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The Forum > Article Comments > On resisting mythological consciousness > Comments

On resisting mythological consciousness : Comments

By Peter Sellick, published 25/6/2015

The function of these narratives is not to diffuse the alienation between humanity and nature, but to carry theological weight.

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What everyone really needs in this time and place when there is no Living Spiritual Tradition - especially in the West, and when all of the ancient cults are Spiritually bankrupt and essentially corrupted by all of their archaic fetishes, is direct access to Truth, Reality & The Beautiful too. Direct access which thus relieves them of the dead weight of the now archaic mystifying mythological baggage.

This essay describes the situation of the dominant now archaic cults:
http://www.beezone.com/AdiDa/ScientificProof/theurgencyoftheteaching.html

These two references introduce 2 books which are very much about non-mythological Reality
http://global.adidam.org/books/religion-reality
http://global.adidam.org/books/reality-way
Posted by Daffy Duck, Thursday, 25 June 2015 8:44:06 PM
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I give up, Peter. Your compulsion to say 'our' and 'we', when you mean 'mine' and 'me' is obviously beyond all help. It must have been ingrained from early childhood. Take out the false generalisations from your article, and you would have a personal account of your mental journey that might be of interest and value. But by putting them in you turn it into an unreasoning rant. Please don't point your 'we' at me.
Posted by Jon J, Friday, 26 June 2015 6:21:00 AM
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Thanks for another interesting piece Peter, that goes some way to explain your use of the term Being a couple of months ago.

I think you're undoubtedly right to draw a line between what you call "I-Thou" and I-It" thinking and it was equally undoubtedly an important step on the road to developing a scientific model.

However, as seems increasingly probable, consciousness is a quantum phenomenon, then it can exist in any sufficiently complex quantum system. In other words, it may be equally valid to take either the I-It or I-Thou perspective, depending on the particular nature of the problem or observational task being worked on at the time, in much the same way that physicists switch between Newtonian and relativistic or quantum mechanical frames at different scales.

The dichotomy may be a false one in the end and whether causation may be said to exist may be to some large extent dependent on the state of mind of the observer! This brings us in a circle back to Schrodinger, of course. The "many interacting worlds" model of cosmology is starting to show some interesting promise as a means of explaining some aspects of quantum-level behaviour. Perhaps it has something to offer religion too?

JonJ, why the need to protest? Do you feel excluded?
Posted by Craig Minns, Friday, 26 June 2015 7:01:33 AM
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Peter,

I agree that this is an interesting piece.

“I-Thou,  theological doctrine of the full, direct, mutual relation between beings, as conceived by Martin Buber and some other 20th-century philosophers. The basic and purest form of this relation is that between man and God (the Eternal Thou), which is the model for and makes possible I-Thou relations between human beings. The relation between man and God, however, is always an I-Thou one, whereas that between man and man is very frequently an I-It one, in which the other being is treated as an object of thought or action. According to Buber, man’s relation to other creatures may sometimes approach or even enter the I-Thou realm. Buber’s book Ich und Du (1923; I and Thou) is the classic work on the subject.” (http://www.britannica.com/topic/I-Thou).

On the other hand, there is a difference between Christian/Jewish mythologies and most of others in that the former are based on God, the Creator as strictly separate from nature (His creation). Consequently, nature can be “dissected”, scrutinised, leading to scientific and technological achievements within the Christian/Jewish cultural framework.

Although, “With the hippies it is quite clear that they have rediscovered something which had been thought of as lost since the days of the prophets … They have rediscovered nature as an epiphany of the sacred.” (A Conversation with Mircea Eliade , Encounter, March 1980). Something similar is implicit in the recent encyclical Laudatio Si

Is this separation or not between the sacred and profane, rather than the Buber meaning, what you had in mind when referring to I-Thou vs I-It?
Posted by George, Friday, 26 June 2015 10:29:50 AM
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Craig,
Obviously I enter the I-Thou relationship when I relate to another person, and at times when I am patting a dog. I realise that categorisation of cultures in a broad way is at times inaccurate, but taking the broad sweep of the argument I think it explains a lot. There is no doubt that Israel stood out among the nations in their attitude to the dead, and the natural nature of the physical world. All of this eventually culminated in the rise of natural science.
Posted by Sells, Friday, 26 June 2015 10:32:18 AM
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George,
I think that creation is an epiphany of the sacred and as such should be valued for its own existence and not only for its uses. However, natural history and human history are quite different things in that the former is a matter of mechanism only, mind is not involved in it. Subsequently, natural history is instructive to us in terms only of cause and effect. Human history has all to do with mind and thus is the schoolroom of the soul. Mythological cultures really had no history, or rather their history was endlessly cyclical. This explains why they are so conservative and why they are called "cold" or "frozen" cultures because they exist in a conceptual world of eternal recurrence.

I was thinking about St Francis while writing the piece. With his brother sun sister moon etc, did he pass over into mythological thinking? I think not but would have to think some more to say why.

Thanks for your post and the mention of Buber that is right to the point.
Pete
Posted by Sells, Friday, 26 June 2015 10:46:59 AM
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