As I say, my life journey has led me to take Anonymous d’Outre Tomb very seriously. I believe, as I say, that his book Meditations on the Tarot holds profound hope for the Church and for the world.
Now the author chose to highlight the words from the Lady of all nations, ‘degeneration, disaster and war’, I believe, with careful thought.
In this website, I am also making my own humble attempt to speak of degeneration. **Among other things**. And to speak of these matters, with a chorus of far more profound Christian thinkers, again, as diverse as Rudolf Steiner and John Paul II and Benedict XVI …
A final personal note for the week. I ask myself a great deal as to the nature and degree of the degeneration I see. How bad is it – **really**?
Recently I have been reading a book by Curtis White, also a penetrating thinker, though not I believe, a Christian one. The book is called: The Middle Mind. Why Americans Don’t Think for Themselves.
White, like myself, is an American, and what he means by the Middle Mind is the generation of a collective mindset – generated across the board, in the media, in academia, in political pronouncements, in entertainment, in the arts so-called.
A collective mindset, whose effect is to dull thinking, numb feeling, flatten distinction, to admit no world beyond the borders of a tightly controlled domain. to reduce, confuse, blur and simplify issues … leading to a culture of banal mediocrity. And worse.
He also has the courage to link the generation of this collective mindset to a political agenda - one of stupefying people and producing tolerance to what ought to be intolerable.
He writes: ‘The Middle Mind is a **strategy**. It is a means to an end. It is a form of **management**.’ I would add: it is the **true** opium of the people.
Now more than eighty years ago, Rudolf Steiner warned in lucid terms of this kind of degeneration. He foresaw the coming of the Middle Mind. And his insight in this regard, at least, is certainly shared by Anonymous d’Outre Tomb, John Paul II and Benedict XVI …
I cannot do justice to Curtis White’s often profound book in this space. This webblog resumes Monday and I may say more of White’s **devastating** critique – which would be most disheartening, were it not for the fact that it demonstrates that what we need now most of all is HEART.
We must not give up to the call to surrender HEART. The French for heart is ‘coeur’. We need courage … the rage of the HEART.
2 comments:
Roger: Great blog. Really original and thought- (and feeling-) provoking in so many ways. I enjoy reading this at the end of every day in my office around 5.30pm, midwinter dark outside, stressed out. Fantastic that you have moved out beyond the cosy confines of the New Age and admitted that you have a mind, and that the world is in a mess that no amount of tree-hugging, aura-washing, meditating in hobbit-holes and talking to marrows can fix.
Just to say: what really strikes me about this work is how synthetic it is. I think there is a real clue here about how to move beyond the literalism/relativism thing you talk about. In particular there are good links between spirituality and politics framed up in potentially new ways. I kind of get scared with the heavy duty Christian stuff like Mary appearing in Belgium or wherever but hey what do I know, maybe there are ways to read that stuff. Like, not literally ;-)
A worry: I think you might be lapsing into a form of vulgar Marxism when you suggest we are all being controlled and the dumb-down is deliberate and organised. Marxists would say 'Yes, that is the ideological state apparatus in operation'. But altho' Marxism has great implications as a theory particularly in the shape of soviet psychology, as an account of social structure and behaviour Weber's stratification theory rings much truer for me. That is just that the world is full of people protecting their interests, and what emerges is 'culture', 'society' or whatever we call it (this is of course a dialectical process). I do not believe any particular power is responsible. The world we live in is a massively distributed, emergent phenomenon that is reconstructed by each of us moment-by-moment. Every one of us is responsible for how the world is, not just George Bush or whoever.
So. I am another ex-new-ager, as you know. But I am with the new agers in that I believe that the outer reflects the inner and vice versa and changing the world is about changing yourself.
And then we get to the difficult bit. Particularly when I am working in a Uni actively responding to economic realities by dumbing its degrees down to what is now an alarming, er, degree. 'Golden Bough'? Forget it, head, most of my students are reading The Sun - on a good day. You are right, intelligence is leaving culture, but again, everyone and no-one is responsible. This is the problem: massively distributed responsibility. We are all drops in an ocean and how does a drop change an ocean? How can any of us work but *with* these tides?
I suspect this is an ancient debate. I am always too damned busy to look at it properly...
One other thing maybe again about 'literalism' (still thinking about what that means exactly): I believe you have special experiences that are real and undeniable, that inform your spirituality, that I know nothing about, because I have not had those experiences. So that's why I call for 'more beef' - 'cos for me that's the way to get at things, and it works for me, and I am freaked out when people have deep visionary experiences, and I start to think, 'You lot are crazy! I'm out of here!' I mean 'Outre' is right... but maybe the rational thinking and structured argument thing is just one way. I think you are trying to communicate something beyond the words here. I look forward to that thing hoving into clearer view...
Thank you, head and dr john.Among many things I appreciate about these posts, is their lending further substance to what is being called here 'degeneration'. Even if that substance is disturbing indeed and filled with 'doom' ...
Despite a tone here that might sometimes seem to evince certitude, I am constantly checking in, day in, day out - how *real* is what I seem to see? This kind of response from obviously thinking, caring human beings is very useful indeed.
I also agree with dr john's theme of the co-responsibility of us all. That is certainly true. At the same time, I have this unfortunate predilection for seeing the very opposite of what I affirm, as also true.
SO - based on my own reading and insight - some pretty 'outre' - I admit I do tend to a somewhat more sinister view of 'managenent', than simply a coalescing aggregate of human weakness.
But again, this isn't a negation of your point, dr john, of 'massively distributed responsibility'. Even if my somewhat more sinister version has truth - it certainly doesn't let any of us off the hook! We are all creating this *and* I happen to think something else is also going on ...
And the New Age and Hermetic idea of inner/outer corrsepondence and work is very key here. But as I plan to elaborate, I'm increasingly concerned that the inner work of the New Age is so often limited to psychological awareness. Which can be very good indeed.
It's just that other kinds of awareness, say philosophical or political or sacramental awareness often seem to get left out. Or worse.
How to work *with* the tides? For me, the only answer involves working with beyond the tides, as well.
Which is why I'm afraid more 'outre' stuff lies in store. Meanwhile, honesty is most appreciated. As are all these comments. I'm still stirred at quite a significant level, head, by your report of 'malign neglect' and 'killed' ...
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