Hi Nils !
Let's get our little cross-list Mysticism thread going again ! ;-)
(It's so enjoyable ... )
> Julian:
> >
> > It's *very* difficult to be part of the world, and have devastating
> > entropic powers. It's a kind of Anti-Mysticism, IMO.
>
> That's a very good observation. In the mystic world
> view there are three measures for everything in
> (non)-existence: Space, Time and Consciousness.
> (Sorry if I'm repeating myself).
Well, three is one of the most Mystic numbers you can think of.
The basic idea of ternary thought is the transcendance of dualism
(in various ways).
But it lends itself to many complex descriptions of consciousness.
Organising these descriptions into further ternary systems is fun too !!
(I'd probably have said : Space, Death, and Consciousness myself, if that isn't too much of an anthropomorphisation ... )
> All three are continuous spectra, with the eternal,
> true, unchanging at one end and the transient, illusory
> and mutating at the other end. Mystics strive to reach
> the transcendent at the eternal/true/unchanging end.
> Entropy is at the other endpoint.
I'd quibble with "continuous" and "eternal". One of the Mystic Threes is : Beginning, Middle, End.
Mysticism (obviously) transcends Beginning and End for : Eternity. On the other hand, you could also transcend the Two for : Now.
Mystically, there's little difference between Now and Eternity, except for a your personal Mystic point of view.
But I was positing the entropic mind as performing an anti-transcendance (is there a better word for this?), or becoming tragically stuck in the Middle (or the Beginning, or the End), or resolving dichotomies into meaninglessness, or losing all hope of self control of the spirit or the body; not only with no transcendant understanding of Beginning, End, and Eternity; but worse, without even an abstract conception of what these things might be. The entropic being is *unable* to transcend his tragic, personal, circumstance.
I don't really agree that the Mystic is Eternal,
and the non-Mystic Transient.
Actually, one of the usual Mystic states you can strive for
is precisely a strong awareness of transient things,
and their fragile, spiritual beauty. An aesthetic of Time
if you will, and probably the core motif of Imperial Lunar Art Forms.
Entropy is anti-Illumination in that it destroys the awareness of such beauty, trivialises the perception of the world, and reduces all understanding down to its shittiest, most materialistic (using the "bad" version of materialism), and least productive level.
Entropic spirits are much like dysfunctional Mostali; they are trapped in bodies (and in a world) which continue to perform automatic life functions, although they have no understanding of their Origin, of any Higher Purpose, and no hope of a Golden Age, either in Past, Future, or Present, where the World Machine might start working again.
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