In addition, it is not necessary to collate and examine the list of monuments and ceramics that utilize the date 13.0.0.0.0. The very simple fact that this date (which we can read as "the end of a 13 baktun cycle") is found in contexts involving Creation narratives indicates, all by itself, that a 13-Baktun cycle was conceived as a great cycle, what we can term a World Age cycle. I'm not sure of you object to this terminology, or if you object to identifying these dates as an indication of a belief in a 13-Baktun period/cycle/Age. If you reject making a conceptual connection between this 13-Baktun period and the Mesoamerican concept of Ages, then you need to read Brotherston for starters. I can't shake the feeling that you're just being difficult on this point, trying to save face perhaps, for once we understanding that relationship between the Long Count calendar and the World Age doctrine in the Creation mythology, then the connection to the World Age in the Popol Vuh is obvious. The only thing preventing this conclusion is your assertion that the World Age doctrine in the Popol Vuh is not a native belief but was introduced by Christian influence. So, please, find me one scholar who argues that the World Ages documented in the Popol Vuh are introductions from Christian influence. If not, then we are left with the extremely likely conclusion that the 13-Baktun period recorded on Maya creation narratives is identical to the World Ages spoken of in the Maya Creation Myth.
I think what you are sensing is frustration rather than defensiveness. I am presenting rational, well argued information. And yet we are descending into an endless Socratic debate based upon nitcpicking minutiae. The critique regarding distortions added to the Popol Vuh via Christian influence, at least to a degree that actually mitigates my thesis, remains an assertion on your part. I'm afraid the burden of proof rests with you on this one; my observation that Christian theology is linear whereas Maya time philosophy is cyclic is widely understood; it is frustrating and baffling that it is being utilized as the linchpin of your critique. Meanwhile, the main points of my argument are being ignored. Instead of engaging the main points of my thesis, irrelevant sidetracks are being widened as if what may be found there could make a lick of difference anyway. Perhaps you are doing this subconsciously in a reflexive advisory role, I don't know. Again, frustrating and baffling - much like the enervating current exchange with Marcos V on Aztlan I am having. If you are as well versed as I am in the various traditions that are relevant to this discussion, I don't see the value in derailing the discussion down irrelevant sidetracks. Furthermore, when I do respond cogently to your objections, my responses are qualified and countered from a vantage point that has nothing to do with the intention of my statement. Thus, I feel the frsutrating necessity of re-re-re-repeating previously emphasized points. You'll have to admit, this can make anyone frustrated if not crazy. If you're trying to make me dig for citations in this online venue, I don't think this is an appropriate place for that; I refer you to my publications. What I was trying to present in my brief article (linked above) was a way to rationally frame our approach to 2012, utilizing the bare minimum of facts that we have at our disposal and that we can all agree on. (This is an overdue, and necessary, framing of the 2012 topic because scholars have failed to frame the 2012 topic at all, apart from saying "the world isn't going to end" or merely addressing the social feeding-frenzy phenomenon of 2012 rather than the thing-in-itself as a real artifact of the Maya calendar tradition.) The application of reason to those facts leads to the conclusion that the end date of the 13-baktun cycle (December 21, 2012) was very very very probably placed intentionally by a people of high mathematical and astronomical achievement. That conclusion follows from the mere facts of the end date, as sketched, and diversionary side issues do not mitigate that conclusion.
Rene Hugs, I don't know why you said that I "don't want to debate with you." Your post above of January 3 is not legible in the English translation. I cannot decipher your brief January 4th email direct to me, which read:
"If you can travel, he/she comes to the Brazil so that he/she knows the whole work. They are more than 1.000 pages. He/she has 200 drawings, pictures and charts. You won't never regret to come and to know the discovered ones Mesoamerican. I think that you are very nice and you don't deserve to go by disfavors. Can everything be moved in advance not?"
Those are the only two contacts I've ever had with you. You appear to be using automated translation software that does not result in understandable English. How that makes me unwilling to debate with you, I do not know.
Hi Tom, Evidence for a World Age doctrine, and that World Ages last 13 Baktuns (5,125 years) is found in the glyphs in certain Creation texts - at Coba, Quirigua, Tortuguero, the Vase of the Seven Lords, and elsewhere. These are the texts dated 13.0.0.0.0. JMJ
The epigraphers of Classic Period writing could learn much from the iconographers of Pre-Classic symbology. For example, several symbol forms at Izapa have evolved into cvonventionalized hieroglyphs. The upturned frog mouth of Stela 11 is an early form of the upturned frog mouth glyph that means "to be born" (Kelley, 1976). The caiman on Stela 25 is clearly an early form of the Starry Deer Crocodile of Classic Period icongraphy, as David Stuart stated in his 2005 book but that he, oddly, dodged in our private communique of last summer.
Your last paragraph is baffling. Do you disagree with the observation that, conceptually speaking, a 13-Baktun cycle in the Long Count is equivalent to a "World Age" in the Popol Vuh? I guess I'd have to direct you to the writings of Gordon Brotherston for edification on that point. I don't need to be led through some kind of thesis-advisor process - I've heard the stories of what that's like - something like a fraternity hazing I gather. Soon I'll be having to provide evidence and citations that the Maya could count, or that they really did look up at the stars! Why do you assume that the arbiter of truth can only come from "evidence" cited from Classic Period Maya texts? What constitutes evidence in your view?
It seems that the sources of allowable evidence have bene so severely limited such that only the most conservative of interpretations can be maintained. This may be cautious scholarship, but I don't think it's good scholarship. I consider the carved monments of Izapa to be "statements"; epigraphers do not because they don't see "writing" there.
My answer to your last question would be: all of the Creation dates that are written 13.0.0.0.0 provide evidence that a 13-Baktun period is - a) A World Age, b) ? c) ? d) ? Please provide alternative options for a, b, and c, as I can't think of any. Secondly, there is a World Age doctrine in the Popl Vuh - we agree on that, right? There is a sequence of World Ages described in the Popol Vuh. Was this idea introduced from Jimenez? Extremely unlikely. As extremely unlikely, as laughably unlikely, as space aliens landing to spawn the Maya. We are left with the unavoiadable conclusion - unless you really really want to avoid it - that the World Age doctrine is an authentic ancient belief of the Maya. Again, I refer you to Brotherston for context. If this idea is a stumbling block for you, let's bring it to Aztlan.
John H., Part 1 But the Christian eschatology is so fundamentally different from Maya time conception, that although an opportunity was theoretically present, it does not seem to have occurred, otherwise the Popol Vuh would have a very different appearance. I'm afraid your critique does not lead to viable conclusions. In regards to Jimenez, what I said was that any introductions he made must have minor, otherwise we would see the blatant stamp of Christian dogma. But we don't; that was my point and thus my original comment is sustained.
I don't believe pursuing Jimenez's motivations are relevant to the topic at all, since the doctrine as it survives in the Popol Vuh bears all the signs of Maya cosmovision rather than Christian theology - it is one of cyclic time and World Ages. It may be interesting to pursue your line of thinking for its own sake, but it's a sidetrack and only serves to derail and diffuse the main line of the investigation. Unless you can discover that Jimenez was a secret hermetic eschatologist who harbored heretical cyclical beliefs about time rather than towing the linear / apocalyptic party line, it's a waste of time.
I'm aware of the various influences that came into highland Guatemala. Ruud van Akkeren did an insightful study of this in his book The Place of the Lord's Daughter - have you read it? However, many central elments of the Popol Vuh have an ancient lineage, since we find key episodes on the very early carved monuments of Izapa - how do we explain this? Some kind of continuity from what appears to be the origins of the Popol Vuh myth, circa 100 BC, to the recording of the Popol Vuh in the 1550s, is undeniable. Here we encounter pre-Conquest Maya documentation on the carved monuments, and thus we need to understand the iconographic precursors to hieroglyphic writing.
John H. You are right, I overlooked that one instance of a copy made. And how does that then support your implied issue that such copying introduced the World Age doctrine and the idea that time cycles express like-in-kind repetitions? (Let's not forget the specific context of my original observation that the World Age doctrine in the Popol Vuh expresses the calendrical World Age in the Long Count). Can you detail for me all of the distortions and introductions made by Ximenez? Has anybody? I doubt there are many, aside from typos. Certainly the astronomical references embedded in the Popol Vuh, which are the primary areas of support for my end date alignment thesis, were not introduced from outside.
Even if we allow for odds of, say 1/365, the odds go higher when we realize that to place a big cycle ending (the 13-baktun cycle) in coordination with a smaller cycle end (the solstice) is meaningful, to be expected, and consistent with the Mayan value of temporal commensuration. The investigation must integrate not only a abstract and specialized analysis of mathematical probability, but identifiable conceptual meanings which argue for the case of intentionality.
However, what I presented in my brief piece was a way to circumvent the endless debate that can arise around that issue and to ask other investigators to entertain the notion that the solstice placement was intended. By the way, Edmonson, Bricker, and now Susan Milbrath all have responded to the solstice date with an initial assumption that it is unlikely to have been a coincidence. The rest of my essay then follows from that working hypothesis.
I can fill in citations and splice in the arguments that you want, as they already exist elsewhere. What will end up occurring is a piecemeal reconstruction and repackaging of large tracts of my book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, but if that will help the advancement of the discussion, I'll do it.
Your comment on the Popol Vuh being a contaminated document is a large over-statement. Tedlock's translation, for example, draws from the original document recorded by Maya elders in the 1550s; they were apparently working from a pre-Conquest hierogplyphic book. More to the point, your comment, even if true, does not relate to the point I was making - that the Creation Myth is a World Age doctrine. Are you implying that the overarching World Age structure of the Creation Myth was craftily layered in by Spanish editors and Christian influences?
Similarly, my reference to the Chilam Balam books involve the specific idea that all cycle endings are like-in-kind events. In Christian theology, we don't find the idea of time cycles at all, let alone the idea that cycles express like-in-kind events. This concept is stated by Matthew Looper in one of his books - almost matter of factly as if such a conclusion was obvious - and was cited by me in the Bolon Yokte article I wrote. In the Chilam Balam books we read (I paraphrase): "What has happened in the past Katun will happen in the future Katun."
I didn't venture into the dark rift material in this introduction, because I realized that a proper framing of a rational approach to the topic would need to be agreed on before proceeding further. We'll see what develops, More later,
When the rubber hits the road, many scholars tend to deflect what could be a rational discourse and engage in borderline ad hominem attacks. Please don't do that, as it prevents the rational advancement of knowledge. So, I invite you to read my introduction to an essay that I just wrote, one that was inspired by your invitation to write a peer-reviewed essay. Don't worry, it's a brief intro and only strives to frame a rational approach to 2012. In writing it, I realized that I had to address some very basic issues that many scholars have misconceptions about, or have not thought through rationally, and that is why the 2012 discussion is bogged down in academia. I ask you to not critique it based upon a lack of citations - it is just intended to provide a rational framing of a useful and accurate approach to understanding 2012. If we aren't on the same page with where it promises to lead the 2012 discussion - in terms of rational investigation - then there's no point in wasting my time writing a longer essay embedded with citations and so on. It will be uploaded by the evening of January 3rd, at: http://Alignment2012.com/rationalappr...
And a Happy New Year to you, too. It's really unfortunate that thinking people cannot separate the different contexts in which I present my work. Even the spiritual and metaphysical topics that I explore in my work are presented in the context of rational examination. For example, there's a big difference between summarizing the perennial philosophy elucidated by high caliber intellectual metaphysicians like Ananda Coomaraswamy and indulging in the kind of soft-headed mysticism that floods the marketplace. It's sad to me that scholar-intellects often deny themselves of so much human experience and knowledge because of their narrow-minded conception of what is allowable. When I've engaged in dialogues with scholars about the evidence I rally to support my theory, I've never asked them to follow me even a little bit into something so distasteful to them as "metaphysics." The problem - as numerous examples of my exchanges with scholars show - is an unwillingness of scholars to engage in a rational way with the evidence I present. If they refuse to engage the theory because they note that, outside of the rational discourse I wish to engage them in, I'm trying to pay my bills by sharing my work in venues that they personally judge, that too merely indicts them as closed-minded elitists.
Your dualist advice that I must chose to keep company with either a) university-approved scholars or b) "New Age company" is pretty narrow minded. By the way, didn't you used to hang with Pinchbeck? What's all that pagan stuff you were indulging in at Burning Man? Or were you merely an objective anthropological observer? And since you just shared a venue in this pop culture interview with "New Agers", aren't you afraid that your colleagues are now going to accuse you of "keeping New Age company?" Oops. See how that works? Guilt by association - the mainstay of fundamentalism.
Five Years
-continued to John H.,
In addition, it is not necessary to collate and examine the list of monuments and ceramics that utilize the date 13.0.0.0.0. The very simple fact that this date (which we can read as "the end of a 13 baktun cycle") is found in contexts involving Creation narratives indicates, all by itself, that a 13-Baktun cycle was conceived as a great cycle, what we can term a World Age cycle. I'm not sure of you object to this terminology, or if you object to identifying these dates as an indication of a belief in a 13-Baktun period/cycle/Age. If you reject making a conceptual connection between this 13-Baktun period and the Mesoamerican concept of Ages, then you need to read Brotherston for starters. I can't shake the feeling that you're just being difficult on this point, trying to save face perhaps, for once we understanding that relationship between the Long Count calendar and the World Age doctrine in the Creation mythology, then the connection to the World Age in the Popol Vuh is obvious. The only thing preventing this conclusion is your assertion that the World Age doctrine in the Popol Vuh is not a native belief but was introduced by Christian influence. So, please, find me one scholar who argues that the World Ages documented in the Popol Vuh are introductions from Christian influence. If not, then we are left with the extremely likely conclusion that the 13-Baktun period recorded on Maya creation narratives is identical to the World Ages spoken of in the Maya Creation Myth.
John Major Jenkins
January 15, 2008 at 8:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Five Years
John H.,
I think what you are sensing is frustration rather than defensiveness. I am presenting rational, well argued information. And yet we are descending into an endless Socratic debate based upon nitcpicking minutiae. The critique regarding distortions added to the Popol Vuh via Christian influence, at least to a degree that actually mitigates my thesis, remains an assertion on your part. I'm afraid the burden of proof rests with you on this one; my observation that Christian theology is linear whereas Maya time philosophy is cyclic is widely understood; it is frustrating and baffling that it is being utilized as the linchpin of your critique. Meanwhile, the main points of my argument are being ignored. Instead of engaging the main points of my thesis, irrelevant sidetracks are being widened as if what may be found there could make a lick of difference anyway. Perhaps you are doing this subconsciously in a reflexive advisory role, I don't know. Again, frustrating and baffling - much like the enervating current exchange with Marcos V on Aztlan I am having. If you are as well versed as I am in the various traditions that are relevant to this discussion, I don't see the value in derailing the discussion down irrelevant sidetracks. Furthermore, when I do respond cogently to your objections, my responses are qualified and countered from a vantage point that has nothing to do with the intention of my statement. Thus, I feel the frsutrating necessity of re-re-re-repeating previously emphasized points. You'll have to admit, this can make anyone frustrated if not crazy. If you're trying to make me dig for citations in this online venue, I don't think this is an appropriate place for that; I refer you to my publications. What I was trying to present in my brief article (linked above) was a way to rationally frame our approach to 2012, utilizing the bare minimum of facts that we have at our disposal and that we can all agree on. (This is an overdue, and necessary, framing of the 2012 topic because scholars have failed to frame the 2012 topic at all, apart from saying "the world isn't going to end" or merely addressing the social feeding-frenzy phenomenon of 2012 rather than the thing-in-itself as a real artifact of the Maya calendar tradition.) The application of reason to those facts leads to the conclusion that the end date of the 13-baktun cycle (December 21, 2012) was very very very probably placed intentionally by a people of high mathematical and astronomical achievement. That conclusion follows from the mere facts of the end date, as sketched, and diversionary side issues do not mitigate that conclusion.
continued -
January 15, 2008 at 8:14 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Five Years
Rene Hugs,
I don't know why you said that I "don't want to debate with you." Your post above of January 3 is not legible in the English translation. I cannot decipher your brief January 4th email direct to me, which read:
"If you can travel, he/she comes to the Brazil so that he/she knows the whole work. They are more than 1.000 pages. He/she has 200 drawings, pictures and charts. You won't never regret to come and to know the discovered ones Mesoamerican. I think that you are very nice and you don't deserve to go by disfavors. Can everything be moved in advance not?"
Those are the only two contacts I've ever had with you. You appear to be using automated translation software that does not result in understandable English. How that makes me unwilling to debate with you, I do not know.
John Major Jenkins
January 11, 2008 at 12:55 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Five Years
Hi Tom,
Evidence for a World Age doctrine, and that World Ages last 13 Baktuns (5,125 years) is found in the glyphs in certain Creation texts - at Coba, Quirigua, Tortuguero, the Vase of the Seven Lords, and elsewhere. These are the texts dated 13.0.0.0.0.
JMJ
January 9, 2008 at 10:29 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Five Years
John H., Part 2
The epigraphers of Classic Period writing could learn much from the iconographers of Pre-Classic symbology. For example, several symbol forms at Izapa have evolved into cvonventionalized hieroglyphs. The upturned frog mouth of Stela 11 is an early form of the upturned frog mouth glyph that means "to be born" (Kelley, 1976). The caiman on Stela 25 is clearly an early form of the Starry Deer Crocodile of Classic Period icongraphy, as David Stuart stated in his 2005 book but that he, oddly, dodged in our private communique of last summer.
Your last paragraph is baffling. Do you disagree with the observation that, conceptually speaking, a 13-Baktun cycle in the Long Count is equivalent to a "World Age" in the Popol Vuh? I guess I'd have to direct you to the writings of Gordon Brotherston for edification on that point. I don't need to be led through some kind of thesis-advisor process - I've heard the stories of what that's like - something like a fraternity hazing I gather. Soon I'll be having to provide evidence and citations that the Maya could count, or that they really did look up at the stars! Why do you assume that the arbiter of truth can only come from "evidence" cited from Classic Period Maya texts? What constitutes evidence in your view?
It seems that the sources of allowable evidence have bene so severely limited such that only the most conservative of interpretations can be maintained. This may be cautious scholarship, but I don't think it's good scholarship. I consider the carved monments of Izapa to be "statements"; epigraphers do not because they don't see "writing" there.
My answer to your last question would be: all of the Creation dates that are written 13.0.0.0.0 provide evidence that a 13-Baktun period is - a) A World Age, b) ? c) ? d) ? Please provide alternative options for a, b, and c, as I can't think of any. Secondly, there is a World Age doctrine in the Popl Vuh - we agree on that, right? There is a sequence of World Ages described in the Popol Vuh. Was this idea introduced from Jimenez? Extremely unlikely. As extremely unlikely, as laughably unlikely, as space aliens landing to spawn the Maya. We are left with the unavoiadable conclusion - unless you really really want to avoid it - that the World Age doctrine is an authentic ancient belief of the Maya. Again, I refer you to Brotherston for context. If this idea is a stumbling block for you, let's bring it to Aztlan.
John Major Jenkins
January 9, 2008 at 12:43 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Five Years
John H., Part 1
But the Christian eschatology is so fundamentally different from Maya time conception, that although an opportunity was theoretically present, it does not seem to have occurred, otherwise the Popol Vuh would have a very different appearance. I'm afraid your critique does not lead to viable conclusions. In regards to Jimenez, what I said was that any introductions he made must have minor, otherwise we would see the blatant stamp of Christian dogma. But we don't; that was my point and thus my original comment is sustained.
I don't believe pursuing Jimenez's motivations are relevant to the topic at all, since the doctrine as it survives in the Popol Vuh bears all the signs of Maya cosmovision rather than Christian theology - it is one of cyclic time and World Ages. It may be interesting to pursue your line of thinking for its own sake, but it's a sidetrack and only serves to derail and diffuse the main line of the investigation. Unless you can discover that Jimenez was a secret hermetic eschatologist who harbored heretical cyclical beliefs about time rather than towing the linear / apocalyptic party line, it's a waste of time.
I'm aware of the various influences that came into highland Guatemala. Ruud van Akkeren did an insightful study of this in his book The Place of the Lord's Daughter - have you read it? However, many central elments of the Popol Vuh have an ancient lineage, since we find key episodes on the very early carved monuments of Izapa - how do we explain this? Some kind of continuity from what appears to be the origins of the Popol Vuh myth, circa 100 BC, to the recording of the Popol Vuh in the 1550s, is undeniable. Here we encounter pre-Conquest Maya documentation on the carved monuments, and thus we need to understand the iconographic precursors to hieroglyphic writing.
-continued-
January 9, 2008 at 12:43 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Five Years
John H.
You are right, I overlooked that one instance of a copy made. And how does that then support your implied issue that such copying introduced the World Age doctrine and the idea that time cycles express like-in-kind repetitions? (Let's not forget the specific context of my original observation that the World Age doctrine in the Popol Vuh expresses the calendrical World Age in the Long Count). Can you detail for me all of the distortions and introductions made by Ximenez? Has anybody? I doubt there are many, aside from typos. Certainly the astronomical references embedded in the Popol Vuh, which are the primary areas of support for my end date alignment thesis, were not introduced from outside.
John Major Jenkins
January 5, 2008 at 8:56 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Five Years
John H.,
Even if we allow for odds of, say 1/365, the odds go higher when we realize that to place a big cycle ending (the 13-baktun cycle) in coordination with a smaller cycle end (the solstice) is meaningful, to be expected, and consistent with the Mayan value of temporal commensuration. The investigation must integrate not only a abstract and specialized analysis of mathematical probability, but identifiable conceptual meanings which argue for the case of intentionality.
However, what I presented in my brief piece was a way to circumvent the endless debate that can arise around that issue and to ask other investigators to entertain the notion that the solstice placement was intended. By the way, Edmonson, Bricker, and now Susan Milbrath all have responded to the solstice date with an initial assumption that it is unlikely to have been a coincidence. The rest of my essay then follows from that working hypothesis.
I can fill in citations and splice in the arguments that you want, as they already exist elsewhere. What will end up occurring is a piecemeal reconstruction and repackaging of large tracts of my book Maya Cosmogenesis 2012, but if that will help the advancement of the discussion, I'll do it.
Your comment on the Popol Vuh being a contaminated document is a large over-statement. Tedlock's translation, for example, draws from the original document recorded by Maya elders in the 1550s; they were apparently working from a pre-Conquest hierogplyphic book. More to the point, your comment, even if true, does not relate to the point I was making - that the Creation Myth is a World Age doctrine. Are you implying that the overarching World Age structure of the Creation Myth was craftily layered in by Spanish editors and Christian influences?
Similarly, my reference to the Chilam Balam books involve the specific idea that all cycle endings are like-in-kind events. In Christian theology, we don't find the idea of time cycles at all, let alone the idea that cycles express like-in-kind events. This concept is stated by Matthew Looper in one of his books - almost matter of factly as if such a conclusion was obvious - and was cited by me in the Bolon Yokte article I wrote. In the Chilam Balam books we read (I paraphrase): "What has happened in the past Katun will happen in the future Katun."
I didn't venture into the dark rift material in this introduction, because I realized that a proper framing of a rational approach to the topic would need to be agreed on before proceeding further. We'll see what develops, More later,
John Major Jenkins
January 5, 2008 at 12:53 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Five Years
John H., (Part II),
When the rubber hits the road, many scholars tend to deflect what could be a rational discourse and engage in borderline ad hominem attacks. Please don't do that, as it prevents the rational advancement of knowledge. So, I invite you to read my introduction to an essay that I just wrote, one that was inspired by your invitation to write a peer-reviewed essay. Don't worry, it's a brief intro and only strives to frame a rational approach to 2012. In writing it, I realized that I had to address some very basic issues that many scholars have misconceptions about, or have not thought through rationally, and that is why the 2012 discussion is bogged down in academia. I ask you to not critique it based upon a lack of citations - it is just intended to provide a rational framing of a useful and accurate approach to understanding 2012. If we aren't on the same page with where it promises to lead the 2012 discussion - in terms of rational investigation - then there's no point in wasting my time writing a longer essay embedded with citations and so on. It will be uploaded by the evening of January 3rd, at: http://Alignment2012.com/rationalappr...
Best wishes,
John Major Jenkins
January 2, 2008 at 7:16 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Five Years
John H., (Part I)
And a Happy New Year to you, too. It's really unfortunate that thinking people cannot separate the different contexts in which I present my work. Even the spiritual and metaphysical topics that I explore in my work are presented in the context of rational examination. For example, there's a big difference between summarizing the perennial philosophy elucidated by high caliber intellectual metaphysicians like Ananda Coomaraswamy and indulging in the kind of soft-headed mysticism that floods the marketplace. It's sad to me that scholar-intellects often deny themselves of so much human experience and knowledge because of their narrow-minded conception of what is allowable. When I've engaged in dialogues with scholars about the evidence I rally to support my theory, I've never asked them to follow me even a little bit into something so distasteful to them as "metaphysics." The problem - as numerous examples of my exchanges with scholars show - is an unwillingness of scholars to engage in a rational way with the evidence I present. If they refuse to engage the theory because they note that, outside of the rational discourse I wish to engage them in, I'm trying to pay my bills by sharing my work in venues that they personally judge, that too merely indicts them as closed-minded elitists.
Your dualist advice that I must chose to keep company with either a) university-approved scholars or b) "New Age company" is pretty narrow minded. By the way, didn't you used to hang with Pinchbeck? What's all that pagan stuff you were indulging in at Burning Man? Or were you merely an objective anthropological observer? And since you just shared a venue in this pop culture interview with "New Agers", aren't you afraid that your colleagues are now going to accuse you of "keeping New Age company?" Oops. See how that works? Guilt by association - the mainstay of fundamentalism.
- continued in next post -
January 2, 2008 at 7:15 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )