Liminal Worlds
Whatever is liminal, or emerging –arts, culture, society, spirituality
New Version of Milgram Experiments
Apr 10th
A new French experiment recalls the infamous social psychology experiments conducted by Dr. Stanley Milgram, in which it was shown how willing many people are to obey authority. In these experiments, people thought they were giving painful electric shocks to subjects. This was fake, but participants did not know this, and the majority obeyed commands to administer shocks.
The video below is from a recent fake “reality show” done in France where contestants also believed they were giving dangerous electrical shocks to other contestants. Apparently, today an even higher percentage of people were willing to do this, even to the point of killing someone, than when the Milgram experiments were done, back in the early 1960s!
Of course, today the cultural context is a little different, not that this makes it any more comforting. In the 60s, subjects were in a fake scientific study and were obeying the commands of traditional authority figures such as doctors or psychologists. Today, the “victimizers” were caught up in the hype of a reality TV show and were responding to the pressures of mass media hysteria rather than traditional authority….if this makes any real difference.
Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich
Jan 31st
The complete, rather hyperbolic title of this book is Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. Barbara Ehrenreich has written the ultimate secular humanist anti-positive thinking book, the antithesis to The Secret, What the Bleep Do We Know and other new age, metaphysical and “Law of Attraction” type material.
This book is basically a polemic, and is unlikely to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with its premise. Most likely, few people who don’t agree with it will even read it. I’m an exception to this, as I like to familiarize myself with as many aspects of the cultural landscape as possible.
Barbara Ehrenreich represents one third of what might be considered an ideological triangle into which the majority of people can be located. The three sides of the triangle are orthodox religion, securalism/atheism and new age spirituality (under this I’d also include modern interpretations of Eastern religions and neo-paganism).
Obviously Ehrenreich occupies the second of these positions, which might be called (though probably not by those who fall into this camp) fundamentalist atheism or secular humanism, whose leading advocate right now is probably Richard Dawkins.
I wrote a review of Bright-Sided that is now on the Associated Content site, so I won’t go into any more detail here. I would, however, suggest that it’s not a bad idea to read this book, even if you are a believer in things like the Law of Attraction. It’s healthy to expose yourself to all points of view.
The Land of Betwixt and Between
Jan 31st
The Land of Betwixt and Between is as a place of inspiration. You can travel there, too!
The land of Betwixt and Between is the boundary of neither/nor, the place where objects touch, aura’s blend and energy is transformed, midnight, the betwitching hour, the time of neither day nor night mysteriously both, arriving unannounced, like creativity itself.
The place of betwixt and between is the magic, the mystery, the essence of creativity when nothing is what it seems and everything is possible.
The time of betwixt and between is the waxing of the moon becoming the waning of the moon becomingthe waxing of the moon. Appearing full for three nights, absolute fullness is only a moment, then passes into the land of betwixt and between.
What else is betwixt and between?
Fog, mist, clouds and all that is elusive, wandering, shapeless, shifting from something, disappearing into nothing as elusive as creativity itself. Like dawn and dusk, it appears, fills us and is gone without a trace.
Where else is the betwixt and between?
The water’s edge betwixt and between the shoreline and the horizon, the air and sea three worlds coming together air, water, and earth changing, ebbing, flowing elusive.
Betwixt and between is that invisible world between the wave and the beach, the fire and the log, the root and the soil the bud and the stem the drop of rain and the leaf the new crust of snow and the old.
Can you travel to these places of betwixt and between?
Can you know the spirits that dwell therein?
Can you leave your body and enter the essence of betwixt and between?
Can you fly free into wild creativity that which is the essence of life?
Light a candle and breath deeply. Watch the rise and fall of your breath. Can you find the betwixt and between in the rise and fall of your breath?
Breath deeply as you gaze into the flame. Can you send your creative essence inbetween the flame and wick?
What creativity lies there?
Go to the places of betwixt and between. Fly free and enter possiblity.
What stories, what adventures lie there?
Emily Hanlon is a novelist of seven works of fiction and a book on the creative writing process. Her website creativesoulworks.com, is based on her belief that the multifaceted journey of creativity is not limited to the arts, but nurtures life at the most profound depths, those of the soul journey. Her website thefictionwritersjourney.com explores writing through her dual pronged teaching technique.
Skepticism, Cynicism and Gullibility
Nov 20th
This is Part 1 of a 2 part video by Bashar, channeled by Daryl Anka on the topic of skepticism, gullibility and cynicism. As Bashar points out, true skepticism implies having an open mind. He goes on to say that the two extremes of gullibility and cynicism are actually similar beneath the surface.
Playing To Win -It’s All a Game
Nov 6th
Is everything just a game? If so, how seriously need we take it? These are some of the questions thoughtfully posed and answered in two strange videos, which are narrated by a man in a black mask. I don’t know if the mask if for anonymity or dramatic effect, but you don’ t have to let that distract you from the message.
There is a 2 part video called Playing To Win. The first part can be found on the website link below. I’ve copied Part 2 below this right here. If you only want to watch one, I’d recommend Part 2.
What I like best about this perspective is that it’s a bridge between the “conspiracy” type point of view that talks about the New World Order, 9/11 conspiracies and the like and the “Law of Attraction” type material offered by Abraham, The Secret and such. The narrator of these videos nicely puts these two positions together. For example, he points out that fearing or hating the “Elite” only empowers them.
He also talks about the value -and limits- of so-called “truth jocks” -people who are very vocal about publicizing the nefarious schemes of the Elite/Illuminati. The narrator wisely tells us that we can learn from these people, but if we keep listening to their messages over and over, we are likely to remain in a “low frequency” state such as fear or anger.
Well worth watching!
http://www.theantiterrorist.co.uk/
Pataphysics-the Science of Imaginary Solutions
Oct 18th
Pataphysics is a rather obscure word. In our time, it’s probably best known from
the Beatle’s song Maxwell’s Silver Hammer: “Joan was quizzical; Studied pataphysical Science in the home.”
I’ve heard those lyrics many times without knowing or really thinking about what “pataphysical” means.
Pataphysics was invented by an eccentric French writer, Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), who was an early modernist playwright. I was reading about this in Peter Gay’s recent book, Modernism- The Lure of Heresy.
Jarry calls pataphysics, “the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments.”
I like the first part of that -”the science of imaginary solutions,” though the rest of that
sentence is typically convoluted European metaphysics -virtuality…lineaments?
This type or nonsensical or paradoxical thinking is important, though, and helped to inspire the Dada and Surrealist movements. This was part of a wider reaction against rationalism and industrialization.
Kymatica -enlightening video
Sep 28th
Kymatica is a video well worth watching if you are interested in subjects like new physics, consciousness expansion, conspiracy theories, alternative archeology and evolution and so forth. This video covers some of the same material as Zeitgeist, another popular video, but in some ways I think Kymatica has a clearer, more empowering message. While Zeitgeist mainly tries to expose all of the ways we are deceived, Ben Stewart, the creator of Kymatica, stresses the importance of personal responsibility. In fact, he ends up concluding that all of the negative events in our world are actually projections from the false ego that all of us share.
Some of the actual theories explored in Kymatica are, well, theories rather than facts. For example, Stewart explores the possibility that the real origin of the Satan/Devil archetype was a comet that destroyed much of civilization and became the basis for the flood myths of so many ancient traditions.
Similarly, he covers some of the familiar (at least to conspiracy buffs!) ideas that all of the major political leaders of the world are related by blood. He even states that Obama and Bush are related! This may or may not be true, but it’s something that is not proven in this film. There is also an interesting section that discusses how many of our laws and regulations are actually variations of Maritime law, and reduce people to the status of property when we are required to apply for things like birth certificates and driver’s licenses -and pay taxes. These are issues that are often brought up and debated among libertarians, constitutionalists and others who want to do away with the oppression and red tape of modern society. Stewart, however, weaves all of this into a more spiritual and empowering message.
The most important part of the video is the last twenty or so minutes, when Stewart really lays out the problem of people projecting their false egos/shadow selves upon external enemies. This is true whether you follow the mass media or radical or conspiracy theories. It’s easy to be diverted by the ultimately illusory idea of external enemies, whether in the guise of terrorists, corporations, the Illuminati, or other nations, races or religions.
Among the most interesting and informative parts of Kymatica are interviews by Dr. Bruce Lipton, who has done some cutting edge research on healing, genetics and evolution. Towards the end, he gives some convincing evidence that genes do not determine our fate, but are adaptable to the environment.
I don’t necessarily subscribe to every idea or theory put forth in Kymatica, but it’s definitely an important contribution to understanding the predicament of the modern world!
Ervin Laszlo: Sustainable Transformation
Jul 1st
Concert pianist-turned-philosopher Ervin Laszlo talks about his personal intellectual and spiritual evolution and about the evolutionary challenges facing humanity as global civilization approaches the ‘chaos point.’ The cofounder with Ludwig vonBertalanfy of General Systems Theory, Laszlo talks from a broad, trans-diciplinary perspective that integrates leading-edge science and spiritual understanding from many traditions. The founder of the Club of Budapest, he travels the world working with many organizations on the urgent mission of helping create a ‘sustainable transformation’ to a peaceful planetary civilization before its too late. *
* The above is the description by eon3, the person who submitted the video to YouTube.
New Realities meetup group
Jun 8th
New Realities is a group that discusses ideas, books and movies dealing with metaphysics, spirituality, 2012, Law of Attraction, new paradigms, alternative health and other such things. It meets at the 60 Main Cafe in New Paltz. The next meeting is Wed. 6/10 at 8 p.m. The topic will be “What the Bleep and Creating Reality” where we will discuss some of the ideas from the movie What the Bleep Do We Know. If you are interested in this, please join the meetup group so you can be put on the mailing list. Just click on the banner:
Trine Erotic: book review
May 5th
Trine Erotic, by Alice Andrews (ViviSphere Publishing, 2002)
Trine Erotic is not the easiest book to describe or summarize, but here’s my attempt: a romantic, philosophical novel with a postmodern narrative structure that explores the dialectic between biology and free will. To what extent are our feelings, actions and relationships determined by our genes and by evolutionary forces?
While Trine Erotic is certainly an intellectual and philosophical novel, it is also down to earth and readable. The deeper issues are explored through the experiences of well-rounded characters. The technique of stories within stories has become a kind of postmodern genre of its own. Trine Erotic, however, uses this style in a way that is quite original -to explore the role of evolution and biology in human existence, more specifically in human romantic and sexual behavior.
If someone were to write a novel with the sole purpose of trying to prove an argument such as “biology is destiny,” it would, I fear, be quite one dimensional, even dull. Fortunately, Alice Andrews leaves the question of how much biology determines our actions open-ended. More importantly, the characters in this book are are more than abstract symbols to prove a point; they are real people who have interesting thoughts, conversations and relationships.
As the title suggests, the book consists of three sections, Love Stories, Siren’s Song and Third Force. The postmodern structure comes in as we discover that each section turns out to be about the author who penned the previous one. As you might expect with such a style, there are close parallels between the characters in each section.
The characters in Trine Erotic struggle with issues such as love, attraction, fidelity, jealousy and abandonment. One of the central issues is the tendency of some women to be drawn to “alpha” type males who are attractive and charismatic but often unreliable and unwilling to commit to one woman. This is not an unfamiliar theme, but in this novel it is scrutinized from a blatantly biological (evolutionary) perspective.
The whole biology vs. free will problem comes to a head in an interesting manner in the final section. Here, Helen, who turns out to be the author of all the previous narratives, meets Ed, who is not only an attractive alpha male, but the head of a spiritual community based on the teachings of someone named Guerttiev, who seems to be a thinly disguised stand in for Gurdjieff, the esoteric philosopher who taught that “the Work” of ones life should be to authentic and “wake up.”
This esoteric view of spiritual evolution differs fundamentally from the biological kind. The aim of the mystic or magus is to transcend mere physical existence and take conscious control of the evolutionary process. Whether or not this is possible is the kind of question that is raised but not definitively answered in Trine Erotic.
As someone who is quite ambivalent about evolution and science, I did not at all mind the lack of any definite conclusions in this novel. I prefers books that make me think about such issues rather than supply oversimplified and pat answers. Trine Erotic can be read either as a fascinating study of some basic philosophical issues, or as a compelling novel about modern relationships -or both.
Note: most of my book and film reviews are posted on Amazon.com. I’m gradually moving towards posting them on my blog, with links to the Amazon product pages. You can see my Amazon reviews here.
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