I Don't Roll on Shabbos, I Rappel

Let’s learn something. Before scaling the metaphysical mountain,  

it is necessary to start from the idea that the Supreme Reality is absolute, and that being absolute it is infinite (Schuon).

Now, Aristotle invented metaphysics, and while it is called “first philosophy,” he doesn't start with it. Indeed, for him “meta” did not imply transcendence per se, only the fact that this study of ultimate principles comes at the end:

since they are to be studied only by one who has already studied nature (which is the subject matter of the Physics), they are quite appropriately described as coming “after the Physics” (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/). 

It is also worth highlighting that although metaphysics is the study of being qua being, this doesn’t imply an undifferentiated blob, rather, 

his description involves three things: (1) a study, (2) a subject matter (being), and (3) a manner in which the subject matter is studied (qua being).

Also,

Whereas natural science studies objects that are material and subject to change, and mathematics studies objects that although not subject to change are nevertheless not separate from (i.e., independent of) matter, there is still room for a science that studies things that are eternal, not subject to change, and independent of matter. Such a science, he says, is theology, and this is the “first” and “highest” science. 

Thank you, Aristotle. You may leave the witness stand. We will call you back should we have any additional questions.

This reminds me that last summer I read a book called The Seat of Wisdom that provides a systematic account of the historical development of metaphysics, which is helpful to a guy like me who has no plan and enough spare time to execute it. 

Which, it turns out, is a kind of prerequisite after all, in that there can only exist useless and ridiculous people such as myself if all the other more important stuff is taken care of:

The other sciences are more necessary because we cannot survive without them. For example, we need agriculture and mathematics and architecture and engineering if we are going to live in a civilized fashion. If these sciences are successful, we no longer need to struggle to survive. But this success would then raise a very different problem: what should we do with free time, with leisure, so as not to waste it? For this reason Aristotle says philosophy is the fruit of leisure (Jacobs).

Note the emboldened word: should, which goes back to what we said yesterday about an Ought being built into the nature of things. In short, if there is truth, then surely we ought to know it, no? Am I wrong? AM I WRONG?!

And if it is the fruit of leisure, then this indeed makes me a farmer, after a fashion. True, the trees grow by themselves, but someone has to tend the orchard and pick the fruit.  

There’s a paradox here, in that we usually think of leisure as being the opposite of work, or at least its cessation. Even God rests. Or perhaps we should say especially, because I recall certain esteemed rabbis saying that the the Whole Point of the Genesis story is that it converges upon the sabbath: the six days of creation are for the sake of the seventh. Come to think of it, the Catholic philosopher Stanley Jaki interprets it the same way.

I concur with Many European Languages:

the word for work in many European languages is associated with pain or even torture…. In contrast to this labor, free time or leisure is glorious: we have everything we need, so we do something simply because it is good in itself.

Of course, for us, even “doing” is a bridge too far. Rather, non-doing, which is also non-doodling, even if it looks to more productive people such as my in-laws that I’m just doodling around. Look, someone has to exit the absurcularity of life and bring back souvenirs for folks who, for whatever reason, can’t join us on our glorious mountain adventure:

If leisure were simply rest, life would be a vicious circle since it would have no point other than work. The idea of “working for the weekend,” where we play so that we can work again on Monday, is a life bereft of purpose.

So, look man, has it ever occurred to you that, given the nature of reality, that, uh, instead of blaming me, that this whole thing may just be, not, you know, not just a simple, but uh -- you know? I have not failed to achieve. I just don’t want to get bumped into a higher tax bracket.

Consider the fact -- the ontological fact -- that creation indeed has a big fat hole in it called the sabbath. 

Note also that even when it was necessary for everyone, children included, to contribute to production, one seventh of the time was still devoted to the leisure for the sake of which the other six days exist. 

Nowadays we have much more free time than ever before in history, so I think we ought -- there’s that word again -- to spend more time in that sabbath consciousness, i.e., dilate time, grab one of those ropes and climb upward. But how did the rope get here, and can we trust it? To what is it anchored?

I Don't Roll on Shabbos, I Rappel

Let’s learn something. Before scaling the metaphysical mountain,  

it is necessary to start from the idea that the Supreme Reality is absolute, and that being absolute it is infinite (Schuon).

Now, Aristotle invented metaphysics, and while it is called “first philosophy,” he doesn't start with it. Indeed, for him “meta” did not imply transcendence per se, only the fact that this study of ultimate principles comes at the end:

since they are to be studied only by one who has already studied nature (which is the subject matter of the Physics), they are quite appropriately described as coming “after the Physics” (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/). 

It is also worth highlighting that although metaphysics is the study of being qua being, this doesn’t imply an undifferentiated blob, rather, 

his description involves three things: (1) a study, (2) a subject matter (being), and (3) a manner in which the subject matter is studied (qua being).

Also,

Whereas natural science studies objects that are material and subject to change, and mathematics studies objects that although not subject to change are nevertheless not separate from (i.e., independent of) matter, there is still room for a science that studies things that are eternal, not subject to change, and independent of matter. Such a science, he says, is theology, and this is the “first” and “highest” science. 

Thank you, Aristotle. You may leave the witness stand. We will call you back should we have any additional questions.

This reminds me that last summer I read a book called The Seat of Wisdom that provides a systematic account of the historical development of metaphysics, which is helpful to a guy like me who has no plan and enough spare time to execute it. 

Which, it turns out, is a kind of prerequisite after all, in that there can only exist useless and ridiculous people such as myself if all the other more important stuff is taken care of:

The other sciences are more necessary because we cannot survive without them. For example, we need agriculture and mathematics and architecture and engineering if we are going to live in a civilized fashion. If these sciences are successful, we no longer need to struggle to survive. But this success would then raise a very different problem: what should we do with free time, with leisure, so as not to waste it? For this reason Aristotle says philosophy is the fruit of leisure (Jacobs).

Note the emboldened word: should, which goes back to what we said yesterday about an Ought being built into the nature of things. In short, if there is truth, then surely we ought to know it, no? Am I wrong? AM I WRONG?!

And if it is the fruit of leisure, then this indeed makes me a farmer, after a fashion. True, the trees grow by themselves, but someone has to tend the orchard and pick the fruit.  

There’s a paradox here, in that we usually think of leisure as being the opposite of work, or at least its cessation. Even God rests. Or perhaps we should say especially, because I recall certain esteemed rabbis saying that the the Whole Point of the Genesis story is that it converges upon the sabbath: the six days of creation are for the sake of the seventh. Come to think of it, the Catholic philosopher Stanley Jaki interprets it the same way.

I concur with Many European Languages:

the word for work in many European languages is associated with pain or even torture…. In contrast to this labor, free time or leisure is glorious: we have everything we need, so we do something simply because it is good in itself.

Of course, for us, even “doing” is a bridge too far. Rather, non-doing, which is also non-doodling, even if it looks to more productive people such as my in-laws that I’m just doodling around. Look, someone has to exit the absurcularity of life and bring back souvenirs for folks who, for whatever reason, can’t join us on our glorious mountain adventure:

If leisure were simply rest, life would be a vicious circle since it would have no point other than work. The idea of “working for the weekend,” where we play so that we can work again on Monday, is a life bereft of purpose.

So, look man, has it ever occurred to you that, given the nature of reality, that, uh, instead of blaming me, that this whole thing may just be, not, you know, not just a simple, but uh -- you know? I have not failed to achieve. I just don’t want to get bumped into a higher tax bracket.

Consider the fact -- the ontological fact -- that creation indeed has a big fat hole in it called the sabbath. 

Note also that even when it was necessary for everyone, children included, to contribute to production, one seventh of the time was still devoted to the leisure for the sake of which the other six days exist. 

Nowadays we have much more free time than ever before in history, so I think we ought -- there’s that word again -- to spend more time in that sabbath consciousness, i.e., dilate time, grab one of those ropes and climb upward. But how did the rope get here, and can we trust it? To what is it anchored?

Climbing Mount Impossible

Back in the brayday of the new atheism, there was a book called Climbing Mount Improbable, explaining how natural selection could account for every biological development, even those things about which Darwin himself had reservations. 

I didn’t read the book, so I guess I have no opinion, but a Raccoon has no dog in that fight anyway, which is between an impossible metaphysic and a silly one. The former is unworthy of the intellect, the latter unworthy of God.

Besides, we’re looking at Mount Impossible. Therefore, no amount of probability or possibility can get us to the top. Impossible means impossible.  

For example, creating something from nothing is impossible for any finite being. Nor is it a matter of an infinite amount of time to get the job done, because time itself is on our side of the divide; “nothing” means no time either, and I think we can all agree that natural selection requires time. Not to mention information, process, organization, interior relations, dissipative structure and more, followed by a consciousness capable of understanding all of this. 

And as we said a few posts back, if there exist Laws of Evolution, then their discovery would mark their transcendence, so now we’re back to goround zero, since there is no explanation for our transcendence. In short, we’re back on that desert plain with the mountain rising before us. 

If we’ve learned nothing else from Donovan, it is that first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. Same mountain seen from different stages on the journey of enlightenment. Nevertheless, you can't just skip ahead.

Now, speaking of natural selection, I think we can agree that biology is fine for the other animals, but that it takes man only so far. For what is a merely biologically mature human being? Biological maturity may be necessary, but never sufficient to get us up the mountain.  

But supposing there is a human telos, it cannot be something we simply “invent.” We didn’t create ourselves, nor can we perfect ourselves if we pretend to go it alone, detached from the Creator. 

Put conversely, if we can perfect ourselves, this presupposes an objective standard given from outside or above. Here is a passage from the foreword to Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism: "Although we must individually, deliberately and consciously seek to become fully human, it is not through our own efforts”

that we become ourselves. We are not constituted in a way able to bring off our own self-becoming. There is no pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. There is no program or method by which we can climb to heaven based solely on our own initiative.

What then? Call it what you want, but it is a descending energy or influence:

It is that energy which embodies the will of Heaven. If we are to individually fulfill and express our nature, we must first recognize our radical dependence upon that Power which constituted us in the first place. As Schuon tells us, “Nothing can be accomplished without the aid of heaven.”

Which means that, in terms of this mountain before us, it cannot be climbed without vertical assistance. Again, from a purely biological standpoint it is Mount Impossible. But if there is a metacosmic telovator, then it becomes Mount Possible, so long as we cooperate with it. 

This introduces another player in our little terrestrial scheme, and without which the whole plot line collapses. Let’s call it the Ought. 

Now, there is no man who is unaware of this Ought, even if it is so distorted that it defeats its own purpose. In other words, there are people so twisted by the fall that they are driven to do exactly what they ought never do, under the delusion that they ought to do it. 

By way of example, the lowest hanging fruit is a Hitler, who truly believed he ought to eliminate every last Jew in order to improve the world. Clearly, he was compelled by this Ought, and the Ought was connected to a teleological “good” that justified it. 

Stalin was driven by a similarly perverse Ought, as is every leftist to a greater or lesser degree. For example, we ought to eliminate gas stoves, or teach children about sodomy, or defund the police. The list of bad Oughts is endless.

Now, we might say that the Ought is always connected to a mountain of some sort, except that it may or may not be the real mountain, rather, one invented by man -- for example, eliminate private property, end White Privilege, or Smash the Patriarchy. These are all imaginary mountains that millions of people spend their lives trying to climb (and often in order to avoid the real mountain).

But we ought to climb the actual mountain -- the one with the human ideal or telos at the top. 

Allow Schuon to explain: "There is something that man must know and think; and something that he must will and do.” Among other things, he "must know that God is Necessary Being,” i.e., “that which cannot not be, whereas the world is merely possible, which may or may not be.”

So, you could say that the mountain is Mount Necessary and that climbing it is both possible and normative, in other words, that which we ought to do and are indeed called to do. It is our vocation to be mountain climbers, but just make sure it’s the right mountain, for history is littered with examples of people who struggled all the way to the top of their mountain only to realize it was never really there. 

In the next post we will transpose the mountain into a conical form that has a string dangling from the point at the top, such that we are always at the center, and the center oriented to the origin. 

Climbing Mount Impossible

Back in the brayday of the new atheism, there was a book called Climbing Mount Improbable, explaining how natural selection could account for every biological development, even those things about which Darwin himself had reservations. 

I didn’t read the book, so I guess I have no opinion, but a Raccoon has no dog in that fight anyway, which is between an impossible metaphysic and a silly one. The former is unworthy of the intellect, the latter unworthy of God.

Besides, we’re looking at Mount Impossible. Therefore, no amount of probability or possibility can get us to the top. Impossible means impossible.  

For example, creating something from nothing is impossible for any finite being. Nor is it a matter of an infinite amount of time to get the job done, because time itself is on our side of the divide; “nothing” means no time either, and I think we can all agree that natural selection requires time. Not to mention information, process, organization, interior relations, dissipative structure and more, followed by a consciousness capable of understanding all of this. 

And as we said a few posts back, if there exist Laws of Evolution, then their discovery would mark their transcendence, so now we’re back to goround zero, since there is no explanation for our transcendence. In short, we’re back on that desert plain with the mountain rising before us. 

If we’ve learned nothing else from Donovan, it is that first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. Same mountain seen from different stages on the journey of enlightenment. Nevertheless, you can't just skip ahead.

Now, speaking of natural selection, I think we can agree that biology is fine for the other animals, but that it takes man only so far. For what is a merely biologically mature human being? Biological maturity may be necessary, but never sufficient to get us up the mountain.  

But supposing there is a human telos, it cannot be something we simply “invent.” We didn’t create ourselves, nor can we perfect ourselves if we pretend to go it alone, detached from the Creator. 

Put conversely, if we can perfect ourselves, this presupposes an objective standard given from outside or above. Here is a passage from the foreword to Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism: "Although we must individually, deliberately and consciously seek to become fully human, it is not through our own efforts”

that we become ourselves. We are not constituted in a way able to bring off our own self-becoming. There is no pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. There is no program or method by which we can climb to heaven based solely on our own initiative.

What then? Call it what you want, but it is a descending energy or influence:

It is that energy which embodies the will of Heaven. If we are to individually fulfill and express our nature, we must first recognize our radical dependence upon that Power which constituted us in the first place. As Schuon tells us, “Nothing can be accomplished without the aid of heaven.”

Which means that, in terms of this mountain before us, it cannot be climbed without vertical assistance. Again, from a purely biological standpoint it is Mount Impossible. But if there is a metacosmic telovator, then it becomes Mount Possible, so long as we cooperate with it. 

This introduces another player in our little terrestrial scheme, and without which the whole plot line collapses. Let’s call it the Ought. 

Now, there is no man who is unaware of this Ought, even if it is so distorted that it defeats its own purpose. In other words, there are people so twisted by the fall that they are driven to do exactly what they ought never do, under the delusion that they ought to do it. 

By way of example, the lowest hanging fruit is a Hitler, who truly believed he ought to eliminate every last Jew in order to improve the world. Clearly, he was compelled by this Ought, and the Ought was connected to a teleological “good” that justified it. 

Stalin was driven by a similarly perverse Ought, as is every leftist to a greater or lesser degree. For example, we ought to eliminate gas stoves, or teach children about sodomy, or defund the police. The list of bad Oughts is endless.

Now, we might say that the Ought is always connected to a mountain of some sort, except that it may or may not be the real mountain, rather, one invented by man -- for example, eliminate private property, end White Privilege, or Smash the Patriarchy. These are all imaginary mountains that millions of people spend their lives trying to climb (and often in order to avoid the real mountain).

But we ought to climb the actual mountain -- the one with the human ideal or telos at the top. 

Allow Schuon to explain: "There is something that man must know and think; and something that he must will and do.” Among other things, he "must know that God is Necessary Being,” i.e., “that which cannot not be, whereas the world is merely possible, which may or may not be.”

So, you could say that the mountain is Mount Necessary and that climbing it is both possible and normative, in other words, that which we ought to do and are indeed called to do. It is our vocation to be mountain climbers, but just make sure it’s the right mountain, for history is littered with examples of people who struggled all the way to the top of their mountain only to realize it was never really there. 

In the next post we will transpose the mountain into a conical form that has a string dangling from the point at the top, such that we are always at the center, and the center oriented to the origin. 

Surveying the Sacred Mountain

We’ve been traipsing into this trackless desert for two days, when at once a mountain rises before us. There is no way around it, nor can we even see the top. There are scattered campsites below, with paths leading upward. Some paths are well worn, while others haven’t been used in years and are overgrown with vegetation (e.g., Camp Positivism). 

There are even some crazy people pretending their basecamp is the peak. Others are praying for the mountain to disappear. Still others say the mountain is just an illusion, and that any place is relative to any other: up and down are just your opinion, man.  

What? Our companion has something to say:

Most philosophies are obstacles to avoid en route but a few are mountain ranges that one is forced to cross (Davila).

Looks like we’ve found the latter. 

As mentioned, we haven’t brought along much for the trip, but we do have a volume of Schuon that suggests this is no ordinary pile of dirt and rock, nor can it even be measured or quantified. 

Rather, it is simultaneously real and symbolic: what Germans call a realsymbol. Turns out much of the Bible consists of realsymbols, but in any event, Schuon writes that

The sacred mountain, seat of the Gods, is not to be found in space even though it is visible and tangible.

There are also sacred rivers, forests, and springs, but we’ve got enough on our plate with this damn mountain.   

Certain geographical accidents, such as lofty mountains, are connected through their natural symbolism with great primordial sanctuaries, and it is for this reason that the most diverse peoples -- especially those whose tradition takes a "mythical" or "primordial" form -- avoid climbing to the very summit of mountains for fear of provoking “the anger of the Gods” (ibid.).

Noted.

My son ambles in and asks me what I’ve been doing. “The usual. Climbing up the cosmic mountain.” He doesn’t even roll his eyes.

By the way, about this so-called "anger of the Gods.” It is reflected in a host of myths from Icarus to Babel to Lord of the Rings. Is there a more particular lesson in there, i.e., that only certain kinds of ascent piss off this host of busybodiless meddlers?

What if we promise to leave our ego below and approach the peak with the purest of motives, with no self-interest or presumption or cosmic narcissism? Can't we be trusted with the ring?

Which reminds me of a conversation with a coworker, back when I was working in the supermarket and mentioned that I was studying to become a psychologist. He burst out laughing: You are going to help people? 

He had a point: C’mon, Bob. You, of all people. I get it. But at the same time, someone’s gotta do it -- by which I mean hike up the mountain. I never pretend I’m qualified, only that I can’t think of anything else to do with my life. Nor do our companions claim to be qualified, rather, just doing the honorable thing and avoiding the imbecilic thing: 

Any goal different from God dishonors us.

To speak of God is presumptuous; not to speak of God is imbecilic (Davila).

Also, no agenda:

I do not speak of God in order to convert anyone but because it is the only subject worth speaking of.

For

The moment arrives when one is only interested in stalking God.

Which, at the same time, is the only moment. It is all we are given. That and this mountain.

For the man of the golden age to climb a mountain was in truth to approach the Principle (Schuon).

Well, good. What about this -- the not-even-plastic age?

In our day to climb a mountain -- and there is no longer a mountain that is the “center of the world” -- is to “conquer” its summit; the ascent is no longer a spiritual act but a profanation. Man, in his aspect of human animal, makes himself God. The gates of Heaven, mysteriously present in nature, close to him.

Which means you’ve pissed off the gods, precisely.

Let’s bring this discussion down a notch or two from allegory. There’s a reason why Bob leaves fiction to the experts. He’s no better at it than he is at helping people.

I brought along one of Schuon’s most compact books, Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism, which is a helpful summary of the whole existentialada. Come to think of it, “survey” is the operative word, in the sense that we aren’t just here for kicks, but more like surveyors who are mapping the vertical cartography. Here's the three of us, but who on earth took the picture?

Surveying the Sacred Mountain

We’ve been traipsing into this trackless desert for two days, when at once a mountain rises before us. There is no way around it, nor can we even see the top. There are scattered campsites below, with paths leading upward. Some paths are well worn, while others haven’t been used in years and are overgrown with vegetation (e.g., Camp Positivism). 

There are even some crazy people pretending their basecamp is the peak. Others are praying for the mountain to disappear. Still others say the mountain is just an illusion, and that any place is relative to any other: up and down are just your opinion, man.  

What? Our companion has something to say:

Most philosophies are obstacles to avoid en route but a few are mountain ranges that one is forced to cross (Davila).

Looks like we’ve found the latter. 

As mentioned, we haven’t brought along much for the trip, but we do have a volume of Schuon that suggests this is no ordinary pile of dirt and rock, nor can it even be measured or quantified. 

Rather, it is simultaneously real and symbolic: what Germans call a realsymbol. Turns out much of the Bible consists of realsymbols, but in any event, Schuon writes that

The sacred mountain, seat of the Gods, is not to be found in space even though it is visible and tangible.

There are also sacred rivers, forests, and springs, but we’ve got enough on our plate with this damn mountain.   

Certain geographical accidents, such as lofty mountains, are connected through their natural symbolism with great primordial sanctuaries, and it is for this reason that the most diverse peoples -- especially those whose tradition takes a "mythical" or "primordial" form -- avoid climbing to the very summit of mountains for fear of provoking “the anger of the Gods” (ibid.).

Noted.

My son ambles in and asks me what I’ve been doing. “The usual. Climbing up the cosmic mountain.” He doesn’t even roll his eyes.

By the way, about this so-called "anger of the Gods.” It is reflected in a host of myths from Icarus to Babel to Lord of the Rings. Is there a more particular lesson in there, i.e., that only certain kinds of ascent piss off this host of busybodiless meddlers?

What if we promise to leave our ego below and approach the peak with the purest of motives, with no self-interest or presumption or cosmic narcissism? Can't we be trusted with the ring?

Which reminds me of a conversation with a coworker, back when I was working in the supermarket and mentioned that I was studying to become a psychologist. He burst out laughing: You are going to help people? 

He had a point: C’mon, Bob. You, of all people. I get it. But at the same time, someone’s gotta do it -- by which I mean hike up the mountain. I never pretend I’m qualified, only that I can’t think of anything else to do with my life. Nor do our companions claim to be qualified, rather, just doing the honorable thing and avoiding the imbecilic thing: 

Any goal different from God dishonors us.

To speak of God is presumptuous; not to speak of God is imbecilic (Davila).

Also, no agenda:

I do not speak of God in order to convert anyone but because it is the only subject worth speaking of.

For

The moment arrives when one is only interested in stalking God.

Which, at the same time, is the only moment. It is all we are given. That and this mountain.

For the man of the golden age to climb a mountain was in truth to approach the Principle (Schuon).

Well, good. What about this -- the not-even-plastic age?

In our day to climb a mountain -- and there is no longer a mountain that is the “center of the world” -- is to “conquer” its summit; the ascent is no longer a spiritual act but a profanation. Man, in his aspect of human animal, makes himself God. The gates of Heaven, mysteriously present in nature, close to him.

Which means you’ve pissed off the gods, precisely.

Let’s bring this discussion down a notch or two from allegory. There’s a reason why Bob leaves fiction to the experts. He’s no better at it than he is at helping people.

I brought along one of Schuon’s most compact books, Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism, which is a helpful summary of the whole existentialada. Come to think of it, “survey” is the operative word, in the sense that we aren’t just here for kicks, but more like surveyors who are mapping the vertical cartography. Here's the three of us, but who on earth took the picture?

In the Beginning is the Wordplay

These provisions of which you speak, Gagdad — what on earth are you even talking about?

It’s like the old joke about how a math department needs only pencils and wastebaskets. But running a philosophy department is even cheaper, because they don’t even need wastebaskets. So, what do we need except for a word processor, a dollop of insolence, and a heapin' helpin' of grandiosity?

A reader?

Shut up, Petey. It's not easy to conjure the readers needed to understand what I'm talking about. There exists no demand for More Bob, so I have to create it myself.  

As to the provisions, looks like we'll also be taking along this book I just started called The Irreducibility of the Human Person. Oddly, I don’t think I could find a book on our subject if I tried, and yet, this one just fell into my hands (https://www.amazon.com/Irreducibility-Human-Person-Catholic-Synthesis/dp/0813235200/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2R9MJABTZL9F5&keywords=mark+k+spencer&qid=1673989300&s=books&sprefix=mark%2520k%2520spencer%2Cstripbooks%2C139&sr=1-1).

Whenever this happens -- and it happens in some way on a daily basis -- I assume it means something or at least means something, and that I am to pay attention to it.  

However, notice what this implicitly means: that we are not alone, and that we are apparently surrounded by nonlocal operators standing by and ready to assist us. This is at once a rash conclusion, but what’s the alternative? Just ignoring synchronicities and positing a universe in which such things are impossible? That involves as much of a leap of faith as does ours. 

Besides, it’s not as if I’m building a whole cosmos out of this principle. Rather, I’m just acknowledging its possibility and going with it. All we are saying is give synchronicity a chance. What have we to lose? I like what the Rabbi says:

The physical world in which we live, the objectively observed universe around us, is only a part of an inconceivably vast system of worlds. Most of these worlds are spiritual in their essence; they are of a different order than the known world. Which does not necessarily mean that they exist somewhere else, but means rather that they exist in different dimensions of being (Seinsaltz).

I might add that it’s just a hypthothesis, not a conclusion, and that we are always ready to accept evidence to the contrary. Every believer knows how to doubt. It is scientistic and submaterial infidels who don’t know how to believe. 

I don’t want to assume too much about the ins & outs of the cosmic network, but certainly one of its most important features is that it is a network. In other words, it isn’t just human persons, but rather, everything that is a member of everything else.  

It reminds me of what race realists say about natural selection: why would we ever imagine it stops above the neck? Likewise, if nonlocality exists, why should we believe it is limited to subatomic particles? The Aphorist, as always, speaks for me:

Metaphor supposes a universe in which each object mysteriously contains the others

But for this very reason -- since metaphor is pervasive -- man is susceptible to finding himself trapped within his own metaphor (or ideological matrix). Whitehead called this the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, while Schuon adverts to it in a variety of ways, for example, "The wisdom of Christ is 'folly' because it does not flatter the exteriorizing perversion" of a fallen intelligence that both hardens and scatters. 

Also, I don’t always agree with Alan Watts, but when he’s right, he’s funny. To paraphrase, he said something to the effect that if two visions of reality are otherwise equal, pick the one that’s more fun. 

So, we’ll acknowledge at the outset that we are inclined to a metaphysic that is both ultimately true and endlessly amusing. (Leaving aside another important point, that a creation without humor would be a huge mistake, nor would it adequately reflect its witty Creator. Come to think of it, what is a synchronicity but God punning?) 

Why so serious? What ever happened to Divine comedy? It is not synonymous with frivolousness, rather, closer to the phenomenology of discovery, AKA the eureka! experience.

I don’t mean to sound defensive, rather, offensive, but it should also be noted that even commencing this journey presupposes a great deal, even (or perhaps especially) a purely “scientific” journey. The latter is motivated by the same unrestricted drive to know ultimate reality, only with no explanation of how it is that our intellect just happens to proportioned to the Absolute:

the decisive error of materialism and of agnosticism is to be blind to the fact that the material things and the common experiences of our life are immensely beneath the scope of our intelligence…. The truth of the Absolute coincides with the very substance of our spirit (Schuon).

That last observation turns out to be particularly important, and goes to the fact that our intelligence should not be conflated with, or reduced to its, content alone. 

Rather, it is a substance -- the substance of intelligence -- and therefore not limited. For how can intelligence limit itself? Who is the limiter? This may sound arcane or abstract, but as we proceed we shall see how it provides the key to many enigmas and conundrums. 

Now, yesterpost we alluded to those archetypal truths that "are contained as potentialities or virtualities in the pure Intellect.” This is consistent with the “discovery” that we aren’t blank slates after all, but that we come factory equipped with all sorts of interesting features. 

Indeed, the only reason anyone pretends to believe in the old tabula rasa is that without it, the whole progressive DEI agenda collapses. You could say that our primary metaphysical competitors are just greasy politicians, not thinkers, let alone adventures or divine comedians. They're funny, but never intentionally.

We’re running up against the new Noon Limit, but I suppose we’ll end with an extremely important aphorism that we'll definitely be bringing along in our slackpack:  

The life of intelligence is a dialogue between the personalism of spirit and the impersonalism of reason.

In the Beginning is the Wordplay

These provisions of which you speak, Gagdad — what on earth are you even talking about?

It’s like the old joke about how a math department needs only pencils and wastebaskets. But running a philosophy department is even cheaper, because they don’t even need wastebaskets. So, what do we need except for a word processor, a dollop of insolence, and a heapin' helpin' of grandiosity?

A reader?

Shut up, Petey. It's not easy to conjure the readers needed to understand what I'm talking about. There exists no demand for More Bob, so I have to create it myself.  

As to the provisions, looks like we'll also be taking along this book I just started called The Irreducibility of the Human Person. Oddly, I don’t think I could find a book on our subject if I tried, and yet, this one just fell into my hands (https://www.amazon.com/Irreducibility-Human-Person-Catholic-Synthesis/dp/0813235200/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2R9MJABTZL9F5&keywords=mark+k+spencer&qid=1673989300&s=books&sprefix=mark%2520k%2520spencer%2Cstripbooks%2C139&sr=1-1).

Whenever this happens -- and it happens in some way on a daily basis -- I assume it means something or at least means something, and that I am to pay attention to it.  

However, notice what this implicitly means: that we are not alone, and that we are apparently surrounded by nonlocal operators standing by and ready to assist us. This is at once a rash conclusion, but what’s the alternative? Just ignoring synchronicities and positing a universe in which such things are impossible? That involves as much of a leap of faith as does ours. 

Besides, it’s not as if I’m building a whole cosmos out of this principle. Rather, I’m just acknowledging its possibility and going with it. All we are saying is give synchronicity a chance. What have we to lose? I like what the Rabbi says:

The physical world in which we live, the objectively observed universe around us, is only a part of an inconceivably vast system of worlds. Most of these worlds are spiritual in their essence; they are of a different order than the known world. Which does not necessarily mean that they exist somewhere else, but means rather that they exist in different dimensions of being (Seinsaltz).

I might add that it’s just a hypthothesis, not a conclusion, and that we are always ready to accept evidence to the contrary. Every believer knows how to doubt. It is scientistic and submaterial infidels who don’t know how to believe. 

I don’t want to assume too much about the ins & outs of the cosmic network, but certainly one of its most important features is that it is a network. In other words, it isn’t just human persons, but rather, everything that is a member of everything else.  

It reminds me of what race realists say about natural selection: why would we ever imagine it stops above the neck? Likewise, if nonlocality exists, why should we believe it is limited to subatomic particles? The Aphorist, as always, speaks for me:

Metaphor supposes a universe in which each object mysteriously contains the others

But for this very reason -- since metaphor is pervasive -- man is susceptible to finding himself trapped within his own metaphor (or ideological matrix). Whitehead called this the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, while Schuon adverts to it in a variety of ways, for example, "The wisdom of Christ is 'folly' because it does not flatter the exteriorizing perversion" of a fallen intelligence that both hardens and scatters. 

Also, I don’t always agree with Alan Watts, but when he’s right, he’s funny. To paraphrase, he said something to the effect that if two visions of reality are otherwise equal, pick the one that’s more fun. 

So, we’ll acknowledge at the outset that we are inclined to a metaphysic that is both ultimately true and endlessly amusing. (Leaving aside another important point, that a creation without humor would be a huge mistake, nor would it adequately reflect its witty Creator. Come to think of it, what is a synchronicity but God punning?) 

Why so serious? What ever happened to Divine comedy? It is not synonymous with frivolousness, rather, closer to the phenomenology of discovery, AKA the eureka! experience.

I don’t mean to sound defensive, rather, offensive, but it should also be noted that even commencing this journey presupposes a great deal, even (or perhaps especially) a purely “scientific” journey. The latter is motivated by the same unrestricted drive to know ultimate reality, only with no explanation of how it is that our intellect just happens to proportioned to the Absolute:

the decisive error of materialism and of agnosticism is to be blind to the fact that the material things and the common experiences of our life are immensely beneath the scope of our intelligence…. The truth of the Absolute coincides with the very substance of our spirit (Schuon).

That last observation turns out to be particularly important, and goes to the fact that our intelligence should not be conflated with, or reduced to its, content alone. 

Rather, it is a substance -- the substance of intelligence -- and therefore not limited. For how can intelligence limit itself? Who is the limiter? This may sound arcane or abstract, but as we proceed we shall see how it provides the key to many enigmas and conundrums. 

Now, yesterpost we alluded to those archetypal truths that "are contained as potentialities or virtualities in the pure Intellect.” This is consistent with the “discovery” that we aren’t blank slates after all, but that we come factory equipped with all sorts of interesting features. 

Indeed, the only reason anyone pretends to believe in the old tabula rasa is that without it, the whole progressive DEI agenda collapses. You could say that our primary metaphysical competitors are just greasy politicians, not thinkers, let alone adventures or divine comedians. They're funny, but never intentionally.

We’re running up against the new Noon Limit, but I suppose we’ll end with an extremely important aphorism that we'll definitely be bringing along in our slackpack:  

The life of intelligence is a dialogue between the personalism of spirit and the impersonalism of reason.

Heading Back for Provisions

We can admit when we're wrong. Looks like we underestimated what we’re going to need for this journey, so we’re heading back for supplies. 

We’re still going to be traveling light, but there are certain provisions we can’t do without, and it might even be demented to try. Schuon thinks so, anyway: "To wish to replace reasoning by experience"

on the intellectual and spiritual plane, as the empiricists and existentialists wish to do, is properly speaking demented."

Besides, why toss out all the maps drawn by previous vertical explorers? Columbus still relied on maps, even though they become increasingly useless the further he ventured. 

Man is the rational animal, or so they say. If so, then reason is here for a reason, and we can only pretend to eliminate it -- or worse, become an "enlightened animal." Which, come to think of it, does happen -- I’m thinking of all those gurus who successfully detach from the world of illusion until the moment they’re surrounded by adoring females, and untransformed human nature takes its vengeance.

For Schuon, there is ultimately one religion because God is one and so is man. As is reality. But reality is also diverse, and as always, the question is how to reconcile the One and the many. 

It seems there are two ways to go about it: down and back, prior to the bifurcation of subject and object, or up and ahead to their transcendent synthesis. In Christendom

the absolute is unveiled in the person of God, who created other persons in order to summon them toward their deification (Clement).    

That’s from a book I just finished called Transfiguring Time. Not very good, but it will do. 

Long story short, time itself is a creature (i.e., created), and is one of the things assumed and redeemed by the Incarnation. Absent this, time is universally regarded by premodern peoples as tending toward entropy and deterioration. There is and can be no progress. Best we can do is stasis, or restoration of primordial paradise via various rituals such as human sacrifice. 

Yes, the left has always been with us: between now and utopia is always a thin membrane of genocide. The global warming cult has a long and exceedingly bloody lineage. As Clement says, "The modern myth of progress is a naive secularized form of biblical expectation of the Messiah.” 

Since time is part of our unredeemed nature, it cannot be transfigured except on a retail basis, one assoul at a time. But in the past two or three centuries “Western literature has been filled with a nostalgia for paradise akin to that of ancient times.” Here comes the New Age, same as the Old Age: both 

are animated by a nostalgia for paradise that leads them to consider history as a fall, preventing the return to the original condition, a return to the paradise that dwells on the other side of the material world, that is the obverse of the material world and of time....

The pursuit of practices that achieve an escape from time and the poetic magic of wonderland converge into a new atheism…

Good news/bad news: we can eliminate time, but man lives in time, so we can’t eliminate one without eliminating the other. So, we are in time. But we also touch the timeless:

It is indispensable to know at the outset that there are truths inherent in the human spirit that are as if buried in the “depths of the heart,” which means that they are contained as potentialities or virtualities in the pure Intellect: these are the principial and archetypal truths, those which prefigure and determine all others (Schuon).

Back to the first paragraph, these are the provisions we’ll be bringing along for the journey.

Heading Back for Provisions

We can admit when we're wrong. Looks like we underestimated what we’re going to need for this journey, so we’re heading back for supplies. 

We’re still going to be traveling light, but there are certain provisions we can’t do without, and it might even be demented to try. Schuon thinks so, anyway: "To wish to replace reasoning by experience"

on the intellectual and spiritual plane, as the empiricists and existentialists wish to do, is properly speaking demented."

Besides, why toss out all the maps drawn by previous vertical explorers? Columbus still relied on maps, even though they become increasingly useless the further he ventured. 

Man is the rational animal, or so they say. If so, then reason is here for a reason, and we can only pretend to eliminate it -- or worse, become an "enlightened animal." Which, come to think of it, does happen -- I’m thinking of all those gurus who successfully detach from the world of illusion until the moment they’re surrounded by adoring females, and untransformed human nature takes its vengeance.

For Schuon, there is ultimately one religion because God is one and so is man. As is reality. But reality is also diverse, and as always, the question is how to reconcile the One and the many. 

It seems there are two ways to go about it: down and back, prior to the bifurcation of subject and object, or up and ahead to their transcendent synthesis. In Christendom

the absolute is unveiled in the person of God, who created other persons in order to summon them toward their deification (Clement).    

That’s from a book I just finished called Transfiguring Time. Not very good, but it will do. 

Long story short, time itself is a creature (i.e., created), and is one of the things assumed and redeemed by the Incarnation. Absent this, time is universally regarded by premodern peoples as tending toward entropy and deterioration. There is and can be no progress. Best we can do is stasis, or restoration of primordial paradise via various rituals such as human sacrifice. 

Yes, the left has always been with us: between now and utopia is always a thin membrane of genocide. The global warming cult has a long and exceedingly bloody lineage. As Clement says, "The modern myth of progress is a naive secularized form of biblical expectation of the Messiah.” 

Since time is part of our unredeemed nature, it cannot be transfigured except on a retail basis, one assoul at a time. But in the past two or three centuries “Western literature has been filled with a nostalgia for paradise akin to that of ancient times.” Here comes the New Age, same as the Old Age: both 

are animated by a nostalgia for paradise that leads them to consider history as a fall, preventing the return to the original condition, a return to the paradise that dwells on the other side of the material world, that is the obverse of the material world and of time....

The pursuit of practices that achieve an escape from time and the poetic magic of wonderland converge into a new atheism…

Good news/bad news: we can eliminate time, but man lives in time, so we can’t eliminate one without eliminating the other. So, we are in time. But we also touch the timeless:

It is indispensable to know at the outset that there are truths inherent in the human spirit that are as if buried in the “depths of the heart,” which means that they are contained as potentialities or virtualities in the pure Intellect: these are the principial and archetypal truths, those which prefigure and determine all others (Schuon).

Back to the first paragraph, these are the provisions we’ll be bringing along for the journey.

Getting the Hell Out of Time

At any given moment, the most important place on earth can be a palace, a pigsty, or a cell. --Davila

Would you believe a coonsty? 

In each moment, each person is capable of possessing the truths that matter.

I believe that. But let’s try to prove it. Again, we’re embarking on a vertical adventure into the now, bringing only our intelligence and a snorkel. Here we go!

Leave place, leave time, / Avoid even image! / Go forth without a way / On the narrow path, / Then you will find the desert path. --Meister Eckhart

The desert path? I pictured an ocean. I guess we won't need the snorkel. 

We all have a key to the door that opens to the luminous and noble peace of the desert.

Oh, that desert. Where the Desert Fathers lived. These first Christian monks “looked back to a series of Old and New Testament models and prototypes, especially figures associated with the desert, like Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist… (McGinn). These fellows “carved out new roles for themselves as special mediators between the divine and human realms."

This “free-form asceticism” entailed

withdrawal from society into the desert, a separation that involved both an external geographical shift of momentous nature and a new kind of exploration of the inner geography of the soul.

Soul cartographers? Yes, but mapper and mapped are the same, or at least not-two. In this, a “basic pattern” emerges, of “withdrawal-purgation-transformation.”

Withdrawal from society is the easy part. I took you out of hell, but I could not get that hell out of you, says Petey. 

The desert, traditionally the home for demons and not for humans, was the place where the encounter with the spirits of evil… could be more readily encountered and mastered…. These demonic powers, always present within the soul, become luminously real in the intense heat and introspective atmosphere of the desert.

Christ began his career by being tempted by the demons. And we’re supposed to seek them out and tempt them? Isn’t that bit like the guy who decided to live with bears in the wild? How'd that work out? 

What’s the first thing we notice? The size of those teeth! No, about the moment.  

I suppose we notice that we notice. More generally that there is experience. This is impossible to put into words, because words -- and anything else -- presuppose it. 

Moreover, while animals have experiences, man alone experiences experience; or rather, we go back and forth between experience and the experience thereof.  

A voluptuous presence communicates its sensual splendor to everything.

Is that what this is, this pure Presence? 

The momentary beauty of the instant is the only thing in the universe that concurs with the eagerness of our souls.

The Momentary Beauty of the Instant. 

Experience, Presence, Light, Mystery. Being. 

Slow down!

One who acts hastily frightens off swarm of gods.

And be quick about it!

Our most urgent task is that of reconstructing the mystery of the world.

We are not alone!

In man’s extreme solitude he perceives anew the touch of immortal wings.

 To be continued...

Getting the Hell Out of Time

At any given moment, the most important place on earth can be a palace, a pigsty, or a cell. --Davila

Would you believe a coonsty? 

In each moment, each person is capable of possessing the truths that matter.

I believe that. But let’s try to prove it. Again, we’re embarking on a vertical adventure into the now, bringing only our intelligence and a snorkel. Here we go!

Leave place, leave time, / Avoid even image! / Go forth without a way / On the narrow path, / Then you will find the desert path. --Meister Eckhart

The desert path? I pictured an ocean. I guess we won't need the snorkel. 

We all have a key to the door that opens to the luminous and noble peace of the desert.

Oh, that desert. Where the Desert Fathers lived. These first Christian monks “looked back to a series of Old and New Testament models and prototypes, especially figures associated with the desert, like Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist… (McGinn). These fellows “carved out new roles for themselves as special mediators between the divine and human realms."

This “free-form asceticism” entailed

withdrawal from society into the desert, a separation that involved both an external geographical shift of momentous nature and a new kind of exploration of the inner geography of the soul.

Soul cartographers? Yes, but mapper and mapped are the same, or at least not-two. In this, a “basic pattern” emerges, of “withdrawal-purgation-transformation.”

Withdrawal from society is the easy part. I took you out of hell, but I could not get that hell out of you, says Petey. 

The desert, traditionally the home for demons and not for humans, was the place where the encounter with the spirits of evil… could be more readily encountered and mastered…. These demonic powers, always present within the soul, become luminously real in the intense heat and introspective atmosphere of the desert.

Christ began his career by being tempted by the demons. And we’re supposed to seek them out and tempt them? Isn’t that bit like the guy who decided to live with bears in the wild? How'd that work out? 

What’s the first thing we notice? The size of those teeth! No, about the moment.  

I suppose we notice that we notice. More generally that there is experience. This is impossible to put into words, because words -- and anything else -- presuppose it. 

Moreover, while animals have experiences, man alone experiences experience; or rather, we go back and forth between experience and the experience thereof.  

A voluptuous presence communicates its sensual splendor to everything.

Is that what this is, this pure Presence? 

The momentary beauty of the instant is the only thing in the universe that concurs with the eagerness of our souls.

The Momentary Beauty of the Instant. 

Experience, Presence, Light, Mystery. Being. 

Slow down!

One who acts hastily frightens off swarm of gods.

And be quick about it!

Our most urgent task is that of reconstructing the mystery of the world.

We are not alone!

In man’s extreme solitude he perceives anew the touch of immortal wings.

 To be continued...