There is a sense in which human beings resemble plants and molting insects. Moths, butterflies come to mind: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. If all goes according to design, in advancing age a transformation comes, in some cases almost visible.
I knew an old lady just blocks north of here; I got to know her on my walks. I’d pass her house about the same time every other day about the time when she took an old, old dog, a lab as ancient as she was, on its very short, very slow walk. At one time I’d stopped to talk, and after that we exchanged a few words every time, and over the period of a year or so I saw the strange process of her “detachment” from this life. She was exceedingly thin, frail, almost translucent—translucent enough so that I could almost see her spirit shining through—and it seemed like a light to me, especially brilliant in her eyes—and each time we parted and I marched on, I thought to myself: “She’s almost done. Almost done.” She was an ordinary, simple woman. Our exchanges turned on weather, seasons, plants, the grass. But I sensed a quality in her that transcended all of that.
We can learn many things by intellect, reflection, observation. But to have the inner, visceral, experience of it takes its own time. Odd word, that, visceral. There’s nothing more physical, material than our viscera—yet what I means is something quite different. The feel of this process of gradual detachment has the character of sensation, but it isn’t physical, quite the contrary. By “visceral” I mean something direct, experienced—not the abstract emptiness of concepts.
Long before books, culture, ideologies, philosophies, arts, sciences, religions—long before empires of rhyme and indies of calculus (Nabokov)—humanity already passed through this strange process of growth in which the body itself contained the winged creature and caused it mysteriously to develop into a being that could take to the skies. The old lady I knew—and yes, she did pass on—had little actual knowledge or contact with these highfalutin realms, but the process of life itself had worked on her—and she on herself—just living and being and participating in the ordinary chores of ordinary life. Yet at the end she was translucent and illuminated.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Winged Migration
Today, by happenstance, I took my walk far from our house and thus saw an area on foot too far away to reach. It was a splendid walk, blue sky, bright, a few puffs of cloud—and this after an unremitting ten, eleven days of overcast, drizzle, snow, sleet, overcast, drizzle, and so on. Along the way I passed St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, immediately adjacent to a huge golf course. The church had been built in 1947 and featured at one of its entrances a shield depicting St. Michael astride a winged horse, a shining lance held in his right, about to pierce a wicked-looking red devil on the ground below. The shield featured the wings in such strikingly white ceramic, they left an impression as I moved on, flanking the green of the golf-course to one side and an empty and almost unearthly silent up-scale neighborhood on the other, the only sounds coming from, well, winged birds.
Those wings and that horse together launched a kind of musing. I could not remember ever having seen St. Michael mounted—and on Pegasus at that. That didn’t fit; to take just one observation, a winged creature surely needs no mount to get about. Then it dawned that the horse meant to indicate high status, and what with the rider himself splendidly winged, the horse had to be winged too. And his own execution of these wings had evidently pleased the artist so that he lifted them by color—or the lack of it. Later, on the Internet, I confirmed my own take on the matter. No, St. Michael, although very often shown as air-borne, does not need to and therefore doesn’t ride. I am here reproducing a Dürer drawing of 1498 that resides today in the Kunsthalle of Karlsruhe in Germany. The drawing, curiously, reflects the very thoughts I had as I marched on.
One was that wings visually picture and thus symbolize a quality we have but cannot actually see—a spiritual nature. Indeed we share this nature with the angels and with devils too who, in depictions of St. Michael, always appear at least singly as Satan or as Satan and his followers—and as the antagonists of a great battle. And Dürer had it right: the devils also have their wings, but not such as you’d brag about. Dürer’s drawing is quite wondrous in that the country-side beneath this aerial scene is ordinary and quite peaceful. The battle rages in the air—in a hidden dimension, you might say, one that a peaceful peasant, too small to see in this etching, would not actually see if he looked up. But it is happening nonetheless—right inside him.
Yes, I thought, eventually—after my walk, proceeding in a huge three-mile ellipse, once more brought heavy traffic into view and therefore I would now be distracted—yes, I thought, we are engaged, aren’t we, in a winged migration of our own. And let’s not blame it on peaceful nature that Dürer also had sense enough to show quite realistically as something pleasing, unless, of course, that battle up above happens to descend and disfigures the countryside.
Just before I reached Vernier, the heavy artery, I passed North High School. It is located precisely at one antipode of my ellipse, St. Michael at the other. There, at North, outside the fence of this huge complex, I saw the following chalked in simple but legible letters across the sidewalk: DOES GOD KNOW ME? And beneath it, by way of signature: MORMON.ORG. Angel Moroni meet Angel St. Michael?
Those wings and that horse together launched a kind of musing. I could not remember ever having seen St. Michael mounted—and on Pegasus at that. That didn’t fit; to take just one observation, a winged creature surely needs no mount to get about. Then it dawned that the horse meant to indicate high status, and what with the rider himself splendidly winged, the horse had to be winged too. And his own execution of these wings had evidently pleased the artist so that he lifted them by color—or the lack of it. Later, on the Internet, I confirmed my own take on the matter. No, St. Michael, although very often shown as air-borne, does not need to and therefore doesn’t ride. I am here reproducing a Dürer drawing of 1498 that resides today in the Kunsthalle of Karlsruhe in Germany. The drawing, curiously, reflects the very thoughts I had as I marched on.
One was that wings visually picture and thus symbolize a quality we have but cannot actually see—a spiritual nature. Indeed we share this nature with the angels and with devils too who, in depictions of St. Michael, always appear at least singly as Satan or as Satan and his followers—and as the antagonists of a great battle. And Dürer had it right: the devils also have their wings, but not such as you’d brag about. Dürer’s drawing is quite wondrous in that the country-side beneath this aerial scene is ordinary and quite peaceful. The battle rages in the air—in a hidden dimension, you might say, one that a peaceful peasant, too small to see in this etching, would not actually see if he looked up. But it is happening nonetheless—right inside him.
Yes, I thought, eventually—after my walk, proceeding in a huge three-mile ellipse, once more brought heavy traffic into view and therefore I would now be distracted—yes, I thought, we are engaged, aren’t we, in a winged migration of our own. And let’s not blame it on peaceful nature that Dürer also had sense enough to show quite realistically as something pleasing, unless, of course, that battle up above happens to descend and disfigures the countryside.
Just before I reached Vernier, the heavy artery, I passed North High School. It is located precisely at one antipode of my ellipse, St. Michael at the other. There, at North, outside the fence of this huge complex, I saw the following chalked in simple but legible letters across the sidewalk: DOES GOD KNOW ME? And beneath it, by way of signature: MORMON.ORG. Angel Moroni meet Angel St. Michael?
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
P of E Revisited
Fate insists that I use initials in this post today. My earlier title was “S, SM, & S.” A quite reflexive thought arises often lately, namely that modern technological civilization is the root of evil. But then I always hastily correct that by saying, “Before that arose came slavery—and, look, a mere 161 years ago it still held black people in bondage within a day’s driving distance from here.” This sequence of thoughts, repeating, has caused me to label it as Slavery, Satanic Mills, and Such. The last phrase is a stand-in for the longish rest of my inner rant. It begins by saying that ours mirror the late Hellenistic times. That era had its slavery in spades although fossil fuels were neither drilled nor mined. But the Hellenistic age had its mass culture and its decadence. And in those days arose varieties of very chaotic religious impulses known collectively as Gnosticism. The next reflection is that in periods like that a kind of self-assertive valuation of the human combines with a sense of anguish at mushrooming evils. In Gnosticism this took the form of pushing off the blame for everything onto the quasi-divine Demiurge. I’m Okay but Things are not. And if only I can hold that idea firmly and effectively in mind, know it, in other words, then I am saved—hence the name of that belief from the Greek for “knowledge.” In our times that view is expressed by raising Victimhood to a high status; our demiurge turns out to be the System.
But the slogan points to a lot more, not least “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” thus the fact we rarely reflect upon, namely that life—at least above the level of the vegetative order (excusing the Venus flytrap for the moment)—exists by destroying other life. Every time I shudder at yet some other facet of modern civilization and the process starts over, eventually I revisit P of E. You have been on tenterhooks to know, haven’t you. The Problem of Evil, of course.
(If “tenterhooks” now bothers you, in turn, I hasten to explain that they are clothes pins, tenters having once been wood frames on which to fasten lines on which to hang cloth for drying. Tenters have been replaced by a combination of the garage and the house in our day—except for those stretch-frames down in the basement by the ironing board.)
But back to P of E. In the East Hinduism, and Buddhism to a lesser extent, adopted vegetarian approaches to diet consistently enough, these arising from a kind of troubled realization that there is a problem out there—and that it might be deeply built into the very Creation itself.
But when Hellenistic times finally wind down—and they do—the real switch that takes place is to stop blaming the demiurge and to look within. Then we get the doctrine of the Fall. That’s where my inner process usually ends. A fallen world explains much better why we might all be in this dimension, thus, in a way, out of place. But if we are then surely each and every one of us must carry the blame directly, not by inheritance from careless Adam, careless Eve. Christianity did not evolve in the direction of vegetarianism. Is that because Greek philosophical culture, honed to a fine edge by the clever sophists, made careful distinctions between humans (don’t eat) and lesser breeds without the law (eat some but not horses, dogs, or nightingales). But I wonder if in some other dimension the souls of wheat and rye will threateningly swarm around me in the future for having eaten thick slices of bread every morning for breakfast as far back as I can think.
But the slogan points to a lot more, not least “Nature, red in tooth and claw,” thus the fact we rarely reflect upon, namely that life—at least above the level of the vegetative order (excusing the Venus flytrap for the moment)—exists by destroying other life. Every time I shudder at yet some other facet of modern civilization and the process starts over, eventually I revisit P of E. You have been on tenterhooks to know, haven’t you. The Problem of Evil, of course.
(If “tenterhooks” now bothers you, in turn, I hasten to explain that they are clothes pins, tenters having once been wood frames on which to fasten lines on which to hang cloth for drying. Tenters have been replaced by a combination of the garage and the house in our day—except for those stretch-frames down in the basement by the ironing board.)
But back to P of E. In the East Hinduism, and Buddhism to a lesser extent, adopted vegetarian approaches to diet consistently enough, these arising from a kind of troubled realization that there is a problem out there—and that it might be deeply built into the very Creation itself.
But when Hellenistic times finally wind down—and they do—the real switch that takes place is to stop blaming the demiurge and to look within. Then we get the doctrine of the Fall. That’s where my inner process usually ends. A fallen world explains much better why we might all be in this dimension, thus, in a way, out of place. But if we are then surely each and every one of us must carry the blame directly, not by inheritance from careless Adam, careless Eve. Christianity did not evolve in the direction of vegetarianism. Is that because Greek philosophical culture, honed to a fine edge by the clever sophists, made careful distinctions between humans (don’t eat) and lesser breeds without the law (eat some but not horses, dogs, or nightingales). But I wonder if in some other dimension the souls of wheat and rye will threateningly swarm around me in the future for having eaten thick slices of bread every morning for breakfast as far back as I can think.
Monday, April 4, 2011
One Self or Many?
The notion of multiple souls in us is a familiar enough concept, although the number we use in the West is usually only two. There is that famous line by Goethe: Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust (Two souls, alas! reside within my breast). Okay, make that three. Freud had his ego, id, and superego. Jung had three for males and more (in a sense) for ladies. In the male there is the self, the self’s female side, the anima, and then the “shadow,” the chthonic, undeveloped soul. The same pattern holds for women, but the animus appears as multiple males, at least in dreams. The shadow in males is male, in females female. The numbers increase in a hurry.
And things get complicated. People say, “I’m of two minds about that.” Does that mean that there is one I with two minds, or two minds each with its own I but sharing one voice and both saying the same thing at the same time?
Sometimes in a milder form another word is used—personality. There are split personalities. This can take mild forms, thus quite different behavior in various habitual settings, at home, at work, visiting the parents. But in some cases it manifests as a formal mental disorder called dissociative identity disorder (DID). It is a real disease; when present, personality A does not even remember at all, or very clearly, what personality B knows, and vice versa; and the behaviors are very different. Does that mean that two or more souls or selves are present in all of us, but usually smoothly communicating? And that in severe cases of dissociation the communications break down or are simply cut off? The disorder is due to trauma in early childhood caused by severe and repetitive abuse. But does one self violently detach itself from a whole range of experience and develop an alternate mode of being, sometimes cycling back? Is one real identity present beneath the personalities? Or is the only substrate of these personalities a single body without consciousness at all? Case stories of DID suggest that one identity remains. Some may be read here, and they suggest that the “alter” is a rogue. Some describe themselves as passengers in their bodies rather than as drivers. Detached behavioral programs seem to run—and the reset key is stuck. But the frustrated person, staring at the screen, is separate. This suggests that personalities are tools, although in practice we identify with them so completely that we think that they are us—rather than structures we have formed and allow to run on automatic. And in cases of disorder, these programs become so automatic that they cannot be shut off, alas, can’t even be seen to be running.
Identification is a key word here. In Sufi circles the concept of multiple selves is used in two different ways. In one these refer to the soul at its various levels of development: commanding, accusing, inspired, and illumined. The Commanding Self is the unreformed natural product in which self-awareness is barely present and the individual is always “identified” with whatever is going on. It is also the conditioned self, just thoughtlessly executing its routines. The Accusing Self manifests higher awareness, hence it displays a conscience. It is accusing—itself; of heedlessness. In the next stage development has crystallized the self enough so that grace begins to flow (or to be perceived). In the last stage the person belongs to the Illuminati.
The second way of talking about multiple selves in Sufi circles is really a part of their methods of training. Here we sometimes hear or read that people have no self; they have selves; now this, now that. Emphasis is laid on this, and the disciple is invited to observe himself or herself. The automatic, reflexive, associative, reactive character of our behavior then becomes apparent. But apparent to whom? Why—to the actual self. So there is a self there after all. And to teach it to become aware of itself, it is told that it isn’t there. A teaching method. Therefore let’s not trot it out as a scientific observation. What is an observable fact is that most of the time in most of our actions, we follow routines. We’re not self-aware. We’re just behaviors. But to control those behaviors, we must develop consciousness. It is there, in potentiam, all the time. But not, as the medievals used to say, in actus. The “natural” behavior of the Commanding Self is purely reactive—however complex that reactive behavior is, and often (as I well know) it can be very complex. It is but one self, but it identifies with its own routines of behavior. It is a base case. The way is upward from there.
Modern psychologies that emphasize multiple selves but never speak of stages of development are simply incomplete. And they maintain this view because of underlying metaphysical assumptions, among which is the absence of an actual, real soul or self. Souls, selves, are mere epiphenomena that vanish into thin air as soon as the brain dies.
And things get complicated. People say, “I’m of two minds about that.” Does that mean that there is one I with two minds, or two minds each with its own I but sharing one voice and both saying the same thing at the same time?
Sometimes in a milder form another word is used—personality. There are split personalities. This can take mild forms, thus quite different behavior in various habitual settings, at home, at work, visiting the parents. But in some cases it manifests as a formal mental disorder called dissociative identity disorder (DID). It is a real disease; when present, personality A does not even remember at all, or very clearly, what personality B knows, and vice versa; and the behaviors are very different. Does that mean that two or more souls or selves are present in all of us, but usually smoothly communicating? And that in severe cases of dissociation the communications break down or are simply cut off? The disorder is due to trauma in early childhood caused by severe and repetitive abuse. But does one self violently detach itself from a whole range of experience and develop an alternate mode of being, sometimes cycling back? Is one real identity present beneath the personalities? Or is the only substrate of these personalities a single body without consciousness at all? Case stories of DID suggest that one identity remains. Some may be read here, and they suggest that the “alter” is a rogue. Some describe themselves as passengers in their bodies rather than as drivers. Detached behavioral programs seem to run—and the reset key is stuck. But the frustrated person, staring at the screen, is separate. This suggests that personalities are tools, although in practice we identify with them so completely that we think that they are us—rather than structures we have formed and allow to run on automatic. And in cases of disorder, these programs become so automatic that they cannot be shut off, alas, can’t even be seen to be running.
Identification is a key word here. In Sufi circles the concept of multiple selves is used in two different ways. In one these refer to the soul at its various levels of development: commanding, accusing, inspired, and illumined. The Commanding Self is the unreformed natural product in which self-awareness is barely present and the individual is always “identified” with whatever is going on. It is also the conditioned self, just thoughtlessly executing its routines. The Accusing Self manifests higher awareness, hence it displays a conscience. It is accusing—itself; of heedlessness. In the next stage development has crystallized the self enough so that grace begins to flow (or to be perceived). In the last stage the person belongs to the Illuminati.
The second way of talking about multiple selves in Sufi circles is really a part of their methods of training. Here we sometimes hear or read that people have no self; they have selves; now this, now that. Emphasis is laid on this, and the disciple is invited to observe himself or herself. The automatic, reflexive, associative, reactive character of our behavior then becomes apparent. But apparent to whom? Why—to the actual self. So there is a self there after all. And to teach it to become aware of itself, it is told that it isn’t there. A teaching method. Therefore let’s not trot it out as a scientific observation. What is an observable fact is that most of the time in most of our actions, we follow routines. We’re not self-aware. We’re just behaviors. But to control those behaviors, we must develop consciousness. It is there, in potentiam, all the time. But not, as the medievals used to say, in actus. The “natural” behavior of the Commanding Self is purely reactive—however complex that reactive behavior is, and often (as I well know) it can be very complex. It is but one self, but it identifies with its own routines of behavior. It is a base case. The way is upward from there.
Modern psychologies that emphasize multiple selves but never speak of stages of development are simply incomplete. And they maintain this view because of underlying metaphysical assumptions, among which is the absence of an actual, real soul or self. Souls, selves, are mere epiphenomena that vanish into thin air as soon as the brain dies.
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