mandala...close but no cigar

[Jeffrey L. Meikle]

Reading all the posts about mandalas reminds me of some graphic/metaphoric
connections between GR and those two opposed but dialectically related
psychological systems--Freudianism and Jungianism.  Pynchon in GR
(literally) draws for us a view of the rocket seen from above--its point
and fins forming a mandala, that Jungian symbol of timeless holistic
integration.  But viewed from the side, the rocket is a bloated cigar, a
Freudian phallus (what isn't?!), a symbol of the urge perpetually to
transcend the self, the ecology, the planet itself.  Or, paraphrasing
Norman Mailer in a conflation of these two images, we have the WASP
emerging from the cocoon of human history to take us to the stars.
Cheers,
Jeff Meikle