"Toward an Epistemology of the Sacred"

Dear Dialecticians and Colleagues
Both Majors and Minors.

(Analogies Across the Curriculum
& Courses w/o Borders Series)

"Below the critical temperature,
which is unique to each material,
superconductors exhibit “zero
electrical resistance” and exclude
interior magnetic fields. The latter
characteristic is known as the
Meissner effect. (from Physics
Photo of the Week)



“The highest purpose is to have no
purpose at all. This puts one in accord
with nature in her manner of operation.”
John Cage.

You may know that Cage gave a performance
in the 1950’s where he sat at the piano for more
than four and 1/3 minutes without playing a note.

A performance of 4′33″ can
be perceived as including the
sounds of the environment that
the listeners hear while it is
performed, rather than merely
as four minutes and thirty three
seconds of silence and became
one of the most controversial
compositions of the twentieth
century.

Many times I have sit, sat, satin though a
whole class period with no words spoken
in air. A religious experience.

PURPOSE versus no purpose
AIM versus aimlessness
INTENTION versus no intention

According to Bateson’s Toward an Epistemology
of the Sacred: The difference between MAGIC &
Superstition on the one hand...

(manipulation, control, purpose, aim, intention)
... and on the other: RELIGION...

(purposeless, aimless, surrender, acceptance,che sera sera,
HAP hap-ening hap-ily).

...is LIKE the difference between doing anything
for the hell of it (golf, piano, studying 18^th literature
or mitochondria, making out, getting high, sledding
down unsalted roads, baking bread, bird watching,
road-trip to Santa Cruz, shooting the bull, going to
church, taking communion, meditating, walk in the
woods…

OR

doing IT for some other reason, means to some
other end: in order to get ahead, paid, liked, bring
rain to the dry country, get a good grade or at
least credit, cure the blind, become a
professional, solve the economic
crisis.

Do you see the difference?
Turn it way up. Polarize. Characterize.

Then wonder about the relationship
(between “religion” on the one hand
and Magic & Superstition on the other.)

We can argue.

Go ahead and re-name the distinction,
but know, at least, that’s how Batesoin
puts IT in play.

(IT, I said. Do I have to spell IT out all the time?)

MAGIC on the one hand (magus, magi):
My Terms of Desire (That’s the way I
llike it : m oney for nothing and the
chicks for free).

RELIGION on the other hand.
For the hell of it not for any other
aim, purpose or intention of
my own.

The sound of one hand clapping?
Or two? Need we argue?

When I stop to think,
RELIGION is a monstrous
offense to my human purposive-ness:
BB Wolf blowing my brick house down;
when I stop sledding & piano-playing, to
consider what I'm doing and why, I hate
religion wrestling with my good intentions
and will resist it all night long.

“We have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle,
having blundered in the control of a delicate machine,
the working of which we do not understand.”
(John Maynard Keynes)

“We are just not smart enough as people.”
(Alan Greenspan)

ON the Economy, then and now: Great Depression
and Grand Recession going on. (Meta-Sustainability).
That they both declare a lack of understanding and
smart-i-tude to FIX the system is comforting to me
though it feels like a betrayal to the human race..

The small pen-lite of reason I shine in my closet
to study darkness occludes what-it-is I aim to see.

More darkness!
More darkness!

It’s impossible consciously to have no purpose, aim,
goal, intent, no ego, no desire.

Religion is impossible.

Magic & Superstition? Sure. Permeate.
I swim in the amnion--alma matrix: manipulation
& control to make the whirl a better pace. Magical.

xxxooo, Presbyter