Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group

Saturday 3-03-2001 5:00 P.M. EST

Mysticism In Heinlein

Click Here to Return to Index

Here Begins The Discussion Log

==========================================================================

You have just entered room “Heinlein Readers Group chat.”

SAcademy has entered the room.

SAcademy: Good afternoon.

geeairmoe2 has entered the room.

SAcademy: Hello, how are you today?

geeairmoe2: Doing fine. You?

SAcademy: The same.

SAcademy: Do you have the time? My clock is slow, I think.

geeairmoe2: 3:34 central time

SAcademy: I was wrong, this clock is fast.

geeairmoe2: 3:43, somtimes I type dyslexic.

SAcademy: So’s my watch.

SAcademy: So do I. Especially when I’m trying to go fast.

geeairmoe2: Longing for ‘vocal typing’.

SAcademy: I have it but I don’t use it. AOL program point and speak. It’s not very expensive.

geeairmoe2: I’d probably tend to get lazy in speech, start twanging and lisping.

SAcademy: AOl offered a special on it some months ago. Haven’t taught it to undertand my voice yet.

SAcademy: It’s put out by the Dragon company

SAcademy: I understqand that they’ve been working on words into type for a long time.

geeairmoe2: Thanks. Think I’ll look into it.

SAcademy: Someone’s coming.

SAcademy: I heard the door open.

AGplusone has entered the room.

SAcademy: Hello, David.

AGplusone: Hi, Will, Ginny, (and Dave in disguise)

geeairmoe2: Yo.

AGplusone: Will, do me a favor, please:

SAcademy: Just what does “Yo” mean?

ddavitt has entered the room.

ddavitt: hello everyone

AGplusone: Send me copies of whatever it is you’ve discussed with Tawn re fund raising

SAcademy: Afternoon Jane.

SAcademy: Me?

AGplusone: Hi, Jane … (no, Will Jennings)

ddavitt: Just poured a G and T to lubricate the brain:-)

SAcademy: Oh, you mean the fund raising by selling something?

ddavitt: Cheers!

geeairmoe2: Okay, David.

AGplusone: Oh, I wish I had one … not sure yet, Ginny.

AGplusone: I want to make sure I have all the information before we put it on agenda for THS

SAcademy: I told him that I couldn’t sell anything to anyone.

geeairmoe2: No problem.

BPRAL22169 has entered the room.

BPRAL22169: Hello, all.

SAcademy: Hello, Bill

AGplusone: A quote, ” … Maybe it was a mistake to teach women to read and write.” three points if you identify the speaker and source.

AGplusone: ‘lo, Bill.

ddavitt: Hi Bill

BPRAL22169: Yo.

BPRAL22169: reyo

geeairmoe2: My web business will be an e-store needy groups can send potential customers to. A portion of everything sold would go to the organization that sends said customer to me. Almost ready to go with it.

SAcademy: Lazarus Long.

ddavitt: Zeb’s grandad?

SAcademy: In the Notebooks.

AGplusone: How ’bout Joan Freeman in “Lost Legacy”? Which was first?

ddavitt: Legacy I’d guess

ddavitt: Why does she say that?

AGplusone: Typical thirties deference, perhaps?

ddavitt: And why did it change so much from the magazine to the book version?

BPRAL22169: “Lost Legacy” is next up for the studies, but I haven’t re-read it recently.

ddavitt: The earlier magazine version has a talking alarm clock that was left out of the book

BPRAL22169: The magazine version was heavily edited by either Pohl or Norton of Super Science. Neither one admits to it.

ddavitt: But it has extra bits

ddavitt: And some missing bits too, just to be confusing

SAcademy: Sure it wasn’t Horace Gold???

AGplusone: I have a talking alarm clock tuned to a talk show I find particularly obnoxious. It never fails to wake me.

BPRAL22169: Heheh.

ddavitt: But did you have one in the 1940’s? 🙂

BPRAL22169: The Wave does tht to me every Sunday a.m. at 5:30. Very irritating.

ddavitt: Shame Heinlein couldn’t patent that…

AGplusone: I don’t think so … but I had one I wound up that had a Long Ranger on the face.

ddavitt: The very idea of a radio alarm is anathema to me. i like to wake gently than you

AGplusone: Gently doesn’t work with me. Dynamite is required.

BPRAL22169: There’s that scene in “Just You and Me, Kid” where he wakes up to sustained applause.

SAcademy: Because you’re up until alllhours???

ddavitt: Oh, before we start, i noticed that after I left you said I knew what the next topic was but I don’t…anyone remember?

AGplusone: Possibly, but my wife claims she frequently wakes me up and we have extensive conversations that I don’t remember at all. I’ve suspected for years that she’s extensively interrogated me in that condition.

SAcademy: I often see David online when I get up which is often very early.

ddavitt: My David is like that; he slept through lauren throwing up all over me in bed last week

ddavitt: An enviable skill…

SAcademy: I remember doing that as a small child.

AGplusone: We develop it after we get married, Jane … bfoq for a husband, like the “uh-hum” we give you while reading the morning paper.

SAcademy: Throwing up, I mean.

BPRAL22169: I remember we discussed three possible topics and decided on one of the, but I don’t remember which one — and I don’t remember the other two, either!

AGplusone: “b.f.o.q.” = bona fide occupational qualification (for a husband)

ddavitt: Eek,…neither do i.

BPRAL22169: (I started saving our talks on disk later for just that reason)

ddavitt: Will it be on Dave’s site; he kept a log of it IIRC

BPRAL22169: , Well, I delegate you to pick one.

ddavitt: I’ll see if I can find it, if not, I’ll pick one then

BPRAL22169: Fine by me. And then Joel Rosenberg will guest for the one after that.

ddavitt: half way thru hero as we speak

ddavitt: Forgotten how gruesome some of his books are…

AGplusone: “Heros” are good, Jane.

SAcademy: Oh, BTW, my friend denis Paradis may come here. Will someone keep an eye out tof him? He’ll need an invitation.

ddavitt: In general or that book?

ddavitt: What is his AIM name SA?

BPRAL22169: Is Denis on AOL, or will he just show up on AIM?

ddavitt: I can add him to my buddy list

SAcademy: DJedPar

SAcademy: Thankyou, Jane.

SAcademy: He’s not on AOL, though.

BPRAL22169: OK. I also put him on my AIM buddy list.

OakMan7111 has entered the room.

OakMan7111: Hello everyone

BPRAL22169: Yo

AGplusone: Hi, OakMan … welcome

ddavitt: Hi Jon

OakMan7111: IFor those who don’t remember, I am Jon Ogden for my sins

WJaKe has entered the room.

SAcademy: Did AOL bless you with that ame? It did with this one!

AGplusone: WJake, what a pleasure! Welcome

WJaKe: Hi all.

ddavitt: Hi there

SAcademy: Hello

OakMan7111: No actually Oakman is a legititamate translation of Ogden, Mrs. Heinlein

SAcademy: It is? Never would have guessed that.

OakMan7111: Hi Jake

AGplusone: ah … very nice … agplusone = ag (silver) and its valence

ddavitt: Mine is boringly obvious I suppose 🙂

WJaKe: Sorry I’m late. Is there a topic?

SAcademy: Yes, I know. Dunno wherer this tag came from

ddavitt: Not late; haven’t started yet

BPRAL22169: We’re discussing Heinlein and mysticism this week.

OakMan7111: Saxon Oak Den – Denizen of the Oaks

WJaKe: Right, I remember.

SageMerlin has entered the room.

OakMan7111: I read thursday’s transcript – really good discussion!

BPRAL22169: Have you all had a chance to look at the message posts on afh?

ddavitt: Hi Alan

WJaKe: Do I know any of you in real life? Some of the chat names are new to me.

SageMerlin: Sorry about my tardiness.

ddavitt: No; won’t let me access afh AGAIN

SAcademy: Nope, too busy

BPRAL22169: *blink*

SageMerlin: Someone unexpectedly dropped in

ddavitt: I was on phone for 30 mins last niht and Netscape can’t work out why

AGplusone: I think you might recognize geeairmoe2 as Will Jennings, Jake

ddavitt: I get error message saying Typhoon won’t let me access. no one knows who they are

BPRAL22169: Well, the greater number of the posts are on DaveWright’s site with the Thursday post.

geeairmoe2: The unobtrusive one in the corner.

BPRAL22169: Dave Silver posted one today about “Lost Legacy.”

ddavitt: I won’t have seen that one then

AGplusone: A triffling point, to be sure …

ddavitt: I’m Jane jake btw; from alt.fan.heinlein

SageMerlin: attention to orders

SageMerlin: Let’s get this show on the road, folks

ddavitt: ga

SageMerlin: Well we are here at Bill’s invitation to discuss mysticism in Heinlein

AGplusone: but I thought it appropriate that he uses a scientific approach even when dealing with the mystical or mysticism.

SageMerlin: Bringing us to the point that mysticism

OakMan7111: The “Unknown” approach?

SageMerlin: is neither scientific nor the opposite.

SAcademy: Not appropriate subject for scientific approach.

AGplusone: True, but the story deals with seekers trying to find it …

SageMerlin: Perhaps not. Mysticism has been defined as a study in which the student IS the subject.

BPRAL22169: Heinlein does seem to have advocated scientific study of things like life after death.

AGplusone: The Bridget Murphy thing?

Eeyore3061 has entered the room.

BPRAL22169: There were a great many people talking about this kind of thing (I had Beyond This Horizon in mind)early in the century.

SageMerlin: Who the blazes is Bridget Murphy?

SAcademy: Those are ctual, mysticism isa not.

OakMan7111: If there is such, shouldn’t it be erifyable somehow?

ddavitt: Sorry about that ,blush>

BPRAL22169: I think he means Bridey Murphy

AGplusone: “Bridey Murphy”

ddavitt: Forgot you wouldn’t have an icon Eeyore

SageMerlin: Her too.

OakMan7111: She was the audject of a book wherein it was claimed she’d lived many times before

SAcademy: She was the subject of a hypnotic invertigation in Colorado many years ago.

AGplusone: Woman in the 1960s who claimed many prior lives

OakMan7111: And remembered all her lives under hypnosis

BPRAL22169: Early in the fifties there was a book about hypnotic past life regression — the woman’s name in Ireland in the 19th century was Bridey murphy. The book became a cause celebre for awhile.

SAcademy: Morey Bernstein wrote the book.

AGplusone: 50s-60s (all back when I had an accurate memory for dates)

OakMan7111: me, too, David

SAcademy: An investigative reporter from a local paper went to Ireland and said that she was a hoax

BPRAL22169: RAH kind of got caught in the wash with that one – -he had used it in the “Third Millennium Opens” as a fictional tickler before the book was published. When it became talked about extensively, it was assumed Heinlein was strongly advocating the “truth” of the Bernstein book.

Eeyore3061: My system at the new apt. has one. But not up to affording a new phone hookup yet. Thanks for the invite in.

BPRAL22169: He wasn’t — he had just used it as local color for talking about the future.

SAcademy: Don’t blame that on Robert–it was my mistake!!!

BPRAL22169: But it was the kind of thing that MIGHT be possible, given his position on other “exotic facts.”

BPRAL22169: How’s that, SAcad?

SAcademy: What about that child in India who was taken back there and told about her prior life?

SAcademy: Well, I got interested in it so we got the records and the book. To R. it was story material.

BPRAL22169: Similar thing in a recent keanu reeves film about Buddha.

ddavitt: When deety mentions reincarnation to libby did anyone think she belived in it? And what is the negative proof theory?

Eeyore3061: There is not enough information to form a concret appion on that issue … yet. come back in a few decades and see what has come up.

BPRAL22169: Why do you wear that charm? To keep the elephants away. Charms won’t keep elephants away. Do you see any elephants around?

Eeyore3061: And they are shuting down now here. Grrr

ddavitt: And who is Georg Cantor?

BPRAL22169: Founder of infinity mathematics

ddavitt: Ah..thanks Bill

AGplusone: When does Geo Cantor get mentioned?

SAcademy: A mathematician.

ddavitt: When Libby and Deety meet for first time in NOTB

AGplusone: okay ..

ddavitt: All to do with Mama Jane

ddavitt: Libby says reincarnation is nonsense

BPRAL22169: Actually, he comes up in quite a number of places. He made quite a stir in the fifties.

ddavitt: Deety gets cross but I can’t work out if she beleives in it or not

Eeyore3061: Later all. If anyone is coming to Greensboro, NC for Stellarcon 25, drop me a line at Jim Baen is GoH. Check http://come.to/stellarcon for up to date info.

SAcademy: Why not keep an open mind about it???

Eeyore3061: Poof

BPRAL22169: Well, have we enough people to start?

ddavitt: says after a mental housecleaning she has no opinion; so why get so cross?

AGplusone: I’d think so …

Eeyore3061: I do, for that stuff. Seen some weird things in my time…

Eeyore3061 has left the room.

ddavitt: thought we had…

BPRAL22169: OK — SageMerlin will be co-hosting. (Worked well the first time –!) But I thought I’d start with something that seemed to work last meeting as a “definition” of mysticism.

AGplusone: A point: anyone studied to identify all the quotes at chapter heads, yet, in “Lost Legacy”? We had quite a bit of fun doing that with Cat.

ddavitt: No; sounds interesting

BPRAL22169: Quite a number of them from the Bible.

AGplusone: /ga, Bill and Alan, please. I’m just babbling.

ddavitt: Not all chapters have them though do they?

BPRAL22169: Ok. Mysticism is what’ sleft in religion if you remove God from religion.

ddavitt: Ie nothing….

BPRAL22169: no — everything.

OakMan7111: Is the reverse true? if there’s a god, it’s not mysticism?

BPRAL22169: No; you can have mysticism in god religions, too.

ddavitt: Hmm..I’m sttill a bit confused on this whole thing

SAcademy: Oakman, would you please darken your type?

BPRAL22169: Judaism has Caballism; Christianity has gnosticism; Islam has (loosely) Sufism.

SageMerlin: Kabalism please

BPRAL22169: The idea of the One God is a very recent creation — about 3,0000 years ago.

BPRAL22169: Q’abalism, too — it’s spelled in about a dozen different ways.

ddavitt: So how old is humanity?

AGplusone: to avoid confusion with James Branch Cabell

BPRAL22169: Even the idea of “the gods” goes back only about 5 or 6 thousand years.

ddavitt: When did we start needing a god?

OakMan7111: For what it’s worth: (Merriam Webster)

SageMerlin: How old is humanity? About six, I’d say.

OakMan7111: 1 : the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality reported by mystics2 : the belief that direct knowledge of God, spiritual truth, or ultimate reality can be attained through subjective experience (as intuition or insight)3 a : vague speculation : a belief without sound basis b : a theory postulating the possibility of direct and intuitive acquisition of ineffable knowedge or power

BPRAL22169: Cro magnon — the first “true-humans” are conventionally dated to about 200,000 years ago. What did they do for 195,000 years?

BPRAL22169: I like Sage’s idea better.

ddavitt: Clan of the cave Bear gave them a religion

ddavitt: A spirit world anyway, with rituals and such

BPRAL22169: That’s based on archaeological evidence.

ddavitt: Fictional of course but still…

AGplusone: The Neandrals seem to have something of a burial ritual of sorts … flowers on the grave so to speak

BPRAL22169: /Yes. That is interepreted as evidence of a belief in the afterlife.

SAcademy: Isn’t that what religioon is all about???

SageMerlin: Does everyone know the story of the blind men and the elephant?

AGplusone: Or it merely might have been to cover the stink of rotting corpus

AGplusone: Yes, what I was thinking …

BPRAL22169: The cave paintings at Lascaux and Altamira date from about 35,000 years ago and seem to imply some kind of magical-religious nature.

OakMan7111: Oh yes – it’s the story of ADH, isn’t it?

SageMerlin: Six men were brought into a a darkened room…..

OakMan7111: AFH

ddavitt: So isn’t that saying that as long as there’s been man capable of reasonoing, we’ve thought about what happens after death as something that we can affect in life?

AGplusone: Or invented tales to tell children frightened of death … ?

SageMerlin: One felt the elephant’s leg and thought it a tree….another felt his ear and thought it a bird, and third felt the tail and thought it a snake.

SageMerlin: A wise man came into the room and turned on the light.

SageMerlin: That is mysticism

ddavitt: IOW, placate a god with flowers, put valuables in with a corpse to carry over…stuff .like that

AGplusone: The ‘light’ the wise man brings …

OakMan7111: That is thinking outside the box

BPRAL22169: Well (and I don’t want to step on Sage’s story) it may go back well before Cro-Magnon. Identifiable human ancestors date to about 2 million years ago.

SageMerlin: So you say. My ancesters are all still alive.

SageMerlin: Mother and Father

ddavitt: What about the idea in LL that there are ‘special’places on earth? Is being attuned to them mystical?

SageMerlin: Beyond any doubt.

BPRAL22169: I didn’t say they died (studiously ignoring): that’s when they started appearing.

BPRAL22169: Urk

OakMan7111: That concept also shows up in Niven’s “the magic goes away” books

ddavitt: In LL it was more prosaic; they had beacons buried there with ancient messages

SageMerlin: Plains of Nazcar

BPRAL22169: One of the main “styles” of non-god religion is the appreciation of the “sacred place.” Animism.

SageMerlin: uMatchupetch

SageMerlin: u

SageMerlin: You get the idea

BPRAL22169: Nobody’s going to recognize it from that spelling.

OakMan7111: Mt Sinai

BPRAL22169: Macchu Picchu

ddavitt: Some of you have been to Mt Shasta?

BPRAL22169: Mr. Shasta

BPRAL22169: The redwood forests.

SageMerlin: Thanks Bill New I could count on u

AGplusone: yes …. or Gettysburgh

ddavitt: Is it special?

BPRAL22169: Sedona

OakMan7111: Mt Olympus

BPRAL22169: The Painted Desert

AGplusone: “This Hallowed Ground”

BPRAL22169: I had to think awhile to get one that wasn’t a mountain.

ddavitt: LL also had Atlantis in it…

BPRAL22169: Stonehenge

ddavitt: Been ther; no vibes

BPRAL22169: Chakras of the earth.

ddavitt: Too many tourist guides and fences

ddavitt: And souvenir shops…

BPRAL22169: But also, on a smaller scale, the sacred grove and the sacred oak.

SageMerlin: There is a historical reason for this….during cataclysmic periods when the ice caps have melted, much of our planet has been under water….during those times ….the high mountains would be where the survivors would congregate

ddavitt: The Standing Stones on lewis in the hebrides is better

AGplusone: … and the Golden Bough

SageMerlin: Let’s go back to the source.

AGplusone: okay, /ga Sage

BPRAL22169: Good idea.

SageMerlin: IN LL, (Lost Legacy Not Lazarus Long)

SageMerlin: There is a dream sequence.

SageMerlin: In the dream sequence we are presented with an abbreviated version of the War of the Gods

ddavitt: Atlantis, Mu

OakMan7111: Yes – and it is shared by all

AGplusone: which chapter for those catching up, if you recall …

ddavitt: 7

ddavitt: and 6

SageMerlin: left the book at home David

OakMan7111: actually it starts with the Greek Gods, IIRC

ddavitt: They all see it differently

SageMerlin: In one version

SageMerlin: Exactly

SageMerlin: The point being this:

ddavitt: Versions of the same thing; collpase of covilisation

SageMerlin: The story of great ancient civilizations…the MU/Atlantis neurosis

SageMerlin: has been with us for centuries…..

OakMan7111: breakdown of society – but basically the same thing

SageMerlin: It was old when Socretes was sitting up for his last cocktail

OakMan7111: what’s neurotic about it, exactly?

SageMerlin: Because it is a belief without a basis in fact…definition of neurosis.

BPRAL22169: Christianity and the God religions (as Karen Anderson calls them) has so strong a hold on the way we think about things like this that the older ways are driven underground. We call them “occult” or “esoteric.”

ddavitt: It’s scary…and humbling, except it could never happen to us of course:-)

SageMerlin: We cannot point to a ruin and say here lies Mu or what;s left of it.

ddavitt: Are we sure it was real?

OakMan7111: That was also true for Troy until the century

OakMan7111: this century

ddavitt: I don’t know much ancient history

SageMerlin: We are sure that there was a colony like Atlantis….Mu as far as I can tell is a fantasy

BPRAL22169: Some historians identify the Atlantis legends with the destructionof the Cretan Thalassocracy when Thera blew up.

BPRAL22169: Thera was Atlantis in these interpretations.

OakMan7111: Thats what I have read, too.

SAcademy: Did anyone else see the story about Atlantis being found nder the Atlantic?

SageMerlin: Some researchers have found places in the Greek Isles that fit the description.

OakMan7111: No SA I didn’t

SageMerlin: Yes….

AGplusone: Is Thera the vocano that was near Naples?

AGplusone: volcano

BPRAL22169: And Plato places the destruction of Atlantis at 9000 years before he wrote, but that may be a misreading of Greek numerals. if he actually meant 900 years, that’s pretty close to the destruction of Thera. Not Naples — it was in the eastern Mediterranean

AGplusone: Naples = Neo Polis

SageMerlin: They can demonstrate that there is a former Greek colony now under water….but we cannot document that it was the actual historical Atlantis….it would be like finding a Roman coin dated 4 BC

BPRAL22169: I’m sorry, we’re getting bogged down in trivia.

AGplusone: ‘kay unbog us

BPRAL22169: Until after the renaissance, the general feeling was “the old days were greater than we.”

SageMerlin: But this is about what RAH was referring to when he wrote LL

BPRAL22169: That’s just as true of the classical world — they looked at the colossal architecture of the Minoan ruins and said “the old ones were gods.” There has been a persistent sense of high culture in the distant past.

AGplusone: Not unusual. See Howard’s Conan stories …

ddavitt: What about what we touched on in afh; that mysticism can’t exist because there’s nothing outside the universe ( so to speak). That sounds persuasive to me…the people in LL aren’t special; just try harder. Eventually all humanity becomes like them

KultsiKN has entered the room.

AGplusone: or E.E. Smith at the beginning of Lensmen

ddavitt: Hi Kultsi

KultsiKN: Hello all!

OakMan7111: Hi Kultsi

SageMerlin: There is a confusion here between ESP and mysticism

BPRAL22169: But some of the esoteric traditions say there were civilizations on the scale of 200,000 years before us.

SageMerlin: Which we had better nip in the bud.

BPRAL22169: Yes.

AGplusone: nip away

SageMerlin: ESP is an established fact

BPRAL22169: or even millions of years.

SageMerlin: There are people who have extraordinary abilities, idiot savants, geniuses among us….supermen with unbelievable strength.

SageMerlin: And sometimes you don’t have to work harder to get there.

SageMerlin: But these are all more or less genetically restricted.

BPRAL22169: Sometimes all you have to do is think – not even “better.” Just differently.

SageMerlin: with the genes marking your outside potential

AGplusone: But how dew we know that?

SageMerlin: Mysticism is a teachable and therefore learnable SYSTEM through which ordinary people improve themselves.

ddavitt: But are they necessarily mystics?

SageMerlin: Sometimes, and sometimes not.

SageMerlin: Example:

ddavitt: Head is spinning….

SageMerlin: Guru Nanak, who founded Siksim

OakMan7111: Aren’t we getting way off course?

SageMerlin: was a Sufi dervish who was assigned the task of reconciling Hindu, Budhist and Muslim communities in India/

AGplusone: Perhaps the point explains something in what RAH wrote, Will.

SageMerlin: He used what abilities he possessed to create a new cultural artifact, but those who belong to that artifact are not necessarily aware of it.

SageMerlin: Nor are the aware of its “mystical” origins.

ddavitt: I can accept that some people can do things i can’t; makes no never mind if it’s physical, metal or spiritual. But they’re still doing it with the same basic ingredients…not mystical.

BPRAL22169: There is a core “experience” of mysticism. Shall we talk about that as a base to start from? Or would that lead us away from the subject, do you think?

SageMerlin: I think away

BPRAL22169: OK

SageMerlin: I think there are more things to -plumb from the book

ddavitt: Point to something mystical in a Heinlein book for me.

SageMerlin: I noticed several things that interested in LL on reading it last night

ddavitt: So i can identify it or argue with you:-)

OakMan7111: The end of I Will Fear No Evil

ddavitt: Hmm

AGplusone: The bubble

SageMerlin: The belief that Michael is still with the community after his death

BPRAL22169: LL or Stranger?

SageMerlin: Stranger

AGplusone: Hendricks’ hand on Max’s shoulder

ddavitt: The dead people influencing the living is all thru the books

ddavitt: baslim, jane, Hendrix

BPRAL22169: “All that groks is God.”

ddavitt: Anne

SageMerlin: Point

BPRAL22169: (In Farmer in the Sky)

SageMerlin: The curriculum that RAH proposes for his school is no joke

SageMerlin: Nor is it far off from what really takes place in such places.

SageMerlin: Notice the recurring emphsisi on meditation

BPRAL22169: That raises a question. Can that particular curriculum be identified with any particular occult tradition?

OakMan7111: The belief in Stranger that Jubal is always right – or perhaps its the discovery that he is thats mystical?

ddavitt: But on mars, the existence of the Old Ones seems to say that death isn’t kystical; jsut another level in the same building

AGplusone: “kystical”?

BPRAL22169: That’s what makes it mystical, Jane.

ddavitt: :-)G and T to balme

AGplusone: oh, okay

SageMerlin: The curriculum reminds me of what the theosophical society used to peddle

ddavitt: Blame!! darn

AGplusone: I thought I was about to learn a new word

SageMerlin: Kstical

ddavitt: LOL

OakMan7111: Can I blame them, too?

SageMerlin: Go ahead

ddavitt: I can invent a definition if you like

SageMerlin: Please

SageMerlin: Back to the curriculum….

DenvToday has entered the room.

ddavitt: Anyway…if mystical is the dead having influence then yes, it’s present in Heinlein books

DenvToday: Greetings one and all.

OakMan7111: Hello Denv

BPRAL22169: But rememebr tht Mike cannot tell what people are talking about when they say “religion.” Religion, science and philosophy are all “learning”

ddavitt: Hi there

DenvToday: Hello!

SageMerlin: The interesting thing to me about LL is that these powers are precisely what many people are looking for when they become involved with mystical things.

ddavitt: Is it significant that Mike has 12 close friends..disciples?

AGplusone: Hi, Ron.

SageMerlin: But, ultimately, what you are mastering when you practice mysticism is yourself.

OakMan7111: The Wiccans claim many of those powers, too bad Jani is not here

DenvToday: Hello Dave. Good to see you.

BPRAL22169: Transcendental meditators will teach you some of them, for a stiff fee.

SageMerlin: (((I’ll do it for nothing.)))

BPRAL22169: One per siddhe.

ddavitt: If there is a ‘truth” it makes semnse not to chop it into small parts and label them

OakMan7111: I will teach them for free, too. The question is: will my students learn anything?

BPRAL22169: I’d like to change focus for a moment and turn to “They.”

SageMerlin: Waitn one bill

ddavitt: I’d like to learn them…I always enjoyed that part of SIASL and the Doc Smith book, Subspace Explorers where they have a similar school

BPRAL22169: Ok. Standing by.

SageMerlin: Someone asked about the 12 close diciples (sp sorry) in Stranger

ddavitt: Me

ddavitt: Tough i have to cheat a tad

SageMerlin: David and I were commenting the other night about how no one ever seems to take the ultimate leap and acknowledge that Stranger is a story about Jesus

BPRAL22169: Ahem.

OakMan7111: Really? I have thought that was quite obvious.

ddavitt: Me too

BPRAL22169: you’d be surprised (he said grimly)

AGplusone: [ … or at least we have never really focused one of our chats specifically on that … topic perhaps, Jane?]

OakMan7111: I’m sure i remember it being talked about in AFH

ddavitt: Or Mowgli of course

SageMerlin: Oh, we all see it, BUT NO ONE talks about it.

ddavitt: Could be dave; we need one

SAcademy has left the room.

AGplusone: it has been mentioned, peripherally, of course

BPRAL22169: I can see the posts in afh now: Christ Groks!

SageMerlin: But (whew perfect timing)

OakMan7111: Okay, I understand what you mean

SageMerlin: If we are trying to find the central core of a man’s being….a writer…is that not to be found in the book he worked on for years and years

BPRAL22169: Everybody would killfile the thread without reading.

SageMerlin: writing other things while he kept this one on his table.

AGplusone: [for next meeting perhaps, Jane]

OakMan7111: Bill: LOL

WJaKe has left the room.

SageMerlin: Well, we have also been quite intrigued by RAH’s possible associations….and some new evidence may have come to light on that subject

ddavitt: My 12 are Jill, Ben, Anne, Dorcas, Jubal, patty, Dawn, larry, Duke, mahmoud, Miriam and possibly van Tromp

BPRAL22169: I don’t think he could have said these things any other way but in the form of a satire.

AGplusone: I dunno about kill-filing … if we set it up properly with a good lead-off, they might not

BPRAL22169: The words don’t mean the same thing when you state them as philosophical propositions.

OakMan7111: Then who is Judas?

ddavitt: I don’t think afh is so blinkered.What’s the problem with it?

AGplusone: Ben Caxton is my nominee for Judas

BPRAL22169: (I meant it as a joke – we just woulnd’t use that in the subject)

SageMerlin: Right on the money David.

ddavitt: well, the fact there are many women in the group means there isn’t a one on one correlation:-)

SageMerlin: He’s the one who has to set up the blow off

OakMan7111: That is indeed Judas’s job

ddavitt: Judas was a hero

SageMerlin: Try reading Stranger and John at the same time…..it was blow your mind./

SageMerlin: will

BPRAL22169: I’m trying to think if there is any direct statement to that effect in the book. I can’t recall any.

ddavitt: Or another martyr

AGplusone: Yes, and therefore not only was Judas necessary but he was essential to see that the redemption occurs

SageMerlin: I did that by accident several years ago. I am still in recovery

OakMan7111: 4th Gospel? or revelations?

DenvToday: Hmmm….The Last Temptation of Christ comes to mind.

ddavitt: Dawn is mary magdalene?

SageMerlin: Judas has always been revered among esoteric communities because without him the story could not unfold.

ddavitt: former sinful woman who found god..then mike

BPRAL22169: Judas is the exemplary sufferer, then.

SAcademy has entered the room.

SageMerlin: And besides it is often forgotten that he did what he did to force the Master’s hand, to make him prove himself to the world./

AGplusone: The true scapegoat whose reputation is soiled forever …

ddavitt: Like Lucifer, wasn’t he one of the closest to jesus?

OakMan7111: Some traditions have him as Jesus’s cousin

DenvToday: Which brings us to Job.

SageMerlin: There is a direct cognation between the two

AGplusone: Howso, Denv?

ddavitt: Anyone seen the musical jesus Christ Superstar? Spelled out clearly there that he isn’t a villain

AGplusone: Yes

SageMerlin: (

DenvToday: Lucifer is the most rational…and likable…character in it.

BPRAL22169: Is that a Cheshire frown, Sage?

OakMan7111: I think they used Last Temptation alot as their second underlying source

AGplusone: I think Milton made that very clear, Lucifer continued at the light bearer

AGplusone: … but Milton was very subversive

BPRAL22169: “They” being Tim Rice for JCSS?

DenvToday: lol true

ddavitt: In job, Lucifer and Jesus are still friendly in a a way

OakMan7111: Yes – Tim Rice

AGplusone: So too in Twain’s “Letters from the Earth

ddavitt: In fact, expicit that God is the bad guy and Lucifer the rescuer

BPRAL22169: Cabell always referred to Jehovah as an Arab storm-god.

DenvToday: Even though it’s a broad satre–and a hilarious one–it’s clear where RAH’s sympathies lie in Job.

ddavitt: That may have bothered some people…

DenvToday: satire

ddavitt: like Dogma; anyone seent hat? Lot of fuss apparently..by people who hadn’t seen it of course.

OakMan7111: The horned god has often been the Adversary of God and Friend to Man simultaneously

SageMerlin: BACK ON TRACK FOLKS

AGplusone: In fact, it’s arguable that Lucifer impregnates Eve with Jesus … third book he enters Eden from the rear, twelfth book symbolizes birth of Redeemer

BPRAL22169: That seems to me a very late reinterpretation, Oak.

AGplusone: Okay ….

SageMerlin: Here is the focus I would like to leave you with, because I have a date and I am not standing her up

SageMerlin: not even for RAH

OakMan7111: Pan?

ddavitt: good for you

BPRAL22169: Identificatinoof Kernunos with Baphomet has to be post 14th century.

DenvToday: Merlin, I admire a man who has his priorities straight. lol

SageMerlin: Some things for you to note:

ddavitt: lost me there Bill

BPRAL22169: I don’t want to step on Sage — hold up a sec.

SageMerlin: 1. Bierce specifically mentions two writers…Mark Twain and Walt Whitman…..

BPRAL22169: (Both highly influential on RAH)

SageMerlin: both of which are known to have had Sufi associations

OakMan7111: True – was using more the concept of Horns that directly tying in with Cernunos

SageMerlin: Whitman, in particular, is largely responsible for the development of modern American English as a separate dialect from UK English

SageMerlin: but he also acknowledges his connections with Sufism throughout Leaves of Grass…no one picks up on it though

DenvToday: He had no choice. His body was electric.

SageMerlin: That was a low blow

SageMerlin: But I Sing with Your Pun

BPRAL22169: he was larg e– he contained multitudes.

DenvToday: lol I accept your groan with pride.

SageMerlin: Note that we all know some Whitman

KultsiKN: Do we?

ddavitt: leaves of grass?

SageMerlin: It is difficult to understand his impact unless you read him side by side with English and American contemporaries.

ddavitt: I don;t know his work

AGplusone: Ah, probably the first essential American poet, Kultsi …

SageMerlin: But here is the main point…why these two authors in particular

SageMerlin: Twain who wrote about time travel…..Whitman who gives us actual renditions of Sufi training protocols…..

AGplusone: “Leaves of Grass” is his preeminent work

DenvToday: We know that RAH was a Tennyson fan, as am I. I would hope he admired Whitman as well.

ddavitt: twain was a good writer in a style Heinlein admired; as he admired Kipling

BPRAL22169: Stover makes a great deal over the intellectual inheritance from Whitman

ddavitt: kipling had some mystical stories; They being one incidentally

AGplusone: Kipling’s “They” is contained in which collection?

ddavitt: A blind woman who can see dead children

DenvToday: I always think of RAH when I read Tennyson. “Old age hath yet his honour, and his toil…”

ddavitt: I don’t know but I can find out

AGplusone: Let us know by a post please

ddavitt: traffics and Discoveries

ddavitt: Oh, sorry

AGplusone: ‘kay

SageMerlin: But there is another undercurrent in Lost Legacy isn;t there?

SageMerlin: RAH is always concerned about education.

ddavitt: agreed

SageMerlin: There is almost always a master disciple relationship

SageMerlin: in each book.

SageMerlin: Often more than one.

ddavitt: Baslim/thorby

SageMerlin: Heros are strongly drawn

SageMerlin: Villians are almost invisible.

AGplusone: [Being able to see Dead Children is quite mystical … but how does it relate? Does your essay touch on it, Jane? Something to explore, later another time.]

ddavitt: ok

SageMerlin: In fact, most cases, the villians are a system, and the heros are individuals.

DenvToday: By way of nothing, a friend of mine is in town from Seattle. Her name is (drumroll…) Maureen Johnson.

ddavitt: 🙂

AGplusone: LOL

OakMan7111: Kipling’s They..do you mean “We and They?”

DenvToday: I keep trying to introduce her to RAH.

SageMerlin: And in Lost Legacy – and only in Lost Legacy – does he ever give us a blatant example of systemic training….

ddavitt: no, it’s called they

geeairmoe2: When you mentioned ‘education’ I thought of those ‘keepers of the status-quo’ type antagonists.

BPRAL22169: It’s also the only story were there are “black adepts.”

ddavitt: baby on knee affecting typing now

BPRAL22169: (Unless you count “UnpleasantProfession,” which is not quite te same thing)

AGplusone: Unless the Hoag types are black

SageMerlin: And, in the story, our protgagonists are sent out to do battle with the evil types.

AGplusone: Unless the Black Hats are black

SageMerlin: And how do they do this….

ddavitt: or those who attack in gulf?

SageMerlin: pay attention here because I am about to disappear

ddavitt: all eyes

BPRAL22169: we’re all agog.

SageMerlin: By innoculating children

ddavitt: thru scouts

BPRAL22169: with heroic memes.

ddavitt: you mean?

SageMerlin: with these ideas…..which was what Heinlein spent his entire professional life doing.

OakMan7111: I haven’t gogg’d in years

BPRAL22169: Bravo.

geeairmoe2: “Give us your children and … ”

AGplusone: “Give me your children when they are seven and I’ll own them forever.” Jesuits

SageMerlin: Presenting paradigms

SageMerlin: We are all here participating in this discussion because he DID something to us, and something for us.

OakMan7111: until they are seven, I think

SageMerlin: eight]

AGplusone: Exactly

BPRAL22169: The LIFE people liken these memes/paradigms to viruses.

SageMerlin: And that which he did was this:

geeairmoe2: So, RAH was just a propagandist?

BPRAL22169: “just”? JUST?!

SageMerlin: Like Mathew Luke and John

SageMerlin: Like John Steinbeck

SAcademy has left the room.

ddavitt: has negative connottions

AGplusone: Well, there’s propaganda and there’s propaganda … white, black, you name it.

SageMerlin: Remember, one of the heroes in Stranger is a PR man

OakMan7111: He was a story teller first, unlike any of the gospel writers

geeairmoe2: >

BPRAL22169: And THE hero of Sixth Column

AGplusone: Propaganda comes from the Council for the Propagation of the Faith

AGplusone: aka the “Inquisition”\

ddavitt: They are present in IFTGO too IIRC

SageMerlin: I think that Robert really feared that the US would fail in the contest with the Evil Empire.

AGplusone:

ddavitt: The Zeb in that story gives John a lecture about the powere of words too

OakMan7111: So did I

SageMerlin: You can read many of his books as primers for how to organize an underground movment

DenvToday: It’s a supreme irony that he left us a year before the fall.

SageMerlin: Blueprints for an oppressed people

ddavitt: And survive…first catch your rabbit

BPRAL22169: Thre’s good evidence for that. in his speeches around 1960, he says that he’s not afraid of being blown up but of being conquered through moral failure.

AGplusone: … or as primers on how to rebel without revolutions, by subversion, as “Bill Williams” points out

OakMan7111: Denv, sometimes they fall to rise again – ask the British monarchy

ddavitt: hated the ‘better red than dead ‘ idea

SageMerlin: So, if you are afraid of a moral failure, where else would you turn but to people whohave been promoting a higher morality for a thousand years.

DenvToday: Oak, unfortunately true.

ddavitt: hey!

SageMerlin: And what else would you do but write books extolling those endangered virtues.

SageMerlin: You all think its an accident that I carry a fighting knife and a hideaway wherever I go?

BPRAL22169: Giving people the knowledge that would let them survive.

ddavitt: If heinlein hadn’t had the writing bug I wonder if he would have taught..or carried on in politics?

SageMerlin: That’s sthe point

SageMerlin: He did BOTH

ddavitt: seems to me he was lucky to have the talent to express his views on a large scale

geeairmoe2: seems WE were lucky.

OakMan7111: I think we’re way off topic here

SageMerlin: In LL, he makes a very strong point that many of the politicians were controlled by evil minions who stood behind them and whispered evil tidings in their ears

ddavitt: The hideawy and emergency bit is in the Rosenberg books a lot incidentally

AGplusone: His “children”

SAcademy has entered the room.

BPRAL22169: I was trying to figure out how to say that, Will.

ddavitt: agreed Will

SageMerlin: So, I rest my case

BPRAL22169: The case is rested; go in peace.

SageMerlin: Trying to get rid of me already.

AGplusone: I propose ten minutes and we return to topic at 30 past the hour

geeairmoe2: Good job.

BPRAL22169: I believe a round of applause is in order.

SageMerlin: You all forgot how I can empty out a room

ddavitt: ,sound of hands meeting>

BPRAL22169: (One-upmanship: sound of one hand meeting)

AGplusone: “Once more unto the breach … ”

ddavitt: friday knows that sound…

BPRAL22169: Ok, we are on break. Thanks muchly, SAge.

SageMerlin: Obliged to you all for the ears you lent me.

AGplusone: Mark Antony no less …. humph!

ddavitt: hope you can make future chars

ddavitt: chats

AGplusone: :::::: thunderous applause :::::::

OakMan7111: Found it: http://www.hansonrefuge.com/RoomIke/Ikestories/They.htm

ddavitt: good job:-)

AGplusone: Kipling’s?

OakMan7111: Yes, once I got it through my head it wasn’t a poem

ddavitt: no, not a poem

ddavitt: i don’t really discuss it in my essay AG; just note the coincidence of titles

OakMan7111: There is one called We and They. Fraid that once I made the connection I never thought any further.

ddavitt: And the fact they’re both sort of supernatural

ddavitt: Sorry, mystical

ddavitt: I love Kipling; just read an excellent biography of him

AGplusone: Thank you much for the link, Jon. ‘fraid I don’t have as much Kipling as I wish

SageMerlin has left the room.

OakMan7111: Has anyone seen the man who claims to speak with the dead for one hour @ day on SciFi channel?

ddavitt: His father lived in Burslem; small town, a couple of miles from where I was born

OakMan7111: I love his poetry, but know far less of his prose than I should.

DenvToday: I don’t have the sci-fi channel.

ddavitt: Near Rudyard lake of course…

AGplusone: I have all his poetry … it’s the fiction prose and the essays I don’t have complete

geeairmoe2: Have sci-fi, never watch the show.

ddavitt: I don’t either; I have all the novels but not all the short stories

OakMan7111: Me, too Will. but I just read that its their most popular show.

ddavitt: I had the complete peootry for Christmas some years ago

OakMan7111: I do not understand why Kipling is considered a “second class” poet.

DenvToday: I had “If” memorized when I was a kid. Indicative of my misspent youth.

AGplusone: I know, Jane. Your lead resulted in me going out to buy that collection

DenvToday: Oak, because he rhymes.

DenvToday: Often rhymes, anyway. That’s a no no among the soi dissant (thank you RAH) intellectuals.

OakMan7111: I classed “Just So” with “Wizard of Oz” when I was pretty young – Books to be read over and over

geeairmoe2: Was he considered “second class” before it became unfashionable to like dead, white males?

BPRAL22169: I think more because he was very “exterior” at a time when internality was valued more. He’s just not as “literary” as someone like Matthew Arnold, say.

ddavitt: I think he is due a resurgence of popularity

OakMan7111: You mean its okay to like living ones?

DenvToday: lol I hope so, since I’m a member of that club.

DenvToday: For now, that is.

ddavitt: In his bio it seems he burst onto the scene very young and was lauded as a giant; then they didn’t like the tone of his later books and slammed him; sound familiar?

ddavitt: Hi commits the sin of being accessible

geeairmoe2: Being a ‘young genius’ has got to be one of the worst burdens.

OakMan7111: I used to live in the People’s Republic of Amherst. White Males especially ones with a little bit of money, were supposed to know their place and speak when spoken to.

DenvToday: I think one reason Kipling isn’t considered among the first rank is that he’s easily accessible.

ddavitt: Though the bio filled in a lot of background i didn’t know; most of his poems were written in response to real time events which have now been forgotten

SAcademy: Hewas a great rhymster and his scansion was impeccaable.

AGplusone: The other reason was his supposed nationalism that got out of fashion following WW I

ddavitt: He appeals to the emotions; some alwyas make me mist over

AGplusone: just as RAH got jumped on for Troopers during Vietnam

OakMan7111: Then one has to wonder why Shakespeare escaped – perhaps because so much of his poetry was about love?

DenvToday: I agree. He is loved–and understood–by those outside of college poetry classes. Therefore he is poo poo’d.

ddavitt: He beleived that we had a duty to other, lesser nations. Not surprising that this is misinterpreted I suppose

BPRAL22169: Ah, but Sharespeare rarely rhymed and his scansion wasn’t perfect either.

AGplusone: “White Man’s Burden”

ddavitt: Yes…taken the wrong way I think

DenvToday: Yes. The “White Man’s Burden” outlook isn’t in style these days.

AGplusone: But that was the belief of his age. Roosevelt had it too

geeairmoe2: Can’t be ‘serious’ work unless its esoteric.

OakMan7111: He rhymed lots more than we think; remember the great vowel shift..or maybe you’re too young to remember it

SAcademy: R. said that he might have become poet Laureate, except that he wrote The Widow of Windsor.

ddavitt: Quite…have to put in context

ddavitt: Yes!

AGplusone: Spengler’s excesses ruined that notion

AGplusone: You’re correct, Jon.

ddavitt: The person they picked instead was mediocre in the extreme

DenvToday: Was this after Tennyson?

BPRAL22169: It’s happened before — remember Cowper.

OakMan7111: Who is poet laureate of the US today?

ddavitt: Ever heard someone read cahucer as it should be?

ddavitt: Chaucer

BPRAL22169: The US doesn’t have laureates.

ddavitt: Don’t you?

OakMan7111: are you sure?

OakMan7111: Whoa, am I confused!

SAcademy: Well, there was Robert Frost.

ddavitt: No offical poet to record historical moments in verse/

BPRAL22169: Yes. The Queen doesn’t pick them for us.

ddavitt: I don’t know who ours is; think it was bjetman

ddavitt: Spelling..

AGplusone: Yes, I was taught to read Chaucer as it sounded.

OakMan7111: Just checked: Post & Riposte Books & Literature What should the new Poet Laureate do?Don Barnes – 11:15pm Aug 28, 2000 ESTAt 95, Stanley Kunitz has been appointed Poet Laureate of the United States, for the second time.

AGplusone: Who in the hell is Kunitz?

geeairmoe2: we have Laureates., starting in 1985 with Robert Penn Warren

ddavitt: I don’t know him

OakMan7111: Damnfino

ddavitt: must be god if they had him twice

ddavitt: good1

SAcademy: To prevent Ginsberg from being it.

ddavitt: darn this baby holding!

BPRAL22169: Gosh, my dictionary still defines “poet laureate” as part of the sovereign’s household.

OakMan7111: Of course!

DenvToday: Robert Pinksy is the 39th–and current–poet laureate of the United States.

geeairmoe2: Joseph Brodsky was in 1991-92. Never heard of any of the others we’ve had.

AGplusone: That’s terrible, btw. We have no poets everyone knows. When I quote Arthur Hugh Clough, at least I have the belief that the English in 1870 knew who he was.

OakMan7111: Mr. Kunitz succeeds Robert Penn Warren, Richard Wilbur, Howard Nemerov, Mark Strand, Joseph Brodsky, Mona Van Duyn, Rita Dove, Robert Hass, and Robert Pinsky

geeairmoe2: Its for a 1-year term, but renewable

DenvToday: Raise your hand if you’ve read Robert Pinsky’s work.

BPRAL22169: So much for the imperial presidency!

ddavitt: Does it say who the British one is?

AGplusone: not I!

SAcademy: Never heard of any of those!

ddavitt: I vaguely know the name..that’s all

geeairmoe2: Andrew Motion

DenvToday: Ted Hughes was.

BPRAL22169: Ok, leute, I do believe we should reconvene.

ddavitt: I know Hughes

geeairmoe2: Motion starting in 1999.

AGplusone: Warren is well known as a critic and writer of fiction … All The King’s Men

ddavitt: Do you want to look at they now Bill?

OakMan7111: Andrew Motion if the BPL

OakMan7111: is the BPL

AGplusone: from which they made a movie (roman a clef about Huey Long)

BPRAL22169: There was one scene in “They” that bears on the topic of mysticism — when he dreams he experiences “reality” — the joy of communion with his own kind.

DenvToday: Yes Oak.

EBATNM has entered the room.

BPRAL22169: People, welcome Andy Thornton.

OakMan7111: Welcome, Andy

EBATNM: Hello everyone

DenvToday: Hello

SAcademy: Hello.

BPRAL22169: I had just said the scene in “They” where he dreams of communion with his own kind relates to the mystical experience — what Nietasche meant by Joy — as in The Gay Science.

ddavitt: Hi Andy

BPRAL22169: And we are just now reconvening after a 10 minute break.

OakMan7111: I beg your pardon, Bill?

AGplusone: ‘lo, Andy

BPRAL22169: As to what in particular, Jon?

OakMan7111: “Gay Science?”

DenvToday: It’s homogenous.

EBATNM: greeting Mr. AG+1

AGplusone: I thot that would raise an eyebrow … go ahead and ‘splain please, Bill

BPRAL22169: The title of a Nietzsche book — a better translation would be “Joyful Wisdom” or Joyful science, he says, ignoring the pun.

BPRAL22169: The Nazis made a terrible mess of Nietzsche, but he was extremely influential intellectually during the period Heinlein was getting his education.

DenvToday: It’s interesting that economics is called The Dismal Science.

EBATNM: Froliche Wissenschafft

AGplusone: interesting

BPRAL22169: So, anyway, that scene is a kind of subtle back-reference to Nietzsche.

EBATNM: Still very influencial – much of the Deconstructionist stuff can be traced back to him

BPRAL22169: For awhile it wasn’t possible to mention Nietzsche’s name without provoking kneejerks.

BPRAL22169: Which is why I think Heinlein doesn’t mention the name in Stranger, though he’s very prominently referenced.

EBATNM: Except for the cat

AGplusone: About the only thing surviving is the “that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”

DenvToday: Not to mention Man and Clark Kent.

BPRAL22169: And let’s not forget the perennial classic: “When thou goest before woman, take thou thy whip.”

OakMan7111: George Patton was strong infulenced by him, too – which is a bit ironic

EBATNM: What about doing philosophy with dancing feet? That’s the whole point of Joyful Wisdom & Zarathustra

DenvToday: BPRAL22169: Well, he does it.

BPRAL22169: Not me — Nietzsche.

ddavitt: Charming….

ddavitt: I know it’s not you Bill:-)

AGplusone: back on topic?

BPRAL22169: I’m sure Nietzsche would not care if he was reported to NOW.

EBATNM: Re Whip – the only photograph of N and Fraulein Salome is one where N & Peter Gast are in the traces of a dog cart with Salome in the drivers seat holding a whip

BPRAL22169: err– ok.

DenvToday: Friedrich you magnificent bastard, I read your book!

BPRAL22169: Anyway–!

BPRAL22169: The “core experience” that is the foundation of mysticism is the sense of unity with everything.

OakMan7111: you started it, Bill

geeairmoe2: Now I’ve got that damn theme from “Patton” running through my head.

ddavitt: That bit in They does seem to fit in with the dictionary definition very well

DenvToday: lol

ddavitt: But we don’t know until the end if he’s delusional

OakMan7111: Which one?

BPRAL22169: Now, anthropologist Rudolph Otto ties that directly to religion. paraphrasing: religion starts with the experience of the noumenal.

ddavitt: The dream of being part of a happy whole, with like minded people

BPRAL22169: So that sense of mystical union is — let me repeat that: IS the divine.

BPRAL22169: So you don’t (tying it back to the topic we started out with) need a god or the gods to hav ea sense of the divine.

geeairmoe2: Are we intertwining “mystical” with “supernatural”?

BPRAL22169: So — mysticism is what’s left when you take religion then take away god.

DenvToday: I ignore the noumenal. I kant undertand it.

OakMan7111: Isn’t that what the Universalists argue as well?

ddavitt: I have to go and help with bedtimes now; I’ll keep online and come back if I can.

OakMan7111: bye, if you can’t get back

BPRAL22169: I am nto responsible for DenvTodya. I want that known.

DenvToday: lol Sorry.

OakMan7111: Denv is a Russian?

DenvToday: Nope, I’m not in a hurry.

BPRAL22169: No backward R in this font.

BPRAL22169: (But isn’t the ya the sign of the genitive?)

EBATNM: No Hegalian, please

BPRAL22169: (dragging myself back to the subject by main force)

OakMan7111: the genitive? gay science? whips?…am I in the right room?

AGplusone: Night Jane … what’s our next subject?

BPRAL22169: And they said the Heinlein group isn’t typical of internet chats!

OakMan7111: ROFL!

AGplusone: Roflmbo

OakMan7111: Geeze, David, the tone has dropped since you stopped taking responsibility

BPRAL22169: That was the one moment of “They” I wanted to focus on, because it kind of points to the core mystical experience.

OakMan7111: ga

geeairmoe2: ga — quickly

BPRAL22169: There is another very strong pointer to the core mystical experience, however. Everybody have a drink.

BPRAL22169: And then stop to think why it’s so appropriate we use a “bar” scene at afh for Heinlein talk.

BPRAL22169: And then think about the one work of Martian we all know.

BPRAL22169: word

AGplusone: ‘grok” which means to drink

BPRAL22169: Exactly.

EBATNM: amongst other meanings

BPRAL22169: Grok means to become one with what you’re looking at. Grok means mystical union.

OakMan7111: the outside water becomes the inside blood

BPRAL22169: By the dictionary definition.

DenvToday: Just be careful not to share water in NY. It’ll be brown.

BPRAL22169: So when i said in the startup post that most of the Martian powers were simply (simply!) yogic demonstrations, that didn’t mean Stranger wasn’t about mysticism, too.

OakMan7111: Bill – what is your definition of mysticism?

EBATNM: In the highest stages of Hindu mysicism (at least according to Ramakrishna) the Highest point of mysticism comes when you realize that Thou Art That – or Thou Art God

DenvToday: SIASL has been accused of starting the New Age movement. Any truth to that?

OakMan7111: not in my experience

OakMan7111: but maybe in some places

DenvToday: Thou Art God is it’s central tenet…if New Ageism can be said to have tenets.

geeairmoe2: Perhaps in the sense that it revived the notion that man can become God.

DenvToday: its

SAcademy: What is the New Age mvement?

EBATNM: OakMan7111: I think that’s become separated from the book – as has “Pay It Forward” by the way

BPRAL22169: The New Age movement in our day is a very feeble attempt to get in touch with some of those older traditions washed out by low-church Christianity.

OakMan7111: It does them a disservice, I suppose, but I think of them as being hippies, sans revolution, but with jobs and minivans

BPRAL22169: And as for an earlier question: I don’t personally have a definition of mysticism because I dont think of these things as different from science or philosophy.

EBATNM: How very Martian of you

OakMan7111: Which puts you s1quarely in line with Michael.

SAcademy: What will happen to Stranger when we get to Mars and there is noone there?

DenvToday: Oddly enough, Kabballah is now very hip as well.

BPRAL22169: or Art. I forgot art.

OakMan7111: All attempts to explain the universe to ourselves?

BPRAL22169: The Martians of SIASL are as ‘there’ as TarsTarkas and always will be!

geeairmoe2: Mystcism are things Man CAN’T explain and things God WON’T explain.

DenvToday: What will happen to The Rolling Stones?

BPRAL22169: Except that God explains everything — you can’t shut him up — if you’re listening.

OakMan7111: The book or the band?

SAcademy: They will continue to roll.

BPRAL22169: And are rolling still.

DenvToday: The book. The band will be using aluminum walkers soon.

DenvToday: lol SA

SAcademy: They must be close to Pluto by now.

OakMan7111: Hazel will go on forever, but I’m catching up in years if not in wisdom

BPRAL22169: It is almost 50 years, isn’t it.

SAcademy: Huh? You? Look at me!

OakMan7111: um, yes, Bill, thats my age…why did you bring it up?

SAcademy: It is almost 50 years. At 56, we get it back.

BPRAL22169: For some reason I thought it was published in 1953.

BPRAL22169: Let me look it up.

geeairmoe2: 56 seems such an odd number. Why not 50, 55?

DenvToday: Bill, I was published in 1953.

SAcademy: Ask Congress.

BPRAL22169: No — 52. I think the 56 has to do with the copyright renewals, doesn’t it, SAcad?

BPRAL22169: Its two very odd number of years for the renewals.

DenvToday: gee, twice 28.

geeairmoe2: Doubt if Congress knows either, even with my Republicans in charge.

OakMan7111: two sabbaticals of years?

SAcademy: Right. 28+28

geeairmoe2: Why 28?

BPRAL22169: I was published in 51. Does that mean all contracts expire on me shortly?

OakMan7111: LOL

SAcademy: aGAIN, ASK cONGRESS.

OakMan7111: I understand Congreff recently extended the copyright on you Bill

BPRAL22169: Incidentally, it’s way ‘off topic, but I want to re-elect Jedediah Bartlett!

geeairmoe2: My rep is a democrat. We only commuincate in snarls.

ddavitt: I’m back.

SAcademy: I’ve already signed all the papers to revert all the juvies, they get sent in once a year.

OakMan7111: wb

ddavitt: Thank you.

DenvToday: lol gee. Mine was Patricia Shroeder for a quarter of a century. You can imagine how I felt!

OakMan7111: My Senator is ted Kennedy

geeairmoe2: I voted Deomcrat. Once.

BPRAL22169: Go on — mewl amongst yourselves. We’ve got Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

DenvToday: Schroeder, that is.

DenvToday: gee, we all makes mistakes. Go and sin no more.

SAcademy: Good gosh. I feel sorry for you. I live in Florida~

OakMan7111: LOL

geeairmoe2: He was a Reagan “blue dog”.

BPRAL22169: The eyes of Texas were upon you.

ddavitt: I think I’ll go back upstairs to the baths..you’reall on politics and I was only gone a minute!.

SAcademy: Yes, for 37 days.

BPRAL22169: Well, shall we return to our celestial muttons?

DenvToday: I’ll be a lamb about it.

OakMan7111: Let’s not count our Celestials before they’re cooked

ddavitt: point; Mile was ‘only an egg’

BPRAL22169: Or we could take — urk! — another break.

geeairmoe2: Yes, he agreed sheepishly.

ddavitt: Mike

BPRAL22169: *harrumph!*

OakMan7111: let’s not

DenvToday: Are we baaaaack on the subject?

BPRAL22169: I repent! I repent!

DenvToday: lol

BPRAL22169: Let’s take a break to 4:30 PST.

OakMan7111: Then you are saved, my son

ddavitt: He learned from the martians then passed it on; was it diluted by his humanity or strenghtened?

geeairmoe2: All this woolgathering..

BPRAL22169: Transmuted into something stronger, I bet.

ddavitt: Hey, I’m having a thought and you go onb a break!:-)

DenvToday: It’s sheer madness.

geeairmoe2: Just having a little pun.

BPRAL22169: it’s the shock, Jane., the sheer shock.

OakMan7111: The implication is that it was strengthened, isn’t it?

ddavitt: Wel, if it is a universal truth, does it matter? jubal and Mike agreed that the Martians were men too

OakMan7111: How many sheep suffer shear shock?

BPRAL22169: Only if you hit them very hard.

DenvToday: I always assumed they were little hairy balls that loved children. Live and learn.

SAcademy: I have seen one that did suffer fro shock.

BPRAL22169: Andy, your turn to say something profound.

OakMan7111: I have an announcement: Today I did something I have not done in 9 years

OakMan7111: I weighed less than 200 pounds

DenvToday: Congrats!

ddavitt: That’s good!

OakMan7111: When I first separated from my wife I was at 260

SAcademy: How did you do that?

ddavitt: mental calculation to stones

geeairmoe2: The Divorce Diet?

DenvToday: You were Siamese twins?

OakMan7111: I have changed my eating habits.

ddavitt: Nope, need a calculator; what’s 200 divided by14?

KultsiKN: the same into rational metric…

DenvToday: About 14 and a half.

ddavitt: Thanks.

ddavitt: I weigh more now than when i was 7 months pregnant; too many vistors

SAcademy: Just where did you start the diet? At what weight?

OakMan7111: at 260

OakMan7111: and that was almost exactly two years ago

DenvToday: 14.285. Calculator to the rescue.

SAcademy: That’s really good. I keep losing the same ten pounds all the time.

ddavitt: I am starting to think in pounds but it’s hard

OakMan7111: I gave up cigarettes and blew up like a baloon – but i stopped coughing

DenvToday: The last time I lost several pounds was when I visited the UK.

KultsiKN: 😉

ddavitt: I have started a diet; i am 154 at the moment and as I’m 5 ft 10 people just say, oh you don’t need to diet’ which drives me nuts

OakMan7111: giving up thirds and deserts and fried foods is harder than cigarettes

ddavitt: Are you insulting outr cooking there kultsi?

ddavitt: I miss fish and chips..proper fish and chipc and proper curries…

OakMan7111: we only have imporper curries? Our poor sheep

DenvToday: Richard Burton insisted that English fish and chips were never the same after it became illegal to wrap them in newspaper.

KultsiKN: who? me?

ddavitt: Yes, he was right

ddavitt: yes you!:-)

DenvToday: He maintained that the ink game them that traditional flavor. True.

ddavitt: They smell heavenly

OakMan7111: I had a friend who had to live in England for a year. he gained almost 20 lbs

SAcademy: Do you mean the Sir Richard Burton?

DenvToday: gave them

KultsiKN: I like the fish and chips

ddavitt: the actor one?

DenvToday: No, the actor. Not the explorer.

SAcademy: Whose wife burned his mss. after he died?

ddavitt: Who doesn’t? Chip butties are gourmet food

SAcademy: LOL

DenvToday: Yes SA. It was a tragedy for literature. Many priceless manuscripts–most of the erotic–were lost forever.

DenvToday: most of them, that is. Sheesh, my typing lately.

BPRAL22169: I don’t thik they made newspapers illegal for fish & chips until sometime after the explorer passed away, though.

KultsiKN: I’ve tried the kidney pie, but mostly I prefer the furriner eating places when in the UK

SAcademy: The Scented Garden in particulaar.

ddavitt: I rememeber them in newsprint

ddavitt: Good for cleaning windows too

OakMan7111: the fish?

DenvToday: It was Liz’s hubby, not the explorer. lol I think he said it in the 70’s.

DenvToday: Yes, indeed SA.

SAcademy: He wasn’t an explorer–you’re thinking of Scott.

OakMan7111: What I have found is that as you seat less fried and sweet foods, your palate becomes much more sensitive to subtler tastes – Salads for instance have become a gastronomic delight

KultsiKN: Agree

BPRAL22169: Ok, shall we come back to the topic?

geeairmoe2: Also agree

ddavitt: OK

OakMan7111: GA Bill

ddavitt: Anyway, returning to our muttons 🙂

BPRAL22169: Ok — Jane, stop that!

ddavitt: (Doesn’t sound the same in Englsih)

ddavitt: Is the earth version different than the martian

ddavitt: Do we bring a little extra to the equation?

BPRAL22169: So let’s take up the general subject of Heinlein’s interest in mysticism. I don’t think there’s anyway of saying that he believed this specific idea or that,but it’s clear he had an “interest” in the ideas.

ddavitt: Is that why they won’t be able to kill us?

OakMan7111: Is Michael really the Archangel?

ddavitt: I think so….does that invalidate it/ If a mystical person teaches humans is that cheating?

AGplusone: Archangelfirst major heretic

OakMan7111: How so David?

BPRAL22169: if things are going to change, then there has to be disagreement with the way things are.

AGplusone: Michael is the archangel, but Valentinius is the first major heretic who got cannonized before they decided it was a heresy

BPRAL22169: The kicker in what David just said is that an angel is a thought in the mind of god. The word “Angel” means “message.”

ddavitt: I ceertainly see an interest Bill but it was subtler as time went by and absent in a lot of the books IMO

BPRAL22169: Maybe it’s not so much ‘absent’ as just very VERY subtle…

OakMan7111: Michael appeared to Jehanne D’Arc and told her to get the “goddams” out of France and restore the Dauphin

ddavitt: Where is it in Friday for example?

ddavitt: Or most of the juveniles?

BPRAL22169: If you are preaching The Word, is “god” in every sentence you say?

AGplusone: So Michael is, if I can call it that, restorer of the status quo ante, while Valentine (the first one) is the rebel, the gnostic, whose legacy is suppressed by the Council of Nicea

ddavitt: if it was a message one would expect it to feature more strongly in the juveniles?

OakMan7111: And Smith is “everyman”

AGplusone: Uh-huh

AGplusone: A point Bill and Andy are making in a book they’re writing

ddavitt: No it isn’t Bill but I’m not sure that follows

EBATNM: I don’t think Dogleash would have let RAH talk about mysticism

DenvToday: Smith is the potential that all humans have, yet fail to develop.

ddavitt: Snuck in a few bits in Red planet

ddavitt: And in Starman Jones and farmer I suppose

BPRAL22169: Well, earlier in the chat the incident with the spirit of Hendrix assisting Starman jones was identified as mysticism.

OakMan7111: In the Juveniles that have aliens there is a message of we are all part of the same universe

EBATNM: the stuff in RP was used as foreground material in SIASL

SAcademy: Come on, Robert was NOT a mystic!

ddavitt: OK, maybe Oscar but I think that was a game; do you see the help Oscar gave Kip as being mystical?

BPRAL22169: One of the readers pointed out that Smith is also Joseph Smith of the Mormons.

AGplusone: No, but he was familar with the thought …

AGplusone: and used it as a framework for ‘speculative’ fiction

ddavitt: maybe he was openminded about things that msot people see as fanciful

DenvToday: I am reminded of the moment in Annie Hall when Woody Allen pulls Marshall McLuhan out of a line to prove his point.

DenvToday: We have it from the source.

SAcademy: You are going out of your way to try to make things mystical. Look, it’s just a story. Nothing that Robert believed in.

AGplusone: I agree … a framework for a story … that causes us to question dogma

BPRAL22169: Right. There’s no evidence of “belief.”

BPRAL22169: Ah, and we’ve come ’round to one of Heinlein’s most enduring goals as a writer: to bump people out of their mental ruts.

ddavitt: Well, I agree that he didn’t have to beleive in it to put it in a story. We hammer that point home; can’t extrapolate the author’s views drom those of his characters

AGplusone: for the sake not of refuting dogma, simply to explore its underpinings

DenvToday: IMHO, Job should be required reading in every religious course.

geeairmoe2: An attempt to get the reader to take a step back and examine what we believe and why.

BPRAL22169: He said that explicitly of Stranger, Starship Troopers and Time Enough for Love.

OakMan7111: Will, I was trying to say that and thank you for doing so

AGplusone: [you see: he got us when we were seven or so … :-)]

DavidWrightSr has entered the room.

EBATNM: The question is what is TRUE!

AGplusone: Hi, Dave

DenvToday: Hello David.

BPRAL22169: See – ghosts do exist.

OakMan7111: I think both Jobs should be

AGplusone: Maybe the question is more important, Andy, than the answer

ddavitt: Hi dave

DavidWrightSr: Hi everyone. Sorry I missed the discussion. Look forward to reading the log. BTW, MaiKoshT got it all, so no need to worry about sending it to me.

ddavitt: Good!

OakMan7111: As long as you can ask questions – say PPOR to the universe — you aren’t dead.

EBATNM: Gnothi Seauton

EBATNM: Know Thyself

ddavitt: And to thine own self be true

DenvToday: LSMFT

KultsiKN: ?

SAcademy: Lucky Strike makes fine tobacco.

DenvToday: I’m showing my age. Sorry, I was being flippant.

OakMan7111: But remember that quote comes from a fussbudget who is boring his son with last minute advice before he goes off to college…

ddavitt: ?? again

DenvToday: Yes SA 🙂

AGplusone: But clearly one facet to understand these stories is to try to understand what might have been the foundation for them …. Lucky Strike Green went to war!

AGplusone: at the time they were written …

AGplusone: What school’s he going to Jon?

EBATNM: also the history of the ideas, whether RAH believed ’em is irrelevant

OakMan7111: I can’t remember – But it is Polonius talking to Laertes

BPRAL22169: (Silly me: I thougth he was talking about Polonius)

DenvToday: Rather than LSMFT, I should have said TANSTAAFL.

AGplusone: [and if I’ve avoided mysticism all my life, it’s useful to have this discussion … and I have avoided mysticism! as akin to religion]

BPRAL22169: “There is nothing higher than a free lunch” in French.

AGplusone: he’s obviously going to study in Italy then … all wisdom was in Italy

BPRAL22169: We’ve only scratched the surface of these ideas.

AGplusone: FLW

BPRAL22169: Just identifying the references Heinlein put into his stories could take a very long time.

OakMan7111: Ahhh but that was the wisdom of the Machiavel – as Iago told us

AGplusone: “famous last words”

DenvToday: I still haven’t fully identified all of them in the last chapter of TNOTB.

OakMan7111: Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Hortio all studied in Wittenburg

SAcademy: which ones do you lack?

ddavitt: There are just a couple left SA I think

ddavitt: Franceso has it now

SAcademy: Which ones? Maybe I can help.

DenvToday: SA, it’s an ongoing process with me. I attempt it every other year or so when I reread TNOTB.

AGplusone: true … but the real wisdom was still in Italy, like going to Oxenford …

ddavitt: Dorosin

OakMan7111: I’m trying to identify them all for Anderson’s “The Luna Project.” I do know who the heroine represents, though

SAcademy: He was a doctor we knew.

ddavitt: Oberhelman

ddavitt: I’ll let Francesco know SA; he’ll be pleased to fill in the gaps I know

AGplusone: “‘tha holi blisful martyr for ta sek, that em hath helpen ‘hem whan they were seeke” [don’t mind me, I’m punchy]

SAcademy: Another doctor==at Staford–he saaved R’s life.

DenvToday: Canterbury Tales?

BPRAL22169: That would be 70-71?

AGplusone: Who could Colburn have been, (yes) in Lost Legacy?

KultsiKN: Slaughter

SAcademy: Yes. That’s the date.

ddavitt: Thanks SA.

DavidWrightSr: (adv) My son just directed “The Essential Rosencrantz and Guildenstern” at the LSU theater last week. (pride, pride,pride)

AGplusone: justifiable pride

SAcademy: Frank G. Slaughter waws a doctor who wrote novels.

DenvToday: Congrats!

ddavitt: well done to him!

AGplusone: very good novels

ddavitt: We gor Richardson and prehoda I think

SAcademy: I liked them .too

KultsiKN: I’ve read some, too

OakMan7111: So have I – interesting

SAcademy: Dr. Robert Richardson was an astronomer. Dr. Prehoda recently published a paper–can’t recall the subject.

ddavitt: Robert W prehoda?

SAcademy: That’s the one.

ddavitt: I got him

AGplusone: Did we figure out what the topic is for the next meeting?

SAcademy: Good for you!

ddavitt: 🙂 I love internet searching

AGplusone: Why not have a Joel Rosenberg reading?

DenvToday: Isn’t James Hogan also an astronomer? And Sheffield?

ddavitt: No; i have to check the log of our talk; is it still on your site dave?

AGplusone: Since he is visiting in four weeks

ddavitt: What, do one of his books?

OakMan7111: Good idea, I think

AGplusone: yes, as we did the two for the Andersons

DavidWrightSr: A quick search found “Malthusian Crisis and Methuselah’s Children ” Robert W. Prehoda

SAcademy: I don’t know about Mr. Hogan. Dr. Sheffie;ld does some sort of research.

OakMan7111: James Hogan is an author/astronomer iirc

ddavitt: Will reich is happy to host btw.

SAcademy: in physical science.

ddavitt: He knows Joel; plays bridge with him

AGplusone: Operation Chaos and Operation Luna, along with Magic, Inc.

ddavitt: And is obviously very familiar with the books

DavidWrightSr: Hogan was an engineer, I believe.

DenvToday: I see. Thanks David.

AGplusone: Point Will at the log the ones that Joel mentioned and have him quickly pick them

DavidWrightSr: He worked for DEC at one time.

ddavitt: Well, i’ve read all but Scaramouche and Ties of blood and Silver

OakMan7111: oops, that sounds right, David

AGplusone: Since I’ve just finished rereading Sabatini’s Scaramouche, it might be fun to read Joel’s “Scaramouche”

DavidWrightSr: BTW, Ginny. Hogan at one point lived in florida. Don’t know if he is still there.

ddavitt: It’s the last in a long series tho dave

SAcademy: I don’t believe I ever met him.

AGplusone: or “Not Quite Scaramouche” if that’s the title … list the series … I read fast

ddavitt: Tho the second in a spin off from that series

ddavitt: Guardians of the flame

ddavitt: First one ( from early 80’s) was The Sleeping Dragon

DavidWrightSr: We got a rather nasty response to Joel on AFH tonight.

DenvToday: I highly recommend the Gentle Giants of Ganymeade series by Hogan.

ddavitt: What! And i can’t get on it!!

AGplusone: eh … so what …

ddavitt: I’ll try rebooting after this chat; that might do it

OakMan7111: http://www.jamesphogan.com/homepage.shtml AGplusone: We’re not in the business of entertaining newbies …

DenvToday: I’ll check out his site. Thanks Oak.

SAcademy: Did Hogan write something called The Adolescence of and a number?

KultsiKN: T’was a tad nasty — close to ad hom.

ddavitt: From whom?

DavidWrightSr: I told him to show up and tell us what he *really thinks*. I also corrected his Russian 🙂

ddavitt: A stranger? or a regular?

AGplusone: not as bad as he’s been … “Bill Williams” … almost but not quite yet another L Collier

ddavitt: Oh him!

ddavitt: He’s a pain in the bottom

SAcademy: It was really nasty.

OakMan7111:

AGplusone: shame with the bright ones … getting them occupied in something constructive is tough …

ddavitt: Good lad jon:-)

BPRAL22169: We are coming up on 5:00 pst and close to the end of our session. Any last thoughts, anyone?

AGplusone: but we have done that … I’m not going to mention who with, either

ddavitt: What book to discuss?

SAcademy: It was a story about a computeer. Maybe it was The Adolesence of P-2.

KultsiKN: Are you ’bout to terminate us?

OakMan7111: Jane i finally got it through my head that I more respected for shutting up than for taking them on 🙂

BPRAL22169: No — but at some point we will close the log.

AGplusone: “discorporate” Kultsi …

DavidWrightSr: Ginny, I don’t think that was Hogan, although I could be wrong.

DenvToday: SA, I’m checking his site…

ddavitt: I would agree with that Jon…

OakMan7111: Go back to start, but when we roll doubles we can come out and start over

OakMan7111: Well your opinion is far more imporntant to me than Mr Williams’s

ddavitt: Keeper of the Hidden ways is available

ddavitt: 3 in that series and many heinlein themes

DavidWrightSr: Did we decide on the next topic?

OakMan7111: Rosenberg?

AGplusone: I always loved Michael’s observation about the argument between two that he observed that if they’d been martians they both would have discorporated ….

DavidWrightSr: Rosenberg is here in 4 weeks, not next time

ddavitt: AG suggested a Rosenberg book to acquaint us with them

OakMan7111: hmmm, I shall remember that if I am ever tempted again.

AGplusone: Yet to us it was simply a mild disagreement

geeairmoe2: Well, next chat Saturday, the 17th is St. Patrick’s day, if that suggests anything.

ddavitt: I really can’t rememebr what we thought of at our hosts discussion

DenvToday: I didn’t find a title that was near to that.

ddavitt: Series title

AGplusone: My famous “why do the Irish wear green hats on St. Paddy’s Day”?

OakMan7111: Yes, let’s talk about Patriots Day.

AGplusone: joke

SAcademy: Any books about Green?

DenvToday: Okay, I’ll bite.

ddavitt: Fire Duke, Silver Stone

AGplusone: too long … I’ll mail it to you

ddavitt: Crimson Sky

geeairmoe2: Any memorable Irish characters?

ddavitt: Might have!

DenvToday: Beware: I have been known to suddently burst into “The Rose of Tralee” on St. Paddy’s day. You’ve been warned.

ddavitt: Scandanavian definitely

AGplusone: Well, as my sainted grandmother and recently sainted mother would say, burst away!

OakMan7111: Who is the Green Man? Why is that ringing a bell with me

ddavitt: Norse gods mythology

DenvToday: lol

ddavitt: Not the green man

AGplusone: Gawaine and the Greene Man

OakMan7111: That wasn’t the Greene Knight?

ddavitt: He was a folk lore character wan’t he?

AGplusone: Involved in the mythos of renewal … the golden bough, all that … yes, Greenie was a Knighte

BPRAL22169: I thin kthe Green Man was a drudical reference.

ddavitt: Wicker man?

ddavitt: i know so little……

AGplusone: Knyghte … I’ll get it right yet

EBATNM: Early English Poem: Sir Gawaine & the Green Knight

BPRAL22169: no — a forest spirit of some kind. I don’t know exactly.

ddavitt: Puck?

OakMan7111: Well there was a Frederick Brown story about little green men.

BPRAL22169: Martians, Go Home. One of my fvorites.

DavidWrightSr: I saw a horror movie not too long ago called the ‘Green Man’, I believe.

OakMan7111: Bill, I think you are right

AGplusone: the same ones I keep seeing when I have too much Remy no doubt …

BPRAL22169: Albert Finney?

OakMan7111: I remember the Kelly Freas cover for Astounding

DavidWrightSr: Yes I think so

AGplusone: riding pink elephants

SAcademy: Please, no “K” on the Frederic.

EBATNM: Frederick Browne – Kelly Freas did the cover

DenvToday: Let’s take a pohl.

BPRAL22169: Martians, Go Home was made into a terrible movie. And it’s “Fredric”

AGplusone: 😛

OakMan7111: I watched about 20 mins of the movie

DavidWrightSr: ‘What Mad Universe’ is one of my favorites.

OakMan7111: With Doppelle?

EBATNM: How ’bout The Fabulous Clip Joint

DavidWrightSr: Of course, master of the universe. Not bad for a sf fan.

DenvToday: I’m still fuming from this past week. Starship Troopers was on TV, and I was weak–I watched it. The sight of those Nazi-like uniforms alone got me seething.

ddavitt: daughter 2 is off to bed; see you all soon. Enjoyed it,even if totally out of my depth!:-)

AGplusone: Gawaine and the Greene Knyght is worth reading btw, if you haven’t. There’s a part called the “passage of the seasons” which may be the most lyrical passage in middle English poety

AGplusone: poetry

OakMan7111: Thanks Jane, I’m glad you came

ddavitt: Yes, david switched it on at the end and I spent an enjoyable 30 minutes screaming ‘that didn’t happen!!”

EBATNM: ST Movie, yet more evidence in favor of the hypothesis that the number of horse’s asses greatly exceeds the number of horses

AGplusone: before Willy the S of course

DenvToday: lol

OakMan7111: I’m so old we were actually required to read that in High School

ddavitt has left the room.

AGplusone: good hi school

EBATNM: didn’t Tolkien do a translation of G & G.K.?

AGplusone: Yes

OakMan7111: Along with Hamlet, MacBeth, Othello and Merchant of Vencice

AGplusone: But it’s more fun to read in middle English

AGplusone: as is Chaucer

DenvToday: Has anybody heard any buzz about The Lord of the Rings?

AGplusone: what buzz

BPRAL22169: I’ve seen a trailer.

DenvToday: How does it look?

EBATNM: me 2

OakMan7111: and Julius cearsar, I forgot — but Shakespeare is no longer required in Massachusetts highschools

KultsiKN: They have a web site

geeairmoe2: Live action or animation?

DenvToday: Oak, really?

BPRAL22169: It doesn’t look encouraging. Can’t tell the diffrence between the elves and the dwarves.

OakMan7111: I swear it

DenvToday: Live action

EBATNM: that’s where I saw the trailer

DenvToday: Oak, that is beyond tragic.

OakMan7111: I liked Gandalf, though

DenvToday: He speaks well of you too.

AGplusone: so what do the hobbits look like … ?

OakMan7111: Denv, I was also required to read George Elliot

EBATNM: “What Brick through yon window breaks”

BPRAL22169: There was not one speck of the magical quality of the scenes in the book.

DenvToday: Oak, I never was in high schoo. Only in college.

EBATNM: (*see above comment re: Starship Troopers*)

OakMan7111: I once tried to write a stage adapatation of Lord of the Rings. I gave up.

EBATNM: the problem with film is that the media is never as wonderful and fantastic as the imagination

OakMan7111: The only thing that translated well was Gollum

AGplusone: migod … talk about doing a Ring Cycle

DenvToday: It took me a while to get through Middlemarch, I must admit. lol

DenvToday: Oak, the makeup alone would be nearly prohibitive.

OakMan7111: Well, we were going to use stage tricks with suggestive makeup being applied on stage, etc…

DenvToday: That’s interesting. Inventive.

OakMan7111: but it wouldn’t wash. Books that can be moved to a performance are, usually, ones where dialog is most or all

DenvToday: They did something similar with The Elephant Man on stage.

DavidWrightSr: The magic of Robert Heinlein was that he wrote in such a way to force us to rely on our own imagination, much more so than any other writer I know of.

OakMan7111: what the band says is not nearly as imporntant as what they think and feel

AGplusone: Well, ’tis getting to be the witching hour for me … also known as din-din … so Zim will be looking to make sure I’m there on time

DenvToday: Yep. Conveying the “inner life” is difficult…nearly impossible.

AGplusone: otherwise I don’t get anything to eat

geeairmoe2: Those who are late do not get fruit cup, huh?

OakMan7111: well, David, if thats your priority….

AGplusone: do not get the metal trays either

AGplusone: so I bid you all adieu …

geeairmoe2: I have to be wandering off, too. Good chat, everyone.

AGplusone has left the room.

DenvToday: Good night to one and all.

DenvToday: As always, it has been a pleasure.

geeairmoe2 has left the room.

DenvToday has left the room.

DavidWrightSr: so long guys.

OakMan7111: Thank you Bill. As usual you have been informative and thought provoking

DavidWrightSr: and gals

OakMan7111: I wish all of you a good night

OakMan7111 has left the room.

DavidWrightSr: MaiKosht is still recording the log. Nite

DavidWrightSr has left the room.

EBATNM: Bill – does this mean it’s over or can we still talk?

KultsiKN: Nite all! Gonna get some sleep.

EBATNM: guten nacht

KultsiKN has left the room.

MaikoshT: Log Officially closed at 8:15 P.M. EST
Final End Of Discussion Log

Click Here to Return to Index