rubrics (I like that word), wrecking crews and hugfests

[Richard Fiero]

kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>In GR, there are explicit scenes of occultism, i.e. the seance 
>scenes, but there are also scenes that involve the overlap of the 
>occult and the spiritual: thinking specifically of Pirate's 
>channeling of other people's thoughts.  Then there's brigadier 
>Pudding's tome [excuse me if I don't have it quite right], "Things 
>That May Happen In European Politics," and the uncertainty of 
>exactly where those V-2s will land.  What all of these aspects have 
>in common, whether based on silliness, spirituality or the 
>scientific method, is that they're desperate, failed attempts to 
>predict what will happen in the future.  The one tried and true, 
>always right predictor is Slothrop's libido -- no wonder THEY're after him.
>
>Seances, mental sensitivity, historical analysis, the laws of 
>physics (based on probability, not certainty) -- it all reads like a 
>catalog of our failure to fully understand where we're headed.  I 
>don't take it, though, that Pynchon's laughing at Pirate -- aren't 
>we meant to take his abilities at face value? - or downplaying the 
>ability of rockets to inflict mass destruction.  By extrapolation, 
>is he really laughing at the seances or even Pudding's attempts at 
>prediction [even the latter's eating habits are connected to the war 
>he's lived through]?
>
>Laura
. . .
Before the magazine "Psychology Today," New Age and the inundation of 
self-help racks at every newsstand there was something else:
Evans-Wentz translation of the Bardo Thodol with an intro by Jung.
Wilhelm translation of the I Ching with a foreward by Jung.
Heinrich Zimmer's Philosophies of India. Edited by Joseph Campbell. (1953)
(Wilhelm and Zimmer later became close friends of Jung.)
DT Suzuki "An Introduction to Zen Buddhism" with a thirty page 
commentary by Jung.
Alan Watts " . . . instincts were closer to Jung's or Abraham 
Maslow's than to those of Freud."
Joseph Campbell edited the first papers from Jung's annual Eranos conferences
Mircea Eliade who collaborated with Carl Jung and the Eranos circle.
Jung supposed that the Major Arcana might represent some archetypes.
The stuff was standard fare late 50's well into the 60's.
It is the real pop culture.