Pale Green Vortex recommended reading (highly recommended reading)
On Red Ice Radio on November 22nd 2012 (link from this blog) John Lash gave what he declared to be his final interview to a wider audience. This is not because he is retiring, or anticipates imminent death, or is going off to join the Salvation Army. No. He sees, quite reasonably in my view, that he has said enough in this particular genre. His task remains to work in deeper and more intimate fashion with those more fully involved in the projects most dear to his heart: Planetary Tantra and the Gaian Navigation Experiment.
Since the initiatory events I described in a recent blog piece, the two people who have spoken to me most directly, who have said the right things at the right time, have been Neil Kramer and John Lash. The nature of their respective contributions to my life have been rather different, at times complementary. One area in which they have both provided clarification is the important one of belief. This is worth a few words here.
As Neil explains, we actually need very few beliefs in order to function perfectly well. A belief is a heavy thing: adopt a particular belief, then everything else has to fit in around it. Sustaining a belief can be an exhausting, full-time activity. Instead of believing, Neil suggests that we simply 'hold' ideas. Just hold it. Don't give in to the knee-jerk reaction to either say 'yes, I agree', thereby accreting it to your already top-heavy ego identity; or to say 'no', in so doing making a contrary absolute statement. Hold an idea and see where it goes. You can lightly hold an enormous number without them dragging you down.
John Lash's section about belief on metahistory.org (link from this blog) is well worth reading. 'The unexamined belief is not worth holding.' 'It is desirable to believe as little as possible' because 'belief can destroy our capacity to experience.' Here's the nub of the situation. A fixed belief acts as a veil between the believer and the world that is perceived as being outside. It's a kind of screen through which all incoming data is filtered. In truth, belief is for cowards, those unprepared to face the ever-changing uniqueness of the eternally present moment. Because belief can destroy our capacity to experience, it alienates us from what is really going on. Our full-body, open-heart response is denied; everything has to go through the head.
When belief solidifies, it becomes ideology. And ideology is the focal point for all the social movements that we may come to label that elusive term 'evil'. Nazism, Stalinism. More recently, the sinister machinations of collectivism and 'ideological environmentalism'. They all thrive on the blindness and stupidity that are planted inside the individual by belief. Blind, insistent belief, abstracted ideology.
To change tack, while staying with John Lash: his book 'Not In His Image' is one of the most important on my bookshelves. On the one hand, it provides a deeper and more comprehensive critique of the Christian ethos than any I have encountered. On the other, it describes in great detail the Gnostic mythos of Gaia-Sophia, along with the part we humans have to play in its unfolding. When I read all this, I took it as one of the most beautiful myths I had ever come across. And when I read about the Gnostics, I felt that I was reconnecting with my true but lost spiritual heritage in the west. For anybody serious about understanding how we came to be where we are now, and intent on finding their own place in the spiritual/mystical traditions of the west, 'Not In His Image' is a must-read.
John Lash is a firebrand, and in his final interview he signs off from the exoteric world in typically provocative fashion. He introduces what he terms 'the taboo subject': violence. Why, he asks, are humans endowed with such an extraordinary capacity for violence? He suggests that there is indeed a reason, and that it needs to be taken in hand via magical/tantric action to take out the psychopaths who have perverted the course of human history and heaped so much misery on the great mass of people.
Hmmmm..... Certainly a novel idea. Personally, I have no problem with the elimination of various psychopathic politicians and other control system big boys (and a few girls). I name no names, but there are those whose physical demise I would greet with a sense of relief. However, there remains a problem; I'm not sure that John has really thought this through. Remove a bunch of psychopaths, and there will be another gang waiting in the wings ready to take their place. For anyone thinking that psychopaths are mainly criminal serial killers, it's time for a reality update. Studies suggest that around 3% of males, 1% of females, can be classified as psychopathic. This is, it seems, across the board, regardless of culture, ethnicity etc. The chief characteristic of psychopathic behaviour is absence of conscience. Psychopaths, therefore, tend to turn up in large numbers in politics, high finance, big business, positions where power is the thing. They can work the system like no-one else. So John's approach seems rather like symptomatic medicine: get rid of the signs of the disease without really getting at its roots. Symptoms will continue to pop up elsewhere.
Anyway, plenty of food for thought. And, in the meantime, thanks for everything so far, John Lash. I, for one, shall be keeping track of his words and deeds for the future.
