Pan: The Great God’s Modern Return (or Rehab?)

 I've just finished reading Paul Robichaud's excellent work, Pan: The Great God’s Modern Return, and it's left me with a great many impressions. Not least: I would dearly love to read an autobiographical account of the pastoral protector; something along the lines of “I, Pan: The true story of a much-misunderstood, maligned, and neglected elder god” (or daemon).

On a more serious note, however:

I gather that the Arcadians, from the Peloponnese region of Greece, were an ancient and simple rustic people; indeed, according to the concept of proselenos, they were said to be older than the Moon, Selene, herself. Hence, by implication, pre-dating the Olympian gods of the Greek classical era.

In his address “On Pan’s Iconography and the Cult in the Sanctuary of Pan on the Slopes of Mount Lykaion”, in which Ulrich Hübinger reports on archaeological discoveries in Arcadia, he asks (given that the first written mentions of the god Pan only begin to appear in the fifth century BCE):

“Does Pan’s strange goatish appearance on Attic vases from Late Archaic and Early Classical times reflect earlier iconographical traditions from Arcadia? Did the ancients picture him in the beginning simply as a goat, which revealed its divine status by walking on its hind legs like a human being? Are connections even to be suspected with animal worship in the Mycenaean age?”

This was the very question I had been asking myself (albeit with scant knowledge or reading of the field, and quite without evidence).

ishraqi institute: Modus Operandi and Raison D’Etre

“I think I'm quite ready for another adventure.” ~ Bilbo Baggins, The Lord of the Rings.

In this era of global communications and instant connectivity, we're saturated, even inundated, round the clock by sensationalist news and tempting “fast foods” of consumerism, as well as egotistical, even narcissistic, self-promotion and “media influence”, and drowning in shedload after shedload of information. As a consequence, we are suffering cognitive and emotional overload. I trust that a little hopefully quality “time out” will alleviate that, rather than exacerbate matters, and point you in the direction of others who can offer greater help in what is, as Henry Corbin stated, an ongoing Battle for the Soul of the World. Rather than a course following a logical progression from A to Z, this is a deliberately open-ended exploration, and exercise in mental fluidity, learning as we go along.

The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal: Book Review

★★★★ Crikey, for me it's certainly a “spiritual ordeal” to get my head round Joshua Ramey's The Hermetic Deleuze: Philosophy and Spiritual Ordeal. Understanding perhaps 0.1% of Ramey's interpretation, I should perhaps have eased my way into the terminology (which often reads like a highbrow wine-tasting review with which I have difficulty relating to the reality of actually drinking) via Deleuze for Dummies, or Finnegan's Wake. I was, however, more at home with the author's scattered references to the art of “learning how to swim”, which was, quite possibly, metaphorically one of the main reasons for writing and having interested parties read this and related works.

The Golden Chain

“The philosophers who influenced Suhrawardi came from pre-Islamic Persia, ancient Greece and Egypt. Together their ideas formed a potent blend of Zoroastrianism, Plato and the wisdom traditions of Alexandria, what Suhrawardi called a ‘philosophy of light’, a tradition of esoteric metaphysics that was handed down from sage to sage, Suhrawardi believed, through the ages. In 1186 Suhrawardi tried to capture its essence in Hikmat al-Ishraq, translated, as mentioned, as Oriental Philosophy and also as The Philosophy of Illumination, the book that set [Henry] Corbin on his hermeneutical quest. Suhrawardi wrote of an initiatic chain, a school of adepts reaching back into the dim past, and which included the fabled Hermes Trismegistus, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus and others. All were informed by the same primal revelation, the prisca theologia or ‘primal theology’, which it was his task to resurrect.”

~ Gary Lachman, Lost Knowledge of the Imagination.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/36086531 

Meeting the Shadow: Book Review

★★★★★ Meeting the Shadow is not one of those books to read, tick off the list, and casually cast aside: it's a real eye-opener.

Meeting the Shadow is a potentially life-changing, psychoactive work; a potent initiatory experience; and the first, necessary step on the winding path not toward betterment, godliness or some unattainable perfection but toward more wholeness of being.

As Jeremiah Abrams writes in the Epilogue: “We each contain the potentials to be both destructive and creative. Admitting to the dark enemies within us is really a confessional act, the beginning of psychological change. Nothing about ourselves can change unless we first accept it and grant it reality. Shadow-work is the initiatory phase of making a whole of ourselves.”

And he concludes: “Here is the golden opportunity in realizing the shadow: the gold is in the awareness of choice, made possible by mediating the tension between our shadow and our ego. If we have choice about who we enact in the world, then it follows that we can take responsibility for the kind of world we create.”

Enjoy!

A Topical Experiment in ESP Using Wordle

Here's a topical experiment in telepathy that might be fun for someone like Rupert Sheldrake to carry out:

Have one set of candidates with no knowledge of the current day's New York Times Wordle puzzle try to guess the answer (perhaps allow them two or three guesses, to counter any internal delinquency,  or “being in two minds” and not listening to intuition), with no feedback about success or failure, unlike the real puzzle.

As the (US) day progresses, more and more non-participating people will discover the correct answer or, if they fail the puzzle, will be told the correct answer.

A second group of candidates could also attempt to guess the answer to the same day's puzzle, but the day before, so the answer would not be “floating in the air” at that time.

The Science and Art of Dreaming: Book Review

 

★★★★★ I really can’t do better than point the would-be reader to the publisher’s description at the top of the book page, because from reading and thoroughly enjoying The Science and Art of Dreaming by Mark Blagrove and Julia Lockheart, “it [really] does what it says on the tin.”

This book is a blend of rigorous documentation of scientific research and theory from dreams researcher Mark Blagrove, and more intuitive appreciation of dreams that are presented, with Mark guiding discussion with the dreamer (primarily using the eminently practical Montague Ullman dream appreciation method and free association, which we can all use at home or in groups), and the resultant and inspired artwork by Julia Lockheart (performed live on camera as each session progresses), which brings the process full-circle from the original dream imagery back to the visual; wonderful artwork that the dreamer gets to keep for further exploration by them and with friends and family.

The Imaginal Veil, by H. M. Forester

 

The first draft of The Imaginal Veil by H. M. Forester is now available for free download.

You can preview or download it at The Internet Archive

or download it at the Sher Point Publications, UK web site (just scroll down the page).

There's also an entry at Goodreads.

First draft edition, 12 February 2023, 268 pages.

Enjoy!