Against the Light: Divine Radiance and Religious Experience

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

              As it has ever been, and apparently ever shall be, gods, 
              superseded, become the devils in the system which supplants 
              their reign, and stay on to make trouble for their successors, 
              available, as they are, to a few for whom magic has not 
              despaired, and been superseded by religion. 
              William Gaddis, the Recognitions, pg 102
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0709&msg=121306&keywords=starhawk

I'm against the day 'cause it's just too much light.

              She could, at this stage of things, recognize signals like 
              that, as the epileptic is said to an odor, color, pure piercing 
              grace note announcing his seizure. Afterward it is only this 
              signal, really dross, this secular announcement, and never 
              what is revealed during the attack, that he remembers. 
              Oedipa wondered whether, at the end of this (if it were 
              supposed to end), she too might not be left with only compiled 
              memories of clues, announcements, intimations, but never 
              the central truth itself, which must somehow each time be too 
              bright for her memory to hold; which must always blaze out, 
              destroying its own message irreversibly, leaving an 
              overexposed blank when the ordinary world came back. In the 
              space of a sip of dandelion wine it came to her that she would 
              never know how many times such a seizure may already have 
              visited, or how to grasp it should it visit again. Perhaps even in 
              this last second---but there was no way to tell. She glanced down 
              the corridor of Cohen's rooms in the rain and saw, for the very 
              first time, how far it might be possible to get lost in this. 

I like fog. . . .

           Mason nods, gazing past the little Harbor, out to Sea. 
           None of his business where Maskelyne goes, or 
           comes,---God let it remain so. The Stars wheel into 
           the blackness of the broken steep Hills guarding the 
           Mouth of the Valley. Fog begins to stir against the 
           Day swelling near. Among the whiten'd Rock Walls 
           of the Houses seethes a great Whisper of Living Voice.
           Mason & Dixon, pg 125

and rain. . . .

           . . . .if you're talking about texts ABOUT Paganism, then 
           late Neoplatonic theurgy and late Classical material 
           provide some of the earliest material--we're referring to 
           the writings of Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus, among 
           others. In their search for the most ancient sources of Pagan 
           "theory" or history, most Pagans today don't look at 
           Neoplatonism. When modern Pagans look for their Pagan 
           ancestors, they pretty much restrict their search to tribal 
           peoples living in the woods of Western Europe. The 
           Neoplatonic theurgists, on the other hand, were highly 
           educated, urban, intellectual Pagans--the end products of a 
           Pagan academic system spanning over two thousand years. 
           There's an Arabic connection here as well; one I've written 
           about at some length in an article called: "Harran: Last Refuge 
           of Classical Paganism." [see appendix]. I am also in the 
           process of organizing a symposium on this at UC Berkeley 
           for Spring 2002. 

           Julian (called "the Apostate"), the last Pagan Emperor of Rome, 
           was a Neoplatonist. In his attempt to revitalize Paganism in the 
           Roman Empire, he asked his friend, the philosopher Sallustius, 
           to prepare a sort of "catechism" of Paganism. Titled On the 
           Gods and the World, this is a marvelous book of Pagan 
           theology and it is usually overlooked by modern Pagans. It is 
           filled with wonderful pithy statements. Speaking of myths, for 
           example, Sallustius says, "Now these things never happened, 
           but always are." In fact, Gerald Gardner commended the teaching 
           of Sallustius for "its startling modernity--it might have been spoken 
           yesterday. Further, it might have been spoken at a witch meeting, 
           at any time, as a general statement of their creed." So, Gardner 
           himself said that this Neoplatonic "catechism" described the beliefs 
           of the witch group he joined. In the terms I used before, if Celtic 
           shamanism is the shape of modern Craft, then late Neoplatonic 
           theurgy is the clay out of which it has been shaped.
           Don Frew, from : 

http://www.researchpubs.com/books/mpex_frew.php 

           In this essay, I will comment on the way in which one group of 
           Neoplatonic mystics, the theurgists, resolved the tension 
           between their belieg that divinity was transcendent and their 
           desire to understand their mystical experiences by developing 
           the idea that divinity consisted of fiery light. . . .
           The Presence of Light: 
           Divine Radiance and Religious Experience 
           By Matthew Kapstein, pg. 6

           http://tinyurl.com/ypyzcz
           http://tinyurl.com/yrfq9t

           Ahura Mazda, whose name means "wise lord," was the most 
           important god in ancient Persian mythology. When the religion 
           known as Zoroastrianism became widespread in Persia around 
           600 B.C., Ahura Mazda became its supreme deity. The Persians 
           considered him to be the creator of earth, the heavens, and 
           humankind, as well as the source of all goodness and happiness 
           on earth. He was known to later Zoroastrians as Ohrmazd.

           Ahura Mazda appears in Persian art and texts as a bearded man 
           wearing a robe covered with stars. Dwelling high in heaven, he had 
           the sun for an eye. In the Zoroastrian religion, Ahura Mazda was 
           associated with light and fire, the emblems of truth, goodness, and 
           wisdom. He created six divine beings, or angels, to help him spread 
           goodness and govern the universe. One of the most important 
           angels was Ahsa Vahishta ("Excellent Order" or "Truth"), the patron 
           of fire and spirit of justice. Vohu Manah ("Good Mind") was a symbol 
           of love and sacred wisdom who welcomed souls to paradise.

           The early Zoroastrians had a dualistic system of belief in which two 
           opposing and equal forces—good and evil—battled for control of 
           the world. Ahura Mazda (originally called Spenta Mainyu) 
           represented light, truth, and goodness. His great enemy was his 
           twin brother, Angra Mainyu (also known as Ahriman), the god of 
           darkness, anger, and death. Later Zoroastrians considered Ahura 
           Mazda to be the more powerful force, who would ultimately triumph 
           over the evil Ahriman.

http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/A-Am/Ahura-Mazda.html

Move over you dusty philosophers and virgin men of the cloth
there is room in that post-modern grave for the scientist
too. But waita minute, maybe this has nothing to do with 
philosophy orscience, or theology itself, perhaps the "gap in 
human understanding" is not a gap at all but only one way of
looking at the world.   

What happened to the "Platonic Creed" in the christian
medieval world?  

This a question implicit at least, in GR. 

 Wasn't it in part subordinated to the orthodox (the
biblical) creationist ideas of Augustine, Anselm, and
Bonaventure and to the various strains of Neoplatonic
thought that reiterated Plotinus's idea of the ONE and
Aquinas's reflexivity? 


Also, that white folk law stuff, wow, what nonsense, the so
called "Platonic Creed" is not unique to the West.  What
would a Confuscian say about all this?  

I-ching feet for this one anybody? 

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0007&msg=47156&keywords=Neoplatonic%20theurgy

          Theosophy is the name Blavatsky gave to that portion 
          of knowledge that she brought from the masters to the 
          world. It comes from the term "Theosophia" used by 
          the Neoplatonists to mean literally "knowledge of the 
          divine".
 
http://www.blavatsky.net/
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0705&msg=118313&keywords=Neoplatonic%20theurgy

          It is an irony that the man who bequeathed a Neoplatonic world 
          view to the West also gave us a way of conceptualizing human 
          history that is at odds with some of its most basic contours. In 
          the Greco-Roman world in general and in Neoplatonism in 
          particular, the importance of history is largely in the cyclical 
          patterns that forge the past, present, and future into a continuous 
          whole, emphasizing what is repeated and common over what is 
          idiosyncratic and unique. In Augustine, we find a conception of 
          human history that in effect reverses this schema by providing a 
          linear account which presents history as the dramatic unfolding 
          of a morally decisive set of non-repeatable events.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/#6
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0708&msg=120768&keywords=Neoplatonic%20theurgy