WARNING: BOREDOM ALERT! For various reasons of no great significance I've decided to start posting some of the emails I write to friends and acquaintances. If you want to read them, go right ahead. But be warned, I didn't write them to be entertaining. If you want entertainment, you'll find plenty of it here in cosmic rapture, but not in this post. Some of the short stories, for instance. Or the poetry, much of which I think you'll find very amusing. "Divine masturbation", for instance, or the mizerable wizard.
I feel better today. I think I've seen the black dog off, for the time being, which is the only time there is. Plus, I scored a huge heap of clientwork that will keep me occupied in the weeks ahead. I'm not actually relishing the prospect, and the content of the work --- financial services --- does not excite or inspire me to the smallest extent, in fact the opposite. But we've all got to eat, I suppose. Though I speculate there are other ways of deriving energy to maintain the body than by taking energy from another living organism.
Briefly, on the subject of diet, I have never had a satisfactory answer to the question: "is the life of a plant less than the life of an animal, and therefore we can kill and eat plants without feeling the guilt that we may feel from killing and eating animals"?
I know I keep saying this, but I'm really enjoying BTH, though enjoying is the wrong word and I can't think of the right one. But the reason why I bring it up, yet again, is that I find it quite remarkable how closely what you say to me is "aligned" with the teachings in the book, especially in relation to the question about who it is who is experiencing these things. So I'm getting it from all sides, all angles: I guess there's no avoiding it!
One of the things you may have gathered about me is that I don't permit anyone to make up my mind for me, not even God. As if in response to the preceding statement, there are several elements/aspects of BTH that seem absolutely designed for me personally; that seem to be tailored exactly to the way I think about things and in respect of the things I'm interested in.
For example, one of my "hot buttons" is the extent to which many of the ideas in Hindu metaphysics are paralleled in modern quantum physics. [Not that I've read extensively in Hindu metaphysics; all my knowledge of that subject is derived second or even third hand from others who have gone to the source and read the original writings]. But nevertheless...
Parallel #1:
On page 49 is the following statement: "Every form arises out of invisible matter, which is the basis of all forms; there is no form separated from it" ...
One of the problems in modern quantum physics relates to so-called "dark matter". We know from indirect effects --- eg as expressed in the strength of gravitational fields --- that there is a lot more matter and energy in the Universe than we can see or measure by our current instruments/technologies. And "a lot more" in this context means "most". Any physicist these days will tell you that most of the matter and energy in the Universe is "dark" ie we can't see it or feel it or experience it, but we know it's there from the indirect effects it produces, we just have no explanation for it, and no means of accessing it.
Parallel #2:
Page 50: "...the only power comes from the Spirit which is Whole and is everywhere and everpresent, and is the source of all things..."
Sounds to me a bit like the so-called "Higgs Field" which has yet to be proven to exist, but which some scientists, Higgs in particular, believe to be the fundamental basis of all Reality, from whence everything springs. In the case of Higgs and his fellow-travellers, the focus has been on sub-atomic particles. Not surprising in the context of people who study sub-atomic particles. One might wish that they could extend their imagination a little bit more to the extent where the Field is seen as the fundamental basis of everything, not just sub-atomic particles. But that's their playing field, so let's not invade it.
It is worth mentioning though that the Higgs Field is considered as a framework in which the so-called Higgs particles exist. (Also still theoretical).The Higgs particle, in that context, being referred to sneeringly by such people as Richard Dawkins, as the "God particle". And you know what? I think Dawkins has it right, though he'd hate to be known as one who helped broaden the currency of the idea.
Parallel #3:
Still on Page 50: "...for 'Now' is eternity; there is no such thing as time in the everpresent. The past and the future do not exist outside of man's mind".
That's a concept that Albert Einstein would be very comfortable with, eg in relation to the ideas in Relativity, in which to paraphrase Einstein, there are no privileged frames; everything is relative to everything else. Thus there is nothing that people can share under the heading of "time". It just ain't there. And mainly, we're just too small to realize that.
Parallel #4:
Page 56: "...So does Love magnetise the etherons and atoms of the soul and body, turning them into a magnet to attract the Cosmic Rays in great abundance..."
and on Page 57: "In ether the blue-print of creation is formed, and motion causes the transformation of etherons and atoms into form ... this same rule applies throughout the whole Universe..."
Another big problem in quantum physics relates to our failure, to date, to be able to marry Relativity / Gravity with physicists' big Guts and Toes (grand unifying theories; theories of everything). It is believed there are four fundamental forces: electromagnetism, the weak force, the strong force and gravity. We have a theory that is very successful (ie mirrors reality to a significant extent) that marries the first three. But to date we have been unable to come up with a theory that incorporates gravity alongside.
One of the ideas that has been floated is that Gravity works in a similar way to the other forces, ie in respect of being associated with a field and a particle. We know about gravitational fields. But so far we have not discovered the hypothetical particle of gravity, though we do have a name for it: "the graviton":. Whatever it is, and whatever its name, sounds a bit like the "etheron" referred to in BTH. And concerning "the ether" is a long and complex story which let's not explore at this stage. Sufficeth it to say that this is an idea whose time has come (again).
Parallel #5:
Page 57: "...there is but one Creator and one creation; both are one and not separate. The Creator and His creation are one..."
One minor quibble here, relating to gender ("His"). We've already had the conversation about how people "see" Reality through the lens of their culture and background. The Universe, the entity I like to refer to as Everything That Is (ETI) is alive and well and growing and learning, just like any person. Of course, ETI is the Biggest Person there is, and is way beyond the thing we refer to as "gender". The problem is that English has no gender-neutral singular pronouns, so that one is forced to resort on occasion to the gender-neutral plural pronoun "they". Anyway, getting sidetracked. Turning now to the parallel:
It's not so much a parallel as reinforcement of something that I have believed in passionately (though only for the last five years or so) and continue to believe in passionately. And I can't say it any better than it's stated in the book: Creator and Creation are one and the same. And as parts of Creation, we are parts of the Creator too. In fact, we are co-creators.,
These ideas tend to be lumped together under the heading of pantheism. What I don't understand is why everyone is not a pantheist. What's wrong with the idea that God is everywhere and everything is God? And yet the monotheists stubbornly insist that Creator and Creation are separate: that God creates the universe, and then stands back outside the universe and watches it do its thing. If that's not a formula for alienation and "separatedness" I don't know what is.
To get a bit technical here, pantheistic ideas are based on the concept of "immanent deity" meaning that deity is "inside"/"within" Creation, ie comprises Creation. Whereas figures such as Jehovah are referred to as "transcendental deity" meaning that Creator transcends Creation, is fundamentally different and apart from Creation.
[But I must correct myself here: those monotheists I refer to are just as much entitled to their concept of creator and creation as anyone else. Whether it really works for them / serves them is another debate]
[I like to think that I know the meaning and purpose of life. Well, at least for me. The meaning and purpose of my life is to help ETI understand and experience what it is like to be me: a worthy purpose indeed. Even an omnipresent being can't be everywhere you know!
No, what I mean is... Maybe an example will help. My foot is not smart, but that doesn't mean I'm not. A lump of rock is not self-aware, but that doesn't mean that the Universe is not self aware. And the meaning and purpose of the existence of the lump of rock is to help ETI know and experience what it is to be that lump of rock: a worthy purpose indeed. So my argument is more of a rebuttal of an argument than an argument in itself.
I find it strange that "scientists", "monotheists", and "polytheists" are actually thinking in very similar lines (though less so in the case of the monotheists) as the following short excerpt from Cosmic Rapture illustrates, specifically that the traditional 3 definitions/qualities ascribed to deity in fact are one and the same as those that physicists ascribe to the Universe: omnipotence, omnipresence, and omnisicience. [ Though the monotheists somehow don't get that you can't be omnipresent if you stand apart from, separate from, Creation.]
I've also done a more detailed version that points out that a polytheist and a scientist have a lot more in common than they realize: Both believe that there are forces and powers in the universe, that don't supplant the universe, but rather are part of it What you call them doesn't matter. The names you invent for them, don't matter.
Whether it's "Gravity" or "Electromagnetism" or "Centripetal Force" or "Potential Energy" or "Zeus" or "Quetzlcoatl" or "Vishnu" or "Thor" --- those are just names, labels that humans have created for the purpose of applying to the forces and powers, so that we have "names" we can use for our convenience when we're talking about them. What then is the real substantive difference between a polytheist and a scientist? Both firmly believe there are forces and powers in the universe, that don't supplant the universe but are part of it.
And then there's David Bohm, but we've had that conversation already.
NIGHTMERRIES: THE LIGHTER SIDE OF DARKNESS This so-called "book" will chew you up, spit you out, and leave you twitching and frothing on the carpet. More than 60 dark and feculent fictions (read ‘em and weep) copiously illustrated by over 20 grotesque images you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley.
AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY (Vot could be Verse?) We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.
MANIC MEMES & OTHER MINDSPACE INVADERS A disturbing repository of quotably quirky quotes, sayings, proverbs, maxims, ponderances, adages and aphorisms. This menagerie holds no fewer than 184 memes from eight meme-species perfectly adapted to their respective environments.
MASTRESS & OTHER TWISTED TAILS, ILLUSTRATED: an unholy corpus of oddities, strangelings, bizarritudes and peculiaritisms
FIENDS & FREAKS Adults-only Tales of Serpents, Dragons, Devils, Lobsters, Anguished Spirits, Gods, Anti-gods and Other Horse-thieves You Wouldn't Want to Meet in a Dark Kosmos: 4th Edition
HAGS TO HAGGIS Whiskey-soaked Tails of War-nags, Witches, Manticores and Escapegoats, Debottlenecking and Desilofication, Illustrated
COMMENTS? Come on... gimme your best shot!