Rich Engle

Hello, All- As you know, OH was the major "swing state" in the last presidential election. This swing in favor of GWB was heavily dependent upon the work of a very disturbing and well-developed evangelical movement called The Ohio Reformation Project www.reformationohio.org They were also instrumental in putting through a gay marriage ban in OH. These folks are now positioning OH sec-of-state Ken Blackwell for the governor's spot, and riding in on a blaze of fire and brimstone. They are highly mobilized and effective. The head misguided Christian brother behind all this is named Rod Parsley, here are a couple scary sites to enjoy: www.centerformoralclarity.net and his yet scarier www.breakthrough.net The rhetoric of dominionists is very frightening. They have no desire to "rehabilitate" the existing structures, but rather have every intention of tearing them down. I bring all this up because this movement is not limited to OH, by any means. When talking about activism, this is on the short list, and any kind of work is good work. For any Objectivists or Libertarians who have freethinking Christian friends, one tangible thing you can do is very simple: have them visit the Christian Alliance for Progress site (www.christianalliance.org) and, if they agree with it, sign their "Jacksonville Declaration". This is a key way of getting grass roots presence in various states. Take a look at the sites I provided, they are chilling. Everything is about fighting the devil (that would be you). best, rde

I was reading MSK's last post and got thinking after he mentioned "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." An excellent book that gets down to the primal stuff, and how it worked in "B" movie culture is Stephen King's Danse Macabre http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/042510433...glance&n=283155 It's worth mentioning just from the standpoint of how such a successful novelist as King views and incorporates those kinds of elements into his writing. Another interesting thing about it is that it is one of his very few non-fiction pieces. rde

...simply how you do it! Thanks! rde

Sometimes I think that Hunter started dying after Nixon did. Nixon was arguably his life's work. I like most anything he ever submitted to Rolling Stone, that's where this essay appeared. The man had a way with words. Major influence on my writing. I have always shared Thompson's obsessive interest in Nixon, I'm not sure why. I remember finding him, er, peculiar, even when I was a child, watching him on B/W TV. Nixon the misogynist. Nixon the Quaker (heavens- a plague on the Quaker roots in my Unitarian tradition).

That article strikes me as entirely possible. And, I'm not sure he's the first president that has said something like this. The difference is, he seems to get a lot more mileage out of it. I think this requires an interlude. Since a fair amount of OL is dedicated to creative writing, I suggest dual-purpose. Here is a link where one can revisit Hunter Thompson's Nixon eulogy, aptly titled "He Was A Crook." Aside from being a great look at another, er, "odd" President, it's some of Hunter's best latter-period writing. I loved watching him work. Even if you don't agree with the politics, this one is a winner. http://liberalavenger.com/2005/02/hunter-s...xons-death.html Enjoy, rde

First off, I am not a technical philosopher, but it is not entirely unfamiliar to me. My thoughts lie both in the technical, and social, or "we" aspect of things. Mainly, though, my concern lies with how Objectivism views empiricism, and modes of knowing. There appears to be mixed use of narrow and (occasionally, if you look at it one way, and constantly, if you look at it the way I do)broad empiricism, but mostly narrow. Narrow empiricism, from what I can see, is not only narrow, but self-invalidating. The narrowness means confining experience to the sensorimotor level, only. There is no acknowledgement of any other form of experience, even though an interior process is used to make that assessment. There is a selective process, choosing which kind of interior experience is "valid," and which are not. But, just as scientific method can be applied at the sensorimotor level (by scientific method, I mean an injunction or action, followed by an interior process formulating a representation or result, followed by a reproduction of the same result, preferably by another party), it can and is applied at the other interior levels. But none of this is of any consequence unless Objectivism accepts the existence of other levels of knowing than evidence of the senses, which is but one form of knowing. It should be able to do this since it is already making use of an interior process (knowledge process, epistemology- which does not have a specific location like the data sensorimotor knowledge delivers). It is entirely possible (and expectable) to apply scientific method (which I have given in three basic pieces) to other modes of knowing outside of the sensorimotor mode. For instance, in spirituality, I would expect that first, in order to access that way of knowing, something has to be done (an injunction), which in that case involves contemplation, a disciplined approach to the contemplative mode, and then, to be able to interpret, compare, and reproduce (by teaching, for instance) the same results. Instead of this, Objectivism seem to dismiss the interior mode (while making use of an interior mode, of course) because it is not sensorimotor-based, therefore does not exist. Just as spirituality needs to make concessions (such as admitting that the primary use of myth and miracle is for power), so does science, and any philosophy that runs off of a narrow empirical base. Classical empiricism, it is widely agreed, has been dead for a long time. By using broad empiricism (applying the three essentials of scientific method to not only sensorimotor-based experiences, but to the internal, non-specifically located ones), science and spirituality can work more on parity with one another. And, of course, religion will come more in line with the modern environment, if it is stripped of its non-essential (and largely harmful) baggage. On the behavioral level, on the street level, Objectivists have a fairly big set of problems to deal with. One is small numbers. Another is constant infighting (sometimes even on get-acquainted-new-potential Objectivist boards, in the course of answering a newcomer's questions). A third is a tendency toward built-in contempt for any non-atheist person, or, for that matter, anyone that acknowledges levels of apprehending reality that have developed beyond (but include) sensorimotor experience (again, though, not including itself in this).

HAH! If I had written that, I'd be toying with the idea of where to post it... Yes, it's got a fair amount of spin on it, that's for sure. I'm interested in the genetic aspect, it would be interesting to see that developed more. There are a number of things you can look at on the biological level, but I never saw much about geneology. I'd be interested in, for instance, comparing stats on people possessing that gene with numbers on epileptic-type conditions.

Now that's funny for me because I saw the portrait at least a couple of years before the photo. And when I did see the photo, I was sure that's where the portrait must have come from. I wasn't thinking blonde, either. rde

The New Year: How I Saw Ritual Trump Resolution by Rich Engle I have no criticism of making New Year's resolutions; basically, through all the clutter, my opinion is down to "if it feels good, do it." I'm jaded by it, and I don't know anyone that isn't. It might be the one topic in western civilization that we all understand fully; all the permutations are written, all the data has been uncovered. Being as I am the life of any party and generally a hot date all-around, I made a related comment to my wife Vivian on this last New Year's Eve, which this time consisted of no more than hanging out together in our bedroom (which was just fine). I said: "You know, this whole New Year thing really doesn't mean jack-shit to me." Fortunately, she's used to my consistently postive, upbeat style, and how facile I am at providing this kind of thing (which is about as much fun to experience as being a stray dog walked into a decompression chamber), and pretty much ignored me. Vivian seems to understand the difference between when I'm talking smack, and really talking. Being that Jan. 1 was a Sunday, and we were not among the recovering, we went to our UU church for service, mainly because we knew that our minister, Rev. Nicole Kirk, was delivering the next of what would be two sermons before she left on sabbatical, to finish her doctoral process at Princeton. We geniunely feel like we are missing out on something if we miss her sermons, because she is a cutting-edge academic theologian, and generally a scary-bad intellectual "spirit in the material world" kind of person. I noticed that she had this giant copper tea kettle sitting in front of the altar, with a large 4-wick candle in front of it. This is different from a normal UU setup, which is pretty spare but for a chalice that gets lit before each service (there are no crosses or anything like that in a UU church, because it is a pluralistic community). Things progressed, and it came to the point of address. She says something like "I very often hear people talking about how the New Year doesn't really mean anything, and it's the same thing with New Year's resolutions. But, I think there is something to it, because there have been many different practices built around the New Year going back to the beginning of human history." She then went on to point out the various different calendar types, celebrations, and so on. A quick history lesson. Of course, at that point I was thinking about what came out of my mouth only the evening before, and that thinking involved considering how sometimes I can be a little quick and shallow about things. She continued. We are going to do something that has not been done here in 8 years, mainly because the last time we did it your minister got scared. What we are going to do is take a couple of minutes and contemplate; contemplate what things we would like to let go of, here and now, going into the New Year; things that are of no use to us, or are harmful. After that time, she had people pass around baskets that had pens in one, slips of paper in the other. If we chose to participate, we could write those things down. People everywhere started writing, and she sat up there and wrote as well. Then, we could go up there, light the slip on fire (carefully) and put it in the kettle. Now, this is a very basic kind of ritual, and on the surface one might even find it mundane. But, for one, there were about 60 people sitting there, as a community, and that is a very different feel from what it would be were one doing this solo. A little trepidation, a little feeling of silliness, even. My interest was to see who was going to make the first move. This was a very wide range of types and age ranges. There was an awkward moment of non-action. There is a young girl there, who is a very joyous, innocent kind of free spirit; she has a wonderful demeanor that you just don't see that often in youth. I can't imagine what kind of baggage a kid like that could accumulate at all, but that just proves the point. She looked around the room, walked right down the middle, and lit her paper. After that, it was pretty much take a number and get in line. Nicole sat there, smiling and making eye contact with each of us as we went. After we all did it, she lit hers, and put it in there. When it was done, she said "Isn't it funny how something as simple as that can make you feel so much better? For those of you who are concerned about them not burning all the way, this will all go in my fireplace." Then she looked inside the kettle, and said "actually, they've all taken care of each other in there." I don't know if she planned to say that, or it just came to her, but you don't have to be the sharpest tool in the shed to grasp the deeper meaning of that statement. And I have to admit, it did make me feel better. Not only that, but I think it worked. This was not magic, this was not supernatural. There are a couple of things I will say about it. For one, the feeling of doing it, within a group setting, was different- it was a mix of mild discomfort and great comfort. Secondly, what it points to is that rituals (or practices, or exercises, if you prefer) such as these will produce the desired effect, if they are infused with the right meaning. Lastly, I found much greater value, and less trouble with this ritual (which was essentially a very basic purification ritual)than I would have with a resolution. Rituals, myth, symbols, and storytelling hold their origins far in advance of modernity, and their value remains, if we choose to understand and integrate them, rather than simply discard them.

Jody- Yes, T.S. could turn a beautiful phrase. It might provide you some additional insight on T.S. if you look at him in context of the Romantics, and what they were trying (in a noble, but ultimately flawed way) to achieve. T.S.'s wastelands, his hollow men, were commentary on the negative aspects of modernity (yes, there are negative aspects to modernity that can be looked at. What he was reacting to was the flatland that was created- things being reduced to empirical "its", the truth of science without the meaning, the strong sense of feeling provided by the interior dimensions. The same with people, who in business were beginning to be referred to as assets rather than individuals. One place where Romanticism (at least the extreme versions of it) failed was in the solution, which they thought was to revert back to some supposedly better time in past history- the "noble savage" thing. Devolution. Instead of evolving, moving forward, they were looking to revert to a pre-rational state. This is a fallacious approach no matter what stage or type of evolution you are talking about. The obvious proof of that is what happens if you took that all the way back- eventually you would simply be dealing with emergent properties. The better solution to reclaim the losses that modernity brought on along with its many great gains would involve moving forward. This was what postmodernity attempted, but in the extreme schools, all they did was dissociate from rationality, rather than build off of it. Jeez, Louise!

I'm going to use this quote to death, before I can roll it out as the beginning of the article that I damn well better finish for Mr. Kelly (if that's his reeeel name, hmmmmm? :-$ "Philosophy is largely a clash of temperaments."- William James What is the mean (statistical mean) temperament of Objectivists? Or, better put, what is the one dysfunction that sticks out and dilutes the many virtues? How about "repression"? "Spit it out, man!", you say... alright, then. Evolution exists on all levels of reality. Successful evolution transcends, but includes and embraces its origin. It differentiates, it does not dissociate. Dissociation=pathology (use cancer cells for example) Objectivism is based on reason/rationality, an evolved-into state. Objectivism rejects all things irrational, including the pre-rational state from whence it came. (Dissociation) Pathological results: repressive behavior. End of chalk-talk. rde

I agree with the "narrow" part, Roger. But I'm a musician to the bone, and in that kind of instance, what with your background, achievements and all, the question that comes to my mind is why he wouldn't be the least bit curious. I guess it's the eclectic in me, I would've been thinking "Well, he clearly isn't sporting a mohawk, and I don't think his aesthetic would be anywhere near Nine Inch Nails, or Korn, or even Megadeath...let's give it a turn, what the Hell<tm>." But that's me. Send me the fucker, I'll listen to it, and you'll be down twelve bucks. Or, you can wait until later this year, when the new On The Air CD gets done and we'll indulge in trader mentality... :-({|= Oh well, you can't be having an at-gunpoint audience (I've tried that, and they always seem to have more guns than we do, especially in the west side bars). I'll betcha Nathaniel will listen to mine if I send him one... nyah-nyah, nyah nyah-nyah :D/

Welcome and greetings, John! Yes, the doing thing. Regardless of how we look at Being, as Joseph Campbell once said: "The action is down here." Being a Unitarian Universalist, I am more concerned with useful purposes in life than anything else... To reply to your observation about partial evidence: This is clearly true in some cases. In some of them, there is pathology involved. One reason I wrote this article is because, in Objectivism, at least, the term "mysticism" is a blanket one, and in my view it serves little purpose outside of the O'ist community, where it functions just fine, given the structure of the philosophy. My goal was to focus specifically on the experiencial level, rather than mysticism just being anything that is not "it-science," something that cannot be apprehended on the empirical level, the monological level. So, I found it useful to narrow my focus by not talking about things like superstition, for instance, when I talked about mysticism. If you are interested in some of what is behind where I am coming from, it is good to know that my conception of reality differs (but includes much of) that of Objectivism, so that when you say "evidence," for me it is something different than only empirical evidence (the "it" view), and includes the interior dimensions (the "I" and "we" views) along with it. I have adopted and am in total agreement with the work of Ken Wilber on this, which can best be quickly represented in his AQAL model, shown here: http://www.formlessmountain.com/KW-WTC/foo...notes/aqal.html It is almost impossible to avoid mission creep here, but I will try. In solid debate terms, one place where dialogue with Objectivists shows limitation for me is that, in addition to (in my view) an overly-wide application of the word "mysticism," they also do something similar when proclaiming something to be "irrational," or non-evidence-based. That is because I believe that the process of evolution (any kind of evolution) is one of inclusion, not dissociation. Ideally, it transcends, but includes all the essential elements of that from which it came. Rationality evolved out of the pre-rational state (sensation, imagery, intense feelings), but if it does not embrace or include them, the result is dissociation, a.k.a. pathology. If you look at biology and apply the same example, you will see where this is coming from. There is no sign that evolution stops, and this is so when we look at the evolution from pre-rational to rational. What comes next would be the "transrational" state, which transcends, but includes rationality. And here is where I think we get to it- Objectivism, so far as I can tell, does not distinguish between the pre- and trans- rational states. As a matter of fact, it does not recognize the transrational state as existing at all. Rationality is where the line of evolution seems to end with Objectivism. The transrational state (which could be reasonably and understandably thought of by some as a kind of "mystical" state) is not developed through monological knowing, as useful as that type of thinking is. It is developed mainly through disciplined practices such as meditation (contemplative knowing), at least if one wants something that can be repeatable and experiencally transferrable. But again, even something that is experiencially transferrable does not qualify as "evidence" in Objectivism, because it comes out of the interior dimensions. A few comments on general perception of things mystical. When talking about mysticism, first pictures people often have involve things they have noticed in the world, the symbology, the art, the writing, and so on. This is the sphere of art, and in human history there has been a lot of it. For the most part, it is pretty exotic stuff- take mandalas, for instance. This is the stuff of the "we" section the interior dimension- what Wilber calls the "Left Hand of the Kosmos." This includes all kinds of "magical" looking stuff, and of course Objectivists, scientific materialists, hardcore moderns in general despise all this and think it is pretty much irrational crap. There is an understanding that can be applied to this kind of art; it is that things such as these are often, very often, designed as tools of contemplation- their purpose is to act as aids toward moving into the contemplative state of knowing. There are many varieties of mystical experience, but two things they all seem to have in common, as James pointed out, is that they are of limited duration, and something of the experience permanently remains afterward. It might be possible to account for the brief duration by assuming that many, probably most, of the people that had the experiences were not in possession of a tool, a yoga, for achieving the sustained and repeatable transrational state I mentioned above. Best Regards, rde

You know, that just says if effing all, Roger. About the only person on the planet that really has a reason to be that shitty in that situation is a record company guy. I know because I used to do that for an indie. There's a point where you can't stand the sight of a new CD. Outside of that, though, what's to lose? How hard would it have been to say "Thanks for the kind words, and if you wish, do send me a CD." I really need to watch my thoughts. I was thinking of the right term for him in that situation, it involved an early form of feminine hygiene product that dispensed liquid.

I come from hillbillies, so this probably hits me harder than most. Well now, Michael, that explains some of why I like you so much... Both sides of the family, all the way back- Ozarks. Mountain View, to be precise, which is hillwhack ground-zero, being that that is where the Ozark folk center was built. I wonder if we are related- do you ever feel the need to chase your housepets or siblings around when you are feeling randy? Thank Gawd<tm> they got out of there before they had me, or I fear my life would involve either being bent over logs, or banjo playing rather than guitar. Reading, yes... Ken Wilber's The Marriage of Sense and Spirit, right now. In between I continue my quest to finish the collected works of William James. Vivian has a copy of Christiane Northrup's Mother Daughter Wisdom that she is devouring. Joseph Campbell's Myths to Live By Picking through sections of Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy only because I used to have it and I found a pristine hardback for 5 bucks. The Gnostic Scriptures, the first two days involving learning how to read translator markings Weird Ohio, which is a very fun book I got for Xmas (they have one for every state, and let me tell you, this is big fun when you don't want to get all heavied up. I think that's about it... rde effed up the bold face, but too lazy to change it right now.

This ought to be good for a few turns around the dance floor: http://tinyurl.com/3lkbf 'God gene' discovered by scientist Dr Dean Hamer By Elizabeth Day (Filed: 14/11/2004) Religious belief is determined by a person's genetic make-up according to a study by a leading scientist. After comparing more than 2,000 DNA samples, an American molecular geneticist has concluded that a person's capacity to believe in God is linked to brain chemicals. His findings were criticised last night by leading clerics, who challenge the existence of a "god gene" and say that the research undermines a fundamental tenet of faith - that spiritual enlightenment is achieved through divine transformation rather than the brain's electrical impulses. Dr Dean Hamer, the director of the Gene Structure and Regulation Unit at the National Cancer Institute in America, asked volunteers 226 questions in order to determine how spiritually connected they felt to the universe. The higher their score, the greater a person's ability to believe in a greater spiritual force and, Dr Hamer found, the more likely they were to share the gene, VMAT2. Studies on twins showed that those with this gene, a vesicular monoamine transporter that regulates the flow of mood-altering chemicals in the brain, were more likely to develop a spiritual belief. Growing up in a religious environment was said to have little effect on belief. Dr Hamer, who in 1993 claimed to have identified a DNA sequence linked to male homosexuality, said the existence of the "god gene" explained why some people had more aptitude for spirituality than others. "Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus all shared a series of mystical experiences or alterations in consciousness and thus probably carried the gene," he said. "This means that the tendency to be spiritual is part of genetic make-up. This is not a thing that is strictly handed down from parents to children. It could skip a generation - it's like intelligence." His findings, published in a book, The God Gene: How Faith Is Hard-Wired Into Our Genes, were greeted sceptically by many in the religious establishment. The Rev Dr John Polkinghorne, a fellow of the Royal Society and a Canon Theologian at Liverpool Cathedral, said: "The idea of a god gene goes against all my personal theological convictions. You can't cut faith down to the lowest common denominator of genetic survival. It shows the poverty of reductionist thinking." The Rev Dr Walter Houston, the chaplain of Mansfield College, Oxford, and a fellow in theology, said: "Religious belief is not just related to a person's constitution; it's related to society, tradition, character - everything's involved. Having a gene that could do all that seems pretty unlikely to me." Dr Hamer insisted, however, that his research was not antithetical to a belief in God. He pointed out: "Religious believers can point to the existence of god genes as one more sign of the creator's ingenuity - a clever way to help humans acknowledge and embrace a divine presence."

I read TF immediately after AS. I adored the Roark character. I'm kind of happy I read those two books out of sequence like that. TF was perfect in length and overall tightness after reading AS. I mean, I started reading it about 3 days after I finished AS, which was done as a marathon- any free moment available, in ten days. I was happy-tired at the end of it. I enjoyed the isolated, pure-purpose feel of his character. Everything he did was tight and focused. A lot of my resonance came from where I was at that time- I was writing and playing in a progressive/avante garde group, we were writing very complicated instrumental compositions, yet we were being booked with everything but that kind of thing. It was like Mahavishnu Orchestra opening up for The Sex Pistols- sometimes we took a lot of flak. So, the whole idea of sticking to your artistic principles really worked for me. I saw the movie for the first time not long after I read the book, and I was a little let down, but I still enjoyed the Roark character- that seemed to play through what I thought was a rather stilted movie. I wish someone would remake that film. It would probably be a heck of a lot easier to take on than Atlas Shrugged, which I fear will not ever get done until long after I go to dust.

Hi, Ciro! "Philosophy," William James wrote, "is largely a clash of temperaments." Never have I believed that more than this particular moment... 8) rde

Hello, Barbara! It sure is great to see you here! best, Rich

"No one is coming." I saw him work that like a riff when I heard him lecture at the Toronto Learning Annex. Obviously, it has to do with the basic fact that you have to take care of your own things... He has great one-liners. I've had some emails from him that were one-worders... 8)

Interesting thing here from Ken Wilber's "Integral Naked" site: http://integralnaked.org/talk.aspx?id=569 This is Nathaniel talking about a rational reconstruction of transrational mysticism. Integral Naked is a very strong site, and, while they do charge ten dollars a month, you can get the first month for free.

Ah, I have another moment, a little more anyhow. There are many, many descriptions of the religious state. Here is one I like (happens to be creationist, from Starbuck's manuscript collection): "I remember the night, and almost the very spot on the hilltop, where my soul opened out, as it were, into the Infinite, and there was a rushing together of the two worlds, the inner and the outer. It was deep calling unto deep,--the deep that my own struggle had opened up within being answered by the unfathomable deep without, reaching beyond the stars. I stood alone withHim who had made me, and all the beauty of the world, and love, and sorrow, and even temptation. I did not seek Him, but felt the perfect union of my spirit with His. The ordinary sense of things around me faded. For the moment nothing but an ineffable joy and exaltation remained. It is impossible fully to describe the experience. It was like the effect of some great orchestra when all the separate notes have melted into one swelling harmony that leaves the listner conscious of nothing save that his soul is being wafted upwards, and almost bursting with its own emotion. The perfect stillness of the night was thrilled by a more solemn silence. The darkness held a presence that was all the more felt because it was not seen. I could not any more have doubted the He was there than that I was. Indeed, I felt myself to be, if possible, the less real of the two." There are thousands of accounts like this, I just picked that one because it has the authentic ring of the experience to it. I do not mean to make any proof, that cannot be done. All else I can say to it, Kat, is that it changed my composure for the better, I am much more peaceful now. And, more importantly, it changed my actions. It is very clear that my actions are more moral, and more of them. It is the same in how I treat others now, which is very different than before. I do not believe that medical materialism can fully address all varieties of mystical experience. And, in any event, sometimes if, say, you're running a fever, it might be a moment where that fever is more condusive for bringing truths out than the normal body temperature... r

Hi, Kat! Nice present you got your boy, here. Isn't he doing a great job with it? Answers... I will be short right now because I'm a bit hacked from another, er, engagement elsewhere... 8) My particular "package" is very different. It is the antithesis of other packages. If you were visiting us for some reason, you would be very comfortable, and meet some people that you'd enjoy and value. It is a community that I wouldn't trade for the world. The UU world is for sure the "uncommon denomination". Could my experience/conversion be explained away? Yes. Will that change me back? No. I am a reasonable, sane man. I know logic as well as the next O'ist. How odd that no amount of chopping logic will ever be able to persuade me. Isn't that something? I can't even do it to myself! It is too deep, it is permanent, and it is head-to-toe. It is a change in being, consciousness. It's always been frustrating to me when I heard people say things like this. I guess it takes one to know one. Fortunately, in the case of my "conversion," I have enough background that it didn't turn me into an asshole. best to ya! r

Ah, MSK, we resonate greatly... I've been using that brainwave tool forever, I even bought the licensed version from him a long time ago. I always forget how to spell his name, isn't it (too lazy to go check) like Mikko Norroma, or something? It is a great tool. At one point I real-time recorded the various presets to a mini-cd format so I could put them by my bedside. It is a great toolbox to have if you have those, and Nathaniels hypnosis stuff, particularly the ones I remastered and offered on CD for sometime. I have been posting on ROR, regarding what I now call "the problem". If you are looking at things like bwgen, that means you are aware of the various states of brainwave activity. Personally, I used to lean pretty heavily on the "sleep replacement" program, which got me few a few rough patches when I came home late from gigs and had to regroup before work. That was worth the price of admission. You know, Michael, you are getting dangerously close to the gallows when you talk about contemplative states. What I found even more interesting was the reply you wrote to Linz on his new site regarding The Pope<tm>. That had heart. Back to the tool, well, I kind of pulled back from going into it more because I couldn't rationalize buying the A/V gear, plus, I started thinking I look dopey enough in the first place without being hooked up to goggles and headphones on a regular basis... I think that these kinds of things are healthy and good. But they won't lead you straight to the mystical experience (purported, sorry). They will condition you to being open to it, maybe. It's definitely Big Fun, and to be had for free... rde

Yup, that would be gnosis... Well, you were asking me to boil down mysticism, Michael. 8) Maybe gnosis is not the best choice then, because it points to a particular historical origin. So, on reboil: Direct experience of (The Divine, Spirit...). Still, the main stick point is and will probably always remain whether or not one believes in what is purported to be experienced. I do not believe it is possible to prove the mystical experience to someone who has not experienced it, because it is, well, experiencial. It would not matter if I were to go on about how it changed me from head to toe, etc. No argument can be made for it. Mysticism is a state.