Pynchon & Religion

[Madeleine Maudlin]

Well, I don't know if Pynchon's ever noticed this, but the Lion of St. mark
is a Sphinx.  And we don't need to be reminded that that leads us
inevitable (French) to Sumer, since so much of the Old Testament is
derived, extracted, stolen, thereof.  But, which, anyway, would get to a
strain much more interesting in Pynchon according to my brain, say Fourth
Dynasty tarot readings and the Book of the Dead  and the Beings from
Beyond, that's not even to mention the Sumerian *highlands*...

Speaking of which (does that phrase even make any sense?), speaking of the
Mysteries, and the Kykeot initiations...I'm personally quite interested in
psychedelic research, the higher dimensions of which, and it has occurred
to me, somebody may of recent have pointed out their supposed experiential
opinion of how even the likes of Pynchon could not describe the complex
illuminations seen therein, or up there, wherever one goes, over the Moon
(does anybody but me get the odd feeling that fucker's fake?), that the
world, in this dimension, not to mention string theory, might be of
greatness benefited by a decent description of *what is seen* there, in?
Has the Old Man ventured any such account?

On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 1:12 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Pynchon explores Mark's gospel and closeness as another subplot and theme
> in a few places in AtD,
> we remember....p.250...and a couple other places I've already forgotten....
>
>    *From:* Alex Colter <recoignishon at gmail.com>
> *To:* pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> *Sent:* Monday, July 23, 2012 12:11 PM
> *Subject:* Re: Pynchon & Religion
>
> I am going to assume that this began upon her reading that I was
> interested in Frank Kermode's Genesis of Secrecy, which examines CoL49
> alongside the Book of Mark. It is important to stress the startling
> differences between Mark's Gospel and Matthew's. In Mark the Apostles are
> hopelessly inept, they are the Birds that devour the seed in Christ's
> Parable of the Sower, and none of them know Christ's true Identity as the
> Son of God. It is believed that the later Synoptic Gospels sought to amend
> these flaws, and endowed the Apostles with a bit more understanding, but I
> am ever in sympathy with Mark's Gospel (the earliest to be written) and do
> not believe, as many Christians nowadays do, that we have a special vantage
> point with which to see Mark's Christ, as if peering over the heads of his
> apostles...
>
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 11:08 AM, Alex Colter <recoignishon at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> ahem, forgive me '*Madeleine'*
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 11:06 AM, Alex Colter <recoignishon at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> Continued from Madeline's post in the Pynchon Lit. thread, cause I figure
> it would be more appropriate to start a different one...
> We can't escape it so let us try to keep the discussion focused on the
> works of Pynchon and what they indicate, while keeping our own beliefs
> along the margins.
>
> We know Pynchon was raised Catholic, and, inasmuch as anything Jules says
> can be trusted, continued to go to Confession while at Cornell.
> There we begin to loose him, biographically speaking, and must resort to
> his Novels.
> I am inclined to agree with Madeline that the greatest writers among us
> have rarely been 'Christian' 'Jewish' or 'Muslim' in anything but
> upbringing, such Institutions seem to be downright hostile towards anything
> called imaginative thought.
> I am inclined to draw the closest portrait of Pynchon's Religious Views (a
> phrase that makes me bored just typing it) in Cherrycoke's wonderful
> narration. One thing is obvious, that Cherrycoke, despite his own attempts
> to make himself appear so, is anything but orthodox, and often waxes into
> Gnostic Thought, which was experiencing a revival amidst the so-called Era
> of Enlightenment.
> I would include among the institutions of Christianity, Judaism, and
> Islam, the institution of Deism, now known by its proper name Atheism, as
> being downright hostile towards anything called imaginative thought.
> I am inclined to believe Pynchon is something of an imaginative Skeptic in
> his literature, and is careful to censor himself whenever he approaches a
> sort of 'Gnosis' therein.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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