tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post88455432593544601..comments2024-03-27T18:12:22.027-07:00Comments on RAWIllumination.net: The Widow's Son reading group, Week 22Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07810736442596736041noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-86587969494715773612020-01-25T14:26:25.946-08:002020-01-25T14:26:25.946-08:00A particularly fine set of notes from Gregory.
I ...A particularly fine set of notes from Gregory.<br /><br />I have no desire to appear perversely contrarian (since the internet seems to have led to more arguing than debating/discussing), and I was delighted to hear that Nagas meant Sagan (when I had wandered off into sacred snakes, cobras, etc). It seems entirely likely that Bob intended a satire of The Amazing Randi, in Sharper, but at that point I pull back.<br /><br />Bob teases his kids for being vegetarians, and into astrology, in Cosmic Trigger. Both, interests of mine. No two people seem likely to feel fully aligned. Perhaps I come from a slightly different generation. My sister, only 2-3 years older than me, came from the 50s and Elvis, but I belonged to the Sixties. So I feel perfectly happy to disagree with RAW about some things.<br /><br />I have no idea about the actual personalities of Martin Gardner or James Randi, but I used to routinely read Gardner’s “Mathematical Games” column in Scientific American, for the wonderful mix of maths, magic, optical illusions, paradoxes, and other wonders. OK, his longer books (Fads and Fallcies in the Name of Science, 1957) seemed to dismiss out of hand (say) General Semantics or Homeopathy, but I always consider other people as complex beings, often with some kinds of compartmentalization (or cognitive dissonance). Let’s face it, MLA students thought of Ezra Pound as “a fascist” and Bob worked hard to disabuse us of such a simple label, so we might approach The Cantos.<br /><br />For me, as an ex-conjuror, Randi took on the kind of people who believe (or at least, promote the belief) that (for instance) the world got created 6000 years ago, or that they can cure cancer, or heal the sick and take all their money. Derren Brown has done some wonderful work in this realm. I delighted in Johnny Carson (an ex-conjuror) making Uri Geller look stupid, simply by imposing simple constraints that any ‘proper scientist’ should have imposed in their original studies (I feel suspicious of Puthoff and Targ at SRI). That doesn’t mean I dismiss all possible parapsychological events, I just assume that most/many religions, gurus, movements, etc. use tricks, and it seems advisable that one study those tricks first, to attempt to tease out who to trust, to eliminate studying trivia (or nonsense) and focus on genuinely fruitful possibilities. <br />We can see that uncertainty about which people you have made yourself vulnerable to forms a regular part of the initiation nervousness. RAW’s whole theme (as an optimist) seems to imply that we <b>can</b> find useful stuff in these studies (<i>pretty little birdies, picking in the turdies</i>), but I feel fairly certain he didn’t recommend mindless gullibility…<br /><br />Randi may prove a “nutcase” in other ways, just as the author of Korzybski’s biography( that I had found really interesting) blocked me on Facebook, perhaps because I said something rude about Trump. I remember Bob appearing lukewarm about Kodish’s more popular book – Drive Yourself Sane – when we asked in the MLA if he considered a useful introductory text.<br /><br />I do try to keep these issues separate.<br /><br />I still don’t know who has Sigismundo in thrall. I don’t feel entirely convinced the events happen in London. Hospices in the name of St John of God seem to appear later in history, and elsewhere. I do find St John of God interesting, in that he seems to have taken Christ literally, giving away his wealth, etc, and so ended up in an asylum! <br /><br />I liked the nod to Simon Vinkenoog, an influential Dutch poet, as the unknown philosopher (Onbekende Filosoof).Alias Bogushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10908752518788179717noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-71489553161710255852020-01-24T07:33:45.536-08:002020-01-24T07:33:45.536-08:00I agree, Tom, that what Sigismundo says about &quo...I agree, Tom, that what Sigismundo says about "the seed" recalls the Jesus lineage plot thread. It also suggests another variation on the meaning of the Widow's son. The phallus dies after it gives forth the seed in the sex act therefore regeneration illustrates a form of death and rebirth.<br /><br />The final question that stumps Sigismundo appears interesting. He had already stated his answers about Masonary as symbolic rather than literal, but it seems both the interrogator and Sigismundo took the last question regarding what the Templars found at the Temple as literal.<br /><br />The Western Wall in Jerusalem stands as the last remnant of one of the earliest Temples at the sight where Solomon built his, subsequently burnt down and rebuilt. I attempted to psychometrize this wall on a visit to Jerusalem about 6 years ago and had an interesting vision which I wrote about in a blog about my trip to Israel. <br /><br />It seems the conflict between science and mysticism gets highlighted in Chapter 15. The scientists on the committee get confronted with something mystical for them, a rock falling out of the sky, by Babcock, a practicing mystic of the Freemasonry persuasion. Crowley appeared much concerned with uniting science and mysticism. Tobias Churton's extremely good new book, "Aleister Crowley in India" examines the genesis of this approach that would eventually engender the motto: "We place no reliance on Virgin or Pigeon. Our method is science, our aim is religion."<br /><br />The earliest essay on this subject by Crowley - "Science and Buddhism" in which he opines that Buddhism in its pure state represents the most scientific of religions. Churton provides excellent summaries of this and other early works composed in India:<br /><br />"As religion would need to adopt the boon of science, so science must be prepared to investigate superational categories of being, when such could be demonstrated. Somewhere in the back of Crowley's mind was the vision of a kind of 'mega-science' to come, born from the pangs of a decaying, materialistic era, whose midwives were science and magic both."<br /><br />My father was a scientist (biophysics) with a strong interest in paranormal phenomena, witchcraft, and astrology. He and his prof buddy, an archeologist, taught an elective at the University on paranormal phenomena. I could never get him to commit to an opinion of whether he thought it real or not.Oz Fritzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-38884036895033057102020-01-22T18:07:29.408-08:002020-01-22T18:07:29.408-08:00It seems to me that Chapter 16, while literally ta...It seems to me that Chapter 16, while literally talking about genetics and the genetic code, could also be read to refer to the bloodline of Jesus, taking us back to the "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" book that Wilson keeps referring to. There are discussions in the book about what the Templars might have found in Jerusalem at the site of Solomon's temple. Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson)https://www.blogger.com/profile/07810736442596736041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-68447747169019730392020-01-21T07:21:37.237-08:002020-01-21T07:21:37.237-08:00This week we read Chapters 15 & 16.
15 = Ai...This week we read Chapters 15 & 16.<br /> <br />15 = Aiyn = the letter O = The Devil, the manifestation of untempered male energy. <br /><br />16 = Vau = the letter V or F = The Hierophant who communicates the secrets of the Temple.<br /><br />In Chapter 16 RAW presents a seemingly straightforward and revealing account of Masonic symbolism as he sees it, in the interrogation of Sigismundo which could be real or hallucinatory. It comes out that the stone that the builders rejected symbolically represents Women. (p. 251) "The symbolism of the stone that is rejected becoming the corner-stone (cornerstone is hyphenated because of the line break in the Bluejay edition): the stone that is rejected in Christianity is the female."<br /><br />Chapter 15 concerns a group of men rigidly, inflexibly, and dogmatically attached to their "scientific" prejudices and belief systems. They literally reject a stone that eyewitnesses observed falling from the sky. There seems a connection between the rejection of this stone and the rejection of the stone in Masonic symbolism mentioned in the following chapter. The complete lack of receptivity, a feminine trait, by the Committee shows untempered male ignorance.<br /><br />p. 245; "... having decided that he was not dealing with detached and impartial rationalists but with a group much like the opposition party in the House..." Leaving aside the qabalistic pun illustrating resistance to the Great Work, the behavior of the men on the Committee does very much sound like and resemble the behavior and rejection of eyewitness testimony by members of the House Republican party in the recent, ongoing prosecution of the corrupt American President.<br /><br />p.247: He had been given drugs so often – and he suspected he had been given so many different drugs – that he was no longer sure what was memory and what was dream or hallucination." This seems to show what happened to Leary when he entered back into the U.S. prison system after his escape according to Joanna Leary in her excellent book, "Tripping the Bardo with Timothy Leary."Oz Fritzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-60334761748451179812020-01-20T07:49:21.433-08:002020-01-20T07:49:21.433-08:00I saw Carl Sagan introduce Gary Hart at a campaign...I saw Carl Sagan introduce Gary Hart at a campaign rally when Hart was running for President in 1984. The rally took place outside the NYU Student Union building just south of Washington Square in New York City. It occurred very close, or on the the spot of where Aleister Crowley lived on Washington Square South St., one of his NY residences during WW I. It was in this apartment where his painting career began in earnest and where he met Leah Hirsig.<br /><br />Sagan appeared cool, confident, easy-going and humorous. He was a celebrity at the time, maybe the first scientist (pseudo or otherwise) celebrity after Einstein. Hart and his security detail passed by me on their way out and I remember thinking that he looked very KennedyesqueOz Fritzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-35229567129825529642020-01-19T12:50:41.501-08:002020-01-19T12:50:41.501-08:00Last millennium I formed the Society of Gardner w...Last millennium I formed the Society of Gardner which sought the hidden esoteric meanings behind Gardner’s seemingly narrow pronouncements.Eric Wagnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04312033917401203598noreply@blogger.com