NPPR: Commentary Line 137 Lemniscate

[Michael Joseph]

Jasper,

Your reading of lemniscate makes sense to me, "a natural pattern from
which a spiritual component can be derived," and it even adds a Yeatsian
dimension (by pinching in the invisible boundary between the two circles
we get interpenetrating cones). What would you say to the idea that,
rather than denoting a distinct realm of the supernatural, the spiritual
component is as such specifically derived within the creative interpretive
act, that it achieves spirituality because it validates the quality of
creativity? (Maybe this is saying, the genius of the text validates the
reader who understands it, however he understands it, and, hence both
author and respondent tend to be consensually validating, and, in each
case, the other part of the lemniscate is hypothetical, the reader
hypothesizes an author, the author hypothesizes a reader.) The lemniscate
models two touching (hermeneutic) circles. Sorry if this is jumbled
together. I have to run off now and draw up a list of books to rip out of
the hands of grieving orphans.

Incidentally, I just love the Heinidel. In Kinbote's projection of Gradus
in his gloss of 131-132, he also gives him an umbrella.

Michael




On Tue, 23 Sep 2003, Jasper Fidget wrote:

> On
> > Behalf Of Michael Joseph
>
> >
> > Not having yet seen a compelling explanation for why a lemniscate should
> > so enrapture Shade ("the miracle of a lemniscate"),
>
> I'm snipping for the sake of space, but this is great stuff, Michael; I
> especially like the lemniscate as mitosis idea.  My understanding of Shade's
> joy in it had been as a natural pattern from which a spiritual component can
> be derived, as in this quote from Max Heindel:
>
> "Humanity as a whole is slowly progressing upon the path of evolution, thus
> very slowly, almost imperceptibly, attaining higher and higher states of
> consciousness. The path of evolution is a spiral when we regard it from the
> physical side only, but a lemniscate when viewed in both its physical and
> spiritual phases. [...]
>
> "In the lemniscate, or figure 8, there are two circles which converge to a
> central point, which circles may be taken to symbolize the immortal spirit,
> the evolving ego. One of the circles signifies its life in the physical
> world from birth to death. [...]
>
> "The objective work of physical existence over, the race run, and the day of
> action spent, the ego enters upon the subjective work of assimilation
> accomplished during its sojourn in the invisible worlds, which it traverses
> during the period from death to birth, symbolized by the other ring of the
> lemniscate."
>
> http://www.polachek.net/library/Heindel/Heindel,%20Max%20-%20Gleanings%20of%
> 20a%20Mystic.pdf
>
> Incidentally, Heindel himself may offer some parallels:
>
> Heindel (1865-1919), "the greatest western mystic of the twentieth century,"
> was a pseudonym for Carl Louis Von Grasshoff, born to a royal family
> connected to the Court of Prince Bismark.  He changed his name when he
> emigrated to America.  [You see where I'm going with this.]  When he was
> eight, Carl lived in Copenhagen where he had an accident while jumping over
> a ditch; his left foot was injured and he would limp for most of the rest of
> his life (see p. 133 "The pool of opalescent ditch water had grown in
> length; along its edge walked a sick bat like a cripple with a broken
> umbrella"; see also pp. 135-136 where this bat is linked to Gradus).  In
> 1884 he moved to Glasgow and worked as a tobacconist on Argyle Street (see
> Lady Anne Campbell, the daughter of the Marquis of Argyle).  Later he
> emigrated alone to America (leaving his wife and four children in Denmark).
>
> http://rosicrucianzine.tripod.com/max_heindel.htm
> http://correiorosacruz.netfirms.com/max_heindel.htm
>
> Almost certainly irrelevant is that Heindel's father, Francois Grasshoff,
> was a master baker who died in a boiler explosion in his own bakery, which
> is how the Great Fire of London started more than 200 years earlier under
> the reign of Charles II.  Also irrelevant but interesting is that Heindel
> married the daughter of a boilermaker.
>
> Jasper Fidget
>
>