MDDM ch.67: "Yet, does it live" (657.13)

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In a message dated 8/5/02 12:17:17 AM, lycidas2 at earthlink.net writes:

<< In any event, god is remote. Celestially structured  supreme beings
disappear from the practices of religion, from cult; they depart from
among men, withdraw to the sky or the horizon, become remote, inactive
gods (see the Herero) (see dei otiosi). 
 >>

I'm not sure that it's just "god" that's being specified by
the natives or M&D in their discussion, but the possibility
of a spiritual dimension which can be accessed by the 
living as well as the previously alive, e.g., Rebekah.

It progressed to a discussion about the observer's role
in Star-gazing, and seems to be more about the mystery
of individuality and identity w/r/t the rest of creation,
although it began with Mason's question about the dwelling
place of the natives dead ancestors.

I think the narrative tends to demonstrate the dichotomy
of Mason's life. He spends untold hours gazing through a 
tube at the stars, and indicates to the natives that that
is where his spirit village is. It seems quite logical for the
natives to wonder why the spirits never respond to what
to them are all his attempts to make contact.

The fact that Mason is repeatedly contacted by Rebekah
is a richly deserved irony which we can enjoy, but also,
it seems to me, signals the essentially neurotic posture
of the enlightened europeans and their insistence on
objectivity, inspite of the continuing mystery of indentity
and individuality (and mortality).

Catholicism with its various saints, purgatory, etc., seems
not that spiritually far removed from what the natives
are prepared to embrace in their own spirituality, 
which is probably why they allowed themselves to be baptised 
in the first place. 

I think the narrative is concerned not so much with pointing
out the "religious" differences between the natives and the
europeans as it is with demonstrating the essentially neurotic
posture required in order to assume objectivity for the purposes
of control. Creating The Line seems to be a self-reflexive
figure for that arbitrary split in consciousness.