R.I. Book Group?

[Sounder]

Elvis wrote…

Kingsley suggests that Plato suppressed the knowledge and practice of 'incubation' and its attendant cosmology. Did Plato, who favored rule by an elite, also preserve and reserve this knowledge for the ruling elite? Could it be true after all that the elite holds to itself knowledge of a 'deeper reality', passed on through generations, beginning in Athens? That might explain some things.

I have more but must make the time to post. Anyone still thinking about this?

You bet, this material is awesome.

I suspect that elitists are interested in ‘spiritual development’ just like the rest of us. That is, some not at all and some, very interested.

But as a class, the elite have greater impediments to ‘approaching the goddess’ because they are the ones with the greatest vested interests. So they are less able to speak or hear straight as the connections are trying to be made. The ‘lost word’ of the Masons may speak to this.

Still, one thing that the elites seem to know and pass down is that reality is about relationships rather than about an array of objects.

The general population could do well to catch that clue.

[tazmic]

Still, one thing that the elites seem to know and pass down is that reality is about relationships rather than about an array of objects.

The general population could do well to catch that clue.

Jeff Vail calls for a similar paradigm shift in our understanding - that the relations between things are more fundamental than the objects. Sure pisses on our Cartesian inheritance. But, perhaps Jeff presents a systemic mirror to Kingsley's work? (Apologies for brief post, I am momentarily cybernetically challenged..)

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-12-05/jeff-vails-theory-power

[Sounder]

Sounder wrote:
Still, one thing that the elites seem to know and pass down is that reality is about relationships rather than about an array of objects.

The general population could do well to catch that clue.

tasmic wrote...
Jeff Vail calls for a similar paradigm shift in our understanding - that the relations between things are more fundamental than the objects. Sure pisses on our Cartesian inheritance.

We all seem to enjoy pissing on this Cartesian inheritance but precious little is seen (here and elsewhere) in regard to restructuring of our general criteria for understanding. It also strikes one as being idealistic to think that a few good folk can create TAZ’s.

From Jeff Vail’s website…

The best representation of our world, of what 'is', is not matter, but the connections between matter.

In my world the relationships that matter (and drive the unfolding of our experiences) are not between matter*, but rather are connections between ensouled beings struggling to bring into the world of form, sometimes self-serving and sometimes socially beneficial, deeper understanding of what it is that stands beyond, yet supportive of this world of form.

Jeff is to be encouraged however in that there are many paths and his may well be appropriate for his character style.

* It does matter, to the degree that we en-soul matter by paying attention to and respecting objects for their useful elements and contributions.

[Elvis]

I'm still onto this. Some resources on Parmenides, including a translation of his "proem" fragments:

http://history.hanover.edu/texts/presoc/parmends.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/parmenides/

[coffin_dodger]

I'm still onto this.

Me too. I'm on my umpteenth reading. It's become (and I'm not sure there is a good way to say this) my 'toilet book'. Always there and something to while away the comfort breaks. I digress, childishly.

It wasn't until I'd read it a few times and come to my own conclusion that I spotted this on page 6 -

"...The truth is so simple, so lovingly simple: if we want to grow up, become true men and women, we have to face death before we die...our Western culture carefully keeps us from such things."

Quite how I'd missed this having 'read' it several times before, I do not know. Oh, yes, I do know - I'm not very intelligent - that's it, I remember now. (Thanks for the heads up, Dr Evil note to self - get over it )

Anyhow - that begs the question - how can we face death before we die? I assume Kingsley is not suggesting leaping from the path of an oncoming train at the last possible second, or overdosing on drugs that require electrically-induced restarting of a stopped heart.

Language. And in particular - translation. This is what I'm struggling with. I'm not sure I trust the translation of Parmenides poem.

The meaning of words change over time. I myself have witnessed this - in my early youth, the word 'gay' mean't joyful. It also meant homosexual, but because we lived in homophobic times back then, 'homo' was more likely to be used than 'gay'.
Then when homosexuality became completely accepted, gay very much meant homosexual and was rarely, if ever, used to describe 'joyful'.
Recently, the word 'gay' (amongst youth culture in the UK) has come to mean 'crap' or 'boring' or generally shite. i.e. "please do the washing up, kids" is greeted with "Dad, don't be gay". It still means 'joyful', it still means 'homosexual' and now it means something else completely different. All at the same time. I said to my kids - "isn't saying 'don't be gay' pretty offensive to anyone who is gay" and they looked at me like I was a nobhead and said " but it's a completely different word and has nothing to do with gay people".

This is what has happened to one word in the last 50 years. I can't imagine how much has changed across an entire language in the last two millenium. And even then, that's not taking into account that this has been translated from a foreign language into English, so the translation is further muddied by close approximation!

And don't even get me started on the 'mind-states' of the ancients. The slavery of 'harvested' African people was a wonderful idea a scant few hundred years ago in Western culture - now it's utterly reviled. Enormous, unfathomable changes must have taken place in mind-states that are literally 'lost in time'.

(Incidentally, there's a fascinating thread raging over at the Graham Hancock site that tangentially touches on some parts of this line of reasoning - it's about the Pyramid Texts, mistaken orthodox Egyptology, 'ramps' debunked etc. I found it a great (ongoing) read - (the part discussing the various ways the ancients may have described television is fabulous) http://www.grahamhancock.com/phorum/read.php?f=1&i=339981&t=339981)

Yikes, it's 1am here - I'll finish where I was going with this tomorrow. If I can remember where I was going with this.

[Elvis]

Me too. I'm on my umpteenth reading.

Wow! I have not reread it, but will. Interesting it had such an effect on you, thanks for sharing that.

I think "death" in that context is 'death' of the ego, and perhaps its association with the body; in the 'Western' cultural view, severing that connection is tantamount to death. If the incubation caves were something like sensory-deprivation chambers (and I think they were), the utter silence -- the silence -- alone would be conducive (inducive?) to altered states, as it were (thinking of the tanks in Ken Russel's Altered States).

The maidens guiding Parmenides remind me of Robert Monroe and his fellow Monroe Institute experimenters learning to 'ask the universe for protection' to avoid that spooky 'middle realm' inhabited by creepy entities who like to scare you.

The aim seems to be awareness of our larger self, our soul, the "multidimensional personality" described by Seth in The Seth Book etc. by Jane Roberts (as "Seth"), and, in the mundane human realm, rediscover our relationship to nature, in a universe that's alive.

Of course I could be totally wrong.

You're absolutely right about the language problem, but I think the riddle will never be solved by words. In Where the Wasteland Ends (1973), Theodore Roszak points out that in Western rationalism, experience has been replaced by language: religion went from the experience of the vision flight to the theology written in a book. Everything known about God comes from God talking..."thus sayeth the Lord"..."and God said"...it's all talk.

[coffin_dodger]

Elvis said:

I think "death" in that context is 'death' of the ego, and perhaps its association with the body; in the 'Western' cultural view, severing that connection is tantamount to death.

We're basically seeing a similar pattern, albeit with a few differences.

In my view, (the view of an individual who oftentimes has difficulty translating intuition into language) the acceptance of death as a key part of life remains enormously understated. As to why this aspect of life is so vociferously denied contemplation (particularly in the West), alludes to a possible nefarious agenda by a 'priviliged' group that understands explicitly how important this acceptance is to our basic functioning of mind. Everything is, after all is said and done, in our minds.

As jaded and cliched as it has become, it surely has to be connected with the controlling influence of fear. The less we know about it, the more frightening it can seem. Of course, there is merit in being fearful of death during life - avoiding unnecessary death by accident or carelessness etc - however, in the long run, death is the only necessary certainty in life. That last sentence sounds gloomy and miserable, but then, it's supposed to - in a culture that doesn't want you to be anything less than (personally) petrified of it. What's the worst thing that can happen to you in any given situation? - you can die. That's a fantastic platform from which to build fear and control elsewhere, if you understand that the sum of all fears is death - some religions have been doing this for thousands of years.

OK, so here we go, totally off the reservation - ludicrous - unthinkable:

What would the Western world be like if we didn't fear 'necessary' death? (necessary = to make way for the new, natural)
How much more control would we have over our own minds? How differently would we experience existence? What would we see differently?

And further, what if we actually celebrated necessary death as a part of life?
If grief at the necessary was not a concern for one's own loss - not self-centred?
If empathy for another's necessary loss was joyful, not painful?

I consider Kingsley to be an oracle himself - a conduit to asking more questions than providing answers. But what interesting questions he provokes! Including questions that (historically) religion has jealously taken ownership of, manipulated and used for it's own end.

War or conflict is an abominal way to die and unnecessary.

Please note there is no 'sanity' (whatever the fuck that is) test when applying for membership at RI.

[zangtang]

i think we can all agree thats a good thing?

shit man, lonely enough as it is!

[Sounder]

BrandonD wrote…

The main premise as I understood it is that the foundations of western culture are deeply rooted in insights gained from another reality accessible through altered states of consciousness, and that this fact has been whitewashed out of history due to either deliberate conspiracy or simple fear of the unknown.

A fair reading I would say, thanks

It does not enter into the practical matters of accessing this other reality, but does imply that the tradition of philosopher as shaman/healer/guide to the other world has been preserved somewhere, without indicating any specifics.

This also is a point in favor of the book, it keeps the matter open.


Elvis wrote…

Language. And in particular - translation. This is what I'm struggling with. I'm not sure I trust the translation of Parmenides poem.

Yes, mind set and context changes so that the reliability of current knowledge or impressions of past understanding is brought into question.

I like science presented by the original authors, before the understanding was distilled into forms suitable for a textbook. The contrasts can be quite striking.

I think "death" in that context is 'death' of the ego,

But does the death of the ego allow contact with a larger agency, or does contact, under certain circumstances, encourage re-placing of the ego.

The following references material found on and around page 131.

on edit: (This story has never been told, except to my wife a few days ago. Her opinion seems to be that the effect was produced by some physiological body response rather than connection to 'higher powers'.)

Long ago, I was out for my daily trek and was filled with hate toward a person that had stolen a large amount of money from me. It was a beautiful sunny day, yet I was experiencing a level of reactive mind hate that was quite peculiar for me. Then, while walking, and within a single moment, a buzzing descended on me such that I thought I would pass out. But I kept walking right on through the earthquake in my head that changed the hate into total and absolute forgiveness, in one single moment.

I tried to cement this feeling into my normal consciousness with a series of ‘reasons’ as to why total forgiveness was the sensible response to the situation. The reasoning process worked decently, but man-o-man, what a pale shadow it is compared to the actual experience.

In that case there was ego, it didn’t die and seemed even to be the trigger for the experience. Ego is OK; largely it’s just misguided in taking itself to be more than simply one aspect of a larger dynamic that forms a person.

(I think that), by directing ones focus toward the larger dynamic, that Source can be invited to teach ‘ego’ the nature of its proper relationship to the larger dynamic.

[Elvis]

Thanks, Sounder, for those thoughts and the interesting story -- there's that buzzing again, the 'roar of silence' as so often experienced in hypnagogic states, or after a time relaxing in an anechoic chamber, or perhaps in a very quiet cave (or forest?).

To be sure, I'm not 'against' ego; for all my foibles, I like being "me" and prize the limitless variety of individual personalities as part of the 'rich tapestry' of this life. That said, I think ego must be self-moderated and not allowed to rule one's existence. Western society, especially American society, goads the ego, encouraging acquisitiveness, envy, fear, competition and conformity. To the System, these are features, not bugs.

[slimmouse]

(culture) goads the ego, currently encouraging acquisitiveness, envy, fear, competition and conformity. To the System, these are features, not bugs.

How unfortunately true. The real bugs are currently coming over as features.

[Elvis]

I knew there was a reason I really didn't like Plato, and this is it:

The Open Society and Its Enemies. A well-respected book written in the late 1930s/early '40s. (George Soros' "Open Society" is named after it!) You're looking at Volume One.

So -- who are the enemies of the open society? Popper names three, but the biggest -- the Number One Enemy of the Open Society -- is Plato.

Hegel and Marx round out the indictments (in Vols. 2 and 3, respectively). Popper goes easy on the well-meaning Marx, but assails Hegel as a witting perpetrator. But it starts with The Spell of Plato.

I read this book (Vol.1), or most of it, some years ago, then recently saw it mentioned in another book's bibliography. Newly interested in the Plato influence, I thought, "I have that book!" and fished it out of my stacks. You can read it at: https://archive.org/details/opensocietyandit033120mbp.

A few snippets from the comments on that page tell a bit about the book and Popper's thesis:

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This work should be required reading at the University level. Better than the pablum students are forced to regurgutate on an almost daily basis in our Social Science culture today.
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Popper challenges accepted orthodoxies from long past and our longstanding deference to great historical figures such as Plato, and he so does because he believes that if we are to reconstruct society and avoid totalitarianism then we must break with mistakes of the past.
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With a substantial increase in authoritarian law across most Western democracies since 911, and with governments having almost unfettered access to and use of electronics and other surveillance technologies to monitor and control populations, together with their understanding of modern social engineering techniques and their application by way of sophisticated propaganda, we citizens, more than ever, need to understand what Popper is telling us in this invaluable and important work.
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I rate this book--along with its companion vol. 2--as among the top five most significant books of my life's reading history. Just so you know, I have a PhD and I'm 52 years old, so I've been through a lot of books. . .His insight into the way historicism is the root of totalitarianism is crucial if we are to avoid future totalitarian regimes and provides the reader with a key criterion for judging current political endeavors.

At http://blog.libertarian.org.au/author/raffles/page/4/ (don't worry, y'all, the site is not a hotbed of fascist-leaning libertarians trying to appeal to the Left), contributor Rafe writes about The Open Society and Its Enemies:

Western thought has been described as a series of footnotes to Plato. This is a tribute to his achievement and to the way that his ideas have continued to exert influence to the present day. Many of our problems in politics and the social sciences are complicated by methods and doctrines that we have inherited from him.
[...]

we encounter Plato’s political program to arrest change and create a stable, totalitarian state. A significant body of ideas had to be defeated to win hearts minds to this task. These are the idea of the Great Generation of Athens, a movement whose spirit is captured in the funeral oration of Pericles.

It should be noted as an aside that the Achilles heel of Athens may have been its empire and the heavy-handed way it treated its foreign dominions. That gives the story of the Great Generation an extra dimension of contemporary relevance....
[...]
The theory of Forms has at least three functions in Plato’s scheme. First, it is central to his theory of knowledge which depends on gaining access to the “essence of things” in the World of Ideas or Unchanging Forms. Second, it provides the regularities that maintain continuity behind the chaos and confusion of an ever-changing world. Thirdly it provides a rationalization for the quest to achieve the unchanging social order which approximates to the Ideal of the State.
[...]
Summary

Plato promoted a highly influential and damaging theory of totalitarian or collectivist justice as an alternative to equalitarian or individualist theory.

He also created the myth that individualism is not compatible with altruism.

He effectively exploited weaknesses that are sometimes used to defend the protective state and equalitarian justice.

The Open Society and Its Enemies even has its own Wikipedia page:

The subtitle of the first volume is also its central premise — namely, that most Plato interpreters through the ages have been seduced by his greatness. In so doing, Popper argues, they have taken his political philosophy as a benign idyll, without taking into account its dangerous tendencies toward totalitarian ideology.

Contrary to major Plato scholars of his day, Popper divorced Plato's ideas from those of Socrates, claiming that the former in his later years expressed none of the humanitarian and democratic tendencies of his teacher. In particular, he accuses Plato of betraying Socrates in the Republic, wherein Plato portrays Socrates sympathizing with totalitarianism (see: Socratic problem).

Popper extols Plato's analysis of social change and discontent, naming him as a great sociologist, yet rejects his solutions. This is dependent on Popper's reading of the emerging humanitarian ideals of Athenian democracy as the birth pangs of his coveted "open society". In his view, Plato's historicist ideas are driven by a fear of the change that comes with such a liberal worldview. Popper also suggests that Plato was the victim of his own vanity, and had designs to become the supreme Philosopher King of his vision.

The last chapter of the first volume bears the same title as the book, and conveys Popper's own philosophical explorations on the necessity of liberal democracy as the only form of government allowing institutional improvements without violence and bloodshed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_S ... ts_Enemies

In addition to Plato's betrayal of Socrates, other philosophers contemporary with Plato complained that his dialogs put rubbish in their mouths or otherwise twisted their meanings -- just as we saw Plato do with Parmenides.


Amazondotcom has more about The Open Society and Its Enemies:

"One of the great books of the century." --Times (London)
...

"No thinking person would be doing himself a service by neglecting Popper's book."--Joseph Craft, The Nation
...

"Sir Karl Popper was right." --Václav Havel
...

Platonic exegesis will never be the same again. Nor, I think, will Marxist exegesis."--Gilbert Ryle

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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A well-written, well-researched critique of Plato, Hegel and Marx and the dangerously flawed Historicism that runs through their ideas.

Justifiably harsh on Plato, the ancient ideologue of Totalitarianism, who somehow remains revered to this day out of respect for being an "Ancient Scholar"...

Torpedoes Hegel for being a paid poseur and charlatan, recycling the same Totalitarian ideas to serve the Prussian Monarchy.

Even handed on Marx for being brilliant, humanitarian and well-intentioned, but nonetheless a victim of academic Historicism.

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Plato, Hegel and Marx represent the historicist tradition of social engineering, and their philosophical contributions, though of great importance, have collectively served to undermine the transparency of the open society; that is, real democracy. Of the three, Popper strikes an intriguing affection and pity for Marx, whom he distinguishes from Plato and Hegel as utterly sincere and well intentioned, but a failed prophet nonetheless. Of Plato's logical aptitude and sociological ingenuity, Popper pays due credit. Hegel, however, is a different story altogether. To Popper, Hegel was an arcane and mendacious state philosopher, one who cloaked his philosophy in impenetrable mysticism and specious reasoning...

The Open Society and its Enemies is, in short, an absolute masterwork written by an eminently moral thinker.

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Popper's insights into Plato and Hegel cogently demonstrate the dictatorial underpinnings of their works.

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One of the best books ever written. I wish I could have had this in my Greek philosophy courses.

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begins be delving deeply into Plato's Laws and The Republic. Your perspective on the meaning of these works and the origins of the Nazi Germany, the distinction between Big Government and Communism will likely never be the same.

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http://www.amazon.com/The-Open-Society- ... Descending

Looking around RI, I stumbled back onto the "Hidden Code in Plato's Writings" thread, where tazmic made some relevant remarks:

So, evidence that Plato embedded Pythagorean musical and mathematical theory in his work (or perhaps just a musical rhythm, unavoidably mathematical), means Plato was a closet Pythagorean which means we can make a contemporary reinterpretation of what Plato meant, without drawing much attention to the Pythagoreans (and ignoring Aristotle), and conclude

"The awe and beauty we feel in nature, Plato says, shows that it is divine; discovering the scientific order of nature is getting closer to God."

I wonder if the new Plato believes in metempsychosis too?

Do you think he's just trying to push the notion of God or is he going for nature = god and science = the door of perception angle?

[/quote]

Plato a closet Pythagorean -- that leaps out at me in a new way: to the extent we might call the Parmenides and the Eleatics Pythagoreans, did Plato find real value in the (actual) Eleatic tradition -- perhaps including practices like incubation, as described by Peter Kingsley -- but omit or distort it in his public writings? The implication being, that he did so to bring the Noble Lie to the masses, while reserving the true and powerful knowledge for his ideal ruling elite.

And why wouldn't he?

(Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metempsychosis#In_Greek_philosophy)


One reason I'm going on about this is that I find it's increasing connected to my present work (essentially a writing project). So I'm very interested. I have a generally anti-Plato bias; anyone feel free to temper that bias. I wouldn't call it a prejudice but at the same time I haven't seen all the evidence.

So. I'm going to re-read The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume 1: The Spell of Plato by Karl Popper. It seems like a good 'RI' follow-on to Kingsley's book. Anyone want to join me?


By the way, if you like footnotes, you'll LOVE this book: "In the Plato volume there are 200 pages of text and 120 pages of footnotes in smaller print. Some of the notes are full-blooded essays that run for several pages." (Rafe)



EDITED for formatting and to add the metempsychosis Wiki link.

[Sounder]

Thanks Elvis, that Popper book looks perfect for the R.I. book club.

Elvis wrote...

Thanks, Sounder, for those thoughts and the interesting story -- there's that buzzing again, the 'roar of silence' as so often experienced in hypnagogic states, or after a time relaxing in an anechoic chamber, or perhaps in a very quiet cave (or forest?). To be sure, I'm not 'against' ego; for all my foibles, I like being "me" and prize the limitless variety of individual personalities as part of the 'rich tapestry' of this life.

Me too, life would not even make any sense without the variety.

That said, I think ego must be self-moderated and not allowed to rule one's existence.

Excellent, you hit on what might be considered as a central element of our dilemma. The ‘cure’ that was hinted at on the red pill thread (that I killed) relates to how one may develop self-regulation through balancing order and spontaneity. A quick and dirty way of expressing what this approach to experience involves is to suggest that if one does what he/she needs to do, and then it will be that much easier to be relaxed and pure while doing what you want to do.

(What the intellect identifies as a ‘need’ may differ from that of the ‘still small voice’, but that’s a matter for another time.)

This kind of process can lessen insecurities as the psyche becomes ‘rich’ by learning better feedback routines between psyche and environment. By the by, when we all become ‘rich’, the conventionally moneyed rich will no longer have a reason for being.

Western society, especially American society, goads the ego, encouraging acquisitiveness, envy, fear, competition and conformity. To the System, these are features, not bugs.

For me, ‘Western society’ and the ‘System’ means acceptance of living within a split model of reality. But we are not gonna crack that nut until we realize it’s a nut.

[cptmarginal]

Thanks, Sounder, for those thoughts and the interesting story -- there's that buzzing again, the 'roar of silence' as so often experienced in hypnagogic states, or after a time relaxing in an anechoic chamber, or perhaps in a very quiet cave (or forest?).

To be sure, I'm not 'against' ego; for all my foibles, I like being "me" and prize the limitless variety of individual personalities as part of the 'rich tapestry' of this life. That said, I think ego must be self-moderated and not allowed to rule one's existence. Western society, especially American society, goads the ego, encouraging acquisitiveness, envy, fear, competition and conformity. To the System, these are features, not bugs.

Meditations on Moloch

A basic principle unites all of the multipolar traps above. In some competition optimizing for X, the opportunity arises to throw some other value under the bus for improved X. Those who take it prosper. Those who don’t take it die out. Eventually, everyone’s relative status is about the same as before, but everyone’s absolute status is worse than before. The process continues until all other values that can be traded off have been – in other words, until human ingenuity cannot possibly figure out a way to make things any worse.

In a sufficiently intense competition (1-10), everyone who doesn’t throw all their values under the bus dies out – think of the poor rats who wouldn’t stop making art. This is the infamous Malthusian trap, where everyone is reduced to “subsistence”.

In an insufficiently intense competition (11-14), all we see is a perverse failure to optimize – consider the journals which can’t switch to more reliable science, or the legislators who can’t get their act together and eliminate corporate welfare. It may not reduce people to subsistence, but there is a weird sense in which it takes away their free will.

Every two-bit author and philosopher has to write their own utopia. Most of them are legitimately pretty nice. In fact, it’s a pretty good bet that two utopias that are polar opposites both sound better than our own world.

It’s kind of embarassing that random nobodies can think up states of affairs better than the one we actually live in.

I don't agree with everything in that essay, nor have I read the book being discussed in this thread (yet.) But still.

[cptmarginal]

Anyone want to join me?

https://archive.org/details/opensocietyandit033120mbp

Regardless of whether anyone else reads it (or if I care to talk about it here) this one has been on my list for a long time, and I appreciate the reminder. Starting it today...

Number 10: http://www.rawillumination.net/2010/09/ ... owing.html