Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Dr. Susan Blackmore
How then can we answer the big questions? I would say in two ways. One is by personal experience and disciplined observation; trying to see clearly the truth about oneself and the world. That is why I meditate and practice mindfulness. So throwing out the paranormal does not mean abandoning spirituality or spiritual practice. The other is by doing science, and for me the interesting questions now concern evolutionary processes, memes, and the origins of consciousness (Blackmore, 1999).
http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/Kurtz.htm
In P. Kurtz (Ed) Skeptical Odysseys: Personal Accounts by the World’s Leading Paranormal Inquirers, Amherst, New York, Prometheus Books, 2001, 85-94
http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/Kurtz.htm
In P. Kurtz (Ed) Skeptical Odysseys: Personal Accounts by the World’s Leading Paranormal Inquirers, Amherst, New York, Prometheus Books, 2001, 85-94
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
AWE OF KNOWING : ASTRONOMY
ALAN DRESSLER, 42. ON THE TRAIL OF THE GREAT ATTRACTOR
He became hooked on astronomy as a 5-year-old boy, the moment he saw the majestic rings of Saturn through a telescope in Cincinnati's Hyde Park. Now a staff astronomer at the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, Dressler is shaking up conventional astronomical wisdom. In the nearby Andromeda galaxy, he helped locate a black hole, a celestial abyss that sucks in light and matter like a cosmic vacuum cleaner.
Then, in 1986, he and his team discovered an object that is like something straight out of science fiction. The Great Attractor is a mass of dark matter, unimaginably large, 200 million light-years from Earth. The Attractor is invisible -- it makes its presence known only through its immense gravitational tug on galaxies. Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of thousands in its grip. This finding raises important questions about the Big Bang, the huge explosion believed to have started the universe. Cosmologists, who study its origin, have long assumed that the Big Bang spread matter smoothly across the heavens. Now Dressler has demonstrated the universe to be lumpy, like oatmeal.
''There must be an element of the Big Bang we don't understand,'' he says. ''It seems unlikely that the universe could have gone from smooth to its current state. For something as vast as the Great Attractor to have formed, either the primordial cosmos had larger structures than we previously thought, or the universe has taken longer to evolve.'' Dressler's discovery was based on years of work, with colleague Sandra Faber, at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory high in the Andes Mountains of Chile. The air at that remote site is so clear, says Dressler, that one can read a newspaper by the light of the Milky Way.
He became hooked on astronomy as a 5-year-old boy, the moment he saw the majestic rings of Saturn through a telescope in Cincinnati's Hyde Park. Now a staff astronomer at the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, Dressler is shaking up conventional astronomical wisdom. In the nearby Andromeda galaxy, he helped locate a black hole, a celestial abyss that sucks in light and matter like a cosmic vacuum cleaner.
Then, in 1986, he and his team discovered an object that is like something straight out of science fiction. The Great Attractor is a mass of dark matter, unimaginably large, 200 million light-years from Earth. The Attractor is invisible -- it makes its presence known only through its immense gravitational tug on galaxies. Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of thousands in its grip. This finding raises important questions about the Big Bang, the huge explosion believed to have started the universe. Cosmologists, who study its origin, have long assumed that the Big Bang spread matter smoothly across the heavens. Now Dressler has demonstrated the universe to be lumpy, like oatmeal.
''There must be an element of the Big Bang we don't understand,'' he says. ''It seems unlikely that the universe could have gone from smooth to its current state. For something as vast as the Great Attractor to have formed, either the primordial cosmos had larger structures than we previously thought, or the universe has taken longer to evolve.'' Dressler's discovery was based on years of work, with colleague Sandra Faber, at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory high in the Andes Mountains of Chile. The air at that remote site is so clear, says Dressler, that one can read a newspaper by the light of the Milky Way.
Clearly visible overhead are the galaxy's millions of stars, deep dark rifts, and objects such as the Eta Carina nebula (see photo). Dressler says the sight can transfix an observer: ''It becomes an emotional experience.'' What moves him most profoundly, however, is not the spectacle of the heavens but the human mind: ''Most people are awed by the size of the universe and our being so small. My view is completely opposite. The mind is the most complex thing we know of -- complexity resides not out there but here, in our biology and our minds. The marvelous thing is that we can discover, understand, and contemplate the universe
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
CYBER-ARCHITECTURE
An exhibition examining the technological possibilities of architectural theory and practice signals the formation of AVATAR, a new Bartlett research group. AVATAR, or Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research Group, is the brainchild of Professor Neil Spiller and brings together both staff and former students who are interested in the impact of advanced technology on architectural design.
At first glance, Chris Groothuizen’s renderings looked like they’d come from the set of a science fiction film but in reality, they’re a study into the potential interaction between synthetic and organic life. “It describes autonomous agents that shape and interpret the data-saturated environment providing portraits of intersubjectivity that are shared between artificial entities and ourselves. The work proposes an exploration and interaction that is designed to enhance curiosity in the face of emergent phenomena, which is by definition beyond our control”, explained Chris.
From The Bartlett,University College,London
At first glance, Chris Groothuizen’s renderings looked like they’d come from the set of a science fiction film but in reality, they’re a study into the potential interaction between synthetic and organic life. “It describes autonomous agents that shape and interpret the data-saturated environment providing portraits of intersubjectivity that are shared between artificial entities and ourselves. The work proposes an exploration and interaction that is designed to enhance curiosity in the face of emergent phenomena, which is by definition beyond our control”, explained Chris.
From The Bartlett,University College,London
LOVE AND SEX
One night about ten years ago, while lying next to a lover and dear friend, I felt a shimmering in the air over my head, and as I looked at it, the shimmering condensed into a tangle of golden cords, as thick as fingers, arched above the two of us like a rainbow only moving and pulsating, as if a coil of strange, exotic snakes had found its way into our bedroom.
At first I was taken aback, almost frightened, but the cords were so radiant, so obviously benevolent that my fear dissolved. Listening I heard that they were making sounds, high and clear, producing a sweet strange music that filled me with energy.
When I looked down at my own body, I saw that half the cords were coming out of me, part from my chest more or less in the region of my heart and part from my abdomen around the area of my navel. Crossing the space between me and my lover, they had rooted in his heart and abdomen, attaching us together in a long, pulsating tangle. The other half of the cords was coming from my lover, rooting in me, grafting to my flesh, growing through my skin to my womb and stomach, until I could feel myself filled inside by hundreds of thin tendrils.
I saw all of this for a minute, maybe more, and then the cords disappeared, and our bed became merely a bed again in an ordinary room, in a perfectly ordinary town. The next morning I was sure I had only been dreaming-certainly the most reasonable explanation-but something had changed in me, something odd and slightly disturbing. Now, whenever we made love or were especially close, I felt new cords growing into my flesh; other times, when we were angry or separated,I felt an uncomfortable sensation as if someone were tugging at me. From time to time, I had a quick glimpse of the cords again, full of light when things were going well, dull and listless when there was tension and misunderstanding.
When my lover and I finally broke up for reasons beyond our control, I was in pain for a long time, unable to eat or sleep, full of nostalgia and regrets so intense that they verged on nausea. Everything reminded me of him: a red blouse I had worn on one particularly happy day we spent hiking, music we had listened to together, stir-fried vegetables with seaweed (one of his favourite dishes ),even the stars because we had once picked out the constellations together. The whole situation was both tragic and profoundly ridiculous. My friends shook their heads and offered calcium tablets and herb tea. I was advised to get on with my life, but from my point of view I had no life worth getting on with.
Then one evening crying over a plate of stir-fried vegetables in a Niagara of self-pity, I saw the cords again-or rather a set of cords and a set of scars. The scars were where my lover’s cords had entered my body; they were wounds, the size of pennies, half-healed but very painful. The remaining cords were mine. Suddenly I realized what was wrong: I was still attached to him, even though he was no longer attached to me. All my energy was running out of my body, and nothing was coming in. I was being dragged around as he moved into his new life, no longer considering me, the hundreds of miles between us stretching and pulling until they had very nearly pulled me apart.
I decided that whether these cords were imaginary or real, I had to cut them somehow simply to survive. After thinking the situation over, I decided that I would try fighting the vision with a vision; that is to say, I would try imagining a great pair of scissors slicing through every attachment I still had to my lover; I would pretend to see the cords snap, and then I would imagine them pulling back into me, rerooting myself in my own flesh and healing the scars.
Now that I knew that I had suffered not just a separation but a physical injury,I was more gentle with myself, more willing to give myself time to heal and recover, but day by day it seemed to work and I began to feel the relief of growing whole and self-contained.
The day finally came, of course, when all the cords were cut, but the experience taught me several things that I still do my best to remember. First, I became aware that sex is the major cause of cording-especially when sex comes in the form of a full-blown erotic attachment combined with love. Not all sex, of course, casts cords from one lover to another, but the potential is there and that knowledge makes me reluctant to be involved in casual relationships. I'm more humble now in a way, more aware that things may be happening on another level in some other dimension that I am only occasionally aware of. If the cords are real, who knows what unknown factors are produced by intimacy. Perhaps we dream each other's dreams at night; perhaps we have non-physical bodies; perhaps the electrical energies of our brains mingle; perhaps we are capable of tearing open each other's auras.
And perhaps, of course, all of the forgoing is nonsense. Perhaps my so-called vision is merely imagination heightened by sentimentality. I only know that cording is a useful way of explaining to myself both the pleasure of intimacy and the pain of separation. To tell the truth, I still see the cords occasionally, and the knowledge that I could become so physically entangled with another human being has made me very, very selective.
From "Golden Cords:Erotic Attachment and the Pain of Separation" by Mary Mackey in Deep Down: New Sensual Writing by Women. ed. Laura Chester.London: Faber and Faber.114-115.
At first I was taken aback, almost frightened, but the cords were so radiant, so obviously benevolent that my fear dissolved. Listening I heard that they were making sounds, high and clear, producing a sweet strange music that filled me with energy.
When I looked down at my own body, I saw that half the cords were coming out of me, part from my chest more or less in the region of my heart and part from my abdomen around the area of my navel. Crossing the space between me and my lover, they had rooted in his heart and abdomen, attaching us together in a long, pulsating tangle. The other half of the cords was coming from my lover, rooting in me, grafting to my flesh, growing through my skin to my womb and stomach, until I could feel myself filled inside by hundreds of thin tendrils.
I saw all of this for a minute, maybe more, and then the cords disappeared, and our bed became merely a bed again in an ordinary room, in a perfectly ordinary town. The next morning I was sure I had only been dreaming-certainly the most reasonable explanation-but something had changed in me, something odd and slightly disturbing. Now, whenever we made love or were especially close, I felt new cords growing into my flesh; other times, when we were angry or separated,I felt an uncomfortable sensation as if someone were tugging at me. From time to time, I had a quick glimpse of the cords again, full of light when things were going well, dull and listless when there was tension and misunderstanding.
When my lover and I finally broke up for reasons beyond our control, I was in pain for a long time, unable to eat or sleep, full of nostalgia and regrets so intense that they verged on nausea. Everything reminded me of him: a red blouse I had worn on one particularly happy day we spent hiking, music we had listened to together, stir-fried vegetables with seaweed (one of his favourite dishes ),even the stars because we had once picked out the constellations together. The whole situation was both tragic and profoundly ridiculous. My friends shook their heads and offered calcium tablets and herb tea. I was advised to get on with my life, but from my point of view I had no life worth getting on with.
Then one evening crying over a plate of stir-fried vegetables in a Niagara of self-pity, I saw the cords again-or rather a set of cords and a set of scars. The scars were where my lover’s cords had entered my body; they were wounds, the size of pennies, half-healed but very painful. The remaining cords were mine. Suddenly I realized what was wrong: I was still attached to him, even though he was no longer attached to me. All my energy was running out of my body, and nothing was coming in. I was being dragged around as he moved into his new life, no longer considering me, the hundreds of miles between us stretching and pulling until they had very nearly pulled me apart.
I decided that whether these cords were imaginary or real, I had to cut them somehow simply to survive. After thinking the situation over, I decided that I would try fighting the vision with a vision; that is to say, I would try imagining a great pair of scissors slicing through every attachment I still had to my lover; I would pretend to see the cords snap, and then I would imagine them pulling back into me, rerooting myself in my own flesh and healing the scars.
Now that I knew that I had suffered not just a separation but a physical injury,I was more gentle with myself, more willing to give myself time to heal and recover, but day by day it seemed to work and I began to feel the relief of growing whole and self-contained.
The day finally came, of course, when all the cords were cut, but the experience taught me several things that I still do my best to remember. First, I became aware that sex is the major cause of cording-especially when sex comes in the form of a full-blown erotic attachment combined with love. Not all sex, of course, casts cords from one lover to another, but the potential is there and that knowledge makes me reluctant to be involved in casual relationships. I'm more humble now in a way, more aware that things may be happening on another level in some other dimension that I am only occasionally aware of. If the cords are real, who knows what unknown factors are produced by intimacy. Perhaps we dream each other's dreams at night; perhaps we have non-physical bodies; perhaps the electrical energies of our brains mingle; perhaps we are capable of tearing open each other's auras.
And perhaps, of course, all of the forgoing is nonsense. Perhaps my so-called vision is merely imagination heightened by sentimentality. I only know that cording is a useful way of explaining to myself both the pleasure of intimacy and the pain of separation. To tell the truth, I still see the cords occasionally, and the knowledge that I could become so physically entangled with another human being has made me very, very selective.
From "Golden Cords:Erotic Attachment and the Pain of Separation" by Mary Mackey in Deep Down: New Sensual Writing by Women. ed. Laura Chester.London: Faber and Faber.114-115.
CYBERSEX
‘Down’, she said. ‘Look down into the centre of it’. And I did, God help me, look down into the centre of that weird contraption.
…there was nothing I could see except a lot of swirling mist-the mist was dark instead of white. There was something about it that I didn’t like, a certain frightfulness to it, and I went to step away, but before I could take the step the dark mist inside the cubicle seemed to expand rapidly and engulf me.
The world went away from me and I was consciousness inside a blackness that seemed to hold neither time nor space, a medium that was suspended in a nothingness in which there was no room for anything or anyone but the consciousness-not the body, but the consciousness-of myself and Angela.
For she was still was with me in that black nothingness and I still could feel her hand in mine, although even as I felt the pressure of her hand, I told myself it could not be her hand, for in this place neither of us had hands; there was no place or room for hands. Once I had said that to myself, I realised that it was not her hand that I seemed to feel so much as the presence of her, the essence of her being, which seemed to be coalescing with my being as if we had ceased to be two personalities, but had in some strange way become a single personality, although not so much a part of one another as to have lost our identities.
I felt a scream rising in my throat, but I had no throat and I had no mouth and there was no way to scream. I wondered, in something close to terror, what had happened to my body and if I’d ever get it back. As I tried to scream I sensed Angela moving closer, as if she might be extending comfort. And there was comfort, certainly, in knowing she was there. I don’t think she spoke to me or actually did anything at all, but I seemed to realise somehow that there was no room for more than just the two of us; that here there was no place for fear or even for surprise.
Then the dark nothingness drained away, but the draining did not give us back our bodies. We were still were disembodied beings, hanging for a moment over a nightmarish landscape that was bleak and dark, a barren plain that swept away to jagged mountains notched against the sky. We hung there for a moment only, not really long enough to see where we were-as if a picture had been flashed upon a screen, then suddenly cut off. A glimpse was all I had.
Then we were back in the empty nothingness and Angela had her arms around me-all of her around me-and it was very strange, for she had no arms or body and neither did I, but it seemed to make no difference. The touch of her was comforting, as it had been before, but this time more than comforting, and in that nothingness my soul and mind and the memory of my body cried out to her as another human being and another life. Instinctively, I reached out for her-and reached out within everything I had or had ever had until the semblance of what we once had been intertwined and meshed and we melted into one another. Our beings came together, our minds, our souls, our bodies. In that moment, we knew one another in a way that would have been impossible under other circumstances. We crawled into one another until there were not two of us, but one. It was sexual, in part, but far more than sexual. It was the kind of experience that is sought in a sexual embrace but never quite achieved. It was complete fulfillment and did not subside. It reached a high and stayed there. It was an ecstasy that kept on and on, and it could have gone on forever, I suppose, if it had not been for that one little dirty corner of my busy brain that somehow stood aside and wondered how it might have been with someone other than a bitch like Angela.
That did it. The magic went away. The nothingness went away. We were back on the Lodge, standing beside the strange contraption. We were still holding hands, and she dropped my hand and turned to face me. Her face was white with fury, her voice cold.'Remember this’, she said. 'No woman will ever be quite the same again.'
From “The Marathon Photograph” in The Marathon Photograph: Classic Fiction by the Science Fiction Grand Master by Clifford Simak
…there was nothing I could see except a lot of swirling mist-the mist was dark instead of white. There was something about it that I didn’t like, a certain frightfulness to it, and I went to step away, but before I could take the step the dark mist inside the cubicle seemed to expand rapidly and engulf me.
The world went away from me and I was consciousness inside a blackness that seemed to hold neither time nor space, a medium that was suspended in a nothingness in which there was no room for anything or anyone but the consciousness-not the body, but the consciousness-of myself and Angela.
For she was still was with me in that black nothingness and I still could feel her hand in mine, although even as I felt the pressure of her hand, I told myself it could not be her hand, for in this place neither of us had hands; there was no place or room for hands. Once I had said that to myself, I realised that it was not her hand that I seemed to feel so much as the presence of her, the essence of her being, which seemed to be coalescing with my being as if we had ceased to be two personalities, but had in some strange way become a single personality, although not so much a part of one another as to have lost our identities.
I felt a scream rising in my throat, but I had no throat and I had no mouth and there was no way to scream. I wondered, in something close to terror, what had happened to my body and if I’d ever get it back. As I tried to scream I sensed Angela moving closer, as if she might be extending comfort. And there was comfort, certainly, in knowing she was there. I don’t think she spoke to me or actually did anything at all, but I seemed to realise somehow that there was no room for more than just the two of us; that here there was no place for fear or even for surprise.
Then the dark nothingness drained away, but the draining did not give us back our bodies. We were still were disembodied beings, hanging for a moment over a nightmarish landscape that was bleak and dark, a barren plain that swept away to jagged mountains notched against the sky. We hung there for a moment only, not really long enough to see where we were-as if a picture had been flashed upon a screen, then suddenly cut off. A glimpse was all I had.
Then we were back in the empty nothingness and Angela had her arms around me-all of her around me-and it was very strange, for she had no arms or body and neither did I, but it seemed to make no difference. The touch of her was comforting, as it had been before, but this time more than comforting, and in that nothingness my soul and mind and the memory of my body cried out to her as another human being and another life. Instinctively, I reached out for her-and reached out within everything I had or had ever had until the semblance of what we once had been intertwined and meshed and we melted into one another. Our beings came together, our minds, our souls, our bodies. In that moment, we knew one another in a way that would have been impossible under other circumstances. We crawled into one another until there were not two of us, but one. It was sexual, in part, but far more than sexual. It was the kind of experience that is sought in a sexual embrace but never quite achieved. It was complete fulfillment and did not subside. It reached a high and stayed there. It was an ecstasy that kept on and on, and it could have gone on forever, I suppose, if it had not been for that one little dirty corner of my busy brain that somehow stood aside and wondered how it might have been with someone other than a bitch like Angela.
That did it. The magic went away. The nothingness went away. We were back on the Lodge, standing beside the strange contraption. We were still holding hands, and she dropped my hand and turned to face me. Her face was white with fury, her voice cold.'Remember this’, she said. 'No woman will ever be quite the same again.'
From “The Marathon Photograph” in The Marathon Photograph: Classic Fiction by the Science Fiction Grand Master by Clifford Simak
SEX
Their lovemaking steered between moments of tenderness-with David above her with such love on his face that he looked like he was in pain-and raw, hard sex that made her cling to the handmade oak bed frame so David’s thrusts wouldn’t send her off-balance, flying onto the floor as he pounded her from behind.
The sounds they made were part song, part call and response-from gasps to screams to whimpers. As their sounds mingled with the other night noises drifting through the open window, with her dripping perspiration and the damp scent diffused inside the breezer in the room, Jessica felt like one of the creatures outside, unashamed in the wilderness, doing what God intended creatures to do.
From My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
The sounds they made were part song, part call and response-from gasps to screams to whimpers. As their sounds mingled with the other night noises drifting through the open window, with her dripping perspiration and the damp scent diffused inside the breezer in the room, Jessica felt like one of the creatures outside, unashamed in the wilderness, doing what God intended creatures to do.
From My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
BODIES
They crowded five of them into the taxi-cab. Halliday lurched in first and dropped into his seat against the other window. Then Minette took her place, and Gerald sat next to her. They heard the young Russian giving orders to the driver,then they were all seated in the dark, crowded close together, Halliday groaning and leaning out of the window. They felt the swift, muffled motion of the car.
Minette sat near to Gerald, and she seemed to become soft, subtly to infuse herself into his bones, as if she were passing into him in a black, electric flow. Her being suffused into his veins like a magnetic darkness, and concentrated at the base of his spine like a fearful source of power. Meanwhile her voice sounded out reedy and nonchalant, as she talked indifferently with Birkin and with Maxim. Between her and Gerald was this silence and this black, electric comprehension in the darkness. Then she found his hand, and grasped it in her own firm, small clasp. It was so utterly dark, and yet such a naked statement, that rapid vibrations ran through his blood and over his brain, he was no longer responsible. Still her voice rang on like a bell, tinged with a tone of mockery. And as she swung her head, her fine mane of hair just swept his face, and all his nerves were on fire, as with a subtle friction of electricity. But the great centre of his force held steady, a magnificent pride to him, at the base of his spine
Minette sat near to Gerald, and she seemed to become soft, subtly to infuse herself into his bones, as if she were passing into him in a black, electric flow. Her being suffused into his veins like a magnetic darkness, and concentrated at the base of his spine like a fearful source of power. Meanwhile her voice sounded out reedy and nonchalant, as she talked indifferently with Birkin and with Maxim. Between her and Gerald was this silence and this black, electric comprehension in the darkness. Then she found his hand, and grasped it in her own firm, small clasp. It was so utterly dark, and yet such a naked statement, that rapid vibrations ran through his blood and over his brain, he was no longer responsible. Still her voice rang on like a bell, tinged with a tone of mockery. And as she swung her head, her fine mane of hair just swept his face, and all his nerves were on fire, as with a subtle friction of electricity. But the great centre of his force held steady, a magnificent pride to him, at the base of his spine
Saturday, January 27, 2007
PORNOGRAPHY
Are you a religious man and if so, are there any contradictions between being a religious man and being a porn star?
Yes, I am religious. I am Christian: Baptist. I grew up in as close to a Cosby-show lifestyle as you can get. Doing porno, on a repeated basis, I am committing adultery; I'm not married, so I'm fornicating for a living; I'm paid to have sex, which means what? I'm prostituting by definition. These are things I have to reckon with with my God on a daily basis. I knowingly do these things.
My decision to do porno has forced me to take my religion within: because of my job I am stronger in my relationship with God, because now I take God with me everywhere I go; if I don't, I'll fail! I didn't know that god blessed me with an abnormally large penis that allows me to make porno. But I feel blessed. I believe I am blessed because I am meant to please one woman for the rest of our lives together. True, I haven't met her yet.
Imagine it's one day in the future and you're a father. Your son or daughter comes to you and says, "Dad, I want to be a pornographic movie star." What would your reaction be?
In no way would I recommend this job to my best-friend, let alone my children. Every day in this business you must decide to risk your life. When I came into this business in '98, 5 women were infected with HIV from one guy. It was a scary time. I would positively forbid my daughter from working in this industry. There is a measure of self-respect a sex performer gives away every single time he or she is on camera. I wouldn't want anyone so close to me to give away anything so important and valuable. When I have kids I will instruct them that their bodies are temples, and I don't want anyone walking up into and defiling their temples.
From http://www.getbig.com/iview/steele040315.htm
God is the end, agent and exemplar of creation, and the source of the activity called freedom.
E. Britt 1971 on Thomas Aquinas’ theology
Man's freedom, far from being destroyed by his relationship to God, finds its foundation in this very relationship. "To take something away from the perfection of the creature is to abstract from the perfection of the creative power itself." This metaphysical axiom, which is also a mystical principle, is the key to St. Thomas’ spirituality.
M.-D.Ch.
E.Britt 1992.vol.28."Thomas Aquinas ".636-39.p.638.
It should be said that man’s will is discordant with the will of God
insofar as man wills something God does not want it to will,
as when it wills to sin;
though God does not want the will to will this,
if it so wills God brings it about, for whatever it wills, the Lord does.
And though in this way man’s will is discordant with the will of God with respect to the movement of will,
it can never be discordant with respect to result or event,
for a man’s will always chooses that event because God always fulfills his will concerning man. But with respect to the manner of willing it is not necessary that man's will be conformed to God's,
because God will whatever He wills eternally and infinitely, but man does not.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions of Evil,6.
From Aquinas: Selected Writings. trans. Ralph McInerny.p.247.
Quoted in Porcupines; A Philosophical Anthology by Graham Higgin.London:Penguin,1999.66.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
SEX
For a full two hours this man and I explored every centimeter of each other's bodies.I knew every inch of his penis and he every fold of my vagina and although we were uninhibitedly screaming directions as to what we wanted,we never asked each other's name.
For one incredible moment,as he was thrusting in and out,we were totally as one.I felt as though my soul had left my body and was floating out into space.This was the ultimate sexual experince,one that I've had just a few times with my husband,but I didn't know this guy from a bean.I was overwhelmed by passion-and yes,I even felt love for this stranger.It really blew my mind.
After we finished,I told him of my "religious" experience and he told me he'd felt the same thing.It was as though the burning core of the desire had lifted us out of our bodies and had catapulted us into outer space.He said it had happened to him only once before,and that it was awesome.
Letters to Penthouse II (New York:Warner Books,1989)117.
For one incredible moment,as he was thrusting in and out,we were totally as one.I felt as though my soul had left my body and was floating out into space.This was the ultimate sexual experince,one that I've had just a few times with my husband,but I didn't know this guy from a bean.I was overwhelmed by passion-and yes,I even felt love for this stranger.It really blew my mind.
After we finished,I told him of my "religious" experience and he told me he'd felt the same thing.It was as though the burning core of the desire had lifted us out of our bodies and had catapulted us into outer space.He said it had happened to him only once before,and that it was awesome.
Letters to Penthouse II (New York:Warner Books,1989)117.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
STARS
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.
I have not to searchfor them and conjecture them as though they were veiled in darkness orwere in the transcendent region beyond my horizon; I see them before me and connect them directly with the consciousness of my existence.
The former begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense, and enlarges my connection therein to an unbounded extent with worlds upon worlds and systems of systems, and moreover into limitless times of their periodic motion, its beginning and continuance.
The second begins from my invisible self, my personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity, but which is traceable only by the understanding, and with which I discern that I
am not in a merely contingent but in a universal and necessary connection, as I am also thereby with all those visible worlds.
The former view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates as it were my importance as an animal creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital power, one knows not how, must again give back the matter of which it was formed to the planet it
inhabits (a mere speck in the universe).
The second, on the contrary, infinitely elevates my worth as an intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as may be inferred from the destination assigned to my existence by this law, a destination not restricted to conditions and limits of
this life, but reaching into the infinite.
Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant
Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott
from Project Guternberg
PRISON
...even solitary confinement imposed by enemies can be the trigger for psychological experiences of lasting value. Anthony Grey, who experienced solitary confinement in China, and Arthur Koestler, who was similarly imprisoned in Spain, discussed their experiences together on television. The transcript of their discussion appears in Koestler’s collection of essays, Kaleidoscope.
Both men were grateful that they did not have to share a cell with another prisoner. Both felt that solitude enhanced their appreciation of, and sympathy with, their fellow men. Both had intense experiences of feeling that some kind of higher order of reality existed with which solitude had out the in touch. Both felt that trying to put this experience into words tended to trivialize it, because words could not really express it. Although neither man subscribed to any orthodox religious belief, both agreed that they had felt the abstract existence of something which was indefinable or which could only be experienced in symbols.
Anthony Grey thought that his experience had given him a new awareness and appreciation of normal life. Koestler concurred, but added that he had also become more aware of horrors lurking under the surface. Koestler also refers to a
feeling of inner freedom, of being alone and confronted with ultimate realties instead of with your bank statement. Your bank statement and other trivialities are again a kind of confinement. Not in space but in spiritual space…So you have got a dialogue with existence. A dialogue with life, a dialogue with death.
Grey comments that this is an area of experience into which most people do not enter. Koestler rightly affirms that most people have occasional confrontations of this kind
when they are severely ill or when a parent dies, or when they first fall in love. Then they are transferred from what I call the trivial plane to the tragic or absolute plane. But it only happens a few times. Whereas in the type of experience which we shared, one has one’s nosed rubbed into it, for a protracted period.
So, occasionally, good can come out of evil. Anthony Grey recalled being shown a painting of a Chinese friend in which a beautiful lotus flower is growing out of mud. The human spirit is not indestructible; but a courageous few discover that, when in hell, they are granted a glimpse of heaven.
From Solitude by Anthony Storr.London:Flamingo,1989.60-62.
Both men were grateful that they did not have to share a cell with another prisoner. Both felt that solitude enhanced their appreciation of, and sympathy with, their fellow men. Both had intense experiences of feeling that some kind of higher order of reality existed with which solitude had out the in touch. Both felt that trying to put this experience into words tended to trivialize it, because words could not really express it. Although neither man subscribed to any orthodox religious belief, both agreed that they had felt the abstract existence of something which was indefinable or which could only be experienced in symbols.
Anthony Grey thought that his experience had given him a new awareness and appreciation of normal life. Koestler concurred, but added that he had also become more aware of horrors lurking under the surface. Koestler also refers to a
feeling of inner freedom, of being alone and confronted with ultimate realties instead of with your bank statement. Your bank statement and other trivialities are again a kind of confinement. Not in space but in spiritual space…So you have got a dialogue with existence. A dialogue with life, a dialogue with death.
Grey comments that this is an area of experience into which most people do not enter. Koestler rightly affirms that most people have occasional confrontations of this kind
when they are severely ill or when a parent dies, or when they first fall in love. Then they are transferred from what I call the trivial plane to the tragic or absolute plane. But it only happens a few times. Whereas in the type of experience which we shared, one has one’s nosed rubbed into it, for a protracted period.
So, occasionally, good can come out of evil. Anthony Grey recalled being shown a painting of a Chinese friend in which a beautiful lotus flower is growing out of mud. The human spirit is not indestructible; but a courageous few discover that, when in hell, they are granted a glimpse of heaven.
From Solitude by Anthony Storr.London:Flamingo,1989.60-62.
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