Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Interesting the way my eyes (sometimes) see one word but I type
something totally different and don't notice the difference until
someone points it out.  It also happens when I speak and, occasionally,
I find myself saying the opposite of what I intended to say.  Not sure
why that mental glitch exists, but it's been there all my life and
there are times it's put me into very "interesting" predicaments (to
say the least)....especially, saying yes when I meant to say no ;-).  

The article quoted their monthly calendar saying, "We see it as an
experiment in evolution itself, creating new forms of interacting,
experiencing, and learning with each other."  And given some of the
stuff featured in its calendar there should be something of value for
most ages.  

I found a link to its web-site at http://www.onetastesf.com/.  Reading
about its staff and looking at the enumeration of some of their
accomplishments, I'd be surprised if there weren't other age groups in
the mix besides 20 somethings and expect it will be interesting to a
broader audience than you fear.  

According to the web-site, it's on Folsom St. and just opened 7-30 so
it was as new as I suspected.  I sure hope it flourishes and is around
for a long time because I'd love to visit it and know it's going to be
a while before I get over to the City again ;-).
  

    
Those of you who are reading this over the web and are not members of the 
WELL can ask questions and make comments - just send 'em to 
inkwell-hosts@well.com and we'll copy them into the conversation.
  

    
You are right about the Tarot being sync'ed with the kaballah, Jay. 
From the horses mouth: "The Masters of Wisdom behind our work brought
Tarot to the public in the thirteenth century.  It was time to use
another outer method for spiritual and occult training.  The times had
become sodark with superstition; and freedomwas so unheard of, that few
human beings would dare to think freely out loud."  So the tarot was
brought to the world; and they called it "the game of man", under the
disguise of a game...playing cards.

Bobby, I refer to my misguided self interested  motivations as those
things that I think are good for me but often lack the whole are proper
context to assess what is good for me.  Right, I am not there all the
time but more than I can easily belief.  Once I use the experience to
reassess my good, after the fact of a knotty outcome , I do much better
in not needing to play out that experience and emotion and outcome
again.  At least in unawareness for shorter periods of time.

I am glad that there is an entrepreneurial spirit to fullfill many
visions of what is needed ,helpful, positive to experimentation about
how to reform how one lives ones life given the universal need and
mission to find ones spiritual home/ community /environment in which to
accelerate and enrich new life expressions.  New Age has ,however had
its difficulties in the marketing of knowledge.  The New Age Movement
could provide the spring board and social/cultural  connections for the
next rennaissance.  We arem progressive as the mind develops and
consciouness fills it.

I think building communities of mission and meaning is a huge current
need among the progressives who seek new lives.  It is important to
have those around with whom it is possible to live and practice the
highest of ones ideals.  This is difficult in the superficial society
which often mirrors a world more interested in style than substance. 
There is also the rude awakening that often my new life/ideas and
practices do not meet with the approval of those who can relate better
to the old Joy. The old community can be quite unhelpful, sometimes
threatened,by a practicing aspirant.  It
is is an extended meaning of"living in the world but not of it".


Jay, you mention something about a collision.  Would you give us your
context, description of the forces and nature of this collision?
  

    
Joy,

Not sure what's happened to Jay.  I know he mentioned major deadlines
so maybe they have him sidetracked for the moment.  

You wrote:  "Jay, you mention something about a collision.  Would you
give us your context, description of the forces and nature of this
collision?"  Since he hasn't been back to answer you question, I
thought I'd make a stab at it.  His web-site http://www.jaykinney.com
is titled "Jay Kinney's Clinick of Cultural Collision" and on his home
page he talks about a juxtaposition of links and value systems there
that are apparently mutually exclusive. He adds, "According to the
Doctor's philosophy of cultural collision, mental health in the
diabolical here and now requires the ability to witness and digest
jarring contradictions while maintaining personal equilibrium."  

Look around.  We live in a world of contractions and extremes and
there must be many mental collisions as we strive to make sense of them
all internally.  I think Jay was trying to point to the need to
balance the various bits of contradictory cultural debris that make us
who we are while still trying to maintain a core sense of self in the
midst of today's ever morphing, commodified existence.  The
contradictions may be different person to person but each of us needs
to find ways to accept them in ourselves while maintaining a sense of
internal balance.  

Everywhere one looks there are contradictions and too many choices. 
How can/does one maintain their spiritual focus let alone sanity in
such a mad, contradictory place?  Isn't that the question we are all
asking/teaching ourselves and each other at some levels all the time? 
Isn't that what you were addressing, yourself, when you spoke of the
need for a community of people to support you where you are at in your
spiritual life.
  

    
Again, Bobby, you said it as well as I could have, maybe better. ;-)

I was away from the computer for yesterday afternoon and evening
attending to tasks that couldn't be ignored any longer. Deadlines, yes.
Alas, unpaying deadlines. Anyway, I'm back. 

As I recall, I came up with the Clinic of Cultural Collision long
before all the talk about "Clash of Civilizations". It is partly a
spin-off of a paper that I did for the futurist journal, Futures, back
in 1995, called "Net Worth? Religion, Cyberspace and the Future." In
that now marvelously dated piece I wondered about the future impact on
devout believers of all the freely available transgressive material on
the Web. I wrote:

"For the time being at least, someone dialing into the Internet from a
remote location in a traditional society, be it Montana or Malaysia,
suddenly has immediate access to taboo material that would be almost
impossible to find in their own locale. This has the potential to
trigger spiritual crises in many individuals, causing anxiety, anger or
despair. Moreover, the immediate and easily repeated access to
addictive activities such as gambling, which are just beginning to
appear on the Net, amy have a calamitous impact on some individuals.
These developments in turn will likely provide added fuel to efforts to
censor or control Net contents."

This was, of course, written before the ubiquitous appearance of
Internet cafés all over the third world and at a time before most
social institutions (such as churches)- or even businesses - had
web-sites in place. _Now_ we also get to worry about junk text messages
sent to our cell phones... technology marches on!
  

    
  >I grew up in a world where people only a few years older than
   me felt too uncomfortable to even announce a pregnancy without
   resorting to euphemisms.  

To underscore your point, the word pregnant (as used to refer to a 
woman with child) itself started out as a euphemism.

On another subject altogether, I'm confused about the Tarot/Kabbalah thing 
-- when joyam says

  >You are right about the Tarot being sync'ed with the kaballah, Jay.

she then goes on to quote something about the thirteenth century, but 
didn't Jay say the connection was invented by E. Levi in the nineteenth 
century? Maybe I'm reading joyam's post wrong, though.
  

    
fom, 

I wondered about that, too. The text that Joy quoted from was of a
sort that I tend to think of as "traditional histories", i.e.
unprovable claims of ancient origins made by various organizations as
part of their romantic lore. Gurdjieff, Idris Shah, Madame Blavatsky,
the Rosicrucians, you name 'em, all made such claims...almost as a
literary device. I think such notions have to be taken with an enormous
grain of salt - at least as far as literal history go. And often the
lofty claims are merely a tactic to try and gain prestige for teachings
whose value would stand well enough on its own without the historical
claims.

The Rosicrucians, for instance, seem to have been a mythic "virtual"
order imagined out of whole cloth and put forth as "real" in 17th
century manifestoes and tales. Almost a form of psy war, if you will,
in an attempt to inject some new ideas into the culture. As time went
on and people took the claims as genuine, some people began to call
themselves Rosicrucians, but they were later "me too's" with no
connection to what was originally a concocted myth to begin with. This
was later embroidered upon by groups like AMORC who claimed that
everyone from Ben Franklin to the ancient Egyptian pharoahs were
Rosicrucians. From what I know of AMORC's actual teachings (lessons)
they are a decent presentation of Western occult ideas, but the
"traditional history" is, again, unnecessary frosting on the cake.

IMHO, of course... 
  

    
Hmmm.

"Imagined out of whole cloth" might also be explained as "revealed 
through visions," no? I'm thinking ot Tibetan Buddhism, which has 
something called ter (pronounced, roughly, tair) or terma, treasures 
allegedly hidden by Padmasambhava in the ninth century. (I may be a bit 
off on the details here; sorry.) A person who discovers these is called a 
terton. Some of the terma are real objects, like a crystal hidden within a 
cave, and some are histories; a visionary terton discovers (or 
"discovers") them through visions, and they're then regarded as history 
that's as real as the written-down-at-the-time kind.

Anyway...I go back and forth on this. I'm also reminded of a local story 
about the Kashaya Pomo, who had lost their dances and boarded up their 
roundhouse until an ordinary member of the tribe, a middle-aged guy with 
various problems, suddenly began to have visionary dreams about dances 
and ceremonies. He started writing them down and eventually hunted out a 
few very old elders who might remember the real-life dances and 
ceremonies, and it turned out that his dreams were extremely accurate. 
They ended up rebuilding the roundhouse and starting the ceremonial cycle 
again, and the guy who'd had the dreams became a respected leader.

See also: Jungian-esque explanations about archetypes and collective 
consciousness.
  

    
>"Imagined out of whole cloth" might also be explained as "revealed 
>through visions," no?

Well, it *might* be the same... but I think that's something else
again. I was talking about historical claims put forth as true with no
actual evidence or attested point of discovery. The terma are either
"real objects" as you say or visions. What I'm talking about are just
historical assertions, without object or vision. 

But they *all* might have some explanation as archetypes...  <g>
  

    
Jay wrote; "See also: Jungian-esque explanations about archetypes and
collective consciousness."

No fair, reading my mind that way ;-) or did it come to you in a
dream?  Most of the day, I've been thinking about asking you about Jung
and his relationship to various traditions and see if you'd sketch
some of that out for us.  Then, at my first chance to log on, what do I
find but you mentioning the very subject I'd been thinking about.  

Anyway, how about giving us an understanding of Jung and his work's
relationship(s?) to some of the hidden Western traditions that are the
focus of your book?
  

    
Bobby,

That was actually fom's remark about "Jungian-esque explanations" but
I did echo it. But no matter who brought Jung up, he is definitely
relevant.

I view Jung as a key figure in bringing the inner traditions of the
West into the 20th century and reframing them in a way that helped make
them relevant to us today. Prior to the 20th century, most of what we
now consider "psychology" was subsumed within religious discourse or
within fringe experimental practices such as Mesmerism. Freud and Jung
helped establish a set of concepts and a language for speaking about
human motivations, feelings, and behavior that could exist apart from
strictly moralistic judgments.

Freud drew upon Greek myths to describe his theories (e.g. the Oedipus
complex), and Jung expanded upon this bridging to the past to draw
upon Gnostic, alchemical, and Christian symbols and myths to discuss
his insights into the human psyche. 

I found Jung's writings (and those of the Jungian analysts, Edward
Edinger and June Singer) to be valuable entrance points into
rediscovering and re-appreciating the Western inner traditions.

  
  

    
What I was acknowledging is that the Tarot system was later created as
a way to teach the principles of the Kabalah.  When I say from the
horses mouth that is my current belief, which of course is outside your
crucible of verified or verifiable history.  I nor my mentors interest
is in drawing praise for intellect or coziness with God.  We did not
invent the internet!  My point is that whoever lays claim to inventing
the Tarot, the only system that is authentic, came out of the teaching
of the Kabalah.

Jay I see the collision not just in terms of East/West traditions or
the old world cultures that clash with modernity.  I see this same
collision in every country and of course most clearly here in the
homeland.  The conflict is innernational,not just international.  What
do you see about the cultural collisions here?
  

    
I see the divide more clearly as a divide or collision between the old
human consciousness and those who find its precepts woefully lacking
as a guide for real world decisions.  It reads like the beginnings of
stepping up to the next higher rung of consciousness in the next
renaisance of mental and spiritual development.
  

    
Jay, thanks for mentioning June Singer.  I just googled on her name
and came up with an interview that I think our readers might really
appreciate at http://www.intuition.org/txt/singer.htm
  

    
Joy,

Those who look for divisions will always find them for material
reality itself is based on separation and disconnection.  Awareness of
that primordial separation and the pain it brings because we are all
incomplete/disconnected can be the beginning of wisdom   Understanding
that which makes us one is at the core of that wisdom and the search
inside ourselves for that understanding is a path that can lead to the
divine.  There are more and more of us seeking to understand and,
perhaps, that search will lead us one more step towards that
renaissance you dream of. 
  

    
Joy wrote:

"I see the collision not just in terms of East/West traditions or
the old world cultures that clash with modernity.  I see this same
collision in every country and of course most clearly here in the
homeland.  The conflict is innernational,not just international.  What
do you see about the cultural collisions here?"

There are bound to be collisions everywhere and in any era. The ones I
was referring to on my web-site were those specifically triggered by
the Internet. Obviously, there are also cultural collisions within 21st
century America, where you have large conflicting subcultures that
operate from contradictory belief systems. 

My interest is not so much in seeing one side win over the other or in
making those differences go away. I think human diversity is crucial
and valuable. I would like, however, to find a way to enable people
with wildly diverging worldviews to live side by side and not feel
obliged to kill each other. That's a real challenge and one worth
solving.
  

    
I see no way to accomplish such an extensive healing here except as
one gains wisdom and understanding of the divisions.  I see no short
cuts.  To go forward refusing to acknowledge the difficulty of a
Democracy with two non integratable sets of principles is to seek
compromise between thought systems that lead to two very different
views of reality, public policies, priorities, values and actions.  It
is not that I want to experience the difficulties and outcomes from
such a divide,  it is in my face everyday.

There may be common ground in this divide, but I see no national
process for that at all.  I am afraid that it is a question of
overcoming the fundamentalists in certainly other ways than violence. 
Fundamentalist do not compromise.  They seek to control upon higher
authority than humanity.
  

    
someone from another country and i were talking and when i came to mention
america's ethnic diversity they summed it up in one word:  salad.

i like that.  step up to the salad bar.

of course it's the imperative of our time.

<jay>, before you leave us for your nonpaying deadlines and all, i wonder
have we covered *your* particular inner traditions, as practiced.   that is,
given your extensive, comprehensive, lucid map of the variety of traditions
and techne, in the book(s) -- of them, on which path(s) do your feet tread
?

what went into making your choices?

why one and not another?

(i won't ask the prufrock question:  ' has it been worthwhile ')

this has been a genuinely illuminating convivia with you, for which I'm very
deeply and sincerely grateful
  

    
gary,

My own paths have included a modern-day approach to Gnosticism and
work with Sufism (via friends in Turkey and a local Ibn 'Arabi
studygroup). I've also been heavily involved for the past few years
with Freemasonry, which has some esoteric and spiritual aspects,
although those aspects mostly depend on one's own self-guided study. 

My choices of these things and not others were largely due to
happenstance and "chance" running into people or groups. Of course they
weren't really chance, for like attracts like. As for my earliest
introduction to esoteric matters and interest in them, we can blame
Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's "Dr. Strange" in the old Marvel comics in
the 60s. <g>

I'm happy to hear that you've enjoyed the discussions here. So have I.
My thanks to Bobby, Jon, and the whole Well crew. And thanks to those
of you who've participated. 
  

    
Thanks especially to you, Jay, and to Bobby! This conversation was 
scheduled through yesterday, Friday the 13th, but the next conversation is 
delayed until Monday so we didn't say goodbye quite yet.

This has been a wonderful conversation, and you can feel free to continue 
as time permits, even though we reached the official end date. That's 
never set in stone.
  

    
Bobby and I had the chance to meet up in person today, wandering
around Bernal Heights looking at the neighborhood garage sales. I
resisted the chance to purchase Annie Sprinkle's used underwear. Only
in San Francisco.

I'll be happy to field any more questions, though I may not see them
until Sunday afternoon. ;-)
  

    
Jonl,

I have to laugh, because, given this extended opportunity to post, the
only thing I could think of to write about just now is how grateful I
feel.  I really want to thank you for your tireless blogging efforts
which have pointed me to many thought-provoking links over the years,
including the John Smiley interview which in turn, led to a very
"interesting" two week experience here with Jon.  It must have been
synchronicity at work, once again, in my life 
;-).    

Jay, Thank you for your book.  It's given me much to think about over
these next months and has helped me move toward a better understanding
of the search for spiritual truth here in the West.  

I appreciated the opportunity to explore the many paths that are part
of our heritege.  No matter what path I looked at, I found universal
truths there for the learning, if one is ready to learn.  

I have you to thank for pointing me in this direction as well as this
time together on line and, to think, I owe it all to your "male"
intuition ;-).  

Hearing what intuition is trying to say, let alone daring to trust it
enough to follow where it leads, is a lesson that can take many years
to learn.  Thank you for trusting yours when you asked me to join you
here.  Had a great time yesterday walking and talking and finding some
fantastic bargains in Bernal Heights.  Now I understand WHY it's
considered the best garage sale in the city.
  

    
Neither one of you bought a garage?
  

    
I sure wish I could buy a garage in my own neighborhood. I've had to
park my car on the street in a different spot every time I come back
from using it, for the last 28 years. Sometimes twice a day. In San
Francisco. Luckily, the Hail Mary parking prayer works fairly well...

I just stopped back by, on a whim, to see if anything further was
posted in this topic...and there was Bobby's thank you note, which I'd
not seen before. 

We'll have to do this again sometime! ;-)
  

    
Incentive to write another book!