I was watching an old Bill Moyer's interview with Joseph Campbell, where they were discussing the use of mandalas as sources of healing procured through the agency of the shaman, in this case for the healing of a little boy. It struck me how powerful this must be, even more so, but like being given a pill by a doctor with whom one has this sort of submissive relationship. Several things came to mind . . .

The inherent need to submit the will to a higher power . . . also our susceptibility to trance states that relieve us temporarily of trying to hold everything together with the ego . . . the power of belief, yet, of a certain kind . . . almost not having to believe . . . letting the bigger presence of doctor/God have control, not unlike the trust of child to parent. In fact, to fall under the placebo effect, one must become a child to an authority in trust, it seems. One must believe that the other, the bigger presence, has a power we don't have. But it may also relate to how the other fulfills an essential need of the self, how human agency is needed to manifest God in certain ways, and that without this there is a missing psychological link. Perhaps this effect is merely the projected experience of one's unrealized Higher Self, where the bigger presence of the other embodies what we unconsciously trust.

Wow! Jeepers, makes me want to write a thesis on mythos versus logos. On one extreme, their divorce brings about either fideism or the silly side of advaitic epistemology. On the other, their marriage brings about either scientism or pantheism. I know these comments are rather dense. I mean to say that the relationship between fact and meaning is not tidy, that there's much interdigitation, that a myth which is not literally true can nonetheless evoke an appropriate response to reality but, also, that not all myths fall into the category of being not literally true. I suppose the old 12 Step belief in a higher power derives its efficacy in this manner? This Placebo Effect has an element of Pascal's Wager, eh, with good upside potential and little downside, especially when the old medicine cabinet appears otherwise empty anyway?

There, that ought to fog the old SPlace windows up!


jb

JB:

You are certainly worth the price of admission.

re: You are certainly worth the price of admission.

Huh?

What?

Brad, as w.c. intimates, you mean to say that Phil is charging y'all? You, too?

Oh.

Wait.

I see.

I get it.

As Roseann, Rosanna Dana said:
Never mind.

[jb wanders away, pouting, tail between his legs]

pax,
jb

I was watching an old Bill Moyer's interview with Joseph Campbell, where they were discussing the use of mandalas as sources of healing procured through the agency of the shaman, in this case for the healing of a little boy.

Hmmm. This makes me want to reexamine the placebo effect. At least for us layman (I can't prescribe drugs, anyway) this effect is just glossed over and not given a second thought. It sounds like an illegitimate effect. An error. A ruse. I know why the placebo is used. But what an incredible effect! It's almost like I could care less what the REAL fancy-schmancy drug did. But WOW�look. He took a sugar pill and no more pain! One could say the pill that was a real drug, and which worked as expected, did no more than change the conditions in the body so as to prepare it to do exactly what the placebo did. What unseen energy works in prayer? What unseen energy works for the shaman (not that it always works, I'm sure)? Why are real drugs like aspirin so effective if the root cause of all healing is something besides chemistry? And if it's only chemistry does that mean we have two different healing agents or do we need to take a bolder look at what chemistry really is?

Interesting ideas, W.C. I remember that same scene and one could sense the total surrender of the patient to the doctor, to the surroundings, to the beating drums, to the chanting, and to the mystery of life.

Brad, as w.c. intimates, you mean to say that Phil is charging y'all? You, too?

As Roseann, Rosanna Dana said:
Never mind.

I think I'm being over-charged.

"one could sense the total surrender of the patient to the doctor, to the surroundings, to the beating drums, to the chanting, and to the mystery of life."

Yes . . . to many seen and unseen connections, receiving their care, deepening the sense of belonging to all the elements . . . aspects of ancient tribalism that are sorely needed in modern life unless one goes to church or finds a group or community that enriches in this way. Maybe it is easier to let go of the mind in a group . . .

aspects of ancient tribalism that are sorely needed in modern life unless one goes to church or finds a group or community that enriches in this way.

If true then I get some of my tribal fix here with you guys. [Pause for the mandatory group hug.] But I do like Campbell's explanation that it is a lack of myths that is behind the poverty of our modern existence (crime, loneliness, cynicism, etc.) As much as I preach capitalism and conservatism (and anti-Hillaryism), man can't live by Brad alone. (Okay�that was a stretch, but my Buddhism non-attachment just wouldn't let me let that one go.)

Maybe it is easier to let go of the mind in a group . . .

I'm having trouble holding onto mine at the moment�maybe because of this group.

quote:

The line between quackery and medicine has never been quite so bright as the professionals would have us believe, but it is necessary to keep trying to determine where it should be drawn. That is why in 1992 Congress directed the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to set up an Office of Alternative Medicine. The office has only $14 million out of an NIH budget of $11 billion, but that doesn't stop conventional practitioners and scientists from complaining about the competition from "peddlers of snake oil remedies." For instance, Robert L. Park and Ursula Goodenough, professors of physics and biology respectively, have a rant on the op-ed page of our parish newspaper against the respectability being given to the claims of "amazing health benefits from touch therapy, spiritual healing, and a dozen other remedies that were once the stuff of tabloids." They allege that health maintenance organizations are willing to pay for alternative treatments "because they are far cheaper than traditional medicines." They grudgingly admit that many people testify that they have been greatly helped by homeopathic and other techniques, but that is attributable to their gullibility and the well-known "placebo effect." It is all too obvious, however, that Park and Goodenough, who think medical business as usual is good enough, are offended by the competition. They note that "About $13 billion per year is spent by Americans on alternative treatments, many of which have no scientific basis." And they are offended by the challenge to their faith commitment: "Biomedical research (much of it financed by NIH) is on a spectacular roll, with important new insights emerging daily. These gains, however, can alienate those who want to believe that events are not determined solely by physical laws. There is nostalgia for a time when things seemed simpler and more natural." The Parks and Goodenoughs are touchingly devout acolytes of scientistic orthodoxy and seem quite incapable of seeing that they have things exactly backward. What is really hard to believe, what reflects a nostalgia for a simpler time when reality was reduced to the model of laboratory experimentation, is the dogma that events are determined solely by physical laws. That was the little orthodoxy that was for so very long established by government funding, and it is not surprising that its devotees are having difficulties in adjusting to even a very modest measure of disestablishment. I have no doubt there are charlatans out there promoting all sorts of phony cures, some of which may actually be harmful. And I am personally grateful for traditional practitioners who cut a big cancerous tumor out of my gut a few years ago, a problem that I doubt would have been amenable to touch therapy. On the other hand, honest doctors will admit how little they know, how many medical problems are caused or exacerbated by traditional treatments, and how often they are dumbfounded by cures that defy conventional explanations. So it would seem to be a very good thing that there is an Office of Alternative Medicine. There are more things in heaven and earth, Drs. Park and Goodenough, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. While we might have a measured sympathy for those who suffer from nostalgia for a simpler time when they had a monopoly on defining medical truth, true science moves on. from Richard John Neuhaus - - I know he'd consider this fair use! I read it for the first time, this morning, while watching Sunday News Talk Shows.

pax,
jb

"Biomedical research (much of it financed by NIH) is on a spectacular roll, with important new insights emerging daily. These gains, however, can alienate those who want to believe that events are not determined solely by physical laws. There is nostalgia for a time when things seemed simpler and more natural."

I feel like a kid fidgeting wildly in his chair with hand outstretched and waving wildly, yelling to the teacher who had just asked if someone could answer her question "Me. Me! ME!!!"

There is nostalgia for a time when things seemed simpler and more natural.

I had to repeat that one. You know, maybe they'll be proven right. Maybe there's nothing at all to alternative medicines. But it's not hard to tell that they're afraid of a little competition. It's not hard to sense that slightly condescending tone (well, it's not all that slight, really) that wishes to summarily dismiss this notion by framing it as if someone just suggested that we send an expedition to the north pole to look for Santa Claus. This is a big, fat, juicy fastball, JB, that you just put right down the heart of the plate. Please, do continue, good Doctor of Dematerialism.

Well, I must say that Ursula has been a great friend, patiently indulging me and never condescendingly. Because she thinks so well and cares so much, it has grown me as a dialogue partner with the best materialists in the world. I'm only now beginning to be rudimentarily conversant with those folks. Their gift of time and attention and tutoring and challenging me is deeply appreciated. Besides, when they stump me, I just fire off a few questions to Phil and to our friend Jim Arraj And Brad, one reason I spend so much time with them is that they share my passion for the same topics, even if we profoundly disagree. And, there aren't that many other folks in my life who share this passion. They are occupied with other very worthwhile pursuits. So, your encouragement is deeply appreciated, too.

I remember years ago when studying drug effects as part of my training as a substance abuse counselor; we were taught that a placebo could elicit positive results in 35% of cases, so the *real* effects of the drug had to exceed that. I wondered what was going on in that 35% zone--how much that needed to be activated to accentuate any positive benefits the drug might bring. This meant that attitude certainly had something to contribute to the healing process.

But it may also relate to how the other fulfills an essential need of the self, how human agency is needed to manifest God in certain ways, and that without this there is a missing psychological link. Perhaps this effect is merely the projected experience of one's unrealized Higher Self, where the bigger presence of the other embodies what we unconsciously trust.

Could well be. I think of Jesus healing a blind person by rubbing his spittle on that one's eyes, or using mud in some cases. In Catholicism, we recognize the importance of Sacramental symbols to catalyze encounters with the divine. I think all this is just honoring the way we're put together as humans--creatures with an intelligence that is activated by sense perceptions. Of course, saying that hardly diminishes the mystery of it all.

And Brad, one reason I spend so much time with them is that they share my passion for the same topics, even if we profoundly disagree. And, there aren't that many other folks in my life who share this passion. They are occupied with other very worthwhile pursuits. So, your encouragement is deeply appreciated, too.

Didn't know you knew these people personally. Just call 'em like I see 'em. Want me to edit that a bit, JB?

Want me to edit that a bit, JB?

Not at all. Ursula's one of those folks who is too cool to care Besides, stating how one interprets another's tone is a simple fact. I actually agree with you on your tone observation. I also happen to know that in the same way that I am not habitually mean-spirited or arrogant , that Ursula is kindhearted and deeply caring and respectful. She doesn't pull philosophical punches though. I think I got toughened up in the corporate boardroom, learning quickly to separate persons and ideas, learning that attacks on ideas were not attacks on persons, learning not to too easily take umbrage and not to too quickly go ad hominem. I do not long to return to that environment though.


jb

Okay, JB. But then in fairness I will add that there are people (sometimes like me) who are a bit uninformed and who may indeed long for a simpler time, and who reject science because it does not jibe with their own beliefs. What I should also have said, perhaps a little more diplomatically, is that scientists do this too, rejecting potentially new science because it does not jibe with their own beliefs. It hits us all. Cherished beliefs do not die any easier than Jason in one of the Friday the 13th films.

Nowadays, the intelligentsia pretty much disclaims certitude re: ultimate questions and would present their ontological views as "hypotheses", whether naturalists or supernaturalists. It's a Houdini-like metaphysical maneuver to escape charges of dogmatism, scientism, etc It's a way of disclaiming unwarranted presuppositions, of defending oneself, preemptively, from charges of unjustified a priori positions. It is as if folks are saying that they remain open-minded or uncommitted, awaiting evidence. Thing about it is is that there is never going to be demonstrable empirical evidence, IN PRINCIPLE, regarding primal being, that is to say BY DEFINITION and systematically. Trouble with this is that, existentially, we are already committed and that we cannot "not commit", for, you see, we all have our "sneaking suspicions" and we all draw inferences, finding some more and others less compelling. Existentially, we betray, for all practical purposes, our implicit ontological presuppositions in our epistemological approaches, which is to say in what we believe we can come to know about reality and in how we think this knowledge can be acquired or not. So, less than any intellectual assent or aesthetical preferences, it becomes a matter of the will, an existential orientation. Viewed this way, many agnostics, for all practical purposes are thus practical atheists and/or practical nihilists. What they think is clever philosophical legerdemain ends up, at best, being clever semantical and crafty linguistic exercises, at worst, intellectual dishonesty. Viewed this way, there are also many church-goers, who in their manner of living betray their own existential orientation to be a practical atheism, too. All of this is to say that, once one gets past intellectual assent and aesthetical choice, the rubber truly hits the road in ethical responses. This is why the Catholic church teaches that nonbelievers, even militant atheists (militant intellectually), can be saved, too, for this issues cuts in both directions.

pax,
jb

Here's something I fired off to Phil earlier. It captures some of the dynamism:

You see, I often find myself a strangebedfellow in interideological discussions with *&^%$ and their ilk as our epistemologies converge. The convergenece takes place when they are being their "matter is not mere" selves and I am groping with my natural theology. Of course we diverge when we accuse one another of unwarranted ontological presuppositions.

The naturalists try to call a truce by suggesting that our respective ontologies are a matter of taste, in the end only an aesthetical exercise and I counter that the exercise is moreso noetical and derived from compelling inferences. Then, I remind myself it is, rather, moreso existential and I patronizingly pat them on the head and send them off conceding that they nurture the same fundamental trust in uncertain reality that I do, Kung pointing out that my trust has at least been justified while their trust is nowhere anchored and paradoxical.

They say I'm irrational. I counter I'm meta-rational. I point out that their own critical realism is a leap of faith in human reason so -- tu quoque and back at ya on the irrational charge. They say: okay, but you have sacrificed too much modeling power by investing in an unnecessary metaphysical framework. I counter that they suffer the greatest modeling power degradation of all by a priori foreclosing on non-natural and nonenergetic causation, thereby denying such a tacit dimensionality that is telic and that derives from a hypothetical primal telos. They acknowledge what appear to be telic phenomena but counter that they derive, rather, merely as emergentistic artifacts of nonequilibrium thermodynamics.

I counter that, although we may be both systematically and methodologically constrained from producing demonstrable empirical proofs, there is no reason to forfeit what may be otherwise indispensable explanatory ideas and very compelling inferences from large bodies of indirect evidence.

We take a break and I ask them what difference our differences might make. They say that our worldviews will impact the prescriptions we choose for personal and societal transformation. I counter that, from the plurality of positions I have seen just within Christendom on such matters as euthanasia, biomedical ethics, abortion, just war, the death penalty, sexual ethics, social justice, etc ad infinitum, I seriously doubt they could contribute anything novel at the margin, but that they might could help bolster such teleological and exsitentialistic metaethical approaches as would nicely complement our deontological and essentialistic approaches, such approaches as have produced moral formulations and ethical guidelines that they think arose consequentialistically anyway --- their truths not invalidated by ad hominem arguments re: who articulated them.

So, we quit talking metaphysics and turn to meta-ethics, me with my bumbling natural theology and them with their stumbling naturalism. We are a motely crew. See how we love one another?

This "Dear Diary" entry brought to you by johnboy, the invincible and unrelenting mosquito in the huge circus tent of monism.

So many freaks. So few circuses.

[So, you see, all in good fun, I still wasn't being very nice and I even acknowledge my own mild condescension.]

In the same way that w.c. often returns to his master paradigm of individuation & developmental obstacles thereto, I return to my own master paradigms of metaphysics, retreading & rethreading old arguments. The reason is that these types of paradigms are foundational, fundamental. So many phenomena and our interpretation of same rely on either fundamentally flawed or fundamentally sound principles, on basic metaphysical and psychological presuppositions. It is time we creatively marry our master paradigms and merge them into a super-master-paradigm. So, let's engage some further introspection and ask what fundamental presuppositions others bring repeatedly to our discussions, explicitly and implicitly. How might they be incorporated into this paradigm?

Brad, in your case, let me suggest that one of your main themes is the subsidiarity principle, having the job done, in government or by institutions, at that level closest to the individual that can get the job done. You thus cry foul when socialization proesses, which exist in creative tension, run rampant and need reigning in, in the name of freedom and personal responsibility. I would contrast this with what George Stephanopoulos describes as his own restrained idealism. I think what he must fail to recognize or not want to admit is that he gives the presumption to socialization processes as his default position and then invokes subsidiarity principles, at least his past political agendas seem to suggest that. This, according to Catholic doctrine is unacceptable. Presumption is for subsidiarity and against socialization. Score one more point for Brad as a closet Catholic Another Bradwellian principle is that, if this or that government, ecclesial or civil, lacks a Ministry of Mirth (and a sense of humor revealing some self-critiquing), they are suspect.

Now, who else wants to 'fess up to their fundamental biases? Phil is easy. He embodies our unholy trinity's paradigms.

pax,
jb

Viewed this way, many agnostics, for all practical purposes are thus practical atheists and/or practical nihilists.

I don't have time at the moment to dig deeper into your fine post (read: too many brain cells are engaged at the moment with my chewing of gum) but I intend to. But if you wouldn't mind, knowing that I respect your opinion, and you knowing that I can indeed be sensitive and irrational at times but am not beyond a little criticism, and taking into account my desire for truth even at the expense of myself, and acknowledging that none of us should depend too much on the opinions of others, and stating that this is not a fishing expedition for compliments, and acknowledging that this could all backfire on you if you call me a closet Hillary-loving liberal who thinks not only should snail darters be saved but that celery has rights too, could you send me a private message (or better yet � post it here for all to see) on how you would describe me in terms of JB's Scale of Religiosity. I think I'm a lot like Joseph Campbell in that I play with a lot of ideas for the sheer joy of learning about things but am never likely to experience the rapture that people have (whether religious or whatever sort of rapture atheists have) when they are truly immersed in a belief system. Pfffff...exhale.

Brad, see my edited post, which "crossed" your private message request. It should give you a hint of how your private message re: religiosity will go, once I've given your post sufficient reflection.

pax,
jb

Here's something I fired off to Phil earlier. It captures some of the dynamism:

Interesting letter to Phil. Interesting posts. Let me try (however imperfectly) to tie this all in. Our assumptions and fundamental biases are our own little "placebos" of which we must take into account when searching for the truth. That is, our biases can color any subject and may help us find truths whether they are there or not. But we can use our own placebos to our benefit if they are used as a sort of noise filter so that we subtract out our own biases from differing opinions and then see what is left, if anything. This is different than using our biases only as a polarizing lens where we see just selected parts of the spectrum � the parts with which we are already familiar. Wildly divergent opinions are the new �drugs� for which our placebos are useful for testing. Still too much gum chewing?

Thanks for your reply to my �damned if you do, damned if you don�t� question, JB. Good answer.

our biases can color any subject and may help us find truths whether they are there or not. But we can use our own placebos to our benefit if they are used as a sort of noise filter so that we subtract out our own biases from differing opinions and then see what is left, if anything. This is different than using our biases only as a polarizing lens where we see just selected parts of the spectrum � the parts with which we are already familiar.

Let me feed you part of a letter I wrote to a physics professor last night, just to show you how your and my thoughts might converge. NOMA means non-overlapping magisteria or "domains of knowledge" and there are some arguments about whether or not these domains overlap at all and, if so, how much?

re: I hope to use this as a start for a seminar at &^%$(* University and a group discussion at U of *&^%$#.

I wrote:

Your students might appreciate my little menmonic (inveterate pigeonholer that I am).

My "magisteria" were thus formulated:

Where - deals with questions of space
When - deals with questions of time
What - deals with questions of matter
How - deals with questions of energy
Science - deals with the space-time-matter-energy plenum
Why - deals with question of philosophy
That - deals with questions of thatness or mysticism (following Wittgenstein & Maritain or even Heidigger)
Who - deals with questions of whether or not ultimate reality is personal or theology (following Merton's dyads of immanence-transcendence, existential-theological, apophatic-kataphatic and especially impersonal-personal)

Some NOMA is necessary due to the possibility of ontological discontinuity, requiring the language of metaphor and an anological imagination. Some NOMA is overstated due to dialectical imaginations.

I marvel at the thought that the descriptive accuracy we gather from our statements of what God is not, apophatically, can paradoxically bring us so very close to God by contact with what he REALLY IS not. What a wonderful source of real knowledge to complement the descriptive accuracy we gather from our metaphorical analogues of what God is like, kataphatically, bringing us close to God by contact of what he REALLY IS like. I think NOMA approaches honor these realities but that they are less like parallel lines and moreso like a polar reality, like a spectral polar reality of logos/mythos. Where, When, What, How, Why, That and Who are colors of a rainbow, manifest when refracted by ... ... Well, enough.

END OF LETTER

So, Brad, your spectral metaphor with polarizing lenses and colors and noise filters feeds directly into my use of the same metaphor (so, maybe the electromagnetic analogue to God is the paradigm par excellence).

When you refer to using our biases as a polarizing filter, this might correspond to how we go about gaining increases in descriptive accuracy in our mental mapping of reality, physical or metaphysical, from the use of analogues, metaphors and other kataphatic modalities (you can gather the meaning of kataphatic from the context).

When you refer to using placebos to subtract out our biases (or to remove our polarizing filters), this might correspond to how we go about gaining increases in descriptive accuracy in our mental mapping of reality, physical or metaphysical, from the use of anagogical statements and other apophatic modalities (you can gather the meaning of apophatic from the context).

It is not this simple, but to an extent, the use of the polarizing lens might be considered our reductionistic approach, our pursuit of logos. Removal of the filter might be considered our holistic approach, our pursuit of mythos.

It does not escape me that there is a surrender of our faculties involved in the apophatic or placebo approach. It does not escape me that this pause, between sensory perception and our brain's processing by our perceptual filters and analytical / judgmental faculties, might properly be considered contemplative .

These alternating approaches to reality gift us with a gain in descriptive accuracy through alternating processes of negation and affirmation, of falsification and verification.

We don't color reality; reality is a rainbow.

We don't lose the rainbow or reality when the filter or prism is removed; we see the Light.

Guaging then, not your religiosity as narrowly conceived as piety or as your assent or dissent to this or that dogma but, your existential orientation or, as Tillich would call it, your ultimate concern concern about ultimates ...

Guaging your approach to truth, beauty and goodness through the use of your faculties of intellect, memory and will, with your intellect surrendered to faith in terms of ultimate concern, your memory not depriving you of hope regarding those concerns and your will clearly decided in favor of that which is right and not that which is wrong ...

Guaging your approach to people, in its idealized form, engaged as you are with family and friends and us strangers (stranger than most) ...

Then I would have to say:

[scroll down]

What would YOU say

The concept of faith and doubt, as conceived by Tillich, as ultimate concern, are not two opposing states of being --- they are but a single polar reality, one pole not meaningfully existing without the other. It's a built-in system constraint since we cannot transcend from the space-time-matter-energy plenum to a nonspatial and atemporal and immaterial and nonenergetic realm, though it, in theory, can embrace us. Our wealth, then, metaphysically, is not that which we possess but S/He Whom possesses us.

Insofar as you have opened to this embrace, you are a wealthy man. You've seen white light. You've seen the rainbow. You know they could not have arisen from a dark void even if all entropic apearances seem to suggest we are headed toward one. A light has appeared in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out. For gosh sakes, it couldn't stop its birth!

We resonate on the space-time-matter-energy issues of science, in our approach to where and when and what and how.

We resonate in our approach to being stupefied by the thatness of it all.

Our suspicions about Why largely overlap, too, and their application into metaethical frameworks and moral formulations are almost identical when they meet their natural conclusion in the articulation and practice of political philosophy (which they say is where contemplation naturally leads).

It may be that in our approach to the Who question we diverge but this is only true in the kataphatic aspect of our approach. In the apophatic approach we resonate, too. We know and practice the value of knowldege through negation, of gaining descriptive accuracy in observing what something or Someone is not.

We've come this far, resonating down the line or should I say "across the spectrum" -- why quibble? I suspect we depart mostly and maybe only in the kataphatic realm, in our affirmations or withheld affirmations or denials regarding some clues regarding whether or not Ultimate Reality is personal and Who that Person might be, if personal. All I can say is, that in this regard, I have given intellectual assent to the reasonableness of the truth claims of the Resurrection of Jesus (indirect evidence, of course) and I affirm them as both logos (historical fact) and mythos (eternal meaning for my existence). If it began as intellectual assent and aesthetic appreciation for The Greatest Story Ever Told (and most beautiful, too, insofar as Love is concerned), then this knowledge of this Person could not but help to have turned into a relationship, both with the historical Jesus and with the Risen Christ. Not just a Cosmic Cause but also as an Indwelling Presence, having encountered Him within, I now see Him in all others. If he is the Logos and Mythos, then our resonance on all other points in this consideration reveal, and I don't mean this patronizingly, your implicit sharing of His concerns, ultimately. You won't gain (or lose)any rapture or ecstasy, necessarily, by going also "explicit", neither in this life nor the next. You can appreciate that I can not project further but don't mind the peril of having projected thus far. I am honored. I might just add that since everything added up for me in the Catholic approach to science, to metaphysics, to philosophy (both political and epistemological and in critical realism), to mysticism (the thatness exhiliration), to apophatic theology (what God is NOT), then, despite remaining poised over the abyss of doubt regarding the positive theology, I have no real struggle sustaining my leap. But leaps vary for individuals. The canyon narrows here and widens there. Your leaping just because I did is not at all advised unless you trekked to a spot on the edge where the rims converge, where you can leap safely, both existentially and psychologically. Too many factors go into where you are vs others on the old Bright Angel Trail but I believe without equivocation we're on the same trail looking at the same vista.

And THAT'S why there are so many songs about rainbows and what's on the other side!

pax,
jb

When you refer to using placebos to subtract out our biases

And in practice one of the ways of doing this is trying to see things through another person's eyes. The reason we don't always succeed doesn't always have to do with our own stubbornness or with our own attempts to protect our ideas and egos. Often it's just that there are an awful lot of unstated things that are impassioned into an opinion that do not come with the accompanying words. We sometimes have to guess what the other is saying or thinking. It is often the case in my experience (I'm not totally incompetent in the art of expressing myself) that I assume I can take the words of the other quite literally and that all meaning is contained therein with none hidden. But it often doesn't work that way. People say so many things indirectly or imperfectly and one has to ferret out meaning, probe, redirect, and hope that the other person's mind doesn't snap shut while doing so just in case you hit a sore spot. Most people are much better than I am at exchanging social ideas through words and often in this mode the meaning of the words is MEANT to be oblique. I believe people are very often talking in this mode as a matter of course, but even when they THINK they are talking strictly about cold, hard facts there is a lot of this other mode mixed in. My normal mode is much toward the other extreme. When the two different types of speakers are engaging each other it can be quite difficult to put yourself in the other person's shoes. (That's proof that men are from Mars and women are from Venus and how someone can make a bazillion dollars selling books that aid in communication.)

I think the main obstacle to removing biases is ego. We want to be right. We NEED to be right. It's not always so easy to gain satisfaction from just a healthy respect for the truth.

It does not escape me that there is a surrender of our faculties involved in the apophatic or placebo approach. It does not escape me that this pause, between sensory perception and our brain's processing by our perceptual filters and analytical / judgmental faculties, might properly be considered contemplative.

When one is working on something that requires the least bit of creativity one can sense when one is in a creative mood or not. Some things can't be forced and you just have to bide your time doing other needed chores (which is a wonderful way to prepare the mind) and come back to it. For me contemplation means a ripening of the information in my brain until its ready to come out. When it's ripe I find it much easier to express an idea. When it's not I fumble and search for just the right words and find it very hard to make intuitive connections. I don't need to sit quietly. I don't need to imagine God or try to experience His presence. I don't particularly have to feel well (although this helps) or even be relaxed. Whatever happens in this ripening process is a mystery, but these are the times when I'm connected to something. And it ain't just my neurons.

We don't color reality; reality is a rainbow.

That's a great thought and upon hearing it I concur completely and know that I've known this for some time. I'll spare you the explanations as I trust you know what I mean and I know what you mean.

We don't lose the rainbow or reality when the filter or prism is removed; we see the Light.

That should go up on everybody's fridge. It would sound quite trite out of the context of your post. Suffice it to say I will never see the light but I do see very pure hues of certain colors.

I suspect we depart mostly and maybe only in the kataphatic realm, in our affirmations or withheld affirmations or denials regarding some clues regarding whether or not Ultimate Reality is personal and Who that Person might be, if personal.

I'd say that's a pretty good read on things.

And THAT'S why there are so many songs about rainbows and what's on the other side!

Well, your truly are one of the pots of gold. Thanks for your thoughtful words, JB. I'll consider them.

Outline of Otto's concept of the numinous (based on The Idea of the Holy. Trans. John W. Harvey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1923; 2nd ed., 1950 [Das Heilige, 1917]):

"Mysterium tremendum et fascinans" (fearful and fascinating mystery):

"Mysterium": Wholly Other, experienced with blank wonder, stupor

"tremendum":
awefulness, terror, demonic dread, awe, absolute unapproachability, "wrath" of God
overpoweringness, majesty, might, sense of one's own nothingness in contrast to its power
creature-feeling, sense of objective presence, dependence
energy, urgency, will, vitality

"fascinans": potent charm, attractiveness in spite of fear, terror, etc.

Could it be that, with scientists who eschew metaphysics, it is not so much a failure of imagination but moreso a refusal to imagine?

W.C. said: I was watching an old Bill Moyer's interview with Joseph Campbell, where they were discussing the use of mandalas as sources of healing procured through the agency of the shaman...

Now that I've completely hijacked this thread, I'm wondering what issues, ideas or principles you think need a little more work, W.C. I've got my own particular mindset and respect yours enough to want to try it on to see how it fits even if I find out after wearing it a while that I prefer my own tacky Hawaiian shirt and tie-died blue jeans.