Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

Imagine what would happen if that singular clue fails to guide you out of your own labyrinth and a timeless metaphysical stalemate ensues ensconced in Ariadne's thread as if in a spider web!

I’d have to become the Spider I guess.

[Harbal]

Just now I am reading The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (Gihr, original version 1877). Why? In order to be able to understand the *internal logic* of the liturgy that had been, and in some circles still is, at the very center of Occidental metaphysics. In order to *believe in* the Mass (as a liturgical operation, as a sacred ritual that, quite literally, takes one from one place to another place on an internal plane) one has to *believe in* the metaphysical story of the advent of Jesus Christ and the *ritual*, if you will, of his sacrifice. That is how it is conceived: a giant performance of magical metaphysics. In essence, the ritual's function is the release Man from enthrallment to *Satan*. But (it has always seemed to me) one needs to have a definition of what Satan refers to just as one needs a clear concept of what the sacrifice of Jesus portends, and indeed why it took place. Shall I see all this as *reality*? I find that I both can and cannot. On some level I might say I can see the Story as elucidating genuine metaphysical principles. But it is nearly impossible for me not to see it all as a ritual performed in the imagination of men.

So you are a student of Mumbo Jumbo, are you? Who would have guessed?

[Alexis Jacobi]

mum·bo jum·bo (mŭm′bō-jŭm′bō)
n. pl. mum·bo jum·bos
1. Unintelligible or incomprehensible language; gibberish.
2. Language or ritualistic activity intended to confuse.
3. A complicated or obscure ritual.
4. An object believed to have supernatural powers; a fetish.
[From Mumbo-Jumbo, masked dancer described in 18th-century European accounts of the Mandinka, probably from Mandinka maamajomboo, masked dancer with prophetic powers : maama, term of address for a masked dancer + jomboo, ceremony of opening or first use.]

I guess you could look at the Latin Mass in that way, if you were inclined. Though the ‘ascent’ it ritualizes, if the inner effect is realized, could be seen in a very different light.

To each his own, right?

[attofishpi]

mum·bo jum·bo (mŭm′bō-jŭm′bō)
n. pl. mum·bo jum·bos
1. Unintelligible or incomprehensible language; gibberish.
2. Language or ritualistic activity intended to confuse.
3. A complicated or obscure ritual.
4. An object believed to have supernatural powers; a fetish.
[From Mumbo-Jumbo, masked dancer described in 18th-century European accounts of the Mandinka, probably from Mandinka maamajomboo, masked dancer with prophetic powers : maama, term of address for a masked dancer + jomboo, ceremony of opening or first use.]

I guess you could look at the Latin Mass in that way, if you were inclined. Though the ‘ascent’ it ritualizes, if the inner effect is realized, could be seen in a very different light.

To each his own, right?

If I may pop in here. Do you not find it interesting that Christ stated "I am the LIGHT.." - and people attend Church to go to MASS

Just a random pointless coincidence I suppose, does light have mass?

[Dubious]

The Mass, as you know, is a reenactment of the life and ultimate sacrifice of Jesus. The function of it is to take the hearer (watcher) from a lower plane to a higher plane on the inner level. Now, I know that many of the hardcore deniers who reside here can only scoff at my interest in these things (for example Brother Dubious).

You really are one disgusting, lying, loathsome little jackass! How many times have I pointed out the importance of ritual and tradition in human affairs or whether the beliefs upholding them are still in effect. All to no avail as far as the reading capabilities of Alexis Jacobi are concerned.

One can almost think of the Mass ritual as a kind of alchemical Faustian drama of transformation centered in the myth of Jesus without any necessity for his actual existence. There can be differences of opinion on its symbology but not on its merit or necessity in some form. The addition of music and music drama, unique to the West, internalizes the mystery beyond mere representation which gives it a glow of transcendence beyond what words alone can convey.

But discussing these things requires someone with ears open; not some sanctimonious twit who can't read properly!

[attofishpi]

The Mass, as you know, is a reenactment of the life and ultimate sacrifice of Jesus. The function of it is to take the hearer (watcher) from a lower plane to a higher plane on the inner level. Now, I know that many of the hardcore deniers who reside here can only scoff at my interest in these things.

You are incorrect Jacobi - certainly in the Catholic Mass the only reenactment is of the Last Supper. Most of the Mass comprises of singing hymns in between hearing a priest read some passages of scripture. I rarely go to Mass, only where timing takes place as I need to confesss. Usually if I have 'crossed the line' - as in called Christ\God and the sages lots of rather nasty expletives (doesn't sound like me does it!), when still in some border level of being annoyed by God - being PA_annoyed--PA_annoya, (for having crossed a different line set by the sage - and eating of The Tree of KnowLedge)

Anyway - so I have to sit, stand, kneel in unison with the flock as certain key moments as the priest prattles on. I very rarely eat Christs body and drink his blood (Well, Christ didn't state at the last supper to do it ALL the time) - i figure I've eaten enough of the dude to have him in my memory - as was his wish.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You really are one disgusting, lying, loathsome little jackass!

On bad days, perhaps. But on my good days! I soar!

One can almost think of the Mass ritual as a kind of alchemical Faustian drama of transformation centered in the myth of Jesus without any necessity for his actual existence. There can be differences of opinion on its symbology but not on its merit or necessity in some form. The addition of music and music drama, unique to the West, internalizes the mystery beyond mere representation which gives it a glow of transcendence beyond what words alone can convey.

Roger that.

For the sake of developing your idea further: if it is or functions as you say it does, why I wonder are some, or many, seemingly so violently opposed to “it”?

I may have other question but this loathsome ass is having his ears trimmed by a startlingly pretty damsel and, well, my undergirding is perversely expanding as if it had a mind of its own! So embarrassing.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Most of the Mass comprises of singing hymns in between hearing a priest read some passages of scripture.

You are speaking of the post-Vatican ll “pseudo-mass”. I am speaking of the very different Latin or Tridentine Mass.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The addition of music and music drama, unique to the West, internalizes the mystery beyond mere representation which gives it a glow of transcendence beyond what words alone can convey.

Grab hold of a bannister. I swear that for a second you began to levitate!

[Alexis Jacobi]

But discussing these things requires someone with ears open; not some sanctimonious twit who can't read properly!

‘Round these parts, m’boy, we work with what we’ve been given to work with!

[Dubious]

The addition of music and music drama, unique to the West, internalizes the mystery beyond mere representation which gives it a glow of transcendence beyond what words alone can convey.

Grab hold of a bannister. I swear that for a second you began to levitate!

Your wit is amazing. May I propose a slight amendment to describe it? Remove the 'W' from wit and add 'Sh" to the left of 'it'.

Music has long been integrated and an important adjunct within the main Christian denominations as well as often being a source of contention within it. One doesn't have to be religious to get the message. The 'metaphysical', as you would term it, is not only conveyed through discrete words but in the flow of sound itself...or as Beethoven noted, "music is a higher revelation than philosophy"; frequently it feels exactly that way in its ability to invoke the metaphysical, religious and mystical directly into one's sensory apparatus.

As you say "work with what you got". Good advice! You do yours and I'll do mine. Whatever the merits of each, it all amounts to nothing since that's ALL it ever amounted to...along with so many other posts.

To me, you're an imbecile; kindly levitate on to some other post.

[Belinda]

The wrong that I've blamed you for is fairly trivial: that you claim(ed?) to value Christianity even though you (had) abstract(ed) beyond recognition whatever metaphysical principles you take(/took) from it, while otherwise explicitly rejecting pretty much every significant element of its Story. It does though suggest some interesting (to me) further questions:

Please note, I tend not to reject anything. Perhaps it is s defect but I can see benefit in perspectives that are mutually exclusive and even those that (appear) to negate each other.

And to clarify further: I can only believe what I can believe honestly. What I notice is that (it appears to me) that some people say they believe things which in fact they do not actually believe. So their belief is a pretense.

Just now I am reading The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (Gihr, original version 1877). Why? In order to be able to understand the *internal logic* of the liturgy that had been, and in some circles still is, at the very center of Occidental metaphysics. In order to *believe in* the Mass (as a liturgical operation, as a sacred ritual that, quite literally, takes one from one place to another place on an internal plane) one has to *believe in* the metaphysical story of the advent of Jesus Christ and the *ritual*, if you will, of his sacrifice. That is how it is conceived: a giant performance of magical metaphysics. In essence, the ritual's function is the release Man from enthrallment to *Satan*. But (it has always seemed to me) one needs to have a definition of what Satan refers to just as one needs a clear concept of what the sacrifice of Jesus portends, and indeed why it took place. Shall I see all this as *reality*? I find that I both can and cannot. On some level I might say I can see the Story as elucidating genuine metaphysical principles. But it is nearly impossible for me not to see it all as a ritual performed in the imagination of men.

But then imagination takes on a whole other look, sense and meaning.

The Mass, as you know, is a reenactment of the life and ultimate sacrifice of Jesus. The function of it is to take the hearer (watcher) from a lower plane to a higher plane on the inner level. Now, I know that many of the hardcore deniers who reside here can only scoff at my interest in these things (for example Brother Dubious). Yet I can hardly be concerned. Because if I thoughtlessly reject the *inner content* of what the Mass has meant and means, I will also have to reject every idea that is associated with it. Take for example the novels of Dostoevsky among dozens and indeed among hundreds and thousands of artists and philosophers who have applied their sense of *meaning & value* within the lived dimensions of life.

You cannot separate the metaphysical origins from the metaphysical products and achievements. And those achievements operate in all the domains that you can name, from jurisprudence to the marriage between a man and a woman. That is why I say that our very selves have been created, or constructed, from metaphysical principles over centuries and millennia. Then, along come some idiots who simply rip it all down without fully grasping what they are doing. In my view that is a very very bad choice.

Now, if by "rejecting pretty much every significant element of its Story" you refer to what occurred here in relation to Immanuel Can I would say that, right there, you can witness the contradiction: To see benefit in perspectives that are mutually exclusive and even those that (appear) to negate each other.

If a Story is ridiculous and literally false, then does it merit being mined (abstracted) for literal truth? Why, on vital metaphysical questions, would one trust Storytellers whose Story one doesn't straightforwardly value? More generally, is it wise to base oneself intellectually and metaphysically in a belief system supported by such a Story?

What other option is there? No one here can take most, or all, elements of the Christian story literally. The elements of the story do not coincide with what they believe to be true and truth. What seems to happen is that literal-minded men then reject everything about the story which they honestly feel is untrue.

Basil Willey in The Seventeenth Century Background spoke of the need of a *master metaphysician* to make sense of all of this, and especially our own situation as we shift (or are shifted) from one metaphysical portrayal to another. We are, literally I think, strung between the former system and a newer system which, in my view, does not really have cohesive, binding power. In this sense we can't go back to the *collapsed* former belief-system, but neither can we honestly and integrally go forward. We are in an impasse.

Maybe the Story is not as important as the collective intellectual and metaphysical work that has gone on in its name and under its aegis, but if that work is primarily aimed at buttressing the false and ridiculous (Story), then is this work itself, and those who have undertaken it, particularly objective, trustworthy, reliable, and relevant?

Well, it seems to me that we can only begin to attempt access to, for example, the intellectual problem that Richard Weaver expounds. If the argument makes sense, and I have felt that it does, one begins as a result to reconstruct an understanding that enables one to *believe in* what metaphysical stories alludes to. The alternative? To allow the conceptual pathway to literally die away. One could do this willingly, perhaps, but it seems to me (hello Harbal) that it is done through omission and negligence. For this reason, naturally, I have referred to Ortega y Gasset and his essay on the intrusion of mass man into the affairs of the world. Mass man senses his power to decide things. Yet he is not qualified. But to say such a think harkens back to notions of 'hierarchies of value'.

If "the fall" is a sound metaphor for our entry into this existential realm, and if Richard Weaver is right that the West has been disintegrating since the abandonment of transcendentals in the late 14th century, then is it possible that after "the" fall, we fell further, such that the 14th century was not the apex of our metaphysical knowledge and understanding, but simply a local maximum attained after falling further, and that the true apex lies deeper back in history?

It is clear, and beyond all doubt, that men do indeed fall. Choices result in 'loss' and indeed catastrophe and many men pay the price of their negligence and carelessness for the rest of their lives. If this is so then it does posit that there is a *higher* and a *lower*. And if as I say the Catholic Mass (that is the original Mass not the new mass celebrated today) is designed as a mental and spiritual vehicle of ascent to which one must give one's assent through an act of will -- then I have in a sense proven the value of such a metaphysical ritual. Everything that we can assert as being valuable, and indeed value, all depends on that upper region. And it is conceived in intellectual and metaphysical terms.

In my own view it is our own *inner territory* that is the plane where we recover ourselves metaphysically. How could it be otherwise?

You say "portends". But you omit for whom it portends, e.g. yourself, the priest, the altar boy, the committee or pope who designed it. You write as if a ceremony, ritual, or text floats around in a life of its own and independently of any interpreter.

You would learn more from the mass if you asked explicit questions such as "What does 'Satan' mean for me?" Or "What may 'Satan ' have meant for a first century Palestinian Jew?" Or "is my euphoria that the Mass engenders good or bad?" Or "In what way if any is the Mass better than say, participating in a public musical event?"

You say "metaphysics". Why not simply say which metaphysical stance the Mass presumes? There are standard philosophical terms for the several theories of existence.
You think you are in an "impasse" because you suffer from cognitive dissonance. You got a thesis then you got an antithesis ; you have not yet created your synthesis. Oh ye of little faith, be not afraid of hard work!

[attofishpi]

And to clarify further: I can only believe what I can believe honestly. What I notice is that (it appears to me) that some people say they believe things which in fact they do not actually believe. So their belief is a pretense.

In essence, the ritual's function is the release Man from enthrallment to *Satan*. But (it has always seemed to me) one needs to have a definition of what Satan refers to just as one needs a clear concept of what the sacrifice of Jesus portends, and indeed why it took place. Shall I see all this as *reality*? I find that I both can and cannot. On some level I might say I can see the Story as elucidating genuine metaphysical principles. But it is nearly impossible for me not to see it all as a ritual performed in the imagination of men.

But then imagination takes on a whole other look, sense and meaning.

My dear Mr Jacobi - please quote ALL the terrible things that our Mr Satan did as stated within scripture. As far as I am concerned, the poor fellow did sweet fuck all that could be termed EVIL.

The Mass, as you know, is a reenactment of the life and ultimate sacrifice of Jesus.

Again, no it's not (but of course you feel you are talking of a MASS that is more exalted than that of a typical Catholic MASS).

..but what does of MASS MATTER ?


The only reenactment is of the dividing of bread, and the offering of wine as per Christ's request in remembrance of him. (prior to such a great deal of suffering, that ALL wo/men should consider before defrauding, murdering each other for profit etc..alas such are the idiots we share this planet with -they were warned).

[Alexis Jacobi]

Music has long been integrated and an important adjunct within the main Christian denominations as well as often being a source of contention within it. One doesn't have to be religious to get the message. The 'metaphysical', as you would term it, is not only conveyed through discrete words but in the flow of sound itself...or as Beethoven noted, "music is a higher revelation than philosophy"; frequently it feels exactly that way in its ability to invoke the metaphysical, religious and mystical directly into one's sensory apparatus.

You are saying interesting, but also puzzling things. What message does one get? If the Grumpy Master would expand on this idea it would be appreciated. If “music for the time doth change his nature”, then you nicely refer to something that transforms (our) nature.

Why then (I modestly ask) do you come across so generally and violently opposed to the Christian message? You say that the former content that I describe as metaphysical is no longer proper for we moderns scooting down those vast networks of autobahns. Yet this does not make sense. You must have a sound system in your conveyance, no?

Here’s Lorenzo ‘splaining some things to Jessica:

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

So I could note that when we fall away, or have ripped away from us, a difficult to name link or relationship with higher metaphysical dimension, that we become inclined to all sorts of low-level negatives: treasons, stratagems and spoils.

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Erebus (/ˈɛrɪbəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἔρεβος, romanized: Érebos, (“deep darkness, shadow"), or Erebos, is the personification of darkness and one of the primordial deities. Hesiod's Theogony identifies him as one of the first five beings in existence, born of Chaos.

I told you that on a good day I could soar. Thank you for providing some lift, Mr Irascible!

[Alexis Jacobi]

My dear Mr Jacobi - please quote ALL the terrible things that our Mr Satan did as stated within scripture. As far as I am concerned, the poor fellow did sweet fuck all that could be termed EVIL.

It wouldn’t get us very far, Mr FishPie. Better to jump up to the Medieval Christian era and examine that metaphysical system. It is that era that far more informs us. An entire anthropology was organized, a way of understanding man in this fallen world and man fallen. Christ is God’s hand reached down into the mire to lift one to a higher plane. The idea of assent to ascent is seen as taking place within the body and soul of entrapped man.

But don’t only pay rapt attention to this Talking Ass! Noble Dubious has recently been singing it.

Qui cantat, bis orat, he might truthfully exclaim.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑
The Mass, as you know, is a reenactment of the life and ultimate sacrifice of Jesus.

Mr FishPie: Again, no it's not (but of course you feel you are talking of a MASS that is more exalted than that of a typical Catholic MASS).

Do a wee bit of research. Or simply read the Ordinary of the Mass pre-1965. Or ask that damned Satanic Machine AI!

"This sacrifice alone has the power of saving the soul from eternal death, for it presents to us mystically the death of the only-begotten Son. Though he is now risen from the dead and dies no more, and death has no more power over him, yet living in himself immortal and incorruptible he is again immolated for us in the mystery of the holy sacrifice." St Gregory the Great.