mere logic as being sufficient to explain both reality and yourself. This overvaluation of logic is illogical to that which is the higher source of logic, which is to say, the intellect properly so-called. Logic is to ego as revelation is to Self, i.e., the total self of Being and its pal, the intellect.

I wish I had more time but I don't so we'll have to pick this up tomorrow. This will probably end up taking me a month or so to completely spit out, so don't get your expectorations up.

Take it to the Limitless One More Time

Once again I didn't intend to post. This may be a short one, unless I am unexpectedly seized by something from above... or beneath... or behind... or within... or yonder. Which, as a matter of fact, is the subject of the post: the essential limitlessness of the soul vs. the limits we place on it. These limits are not always the fault of the limitee. Some people are just not intellectually, or spiritually, or aesthetically, or linguistically gifted, so their minds will only take them so far. Their mental horizons are only so wide and not a millimeter wider. Nevertheless, almost everyone has some "point of entry" to the eternal, whether it is through music, or parenting, or a craft, something which either "dissolves" the ego or allows it to break through and connect with the wider world.

To briefly return to yesterday's post, I spoke of how scripture and revelation can be thought of as a reflection of the eternal within time. The genius of scripture -- something which no human could have accomplished, at least without divine assistance -- is that it speaks to men of all gifts and capacities, at whatever level. The other day, Petey made a cheap shot at one of those vacuous TV preachers, but don't get me, I mean Petey, wrong. Religion must meet a man where he is. It would be as absurd for me to appear on TBN as it would be for Joel Osteen to be the keynote speaker at the annual Raccoon Lodge convention.

But someone must speak the language of eternity in terms the average man can grasp. It's something that is actually quite critical to both the salvation of the individual and to the harmony of society, and is one of the things that makes America great -- i.e., its basic religiosity. I certainly relate to a simple person of faith much more than I do to a sophisticated yahoo such as Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins, who actually have far more soul-deadening limits than those they mock. They truly "don't get it," but are nevertheless enormously proud of their spiritual autism -- technically known as Assburger's Syndrome.

I'm getting sidetracked. This post was actually inspired by a couple of comments made by Frithjof Schuon in reference to the painful struggles of his youth. For a time he was employed in a meaningless occupation that had nothing to do with his true vocation, which he had yet to discover. In dealing with a typical coworker, he had the sense that the coworker was "hemmed in by all the objects and mental images that surround him. I feel that these people adhere flatly to their mental images with all their soul, without any freedom of movement and without any possibility of taking up an objective attitude towards them."

He also observed that "When I speak with people I have the feeling that I can perceive their limitations physically; I see their limits almost tangibly before me and feel oppressed by the awareness that there is no entry and no key to their darkness, and that for them there is no exit, that with dull eyes like fish they bump against the glass walls of their mental horizon.

Now, one thing you must immediately bear in mind is that neither of these comments were intended to convey contempt. Far from it. Rather, they were expressions of a familiar kind of pain that apparently has no name, and which I myself had never adequately articulated until reading these passages. A decent person will not automatically blame the world for the fact that he doesn't fit into it. Rather, in the absence of some kind of emotional support from like-minded people, he will naturally blame himself: the world is right. There's just something wrong with me. I am a misfit. I need to change myself so that I can be like the others. But this is no solution. Rather, it will simply exchange one kind of existential pain for another. A lion can try to fit in with the other sheep by eating grass all day, but that is far from the ideal solution. But what can you do if you've never even met another lion?

The human world is an interpersonal world. It is a tapestry of humanness that comes at us from every possible angle, high and low. Each of us must find our place within this tapestry, but it is much easier for some than for others. An "average" person apparently feels "at home" in the world, for the simple reason that the world was made for him. But if you are far from average, the world is going to literally be an alien place. It is going to be much more painful -- even bizarre. To take a mundane example, the world was made for righthanded people. If you are lefthanded, you are going to have to deal with all kinds of trivial inconveniences for the simple reason that the world literally wasn't made for you. In the not too distant past, parents would even force lefthanded children to be righthanded, which would cause real damage, similar to "enlightened" parents who try to raise their children without a strong sexual identification.

The world was also made for heterosexuals. If you are homosexual, we can only say tough luck. We are not going to overturn the order of the cosmos just so you can feel more comfortable in it. This is such a narcissistic demand. Yes, the homosexual is "different," but not nearly as different as I or my fellow Raccoons are. And yet, we do not expect the world to conform to our needs. I don't expect that a certain percentage of television characters must be Bobbleheads, or that special accommodations should be made for us, or that ballots must be designed so that we can understand them, or that closed-captioning be furnished so that we can understand what the hell is going on on TV.

No, it is enough that we have found each other: a little community of the limitless. Back to Schuon's comment above: When I speak with people I have the feeling that I can perceive their limitations physically; I see their limits almost tangibly before me and feel oppressed by the awareness that there is no entry and no key to their darkness, and that for them there is no exit. I am eager to know how many readers have also felt this, for I certainly do. In dealing with someone, there is a sort of instantaneous -- and oppressive -- intuition of the exact limits of their horizons. Interestingly, it has nothing to do with education. More often than not, the highly educated person has simply internalized an officially sanctioned set of limits, beyond which their minds cannot venture. They are hemmed in by their education, not liberated by it. Imagine the frustration of dealing with the typical New York Times reader or NPR listener -- just incredibly narrow limits masquerading as sophistication.

This also has nothing to do with basic intelligence. Many intelligent people have drifted in and out of this site who have no idea what I'm talking about. People routinely leave comments that make it clear that they not only do not understand my post, but even the point of the blog. Often they will take something I wrote and merely fit it into their existing framework -- in other words, they place me within their own limits.

Let's take an obviously intelligent person, say, Christopher Hitchens. He is a good example, because he is clearly gifted in a sense, and yet, the iron bars within his soul are truly tangible. His gift has ended up sharply limiting his horizons, probably because it also happens to be in the service of a fair amount of narcissism. I would no more get into a debate with him about religion than I would debate my dog, because in both cases I would lose.

One of the persistent misunderstandings of my critics is that the people who agree with me are "followers" -- or that I could even have such a thing. Obviously, the "Bobblehead" designation is always used both ironically and affectionately, for the people who most agree with me are the ones who are probably the most fiercely independent, and who have spent their lives winning their personal insights from the formless infinite void in a world that was either indifferent or even hostile to them.

I met one of our regular readers several months before I started this blog. We engaged in a correspondence that was intensely stimulating on many levels, and now I know why: I had found a fellow Raccoon, a person with no limits! Just as I can instantly sense someone's limits, I now realize that I could sense her freedom. No matter where I went, she could follow -- and vice versa. A particularly brilliant psychoanalyst, Christopher Bollas, refers to this as "the erotics of being," because there is such a tangible joy involved in connecting with someone on this level.

This morning I received an email. I hope he or she will not be embarrassed, because they shouldn't be. But in a perfect synchronicity, it articulates exactly what this particular post is about, and the cosmic service I wish the blog to provide. This person wrote, "The last week or so's posts have been giving me the sense that you were a couple steps ahead of where I've been wanting to [go].... [W]ith today's post I was sure with each word that you were about to completely say what I've been trying to get out and then some.... [It] really sent the neurons a-swirling. A strange thing this blogosphere, a very strange and wondrous thing -- the distance of entire continents is no obstacle for thoughts to bounce off each other and spark still other thoughts afire."

In fact, a couple of days ago, another emailer expressed it this way: "What do I see when I go to your blog? It's like traveling on a dark night, towards a bubble of light on the horizon. You know that once you are there, you can refresh yourself, rest, be edified, and continue the journey." You see? I cannot be a "leader," just a useful bloglight on the horizon of being.

Now, just as I do not have contempt for the person who does not understand me, I do not draw any kind of egoic gratification from these kinds of comments. For one thing, these people are my equals, undoubtedly gifted in certain areas I am not. The point is the same as with the correspondent alluded to above: the erotics of being, the liberating joy of finding another person to play with in hyperspace! We're not alone after all!

So if I am going to have "followers," it can only be in this sense: to help people vault themselves beyond their own limits in their own unique idiom. This is what my most esteemed teachers have done for me. I will always be their humble student but never their follower, or I will have both insulted them and learned nothing in the process. For there is none good but One; and to quote Schuon again, this One "wishes to be worshiped by every man according to the nature He gave him."