At 02:11 PM 8/20/2008, you wrote:
[Marsha]
Wow! I admit to making it a quick read, but that introduction made
me dizzy. Seems there was a lot of flip-flopping. Was there a SOM
thread running through the last 2,500 years? I didn't get that there was.
[Arlo]
I don't think Hall's vision was on pinpointing an SOM demarcation.
That said, I think there is quite a lot of overlap between the time
Hall points to as "losing" its esoteric center and the time Pirsig
points to as the onset of an SOM paradigm. Certainly Hall's
sympathies are with the very Sophists that Pirsig also champions,
and as a self-professed "Neo-Platonist" he distances himself from
the Aristotelian school. "Briefly described, Neo-Platonism is a
philosophic code which conceives every physical or concrete body of
doctrine to be merely the shell of a spiritual verity which may be
discovered through meditation and certain exercises of a mystic
nature." (Hall). I'd contend that that "spiritual verity" is Quality
itself, by the way.
As I said, I think the demise of esoteric understandings coincides
with the arrival of a dominant SOM paradigm (and also the erosion of
any mythological frames). They may not be the same thing, of course,
and one may very well be the "cause" of the other, or they could
both be symptomatic of a larger malady. Hall may support the idea
that the loss of esoteric, mystic thinking left people with two
polar choices; unquestioned "faith" or purely logical reason.
Western Philosophy championed the latter, while Western Religion
championed the former, and the science and religion we see in
America today evidence this schism.
By the way, as a quick note... Hall wrote this entire book at the
age of 27! And it was written in 1928. Hall also founded the
Philosophic Research Society (http://prs.org/).
Hi Arlo,
Well, the introduction did make my head spin. It was a whirlwind
tour. There still seems to be, in "acceptable social circles", only
those two choices: religious faith or science. Anything that strays
too far from one or the other gets labeled "new age" and dismissed as
gibberish. Not fair, and I hope it continues to be artfully ignored.
I'm sure Hall is brilliant, but I've read too many books on this
subject already. Soon will be the time of Mabon, the second
harvest. It's at the autumn equinox. Creating a day's celebration
for this event is as esoteric as I want to get these days. But I
will make it something special.
Marsha
.
.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.........
.
.
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