Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

It is the early nineteenth century in merry old London. Magic has not seriously been practiced for over two hundred years in England. There are only street magicians with dirty yellow curtains who steal childrens pennies by performing sleights of hand. The Raven King is romantacised and remembered, but only as a shady figure from a shadier past. Enter Mr. Norrell. A slight, modest gentleman who has quietly amassed the largest library of Magic in recent memory and has studied his tomes eight hours a day for the past five years. Mr. Norrell is convinced that Magic, serious practical magic, and not the theoretical kind studied by such groups as the York Society of Magicians, must make a comeback in modern England. For what reason? For one, to help the military in it's efforts against Napolean. But wait, there is another magician waiting in the wings. One named Mr. Jonathan Strange...

My Reading of Plato's Republic

I read this classic around a year ago, and it made a huge impact on my thinking. I had read the 'Republic' when I was younger and in college. But at that time, the book had little effect on me.Harold Bloom, in 'Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?' puts forth the notion that wisdom comes in two genres. One is of the 'prudential' variety, while the other is of the 'skeptical' variety. Bloom further elaborates in his book that prudential wisdom is arrived at by reading books, while the skeptical wisdom is arrived at by experience.From my college days, I would say my skeptical wisdom had grown, while my prudential wisdom had waned, as I had done comparatively little reading, but a lot of living during those years. Perhaps this imbalance of skeptical as opposed to prudential wisdom was the perfect mode of being to occupy in order for the 'Republic' to suddenly become so meaningful to me. Perhaps the utter desert of ignorance I was living in prudentially was suddenly watered by the intellectual discourse and dialogue of Socrates.The 'Republic', from talking to more learned friends than myself, is currently thought of as out of vogue due to it's politics. The criticism is that Plato sought after a mass of servile people enslaved to an aristocratic class of dogooders. One friend even went so far as to recommend I read 'Das Kapital', saying I would learn that the 'Republic' was realized as a political system under Marxian socialism; the argument being that Marxian socialism was an utter failure, and that therefore the 'Republic' was dangerous if not irrelevant reading.But my reading of the 'Republic' was different. For one, Plato states that the original problem is 'what is virtue'? More specifically, what is virtue on a personal level. How should a person think, and what are the modes of consciousness? It is only to answer these problems for an individual that Plato 'scales the problem up' by deciding how an entire society could live in virtue, with the intention being to apply what is learned from the big picture of civilization to the small picture of the individual person.So Plato, through the dialogue of Socrates, arrives at the 'perfect' society, the ultimate irony being that said society could not be reached in his current political environment. It is here that I make the argument that Plato didn't mean for the 'Republic' to necessarily be viewed as a political diatribe, but rather to have solutions to problems in society encoded into a personal ethos.What does Plato find? First of all that there are four virtues that should be present in a person for that person to be whole and healthy.The first virtue is Wisdom, and is associated with the mind.The second virtue is Courage, and is associated with the heart.The third virtue is Temperance and is associated with the stomach.The last virtue is Justice, which according to Plato amounts to an individual sticking to what he does best.During the great dialogue of the 'Republic', the reader also gets the benefit of learning Plato's theory of the mind. The mind operates in four ways as listed below, ranging from lesser to greater as follows:Imagination = EikasiaBelief = PistisKnowledge = DianoiaIntelligence = GnosisImagination is found in the realm of dream, musings and flights of fancy. Belief is associated with material objects. Knowledge is geometrical reasoning, while Intelligence is union with the 'Forms'.The Forms, or Ideas, work as follows. I can say 'the door is open' whether the door is physically open or not, and the Idea will remain unchanging. The material fact of the door being opened or closed cannot change the Idea of 'the door is open'. In other words, 'the door is open' still means 'the door is open', whether the door is open or not.So, according to Plato, there is a world of unchange and a world of change. The world of unchange is characterized by Idea, while the world of change is characterized by substance. The soul then aspires to the unchanging world of Idea, while the body is trapped in a Heraclitian world of constant change where you can never step into the same river twice.Obviously, Plato's 'Republic' got me questioning how to think and how to approach life. Had I paid or given much attention or credence to Imaginaion? In other words, had I ever wondered over my dreams or flights of fancy? Did I perceive objects as they really were? Did I know the properties of a right triangle? Could I conceive of a notion of a world of unchanging forms from my vantage point of physical change?The answer to all four questions was a resounding yes.Did I think that life may be better if I was Wiser both prudentially and skeptically, followed by exhibiting Courage, Temperance and Justice?Yes, I thought...yes it might be.Then I began to think about how many people had read the 'Republic' down through the ages who would have thought and felt exactly the same way as me, and for the first time, I felt like I had received a Universal message from the secular realm.In short, I felt better for having read the 'Republic', and still think and write about the ideas Plato put forth through the dialogue of Socrates.

Thoughts Generated From The Undiscovered Self, by C.G. Jung

In his little book 'The Undiscovered Self', C.G. Jung describes the problem of science vs. religion. For modern man, science has become the preferred language of experience. Every thing must be measured by length, mass, charge and time to be useful, and what falls outside these categories becomes irrational and superfluous. The Church on the other hand simply asks men to have more Faith when confronted with such questions as 'why is there so much evil in the world'? Or 'why is there seemingly no justice?' or 'why do the evil prosper while the good suffer?'So on one side is the cold sterilization of the scientific method and on the other the hot demand of 'you must have more Faith!'To me, the Reality that science and religion are describing is the same entity, it's just explained in different terms. Science deals in empirical conditional truths while religion deals in solid mythical truths. And mythical in the sense that the Bible, in spite of the fact it is not scientifically verifiable in many ways, still contains a wealth of spiritual truths.These truths, these scientific and religious truths stand alone and are equally valid, and even share some characteristic at least in the fact that both camps have truths that are universal.On the one hand, the theory of gravity is universal in it's simplicity and application to all material objects, as 'thou shalt not kill' is universal on the spiritual side of things in that the dignity in humanity is to be revered and held sacred for all mortal souls.Some evangelical Christians have a problem when one applies the word 'mythical' to the Christian experience. But it is only mythical in the sense that Jesus currently cannot be measured by length, mass, charge or time. 'Blessed is he who believes, yet has not seen', He said.When Jesus came to earth, born of a humble birth, raised in humble surroundings in the country, He did not couch his teachings in greek rationalist terms. He spoke in simple parables, largely for the audience He was confronting. This my friend, is the language of Myth, although it be a Living Myth!Einstein, in his turn, I think raised a few empiricist eyebrows when he declared that imagination is more important than intelligence.So what makes a teacher great, whether scientific or spiritual, is the fact he can step outside the normal mode of communication for his field of expertise, spirituality in Christ's case, scientism in Einstein's case, and speak scientifically, though spiritual, and speak spiritually, though scientific!Science, to me is a function of the state, where it serves to improve the lives of millions materially of people. Jesus, when He said 'Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's', gave the State and all of it's sciences, props.It would do science some good to have more of it's outspoken teachers who would appreciate the spiritual more in the human experience.But for now, there is still the great divide, the great schism of our time, in my humble opinion.

Review - Plato's Republic

I picked up the Cornford edition of this book, which was laying moldering on my basement bookshelf and reread the thing. What an inspiration! Plato, through dialogue, including Socrates and his other drinking buddies, discusses what Justice is. In order to do this, Socrates states he will 'scale the problem up' by looking at Justice as it would be in a large society, and then 'scale the problem back down' to find what Justice is on a personal level.
Much has been made of the Republic as being a political book. Marx was said to have been reading it when he crafted his Communist Manifesto.
My argument is, the ultimate end of the dialogue was to discover what Justice is on a personal level, and therefore the book should not be judged in a political light.
That said...
Justice is a person whose animal nature, situated in the belly, is ruled by temperance, whose soulful nature is situated in the heart and is ruled by courage, and whose spiritual nature is situated in the head, and is ruled by intelligence.
Plato, through the discussion between Socrates and his neophytes, also lays out a theory of cognition for people.
The base is imagination and is animal. The next rung is belief, followed by knowledge, the capstone being intelligence or gnosis.
In the animal imagination, we have dreams, flights of fancy, gut instincts and so on.
In belief, we have objects of faith. For the christian for example, emanating from belief we would have icons...the cross, the crucifix, images of Mother Mary, and so on.
From knowledge we would consider the ideas that stand behind the objects of belief. The grace of Mary, the pathos of the crucifix, and so on.
Finally in gnosis or intelligence, we would begin to see how all of this, dreams, objects of faith ideas behind icons, and how do these all fit together, and how can we apply them to our lives?
It is easy to me to see how the early church fathers such as St. Augustine, Aquinas and later the medievals found inspiration with Plato's republic and how it's ideas were congruent with their spirituality.
It is also evident that the theories and ideas from this wonderful book impacted western society as a whole, in it's educational system and later philosophy.

Review - Emotional Intelligence

The tenth anniversary of this book was just recently published, and I read it for a book club. Daniel Goleman, the author, has some very interesting statistics he has culled from years of psychological studies. The one I will highlight here is: classical I.Q. makes up only 20% of a successful career and life. The other 80% is largely due to one's ability to recognize the roles others play in day to day life and how we fit into the picture. Goleman spends some time covering the existential basis for cognition and lays out the neurological mode and nervous system synaptic way of perception, but is most convincing when he highlights case studies of people first in their childhood, and later in adulthood. If you are unable to put yourself in the other person's shoes, and in short are lacking the ability to be empathetic, you most likely are causing first yourself, then your family and coworkers and friends much sorrow, frustration and even harm. The good news, being empathetic can be learned. It is not something you're just born with and have to play the cards you've been delt. You can change your behaviour, your old habits, and make yourself a better person in the process! I highly recommend this book for anyone who works with people and especially those who are a member of any team, be it sports, professional, or spiritual. A very enlightening read indeed.

The Quiet Revolution Revisited - More Musings On Reading With A Possible Segue Into the Reductionism Of History

It perhaps is one of the great ironies of modern culture that the physicality of a book would tap into a person's extraverted desire to be motivated by something objective, only then to find that same person to be quickly sucked into a world that is intraverted, imaginal and oftentimes even spiritual.
The book sits on the shelf, with a beautiful frontispiece and handsome dustjacket, enticing you with the introduction, or preface or bibliography. This, still then, is the outer experience of the book. But then perhaps you read further, maybe a paragraph, perhaps a chapter, and suddenly you are standing in second century Alexandria, ensconced in the climate of the Ptolemies, and find yourself thrown into a world where there are only seven planets in the solar system, each with a corresponding archon who exercises menacing dominance over your soul. You take a freefall from an enlightened, democratic society whose penultimate virtue is Liberty, and suddenly find yourself bound in the bonds of Fate, living on a mysterious planet which is encircled by the mighty ancient ocean, where Atlantis lies just beyond the pillars of Hercules.
Perhaps you read a history book thinking you will find good, solid, truths and then begin thinking 'wait a minute, if historians were writing of the twentyfirst century, they would write of wars and scientific progress and the general barbaric lack of human rights throughout much of the world, yet I've never fought anyone, and I don't know how to fully operate my cell phone, and I treat my neighbor as I would choose to be treated'. In otherwords, you would discover that History does not tell your story, your truth, your experience, but only emphasizes those events that are incongruous with the plain, the normal, and yes at times, the boring and always everyday.
Then you would realize, hey, that's how History has always been written. It's a tale of a few outstanding folks who lived more raucous lives than I. Perhaps you would then move on to the notion that History reduces the experience of millions of people into the lives of a few winners, and has at least as many blindspots as it has written words.
This then, would be the first hint that words lie. They may tell a white lie, but they lie all the same, and you begin to wonder, 'have I just learned the tales of madmen told by madmen'? You may wonder why History's great movements were not declared beforehand as in 'And now comes the Dark Ages', or 'I now am speaking to you from the Renaissance', or 'and now comes the beheading of kings and queens and the onslaught of the decentralized, unorderly and chaotic rule of the free citizen'. One begins to wonder, did these people, were they aware, of what times they were living in?
And History is not the only reductionism operating in Literature. Do not the Universal Archetypes, the Great Mother, the Wounded Leader, The Shadow, The Father, The Child, collapse into so many personalities of dreamed up characters? Abstract, objective universal images are squeezed into concrete, subjective and particular personalities.
Where does all this Magic, this heretical maneuvering and reconstructing of Reality come from? These authors are Shamans who have experienced altered states of consciousness, where the character is not just shaped by a false environenment, but the Self is shaped by the oceanic, the unconscious! When you get sucked in to a good story, you are living the life of fictional characters, experiencing the feeling of straw men and fearing the fears of nonentities. Again, whence this Magic?
These are just a few of the musings I have discovered in myself as I have rediscovered the textual world through my renewed grand tour of World Literature. I have encountered gnomes, sylphs, salamanders and undines, countless mythological gods and heroes, not a few and sundry quests and battles, and the supposed laconic unfolding of those who have gone before me. Where I have sought answers, I have just developed more questions that I now realize may never be completely and neatly answered. Just the circularity of it shows reading is something infinite, eternal and flowing. You realize you've been encountering the same Hero, only with different names in different settings, and though you should be outraged, you actually feel enriched!
Literature truly wraps you and folds you into a different world where dreams are just as valid and substantial as cement bricks. Intuition is activated by foreshadowing in a good novel, and even though you know who the bad guy is, you still read on to confirm what you already know. In short, Literature offers a counter-universe where new worlds are experienced, new beings are come into Reality, and a flight of fancy may serve just as well as the most cogent argument.
Literature, the written word, is keeping Magic alive, in my view. It flattens out mountainous experiences and compresses eons of wisdom into a few verses of Pindar. Literature provides secular transcendence, and is consequently anti clerical and definitely unorganized. Literature provides an alternate route to Reality that is not couched in sound bytes and commercials.
What is there not to like about any of this?

People Who Get It

These are some of the people who get it in my book and some short reasons I think why. I may not agree with their stances, their views, but in my book, they warrant recognition. Some are imaginary (film characters), others are dead, but I speak of all of them as if they were real and alive. In his book 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', Robert Pirsig describes quality as 'something you can't altogether define, yet you know it when you see it'. The following are those folks who have this sort of quality, in my book.

Alice B. Toklas - In the 1920s, she founded 'Shakespeare and Company', a bookstore located on the Left Bank, Paris. Her store was frequented by expats such as William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway. Her critical insight was sought by many of these famous authors before they published some of their most noteworthy books. Together with Gertrude Stein, another one who gotit in my book, she coached Hemingway on women characters in his novels and helped him develop his lasting aesthetic 'less is more'.

H. Rider Haggard - In the early twentieth century, when men were cautioned to not use wormwood sticks to beat their wives (but by all means, use anything else), this writer published 'She', a novel featuring 'Ayesha', a mythical, powerful goddess figure who held sway over an entire people. Men trembled at her beauty and sheer presence. Haggard combined adventure and pulp fiction with a whopping female hero that had Sigmund Freud recommending the novel to his analyst buddies.

Mr. Stone in the movie 'The Family Stone'. Embodying the western liberal tradition, this is a man who exhibits Virtue, yet is human and has character flaws. He's a tolerant, open minded human being who proves to be an excellent father and husband.
Wes Anderson - His movies Rushmore and the Royal Tennenbaums prove to be some of the best, honest character studies ever put to film. In Rushmore, he captures the promise of youth and the longing of unrequited love. In the Royal Tennenbaums, he shows how families are made up of individuals, each with their own unique identity and their ability to overcome their egos in order to coalesce with a group of people who happen to be 'closely related'.

Stanley Kubrick - In 2001 A Space Odyssey, we are treated to two hours plus of film with less than a 1/2 hour of music and dialogue combined. Kubrick masterfully translates Arthur C. Clarke's masterpiece onto the big screen with mesmerizing results. Before he passed, Kubrick made 'Eyes Wide Shut', largely panned by critics and filmgoers alike, yet in it he showed the tenuous quality of marraige and the frailty of men and women alike.

Icelanders - inhabitants all have Viking blood coursing through their veins and they produce rockstars with names such as 'Bjork' and 'Sigur Ros'. Night reigns much of the year, and the northern lights are especially visible in their part of the world. Being hyperborean, they have a mythical quality to them, in my humble view.

Pythagoras and the Neopythagoreans - Pythagoras, besides making famous contributions to mathematics, developed a mystical philosophy that espoused harmony and simplicity. His followers first were subjected to five years of silence - no talking. They were held to a strict vegetarian diet and were mysteriously cautioned to avoid beans. After five years, they became 'acoustimikoi', the basic followers who were allowed to hear Pythagoras' lectures, him behind a veil. From these, after more time, some were chosen to receive the most secret teachings from the Master and were allowed 'inside the veil' during lectures. These were called 'mathematikoi'. Pythagoras had been initiated by Egyptian priests into their mysteries at Heliopolis, and it was this gnosis he transferred to his followers.

The Cathars in the south of France, turn of the thirteenth century - Gnostic heretics who observed that the true assessment of day to day life with all it's accompanying horrors and cruelties pointed to the fact the Universe may not be governed by One, True, Benevolent God. They developed an experential spirituality that included an at best incompetent, at worst malevelont creator god who trapped the sparks of divine fire (our pre-existent souls) in foul flesh. The True, Loving God was One who reigned in the stars beyond, and all souls would eventually transcend the fallen evil and material world for the spiritual world in the heavens they called the 'Pleroma' - the blessed Union of souls. The Cathars were massacred by the combined temporal power of France and ecclesiastical authority of Rome. It was from this crusade the famous phrase 'Kill them all - God will know His own', was uttered by a most well meaning warrior bishop, I'm sure.

Christopher Hitchens, author 'God is not Great' - This should be required reading for all people who call themselves 'religious'. Hitchens points out many of the irrational, horrible deeds that have been perpetrated by the 'religious', right up to the present day. Although in my view, Hitchens becomes just as dogmatic as those he criticizes by embracing SCIENCE as the future saviour of mankind, a view I wholeheartedly disagree with, he offers some sobering tidbits and food for thought that should leave any thinking spiritual person with the humble knowledge they should be more humane, more apologetic and certainly more rational and tolerant when it comes to their worldview.

Carl Gustav Jung, psychoanalyst - Being a student of Freud, Jung became particularly interested in the mystery of the unconscious - a dark, universal and personal shared realm where repressed instincts and desires existed. Breaking from his teacher over the theory of complexes, Jung brought gnosticism into his psychology and developed his theory of 'archetypes', recurring symbols and images such as the 'wise old man', and the 'crone', and found that these along with many other unconscious symbols transcended 'race', culture, and time. Though Jung was impacted greatly by religion, philosophy, and spirituality, he adamantly remained in his area of expertise, psychoanalysis, and only considered the psychological aspects of these subjects that informed him throughout his lifetime.

Immanuel Kant, Enlightenment philosopher - considered to be the father of continental philosophy, Kant never travelled more than 30 miles outside his native Konigsberg. Criticized heavily and later for his ethical system, to me, his real contribution was in the sphere of epistemology. Kant found that all people necessarily view the world through 'categories' such as 'time' and 'space', and as such, being obviously mortal, were limited in what they could know. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant outlined the difference between knowledge and belief, and developed a scepticism that would set the tone for the rest of modern philosophy.

Marc Chagall, painter - Informed by the Bible, Chagall found that in the Biblical Universe, men could float through the ether willy-nilly, defying gravity and the laws of physics. Chagall's use of color and whimsical flight of fancy motifs (men and women in loving embraces, floating over houses and livestock), animals floating through the air with smiles on their faces, and so on, are a reminder that religion need not be taken so literally and seriously all the time and that the line between the profane and the Divine is not that thick of a line afterall. Interestingly, Charlie Watts, drummer for the Rolling Stones, put together a wonderful book of Chagall's works in the eighties which included personal interviews with Chagall and his wife.

The Poet and the Bard - Thoughts on Originality and Memory

John Ruskin the aesthete is known for his sensitive insights concerning art, society and architecture. One of his major contributions to architectural theory was his work on gothic beauty. Ruskin developed six principles he found needed to be present in gothic architecture in order for it to be Beautiful. The principles were Rudeness, Changefulness, Naturalness, Grotesqueness, Rigidity and Redundancy. To me, these principles, when one delves into them, can be applied to Beauty in general and offer a way of looking at art or architecture in general. The first one, Rudeness, applies I think to many forms of artistic endeavor. Rudeness, Ruskin said, is the introduction of Originality into a work of art at the expense of a polished, finished product.
Originality.
Classically, a Poet is one who creates something Original. He or she is the originator of something new, some new insight, some new revelation, but is Original. Dylan Thomas was original. T.S. Eliot, original. Blake, Yeats and Milton, all original. Though what they experienced was common, what they created was unique. Most importantly, they knew when to break the rules and be Rude.
A Bard.
A Bard, on the other hand was charged with remembering. He was one in a great line of preservationists whose job it was to remember a history, a myth, a moral story, that had been transmitted from bard to bard down through centuries. The bard may have used poetic devices such as meter and rhyme as a mnemonic device in order to help him recall what had been told him, but his aim was certainly not to be Original.
Poets lead colorful lives.
But bards, there are stories.
Toward the end of the bardic tradition, the transmission had shifted from the oral to the written. The bard wrote what he remembered. Libraries, monasteries, universities, throughout Europe were staffed with bards who remembered and wrote reams and reams and books and books and stuffed bookshelf after bookshelf with remembrances.
It is said that when a particularly powerful bard would pass away, books throughout his country, in libraries, monasteries, universities, would fall off the shelves.
So Originality, or Memory.....of which?

Women Seek Restriction - This According To Modern Fiction Lit!

For me, I noticed first in Elizabeth Kostova's the Historian the lack of a strong mother figure. There is a relationship between father and daughter that is close yes, but somewhat creepy in that the pair take on an almost Nabokavian - lolita-esque nature. Next comes Diane Setterfield's the Thirteenth Tale. The mother exists, but is completely ineffectual and utterly effete. The father again takes the lead role in parenting and is the lonely figure in the girl's life. Now on to Special Topics in Calamity Physics. The mother is killed in an automobile accident when the girl is seven and the father once again is the leading man in the girl's parental universe. All girls lacking mothers, where the fathers take center stage. One can't help but notice these are three classic examples of Freud's Elektra complex in modern fiction lit. But perhaps there is more at play here than just sexual innuendo. Do modern women on some secret level bemoan the lack of strong men in their lives? Perhaps this ancestor worship of their father's generation of men points to a void that has been created in these men's abscence who provided, protected and even guided. The sexual revolution, largely liberating women, has pretty much come to it's full conclusion. It's all been done, said, laid bare for all of us to see. Is something missing now? There is a saying we are condemned to be free. There is another saying we are born free, but are everywhere in chains. Have we become too free? I am picking up on a gheist that is blowing through parts of our society where women are wanting attention, not to be left to their own devices, perhaps even restricted just a little in their freedom. And more, they are wanting this from men and not women. Is there a sea change?

Review - Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation by Joseph Campbell

I read 'Hero With a Thousand Faces' by Joseph Campbell first, and although I found it to be insightful, I thought it was a bit sterile, scholarly, and downright technical for my taste. My prejudice was, science should be cold and sterile while myth should be warm and lively. With this publication of 'Pathways to Bliss', I decided to give Mr. Campbell another read. I am glad I did. This book, in contrast to 'Hero', I found to be warm, friendly and engaging. The overall style of the book, in my view, matched the subject matter. In it, Campbell defines myth as 'other people's religion' and provides a lively history of our religious symbols through time, how they effect us as a society, and finally how myth impacts us personally and today. His mythology is rooted in existential causes i.e. tropical societies noticed fruits fell to the ground, died, and produced more fruit thus offering a glimpse into the necessity of death where a rebirth is required, while land based societies looked upon the animals they killed as kin, and thus came up with rituals to offer the animals rebirth by pouring their blood out onto the ground, an agreement between hunter and hunted that life would continue for the animal. But Campbell also realizes there is something perhaps more significant at play where myth is concerned than purely environmental causes, and offers the viewpoints of C.G. Jung and Sigmund Freud concerning the unconscious, the psyche and the self, and the role they may have played in developing the stories that have shaped our lives so profoundly. It is amazing to me that a comet thousands of miles away is more predictable than my next door neighbor, but Joseph Campbell helps me understand myself, and perhaps my fellow man, just a little bit better with this wonderful little book.

Review - On Art and Life (Penguin Great Ideas) by John Ruskiin

Nietzsche said that with the death of the sacred, Beauty would continue, albeit accidentally. Mr. John Ruskin, however, set his sights on an earlier age, developing six principles that could be applied to gothic beauty, and in so doing, in my eyes, set down the principles for Beauty in general. The principles are: Rudeness, Changefulness, Naturalness, Grotesqueness, Rigidity and Redundancy. In our post-industrial age, perhaps the most telling is the first, Rudeness. Mr. Ruskin defines Rudeness as the introduction of originality into a work at the expense of a polished, finished product. What, you may ask? That's not how I do it at work! Me either brother, but it's nice to know why nothing I produce is beautiful. Which leads me to my next point concerning this little gem of a book. These principles can be applied, in my view, to Beauty in general, not just gothic. And it provides an interesting point of view with which to look at life. Suddenly, many of the 'best things' in life truly are free. I had no real education in aesthetics before reading this book, and have now delved deeper into the subject because of it. Maybe you will too.

Review - A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science by Michael S. Schneider

I always enjoyed geometry in school, and this book opened up a whole new depth to the subject for me. Reading the book, I dug out my compass, pencil, straight edge and 30, 60, and 90 degree angles to perform the various exercises recommended by the author. Constructing the various geometrical figures I found to be akin to creating mandalas. You create something originating in the abstract that becomes concrete, that in turn ultimately becomes personally meaningful. Also, I learned to view several churches in town on a completely different level. Reading this book, you will never look at the numbers one through ten in quite the same way again. The numbers take on significance and hint at something sublime and even transcendent. Through this book, I discovered the rich undercurrents of pythagorean number theory, and their application to the rich christian architecture of the medieval churches. With all the fuss over feng shui, this book draws from our decidedly western tradition, revealing we have our own undiscovered architectural history that has yet to capture the popular imagination. A wonderful introduction, chapter by chapter, number by number, to sacred geometry and the pythagoreanism that runs through it.

Review - The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton

The first thing one encounters when reading Edith Hamilton's 'The Greek Way' is her love and even exuberance for her subject. Her opening remarks describe the classical greek worldview; an ability to grasp the world as it is, and still find it to be beautiful. This grasp this people had on reality would allow them to create the pictorial art, the art of the stage, here not including the dialogue and the dinner/drinking party, all still enjoyed much in the same manner today as the greeks enjoyed them in 500 b.c.e. Plato and Socrates, and the way they experienced gentlemanly society, are highlighted as the crowning achievements of greek philosophy. It is the Ideal, Hamilton seems to say implicitly, that the greeks envisioned and carried forward philosophically, that would later influence western civilization in the way it did. Later, comparisons are drawn between Aeschylus and Shakespeare, where the influence of the former on the latter is striking by the examples Hamilton presents. Hamilton here defines trajedy, elucidates pathos, and the differences between the two. She goes on to draw similarities between Virgil and Sophocles in their poetry and subjects, a valid comparison, she makes it seem. Between this first and last, Herodotus is presented as a wide-eyed surprisingly objective first reporter who documents the cogitations and remarks of subjects as diverse as the delphic priestess and Cyrus the Great of Persia. Freedom is won in the face of the Persian threat, and is the singular hallmark of the classical greeks in Hamilton's view. It affects everything the personalities Hamilton brings to light accomplish. Every work of art, every stage play, every dialectical argument can be viewed either as being in the presence of, or having the lack of freedom and democracy. There is no question, Hamilton rightly defines the greatness of these greeks as a free, democratic people. But at the close of her book, Greece has become imperialistic and desires empire. Sophocles, the old conservative guardsman, documents poetically the zeitgeist of the former and current states of things, and a new era is dawning. But Hamilton wisely leaves off here, having presented a wonderful picture of a wonderful people during a wonderful time.

Review - King Arthur and His Knights: Selected Tales by Thomas Malory

This nice collection of tales of King Arthur and his knights of the table round is a wonderful reading for anyone concerned with the history of western civilization and the thought that helped shape it. The book begins with Merlin, and really King Uther Pendragon and the wife of the Duke of Cornwall, Igraine, and the conception of one King Arthur. Following are tales of knight errantry, profiles of brave souls such as Guinevere, Arthur, Merlin, and perhaps most notably, Sir Lancelot and his erstwhile beloved Elaine, and their child, Sir Galahad. The tales are highlighted by prophecies, magical kingdoms, chaste maidens and not so chaste queens. These are, of course the christianized versions of these stories, but it is a strange christianity indeed. The eucharist holds no sway here, where instead, the sankgreall, or holy blood, just appears, sometimes from a cenosr a dove bears in it's mouth, other times leeching from a long sword bore by Christ Himself (to Sir Galahad). Angels bear away noble souls to heaven, while sorcery and magic are promulgated side by side with christian feasts and observances. The thin line between paganism and christianity is blurred to the point the stories bear an uncontested occultic thread from beginning to end which is to good effect here. This is a book when once bought, will be treasured. Hopefully still for many years to come!

Review - The Sacred and The Profane: The Nature of Religion by Mircea Eliade

In this book, Eliade writes first in an accesible, then in a most respectful style on religion, magic, initiation, mysticism, and the profane. From the outset, though the book's title states it concerns religion, in which the object of study begins with the Divine, and then continues on consequently to man, Eliade rather begins with man and then continues on consequently to God. Man is shown to create himself, his house, his cosmos, and his existential situation precludes the religious right up until a.d. 1950 (the date of this book's first publication). The author wisely points out profane man is a rather unique and new phenomenon in human history. Whether he is descriibing the initiation rituals of primitive societies, or the construction of a modern abode, Eliade skillfully shows like it or not, we are recreating the cosmos as the gods did before history. Without the slightest hint of a sense of humor, Eliade points out repeatedly that no matter how much modern profane man has attempted to divest Nature of the sacred, he still stubbornly, if unconsciously, sacralizes his environment. Over and over again. This is a nice little book that provides a glimpse into what we are stubbornly trying to leave behind, to our own obvious detriment.

Review - The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Second Edition by C.G. Jung

One cannot underestimate Jung in his sweeping vision, technical proficiency and knowledge base concerning myth and fairytale and consequently psychology. What impresses me most about Jung is the fact he spent ten years working at a mental institution and thus gained experience to bolster his prudence with people from all walks of life who were experiencing all sorts of psychological problems. Unlike Freud, his teacher at first, Jung's practice was not private and limited to a relatively thin slice of humanity. He saw an entire array of the european population and his science, to me, is therefore more robust than his contemporaries. As Jung treated his patients, he began to see certain patterns emerge that pointed to some entity that was universal, that transcended normal boundaries of space and time. Certain psychic elements, the mother, the child, the wise old man, the hero, all cropped up regardless of a person's background, ethnic or otherwise. Jung then came to postulate the collective unconscious, later to be called the objective psyche. Jung found these complexes and pesonalities that originated from the collective unconscious, were best described as archetypes, in that they were objective and pre-conscious. Primitive man, who lived largely unconsciously also held out the mother, the child, the wise old man and so forth as powerful symbols that helped to explain much of what happened on a day to day basis, and even stretching into years and ages. These primitive motifs are in turn inherited by us all, carried forward in our ancient sympathetic nervous system, bubbling up from the primordial depths into our daily lives in many and various ways. This is the deepest layer of our psyche, this dark, uncharted, decentralized area of the Self, that if ignored for too long, will make itself known in perhaps unseemly ways, as evidenced in mass hysteria, schizophrenia and psychosis, with neurosis added to boot. The Self is understood to be ancient, the sum totality of the conscious and unconscious, while the Ego is conscious bound and new, constantly running ahead while the unconscious lags behind. Progress is made when the unconscious and conscious, each mutually exclusive, strike up a compensatory relationship with one another, where opposites (the products of consciuos thinking) are resolved. Progress is made only when light and dark, good and evil, spirit and flesh, are in balance with one another. At times in this edition, Jung can get to be a bit much with his flagrantly filtering his patients' neurosis through his alchemical bias. Modern problems are viewed through a strange, arcane occultic kaleidesope where Jung's ramblings can take on an air of a hierophant or psychopomp, as opposed to a scientist concerned with objective reality. But to be fair, Jung does point out that the subjectivity of the therapist, it's application and nonapplication, can play just as important role in recovery as the patient's own phenomenology. After reading this book, one can begin to look at literature, fairy tales, religious myths, popular genre novels and even hollywood screenplays in a Jungian light. His psychology has been quite friendly to those creative folks who wish to affect the largest slice of humanity with the deepest machinations available. The movies Star Wars, 2001 A Space Odyssey, the Hobbit, and so many others can be appreciated for their archetypal imagery and themes. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in psychology, religion, esoterica and Jungian thought. This is a great introduction to Jung's thought, and the effect said thought has had on modern man.

Review - The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View by Richard Tarnas

Tarnas begins with Plato, working backward and forward from him. Plato's Forms, in particular, set the stage for the rest of the book, in my view. According to Plato, there are transcendent Forms for 'Man', 'Tree', 'Woman', for example, that the soul was exposed to before birth and remembers later in life. These Forms are timeless, transcendent and most, Beautiful. Aristotle, the tenth in line from Pythagoras, quickly relegates Plato's Forms to the particular, noting their birth, maturation and decay within the object with no recourse to a transcendent realm. The important thing is, in the greek rationalism of both Plato and Aristotle, the world is knowable and is a Cosmos, an ordered whole that can be readily understood by the human mind. The philosophies of Plato and Aristotle move to the Arabics during the Dark Ages, until the medieval times, when the Arabics courteously return the two behemoths to western civilization where St. Augustine applies Platonic thought to theology, while St. Thomas Aquinas later does the same with Aristotle. Somewhere in the mix, Ockham applies his razor to the idea of the Forms, being the first to deny a Form's transcendent or immanent reality, but rather positing that the Form is a construct of the human mind. Party pooper. Modern science, which has divested the world of anything human,where the universe now contains no spirit or transcendent form, sets it's sights on a disenchanted universe that is now viewed as being mechanistic at best, lifeless at worst. Man is taken, by way of Copernicus, then Kepler and Galileo, from being the absolute center of the Ptolemaic universe, to being a nondescript inhabitant on a planet moving about a sun, which is one of potentially millions of such stars in the now vast space of the experienced world. During the Enlightenment, man having eaten the soul of the Cosmos and stolen it's intelligence and claimed it for himself, suddenly turns the lense on himself thorugh Descartes and Kant. Not only is the Cosmos dead and lifeless and altogether inhuman, but man is incapable of perceiving said Cosmos in an objective way. Man inherently attaches Reality to the universe by viewing the world through the apriori lenses of time, space, cause and effect and so on. So now, we have a dead and lifeless vast impersonal universe inhabited by man, who, due to his psychological makeup, can never understand said world objectively. Nietzsche sounds the death knell. He says God is dead, but really, it is man, glourious understanding, at one with the world, man who is crucified. Nietzsche pronounces the birth of the modern era, where not by intelligence, which has been discounted, not by religion, which is suffering cognitive disonance due to the emerging scientific worldview (Darwinism, Atomism, the everexpanding nothingness peered at through ever stronger telescopic lenses), but sheer Will that will decide who is right. Finally on to the postmodern picture. History has been dominated by white european males. Not only is the universe (and man) unknowable, but we don't even know the proper questions to ask. Language is a prison, seeking to encapsulate experience and reduce Reality to the constructs of the human mind. Western man, through the prevailing dichotomy of his science and religion, has raped women, the environment, destroyed the ozone, produced the atomic bomb, and on and on. No one has hold of the Truth. Truth is provincial, localized and relative, dependent upon a contingent human being. No world view has precedence over another. There is no prevailing meta-narrative that can capture global humanity and unite it. But dear reader, there is hope. There is hope from the beginning pages of this book through to the epilogue. Tarnas wisely weaves a thread throughout that offers a glimpse into a potential new birth for mankind. Tarnas points out history seems to be coming to a culmination, something is definitely on the horizon for all of us. I leave it to you, to read this wonderful book, to discover what possibilities (if not facts) lie ahead for humanity. The book is well worth the read.

Review - Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure by Michael Chabon

Chabon knocked around the title 'Jews With Swords' for this novel, and the title would have been as accurate for this nice little novel. Two gentlemen of the road embark on an erstwhle adventure that winds up being more than they bargained for. Along the lines of nineteenth century Fantasy Lit by writers such as H. Rider Haggard, the book is graced with wonderful illustrations that portray the adventure as one reads it. Along the way, money is made, lost and made again, a supposed deposed Prince is protected, and much merriment is had. Wonderful.

Review - She (Oxford World's Classics) by H Rider Haggard

H. Rider Haggard - In the early twentieth century, when men were cautioned to not use wormwood sticks to beat their wives (but by all means, use anything else), this writer published 'She', a novel featuring 'Ayesha', a mythical, powerful goddess figure who held sway over an entire people. Men trembled at her beauty and sheer presence. Haggard combined adventure and pulp fiction with a whopping female hero that had Sigmund Freud recommending the novel to his analyst buddies.

Review - Epictetus: The Art of Living : The Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness

Hair and skin color, such are accidents in the objective we can have no control over. We cannot for the most part change much of the Universe we live in, but there is Hope, as we can focus on what we CAN control, our subjective response to the objective Reality that greets us each waking moment. Epictetus lived as a slave and philosopher, steeped in Stoicism and eschewing popularity for living a virtuous, simple life. With true Stoic resolve, Epictetus admonished us to accept fickle Fortune with equanimity and grace. We cannot blame Her for following Her true Nature, which is to give with one hand and take with the other. In this age of economic turmoil and constant reappraisal of values, Epictetus' cool, calm voice comes to the fore concerning many topics that are still relevant in our post-postmodern age. While Fortune may change, Human Nature does not, and this little gem of a book helps map out the territory of the governable human soul with intelligence and wit to boot. Highly recommended!

Review - Iron John - A Book About Men by Robert Bly

Bly is sly. He talks about men without isolating women, without excluding the Divine Feminine from the male experience. In a day and age where the alpha male has been replaced by the only rational option, the beta male, Bly offers a third way, the nurturing Father. I really like the way Bly brings in fairy tale, mysticism, some gnosticism, and paganism, and um, even mythicism and also um the kitchen sink to describe the male ego in all of it's complexity. The most telling, for me, is the chapter on the lost King, concerning modern men's relationships to their workaholic distant Fathers, and embracing of their Mothers. The mothers encouraged men to eschew manual labor (vulgar!) for more 'spiritual' work involving intellectualism. And obviously, with the Enlightenment and the dispatch of Kings, the male ego has no really earthly Father to gaze upon as a Spiritual Guide. Bly rightly points out that in aboriginal tribes such as Indian and Australian, male initiation still takes place for boys where today in postmodern Western society, the lack of men intervening in boys' lives makes the process much more drawn out, much more protracted and even postponed. What happens in some aboriginal boys' lives at age thirteen only happens to young 'men' aged forty in Western society. Initiation, for me personally, occurred anonymously and in my late thirties, and lasted much too long. I only now am just coming to grips with the fact it happened and the resultant implications. It is uncanny the path and waypoints the initiation takes as described in Bly's book and how it was meted out in my own experience, pointing to what must be a universal phenomenon that encompasses many cultures. I recommend this book for any man who has ever failed miserably at being a 'man'. The rest already have this stuff down pat, I'm sure.

Review - The Sibling Society by Robert Bly

In 1996, one couild travel the world and find middle-aged men and women wearing the laid back GAP uniform of tee shirts and jeans or khakis, people who were largely like one another, regardless of origin, all sort of melting into one great big GAP army, which was good, right? Wrong saith Robert Bly, who decries the inability of middle-agers to embrace adulthood along with all of it's TRAPpings and responsibilities and even hierarchy. The democrotization of the family, where the kids are left with 'friends' as folks and no real authoritarian figures has left us with some pretty scary statistics concerning teenage pregnancy, adolescent crime and general aimlessness among our youth, says Bly. Armed with myths over 1,000 years old, Mr. Bly recounts ages gone by when girls and boys were guided by mothers and fathers through the harrowing trials of growing up and becoming Adult, when the strength of the family was found in a present mother, a present father and a stable, economically viable America where the middle class could thrive and the poor were taken care of. Not so now, says Bly. Sadly, kids have grown up first in impersonal daycares, then in front of the t.v., and finally on to the computer, where the more imaginative and creative impulses are bypassed and modern marketers are allowed to blaze their ways directly into the middle brain of our most precious, our children. No more time spent outdoors with dad and mom, no more family picnics, no more real time to connect with Nature at large which is so vital to human (humane) development. Bly points several fingers at several 'culprits'. Advertisers who appeal to the most base instincts in the most efficient ways possible, large corporations who have demonstrated zero social responsibility or concern for the citizens of their parent Countries, eschewing loyalty for labor (cheap), previous patriarchal systems where men were allowed to revel in some sort of warped sense of masculinity where women and children had no rights or say in how their world should be run, and then, too, feminist groups who have advertised the death of masculinity in virtually any form in reaction to asaid patriarchal systems, and on and on. Bly points only halfheartedly at some possible solutions, where men and women become present in children's lives and intervene in critical periods throughout an adolescent's and young adult's life to aid them along the road to becoming an adult, and even protecting them from the 'world' at large. But by the tone of the book, not much Hope is held out, in my view, where this book, initially poking fun and playing games, eventually becomes a sobering account of the State We're In.

Review - The Dice Game of Shiva: How Consciousness Creates the Universe by Richard Smoley

Having tacitly approached Consciousness through the framework of Esoteric Christianity in 'Conscious Love', Smoley now sets his sights on this now popularly burgeoning Science through the lense of an Indian Myth. Shiva and Parvati, Lord of the Worlds and His Consort respectively, have their apparent eternal lovemaking interrupted by a trixter figure who introduces the two to the game of parcheesi. As the two begin to play the game, Shiva very soon recognizes although He can win maybe a couple of games in a row, He is the Big Loser when matched with Parvati. Shiva, you see, taken subjectively, represents pure Consciousness, the state that exists in the premoments of waking when one is All with the World and there is no duality to speak of. Parvati, again taken subjectively, on the other hand quickly entices Shiva into duality and all out multiplicity and soon has Him believing He is what He thinks and feels. Besides all this, there is the mode in which Shiva and Parvati interract, this being causality, and more satisfying to me, synchronicity, or as Smoley presents it, 'constant conjunction'. Though Smoley reduces perhaps what could be a very complex subject, Consciousnes, to these three aspects, Pure Consciousness, entrapment in the 'World', and the mode by which this interplay takes place, there is no shortage of interesting and even expansive elaborations to be made. Feel constantly caught up in Life? Ever feel trapped like you can't escape? Let Smoley give you a few pointers on finding a way to step back and even transcend your daily thinking that just may keep causing you conundrums. Very good read and highly recommended!

Review - The King Within: Accessing the King in the Male Psyche by Robert L. Moore

Having set the stage with their book King Warrior Magician Lover, our two authors delve deeper into what they call the central facet of a healthy male psyche, the King. Copious examples of King qualities ranging in leaders from the Far East to American shores are given in the middle of the book which are actually quite enlightening and though similar to one another, not redundant. Some time is spent, thankfully, explaining Jungian Archetypal theory, and the role said theory plays in the authors' development of their central argument, that a man desires to access the Archetypal King without completely identifying with the role. Again, thankfully, the authors make it clear one should 'access' the King energy without completely identifying with the Archetype...which could land one in a psychiatric ward in short order. In addition, chapters are devoted to the Shadow sides of the King, the high chair Tyrant and the effete Weakling. So our two writers do us justice by pointing out the complexities one faces when attempting to access this King energy. So, the goal ultimately becomes not to be King (which after all, in the day and age we are living in, would only last one day) but rather to be a 'Generative Man' who, accessing King energy, empowers and inspires those around him and uses the destructive energy of the King to aid those who most need help. It is said when one is ready, the Teacher(s) will arrive. I was ready. Are you?

Review - Man and HIs Symbols by Carl Gustav Jung

A symbol, Jung explains, is a word, picture, photograph, statue, etc. that always signifies something much larger than what we immediately know, and therefore points to the unconscious. In this book, Jung first introduces us (the lay public) to the unconscious and it's machinations that can be found in personal ticks, social characteristics, dreams and fantasies. The unconscious can manifest personally in the complex, those group of personal characteristics we acquire through private experience, and the archetype, the 'motif' behind the group symbol such as the religious symbol of the Cross, or the fairy tale image of the Old Wise Man. The unconscious, you see, is just as much, if not more, a part of the Psyche as the consciuos ego is, and therefore plays a large role in the development and sustainment of all major human achievements such as Religion, the Sciences, Arts and so forth. Even the most logical scientific theory contains projected unconscious elements of the scientist, Jung reminds us, perhaps the most telling in the post-enlightenment age. Following is a grand sweeping presentation of the symbol in Religion, Science and Art and even the mundane everyday experience of the individual that though is comprehensive, doesn't dwell too long on any of it's subjects. Breadth, and not depth for each subject seems to be preferrred here, as this remember is an introduction and not written for the specialist. A wonderful 'get to know you' book from Carl Jung in his late years at the close of his psychiatric career. Everyone should be introduced to this man and his far-reaching ideas...