You Have a Strange Attitude.

What were you doing -- I wanna know.

May I please have that?

I knew I was fucked -- The Pig had me on all counts.

See, you have two cases of beer, a basket of grapefruit, stack of T-shirts and towels, light bulbs --

You realise What You Did when you drive like that?

Yeah, I know. I'm Guilty. I understand that.

I knew it was a crime, and I did it anyway.

Shit, why argue? I'm a fucking criminal.

Look at me --

You have a Strange Attitude.

Maybe.

You know, I have a feeling you need to take a nap.

There's a rest area just up ahead.

I'd like you to go up there, pull over and get a few hours sleep.

That's not gonna help me.

I've been awake for too long, three for four nights, maybe.

Can't even remember.

I go to sleep now, I'm Dead for 20 hours.

What are you carrying two cases of soap for, son?

I wanna stay clean.

No...

Here's How it Is : -- What I put in My Book, as of noon, is that I apprehended you for driving too fast.

I ADVISED you to proceed to the next rest area -- STOP!

I advised you to proceed to the next rest area, your stated destination, right?

And take a long nap.

Do I make myself clear?

Well, how far is Baker?

I was sorta hoping to, I don't know, stop there for lunch.

It's not my jurisdiction. 

City Limits end 2.2 miles beyond the rest area.

Think you can make it that far?

I'll Try.

I've been wanting to go to Baker for a long time. 

Yeah. Heard a lot about it.

Excellent Seafood....

You know, I'm thinking, a guy with your kind of mind ought to try the land crab.

Excellent Seafood.

Land-crab.

All Right. Why Not?

The Intuitive Dog and Its Rational Tail

One of the greatest Truths in psychology is that The Mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict. To be Human is to feel pulled in different directions, and to marvel — sometimes in horror — at your inability to control your own actions. 

The Roman poet Ovid lived at a time when people thought diseases were caused by imbalances of bile, but he knew enough psychology to have one of his characters lament: “I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and Reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.”

Ancient thinkers gave us many metaphors to understand this conflict, but few are more colorful than the one in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. The narrator, Timaeus, explains how the gods created the universe, including us. Timaeus says that a creator god who was perfect and created only perfect things was filling his new universe with souls — and what could be more perfect in a soul than perfect rationality? So after making a large number of perfect, rational souls, the creator god decided to take a break, delegating the last bits of creation to some lesser deities, who did their best to design vessels for these souls.

The deities began by encasing the souls in that most perfect of shapes, the sphere, which explains why our heads are more or less round. But they quickly realized that these spherical heads would face difficulties and indignities as they rolled around the uneven surface of the Earth. So the gods created bodies to carry the heads, and they animated each body with a second soul — vastly inferior because it was neither rational nor immortal. This second soul contained

those dreadful but necessary disturbances: pleasure, first of all, evil’s most powerful lure; then pains, that make us run away from what is good; besides these, boldness also and fear, foolish counselors both; then also the spirit of anger hard to assuage, and expectation easily led astray. These they fused with unreasoning sense perception and all-venturing lust, and so, as was necessary, they constructed the mortal type of soul.

Pleasures, emotions, senses … all were necessary evils. To give the divine head a bit of distance from the seething body and its “foolish counsel,” the gods invented the neck.

Most creation myths situate a tribe or ancestor at the center of creation, so it seems odd to give the honor to a mental faculty—at least until you realize that this philosopher’s myth makes philosophers look pretty darn good. It justifies their perpetual employment as the high priests of reason, or as dispassionate philosopher-kings. It’s the ultimate rationalist fantasy—the passions are and ought only to be the servants of reason, to reverse Hume’s formulation. And just in case there was any doubt about Plato’s contempt for the passions, Timaeus adds that a man who masters his emotions will live a life of reason and justice, and will be reborn into a celestial heaven of eternal happiness. 

 

A man who is mastered by his passions, however, will be reincarnated as a woman.

Western philosophy has been worshipping reason and distrusting the passions for thousands of years.4 There’s a direct line running from Plato through Immanuel Kant to Lawrence Kohlberg. I’ll refer to this worshipful attitude throughout this book as the rationalist delusion. I call it a delusion because when a group of people make something sacred, the members of the cult lose the ability to think clearly about it. Morality binds and blinds. The true believers produce pious fantasies that don’t match reality, and at some point somebody comes along to knock the idol off its pedestal. That was Hume’s project, with his philosophically sacrilegious claim that reason was nothing but the servant of the passions.

Thomas Jefferson offered a more balanced model of the relationship between reason and emotion. In 1786, while serving as the American minister to France, Jefferson fell in love. Maria Cosway was a beautiful twenty-seven-year-old English artist who was introduced to Jefferson by a mutual friend. Jefferson and Cosway then spent the next few hours doing exactly what people should do to fall madly in love. They strolled around Paris on a perfect sunny day, two foreigners sharing each other’s aesthetic appreciations of a grand city. Jefferson sent messengers bearing lies to cancel his evening meetings so that he could extend the day into night. Cosway was married, although the marriage seems to have been an open marriage of convenience, and historians do not know how far the romance progressed in the weeks that followed.6 But Cosway’s husband soon insisted on taking his wife back to England, leaving Jefferson in pain.

To ease that pain, Jefferson wrote Cosway a love letter using a literary trick to cloak the impropriety of writing about love to a married woman. Jefferson wrote the letter as a dialogue between his head and his heart debating the wisdom of having pursued a “friendship” even while he knew it would have to end. Jefferson’s head is the Platonic ideal of reason, scolding the heart for having dragged them both into yet another fine mess. The heart asks the head for pity, but the head responds with a stern lecture:

Everything in this world is a matter of calculation. Advance then with caution, the balance in your hand. Put into one scale the pleasures which any object may offer; but put fairly into the other the pains which are to follow, & see which preponderates.

After taking round after round of abuse rather passively, the heart finally rises to defend itself, and to put the head in its proper place —which is to handle problems that don’t involve people:

When nature assigned us the same habitation, she gave us over it a divided empire. To you she allotted the field of science; to me that of morals. When the circle is to be squared, or the orbit of a comet to be traced; when the arch of greatest strength, or the solid of least resistance is to be investigated, take up the problem; it is yours; nature has given me no cognizance of it. In like manner, in denying to you the feelings of sympathy, of benevolence, of gratitude, of justice, of love, of friendship, she has excluded you from their control. To these she has adapted the mechanism of the heart. Morals were too essential to the happiness of man to be risked on the incertain combinations of the head. She laid their foundation therefore in sentiment, not in science.

So now we have three models of the mind. Plato said that reason ought to be the master, even if philosophers are the only ones who can reach a high level of mastery. Hume said that reason is and ought to be the servant of the passions. And Jefferson gives us a third option, in which reason and sentiment are (and ought to be) independent co-rulers, like the Emperors of Rome, who divided the empire into Eastern and Western halves. 

 

Who is right?

The Demand of the Neophyte

"The Fifth Planet was very strange. It was the smallest of all. There was just enough room for a street lamp and a street lamp lighter. 

The little prince couldn’t figure out what purpose a street lamp and a lamp lighter would serve, somewhere in the sky on a planet without houses or any people. 

Still, he said to himself: “Perhaps that man really is a bit absurd. But he is less absurd than the king, or the vain man, or the businessman or the drinker. 

At least his work has meaning. When he lights his street lamp, it’s as if he caused one more star to be born, or a flower. 

When he extinguishes his street lamp it causes the star or flower to go to sleep. 

It’s a very charming job. 

It’s truly useful because it is charming.” 

When he approached the planet, he greeted the street lamp lighter respectfully. “Hello. Why did you just put out your street lamp?” 

“It’s the instructions,” the street lamp lighter replied. “Good day.” 

“What are the instructions?” 

“To extinguish my street lamp. Good evening.” 

And he relit the lamp. 

“But why did you just relight it?” 

“It’s the instructions,” answered the street lamp lighter. 

“ I don’t understand,” the little prince said. 

“There’s nothing to understand,” said the street lamp lighter. “The instructions are the instructions. Good day.” 

And he extinguished his street lamp. 

Then he mopped off his face with a red-checkered handkerchief. 

“I have a terrible job. It used to be reasonable. I extinguished in the morning and I lit at night. I had the rest of the day to rest, and the rest of the night to sleep…” 

“And since that time the instructions have changed?” 

“The instructions haven’t changed,” said the street lamp lighter. “That’s the problem! 

The planet has turned faster and faster from year to year, and the instructions haven’t changed!” 

“Well?” said the little prince. 

“Well, now that it makes a full turn in just one minute, I don’t have a second to relax any more. I light and I extinguish each and every minute!” 

“That’s funny! The days here last a minute!” 

“It’s not funny at all,” said the street lamp lighter. “It’s already been a month since we started talking to each other.” 

“A month?” 

“Yes. Thirty minutes—thirty days! Good evening.” 

And he relit his street lamp. 

The little prince watched him and he liked this street lamp lighter who was so faithful to his duty. 

He remembered the sunsets that he himself used to look for by moving his chair. 

 

He wanted to help his friend: “You know…I know a way that you can rest whenever you want to…” 

 

“I always want to,” the street lamp lighter said. 

 

For someone can be, at the same time, both diligent and lazy. 

 

The little prince continued: “Your planet is so little that in fact you can circle it in three big steps. You only have to walk slowly to remain always in the sunshine. When you want to take a break, you should walk…and the day will last as long as you want.” 

 

“That doesn’t improve my situation very much,” said the street lamp lighter. “What I would love to do in life is to sleep.” 

 

“You won’t have a chance,” said the little prince. 

 

“I won’t have a chance,” said the street lamp lighter. “Good day.” 

 

And he extinguished his street lamp. “That one,” the little prince said to himself, while he went on with his journey, “would be looked down upon by The Others, by The King, by The Vain Man, by The Drinker, by The Businessman. 

 

But he is the only one who does not seem ridiculous to me. 

 

Maybe it is because he is concerned with something other than himself.” 

 

He sighed a sigh of regret and went on saying to himself: “That one there is the only one that I would want to have as My Friend. But his planet is really too small. There’s not enough space for two…” 

 

What the little prince didn’t dare to admit to himself was that he missed that blessed planet especially because of the one thousand four hundred forty sunsets it had every twenty four hours!

The Demand of the Neophyte 

(continuation of Comments on Light on the Path)

Lucifer I Vol. 3 November 1887

by author Mabel Collins

“Before The Voice can speak in the presence of The Masters”

Speech is The Power of Communication; the moment of entrance into active life is marked by its attainment.

And now, before I go any further, let me explain a little the way in which the rules written down in “Light on the Path” are arranged. The first seven of those which are numbered are subdivisions of the two first unnumbered rules, those with which I have dealt in the two preceding papers. The numbered rules were simply an effort of mine to make the unnumbered ones more intelligible. “Eight” to “fifteen” of these numbered rules belong this unnumbered rule which is now my text.

As I have said, these rules are written for all disciples, but for none else; they are not of interest to any other persons. Therefore I trust no one else will trouble to read these papers any further. The first two rules, which include the whole of that part of the effort which necessitates the use of the surgeon’s knife, I will enlarge upon further if I am asked to do so.. But the disciple is expected to deal with the snake, his lower self, unaided; to suppress his human passions and emotions by the force of his own will. He can only demand assistance of a Master when this is accomplished, or at all events, partially so. Otherwise the gates and windows of his soul are blurred, and blinded, and darkened, and no knowledge can come to him. I am not, in these pages, purposing to tell a man how to deal with his own soul; I am simply giving, to the disciple, knowledge. That I am not writing, even now, so that all who run may read, is owing to the fact that supernature prevents this by its own immutable laws.

The four rules which I have written down for those in the West who wish to study them, are as I have said, written in the antechamber of every living Brotherhood; I may add more, in the ante-chamber of every living or dead Brotherhood, or Order yet to be formed. When I speak of a Brotherhood or an Order, I do not mean an arbitrary constitution made by scholiasts and intellectualists; I mean an actual fact in supernature, a stage of development towards the absolute God or Good. During this development the disciple encounters harmony, pure knowledge, pure truth, in different degrees and, as he enters these degrees, he finds himself becoming part of what might be roughly described as a layer of human consciousness. He encounters his equals, men of his own selfless character, and with them his association becomes permanent and indissoluble, because founded on a vital likeness of nature. To them he becomes [Page 171] pledged by such vows as need no utterance or framework in ordinary words. This is one aspect of what I mean by a Brotherhood.

If the first rules are conquered the disciple finds himself standing at the threshold. Then if his will is sufficiently resolute his power of speech comes; a twofold power. For, as he advances now, he finds himself entering into a state of blossoming, where every bud that opens throws out its several rays or petals. If he is to exercise his new gift, he must use it in its twofold character. 

He finds in himself The Power to Speak in The Presence of The Masters; in other words, he has the right to demand contact with the divinest element of that state of consciousness into which he has entered. 

But he finds himself compelled, by the nature of his position, to act in two ways at the same time. He cannot send his voice up to the heights where sit the gods till he has penetrated to the deep places where their light shines not at all. 

He has come within the grip of an Iron Law. If he demands to become a Neophyte, he at once becomes a Servant. 

Yet his service is sublime, if only from the character of those who share it. For The Masters are also Servants; they serve and claim their reward afterwards. 

Part of their service is to let their knowledge touch him; his first act of service is to give some of that knowledge to those who are not yet fit to stand where he stands. 

This is no arbitrary decision, made by any Master or Teacher or any such person, however divine. It is a Law of That Life Which The Disciple Has Entered Upon.

Therefore was it written in the inner doorway of the lodges of the old Egyptian Brotherhood, “The labourer is worthy of his hire”.

“Ask and ye shall have”, sounds like something too easy and simple to be credible. But the disciple cannot “ask” in the mystic sense in which the word is used in this scripture, until he has attained The Power of Helping others.

Why is this? Has the statement too dogmatic a sound?

Is it too dogmatic to say that a man must have foothold before he can spring? The position is the same. If help is given, if work is done, then there is an actual claim — not what we call a personal claim of payment, but the claim of co-nature. 

The Divine give, They demand that you also shall give before you can be of their kin.

This Law is discovered as soon as The Disciple endeavours to Speak. 

 

For Speech is a Gift which comes only to The Disciple of Power and Knowledge. 

The Spiritualist enters the psychic-astral world, but he does not find there any certain speech, unless he at once claims it and continues to do so. If he is interested in “phenomena”, or the mere circumstance and accident of astral life, then he enters no direct ray of Thought or Purpose, he merely exists and amuses himself in the astral life as he has existed and amused himself in the physical life. 

Certainly there are one or two simple lessons which the psychic-astral can teach him, just as there are simple lessons which material and intellectual life teach him. 

And these lessons have to be learned; the man who proposes to enter upon The Life of The Disciple without having learned the early and simple lessons must always suffer from his ignorance. They are vital, and have to be studied in a vital manner; experienced through and through, over and over again, so that each part of the nature has been penetrated by them.

To return. In claiming The Power of Speech, as it is called, the Neophyte cries out to the Great One who stands foremost in The Ray of Knowledge on which he has entered, to give him guidance. 

 

When he does this, His Voice is hurled back by The Power he has approached, and echoes down to the deep recesses of human ignorance. 

 

In some confused and blurred manner the news that there is Knowledge and a Beneficent Power Which Teaches, is carried to as many Men as will listen to it. No Disciple can cross The Threshold without communicating this news, and placing it on record in some fashion or other.

He stands horror-struck at the Imperfect and Unprepared manner in which he has done this, and then comes The Desire to Do it Well, and with The Desire thus To Help Others comes The Power. 

 

For it is a Pure Desire, this which comes upon him; he can gain no credit, no glory, no personal reward by fulfilling it. 

 

And therefore he obtains The Power TO Fulfil it.

The History of The Whole Past, so far as we can trace it, shows very plainly that there is neither credit, glory, nor reward to be gained by this first task which is given to the Neophyte. 

 

Mystics have always been sneered at, and seers disbelieved; those who have had The Added Power of Intellect have left for posterity their written record, which to most men appears unmeaning and visionary, even when The Authors have the advantage of Speaking from a Far-off Past. 

 

The Disciple who undertakes The Task, secretly hoping for fame or success, to appear as a Teacher and Apostle before The World, fails even before his task is attempted, and his hidden hypocrisy poisons his own soul, and the souls of those he touches. He is secretly worshipping himself, and this idolatrous practice must bring its own reward.

The Disciple who has The Power of Entrance, and is Strong enough to pass each barrier, will, when The Divine Message comes to His Spirit, forget himself utterly in the new consciousness which falls on him. 

 

If this lofty contact can really rouse him, he becomes as One of The Divine in his desire to Give rather than to Take, in his Wish to Help rather than Be Helped, in His Resolution to Feed The Hungry rather than take manna from Heaven himself. 

 

His Nature is transformed, and The Selfishness Which Prompts Men’s Actions in Ordinary Life suddenly deserts him.

What is The Secret Fire 

that Gandalf Serves?

From: Erik Tracy

Some people are genuinely puzzled over Gandalf's words to the Balrog of Moria when he first warns it:

 

" 'You cannot pass,' he said. The orcs stood still and a silence fell. 'I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The Dark Fire will not avail you, flame of Udun. Go back to the Shadow. You cannot pass!' "

 

[The Fellowship of the Ring]

Some people have taken this to mean that Gandalf serves his Ring of Fire, Narya. But this is not consistent or appropriate when Gandalf's history is taken as a whole.

I was re-reading the Silmarillion for references to what the "Secret Fire" that Gandalf serves, and I found the following:

 

"He [Melkor] had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame; for desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Iluvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Yet he found not the Fire, for it is with Iluvatar."

 

[The Silmarillion]

Then later:

 

"Therefore Iluvatar gave to their vision Being, and set it amid the Void, and the Secret Fire was sent to burn at the heart of the World; and it was called Ea."

 

[The Silmarillion]

The Imperishable Flame and the Secret Fire seem to represent the same thing; The Power of Iluvatar to impart actual Being to his thought - The Spirit of Creation, if you will. 

 

It seems fitting that this would be something that Gandalf (as a Maia sent from the West by the Valar) would "Serve" as counterposed to the evil of the Balrog. 

 

In this context, any notion of Gandalf serving the power of his ring Narya is absurd, IMHO (g).

As to what is meant by Gandalf's words "Flame of Udun", I simply infer that this is another word for Balrog. Balrogs are demons of fire, and the word Udun is found as an entry in the glossary of The Silmarillion under "tum":

"Cf. Utumno, Sindarin Udun (Gandalf in Moria named the Balrog 'Flame of Udun'), a name afterwards used of the deep dale in Moria between the Morannon and the Isenmouthe."

And Utumno is of course the first stronghold of Melkor in the North of Middle-earth. Hence, Flame of Udun could be read as Servant of Morgoth or Balrog from Morgoth's Fortress [Udun].

 

Just conjecture, of course.