Colin Wilson

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Talking Ass
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Monsieur Guy Debord wrote:The images detached from every aspect of life fuse in a common stream in which the unity of this life can no longer be reestablished. Reality considered partially unfolds, in its own general unity, as a pseudo-world apart, an object of mere contemplation. The specialization of images of the world is completed in the world of the autonomous image, where the liar has lied to himself. The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living.
"Where the liar has lied to himself".

Very good stuff, BTW. I just ordered my own copy. I especially relate to the rather horrible *fact* of (the) 'autonomous movement of the non-living'. Still, to have this *fact* in front of us, if we could really take it in, would I think really sober us up. Beyond all the imagery, beyond all the fase fantasy, the absurdity, the trickery, there is only the 'you' and the 'me'. Maybe there will come a day when only the Great Man (ubermench) will have the strength of soul to look directly into the eyes of another, to allow that person to *really be*, and through seeing to help that person seen to become *really real*. It is a minor, local thing I suppose, but I have distinctly noticed in situations of contact with people (functionaries, extensions of the robots whom they serve: cash machines, chiming computer systems, strange articulating arms holding computer screens) that we conduct our business while avoiding actually looking at each other. Words are said, yes, even friendly words (while the plastic or the bills change hands) but ever more there is a disinclination to look into the eyes of the other person. So, is this a 'nihilism' of the present? in which we have become blind to seeing (in any meaningful way) the 'other'? If we are not seeing the Other, if we are not in substantial, meaningful relationship with the Other, what possible value and meaning does anything have? One would eventually desire to 'check out' from such a non-existence: life in the autonomous movement of the non-living. Although it is certainly not a new idea---a new, radical alternative---I am now more than ever convinced that the hardest and yet most rewarding act is to come face to face with another person, and concurrent with that is the will to weild a knife in which the unreal imago is sliced through. I am actually specifically dealing with a situation in which many of the persons seem terrified of *real contact* except one unique being who shines through this atmosphere of non-present persons lost on their mental spectral horizons 'in which the unity of this life can no longer be reestablished'.
Nietzsche wrote:...although the horizon is not clear, it seems clear enough for our ships to set sail again and venture out towards new perils: the sea of knowledge is re-opening itself to new pioneers; maybe the open sea has never offered so many new promises.
I believe I feel and see what Nietzsche is speaking of (as he looks upon the horizon within his own person at whatever he is talking about), but I would also approach the tone of it with some caution. He is speaking in explorer's tones, those who venture beyond the confines of walls, to cross oceans, or even to leave the confines of our own earth-atmosphere. But is that really what he means? Is that really what he would have wanted? What if the most difficult act of man right now is just to be present with himself and with other persons as I have described above? What if many, many activities, goals, aspirations (those ambitions that drive whole incarnations) is a missing of the point?
Diebert wrote:While the main Christian horizon was always centered around the after-life and the finality of redemption and forgiveness ("now) and being saved ("soon enough"), while helping ones neighbors "in sight", there's a deeper human functioning behind this though: one being in need of a future, a hope, a seductive, deceptive type of expectation to power the engines of heart and mind. It's the real secret of youth of course...
It is true that the Christian focus was always in a 'to-come' event, the radical overturning of the present. But it is also true that a large part even of the Pauline message has to do with being present with other people. Deciding, choosing to make people (those converts like oneself and those who could become converts) REAL, considerable, valuable. There is a strange polarity-duality in operation in Christian praxis. One part is this sense (which movingalways expresses and which I riffed on in my post, above) that there is a 'more real real' that hovers over us, encapsulates us, into which we will emerge (when?). And the compelling mission of coming into substantial and meaningful contact and relationship with others. To be 'saved' seems to me, now, to be willing to be present! This Nietzsche quote, if stripped a wee bit of its 'there-on-another-shore' tone, is another means to express 'salvation'. It is not at all an unreal goal or a fantasy goal, but seems the hardest act to carry off in life. Is it not, in truth, a kind of Grace? I mean, can we actually set our own will to it? Is it given to us or do we strive for it and achieve it? (That would be the essence of the 'spiritual' question about it).
Diebert wrote:Only remains of faith, in progress, change, angels or Christ, like conceptual toys, keep drawing us in, becoming less convincing by the minute. Cynicism and atheism are the necessary worms to finish this trembling mirage.
While it is true that we are ever more compelled to substitute the unreal for the real and that we become blind to the fact of our present, the Heralds still function: something that communicates to us from a long way off, something shrouded, something mysterious, some luminous thing which is to say some flickering of life itself. But even that, at least how I see things, must be made real through the choice of simply becoming present for another.
Diebert wrote:Of course we still have the "spectacle" in the sense of Guy Debord, and even he appears to see possibilities to counter this "spectacular" alienation, to regain autonomy and sovereignty somehow, which seems to be also the mission of many preachers around these premises. But the prophet of nihilism will, no, has to point out this hope is passé , nothing more than a clinging to some old shadow. Nihilism has now changed fundamentally time itself: the horizon for real and imaginary events. And by changing that base line, everything attached has to shift with it. That way nihilism enables the decline of meaning, the decline of the ability to signify outside ones private boundaries ("idiocy") unless one grabs and drifts with some of the remains around us. For a short while.
First, the attempt at preaching and missionary-work must, at least I think so, be considered as the creative attempt of the severely threatened individual to maintain aliveness. It is, as I have expressed, the act of a desperate individual in desperate times. You seem to feel any activity of this sort is futile, and that the *problem* is something fundamental to the self itself: we are the problem and cannot ourselves be the cure for the problem. I am not convinced that *everything* is merely a preaching that is only 'clinging to some old shadow', or, even if it is, we have yet to make that shadow (of possibility) real, by becoming real. The question, again, is in interpretation. You seem to give a illusory power to this 'nihilism', a supernatural strength it may not in fact have. For you, it seems, all is just 'drifting while clinging to shadow-substance', and I would suppose THAT is where you would fall into the attractive whirlpool of a neo-Zen Buddhism? There is nothing, no center, nothing 'real', no value: just the swirl of some unknowable stuff in an eternal (but meaningless) Tao? Is this not another octave of nihilism? (That is, if the words I've written in my summation of your philosophy are on the mark...and they may not be.)

An interesting Guy Debord 'idea', which looks like a surrealist-magical activity: Dérive.

And Détournement (or 'Culture Jamming').
fiat mihi
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Talking Ass wrote: Still, to have this *fact* in front of us, if we could really take it in, would I think really sober us up. Beyond all the imagery, beyond all the fase fantasy, the absurdity, the trickery, there is only the 'you' and the 'me'. Maybe there will come a day when only the Great Man (ubermench) will have the strength of soul to look directly into the eyes of another, to allow that person to *really be*, and through seeing to help that person seen to become *really real*. It is a minor, local thing I suppose...
But the "other" is next to "self" perhaps our strongest expression of all this imagery, fantasy, absurdity and trickery. It's loaded with so many things that it's not difficult to see how there's no true "other", nor self, somewhere lying under those many things. But this doesn't mean one cannot "create" some reality here, some vital illusion arising between the complex interactions, even interacting with it and thereby fueling some process. What I do oppose in this direction of thought however, is the tendency to turn the "other" into our next horizon. This way the world has suddenly become very small, perhaps just like its inhabitants?
If we are not seeing the Other, if we are not in substantial, meaningful relationship with the Other, what possible value and meaning does anything have? One would eventually desire to 'check out' from such a non-existence: life in the autonomous movement of the non-living.
The other, any "other", only derives meaning and value from the context, from the horizons of that context with the future being one of the more obvious horizons. But when the horizon is limited to "others", meaning evaporates just as quickly as when that horizon would be some machinery or cash register (ones "means").
I am actually specifically dealing with a situation in which many of the persons seem terrified of *real contact* except one unique being who shines through this atmosphere of non-present persons lost on their mental spectral horizons 'in which the unity of this life can no longer be reestablished'.
There are mirror effects at play perhaps too but don't you see another person can never form this next horizon? Any reality or meaning of any "others" is at most derived from boundaries further on - distant shores. One cannot focus on the "other" while the shoreline is fading! The other simply would fade as well, evaporating like a ghost between the fingers, searching in vain for anything to feel.
But it is also true that a large part even of the Pauline message has to do with being present with other people. Deciding, choosing to make people (those converts like oneself and those who could become converts) REAL, considerable, valuable.
That only worked in New Testament writings because of the overarching eschatology which forms the background to anything you might be able to whip up from there. The return of Christ, the ending of the world, the rising of the dead, judgement day, and so on. It's not difficult to derive from the "delay" in the second coming a window of urgency in which Paul might have performed his evangelical mission. Also, I don't think anyone could ever substantiate even a minor part of the "Pauline message" would be about the simple relating between ordinary folks. The majority of the texts are dealing with solving theological disputes and encouraging faith in things which didn't yet manifest or didn't have to manifest.
To be 'saved' seems to me, now, to be willing to be present!
There's no "acte de presence " without past and future, no matter how imaginary they might be! Such present would basically collapse onto itself as it doesn't happen, it doesn't become.
the Heralds still function: something that communicates to us from a long way off, something shrouded, something mysterious, some luminous thing which is to say some flickering of life itself. But even that, at least how I see things, must be made real through the choice of simply becoming present for another.
The problem might be that it's all becoming so explicit in modern discourse. It has been made real way too often and too much. And now you object and demand an even "realer real". This is such a major irony to me! One doesn't create reality by making things more "real". The reverse is the actual danger: one creates here meaninglessness instead, paradoxically.
I would suppose THAT is where you would fall into the attractive whirlpool of a neo-Zen Buddhism? There is nothing, no center, nothing 'real', no value: just the swirl of some unknowable stuff in an eternal (but meaningless) Tao? Is this not another octave of nihilism?
There's no need for me to pretend I have escaped my own context. In some sense I work with it instead of trying to fix or solve it. Any modern notion of "Zen Buddhism" would follow the same road into this nihilistic whirlpool of "things in the process of being made real". My analysis has been about all these shifting horizons creeping towards us, creating a narrow, personal world and worldly outlook, creating an obscene, spectacular, over-realistic world. And by that process it all loses center and representation: devaluation; inflation.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Diebert wrote:But the "other" is next to "self" perhaps our strongest expression of all this imagery, fantasy, absurdity and trickery. It's loaded with so many things that it's not difficult to see how there's no true "other", nor self, somewhere lying under those many things.
This statement contains numerous contradictions. Yet it also seems to be the hinge-perception (choice?) from which your other suppositions flow. So, while it *must* be true that the 'self' is both the vessel of all this imagery which is whipped into a frenzy by external (economic) factors, both the fabricator and the victim of fabrication, and while it also seems to be true that 'we' are utterly swamped by this imagery and so lose a sense of center within Self; it does not follow (in my view) that this 'self' cannot be restored, cannot be shall we say 'repaired'. You move from a statement about condition to one of positivism: "It's loaded with so many things that it's not difficult to see how there's no true "other", nor self, somewhere lying under those many things". Much depends, naturally, on who is doing the seeing. Are you not simply giving expression to inevitable nihilist notions, the unavoidable facts that arise from this destructive nihilism? Put another way, in what way are these ideas of yours non-nihilist?

Now, I am not unable to suppose that you (or others, or even Nietzsche) may have had in mind some new expression of self, or perhaps self-knowledge (the ultimate horizon) resulting from some process of, what? destruction of false-self or accumulated self (self as residue, as grease-trap). But who could propose, rationally, some state of being of 'no-self'? Only when one is dead and no longer present can there be said to be 'no-self'. So, because no matter what, here among the living, we will only ever be selves that deal with other selves, does our essential (and unavoidable Reality) take form. And as the world shrinks all the erstwhile escape mechanisms (conquering new territories, exploring the unknown, racing off to 'new horizons') become untenable (unsustainable too), what possible horizon could ever be proposed? The 'enlightenment freaks' speak of this unreal thing as if it is a real thing, and this forever mystifies me. I can never figure out how they rationalize it...
Diebert wrote:There are mirror effects at play perhaps too but don't you see another person can never form this next horizon? Any reality or meaning of any "others" is at most derived from boundaries further on - distant shores. One cannot focus on the "other" while the shoreline is fading! The other simply would fade as well, evaporating like a ghost between the fingers, searching in vain for anything to feel.
It is not, in fact, an 'other' but it is our own self, that is, our own being, here, in this place. That is the unchangable fact, the one constant. To say 'you and me' only means a (yes, it indeed must be...) new way of understanding the Self, the primacy of self. It is both the horizon and the point from which one never moves.
Diebert wrote:That only worked in New Testament writings because of the overarching eschatology which forms the background to anything you might be able to whip up from there. The return of Christ, the ending of the world, the rising of the dead, judgement day, and so on. It's not difficult to derive from the "delay" in the second coming a window of urgency in which Paul might have performed his evangelical mission. Also, I don't think anyone could ever substantiate even a minor part of the "Pauline message" would be about the simple relating between ordinary folks. The majority of the texts are dealing with solving theological disputes and encouraging faith in things which didn't yet manifest or didn't have to manifest.
I do see your point. What I begin to perceive, or perhaps to conclude from a period of gaining familiarity with Christian texts (which means both the absurd and the sane), is how it all seems like a Grand Misperception! The fundamental truth still stands, and perhaps has always stood (and so it is forever uncovered anew), and it is MEN who, in their lunacy, in their delirium, have soundly missed the point. All these symbols: the annointed of God descending to this realm; the world (as we knew it) ending; the dead becoming living (what is deadened, enlivening); a day of reckoning (inescapable): all these things are deep truths that arise in this place where we (you and I) are. And with: "Also, I don't think anyone could ever substantiate even a minor part of the 'Pauline message' would be about the simple relating between ordinary folks" I think you are quite wrong. In fact, this is the *only* viable conclusion!

(I just can't, myself, find any other meanings in the Epistles except that of a profound Personalism. And, I cannot identify any *other* horizon. When you speak of horizons, what are you referring to?)

Finally, I am curious what you do with the fact/concept of alienation, so central to Debord's analysis?

The Society of the Spectacle. Put another way...
fiat mihi
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Bob Michael
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Talking Ass wrote:Bob, aren't you the very essence of a 'nihilist'?
Perhaps I am so far as seeing the need for the perishing of the bulk of the human species, TA. But you fail to take into I account that on the other hand I speak of creating a unique body of people that will have attained to fullness and completeness of human being. Who will go on represent and propagate the finally finished and perfected human species forward.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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movingalways wrote:Why put up this boundary of "only possible for a relatively few?"
It's not my boundary, but rather a boundary created by the evolutionary process. A boundary, the nature of which, I feel I'm the only man to have ever comprehended in depth. Which is necessary in order to develop the right approach for the completion and perfection of man, and of course woman too.
movingalways wrote:It is ignorance that prevents a man from overcoming his manhood, this is true, but ignorance is married to pride, to ego, the veil of darkness that stands in the way of being unconditioned.
It's not quite that simple, mt. The real problem here is that we've been born into and so deeply conditioned by fallen, dehumanized, and self-centered or egotistical societies that very, very few people are at all aware of their resultant dehumanization. Which is to also say that most of us are incapable of discerning what is and what isn't authentic human behavior in either ourselves or those around us and that genuine manhood is virtually unknown, nor are there many, if any, living examples of such anywhere. Consequently the human species has by and large become irreparably brain-damaged to the point that there's no awareness of these facts, save for a very few people here and there whose formative year conditioning was favorable enough that they can sense their flawed nature and thereby fully overcome and transcend their conditioning (which is also to overcome the world, as the world functions near-totally in self-centeredness). These kinds suffer more deeply than most due to their possessing a finely-formed and highly-sensitive organism. And this suffering, if examined and gone deeply into, contrary to running from it as many do, can launch one back again to the natural human state. Whereas the multitude, due to their irreparable psychic fragmentation and lacking of sensitivity and the capacity to suffer deeply, are at best only momentarily discontented, along with lacking the necessary foundation for returning to the natural human state. The latter, the multitude, living on the surface of life and being quite 'content' with living as such, while the former, the 'elect', yearn for something beyond or something greater and have the potential to find it. But unfortunately, due to the gross spiritual darkness, insanity, ignorance, and lies of the world, they'll only find and redevelop it in a setting which does not yet exist. And my goal is to create such a setting which will be favorable for the total breakthrough (or self-overcoming) of some of those 'elect'.
movingalways wrote:There is only one Will in truth, only one Consciousness, only one Awareness; belief in two is the reason why man cannot transcend his belief in dualism, his manhood and his womanhood.
Clearly you lack understanding of the point I'm trying to make here. I'll try it again in different words. My will (be it pure will or will that's totally grounded in love) is one and the same as Thy will. Which is to say that God is love and love is God. Or that the will of God and the will of love are one and the same thing.

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star." (Nietzsche)

And the same thing is true if one is to be able to make the return to the natural state or one's authentic human self.
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Blair
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Bob a nihilist? That'll be the day..

He still cares 'bout stuff, albeit stuff that doesn't matter.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Blair wrote:Bob a nihilist? That'll be the day.

He still cares 'bout stuff, albeit stuff that doesn't matter.
Yes, and I highly suspect that my continuing posting herein is some of that "stuff that doesn't matter."
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Nothing matters, Bob.

Become the true nihilist you are within!
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Bob Michael wrote:
Bobo wrote:
Bob Michael wrote:Nuclear armaments don't discriminate.
Truth does. And it is more likely to choose some insects and bacteria over humans.
Some humans will survive.
As the fisrt ark it will be a matter of time until we need another ark again...
But is there a reason to gather highly formed beings (on an ark) without an impending doom? Like having the kingdom in the world.
Bob Michael wrote:
Bobo wrote:
Bob Michael wrote:I'll let you be the judge:

"But some day, in a stronger age than this decaying, self-doubting present, he must yet come to us, the redeeming man of great love and contempt, the creative spirit whose compelling strength will not let him rest in any aloofness or any beyond, whose isolation is misunderstood by the people as if it were flight from reality--while it is only his absorption, immersion, penetration into reality, so that, when he one day emerges again into the light, he may bring home the redemption of this reality; its redemption from the curse that the hitherto reigning ideal has laid upon it. This man of the future, who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, nihilism; this Antichrist and antinihilist, this victor over God and nothingness--he must come one day." (Nietzsche)

Compare with:

".....He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and 'greater works' than these shall he do; because I go to the Father." (Christ)
Both are playing the prophet. But there's no evidence for it, imo.
As I see it both men were also admitting they failed to bring any light into the world in a collective manner.
But has Nietzche failure something to do with a lack of love, contempt or a lack of time in isolation? Maybe he is talking more of mankind than of himself.
Besides that there's no reason for personality worship, he is effectively saying that the mensch will create reality, no different than the god in the bible.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Blair wrote:Bob a nihilist? That'll be the day... He still cares 'bout stuff, albeit stuff that doesn't matter.
Good point since a chemically pure nihilism might not be able to care or value anything. And it is true that Bob cares about certain things tremendously. Yet, I am inclined to describe almost everyone who participates in this space as a 'nihilist' in one degree or another, or certainly living and struggling (like a wounded lizard) in the aftermath of nihilistic explosions that have ruptured our link to 'genuine life' (as if such a term should be placed between quotation marks), but then I suppose we'll have to linger over the meaning of this term 'nihilism'.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Blair wrote:Nothing matters, Bob.

Become the true nihilist you are within!
"A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought 'not' be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist." (Nietzsche)

"Only he who despises this world can devote himself to the preparation for the future world." (Calvin)

Personally I'm shooting for 'pure spirit'. ("this Antichrist and 'ANTInihilist', this victor over God and nothingness" -N)

"The perfect man is pure spirit." (Lao Tzu)
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Bobo wrote:As the fisrt ark it will be a matter of time until we need another ark again...
But is there a reason to gather highly formed beings (on an ark) without an impending doom? Like having the kingdom in the world.
Granted the kingdom is at hand as it is a state of the heart. A heart that is pure. But the kingdom is not of this world. So it cannot truly exist in the world as it is.
Bobo wrote:But has Nietzche failure something to do with a lack of love, contempt or a lack of time in isolation? Maybe he is talking more of mankind than of himself.
It simply wasn't time for the manifestation of a new world in "this decaying, self-doubting present" that he lived in.
Bobo wrote:Besides that there's no reason for personality worship, he is effectively saying that the mensch will create reality, no different than the god in the bible.
I wonder if Nietzsche's "man of the future" might be one and the same man as 'Michael and his angels' or 'the Spirit and the bride' from the book of Revelation?
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Colin Wilson on Nietzsche:

"What Nietzsche wanted to do was to start a new religion. Like Rilke's Malte, he felt that he was the only man who realized the necessity, and consequently that he alone should begin the tremendous work. But he wasn't sure how to begin. He had been trained as a philologist. He might have been better off if he had trained as a priest or a novelist. (Cardinal John) Newman for instance, was fundamentally very much like Nietzsche, and he was lucky enough to find his way into an existing institution; 'that' was the sensible thing to do, since retiring into the wilderness is not a practical expedient for a modern European. At the same time, we must admit that Nietzsche's influence has been far greater than Newman's, simply because Newman 'did' choose to express himself inside the Church. Nietzsche's heroism is relatively greater; his suffering was greater; his tragedy affects us as Newman's obscurer tragedy does not. Yet the really terrible element in Nietzsche's life is the 'waste'. Under the right circumstances, Nietzsche would have had the strength to bring about a spiritual revival: instead he died insane, like a big gun with some trifling mechanical fault that explodes and kills all the crew. With all the power in his hands, with a psychological insight into himself that makes even (T. E.) Lawrence seem by comparison an amateur in introspection, Nietzsche cracked up. Why did he crack up? How could it have been avoided? Something was wrong. The new religion was never born. Nietzsche was misunderstood, more by the neurotics who claimed to be Nietzscheans than by his enemies. It is an immense problem. Since Nietzsche's death, two major prophets of Nietzschean rank have attacked it again: Shaw and Gurdjieff.....Neither can be said to have solved it, although both have taken it on to new ground, and achieved some exiciting results."

"For Nietzsche had known what it meant to stand completely alone; to feel that he was the only healthy man in a sick universe, to feel that he had been destined by some force greater than himself to stand as a witness and, if necessary, to die completely alone."

(Colin Wilson - 'The Outsider')
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Nietzsche wrote:"A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought 'not' be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist."
Translation: In European history, directly resulting from the will to discover the 'absolute truth', the real truth---which will derives from religious sentiments---we came to see that all the conceptual arrangements (stories, narratives, descriptions) we had hitherto believed with blind and unquestioning faithfulness (believing in our heart of hearts that it was 'true'), were not true. All the stories that supported an old metaphysic, a world-view and grasp of reality that was almost universal and rather unquestionable, were no longer 'facts'. With the rise of insight from a clearer vision, based in natural sciences and a certain use of reason, 'the world' was really the animal world, a biological world, a determined world, a world better described by Darwin than by Biblical prophets. So, 'the world that ought to be' (our beloved morally-ordered world with clear metaphysical under- and over-pinnings) simply went up in smoke: it was seen as not existing.

God has died and we killed him. A terribly ironic pun, riffing off the original act of hanging God on a cross. But this time the God who died would not resurrect. The will to discover the real truth, not to flinch, not to turn away, to pursue this truth, undermined the very thing one was required to be utterly truthful to.

Classically defined nihilism is a result of the destruction of the foundation of a moral system, and a cosmology.

I guesss the other side of this statement (the first half) is that nihilism is embedded in any belief system that does not or cannot start from the actual facts, or maybe cannot know them. So, we invert the real world by enforcing our unreal view onto it. Level upon level of fantasy projection, a forced projection of a 'desired content' (making a judgment of the world and saying 'it shouldn't be that way!')

That would better describe where Calvin is coming from: to despise the as-it-really-is world and desire it, against all evidence, to be as one INSISTS it must be! It would seem that Nietzsche suggest that this is digging one's own grave, a grave of nihilism. (Nietzsche as historical psychologist!).

It would seem that 'shooting for pure spirit' is a desire/need to overcome first the need and compulsion to INSIST that the world be as it is not...and that this overcoming is the cure for the nihilism that produced it originally (false belief, unreal platform of belief) and the deeper nihilism that results from its undermining.

LaoTsu offers a convenient, even a logical alternative to remaining in the nihilistic swamp, a rather depressing place to hang out. This is possibly why Zen Buddhism and other Eastern modes of perception offer such attractive 'outs' for so many: it solves, or appears to solve, an immediate problem. Unfortunately, this manoeuvre doesn't function so well, in fact.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Colin Wilson wrote:What Nietzsche wanted to do was to start a new religion.
It would seem inevitable that a man---any man---who saw in what way a whole religious system was utterly flawed given all that it did not and could not take into account, would have no choice but to suggest the 'founding of a new religion': a way to integrate one's understanding of the physical universe, with a notion of a Creator or some sort of Brahministic 'God' (some divine underpinning), and unify it with ideas about how morality should function. Then mix it all together, shake, and pour.

This is what each of us is doing whether we recognize it as such or not. It is excruciatingly difficult and in this process, we suffer. Some go crazy, some die.

Nietzsche WAS trained in religion, essentially. He grew up in the very bosom of German pietism. You cannot get much closer. You can't be more a direct product.
Colin Wilson wrote:...since retiring into the wilderness is not a practical expedient for a modern European.
This is not exactly true. In fact, if not exactly in Europe then certainly in America (extension of Europe) this is exactly what many people did do. And in a very real sense the rewards were huge. Going into a cave, going into the shadows of one's own nihilistic doubts, going into the Great Darkness, going on Vision Quests, digging around in all sorts of other religious modalities, garbage heaps, stacks of old manuscripts, many meetings with remarkable men, shamanistic voyages: this is how so many people have been spending their time as they are spun out, violently, from a collapsing system: European Medievalism, both as physical and political organization and that pesky ordering inside our own cerebrums, so difficult to sidestep.

To have the audacity to step out onto new paths, to take those risks, is 'the meaning of the age'. We know that on one hand the world and the protoplasm is turning into a computer-driven machine, but we also know that there are some minds and souls who are exploring different kinds of possibilities. The game is getting more heavy than anyone could really ever have imagined, even in science fiction, but it is not all in vain (or, is it not all in vain?)
Colin Wilson wrote:Under the right circumstances, Nietzsche would have had the strength to bring about a spiritual revival: instead he died insane, like a big gun with some trifling mechanical fault that explodes and kills all the crew. With all the power in his hands, with a psychological insight into himself that makes even (T. E.) Lawrence seem by comparison an amateur in introspection, Nietzsche cracked up. Why did he crack up? How could it have been avoided? Something was wrong. The new religion was never born.
No one man could EVER have brought out what, by definition, must arise in a New Man---a radical new venture never before visualized because The World was never before SEEN! And it does stand as possible that he didn't go crazy, as Diebert's source suggested, but something else happened: his organism simply gave out while he was 'having all the anti-semites shot'. And there is a difference (physiologically and philologically). And it would seem that Nietzsche intimately recognized he was only a prophet for the new, which is what a great deal of his writing was about! And, he had a profound and lasting impact on many of the very best thinkers, so he may indeed have contributed more to the establishment of a new paradigm that Wilson seems to consider...

PS: T.E. Lawrence weren't never no Prophet. Dude was ridin' his fuckin' camel on the wrong side of the fence.
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Bob Michael
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Talking Ass wrote:And it would seem that Nietzsche intimately recognized he was only a prophet for the new, which is what a great deal of his writing was about! And, he had a profound and lasting impact on many of the very best thinkers, so he may indeed have contributed more to the establishment of a new paradigm that Wilson seems to consider...
This may be so, but nothing 'new' has come of it all to date.

P. S. I, like some others, feel Nietzsche feigned his insanity for the most part.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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On January 21, 1890 (Peter) Gast came to visit his friend (Nietzsche). "He did not look very ill. I almost had the impression that his mental disturbance consists of no more than a heightening of the humorous antics he used to put on for an intimate circle of friends. He recognized me immediately, embraced and kissed me, was highly delighted to see me, and gave his hand repeatedly as if unable to believe I was really there." Going for long walks every day Gast could see that he did not want to be cured: "It seemed - terrible though this is - as if Nietzsche were merely feigning madness, as if he were glad for it to have ended in this way." This tallies with (Franz) Overbeck's feelings when he came to Jena in February: "I cannot escape the ghastly suspicion.....that his madness is simulated. This impression can be explained only by the experiences I had of Nietzsche's self-concealments, of his spiritual masks. But here too I have bowed to facts which overrule all personal thoughts and speculations." Apparently neither of them remembered what he had written in 'Margenrote' about ancient Greeks who feigned madness or prayed for delirium.

('Nietzsche - A Critical Life' - Ronald Hayman)
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Re: Colin Wilson

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How the True World finally became a Fable. (Or, The History of an Error).

1. The true world attainable for the wise, the pious, the virtuous,—he lives in it, he is it.
  • (The oldest form of the Idea, relatively clever, simple, persuasive. A paraphrase of the sentence, "I, Plato, am the Truth.")
2. The true world, unattainable for now, but promised for the wise, the pious, the virtuous ("for the sinner who repents").
  • (Progress of the Idea: it becomes subtler, insidious, incomprehensible, it becomes a female, it becomes Christian...)
3. The true world, unattainable, undemonstrable, unpromisable, but the very thought of it a consolation, an obligation, an imperative.
  • (At bottom, the old Sun, but seen through mist and uncertainty all along; the Idea has become elusive, pale, Nordic, Königsbergian.)
4. The true world—unattainable? At any rate, unattained. And being unattained, also unknown [unbekannt]. Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, [or] obligating: how could something unknown obligate us?
  • (Gray morning. The first yawn of Reason. The cockcrow of Positivism.)
5. The "true world"—an Idea no longer good for anything, not even obligating—a superfluous Idea, consequently a refuted Idea: let us abolish it!
  • (Bright day; breakfast; return to bon sens and cheerfulness; Plato's embarrassed blush; infernal noise of all free spirits.)
6. The true world we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps?... But no! With the true world, we have also abolished the apparent one!
  • (Noon: moment of the shortest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.)
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Bob wrote:This may be so, but nothing 'new' has come of it all to date.
Well, to see the New one would have to be able to recognize it, wouldn't one? One would have to have some relationship with it. With all respects, Bob, the most salient feature of your philosophy (certainly the most consistant), your preaching, your hope and your desire, is for *someone* to come along and Purify the Species. (Take 12,745 of a Bad Reading of Nietzsche). Your New Man hopes and prays for Apocalypse and this for you is the Higher Activity.
  • "Canst thou remember
    A time before we came unto this cell?"

    "Hell is empty
    And all the devils are here" ---William Shakespeare, The Tempest
So, instead of there being a human agent, you desire it to arise out of a generalized human madness, a chaos, a natural force with which you are not complicit. At bottom (at top?) you seem deeply cynical, a cynicism that has turned in on itself, which I suppose is 'self-hatred' (reressentiment) turned again outward. In a specific way you epitomize modern nihilism. You haven't answered it, you express and embody it. [This Pronouncement, in which I 'sparkle like a dragon with wit and malice', was made on the 31st of August, 2011. It is irrefutable, inescapable and inerrant.]
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Bob Michael wrote:Granted the kingdom is at hand as it is a state of the heart. A heart that is pure. But the kingdom is not of this world. So it cannot truly exist in the world as it is.
...As it is, and with too much of mass destruction human life may be gone, and with too little we may still be in billions. Doesn't this make part of yours discriminations. Do you envision the ark future and stuff?
Bob Michael wrote:It simply wasn't time for the manifestation of a new world in "this decaying, self-doubting present" that he lived in.
Did he made a wrong rock turn somewhere?
Bob Michael wrote:I wonder if Nietzsche's "man of the future" might be one and the same man as 'Michael and his angels' or 'the Spirit and the bride' from the book of Revelation?
'Michael' seems to be a christian, and 'the Spirit' a nihilist.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Talking Ass wrote:So, instead of there being a human agent, you desire it to arise out of a generalized human madness, a chaos, a natural force with which you are not complicit. At bottom (at top?) you seem deeply cynical, a cynicism that has turned in on itself, which I suppose is 'self-hatred' (reressentiment) turned again outward. In a specific way you epitomize modern nihilism. You haven't answered it, you express and embody it. [This Pronouncement, in which I 'sparkle like a dragon with wit and malice', was made on the 31st of August, 2011. It is irrefutable, inescapable and inerrant.]
You just don't seem to get it, TA. Nor can I make myself any clearer regarding the matter. I suspect you, like the vast multitude, lack keen organismal sensitivity and enough years of life under your belt, both of which are necessary in order to clearly see the tragic nature of the fallen human condition and the way out. Taking off the rose-colored glasses society put on us as youngsters is also a must if we're to live in the solution. Hence, I continue to sit understandingly restlessly-content.
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Bobo wrote:As it is, and with too much of mass destruction human life may be gone, and with too little we may still be in billions. Doesn't this make part of yours discriminations. Do you envision the ark future and stuff?
My focus is solely on creating an Ark of Light, a Golden City, if you will, inhabited by fully enlightened human beings.The rest of the master plan (the grand-cleansing) is not my concern and will play itself out accordingly. Perhaps not until after I expire.
Bobo wrote:Did he made a wrong rock turn somewhere?
No, I think Nietzsche played out the hand he was dealt quite well. And I understood him if no one else in the world has. Hence, I continue to carry the Torch of Truth forward.
Bobo wrote:'Michael' seems to be a christian, and 'the Spirit' a nihilist.
Why do you think 'the Spirit' is a nihilist? Why not simply a man who's fully immersed in the holy spirit? Which could also be said to be Christian. Though not necessarily that he is one.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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"Nietzsche is the only great philosopher I can think of who actually got through the dogged stoicism and managed to rebound completely from total nihilism into a sense of total optimism." (Colin Wilson)
______________________________________________________________________________________

In a letter written at the end of his life to Michael Fordham, Carl Jung wrote that nobody understood him and his work had been a failure. His mission in life was to preserve peace by presenting the world with a new combination of Christianity and depth psychology.

Jung had thought himself as the man who could shoulder the same strain as Nietzsche without going crazy. "Others have gone to pieces. Nietzsche, and Holderlin too, and many others. But there was a demonic strength in me, and from the start, it held firm."

(From 'A Life of Jung' by Ronald Hayman)
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Talking Ass, to Bob Michael, wrote:So, instead of there being a human agent, you desire it to arise out of a generalized human madness, a chaos, a natural force with which you are not complicit. At bottom (at top?) you seem deeply cynical, a cynicism that has turned in on itself, which I suppose is 'self-hatred' (reressentiment) turned again outward. In a specific way you epitomize modern nihilism. You haven't answered it, you express and embody it. [This Pronouncement, in which I 'sparkle like a dragon with wit and malice', was made on the 31st of August, 2011. It is irrefutable, inescapable and inerrant.]
Indubitably.
Bob Michael wrote:You just don't seem to get it, TA. Nor can I make myself any clearer regarding the matter. I suspect you, like the vast multitude, lack keen organismal sensitivity and enough years of life under your belt, both of which are necessary in order to clearly see the tragic nature of the fallen human condition and the way out. Taking off the rose-colored glasses society put on us as youngsters is also a must if we're to live in the solution. Hence, I continue to sit understandingly restlessly-content.
Bob, forgive me if I have made this point before, but you seem to lack a frame of reference. For you to view humanity as fallen, you must first establish in your own mind where it has fallen from. I contend that you might have taken off your rose-colored glasses but you clearly have not mislaid them. Mankind cannot be in a tragic condition unless it was at one time in a relatively exalted or sublime condition from which it has descended. When might that have been? When men painted caves at Altimara? At the height of the Roman Empire? Maybe during the Dark Ages, or when the Yellow Man chased the Red Man across the intercontinental land bridge between Asia and the New World, or in deepest, darkest Africa before the White Man came.

If there ever was a Garden of Eden, it came at a time when the world was already populated with brutes and savages; having served its purpose, it then disappeared. Humanity has been seeded with the essence of its full flowering, which has yet to come. You cannot compare humanity with a senescent culture on a Petri dish. Bacteria cultures eat the agar, they do not invent new food sources. Humanity has evolved to the point where it is exhausting natural energy resources at the same time it is harnessing solar, wind, atomic, and geothermal energies.

I agree with Alex in that your take on the state of mankind as expressed here reflects a cynicism of yours, and if his point is that the cynicism is not entirely warranted by observable facts, then I agree with that as well.

You can't pull the "years-under-the-belt" seniority or that would that would make Tomas more "organismally sensitive" than any of us. Ahem.

Yet I do not see you as fitting the classic definition of a nihilist:

1. noun: someone who rejects all theories of morality or religious belief
2. noun: an advocate of anarchism

One cannot reject all theories of morality and at the same time assume the mantle of Ultimate Moral Arbiter as you do so consistently. And you do not appear to "advocate" anarchism (as in to promote it as a practice), but rather "sit understandingly restlessly-content" (whatever that means) anticipating anarchy for the masses as well as your own inexplicable personal physical salvation.

IMO, you display a classic personality disorder that is based in extreme ego-centrism. Because you believe the world to be a shit-hole, it will suffer physical calamity. Because you see your fellow humans as monstrosities, most of them will perish in this Armageddon.

Let me just postulate a random historical example. Let's take the Industrial Revolution in its heyday, before modern wasn't new enough and some genius coined the dubious term "post-modern." Are you, Bob, saying that there was no one who felt the same "organismal" disenfranchisement that you do now? I believe the opposite to be the case. The world that produced Nietzsche must have spawned countless souls who felt population accelerating beyond acceptable bounds, who felt the pace of life becoming increasingly unfriendly to the human soul.

I suggest that even at that point in history, such apprehension of impending Armageddon was nothing new. I would have to be convinced otherwise - all I have are your assurances that everyone else was lacking, Jesus himself, and you, Bob of Reading, are uniquely competent to ascertain this. Can you explain why previous people who believed just as sincerely as you do that the Big Purge would occur in their lifetimes proved to be deluded, and why you will not ultimately be likewise regarded by those who may remember you after you die?

Just as surely as we are all born to die, every single prediction about the End of Days has so far not come to pass. Might the Big Kahuna not have something else entirely up His sleeve than making the fate of Mankind responsive to one man's disillusionment?

Again, people speak of spiritual things without coming to grips with what a Spirit actually is.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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The term 'nihilism', like many terms, begins to wear itself out with use. Still, I think it essentially means 'aftermath of the collapse of a sustaining and overarching belief system'. But in each person the collapse of the old system(s) occurs differently, has progressed differently (is progressing). It is fruitful to consider the Programs of the various people who write on this philosophy-forum in that light: as partially collapsed systems, like fallen houses, or perhaps as partially constructed new structures coming out of the ruins of old fallen structures. Bob has come up with a sort of idee-fixe whose characteristic is that it has only one moving part. It is reproducible in any context, in any conversation, for now until time ends. The whole idea, of course, is bound to a transparent and easily-recognized fantasy---the fantasy that there is or even could be a refuge for the truly living in this dead world, or an Ark. It is an unreal fantasy based on another unreal fantasy (symbolic story) that is forced to fit into 'reality'. It tells a story, though, so much more about our shared condition than it does about anything else.

It is not really that much fun to take this idea apart since, to all appearances, it is the only one that Bob has. Yet what is more interesting is to compare it to the House Philosopher's constructs, which of course are presented as complete, absolute and certain (though from one angle they are incomplete, partial, fantasy-based and serve the function of keeping the individual intact and no other). They are the creations of partially dissolved individuals, or of people partially reassembled. Just as Bob is absolutely convinced of his view and the program that arises from it, so (apparently) are those who have formed the house philosophy. So too are Dennis and movingalways and one can watch them rehearse, endlessly rehearse, their 'show', their mechanical mental contraption with one moving part. But it is even more painfully reduced. Soon, it will compose itself of 50 words only, then 10. Finally, there will be just one word and each response will be repetitions of that one word! That will be called Absolute Truth! and a discourse of Truth! And yet for them it is not anything to be so easily dismissed, indeed it is complete, marvellous, Truth itself!

I am curious about this one thing: the way we come up with a simple mechanism, a sort of idee fixe, on which we hang our very survival. Without it, what would happen? The complete dissolution of the individual? A sort of melting down to a non-descript and truly 'nihilistic' puddle? If there IS something, some idea or activity that integrates the person into an effective entity in an ever-more bizarre world, what is it?
  • "The apocalypse is finished, today it is the precession of the neutral, of forms of the neutral and of indifference...all that remains, is the fascination for desertlike and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us. ---Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 'On Nihilism'
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