For the discussion of all things philosophical.
https://canzookia.com/
I’d have to become the SpiderImagine 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 guess.So you are a student of Mumbo Jumbo, are you? Who would have guessed?Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 8:18 pm
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.
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.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.]
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 MASSAlexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 10:52 pmI 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.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.]
To each his own, right?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 8:18 pm
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).
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 8:18 pm
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.
On bad days, perhaps. But on my good days! I soar!
Roger that.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.
You are speaking of the post-Vatican ll “pseudo-mass”. I am speaking of the very different Latin or Tridentine Mass.attofishpi wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 2:47 am Most of the Mass comprises of singing hymns in between hearing a priest read some passages of scripture.
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'.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 3:22 amGrab hold of a bannister. I swear that for a second you began to levitate!
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.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 8:18 pmPlease 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.Harry Baird wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 6:00 pm 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:
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.
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.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?
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.
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'.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?
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.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?
In my own view it is our own *inner territory* that is the plane where we recover ourselves metaphysically. How could it be otherwise?
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.Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 8:18 pm 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.
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).Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 8:18 pmThe Mass, as you know, is a reenactment of the life and ultimate sacrifice of Jesus.
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.Dubious wrote: ↑Thu May 25, 2023 6:03 am 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.
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.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.
I told you that on a good day I could soar. Thank you for providing some lift, Mr Irascible!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.
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.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.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑
The Mass, as you know, is a reenactment of the life and ultimate sacrifice of Jesus.
Do a wee bit of research. Or simply read the Ordinary of the Mass pre-1965. Or ask that damned Satanic Machine AI!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).
"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.