nightmare II

I told someone about my dream. She said 'I bet the dark figure was your shadow side'.

WHAT?

'Yes, you're so good and empathetic and charming, I'm sure you have really well-developed dark side.'

Is that the equation?

(Have you noticed that when people describe you as charming, they probably don't mean it as a compliment?)

Typepad, who own this website have changed the password system, which means i can't do posts from my home computer. Well, i expect i could, but for the moment I'm stumped.  A drag, because at home weekends is when i have more time, so I'm still playing catch-up.

Commuters who work in American banks and other financial services in the City travel in from Tunbridge Wells. On Fridays they are on the station platform are all prepped for 'dress-down Friday', which means they don't wear suits but dress 'casually'. The problem is that the chinos, pink shirts, loafers etc are evidently every bit as regulated as the suits.

I wonder if a silver lining in this recession could be that we'll see an end to corporate bullshit. The management speak, the 'going forward', the corporate spin, the thought control that pretends it's for your benefit but really only wants you to give over the sweetest hours of your life to the bottom line that benefits those at the top - all of that has completely failed us. 

On Sunday morning I went on Jumoke Fashola's BBC London radio show on faith and ethics. (I don't tell friends beforehand about this sort of stuff in case I make a complete fool of myself.)

Jumoke's a gale of fun and laughter and slightly subversive high spirits. I liked her immensely the first time I went on. One of the advantages of doing an interview face to face is that you can pull faces and try to make the other laugh while he/she is talking, and we both took full advantage of this.

John Cornwell was before me being very interesting about Darwin and his gradual shift to atheism. He said that Darwin's favourite book, the one he took with him on the Beagle, was Milton's Paradise Lost.

Milton created a grand imaginative vision of spiritual cosmology - influenced by Boehme and Fludd -  just at the time that scientific materialism was beginning to replace idealism.  Secret History is intended as a snapshot of spiritual cosmolgy just as scientific materialism begins to fail.

Comments

[Edward Wyatt]

often I find myself in the conversation about science over idealism. Usually with my girlfriend or other friends sometimes family. For me darwins evolution theory doesn't disprove any kind of faith. As you write in your book before the cosmos was locked in matter there was no concept of time or objects locked in space time. But this is usually where I lose people which is frustrating a little because these things are as clear as day in my mind. I think the best way of getting my idea's accros to people who still view the world in a very materialist way is to suggest they take a look at what most leading scientist are exploring now these true scientists are not so ignorant as to assume they know this world already and are exploring some very insideout ways of thinking. String theory, and quantum physics are all leading scientist in new directions. I wonder if some leading scientists haven't already started putting the jigsaw together and come to similar conculsions as you sir. (maybe slightly less imaginative)I find writing what I'm thinking much harder than speaking but I can tell you I have a very clear picture of the history of the world in material and in the mind and your book everyone should read. I think materialism is dead. Ur book buried it for me.

[Al]

Perhaps the shadow side is part of the equation. I was reading Osho when he commented that mediocre people, whether good or bad, are simply mediocre since they have a limited range, whereas if you take someone who's really bad and on the verge of total evil, and this person changes course and goes towards the opposite side of the spectrum, then this person has the capacity to do saintly works.

An end to corporate bullshit. I can only wish. :D

[Lemon]

I guess Lucifer then would be a great example of such a person who was so far on one end of the spectrum that his capacity for the opposite kind of works (the "shadow side" as Al put it) became infamous. There's a Paradise Lost tie-in for us. How ironic that this was Darwin's favorite book, considering he could be considered (perhaps aside from his own intent) the father of the most recent (and strongest) vein of materialism yet. Maybe Darwin too is an example of Osho's "spectrum" theory. Or was that the meaning of this post along and I'm just stating the obvious? Haha...

[Lemon]

Dang I just realized my post makes it seem like I was saying Darwin is evil. I meant Darwin was an example of the Osho spectrum not in the sense of good and evil but just in the sense that his work seemed to take a great shift since, as Mr. Black said, he gradually shifted to atheism.

[Greg]

Scientific materialism isn't going to fail, but if it does, the whole human race will be poorer for it.

If science doesn't fill you with genuine wonder it can only mean you are not paying attention, in my opinion.

[Nigel]

JBlack do you have an email address? I have just read your book and seen reference to web site - but the posts are one year out of date? Is there any body there?