tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post7884254399256341430..comments2023-10-17T20:50:15.495-07:00Comments on Groupname for Grapejuice: Squatting the Chapel Perilous 1znorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09870745426523284218noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-20324562530598227972015-04-09T07:28:16.651-07:002015-04-09T07:28:16.651-07:00Curious if you've read Jan Assmann, leading Eg...Curious if you've read Jan Assmann, leading Egyptologist who wrote a book called Moses the Egyptian, and discusses the natural occulting of the lesser and greater mysteries ending in hen gai pan. Ties into modern neuroscience as well, if all mind is matter, isn't this equivalent to saying all matter is mind? Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works and The Stuff of Thought are well worth reading for those with a linguistic bent. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-64115483514473964932015-03-09T17:39:49.817-07:002015-03-09T17:39:49.817-07:00Always good to see yo hear Dennis. You spark it of...Always good to see yo hear Dennis. You spark it off. znorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09870745426523284218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-59484476900944329152015-03-09T17:38:45.571-07:002015-03-09T17:38:45.571-07:00Congratulations, Anon! There is no greater passage...Congratulations, Anon! There is no greater passage than this.<br />znorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09870745426523284218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-88586342225181793822015-03-09T17:37:32.343-07:002015-03-09T17:37:32.343-07:00Thanks for the perceptive and informative comments...Thanks for the perceptive and informative comments, Tom. Thanks also for the plug on your great blog. You anticipate a bit of what I include in Part 2. I'm going to try to get this out in the next few hours. I do not know Shea's book, but I'll try to find this as well.znorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09870745426523284218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-55431329480765266222015-03-08T08:12:46.477-07:002015-03-08T08:12:46.477-07:00(4) Forgot to mention that Odysseus' journey t...(4) Forgot to mention that Odysseus' journey to the underworld is invoked in the Hades section of Ulysses, when Leopold Bloom attends the funeral of Paddy Dignam, although whether there's anything there that relates to what you are talking about I would have to leave to better Joyce scholars than I. Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07810736442596736041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-63428584920759474832015-03-08T08:09:35.468-07:002015-03-08T08:09:35.468-07:00A few notes:
(1) Although you don't mention i...A few notes:<br /><br />(1) Although you don't mention it, the next-to-last chapter of Weston's book is called "The Perilous Chapel." And the rest of us don't have to wait until we stumble across the book in a secondhand bookshop -- it's posted at Project Gutenberg, including epub and mobi versions:<br /><br />http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4090<br /><br />(2) Your topic connects closely with Robert Anton Wilson's writings about "Chapel Perilous" and his speculations on the "real Illuminati" in "Cosmic Trigger 1," as I'm sure you know, but the themes of this new essay also connect well with Robert Shea's historical novel "All Things Are Lights," which is about the Albigenses, the troubadour tradition, the Templars, sex magick, etc. I've written about this book as a "dramatic prequel" to "Illuminatus!"<br /><br />(3) Dante begins his journey into Chapel Perilous in middle age, when many people are forced to think about death, when he is in a wilderness:<br /><br /> When I had journeyed half of our life's way,<br />2 I found myself within a shadowed forest,<br />3 for I had lost the path that does not stray.Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07810736442596736041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-6419411370477252015-03-06T22:54:55.352-08:002015-03-06T22:54:55.352-08:00Thanks for the wonderful link to your previous pos...Thanks for the wonderful link to your previous post to PKD & Solovyov. That post in turn had me reading other prior posts as well. Dazzling connections, especially what you propose with Pike's ghost as the possible host working through PKD. I'll be back soon with more remarks. Right now I'm on paternity leave with the arrival of our son, so apologies for lag time with replies. Also, have you read Tom Stoppard's Arcadia? I imagine you would enjoy this, and have a lot of insight to offer on this play.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-73432320240460806252015-03-06T03:44:27.240-08:002015-03-06T03:44:27.240-08:00You have no idea how delighted I am by your though...You have no idea how delighted I am by your thoughtful comment. I was just beginning to despair that my message was getting lost. Proteus is certainly one of the main presiding spirits of this blog. If you've got this, you've got nearly it all.<br /><br />Yes, breathing together. This is not a simple thing. I agree completely with you on the reconciliation of Frazer and Guenon. And strangely or appropriately enough, I've written about Solovyov (or Soloviev) and PKD on Sophia. Thanks again!<br /><br />http://groupnameforgrapejuice.blogspot.jp/2013/04/ichtheology-body.html<br /> znorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09870745426523284218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-35639818002385286132015-03-05T19:16:47.286-08:002015-03-05T19:16:47.286-08:00Reflecting further on your post, your work strikes...Reflecting further on your post, your work strikes me as a kind of cartography of noetic consciousness. You trace a subtle, breathtaking pattern going on, but as you say, any kind of foundation or origin remains elusive. The mythical Proteus somehow feels apropos here. It also seems that it's not only an absence of foundation, but a kind of seamlessness or permeable boundary, which perhaps is a threshold toward nondual, or at least a more permeable consciousness? <br /><br />I know somewhere in PKD's Exegesis, to loosely paraphrase, he writes about how we have to take thought, or discursive thinking as far as we can to approach another level of apprehending reality. The work you're doing here feels like a more mature approach, dare I say, of conspiracy work, but conspiracy work in the sense of "with breath"/"with spirit". I think the absolutist sites like makow or the Alex Jones types are stuck somehow in a more empirical framework that is uncomfortable with ambiguity and seeking to flatten the nuances with oversimplifying black/white, goodguy/badguy outlooks. I believe this approach only blocks us from going deeper into these mysteries. <br /><br />I came across a passage in Fall of Sophia, trans. by Violet MacDermot, that might have some relevancy to Frazer's notion on the gods of vegetation. This is actually a commentary by the Russian philosopher-mystic, Vladimir Solovyov who describes how human consciousness changes with the passage of time. To sum up, as he traces different phases of human consciousness, one of which he discusses would seem to fit that paradigm of "gods of vegetation", and I can't help but wonder if that's why Guenon spurns grail theories based on gods of vegetation. Personally, from a Neo-Platonic point of view, I don't see why Guenon's view (which I assume to be monotheistic) and Frazer's polytheistic orientation can't coexist as just different levels of reality.<br /><br />The passage in question starts at the bottom paragraph of the page from this googlebooks link, "Solovyov describes how human consciousness..." etc.: https://books.google.com/books?id=dledl8e_RpwC&pg=PT90&lpg=PT90&dq=solovyov+describes+how+human+consciousness+changes+with+the+passage+of+time&source=bl&ots=-Osb77Oah8&sig=m3VXBahBmAd2JHXq8EZ0CsAVryg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wQ_5VLvCMIKZoQSojoHIAQ&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=solovyov%20describes%20how%20human%20consciousness%20changes%20with%20the%20passage%20of%20time&f=false<br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-32607667365889315452015-03-03T04:23:05.062-08:002015-03-03T04:23:05.062-08:00A literary fractal! That's great. I have not r...A literary fractal! That's great. I have not read Guenon's article, but I will now. Thanks for the recommendation. I am a big fan of his work, especially The Reign of Quantity. In this book he clearly expresses his oppostion to what he calls the pseudo-initiation and the counter-initiation. Guenon includes all Theosophy-derived esoteric groups (and definitely Mead's Quest Society) within these categories, although these are precisely the groups that he rose through the ranks of before converting to Sufism.<br /><br />A big part of what I'm trying to do in this blog is to show how multifaceted and complex this all is. That's why I like your fractal comparison so much. Guenon, and his equally fascinating disciple, the fascist Julius Evola, are exemplary figures in this regard. No consensus seems to have been reached on Guenon. Even the absolutist conspiracy theorists are divided on him:<br /><br />http://henrymakow.com/2014/02/Rene-Guenon-Good-Guy-or-Bad-Guy.html<br /><br />Similar divisions are endemic in occult circles. Crowley became a bitter enemy of both Waite and Yeats. How many of the events of history stem from the clashes of cliques of magicians? Spells, counter-spells and counter-counter-spells. <br /><br />A mistake that's easily made, I think, is to throw our hands up in the face of this complexity and to conclude that it really is all just random fluctuation. <br /><br />Instead -- in fractal-style -- magical manipulation is just as multiform and manifold as on any other level of nature/imagination. From to the globule riot of microscopic life in a drop of swamp water, to the cosmic battles of angels and demons, to the nearly irreparable fragments of the individual psyche, a foundation has yet to be found.znorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09870745426523284218noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-64474071621137107982015-03-02T23:42:19.026-08:002015-03-02T23:42:19.026-08:00What an outstanding literary fractal here to read!...What an outstanding literary fractal here to read! Have you read Guenon's article, the Holy Grail? In his critique of Waite's "Holy Grail", at one point he dismisses the work of Frazer as an anti-traditionalist, but praises Waite's rejection of Grail theories "that make appeal to so-called 'gods of vegetation.'" If you have familiarity with this article, what's your take? Seems that Guenon was working out of a different esoteric paradigm, especially with him going as far as to call Jung a "black magician". Has me wondering just who's casting the spell and counter-spell here (if anyone)...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6600594361812328513.post-33834280076654813002015-02-23T20:52:42.700-08:002015-02-23T20:52:42.700-08:00What a Gnostic treasure this post provides. To nav...What a Gnostic treasure this post provides. To navigate thru the land of waste is key. DennisDennis/87https://www.blogger.com/profile/03703473570098929681noreply@blogger.com