Solomon’s Cord and Paul’s Boast

In the West we’re still a long ways from catching up to the rich accumulations of knowledge (of sorts) of the world beyond the border. Having quoted from Ecclesiastes recently, I remembered seeing there what is the original mention of the silver cord. It is the cord that supposedly links our material to our subtle bodies; it thins out and extends into a cord when the spirit is out of the body or in a near death state, but we don’t die until the cord is broken.

Here is the citation in full, near the end Ecclesiastes (12:6-8).

Remember him [the Creator] before the silver cord is snapped and the golden bowl is broken, before the pitcher is shattered at the spring and the wheel broken at the well, before the dust returns to the earth as it began and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Emptiness, emptiness, says the Speaker, all is empty.

Amusing, in a way, that the tradition which brings us the silver cord also accurately characterizes the meaning-content of modern culture. I knew about vanity, of course, but I’d forgotten about that emptiness.

In the East what is a minor thread, in ours, is much more fully developed, both in the Hindu and Buddhist cultures.  Energy bodies are pictured in those and the élan vital in their case is a genuine energy structure, the chi in China. In the Hindu world we have the sutratma, which is a “self-thread.” There is much less emphasis on the connection, in the East, much more on the subtle body itself.

Having read the quoted verse, I got curious about let’s call it ordinary “paranormal” reports—in the New Testament. One that fell into my lap is a brief section in Paul’s 2 Corinthians where the apostle tentatively mentions an out-of-body experience, although not his own (12:1-5):

I am obliged to boast. It does no good; but I shall go on to tell of visions and revelations granted by the Lord. I know a Christian man who fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of it, I do not know—God knows) was caught up as far as the third heaven. And I know that this same man (whether in the body or out of it, I do not know—God knows) was caught up into paradise, and heard words so secret that human lips may not repeat them. About such a man as that I am ready to boast; but I will not boast on my own account, except of my weaknesses.

We live in an interesting universe.

Fractal Aging

One characteristic of reaching advanced age is that the patterns have become all too familiar. Not that we know much. Nobody really does. But any effort to dig deeply into the details of something will in old age predictably reveal patterns already encountered numerous times before. That sentiment is echoed in Ecclesiastes 1:9: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.” So how old was Solomon—assuming he dictated his wisdom in advancing age? Wikipedia grants him 80 years but without presenting any evidence for that; the Jewish Virtual Library scatters some dates from which I derive maximally 69. In any case, old enough—especially if you had circa 1,000 wives…

Thinking about this feeling—that “same old” feeling—brings to mind tracing, say, a Mandelbrot or Julia fractal image to ever greater levels of magnification, and while the vistas keep changing and can be beautiful, interesting, even mesmerizing, the patterns remain the same.

For this reason alone—ignoring the fact that with advancing age the body gradual weakens, stiffens, hardens—at my age the notion of extending life beyond the standard three-score and ten or, these days, fourscore, is not all that attractive. And supposing science could deliver augmentations, let me call them, so that we could live to be two hundred, three hundred while yet retaining bodies that function as they do in their late forties, early fifties, why, the prospects would not be all that attractive. That would mean working for many more decades with all that that implies for the ordinary human: layoffs, new managements, reorgs, off-sites, airports, committee-meetings, deadlines, budgets, on and blessed on. That same old would soon take on a quite toxic flavor; life would become quite burdensome. And a feature of that future society would be, it seems to me, that the majority of deaths in that evil future would be by suicide. A sci-fi story lurks here, come to think of it, but, come to thinks of it, I’ve already been there and done that.

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The Julia set image courtesy of Wikipedia, by someone called Eequor. Link.