Participatory Spirituality for the 21st Century
On David Marshall's Integral Archipelago forum, a member there named Shashank recently posted a blog (and initiated a discussion) on the relationship between horror and
fantasy literature and spirituality that I am quite enjoying. I invite
you to read it, if you're interested. Here, I wanted to open a related
discussion, based on some of my comments to Shashank, particularly if
any of you enjoy the horror or fantasy genres. (I wish I had time to
compose something nice, but I don't, so here are a few jotted notes).
I no longer read fantasy or horror, but I used to read and write quite a lot of both, and I still enjoy an occasional horror or fantasy film. In my conversation with Shashank, we were discussing the respective approaches of Clive Barker and H.P. Lovecraft. I was noting that Barker tends to see "order" behind the terror and horror, and redemptive or transformative potential in the encounter with darkness and evil, whereas Lovecraft attempts to present a vision of reality as ultimately alien, containing dimensions which are wholly other -- realms and beings that are wholly unassimilable, human contact with which can only result in madness or destruction. In other words, absolute limit conditions.
In my reading, Lovecraft's Otherness is an Otherness that must remain Other for the human center to hold, and for our higher ideals to flourish (though those who encounter it now come to see those ideals largely as flimsy defenses in the face of a vast, menacing, terrifyingly alien realm). If I had to place Lovecraft along the values line, I'd say he was a Modernist -- writing for a genteel Modern audience, many of whom were likely in hard flight from "animal nature." This is revealed, I think, in his preference for pre-human, visceral images to represent the Other: slime, gelatinous substances, crustacean or invertebrate anatomy, etc.
But while Lovecraft is primarily a modernist (as opposed to Barker's more postmodern approach, where otherness is a functional limit condition of particular stages of development or perspectival frames rather than a concretely identified, metaphysical "thing" or "realm"), I still find his work offers something interesting to consider, particularly in the context of Integral spirituality: he presents a powerful challenge to complacency and a "comfortable" anthropocentric view of the universe, a view that honestly I sometimes feel marks much New Age and even Integral discourse and thought. I don't think Lovecraft is an Integral thinker (as I said, I view him as essentially a Modernist, though some post-metaphysical materialist writers find kinship with him as well), but I think he makes a kind of move -- a firm presentation of That which intractably challenges and disturbs present boundaries and narratives -- that we could use more of in Integral circles, in my opinion. With talk about "making sense of everything" in Integral marketing, and even in the popularized use of phrases like "swallowing the whole universe in one gulp" (assimilating it in its entirety to the "known"?), I feel there is a move towards what we might call the suburbanization (or urbanization) of the Kosmos. No spooky corners left, no pesky unknowns, no threatening or destabilizing shadows. (This is why King, Barker, Lovecraft, etc, are so powerful: they bring the 'unknown,' the terrifyingly alien and powerfully Other, back into our comfortable suburban back yards).
So, I guess what I'm groping toward is the question, What is an Integral nightmare? What, in its appearance or irruption, would deeply disturb, even terrify, Integral consciousness? What are the boundaries of our (often comfortable, suburban) narratives, and what has the potential to shred them?
I enjoy and appreciate this topic because I think wrestling with, encountering this sort of "dark" or Otherness, is both humbling and chastening (something Lovecraft cultivates through his shocking, chthonic vistas) and potentially transformative (a la Barker). I am thinking here of several things: Rilke's terrible angels, which perhaps show up in modern popular form in something like Strieber's Communion series (where the Other is a vastly more evolved and powerful entity, an entity that has a disturbing, inscrutable agenda for us); and which showed up for me, in a wilderness visionary experience many years ago, as powerfully disturbing -- even terrifying -- entities who I associated with Krishnamurti and who put me through a mind-blowing (and humbling) ordeal. And I think also of the "darker" aspects of Tibetan practice, which I explored when studying with Dzogchen teachers: practicing ch'od, for instance, or purposefully going to graveyards or other frightening places in order to practice. But even doing that, I also was aware of bumping up against worldview differences: not all of the images cultivated in traditional Tibetan practice were really terribly disturbing for me, and I recall wondering at the time what a modern equivalent could be -- how could the practices be made more challenging and relevant for our time?
What would scare the bejeesus out of the Integral community? :-)
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What would scare the bejeesus out of the Integral community?
Let's look at who already has. I know you're tired of my comments about this particular individual, but there is no question Derrida is such a kennilingus nightmare, and for exactly the reasons you stated: His Wholly Other must remain so, it cannot be assimilated (a la Borg). (And this nightmarish impossibility is also transformative, though not in the kenninlinguist fashion.) Hence a slimy, lower-level lifeform is projected upon him, making him into a macabre and disturbing threat to the type of "order out of chaos" or Hegelian synthesis type of transformation kennilinguists find so appealing. The horror!
Other nominations: Jeff Meyerhoff and Frank Visser.
wow. this is right up my alley.
comments upon: "back into our comfortable suburban back yards."
Phase 1: It comes from "outside."
genre epitomizers: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Brain Eaters; I Married a Monster from Outer Space, et al. (damn aliens)
Phase 2: It's "within" our ken, but still far off in the hills, swamp, or desert.
genre epitomizers: Psycho; The Hills Have Eyes; Deliverance (damn hillbillies)
Phase 3: It's down the street.
genre epitomizers: Halloween; Silence of the Lambs (damn psychopaths)
PhaSE 4: It's within the self.
genre epitomizers: The Beast Within; The Fly; The Wolfman (damn personal degenerative transformations)
There's an old saying: You can't get to heaven, till you've been through hell.
Great posts, guys. I want to comment on some particular points in your posts, and will do so next, but first (following the rhizomatic form of the posting on this thread so far) I will post a brief prose poem I wrote 20 or more years ago. I wrote it after a night hike in the Arizona canyon lands behind my home.
Under Lizard Head, At Night
Choose a star about a thumb's length above the horizon, split it with your eyes, stare into the space in between. Suddenly the hills give off a half-light. It rolls like heat lightning along their jagged lines, heat from a dragon's belly, thought flashing over the curve of the brain.
Tonight, cold air sharpens the stars. They move in a depth that brings all the hills closer. In the great upward sweep of land to the right, there is something menacing. The moon makes the stone shine, and in this half light, with your vision untied, you see the rise of rock for what it is: an angel come to wrestle with you in the brittle night. You know that by the way it pulls your belly, and makes it churn. That hill is the uneasiness against which we raise our houses, and make our light.
Our light is not the light of hills. It is not for seeing in the dark, but for banishing it. But here, with the great rock so close, and somehow closer in dark, it is hard to imagine driving it away, or even wanting to. Jacob came away limping from a hill like this. You can still see the scuffle marks in the way the cedars limp over rocks, and in the hunchback shapes in the dark.
Something is pulling you to leave, the anchor we have in our homes, but here, it does not have enough force to move your feet. And so you stay here, tugged by two powers, where men may have fed before. And you crouch in the dark, at the edge of the force that shapes the twisted and powerful trees halfway up the rugged face, and pulls you from the inside, out the chills along your scalp.
~*~
And here's another brief poem I wrote about the same time:
The Way to the Ruin
On the way to the ruin,
There is a tree. You will know it.
Murder or prayer has soaked the soil there:
The whole tree leaps and dives on one spot.
The drawn-down branches stripped
Of frivolous leaves brush the earth
And finger subtle air
(as you must have swung in a circle
in a sacred field and swept the tips
of high grasses with an open hand)
It is that holy here long wood
Like widow's hair hung in grief
Whore's hair sweeping holy feet
What is the difference this brown body
Doubled over something immense hidden
In the earth and acorns:
It is a gesture we cannot understand
So do not ask. Stop a moment breathe
Sit under the branches if you dare.
This is the way in.
Our light is not the light of hills. It is not for seeing in the dark, but for banishing it.
Perxactly.
Kela,
Phase 1: It comes from "outside."
genre epitomizers: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Brain Eaters; I Married a Monster from Outer Space, et al. (damn aliens)
Phase 2: It's "within" our ken, but still far off in the hills, swamp, or desert.
genre epitomizers: Psycho; The Hills Have Eyes; Deliverance (damn hillbillies)
Phase 3: It's down the street.
genre epitomizers: Halloween; Silence of the Lambs (damn psychopaths)
PhaSE 4: It's within the self.
genre epitomizers: The Beast Within; The Fly; The Wolfman (damn personal degenerative transformations)
I like this. At first, I was tempted (a la the Integral impulse) to associate each of these phases with different levels of development, but reflecting on it a little, it seems I can find "forms" of each in the characteristic "nightmares" of different stages or worldviews. For traditionalists, for instance: Phase 1 - Hell, demons, Satan; Phase 2 - The untamed, evil, bloodthirsty pagans; Phase 3 - Our neighbors are devil-worshippers!; Phase 4 - demonic possession, "sin nature."
Some authors seem to focus more on one than another of these phases. Lovecraft focuses primarily on Phase 1, for instance (it seems to me), though you could argue that, through the encounter with the Phase 1 Other, the inscrutable, uncontrollable darkness then enters into the protagonist (Phase 4) in the form of madness.
Kela: Later, as an adult, I became aware of children who are also drawn to such images. One was a nephew, by marriage, who was drawn to my horror movie collection and who, even as small child, liked to wear silver symbols around his neck. Another was the younger sister of one of my daughter's friends, who liked to draw images of anthropomorphic winged creatures, while others drew trees and sunny skies, and whose favorite movie, to the dismay of her Christian parents, was The Lost Boys. My conclusion is that there are kids who are, for some reason or other, drawn to such things.
I think this is true. I also like your description of being nearly "addicted to sci-fi and horror movies" as a kid; that was me to a T. When I was 14 or 15, I wrote the following poem (revealing both the fascination and near-compulsion, and also the discomfort I felt with my attraction to these things):
When I sit down to write
Of flowers and the spring
My mind begins to wander,
A blind and groping thing:
I envision wolves and swords
And terrible, ghastly haunts;
What strange fulfillment is this
That my wand'ring mind so wants?
Is it really blood and gore
Or some symbol of what lies in me?
I wish I could peer into my heart
Unafraid of what I might see;
Is it just a love of fear
Or some deep and angry guilt?
Lord, should I stop the sewing
Of this strange and brooding quilt?
The connection between my interest in these things and my later "mystical bent" wasn't quite as direct as yours, but I think I followed a roughly similar path. For instance, looking this weekend through a box of old writings, I found some stories I wrote as a teenager, one of which contained the familiar sci fi and horror themes, but now which contained a distinctly spiritual element: the protagonist was an atheist, an outcast in a world ruled by universalistic religion and a cross-species "meta-law," who nevertheless has mystical impulses and heightened sensitivity, and who eventually begins to glimpse a hidden (sinister) reality through the use of an alien race's lucid dreaming (and dream-recording) technology, and ends up becoming a "prophet" vainly trying to warn society of impending doom.
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