Spiro C. Thiery wrote: First of all, I would like to commend you, guruilla, for the essay you wrote in 2008. Well done.
Cheers.
Spiro C. Thiery wrote:It has to do with your analysis of the author then, in 2008, versus where you are headed with your analysis of the discrepancies in the two editions of this particular work, and whether or not you are aware of the irony inherent therein.
Are you sure you know where I'm headed? I'd be impressed if you did, because I sure don't. I am watching this unfold as much as anyone.
Spiro C. Thiery wrote:The discrepancy, as it were, is one created by the author, and the author alone. That is my opinion
So what, all this is "much ado about nothing"?
Spiro C. Thiery wrote:There must be some point at which the source is a primary consideration.
Why, or how so? I agree that the source has to be factored in. Castaneda is a very good example, because if, as has been alleged, he went insane in the last few years of his life and created an abusive cult, then that's a fact that needs to be taken into consideration when reading his (pre-insanity) books. At the very least, the experiences he is describing (or the act of writing them) contributed in some way to his ignominious end. (There are actually several hints in the texts themselves of where he was headed.) This alters the eye with which we read the texts, but it doesn't alter the text themselves, not by the dot of a single "i." So if we read Castaneda's books, at one time in our lives, and are impacted by them and consider them true or meaningful works; and then if, however many years later, now aware of Castaneda's end, we read them again and decide they are all a crock - is this because our new-found discernment has opened our eyes and allowed us to see them as they are? Or is it because we are now prejudiced by what we think we know, and have already decided to view them as spurious? Personally speaking, my opinion of Castaneda's books hasn't changed that much, even though my opinion of Castaneda has necessarily undergone a radical reevaluation. The same is true (though perhaps less so) of Strieber. At the end of the day, the books stand alone. (Paul Bowles once said it this way: "No writer exists. He exists in his books, and that's all.")
Spiro C. Thiery wrote:Exactly. And--and this is an important point--were it not for "the source", The Key would not be in your vocabulary. Talk about mind control! You see, we are all victims. But we can also choose when to call a shovel a shovel
I'm not sure of your point here. The fact that I only read
The Key because I knew of Strieber's previous work (i.e., influenced by previous experiences) means I am mind-controlled? The context was that Strieber's followers are servile and that he seems to create and encourage a cult-like environment (as I just pointed out to him at his website). Are you saying that because of that his books must have been designed to this end? The Bible is used to create cultish servitude also, does that mean it was written for that purpose, or only that it's been cynically abused (or even well-intentionally abused)? The interesting thing with Strieber is that he wrote his own "holy book" (he's said he considers it a "scared text"), and now, IMO, he is (perhaps unconsciously) using it to try and "advocate" himself. So it's like he's exploiting his own work, and therefore himself. How often does the messenger get off on being the one to deliver the message? It is everywhere you look: celebrity-whores.
Spiro C. Thiery wrote:You have rigorously researched much of this work. But if the source is completely full of shit, then what?
Then we have a bona fide mystery, because some of his written works contain profound observations about reality that are possibly unique to literature; if judged by his best works, Strieber is one of the leading creative minds of our time. Yet also profoundly full of shit. . . You don't find that a puzzling fact?
Spiro C. Thiery wrote: on all of the programs where I have been able to hear his voice (the exchanges with Art Bell, or George Noory, even Pinchbeck), the whole dialog smacks of the intellectual version of professional wresting.
We're probably in full accord here: every time I listen to Strieber, I am struck by how crass and unsophisticated a speaker he is (even when what he says is intelligent, his tone and cadence invariably invalidates it). All that proves to me is that, once again, Strieber the writer and Strieber the public speaker seem totally at odds - almost as if different people (except that his writing fluctuates equally wildly).
Spiro C. Thiery wrote:I am not a skeptic for skepticisms sake by any means. But Whitley Strieber has done much to evolve my outlook on an issue where, I have to say, I have gone from being a believer and "want to believer" to feeling comfortable in dismissing anything he writes or says as not to be taken seriously. For this much I can thank him, I suppose. I wouldn't go so far as to say that he is a disinfo guy (or bother to give him so much credit), but the result of his work is about the same. By all means consider the information. But by all means, (re)consider the source.
This is the most salient point for me: the fact that you acknowledge Strieber has done you a service by helping you to develop your skepticism. However, to my mind you've taken it too far, at least if, as in the above example I gave about Castaneda, you are now
a priori dismissing Strieber's writings because of your distaste for him personally. My interpretation of that would be that you have tossed the baby out with the bath water - for personal and probably partially unconscious reasons. (Stop me before I get you on the couch!)
Here are some thoughts I had after reading your post; I don't want to wind up writing another essay (FAIL), so I’ll try and keep it to the bare bones and if anyone wants me to fill in any gaps, I will try to oblige.
Strieber (like Castaneda) had some profound personal encounters with Imaginal forces. When I read his books (and Castaneda's), the accounts resonated, profoundly, with my own, forgotten or fragmented experiences with the Imaginal. In a word, I recognized "truth" in them (I use "'s because I'm at RI, normally I wouldn't bother).
I am and always have been a very credulous and impressionable person, and as is my wont, I took both these authors' accounts literally, at face value - as they themselves seemed to - even knowing (at least later on) that Imaginal experiences aren’t "literal" so much as metaphorical (but then, so is ordinary reality once we scratch the surface, right?). Point is, Whitley's and Carlos' experiences were filtered through their individual psyches and written out in linear (literal) language, so those are the versions of Imaginal reality which we got “fed.” And then, insofar as we are left-brained and literal-minded creatures, we can only take them at face value, or reject them in the same way. (For the left-brain something is either true or false, it cannot be both/and. First mistake.)
The point is that these writers share
their truth, not
the Truth, but as readers, if we identify with and relate to the stories (while taking them at face value), we are going to try and make it
our truth – more or less in the same way that people who follow gurus try to twist themselves into the right shape to match their guru's truth. If we do this (and it sounds like Spiro did it also, seeing as like me he was not just a believer but a "want to believer"), then sooner or later we are going to get disillusioned – as soon, in fact, as we realize that the other guy’s truth, however good it might have seemed, it’s not gonna be
our truth. Why? Because it’s not
our experience of the Imaginal, divine, or whatever. Sooner or later, something in there is going to “not fit,” because the only reality that fits us is, you got it, our own. So that’s the test and the opportunity of every “guru” - and every literary genius or rock n’ roll idol or whoever we look up to & whose ideas or work we follow, whose path we wind up trying to walk down or whose “being” we want to emulate.
It never works. The test and the opportunity is to save the baby and toss out the bath water. If, as Spiro did, we wind up rejecting everything about the person, IMO, we’ve missed the opportunity and flunked the test –
maybe (I don’t want to impose my version of reality on anyone, but for me that’d be true, though God knows it’s tempting). True skepticism is learning to discern truth from delusion, starting with our heroes or teachers, and ending up with our own. The “believer” swallows the story (aliens, sorcerers, democracy, whatever) whole, gets drunk on it, becomes sick, and then the “skeptic” comes to the rescue and tries to vomit everything back up and swears never to touch the stuff again (but usually he finds another vice). This isn’t skepticism so much as cynicism, overcompensation for feeling like a sucker. It denies whatever is in us (or in Strieber, or whoever) that responded to truth, and focuses only on the part that managed to turn a little bit of truth into a great big delusion. It’s not lies that fool us, IMO, it’s truth taken too literally, or too quickly to heart. It’s truth which we invest in and build a whole edifice of delusion out of.
Drew mentioned the imagination – that’s the key, but not in the way (I think) he cited it, as a polar opposite to reality, so much as what underlies
all of our experience. Keats compared the imagination to “Adam’s dream: he awoke and found it truth.” Blake believed the imagination was “not a State: it is the Human existence itself.” These guys weren’t slouches. They were as rigorous as they were intuitive. Personally, I’m willing to take their word on that.
Like Castaneda, Strieber got abducted by his own unconscious, whether it was aliens or elementals, angels or demons or govt mind control operatives. Whatever the agents that “came for him,” that’s not a desirable state of affairs. What’s desirable is for us to venture willingly and open-eyed into our unconscious, exactly like the Poets did.
I admit (I already did) that I’m a credulous person. (That's why I'm an odd fit with RI.) There’s no way to be open-minded without being credulous (or if there is, I haven’t found it). I am susceptible to the spells cast by other people’s convictions - and/or delusions - ask my wife if you don’t believe me (rhetorical suggestion). But the alternative to being credulous isn’t being cynical (which is what most skeptics are, IMO), because that just amounts to being closed-minded. The solution is to learn discernment about what we let all the way in and take to heart, what we take as our own truth, as opposed to what we let flow through us and out again, checking it thoroughly on the way. To quote Keats again: “The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.” That means to believe without believing, to disbelieve without dismissing,
to make up one’s mind about nothing. In the words of Whitley, it means we get to “Learn to live at a high level of uncertainty.” (Bleh)
Who the hell wants to do that? In this world, certainty is power. We’re taught and bred to make up our minds about everything, and dismiss anything we can’t make our minds up about. The trouble is we are also told, subtly, which conclusions to reach (drink Coca Cola), so then, when we make up our minds, we’re really giving them over to someone (or something) else’s influence.
For me that’s the proof that Strieber’s doing something that’s worth paying attention to: he raises a lot more questions than he provides answers.
That, and I have a big soft spot for the guy.