VL-IV pgs. 98/99: Postmodern Mysticism

[Simon Bryquer]

Once upon a time in New York City on Fourth Avenue below 14th Street was an 
area known as 'Rare Book Row of America'.  In actuality both sides of the 
avenue was lined with second-hand, rare bookstores. But the time I got there 
in the late Sixties it's golden age was gone but still many bookstores 
remained.  One the last remaining one was the Pageant which was featured in 
quite a few movies, the one that comes to mind is Woody Allen's 'Hannah and 
Her Sisters' --- the scene with Michael Caine and Barbara Hersey. The 
Pageant closed in the early 90's from it's last location on 9th St and 4th. 
Anyway to the point, one of those bookstores was Samuel Weiser's, which I 
believe was founded in the 1920's and then run by his son Donald, and had 
over the years evolved in to specializing in rare, secondhand, and 
out-of-print books on the occult, mysticism, and comparative religion. and 
since had moved many times and since, I believe disappeared to Boston. But 
when I first frequented the store it was located on Broadway and Waverly. 
They also became a publisher of reprint in this area. In the late Sixties 
Weiser's sold a chart which consisted of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life where 
all the connecting paths between the Sefiroths was illustrated with one of 
the Waite Tarot deck of the major Arcana. That is 22, also the number of 
letters of the Hebrew alphabet. BTW Weiser's re-publisher an extremely 
interesting book on the Kabbalah by an American of the late 19th century 
living in Philadephia.  Keep in mind that very people had even heard of 
Kabbalah in the US least of all in Philly. Anyway the man's name is Isaac 
Myer's 'Qabbalah: The Philosophical Writing of Avicebron.  And subtitled 
among many others : The Hebrew Qabbalah and Sepher Zohar,The Vedic 
Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, and the Vedantas, the Book Called I Ching, 
the Chinese Qabbalah and on and on with illustrations. All that in 1988 
Philly.

I reread those pages which Heikki provided -- thank you. BTW I haven't 
opened GR in such a long time that he began to fall apart on me --- have to 
get a new copy but this one holds special value and meaning to me -- it was 
mailed to me when I was living on Mallorca, not in Palma. First Pynchon 
merely describes the images/illustration of the Tarot and in the case of the 
Kabbalistic interpretation of Weismann he describes the Tarot cards as 
illustrated on this chart, such as the path between Netzach/Victory and 
Hod/Glory also known as Splendor. Weissman's cards are in the formation of 
the mystic cross.  Pynchon  describes these very dramatically as well as 
with humor. Pynchon essentially gives a Tarot reading. I will not at this 
time give a Tarot reading of this formation because it is of no interest for 
me to do so, nor should I say  I believe, yours.

When Pynchon speaks of "another deep
> nudge from forces unseen" he is pointing both to mysticism in general  and 
> how mysticism is viewed by the Zoyd Wheelers of the world, a post- hippie 
> world where "what's yer sign?" is the second question you might  receive 
> from a stranger and the I Ching would be an expected part of  your 
> toolkit.

Granted, but who layed out the Tarot cards that leads to the Weismann 
reading?  Was it some unknown Tarot card reader, or is the ever changing 
narrator who probably does subscribe to your above description or is Pynchon 
himself employing a literary device as a knowlegeable voice above it all in 
on the true power or lack thereof of the Tarot and Kabbalah.

Though what you are saying concerning the disconnect between
> the Tarot and Kabbalah is no doubt true within the circles of your own 
> involvement, within the circles that Pynchon describes in Gravity's 
> Rainbow and [especially] Against the Day the connection of  Kabbalah  and 
> Tarot is very much the point.

I did not evaluate Pynchon's knowledge of Kabbalah based on what is 
acceptable to me in this realm, I merely followed his story and his using 
this leitmotive and not whether he spoke for all these 'Wild Talents' but 
when playing with these mystic toys what did Pynchon know and how much did 
really know in order to play his chosen literary fugues.

Simon Bryquer


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robin Landseadel" <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: VL-IV pgs. 98/99: Postmodern Mysticism


> The more I look at the term "Postmodern Mysticism" the more it seems  to 
> nail the issue on the head. When Pynchon speaks of "another deep  nudge 
> from forces unseen" he is pointing both to mysticism in general  and how 
> mysticism is viewed by the Zoyd Wheelers of the world, a post- hippie 
> world where "what's yer sign?" is the second question you might  receive 
> from a stranger and the I Ching would be an expected part of  your 
> toolkit. Looking at definitions of mysticism it seems that many  of 
> Pynchon's writings are concerned with that subject in a rather  specific 
> fashion.
>
> Back in the mid-eighties I lived with a pair who gave lessons in the 
> Tarot and Kabbalah via a group called "Builders of the Adytum" or 
> B.O.T.A. Though what you are saying concerning the disconnect between  the 
> Tarot and Kabbalah is no doubt true within the circles of your own 
> involvement, within the circles that Pynchon describes in Gravity's 
> Rainbow and [especially] Against the Day the connection of  Kabbalah  and 
> Tarot is very much the point. The "White Visitation" is filled  with 
> ex-pats from the Golden Dawn and other mystically inclined groups  formed 
> in the wake of the theosophists. Pynchon gets really deep [in  his 
> uniquely superficial way] into the history of these mystical  movements in 
> Against the Day, further providing the backdrop for the  events in 
> Gravity's Rainbow. Light and Illumination are the central  themes of 
> Against the Day, where Pynchon points out that the real  revolutions in 
> physics at the time where in the spheres of the  electromagnetic energy 
> and of light itself, and that illumination was  a spiritual pursuit of 
> many of the characters in AtD. Spiritual  Illumination so blinding that it 
> destroys the observer is a constant  theme in all of Pynchon's books.
>
> It appears that Pynchon usually cites the Rider/Waite deck when  pointing 
> to the cards, getting down to particulars in AtD. But I  detect the 
> influence of Crowley's  commentaries in "Book of Thoth" in  Pynchon's 
> "Weissman's Tarot" episode.
>
> On Jan 19, 2009, at 3:39 PM, Simon Bryquer wrote:
>
>> my intention was not to address the subject of Postmodern Mysticism,  a 
>> term which comes close to an oxymoron,
>
>