Krimel said: Look if this guy has been meaningful to you that is a wonderful thing. I had to Google him. I saw nothing there to inspire me to look further. I mean you no personal offence but I still do not regard anyone on that list as being among "the most honored philosophers in history." Here is a list of western mystic philosophers http://www.religiousworlds.com/mystic/whoswho.html I wouldn't even put Pirsig's list on the top rung of this lot, That's my opinion and I stand by it.
dmb says: Um, I don't think Pirsig's point was to assert a top-ten list. He's simply pointing out that mysticism exists in philosophy and not just in the churches and new age book stores. He says "The term mystic is sometimes confused with 'occult' or 'supernatural' and with magic and witchcraft but in philosophy it has a different meaning. Some of the most honored philosophers in history have been mystics:..." And in the final paragraphs of Lila he says, "American don't have to go to the Orient to learn what this mysticism stuff is about. In the Orient they dress it up with rituals and incense and pagodas and chants and , of course, huge organizational enterprises that bring in the equivalent of millions of dollars every year. American Indians haven't done this. Their way is not to be organized at all. They don't charge anything, they don't make a big fuss, and that's what makes people underrate them. Phaedrus remembered saying to Dusenberry just after that peyote meeting was over, 'The Hindu understanding is just a low-grade imitation of THIS! This is how it must have really been before all the clap-trap got started.'" [Krimel] Three out of four from Pirsig's list of luminaries are directly rooted in purely religious traditions. So it hard to see how this divorces mysticism from religion. Pirsig's observations on the peyote induced mysticism versus its low grade imitations is exactly the reason we should be looking at brain chemistry and how it is altered. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
