who's mystic?

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

>thomas e. schrieb:
>
>> Religion in Pynchon's fictional world is certainly one of the systems his
>>  characters are constantly
>> building in their need for order and meaning. You put it the other way round:
>>  The need of the characters
>> for order is depicted as a religious longing.
>
> 
>  [me:] but are geli's or dl's concerns really about "order"?! there's a (more 
>  or less) hidden layer of, well, mystic at work in pynchon's world. this   
> hasn't been mentioned yet. "don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing ..."


thomas again:

> ... Is mysticism in his fiction
>opposed to institutionalized religion, Puritan or RC? Is it a supplement? Does 
>P
>support a mystic "Weltanschauung"? The Eastern or the Western strand of 
>mysticism?

& michel:

> Could you provide us with a definition of mysticism?  And how is it connected 
> to the religious
> systems in mr. Pynchon's novels.  (we even haven't agreed upon a definition of 
> religion --nor will
> we, I think, which makes this thread very difficult).


  with all respect, i'd like to suggest a little creative experiment with what 
  you two have written. let's change "mysticism" into "neo-marxism", and     
  "religion" into "politics" (- & "puritan" might be "parlamentaristic", and    
  "rc" turns into "totalitaristic", or the other way round). now read again: 
  everything still makes perfect sense! this is not necessarily an argument 
  against your questions (definitions are, of course, important), but it 
  indicates, however, a very high degree of generalization ...  i did, in fact, 
  not write "mysticism" but "mystic at work", & i did this with purpose. some 
  thoughts: 

  in pynchon's novels mystical practices sometimes, think again of geli or dl, 
  seem to work also on a transsubjective level; the recorded results do not 
  only take place inside the character's body-mind. 

  in his non-fictional texts, the author thomas pynchon now & then hints 
  at things like esp (sl-intro: "... i swear i had the strange esp knowledge 
  ...") or the magical revival ("... long-practiced, all-out,      
  contrary-to-fact, capital m magic, ... in this very world we're struck with   
  ...", from trp's introduction to the lousy "stone junktion"). in passages    
  like these i cannot perceive any irony. 

  sloth' psycho-spiritual "de-armorment" can be understood as a psychotic    
  development (this would be the observation according to so called      
  "scientific materialism"), or as a journey into bliss ... it's our           
  choice!

  there is, perhaps, a switch to eastern motives in trp's most recent works; 
  especially the spiritual anatomy of the body is now refered to in terms of    
  "chi-points" and "meridians", which is - correct me if i'm wrong - not the   
  case with pynchon's first three novels. but then both, vineland and m&d, 
  express also motives from western mysticism, like gnostic myths or the   
  kabbalictic imago of the golem. do we really have to decide here? "syncretism" 
  has been popular among mystics since ancient gnostic days (btw, avatar adi da, 
  a comtemporary spiritual teacher, claims to have united the eastern and the   
  western tradition.) 

  any definition of "religion" and especially "mysticism" should, in my 
  opinion, focus on the (binary) distinction of immanency and transcendency. on 
  further details consent is hard to find. 

  religious bureaucrazy is, as a social system, in the first place like any 
  other bureaucrazy, be that of political, economic or scientific origin. 
  this view - max weber gets mentioned in gr - can, i think, also be found in
  pynchon' s novels.    

  trp's "ontological pluralism " (especially in gr) makes the notion of         
  "weltanschauung" itself problematic; nevertheless i may say that i consider   
  the novels' spiritual dimension to be at least as important as the political  
  one. there are many of rooms at the hotel pynchonia, but that mystic bridal   
  chamber flashes me most ...                 

  "wovon man nicht sprechen kann, d a r ü b e r  muss man schweigen".





                                 thanks for kickin' this shit with me! kai