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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The bees, Diebert, it draws the bees! ;-) Makin' honey while the sun shines. Gotta bring sumpthin' home to mama. If at the end we ain't got no honey, what the fuck value did it have anyway?
Diebert wrote:It's one thing to assert a "disconnect", it's another thing to know why this happened as a process. Why is this disconnection taking place and did anything happen with those "basic understandable common" meanings or did something happen with "us" and are the good old meanings still there to return to? This is an area to explore but using which tools?
I propose: a wrench, a blow-torch, a diving duck, a little red wagon, 15 corroded coat-hangers and a Colt .45 with one bullet. I am SURE I can produce some honig with this combo. Just give me time, just give me time.

Seriously though, in the end, shouldn't we really hope for the annihilation Bob always talks of, hopes for, and then, when those delirious morons have been thinned out, perhaps we should all get a piece of land---not too far south and not too far north---and we'll start a planters commune. True, we'll have to make an inroad into an all-women forum somewhere out there for access to young, like-minded, fire-legged, philo-sophical females who can cook and scrub and mind the protoplasm while we meet like an old Mennonite assembly, dragging our various texts on sleds, preaching what needs be preached, establishing a foundation for the super-sensitive Nietzschen future that must surely come and praying to that Great Star! shining for us in whose eyes its starry light is reflected!

Even more seriously, after everything has settled down, toppled down, been leveled & razed, I have a feeling that, like the seeds from flowers that return to the ground we'll all have to start all over again down in the same dirt. I am not sure what that ULTIMATELY means or when it will ULTIMATELY come, but I just don't see a way around it, do you? How far away from the natural world (I mean this quite literally) can we go? (Cascades, forests, mountain tops, wind, soil, etc.)
_________________________________________________________

Yes, that is good: from the scenic to the obscenic! From the ephemeral to the blasphemeral (and back).
Diebert wrote:The lack of clarity lies mostly in your use of the phrase "the material stuff, the biological stuff of it". Never mind what "it" is. Perhaps it's obvious to you but it really isn't. Did you mean perhaps chemistry? Would that be like invoking hard materialism (at the "base") as a "given". But the materials, its science do not supply meaning and interpretations at all! They do not carry in themselves signs which disqualifies it "as base" from any spectacle or realm of appearances. As such there is no "base" at all where any "material stuff" could lie. It's this lumping together of two quite different ontologies which might block any further fruitful philosophical inquiry here.
You don't think it is obvious? To me it seems totally obvious. And I do see your point about 'realm of appearance' except that 'the natural world' is (isn't it?) the one, true, original Author, so that all our 'ephemera' in the tippy-top of the material pyramid is just a fantastical re-representation. If there were no substantial world to base it in, what form could any of it have ever taken? Aren't we in fact stuck inside this world with no place (else) to go?
It's this lumping together of two quite different ontologies which might block any further fruitful philosophical inquiry here.
I think you mean lumping together material with biological, right? And you assert these are the two different ontologies?
fiat mihi
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Blair
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Bob Michael wrote:"Humanity is fast asleep - trapped in interacting patterns of individual neurosis and collective psychosis." (Gurdjieff)
It couldn't have been any other way. The Human species successfully evolved for these very reasons, and will also be its undoing.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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The demise of human being.
Is of the status:
Idea, conception, possibility in a range of possibilities, projection.
It's not a 'fait accompli'.

Why attach to inference.
Leave it open.
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Blair
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Why, does what I think somehow effect the outcome? ;)

Blame Bob, he started all this armageddon shit.
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Re: Colin Wilson

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Why, does what I think somehow effect the outcome? ;)
No, but we can think about thinking.
Blame Bob, he started all this armageddon shit.
Bob's a bullshit artist, a poet cranking out a dirge.

It's impossible to guarantee the sun will rise tomorrow.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Blair wrote:
Bob Michael wrote:"Humanity is fast asleep - trapped in interacting patterns of individual neurosis and collective psychosis." (Gurdjieff)
It couldn't have been any other way. The Human species successfully evolved for these very reasons, and will also be its undoing.
Agreed, and I've stated often that the human evolutionary process is proceeding perfectly on course. And that presently the human species remains stuck in a stage whereby a great portion of it suffers from having irreparably malformed brains and neurological networks. As a result the bulk of mankind cannot sense at all that they're "trapped in interacting patterns of individual neurosis and collective psychosis" as Gurdjieff rightly observed, though without out fully understanding the root of the problem. Or the way out for (only) a relatively few people. While the rest continue to march blindly onward towards an inevitable and necessary mass self-destruction.

David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti wrongly felt the human species took a "wrong turn" somewhere along the couse of it's evolutionary development.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Bob Michael wrote:Seems no one here is sensitive enough or awake enough to realize that everywhere men are machines, and are consequently as good as dead. I suggest studying some of Gurdjieff's works. Though without having sufficient sensitivity even this will be but a thing of vanity.
I have read a lot of Gurdjieff and it is my view that while it is fine to quote him out of context, one can really only appreciate his ideas if one keeps Gurdjieff himself in the historical context in which he worked and lived.

His "works" are largely transcriptions of his lectures by pupils, often made from memory. Many who regularly attended his talks were upper middle class women with too much time on their hands and disposable income - the kind who might go to séances after hearing GI speak. Often his talks assumed a Sufi tenor in which a student asks a question and GI answers by berating the student. (Another author in this mold is Doris Lessing - she not only plagiarized him in her writing, I saw her give a lecture and she also emulated him in his abrasive interchange with the audience.) One might visualize a contemporary counterpart to his kind of audience by picturing the obese, bored housewives who seek out Richard Simmons. GI would have been an entirely different sort of guru, quite unsuitable for today's PC sentimentality. Why are you asking me for advice? Can you not see yourself? You are fatter than a prized hog! Lose weight! And do not ask stupid questions - learn to shut up. Keep food from going in and words from coming out!

Gurdjieff wore many hats. He was a dance instructor primarily. His training consisted of moving in ways that countered the body's natural tendency to fall into repetitive, machine-like motion. His programs were noted for being in the "whirling-dervish" mold. Much of his philosophy - if it can be called that - centers similarly on the psychological effects of machine-like behavior and thinking. If everyone around you does A, do B. If you see yourself always doing C, do D.
Though like so many Gurdjieff never found the right approach for solving the ongoing human dilemma either.
Well, if Christ and Nietzsche didn't... Yet another "remarkable man" fails to measure up to Bob of Reading's standards. Sounds like you are misreading just about everybody if you are expecting them to "solve the ongoing human dilemma." Maybe expecting too much? Certainly more than they themselves promised. I could have missed it, though. Exactly where does Gurdjieff pronounce he is trying to right the ills of mankind? If you take him literally, which I suggest, you will see his work consists of making a few serious students more conscious, more aware, and only if they are willing to pay him. He often criticizes those who flock to his lectures but complain about having to pay, insinuating they are the same cheapskates who go to church but grouse about putting a few coins in the collection basket. This is Gurdjieff at his most cantankerous best.

I have read Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson twice. This is one of the few works he actually wrote, and I believe he did it while recuperating in hospital from a serious auto accident. GI assures his reader that he must read it a full three times to gain the entire benefit that was intended. Unless that benefit includes suicide, I can't see a reason for plowing through all three volumes yet again. Three volumes, and a total of six, perhaps seven paragraphs. This is the work I believe Lessing borrowed heavily from in her later science-fiction series.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Man's mental world is his impermanent dream and nightmare. Facing this truth forces man to his knees, and what he does from this posture bespeaks how he will live from that moment forward.

There are two paths a man walks once he receives the brutal truth of the nature of his mental world:

1. He gets up off his knees and lives consciously in his dreams and nightmares, denying his enlightenment.

2. He remains on his knees and lives consciously of the death of his dreams and nightmares, accepting his enlightenment.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Pam wrote:He remains on his knees and lives consciously of the death of his dreams and nightmares, accepting his enlightenment.
Bono wrote:If you wanna kiss the sky you'd better learn how to kneel - On your knees boy
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Very nice analysis of Gurdjieff I thought, Cousin Basil. It seems there is no doubt he had a very (very) definite influence on thinking in the 20s, 30s and 40s. Just reading the Wiki page I can see how heavily Castaneda borrowed from him in creating the figure of Don Juan and the whole Castanedan philosophy: breaking patterns of behavior ('stalking') comes to mind, as well as 'stopping the world' (the cultivation of radical moments or epiphanies of perception where one sees the world and one's self anew); and then in the end Castaneda invented a series of movements called Tensegrity. It is not at all hard to see that Gurdgieff's ideas have spread into so many 'alternative' spiritual modalities.

My sense about him and so many other new spins on spiritual life (what it means, what it is, what empowers and individual, what is 'the truth', etc.) is not necessarily in the actual program that anyone is offering, but more that we are in a process of remolding our ideas. If G's influence was as far-reaching as it appears it was (along with Vivekananda, Yogananda, Suzuki, Srila Prabhupada and many others) it is super-interesting to consider the way that new ideas (good ideas, bad ideas, false ideas, new spins on old ideas) gets filtered down into the social world and people may not even be aware of who and what is influencing them.

I thought Dennis's comment about Bob as 'bullshit artist' was interesting. Who here seems to offer 'complete packages' of New Spirituality? David, movingalways and Bob are our principal 'prophets' and oracles of complete programs for remolding one's whole relationship to 'reality'. And to some extent Dennis too offers a complete program. Given the name and the purpose of the forum it is not at all surprising that Prophets arrive here, set up shop, and attempt to offer their franchise. See, I would compare both Dennis and Bob as both offering a distinct and as I say 'tendentious' program, but neither is exactly a 'bullshit artist' since each believes very strongly in the program they preach. And if we didn't really believe only THEN we'd really be bullshit artists.
movingalways wrote:2. He remains on his knees and lives consciously of the death of his dreams and nightmares, accepting his enlightenment.
Funny, isn't it? how a piece of advice, the uttering of a philosophical truth, an existential truth, is a statement about ourself. Clearly, what movingalways is doing is the above; she embodies this, it is the One Truth worth preaching. It is the one true bit of advice that she has to offer and in fact is the ONLY one she ever talks about. When are you people going to GET IT? ;-P

I think there is a great deal of truth in it, BTW. That is what I have taken away from these discussions, with certain caveats. It is a stronger position to stand back from this swirling, ever-changing, almost hallucinatory psychic material that rises up in us and to try to hold to a 'sober' position in regard to it. It is nicely expressed in the Kabalistic model, that our consciousness, our psychic self, is receiving all images through the sphere of 'Yesod': a lunar sphere, a half-lighted sphere, a dream-sphere, an 'astral' sphere. Any structure that we have has essentially been 'installed' in us but we make a mistake if we are tricked into thinking it is 'absolutely real' and 'our own'. It is more properly absolutely a refracted image, like sunlight coming down through rather murky water. And it is possibly more true to say that It possesses us and not that We possess it.

I think that Bob and David and Dennis and movingalways are preaching an interesting and substantial Gospel, but I am not sure if either one of them can see that theirs too is a sort of incomplete image. If you want REALLY to bring your preaching to a New Level, will you stop finally rejecting the Guiding Influence of an Ass Who Talks?© Hmmmmm? Anyone with two eyes to see and two ears to hear KNOWS that I am the Top Ass around here.

For some reason this poem Death Shall Have No Dominion by Dylan Thomas came into my head, as a further meditation on the creeping, black-scaled nihilism that slithers about ('though they go mad they shall be sane / though they sink through the sea they shall rise again'):
  • And death shall have no dominion.
    Dead men naked they shall be one
    With the man in the wind and the west moon;
    When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
    They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
    Though they go mad they shall be sane,
    Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
    Though lovers be lost love shall not;
    And death shall have no dominion.

    And death shall have no dominion.
    Under the windings of the sea
    They lying long shall not die windily;
    Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
    Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
    Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
    And the unicorn evils run them through;
    Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
    And death shall have no dominion.

    And death shall have no dominion.
    No more may gulls cry at their ears
    Or waves break loud on the seashores;
    Where blew a flower may a flower no more
    Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
    Though they be mad and dead as nails,
    Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
    Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
    And death shall have no dominion.
fiat mihi
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Re: Colin Wilson

Post by Pam Seeback »

I think that Bob and David and Dennis and movingalways are preaching an interesting and substantial Gospel, but I am not sure if either one of them can see that theirs too is a sort of incomplete image. If you want REALLY to bring your preaching to a New Level, will you stop finally rejecting the Guiding Influence of an Ass Who Talks?© Hmmmmm? Anyone with two eyes to see and two ears to hear KNOWS that I am the Top Ass around here.
TA, I welcome your vision of a complete image, but be warned, if it comes wearing the face of duality, the sword of the truth of the law of the incomplete opposites will be swinging! I say that it is just because all images are expressions of the duality of incompleteness that there is no such 'thing' as a complete image.

In my recent post to David in the "causality is an illusion thread" I addressed the way that a man learns how to stand on his knees in the upright position of Wisdom, to walk the Word of Wisdom, and that is the way of becoming the living expression of transcendence. The hard truth of this walk-on-the knees, which is also its softness while it is being walked [Jesus called this walk of dying to the old man of reason and being reborn as the new man of Spirit metaphor "the coming of The Comforter"] is that when the walk is done, so is the mind of the man. As one's living of their spirit metaphors become more and more "transparent, as one becomes strengthened in their obedience and dedication to their detachment from the earth [the core dual image] one truly is "taken" or "ascends" into the unchanging, unnamed Originator of all things, never again to return to walk the walk of image and names, either on his feet or on his knees.

Give me your best shot, however; I do believe in the wisdom of "never say never." My sword is sheathed...for now. :-)
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Looks like there's a lot of naming going on.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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cousinbasil wrote:I have read a lot of Gurdjieff and it is my view that while it is fine to quote him out of context, one can really only appreciate his ideas if one keeps Gurdjieff himself in the historical context in which he worked and lived.

I suppose I'll continue to be "out of context" or "misreading" others in most peoples' eyes all the rest of my days. Or until I'm surrounded by genuine free spirits who understand. Which is rather sad though quite understandable since being different, along with having clear and even perfect insights into everything and everyone, goes with the territory of genuine enlightenment. Allow me to paraphrase old St. Paul here in this regard: "The spiritual man has insight into everything and that bothers and baffles the man of the world and he simply doesn't understand him at all."
cousinbasil wrote: Well, if Christ and Nietzsche didn't ... Yet another "remarkable man" fails to measure up to Bob of Reading's standards. Sounds like you are misreading just about everybody if you are expecting them to "solve the ongoing human dilemma." Maybe expecting too much? Certainly more than they themselves promised. I could have missed it, though. Exactly where does Gurdjieff pronounce he is trying to right the ills of mankind? If you take him literally, which I suggest, you will see his work consists of making a few serious students more conscious, more aware, and only if they are willing to pay him. He often criticizes those who flock to his lectures but complain about having to pay, insinuating they are the same cheapskates who go to church but grouse about putting a few coins in the collection basket. This is Gurdjieff at his most cantankerous best.


The goal of enlightened beings is not to be instrumental in making others "more conscious, more aware", but to help make them totally or fully conscious and aware. Being "more aware, more awake" does not make a person totally free of the conditioned "human, all-too-human" self. Which is absolutely necessary if one is to be pure spirit and thereby be genuinely effective in the enlightenment of some of his fellows, some of the similarly 'elect'.
cousinbasil wrote:I have read Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson twice. This is one of the few works he actually wrote, and I believe he did it while recuperating in hospital from a serious auto accident. GI assures his reader that he must read it a full three times to gain the entire benefit that was intended. Unless that benefit includes suicide, I can't see a reason for plowing through all three volumes yet again. Three volumes, and a total of six, perhaps seven paragraphs. This is the work I believe Lessing borrowed heavily from in her later science-fiction series.

Gurdjieff surely knew the experience of being in the 'Kingdom', the 'promised land', the state of 'cosmic consciousness' , or what ever name one wishes to call this state of pure-heartedness. Which could also be said to be the state of possessing a very-highly refined and perfected human organism. However, he had several major impediments to his being of any real evolutionary value to the human species. He was not a twice-born person, but was able to maintain his enlightened state from childhood on up. Whereas his listeners or students virtually all went down the path of destruction, thereby losing the natural "bright" of their early childhood days, and consequently had to undergo a radical rebirth or shift of consciousness experience or experiences if they were to ever attain to enlightenment or make the return to the long lost "bright". Which he failed to realize and fully understand. He never freed himself of the crutches of alcohol and tobacco. And while these mood-altering substances can actually be of benefit in helping to thrust a person (with a finely-formed conscience) into a state of excellant to near-perfect enlightenment and also help keep him there; on the other hand, they will also inhibit a person from attaining to perfect enlightenment or the state of being pure spirit, which is absolutely necessary if one is to be of any real value to some of his fellows and the human evolutionary process. I too suspect the booze contributed to the 'two' serious automobile accidents he had along with some other various scrapes he was involved in throughout his life. From which he never seemed to learn their lessons. Also, and like nearly all spiritual teachers both past and present, he was not thoroughly self-knowing nor did he remain an open-minded student. Nor did he ever learn that 'tough love' most definitely is not the right approach for effectively awakening and enlightening others.

According to the book 'Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas' by John Shirley, after Gurdjieff's first automobile accident Ouspensky felt that "dark forces were at work" and wondered how he could "be brought down like a mere mortal by the Law of Accident." Ouspensky also felt at one point that Gurdjieff was letting the wrong kinds of people into his school. I tend to concur with Ouspensky's views here.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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TA wrote:If you want REALLY to bring your preaching to a New Level, will you stop finally rejecting the Guiding Influence of an Ass Who Talks?© Hmmmmm? Anyone with two eyes to see and two ears to hear KNOWS that I am the Top Ass around here.
I follow ass whenever I get the chance!
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Re: Colin Wilson

Post by Pam Seeback »

cousinbasil wrote:
TA wrote:If you want REALLY to bring your preaching to a New Level, will you stop finally rejecting the Guiding Influence of an Ass Who Talks?© Hmmmmm? Anyone with two eyes to see and two ears to hear KNOWS that I am the Top Ass around here.
I follow ass whenever I get the chance!
hehehe....we're all following ass, our own ass. We can, however, find the way to wash the brown stuff off our noses.

TA, bring on your Gospel if your conscience says you must; this is all we can do, is to follow the spirit of our conscience. I won't be reasoning it with you however, as my conscience is telling me the time to cease reasoning the things of spirit has come.

Peace out, Alex, I hope you find what it is that you seek!
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Talking Ass wrote:...we'll start a planters commune. True, we'll have to make an inroad into an all-women forum somewhere out there for access to young, like-minded, fire-legged, philo-sophical females who can cook and scrub and mind the protoplasm while we meet like an old Mennonite assembly, dragging our various texts on sleds, preaching what needs be preached, establishing a foundation for the super-sensitive Nietzschen future that must surely come and praying to that Great Star! shining for us in whose eyes its starry light is reflected!
In many ways an idealized form of the Manorialism of medieval and earlier times. Those were the days!
How far away from the natural world (I mean this quite literally) can we go? (Cascades, forests, mountain tops, wind, soil, etc.)
The "natural world" has never been left. Nature just has proven to be more bizarre and perverse (obscene,blasphemeral) than earlier thought. And yet that could also provide hope.
If there were no substantial world to base it in, what form could any of it have ever taken? Aren't we in fact stuck inside this world with no place (else) to go?
Forms and substance both have different ontological bases. Meaning trumps matter - I live because I [am made to] care, that is : assign meaning. To add forms to life is ominous yet vital and still: "things exalted then decay". Decadence as rot: her stunning beauty yet horrible vapidness, and don't forget the stench when punctured!
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Re: Colin Wilson

Post by cousinbasil »

movingalways wrote:hehehe....we're all following ass, our own ass. We can, however, find the way to wash the brown stuff off our noses.
By "brown stuff" I assume you mean poo-poo? Why not come right out and say it? My, how distasteful. One can only suppose you are speaking for yourself, you know, the "royal we."
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Re: Colin Wilson

Post by cousinbasil »

Bob Michael wrote:The goal of enlightened beings is not to be instrumental in making others "more conscious, more aware", but to help make them totally or fully conscious and aware. Being "more aware, more awake" does not make a person totally free of the conditioned "human, all-too-human" self. Which is absolutely necessary if one is to be pure spirit and thereby be genuinely effective in the enlightenment of some of his fellows, some of the similarly 'elect'.
"Enlightened beings" would understand that almost none who seek their aid in enlightenment are in any way ready or prepared or able to achieve such a goal. Therefore, they offer such seekers ways to begin the journey. I cannot believe you read much Gurdjieff if you did not come away with "start with the little things" firmly in your mind.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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Diebert wrote:Forms and substance both have different ontological bases.
What on odd declaration. I would have---intuitively---to negate it. Or perhaps I am driven to do so by some religious understructure present in me? Since there is One Existence, One Manifestation, and we are in it and cannot ever leave it, there can only be One Ontology. Or, the 'logical fact' (of seeming) that existence and what exists is all there is an ever could be, the idea or the fantasy speculation of distinct forms of ontology is negated. Our 'ontology' is simply existing. So, with this, it must be obvious that substance produces forms and forms cannot ever be separate from substance, though they can begin to disassociate from 'genuine connectedness', and that therefore we have Spectacle that is absurd. If I remember correctly, Aristotle in Physics proposes that all thought and thinking arises within the structure of relationships in the world, and our thinking is intimately connected with the world therefore. At other times, say in a primitive forest setting, our being and our imagining was clearly related and bound to (grounded in) the 'facts' of: water, trees, forests, clouds, animals, dirt. But, as things are progressing and we are ever more disconnected in a 'factual' sense from the world, we essentially live within imagined worlds, and again Spectacle arises. I propose that at some point, eother by choice or by pressure, we will all have to return to the ground...

Here is the proof.
fiat mihi
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Re: Colin Wilson

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Talking Ass wrote:So, with this, it must be obvious that substance produces forms and forms cannot ever be separate from substance, though they can begin to disassociate from 'genuine connectedness', and that therefore we have Spectacle that is absurd.
While one could propose form as instantiation of substance, this doesn't mean they have to share any ontology, with which I mean that they don't necessarily have to share the same category of existence/existing.
If I remember correctly, Aristotle in Physics proposes that all thought and thinking arises within the structure of relationships in the world, and our thinking is intimately connected with the world therefore.
He basically thought all forms arise out of material objects and their relation. This leads to the theory of the indivisible atom - already smashed to little peaces long ago! This left the door open to theorize about substance residing in ideal Forms, higher worlds, quantum realms, string vibration etc. Certainly it left "reality" or "the world" as [succession of] forms only.
At other times, say in a primitive forest setting, our being and our imagining was clearly related and bound to (grounded in) the 'facts' of: water, trees, forests, clouds, animals, dirt. But, as things are progressing and we are ever more disconnected in a 'factual' sense from the world, we essentially live within imagined worlds, and again Spectacle arises. I propose that at some point, either by choice or by pressure, we will all have to return to the ground...
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Perhaps the difference between a time when being and imagining was clear or "clearly related and bound" and the time where disconnects and ominous spectacles occur is not a lack of "physicality" at all. Actually I'd propose the difference to be solely the amount of forms,amount of being and amount of imagining causing a "form overload" which can appear certainly as spectacle : the "progress" abscess. As I wrote before: too much reality, in the sense of proliferation and unrestrained recombination of form.

Substance cannot be said to "exist" and neither one can forge a connection to its non-existent mode which would be in any fundamental way different from any other form. And this way it becomes clear that any "return to the ground" would involve formlessness - something with can certainly seem eery and flighty since it appears to [and often does] deny form (thus ones "reality"). But everything comes to us necessarily reversible. The greatest kill, the highest grace, after all.
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Re: Colin Wilson

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cousinbasil wrote:"Enlightened beings" would understand that almost none who seek their aid in enlightenment are in any way ready or prepared or able to achieve such a goal. Therefore, they offer such seekers ways to begin the journey.

Gurdjieff left no disciples behind of his own caliber or greater. So all his various tricks and gimmicks - little things or big things were to absolutely no avail.
cousinbasil wrote:I cannot believe you read much Gurdjieff if you did not come away with "start with the little things" firmly in your mind.
Quite frankly I think I understand Gurdjieff better than he understood himself. Though whatever the case may be he's dead and gone and but another name on a long list of false, flawed, and failed prophets, teachers, gurus, and messiahs. One who also left an imperfect, non-understood, corrupted, and consequently dead 'religion' behind him.

http://www.strippingthegurus.com/
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Re: Colin Wilson

Post by cousinbasil »

Bob Michael wrote:Gurdjieff left no disciples behind of his own caliber or greater. So all his various tricks and gimmicks - little things or big things were to absolutely no avail.
The claim about disciples he left is preposterous as you would have no way way of knowing it even if it were in fact the case. Secondly, you are now calling his methods "tricks and gimmicks" while just a few posts ago you said:
Seems no one here is sensitive enough or awake enough to realize that everywhere men are machines, and are consequently as good as dead. I suggest studying some of Gurdjieff's works.
Quite frankly I think I understand Gurdjieff better than he understood himself. Though whatever the case may be he's dead and gone and but another name on a long list of false, flawed, and failed prophets, teachers, gurus, and messiahs. One who also left an imperfect, non-understood, corrupted, and consequently dead 'religion' behind him.
Apparently "non-understood" by everyone except yourself. Why doesn't this surprise me?
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Talking Ass
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Re: Colin Wilson

Post by Talking Ass »

  • We have grown weary of the man who thinks.
    He thinks and it is not true...*
'Category' is a pretty heavily loaded projection. To speak of 'categories of existence'---and this seems true of much of what you have written in a series of posts---is to move in a peculiar mytho-poetic realm, yet abstracted. In the same sense Aristotle built on the mytho-poetical structure (vision, view, organization) of Homer and Hesiod (etc.)

And then you then move even further into mythopoetics with:
This leads to the theory of the indivisible atom - already smashed to little pieces long ago! This left the door open to theorize about substance residing in ideal Forms, higher worlds, quantum realms, string vibration etc. Certainly it left "reality" or "the world" as [succession of] forms only'.
You have established for yourself a realm of Spectacle where you can move any way you wish and anywhere you wish, unfettered. Yet it occurs in the realm of the imaginal, and of Spectacle. While you either look for or are carried along by mythopoetic ideas that ephemeralize you, I am interested in mythopoetical ideas that bring me down below:
  • There is a man whom rhapsodies of change,
    Of which he is the cause, have never changed
    And never will, a subman under all
    The rest, to whom in the end the rest return,
    The man below the man below the man,
    Steeped in night's opium, evading day*.
See, the way I see it you expound an advanced and yet interesting (but convoluted) form of nihilism. Or, you are pushed along in your little vessel by nihilism's winds. You certainly are not to be blamed for it since we all are doing it (it is done to us), each in his way.
Perhaps the difference between a time when being and imagining was clear or "clearly related and bound" and the time where disconnects and ominous spectacles occur is not a lack of "physicality" at all. Actually I'd propose the difference to be solely the amount of forms, amount of being and amount of imagining causing a "form overload" which can appear certainly as spectacle : the "progress" abscess. As I wrote before: too much reality, in the sense of proliferation and unrestrained recombination of form.
Can't say that I disagree.

Still:

  • He dwells below, the man below, in less
    Than body and in less than mind, ogre.
    Inhabitant, in less than shape, of shapes
    That are dissembled in vague memory
    Yet still retain resemblances, remain
    Rememberances...*

____________________________________________________________

* Wallace Stevens, Opus Posthumous
fiat mihi
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Colin Wilson

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Talking Ass wrote:You have established for yourself a realm of Spectacle where you can move any way you wish and anywhere you wish, unfettered.
You wish! It would be interesting to ask yourself how you came to this conclusion just from what I wrote. We're still talking about very real things here, necessities, blood and guts and so on. The "Spectacle" is not high up in the air, it stares at us from the bottom. Debord's usage of the term is limited: it's not just social relation mediated by images (they always were), it's the referential "quality" of images which have been warped by their proliferation. Myopic peerversion.
Yet it occurs in the realm of the imaginal, and of Spectacle. While you either look for or are carried along by mythopoetic ideas that ephemeralize you, I am interested in mythopoetical ideas that bring me down below
Hmmm "mytho-poetic". Perhaps the myth as sacred narrative (Campbell) combined with poetic creation as incantation, that is: challenge to the spirit to manifest. All in broadest of terms possible.
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Talking Ass
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Re: Colin Wilson

Post by Talking Ass »

When I looked over that reference to Debord I also focused on the Feuerbach (preface to The Essence of Christianity):
  • But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence... illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness.
Debord himself writes:
  • 2. 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.
With Feuerbach the operative phrase is 'the present age' which might indicate he felt that, at some point in the past, the 'preference for the sign' might have been less pronounced. The sense though is that we are in an increasing spiral---not a downward spiral but an upward spiral---away from 'the real'. I am supposing that a proper Marxian fundamentalist would have quite a means of defining on-the-ground connectedness, and that is the angle I have been pursuing here.

With Debord I see what he is referring to as, well, just what he says: the images have become disattached from what they originally signified, and it is 'as if' we watch images projected onto the cloudy night sky. They are loosely connected to 'reality'---they must be, and in that Aristotelian sense they must have originated in 'reality'---but substantially disconnected. The reality that most illustrates this might be the spectacle of the Gulf War: it occurred for most everyone in an imagined space, a participatory space, while the 'truth' of it, the actual fact of it, what it intended and what it did, was likely radically different. It was unreal for those who watched the Spectacle but as real as real can be for those who experienced it raining down on them. I think we would have to root ourselves in stories of this sort in order to be able to proceed.

If 'sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases', I will assume that this could mean that the imagined spectacle is imagined to hold the truer meaning, certainly a more compelling meaning, whereas the real meaning could only really be found in those tangible things that man values. And those things are down here, with us, on the ground (factually and ultimately). Wouldn't 'value' be the general quality that encapsulates the important thing here? So, I am fond of saying 'the you and the me' which is similar to Buber's I and Thou but possibly closer to a strict Marxian definition (though isn't Judaism arch-Marxism on some level?).
  • a pseudo-world apart...

    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...
Naturally, I related to this stuff because I can use it rather nicely in my rhetorical discourse: what we really have to deal with is the real stuff of ourselves, in bodies, in time, here. The focus of 'spirituality' and religion and productive activity can only be here. Where 'else' is there?
Diebert wrote:It would be interesting to ask yourself how you came to this conclusion just from what I wrote. We're still talking about very real things here, necessities, blood and guts and so on. The "Spectacle" is not high up in the air, it stares at us from the bottom. Debord's usage of the term is limited: it's not just social relation mediated by images (they always were), it's the referential "quality" of images which have been warped by their proliferation. Myopic peerversion.
I came from that conclusion with your detour into 'mythopoetic language' (dissolved atoms, whole imagined worlds that went *poof*). You seem to use that language to move into sketchy areas, slippery areas. All that mytho-physical-language is of course 'true', but it does not change (at least I do not see how it does) that strict facts of our bindedness to an exsitence that, for us, is very very real. Any declaration that says' it isn't really real!' is, as I see it, almost absurd mythopoetization of reality. It occurs in 'the copy to the original', and 'in a common stream in which the unity of this life can no longer be reestablished'. Perhaps I am reading you all wrong but what you 'suggest' could lead to: 'The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, ... the autonomous movement of the non-living.'

And as you know I define 'nihilism' as incapacity to connect with Life and what is Living.
fiat mihi
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