the archaic revival
"Since everything is but an apparition, perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection,
one may well burst out into laughter."
- Long Chen Pa
14th-century Tibetan Dzogchen master
"The drop grows happy by losing itself in the river.
A pain when beyond human range becomes something else.
One man's heart died when he insisted on treating his own problems.
Sometimes people solve jute knots by rubbing them on rocks.
Since I am weak, I sigh instead of weeping.
My experience tells me that water can change and become air.
The sky abruptly clears following thick clouds and heavy rain.
The clouds, recognizing separation, cried and vanished into non-existence.
We make the back of the mirror green in order to see our faces.
Sometimes nature makes the front of the mirror green as well.
We love seeing the beauty of poppies and lilies.
When the eyes lose themselves in the colors, they are seeing at last."
- Ghalib
translated by Robert Bly
that thoughts are bad.
But thoughts are just
fish in the river.
You think a river
minds having fish?"
- Pamela Wilson
"I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god - sullen, untamed and intractable."
- T.S. Eliot
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs."
- Norman MacLean
A River Runs Through It
"Many a time have I merely closed my eyes at the end of yet another troublesome day and soaked my bruised psyche in wild water, rivers remembered and rivers imagined. Rivers course through my dreams, rivers cold and fast, rivers well-known and rivers nameless, rivers that seem like ribbons of blue water twisting through wide valleys, narrow rivers folded in layers of darkening shadows, rivers that have eroded down deep into the mountain's belly, sculpted the land, peeled back the planet's history exposing the texture of time itself."
- Harry Middleton
"It's hard to see a river all at once, especially in the mountains. Down on the plains, rivers run in their course as straightforward as time, channeled toward the sea. But up in the headwaters, a river isn't a point where you stand. In the beginnings of the river, you teeter on the edge of a hundred tiny watersheds where one drop of water is always tipping the balance from one stream to another. History changes with each tiny event, shaping an outcome that we can only fully grasp in hindsight. And that view changes as we move farther downstream."
- Lynn Noel
"Rivers are magnets for the imagination, for conscious pondering and subconscious dreams, thrills, fears. People stare into the moving water, captivated, as they are when gazing into a fire. What is it that draws and holds us? The rivers' reflections of our lives and experiences are endless."
- Tim Palmer
"But I also know that in places, the river still runs deep, and though I've floated it in these places, it hasn't revealed itself in such obvious ways. I know that it might be months - years, even - before I understand what it has to teach me. I still need to give myself over to the flow and pattern and rhythm of it to learn its lessons and hear its messages. The river is inside me now, I know, and I need only wait and see where the current takes me, and what lies beneath it."
- Jeff Wallach
My blood flows in thy stream,
And thou meanderest forever
At the bottom of my dream."
- Henry David Thoreau
both when we wake and when we sleep."
- John Milton
"You can think of yourself as a biocomputer or an intelligent terminal, run by a cosmic computer in the Earth Coincidence Control Office. The biocomputer contains certain wired-in survival programs dealing with eating, reproduction, and so on, which lower animals also possess. But when the biocomputer reaches a certain threshold of complexity, there are higher-level programs in the association cortex that permit such things as making models, learning to learn, choice, and so forth. We have short-term choices, but God help you if you go against the Master Control Program. A terminal cannot understand itself, because it lacks sufficient space, but a replica of itself is in the cosmic computer, which can understand it. At the highest level, your true self is a cosmic game player, with access to an infinite computer -- the ECCO computer. That is metaprogramming, self-metaprogramming."
- John Lilly
"The soul, so far as we can conceive it, is nothing but a system or train of different perceptions." (Hume 1739)
"What was I before I came to self-consciousness? . . . I did not exist at all, for I was not an I. The I exists only insofar as it is conscious of itself. . . . The self posits itself, and by virtue of this mere self-assertion it exists."
(Fichte 1794–5)
"The ‘Self’ . . . , when carefully examined, is found to consist mainly of . . . peculiar motions in the head or between the head and throat." (James 1890)
"The ego continuously constitutes itself as existing." (Husserl 1929)
"Any fixed categorization of the Self is a big goof." (Ginsberg 1963)
"The self which is reflexively referred to is synthesized in that very act of reflexive self-reference." (Nozick 1981)
"The self . . . is a mythical entity . . . . It is a philosophical muddle to allow the space which differentiates ‘my self’ from ‘myself’ to generate the illusion of a mysterious entity distinct from . . . the human being." (Kenny 1988)
"A self . . . is . . . an abstraction . . . , [a] Center of Narrative Gravity." (Dennett 1991)
"My body is an object all right, but my self jolly well is not!" (Farrell 1996)
models of the self
Journal of Consciousness Studies
- Albert Einstein
"It can truly be said: Men are the devils of the earth, and the animals are the tormented souls."
- Arthur Schopenhauer
"I have given many proofs of the usefulness of this book, and I could yet do it at any time. I sell my books publicly, and not secretly, as other mystical books are sold. I am willing that my books should be seen by everybody, and I shall not secrete or hide myself from any preacher. I, Hohman, too, have some knowledge of the Scriptures, and I know when to pray and call unto the Lord for assistance. The publication of books (provided they are useful and morally right) is not prohibited in the United States, as is the case in other countries where kings and despots hold tyrannical sway over the people. I place myself upon the broad platform of the liberty of the press and of conscience, in regard to this useful book, and it shall ever be my most heartfelt desire that all men might have an opportunity of using it to their good, in the name of Jesus."
- John George Hohman
Pow-Wows; or, Long Lost Friend
A Collection of Mysterious and Invaluable Arts and Remedies, for Man as well as Animals
"The head which is incomprehensible is secret in secret."
"Blessed is he who entereth into and departeth therefrom, and knoweth its paths and ways."
The Book of Concealed Mystery
"Do you really believe that the sciences would ever have originated and grown if the way had not been prepared by magicians, alchemists, astrologers and witches whose promises and pretensions first had to create a thirst, a hunger, a taste for hidden and forbidden powers? Indeed, infinitely more had to be promised than could ever be fulfilled in order that anything at all might be fulfilled in the realms of knowledge."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"There is no study so saddening, and none so sublime as that of the early religions of mankind. To trace back the worship of God to its simple origin, and to mark the gradual process of those degrading superstitions, and unhallowed rites which darkened, and finally extinguished His presence in the ancient world.
At first men enjoyed the blessings of nature as children do, without inquiring into causes. It was sufficient for them that the earth gave them herbs, that the trees bore them fruit, that the stream quenched their thirst. They were happy, and every moment though unconsciously they offered a prayer of gratitude to Him whom as yet they did not know.
And then a system of theology arose amongst them vague and indefinite, as the waters of the boundless sea. They taught each other that the sun, and the earth, the moon, and the stars were moved and illumined by a Great Soul which was the source of all life, which caused the birds to sing, the brooks to murmur, and the sea to heave. It was a sacred Fire which shone in the firmament, and in mighty flames. It was a strange Being which animated the souls of men, and which when the bodies died, returned to itself again.
They silently adored this Great Soul in the beginning, and spoke of Him with reverence, and sometimes raised their eyes timidly to His glittering dwelling-place on high.
And soon they learned to pray. When those whom they loved lay dying, they uttered wild lamentations, and flung their arms despairingly towards the mysterious Soul; for in times of trouble the human mind so imbecile, so helpless, clings to something that is stronger than itself.
As yet they worshipped only the sun, the moon, and the stars-and not as Gods but as visions of that Divine Essence, which alone ruled and pervaded the earth, the sky, and the sea.
They adored Him kneeling, with their hands clasped, and their eyes raised. They offered Him no sacrifices, they built Him no temples; they were content to offer Him their hearts which were full of awe, in His own temple which was full of grandeur. And it is said that there are yet some barbarous islands where men have no churches nor ceremonies, and where they worship God, reflected in the work of His thousand hands."
- W. Winwood Reade
The Veil of Isis; or, Mysteries of the Druids
(1861)
The Internet Sacred Text Archive
Dear Anna,
Did I say that the human might be filed in categories? Well, and if I did, let me qualify - not all humans. You elude me. I cannot place you, cannot grasp you. I may boast that of nine out of ten, under given circumstances, I can forecast their action; that of nine out of ten, by their word or action, I may feel the pulse of their hearts. But of the tenth I despair. It is beyond me. You are that tenth.
Were ever two souls, with dumb lips, more incongruously matched! We may feel in common -- surely, we oftimes do -- and when we do not feel in common, yet do we understand; and yet we have no common tongue. Spoken words do not come to us. We are unintelligible. God must laugh at the mummery.
The one gleam of sanity through it all is that we are both large temperamentally, large enough to often understand. True, we often understand but in vague glimmering ways, by dim perceptions, like ghosts, which, while we doubt, haunt us with their truth. And still, I, for one, dare not believe; for you are that tenth which I may not forecast.
Am I unintelligible now? I do not know. I imagine so. I cannot find the common tongue.
Large temperamentally -- that is it. It is the one thing that brings us at all in touch. We have, flashed through us, you and I, each a bit of universal, and so we draw together. And yet we are so different.
I smile at you when you grow enthusiastic? It is a forgivable smile - nay, almost an envious smile. I have lived twenty-five years of repression. I learned not to be enthusiastic. It is a hard lesson to forget. I begin to forget, but it is so little. At the best, before I die, I cannot hope to forget all or most. I can exult, now that I am learning, in little things, in other things; but of my things, and secret things doubly mine, I cannot, I cannot. Do I make myself intelligible? Do you hear my voice? I fear not. There are poseurs. I am the most successful of them all.
- Jack
love letters
Jack London
April 3, 1901
Dear Writer,
Although it must be a thousand years ago that I sat in a class in story writing at Stanford, I remember the experience very clearly. I was bright-eyes and bushy-brained and prepared to absorb the secret formula for writing good short stories, even great short stories. This illusion was canceled very quickly. The only way to write a good short story, we were told, is to write a good short story. Only after it is written can it be taken apart to see how it was done. It is a most difficult form, as we were told, and the proof lies in how very few great short stories there are in the world.
The basic rule given us was simple and heartbreaking. A story to be effective had to convey something from the writer to the reader, and the power of its offering was the measure of its excellence. Outside of that, there were no rules. A story could be about anything and could use any means and any technique at all - so long as it was effective. As a subhead to this rule, it seemed to be necessary for the writer to know what he wanted to say, in short, what he was talking about. As an exercise we were to try reducing the meat of our story to one sentence, for only then could we know it well enough to enlarge it to three- or six- or ten-thousand words.
So there went the magic formula, the secret ingredient. With no more than that, we were set on the desolate, lonely path of the writer. And we must have turned in some abysmally bad stories. If I had expected to be discovered in a full bloom of excellence, the grades given my efforts quickly disillusioned me. And if I felt unjustly criticized, the judgments of editors for many years afterward upheld my teacher's side, not mine. The low grades on my college stories were echoed in the rejection slips, in the hundreds of rejection slips.
It seemed unfair. I could read a fine story and could even know how it was done. Why could I not then do it myself? Well, I couldn't, and maybe it's because no two stories dare be alike. Over the years I have written a great many stories and I still don't know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances.
If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that make a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story.
It is not so very hard to judge a story after it is written, but, after many years, to start a story still scares me to death. I will go so far as to say that the writer who is not scared is happily unaware of the remote and tantalizing majesty of the medium.
I remember one last piece of advice given me. It was during the exuberance of the rich and frantic '20s, and I was going out into that world to try and be a writer.
I was told, "It's going to take a long time, and you haven't got any money. Maybe it would be better if you could go to Europe."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because in Europe poverty is a misfortune, but in America it is shameful. I wonder whether or not you can stand the shame of being poor."
It wasn't too long afterward that the depression came. Then everyone was poor and it was no shame anymore. And so I will never know whether or not I could have stood it. But surely my teacher was right about one thing. It took a long time - a very long time. And it is still going on, and it has never got easier.
She told me it wouldn't."
- John Steinbeck
"Our consciousness is at its root a maverick, ever moving, jumping from one perception, feeling, thought, to another. We can never hold it still or focus it at a point for long. Like the quantum nature of matter, the more we try to hold our consciousness to a fixed point, the greater the uncertainty in its energy will become. So when we focus and narrow our consciousness to a fixed centre, it is all the more likely to suddenly jump with a great rush of energy to some seemingly unrelated aspect of our inner life. We all have such experiences each moment of the day. As in our daily work we try to focus our mind upon some problem only to suddenly experience a shift to some other domain in ourselves, another image or emotional current intrudes then vanishes again, like an ephemeral virtual particle in quantum theory."
- Adam McLean
Quantum Consciousness
"Now there is present in the world at the moment, or at least I like to think so, an impulse which I have named the archaic revival. What happens is that whenever a society really gets in trouble, and you can use this in your own life - when you really get in trouble - what you should do is say "what did I believe in the last sane moments that I experienced" and then go back to that moment and act from it even if you no longer believe it."
- Terence McKenna
lecture 1 on alchemy
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
- Philip K. Dick
"We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others."
- Albert Camus
"What constitutes the freedom, the soul of an individual life, is its uniqueness. The reflection of the universe in someone's consciousness is the foundation of his or her power, but life only becomes happiness, is only endowed with freedom and meaning when someone exists as a whole world that has never been repeated in all of eternity. Only then can they experience the joy of freedom and kindness, finding in others what they have already found in themselves."
- Vassily Grossman
Life and Fate
I who am dead a thousand years
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along.
I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces
Of metal or of masonry.
But have you wine and music still,
And statues and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above?
How shall we conquer? Like a wind
That falls at eve our fancies blow,
And old Mæonides the blind
Said it three thousand years ago.
O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.
Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand.
- James Elroy Flecker
"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summers day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."
- Sir J. Lubbock
The Two Secrets of Life:
1. Never tell everything you know
2.
the more you will evolve.
A day will come when you will realize that the entire universe can be found inside you, and then you will be a wizard."
-Deepak Chopra
The Way of the Wizard
"Egocentricity, the illusion of separateness, requires constant maintenance. What maintains it is that endless buzz-buzz-buzz in our minds, telling us who we are, who they are, what we are doing, what is important, where we are going next - creating that subject-object relationship in every split second. The continual brainwashing that maintains our identity is like a tape loop.
Every time we pay attention, every time we are present, it is like cutting through that tape. Of course, the tape is instantly spliced back together again, so in the beginning there can be these little snips and then these quick repairs, and you can't really tell any damage was done. But when you start paying attention more, the snips are more frequent. Then egocentricity gets in a real bind, because if we continue to pay attention, we are going to see how it all works, how the illusion is created.
The first thing we see is how most of what goes on in our minds is nonsense. Here we are, trying to think deep and yet lofty thoughts, but in fact it's mostly gobbledygook.
Egocentricity continues to play those tapes that maintain our conditioning. But once you see what is happening, the power of it falls away. And you begin to change; you are not able to hold the identity together in the same way.
Ego's only hope of maintaining the illusion of separateness is to get you to quit paying attention to what goes on in your mind."
- Cheri Huber
Trying to be Human
There is a freedom -
even from the need to be free
even from the need to try to be spiritual.
This is beyond
the duality of awake and asleep,
enlightened, and unenlightened.
This is relaxation into the suchness of things
just the way things are.
You have a bad moment -
What's wrong with that?
You have a negative thought.
Who cares?
It is all occurring in something which does not change.
Just experiment,
for the benefit of the doubt,
by simply leaving yourself alone.
Like not picking the scab anymore.
Just let yourself be
and see what happens.
This is beyond the need to try to be awake.
Beyond ambition.
So much of what we take to be spiritual
is just another kind of ambition.
We want money,
or more sex
or a bigger house
or a better position,
and finally we think we've gone beyond all that,
because now we want enlightenment.
It's just another ambition.
It's no different from wanting any of the rest of it.
It's just another egoic dream.
If you let go of that, things are as they are.
And who's to say
you shouldn't have moods,
or thoughts?
Who's to say you should be this way or that?
It is only the resistance that creates the suffering.
Even in grief:
incredible grief,
if you don't resist it,
has a sweetness.
It takes you deep in yourself.
Losing a lot of money,
the disappointment, all that . . .
just relaxing into what is,
there is another doorway into the blessedness.
It is only the resistance,
and the resistance all comes from concept.
The resistance is all a function of,
"It should be like this; it should be like that . . ."
Ideas of what spiritual means.
- Arjuna Ardagh
"Write without reason.
Go too far. Fall in, fall in.
Say I am here, my palms are open
even though you are lost and don't know
who you are."
- Laurie
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