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Integral “Third Way” Politics

“This new video is showing up everywhere on the internet, but we thought we had to post it after watching it closely ourselves – as Ken Wilber’s passion for major political issues, and the clarity with which he deploys applied integral theory (at least in terms of AQAL) is something to behold.

Whatever your opinion of this integral-type theorizing (and jargon), this 30 minute video demonstrates just how accurate and useful a calibrated integral framework can be when we attempt to understand the broad currents of cultural and development change.”

(via Integral Praxis. For those unfamiliar with Wilber’s Integral Theory, Dedroidify has a good summary)

The Ecology of Magic: An Interview with David Abram

May 25, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“David Abram is an odd combination of anthropologist, philosopher and sleight-of-hand magician. Though he worked as a magician in the United States and Europe for a number of years, he attributes most of what he knows about magic to the time he spent in Indonesia, Nepal and Sri Lanka learning from indigenous medicine people. Performing magic is not simply about entertaining, he points out in this interview. “The task of the magician is to startle our senses and free us from outmoded ways of thinking.” The magician also plays an important ecological function, he says, by mediating between the human world and the “more-than-human” world that we inhabit.

When Abram published his book The Spell of the Sensuous in 1996, the reviewers practically exhausted their superlatives in praise of it. The Village Voice declared that Abram had “one of those rare minds which, like the mind of a musician or a great mathematician, fuses dreaminess with smarts.” The Utne Reader called Abram a “visionary” for “casting magic spells through his writing and lecturing” and for his deepening influence on the environmental movement.

The Spell of the Sensuous went on to win the prestigious Lannan Literary Award for non-fiction. It touches on a wide range of themes, from our perception of the natural world to the way we use of language and symbols to process our experience.”

(via Scott London. h/t: Neuroanthropology)

Scott Bakker is back, with ‘Neuropath’

April 26, 2008 / Fell

One of my all-time favourite authors, R. Scott Bakker, is back, on hiatus from his trodden fantasy path to tackle the psycho-thriller genre. And while the cover of the book and the tagline you see there are an utter cliché of the genre (blame his publishers — bad Penguin Canada, baad), his content is terrifically intense and realistic, with beautiful doses of poetics and philosophy for flavour. (Read a prior bit about his literary-fantasy series, The Prince of Nothing.)

There is an insightful interview with Mr Bakker over at Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist where he delves into the reasons for writing the book and what issues he wanted to tackle with this project. (I like that he started the project for his wife, aww.):

Scott: Are the muggles ready for Neuropath? That remains to be seen. The vast majority of readers will reject the vast bulk of the claims made in the book – that goes without saying, I think. Our incompetence as theory believers pretty much assures that people will refuse to acknowledge their incompetence as theory believers, and so muster all the power their myriad biases have to offer. Just for instance, you would think that encountering well-formed counterarguments would make people more skeptical of their own beliefs – after all, someone has to be wrong and it could very well be you – but research has shown that precisely the opposite is the case. Thanks to things like source bias, selective attention, confirmation bias, and so on, we almost always feel that we have utterly demolished those counterarguments, and if our position is so strong as to demolish well-formed counterarguments, well then, it simply has to be true! In other words, we draw the most irrational, self-serving conclusion possible. […]

Pat: The thesis underlying the novel is that there is no such thing as human free will and that consciousness as we know it is illusory. Do you believe that this controversial premise is the reason why it was difficult for you to find a home for this manuscript?

Scott: In the US, maybe. But I really think that the problem had more to do with the fact that the content was philosophical, more than the specific nature of that content. I had one very high profile NYC editor call me up to explain why he was passing on the book, even though he thought it was the most disturbing thing he’d read in 10 years! That’s literally what he said. What it came down to was that he thought the book was too cerebral to sell in the American market.

Pat: Given the subject matter presented in Neuropath, do you personally have any hope that humans can overcome their "hardwiring" (whether it be via social engineering or genetic manipulation)? Or is "rewiring" something that scares you even more than the present condition?

Scott: We’re fucked.

[Obviously continued… even with some new info on the upcoming Prince of Nothing instalment!]

Available in Canada on 6 May, U.K. on the 7th, France and Germany on the 29th, as an import in the U.S. on the 15th, et cetera.

Role of Hanuman in Esoteric Ramayana

April 24, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“Vmalananda paused for a moment, and looked up to an image of Anjaneya, better known as Hanuman. His lip quivered almost imperceptibly with emotion as he spoke again.”Anjaneya flew to Lanka, located Sita, and assured her that Rama was coming to rescue her. Before returning to Rama with the news of Sita’s whereabouts Anjaneya allowed himself to be captured and taken before Ravana to make Ravana aware of the gravity of what he had done.

Then Anjaneya burned the city of Lanka to the ground, destroying Ravana’s lovely fantasy world. “Actually Sita was responsible for the burning of Lanka. Ravana’s minions wrapped Anjaneya’s tail in oil-soaked rags to torment him. But when they lit the rags Sita prayed to the god of fire to refrain from burning his flesh, and Anjaneya felt no burning. In fact, he felt a wonderfully cool sensation; he felt cool enough to go calmly about his work of destroying the city.

This prayer of Sita’s is actually a mantra; if you know it you can sit in the fire for years on end and not even one of your hairs will be singed. After all, Sita is shita, cool. Wah, Ma, wah! “Anjaneya was able to burn Lanka with the help of his tail. Think of the esoteric meaning here: Lanka stands for the Muladhara Chakra and the Earth Element.”

(via The India Post)

New Evidence Proves James Bond was Based on Occult Knowledge

April 3, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“A remarkable new discovery by international best selling author, Philip Gardiner, has revealed that Ian Fleming based his fictional character on occult knowledge he had accumulated over the course of his life.

The new book, The Bond Code, reveals how Fleming included special etymological and numerological codes within his Bond novels to re-create ancient sacred tales of deep psychological importance. Drawing upon esoteric knowledge and an understanding of alchemy, Ian Fleming produced a work no different to the tales of the Holy Grail or dragon slaying fairy tales, within which lay the ancient understanding of human wisdom.

The author, Philip Gardiner, is an expert on esoteric philosophy and etymology and realised there was a code at play when watching the film, Live and Let Die. For two years he researched Ian Fleming and read his novels, discovering vast amounts of information previously unrealised.”

(via PRLog)

Enlightenment Reason or Occult Conspiracy?

April 3, 2008 / TiamatsVision

“What holds our world together is not only the laws of physics, but language, myth and story. Our narratives create the framework in which our actions and our intentions have meaning, or at least some kind of order. It is very hard for us to live without any coherence at all. It may even be impossible, as our minds immediately begin to weave together some type of fable to support whatever it is we find ourselves doing.

Lately, I find myself switching back and forth between divergent models or myths of reality and seeking to integrate them. One of them is the story of progress and reason, the inheritance of the secular and scientific Enlightenment. The progressive believes that a flawed society can be improved by rational policy and political pressure. The world can be made better for more people, inequities reduced and healthcare guaranteed. Although he has been strategic in his pronouncements, Barack Obama seems the model of a progressive reformer, promoting the type of sensible policies that led to the New Deal and the Great Society.

The other mythic structure that entices me is occult and conspiratorial. According to this story, there is a hidden agenda beneath the fa?ade of chaotic events. This agenda is orchestrated by ‘them,’ that group of elite cabals and secret societies, an amalgam of Free Masons, Vatican priests, the descendents of the Nazi scientists brought to the U.S. after World War Two, and so on. To approach this concealed dimension of world affairs, to separate accurate insights from disinformation, is extremely difficult, and perhaps impossible.

The quest involves long reading lists of small-press and self-published tomes and many hours on YouTube, watching lectures presented by anxious men in drab conferences. From such unreliable sources, one learns that much alien technology has already been recovered and reverse-engineered, that a New World Order of total social control is being orchestrated, that the Ark of the Covenant is a torsion field generator perhaps hidden in the Pentagon, that shapeshifting reptilians are controlling everything, and other tidbits.”

(via Common Ground)

Dudeism- “Just Take It Easy, Man.”

March 25, 2008 / TiamatsVision

What is Dudeism?

“While Dudeism in its official form has been organized as a religion only recently, it has existed down through the ages in one form or another. Probably the earliest form of Dudeism was the original form of Chinese Taoism, before it went all weird with magic tricks and body fluids. The originator of Taoism, Lao Tzu, basically said “smoke ’em if you got ’em” and “mellow out, man” although he said this in ancient Chinese so something may have been lost in the translation.

Down through the ages, this “rebel shrug” has fortified many successful creeds – Buddhism, Christianity, Sufism, John Lennonism and Fo’-Shizzle-my-Nizzlism. The idea is this: Life is short and complicated and nobody knows what to do about it. So don’t do anything about it. Just take it easy, man. Stop worrying so much whether you’ll make it into the finals. Kick back with some friends and some oat soda and whether you roll strikes or gutters, do your best to be true to yourself and others – that is to say, abide.

Incidentally, the term “dude” is commonly agreed to refer to both genders. Most linguists contend that “Dudette” is not in keeping with the parlance of our times.”

(via Dudeism.com)

The Garden of Cosmic Speculation

March 20, 2008 / TiamatsVision

In an attempt to shake off a major case of cabin fever, I went to my local botanic gardens to take a walk. In their exhibition building was a pictoral showing of “The Garden of Cosmic Speculation” created by renown architect Charles Jencks and his late wife Maggie. This is an amazing piece of work and I was blown away with it’s concept and design.

“This book tells the story of one of the most original and important gardens of the 21st century, created by the internationally celebrated architectural critic and designer Charles Jencks. He and his late wife started working on a landscape, that, after her death in 1995, continued to grow into a larger project, an ongoing speculation on the basic elements of nature. Covering thirty acres in the Borders area of Scotland, the Garden of Cosmic Speculation is conceived as a place to explore certain fundamental aspects of the universe.

What are atoms made of and how should we conceive of them? How does DNA make up a living organism and why is it essential to celebrate it in a garden? In dialogue with eminent physicists, cosmologists, and biologists, including Paul Davies, Lee Smolin, and Steven Rose, Charles Jencks has created a series of new, expansive, visual metaphors that challenge misleading and frequently misunderstood concepts, such as the ‘Big Bang’ and the ‘Selfish Gene.’

(Preview of the book “The Garden of Cosmic Speculation” via Google Books)

(Charles Jencks website. Article on “The Garden of Cosmic Speculation” via Recreating Eden)

Honky Tonk Dragon’s tribute to Gary Gygax

March 7, 2008 / Klint Finley

I never realized, until reading this, how important the “character alignment” system of AD&D was in my own thinking about ethics:

Personally, I know that some of my earliest thinking about moral philosophy came about through heated discussions about the Character Alignment Graph in the AD&D Players Handbook. Where earlier versions of D&D mapped the moral code of individuals in the game as Good, Neutral, or Evil; AD&D was a little more complex:

For the uninitiated, “Lawful,” is just that, someone who follows the letter of the law. “Evil,” represents complete self-interest. “Good,” shows a concern for the greater good, for the community over the self. “Chaotic,” represents a total disregard for rules and dogma. For a twelve-year old, this is pretty heady stuff.

I have for sometime decried the blinding limitations of a binary value system. As an artist, even value systems that allow for shades of gray seem limited for mapping the whole of human experience and action. I think we would be far better suited to discuss ethics if we could see it as a color wheel, rather than black and white, or even gray-scale. I suppose it would be too much to hope for a culture of such sensitivity that we could even conceive of a value system based on the Munsell color solid. But the philosophical/artistic/gamer in me thinks what such a system lacks in playability, it more than makes up for in verisimilitude.

Still, when discussing ethics with other gamers, I have taken for granted that I had a model which allowed me to discuss it in “color,” rather than in “black and white.” It is only in writing this post that I have put this all together, and realized why I have such frustration in discussing moral issues with non-gamers. It is because in this arena, like so many others, AD&D is like a Common Tongue (or Lingua Franca for non-gamer academics) for discussing simulation.

Full Story: Honky Tonk Dragon.

Against Happiness: is depression actually good for us?

February 22, 2008 / Klint Finley

The English professor at Wake Forest University wants to be clear that he is not “romanticizing” clinical depression and that he believes it is a serious condition that should be treated.

But he worries that today’s cornucopia of antidepressants – used to treat even what he calls “mild to moderate sadness” – might make “sweet sorrow” a thing of the past.

“And if that happens, I wonder, what will the future hold? Will our culture become less vital? Will it become less creative?” he asks.

[…]

We can picture this in the primitive world. While the healthy bodies of the tribe were out mindlessly hacking beasts or other humans, the melancholy soul remained behind brooding in a cave or under a tree. There he imagined new structures, oval and amber, or fresh verbal rhythms, sacred summonings, or songs superior to even those of the birds. Envisioning these things, and more, this melancholy malingerer became just as useful for his culture as did the hunters and the gatherers for theirs. He pushed his world ahead. He moved it forward. He dwelled always in the insecure realm of the avant-garde.

This primitive visionary was the first of many such avant-garde melancholics. Of course not all innovators are melancholy, and not all melancholy souls are innovative. However, the scientifically proved relationship between genius and depression, between gloom and greatness suggests that the majority of our cultural innovators, ranging from the ancient dreamer in the bush to the more recent Dadaist in the city, have grounded their originality in the melancholy mood. We can of course by now understand why.

Full Story: NPR.

Counter arguments: Hedonistic Imperative.

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