Heinlein Reader’s Discussion Group
Thursday 3-01-2001 9:00 P.M. EST
Heinlein And Mysticism
Here Begin The A.F.H. postings
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Heinlein Readers Group
March 1 and 3, 2001M
AIM.
Topic: Heinlein and Mysticism
Primary Reading: “They” and “Lost Legacy” in Assignment in Eternity.
Supplemental Reading: Stranger in a Strange Land, I Will Fear No Evil, and In Search of the Miraculous by P.D. Ouspensky (for breadth. A lot of us may have been exposed to mystical thinking within the framework of conventional major religions; this last book is not recommended for any specific positions of Heinlein’s — but it gives a very good overview of several strains of occult and mystical thinking outside that framework)
Heinlein has often been discussed as the god-emperor of scientists/engineers-turned-sf writers of “hard sf,” which puzzled him. Although he did write hard or gadget sf occasionally, he was really much more interested in the soft sciences like sociology and psychometry and medicine. Most of what he wrote, however, he did not consider science fiction at all, and he preferred the term “speculative fiction.” So influential was Heinlein within science fiction, however, that the genre definitions expanded to include what he wrote. The readers of 1947-48 thought that the simple-minded stories he wrote for The Saturday Evening Post were not science fiction; and readers in 1961 were sure that Stranger in a Strange Land wasn’t science fiction. But to readers in 2001, it’s all science fiction. The field grew up around Heinlein. We can see the process at work in Beyond This Horizon (1942), which posits reincarnation as one of the things we might find if we started a scientific investigation of the mind.
He wrote a few outright fantasies — “Magic, Inc.,” for example or “Our Fair City” and “The Man Who Travelled in Elephants,” or his shaggy politician story about Mu, “Beyond Doubt.” There were also a few stories which were not quite outright fantasies of any usual kind and not quite science fiction, either — like “Elsewhen” and “Lost Legacy,” “They” and “Waldo” and “Project Nightmare.” Alexei Panshin in Heinlein in Dimension talks of them as including mysticism in one degree or another, but he is not very clear about what he means. To this short list we could add the 1970 novel I Will Fear No Evil, in which Heinlein takes the improbable cliche of a brain transplant as his basis and then deals with two personalities inhabiting the same body. Rationalization becomes quite rubbery at this point – and it get stretched all out of shape when a third person, who had nothing to do with either brain or body, joins the two. Some of these stories are “mystical” only in Panshin’s imagination. We can eliminate the outright fantasies because they were written for, we presume, the usual reasons outright fantasies are written for. We can also eliminate from candidates for “mysticism” stories that deal with ideas that were, in Heinlein’s estimation,”exotic facts.” For example, Heinlein thought the space-time physics of J.W. Dunne, allowing for sideways time travel was a perfectly good scientific theory, though not the theory most commmonly held — so “Elsewhen” isn’t mystical at all. And, by extension, The Number of the Beast and the rest of the World As Myth Books are as stfnal as anything else Heinlein wrote. In the 1960’s Dunne’s time theories got a quantum-mechanics polish with Wheeler’s “many worlds” hypothesis, so the alternate time tracks thesis has gotten written into the fringes of ordinary science.
As Heinlein was at pains to point out, science fiction must not contradict known facts, but it may play around with theories within very broad limits. Telepathy and certain types of psychic “powers” Heinlein does not seem to have regarded as fantastic, but as simply factual. As late as Expanded Universe (1980) he talks of anyone who rejects telepathy out of hand as simply “pigheaded” or “ignorant.” Mark Twain had written two accounts (the “Mental Telegraphy” essays) of what are called “anecdotal evidence” of telepathy, and Upton Sinclair had followed them up in 1930 with Mental Radio accounts of telepathy and clairvoyance experiments he had performed. The late 1950’s reprint of this book had an introduction by Albert Einstein. And in the meantime, psychologist J.B. Rhine had been conducting scientific experiments with telepathy and clairvoyance out of Duke University since 1927. Rhine had made good progress initially, though the project had hit a glass wall by the late 1940’s. Telepathy, levitation, and clairvoyance were to Heinlein, simply exotic facts that were grist for the spec-fic mill. So “Project Nightmare,” for example, is a speculation on what use might be made of these exotic facts once they had been domesticated
Even when we eliminate these, there are other ideas that might be mystical. There are some stories that contain hybrids — some factual material extended by speculation and connected up with material that is frankly religious in nature. “Lost Legacy,” for instance, starts out with a brain operation that affects a gambler’s clairvoyance and leads to telepathy, levitation, and a host of other powers of mind that might (or might not) fall into the category of exotic facts, not well understood, but still factual in nature. But it also connects to a mystical brotherhood that has access to the Akashic records of the Theosophists. Theosophy is a religion. Most of Mike’s Martian “powers” correspond rather closely with Yogic demonstrations. Yoga is a branch of Hinduism, but the yogic demonstrations, or siddhes, are things anybody can theoretically learn to do if they follow the yogic disciplines — slowing of the heart rate and respiration, suppression of bleeding, even a kind of levitation that is really a bizarre form of hopping. People independently discover some of these methods occasionally. Harry Houdini is thought to have discovered some of the yogic breathing disciplines on his own, and he used them in his escapes. So the Mike’s yogic demonstrations are halfway between the exotic facts that don’t constitute mysticism and the religious aspects that do. Very fittingly, Mike cannot tell the difference we make between science and religion — they are all teachings.
Mysticism does have something to do with religious ideas, though the exact relationship isn’t clear. Heinlein doesn’t seem very interested in exploring Christian theology, the way Walter Miller or C.S. Lewis were.
Karen Armstrong in A History of God suggests that there is a dialectical relationship in the God religions — Judaism, Islam, and Christianity — between dogmatics and mystics. Leaving aside the dogmatics, the mystics are defined as those that are concerned with the direct experience of the divine. This seems to connect up to Rudolph Otto’s definition in 1915: All religion begins with the experience of the noumenal. The noumenal experience cannot really be talked about; it can only be experienced. A lot of people have flashes of contact with it — the most common ways of talking about it are the “white light experience,” where everything in the entire universe and all your consciousness dissolves into a blinding white glare, or the disappearance of the self into the universe, what the Buddhists call the “pouring out” of the self. Or the emotional experience that everything is unified, connected, together. Mystics seek that experience and they try ways of bringing that “inner light” into their everyday experience. Given this understanding, can Heinlein be said to be interested in mysticism in any significant way?
I think he was at least interested in the mystical experience, even if he didn’t practice any of the mystical methods. Certainly the unity of the entire universe shows up over and over again in his fiction, and for his theory he seems to have drawn principally on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s (religious) doctrine of The Over-Soul. All humans, everything that exists in time, Emerson says, are bits — tendrils — of the single reality that is the Over-Soul. The Over-Soul is God: it stands outside time, but we are bits of the Over-Soul that have intruded into time, and our separateness is an illusion. This figure appears over and over and accounts for many of the instances people call “solipsism” in Heinlein. “The universe is just a game we whipped up among ourselves and agreed to forget the gag.” “Don’t be silly — I’m your other end.” “All that groks is God.” Emerson even goes so far as to say “a single blood rushes through every vein.”
In “They,” the nameless protagonist has his moments of noumenal clarity in dreams of communion with his kind whom he cannot find in this here-and-now of consensus reality. Here there is opposition and conflict — insane conflict — masterminded by a motivationless antagonist whose main task is to prevent him from recognizing his true nature.
“Lost Legacy” is a story of the removal of a block to human spiritual evolution. The three humans who come together join with the Shasta Lodge, experience, wisdom, drive, and purify the world by spiritual education. It is a celebration of the human dimension of that spiritual experience: after the story ends, the evolution away from the merely human can take place and humanity can attain its destiny
And in Stranger, the Over-Soul is almost explicitly stated. The single God of the God religions is assumed to be somewhere, though His presence is never directly known. Instead the message is Thou art God – All that Groks is God. The gospel is an awakening to humanity’s true nature as aspects of the single reality.
When you remove the mundane, the fantastical and the merely exotic, there remains in Heinlein a moving strain of ideas that are frankly religious, frankly mystical. They don’t have much to do with the church politics and little homiletics that passes for Sunday morning (or Friday evening) religion, but they definitely have something to do with the ecstatic experience, and with each individual’s central place in the meaning of reality.
Heinlein thought well of science fiction’s capacity to carry important ideas, and he certainly proved his point
Bill
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BPRAL22169 wrote:
> Heinlein Readers Group
> March 1 and 3, 2001
> AIM.
> Topic: Heinlein and Mysticism
>
>
> As Heinlein was at pains to point out, science fiction must not contradict
> known facts, but it may play around with theories within very broad limits.
> Telepathy and certain types of psychic “powers” Heinlein does not seem to have
> regarded as fantastic, but as simply factual.
It may be useful to state the definition of “mysticism” The online Merriam Webster says;
Date: 1736
1 : the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality reported by mystics
2 : 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 knowledge or power This seems to cover a rather broad area and I’m curious as to who coined the phrase in 1736.
I can think of many themes and incidents in Heinlein’s work which could be classed as being mystical in that they’re ‘fuzzy’; not immediately susceptible to scientific analysis or proof. Telepathy is an obvious one that crops up in many stories, usually but not always, between people who are very close. Not just twins or clones either which would make more sense.
I agree with Heinlein that telepathy can be considered to be a physical…skill, attribute, whatever, in that it’s something the mind does ( and the brain is part of the body after all). I can accept telepathy as being possible and therefore not mystical.
I have more problems with the other abilities in Lost Legacy and SIASL; lifting objects in the air for instance. It doesn’t matter if it’s a paper clip or yourself; the same principles of gravity and physics are involved and it doesn’t seem possible that a mental thought can affect a solid object. However, I’m willing to suspend judgement on the basis that we don’t know enough about the powers of the mind to be able to say conclusively that it’s not possible.
Ok, so what’s left then? I’d say, just as a starting point, that it’s things that happen after death. I mean things like Jake hearing Jane, Thorby hearing Baslim, Max hearing Hendrix..all events that could be imagination on the part of the living….or could be genuine input from a person whose physical being has perished but whose soul retains the capacity to interact with the living. Now _that’s_ mystical. I suppose the possible reincarnation in BTH and Deety’s discussion of it in NOTB could be thrown in too. I’ll quote the relevant bit; Libby says,
“Oh, heavens, no! Reincarnation is nonsense.”
I found myself irritated. Reincarnation is something I have no opinion about, since a housecleaning I gave my mind after we lost Mama Jane. “You have data?” I demanded.
“Deety, did I step on your toes? I’m sorry.”
“No, you didn’t, Lib. I asked if you had _data_.”
“Well…No. But if you assume the truth of the proposition, I think I can show that it leads to a contradiction.”
“The negative – proof method. It’s tricky, Lib. Ask Georg Cantor.”
Lib laughed. “Okay, I will attempt to have no opinion whatsoever – until someone shows me verifiable data, one way or the other.”
Now that’s good advice….but I suspect it would silence this ng 🙂 Going back to Deety, I’m still not sure what she means; did she start to believe in it, hoping that her mother would return? Does she ‘hear’ Jane as Jake does ( now that would be interesting data!). We get no more on that so I suppose we have to make up our own minds. Certainly, IMO something that can transcend death to communicate can be classed as mystical but does Heinlein ever make it crystal clear that this happens in his stories? It seems to me that he deliberately leaves it open to interpretation. Look, for instance, at Bill Lermer hearing his mother’s voice, telling him to stand tall ( or Kip and Oscar’s conversations). They seem to be more firmly classed as imaginary and less ambiguous.
Jane
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>Does she ‘hear’ Jane as Jake does and
>Look, for instance, at
>Bill Lermer hearing his mother’s voice, telling him to stand tall ( or Kip
>and Oscar’s
>conversations). They seem to be more firmly classed as imaginary and less
>ambiguous.
>
>Jane
I’m sure we all have had experiences similar to the following:
I am in a situation that requires a decision. A friend / relative who is well informed in that area or has greater judgement, but who is deceased “speaks to me”.
I maintain it is we who say to ourselves: “John would tell me to do _______”.
We either mistake it for their words or (more likely) simply use it as shorthand for them “speaking to us”.
I constantly “hear” a favorite mentor telling me to “straighten up”, “pay attention”, or “quit whining”. She died many years ago.
cheers
oz
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I think this is a function of the way our brains work. We image things (there are hundreds of interconnected image maps in the brain) and associate them with syntax. So the memory of a person is always associated with face/voice/touch memories and an internal image.
Bill
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I agree that a lot of what Mike does is linked to a very advanced ability to control bodily functions that are generally automatic and therefore the result of training rather than mystical. However, I’m not sure discorporation also falls under that label ( unless it’s a personal version of planet rotation a la Wormfaces or the disappearance of Igli) and I’m equally certain that Mike’s teachers, the Martians _are_ mystical. I’m making the assumption here btw that they’re the Martians of Red Planet as it’s that story which demonstrates their abilities the most. In SIASL the Martians are barely mentioned.
In RP we see the discorporations and evidence that they can influence human emotions simply by mental powers. At one point Jim Marlowe is squirming in a Martian’s grasp, complaining about the way they smell and trying to reach for his gun. After gazing into Gekko’s eyes for a moment his hostility vanishes, as does his physical reaction to the look and smell of the alien. He now views him with affection and trust. We also get descriptions of the “growing together” ceremony of water sharing. This meditation can perhaps be seen as non mystical; there is nothing to show that it is religious in origin, but it may be connected to the Old Ones; Martians who are dead but still exist in our world; ghosts if you like.
Perhaps the final mystical event is Jim seeing a movie of Willis’s memories, lasting months in real time but taking only a few hours to see. These are just random thoughts but as I write I’m thinking that there is a theme of death being less of a curtailment of activity as a simple move to another, equally real, level. In Lost Legacy there is another of those communication with the dead moments; there really are too many of them not to be significant IMO. Master Ling has died and Joan is grieving when,
” _Why are you weeping, Little Flower_?”
Her head jerked up. -“_Master Ling!_”
_ “_Can that not be which has been? Is there past or future? Have you learned my lessons so poorly? Am I not now with you, as always_?”
A few moments later Phil thinks he hears Ling’s ‘dry chuckle’ but it’s clear that Joan has had more than just an imaginary conversation; she really did speak with Ling.
Jane
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ddavitt wrote:It may be useful to state the definition of “mysticism” The online Merriam Webster says;
> Date: 1736
> 1 : the experience of mystical union or direct communion with
> ultimate reality reported by mystics
> 2 : 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 knowledge or power
> This seems to cover a rather broad area and I’m curious as to who coined the phrase in 1736.
Jane, I cracked open my OED yesterday and found that the 1736 citation is associated with the first of the OED’s 2 definitions of the word, which more-or-less conflates your 1 & 2 from M-W above. I.e it’s the laudatory sense that appears in something called _Philemon_ by an H. Coventry in 1736: “How much nobler a Field of Exercise are the seraphic Entertainments of Mysticism and Ecstasy than the mean and ordinary Practice of a mere earthly and common virtue…”. The use as a term of reproach, meaning self-delusion or dreamy confusion of thought (somewhat closer to the Randite or Libertarian use of the term… see below) appears later, in 1763; the OED cites Warburton and Wesley (!) in that year, and follows with Coleridge in 1805.
Of course “mystic” comes from Greek mystikos, the adjective referring to the Eleuterian (and other) divine mysteries… and of course “mysterion” was taken over by St. Paul et seq to describe doctrines which, though not _opposed_ to human reason, could not be completely apprehended by unaided reason.
I also found a couple of websites related to Rand’s use of the term, which are probably relevant, based on the clue given us by Professor Bernardo de la Paz (i.e. I’m assuming for the sake of speculation that the Professor is a “mouthpiece” for RAH, in metaphysical as well as merely political matters):and. I like the Branden piece (are you familiar with him?), particularly the part where he says that to understand a thinker it is often useful to know what he or she is reacting _against_. ISTM that this often applies to RAH.
George (“Pricerbumanto” returning under a slightly different guise since Google’s version of Deja doesn’t (yet) permit posting)
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George Partlow wrote:
> Of course “mystic” comes from Greek mystikos, the adjective referring to the Eleuterian (and
> other) divine mysteries…
This is a kick! Clearly I was already thinking about Libertarianism: I managed to change “Eleusinian” into “Eleuterian”! (“Eleutheria” is Greek for “freedom”)…
Shouldn’t post in so much of a hurry; maybe I wouldn’t overuse “of course”, too.
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George Partlow wrote:
>
> I also found a couple of websites related to Rand’s use of the term, which are probably
> relevant, based on the clue given us by Professor Bernardo de la Paz (i.e. I’m assuming for
> the sake of speculation that the Professor is a “mouthpiece” for RAH, in metaphysical as well
> as merely political matters):and
>. I like the
> Branden piece (are you familiar with him?), particularly the part where he says that to
> understand a thinker it is often useful to know what he or she is reacting _against_. ISTM
> that this often applies to RAH.
>
>
Thanks for the information George. I had a quick look at the Branden site ( bookmarked for more detailed look later) and I noticed that in his description of what objectivism is he mentions mysticism;
“3.That any form of irrationalism, supernaturalism, or mysticism, any claim to a nonsensory, nonrational form of knowledge, is to be rejected; ”
If Heinlein was a believer in mysticism then does this mean that he cannot be an objectivist and therefore definitely isn’t speaking through Prof Paz who, IIRC said he could get on with a Randite?
I have to admit that although I own a Rand book I haven’t got round to reading it yet; it’s on my “will read some day, honest” list 🙂
Jane
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Rand and mysticism . . .
Well, Heinlein probably wouldn’t care to be an Objectivist…
However, Rand has made a special definition for her own uses that doesn’t fit within the standard usages.
It helps to remember that Rand/Brandon talk within a framework of Enlightenment Era rationalism and strict materialism, even though they reject Postivist materialism. Some of their formulations are extremely useful: The universe is all there is, so there is and can be nothing “supernatural.”
Heinlein seems to be in a more mainstream frame of reference. He accepts the Kantian analysis and accepts that the human mind is not capable of compassing some aspects of reality by the rational faculties, though he seems also to accept that it can, by experiential faculties. Hence he ties Korzybski into mysticism. it’s a very interesting combination.
Bill
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>===== Original Message From ddavitt
=====
>George Partlow wrote:
>
>>
>> I also found a couple of websites related to Rand’s use of the term, which are probably
>> relevant, based on the clue given us by Professor Bernardo de la Paz (i.e. I’m assuming for
>> the sake of speculation that the Professor is a “mouthpiece” for RAH, in metaphysical as well
>> as merely political matters):and >>. I like the
>> Branden piece (are you familiar with him?), particularly the part where he says that to
>> understand a thinker it is often useful to know what he or she is reacting _against_. ISTM
>> that this often applies to RAH.
>>
>>
>
>Thanks for the information George. I had a quick look at the Branden site ( bookmarked for more
>detailed look later) and I noticed that in his description of what objectivism is he mentions
>mysticism;
>
>”3.That any form of irrationalism, supernaturalism, or mysticism, any claim to a nonsensory,
>nonrational form of knowledge, is to be rejected; ”
>
>If Heinlein was a believer in mysticism then does this mean that he cannot be an objectivist and
>therefore definitely isn’t speaking through Prof Paz who, IIRC said he could get on with a Randite?
But he was very clear that he WASN’T a Randite. I think that the Prof was saying that he could get along in a Randian minimal state. I am in the same boat, so I can see what he meant. I am in no sense an Objectivist. I see no primary virtue in selfishness. I also see no virtue in the state choosing what sacrifices must be made and in the aid of whom. The kind of looseness and liberty that the Prof felt he needed is very much what I want. So, the Prof could be a pretty good spokesman for ME. What Heinein’s true feelings were and how they changed over the years is not easily seen through the words and actions of his characters. I think that the Prof is a very close approximation of SOME of his thinking at the time that he wrote TMiaHM. However, there is a real danger that this is wishful thinking on my part, wanting RAH to agree with me. The statement “get on with an X” needs careful inspection. If it is simply a statement of being able to coexist with them, all he is saying is that he can carry on a polite conversation with a “Randite.” Well, anyone can do that unless the Objectionabalist in question or the person speaking with him/her go beyond the bounds of polite discourse. If it means “getting on in an area run by Randian principles,” I believe it comes closer to what the Prof was saying.
>I have to admit that although I own a Rand book I haven’t got round to reading it yet; it’s on my
>”will read some day, honest” list 🙂
Fiction? Nonfiction? I can’t really say that I think of her as better than a fairly good novelist. Her nonfiction can be strong stuff and worth looking at, IF one doesn’t mind having ones assumptions challenged by a very opinionated and not very tactful person. I am not saying that she is always, or even very often, right but she is not a dull read and that is rare in the field.
—
Will
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BPRAL22169 wrote: Some of their formulations are extremely useful: The universe is
> all there is, so there is and can be nothing “supernatural.”
>
> Heinlein seems to be in a more mainstream frame of reference. He accepts the
> Kantian analysis and accepts that the human mind is not capable of compassing
> some aspects of reality by the rational faculties, though he seems also to
> accept that it can, by experiential faculties. Hence he ties Korzybski into
> mysticism. it’s a very interesting combination.
> Bill
If i were to state my position ( if anyone cares
If we plot the books that have mystical elements, can we see a pattern of Heinlein moving away from such tales and if so, why?
Jane
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————->It’s perhaps significant that in Lost Legacy, one of his earlier
>works, he postulated that eventually the whole human race could
>become, well, enlightened, for want of a better word. Later works
>however, seemed to move more towards the idea of an elite who were
>aware of more than the average man or woman. Was this the cynicism of
>experience? Disillusionment?
>If we plot the books that have mystical elements, can we see a
>pattern of Heinlein moving away from such tales and if so, why?
>
>
Bill
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Sorry about that. I don’t see a “progression” of disillusionment. Everyone evolving eventually is stated in “Lost Legacy” and implied in “Gulf” (weakly) and Stranger (strongly). That’s 1939, 1949, and 1961. on the other hand there are lots of instances that might be “interim stages.” It’spossible that general evolution takes place through the medium of the first few pioneers.
If RAH really did use the seventh Lensman book as a pattern for the World As Myth (just speculation at this point, but very pregnant speculation), LL’s Tertius family andthe Circle would probably evolve into some “next step in evolution.”
Bill
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William Reich wrote:
>>===== Original Message From ddavitt
=====
>
>
>>I have to admit that although I own a Rand book I haven’t got round to
>>reading it yet; it’s on my
>>”will read some day, honest” list 🙂
>
>Fiction? Nonfiction? I can’t really say that I think of her as better than a
>fairly good novelist. Her nonfiction can be strong stuff and worth looking
>at,
>IF one doesn’t mind having ones assumptions challenged by a very opinionated
>and not very tactful person. I am not saying that she is always, or even
>very
>often, right but she is not a dull read and that is rare in the field.
>
>–
>Will
Atlas Shrugged. It was in a ten cent bin at a book store and I’d heard her name mentioned on this group so often that I picked it up.
Jane
—————————————————————————————
>===== Original Message From ddavitt
=====
>William Reich wrote:
>
>>>===== Original Message From ddavitt
=====
>>
>>
>>>I have to admit that although I own a Rand book I haven’t got round to
>>reading it yet; it’s on my
>>>”will read some day, honest” list 🙂
>>
>> Fiction? Nonfiction? I can’t really say that I think of her as better than a
>> fairly good novelist. Her nonfiction can be strong stuff and worth looking
>> at,
>> IF one doesn’t mind having ones assumptions challenged by a very opinionated
>> and not very tactful person. I am not saying that she is always, or even
>> very
>> often, right but she is not a dull read and that is rare in the field.
>>
>> —
>> Will
>
>Atlas Shrugged. It was in a ten cent bin at a book store and I’d heard her name
>mentioned on this group so often that I picked it up.
>
>Jane
>
Well, it IS an important book and it isn’t a terrible novel. The first time that I read it, I got really “into” it and the sheer size of it was a virtue.
I have never been able to re-read it. On the other hoof, I know that there are parts, threads as it were, that I really do like. Funny thing is that I am much closer politically to Rand’s thinking than I was when I enjoyed the book.
My major differences from Rand are philisophical, about what a person SHOULD do and want. We agree that a person should be ALLOWED to do as he or she pleases, even IF school don’t keep. Warning, there is NOTHING in RAH that is quite as nakedly didtactic as Rand at her average. At her WORST, don’t even bring it up. I like _Anthem_ much better than AS but no one much agrees with me.
—
Will
“Something small and fragile, plastic
cause cheap is how I feel.”
“Cheap is how I feel.” Cowboy Junkies, posted from memory
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DavidWrightSr: Hi David. Welcome
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AGplusone: Great … happy day. I’m now going to madly try to finish rereading Lost Legacy. Hi, Joel
AGplusone: welcome!
DavidWrightSr: Welcom Joel. David this is Joel Rosenberg. He is dropping in for whatever time he can spend. Nobody here yet Joel, but David Silver and myself. Others should be coming in soon
AGplusone: Great to “meet” you, Joel.
AGplusone: What books of yours are we going to be reading for your visit …. 🙂
RaShaKaela has entered the room.
AGplusone: Hi, RaSha … how goes it?
RaShaKaela: Trying to get my s key and pacebar to work.:p
AGplusone: 😛 is right
RaShaKaela: Mayhave to sign off and give keyboard a bath. :p
AGplusone: don’t …!
RaShaKaela: [peer] Been working with electronics since1974, bud. 😛
AGplusone: I wonder if the new USB connection keyboards will fry if you drop water on them … ?
DavidWrightSr: I’ve just picked up ‘Hero’. started reading it yesterday. Ra can you change your font and color. If Ginny comes on, she will have trouble reading it.
RaShaKaela: Grrrrrrrrrrrr
joelrmpls: I don’t know, actually. What would you folks like to discuss.
joelrmpls: ?
AGplusone: BTW, am I in bold?
joelrmpls: And I’m a strong believer in making things easy for Mrs. Heinlein.
RaShaKaela: appears so
DavidWrightSr: Was that growl for me or for your keyboard. Yes David. Joel. click on you Bold key if you don’t mind.
RaShaKaela: both
RaShaKaela: Better?
AGplusone: Well, Oz (DaveWright, and Jane, too) is running things now. Their approach may be what do you want to talk about that will relate somehow to something about RAH.
joelrmpls: How is this?
AGplusone: That’s great!
DavidWrightSr: Good Joel, Ra yes better, can you bold too?
DavidWrightSr: David you don’t need bold, your regular will do
RaShaKaela: Hey, heard about the Heinlein Chair at USNA? 😀
joelrmpls: Well, pretty much everything I’ve written has been strongly influenced by RAH, with the possible exception of the D’Shai books, and I wouldn’t argue at all if somebody suggested otherwise on those.
RaShaKaela: Okay, bolded
AGplusone: Or might let us consider something written by RAH … typically, Haldeman said Forever War and Starship Troopers … but that was a natural.
RaShaKaela: Looks dumb, to me, thought
RaShaKaela: though
joelrmpls: The only other possible exception isn’t in print yet. Not even sold.
joelrmpls: Well, certainly the Metzada books are. But so are the Guardians books.
joelrmpls: He was putting rivets on fantasy before I was born, after all.
DavidWrightSr: We are looking forward to a discussion with Joel 4 weeks from tonight and saturday. Should give me time to get through a couple of books, at least, before then
RaShaKaela: ?
joelrmpls: And Ties of Blood and Silver is, among other things, an homage to Citizen.
ddavitt has entered the room.
RaShaKaela: Sorry, I’ve been down with a case of bad winter doldrums.
joelrmpls: You live next to a mountain, you’re going to have to deal with the shadows. 🙂
AGplusone: Exactly … and I’ll need it because as I keep trying to tell everyone … I haven’t read much new sci-fi since 1970 (except RAH upon whom I had long before become adicted).
ddavitt: Hi everyone
AGplusone: need the four weeks to find Joel’s books, buy them and read them …
RaShaKaela: Heya
joelrmpls: And, come to think of it, the new book — as yet unsold — while not even vaguely SF, has a lot of RAH influence.
AGplusone: Hi, Jane …
RaShaKaela: Joel *who* ?
ddavitt: No problem David; think of it as a quest 🙂
DavidWrightSr: David. I haven’t read much either. I’m an old codger who got grounded in the 40-50’s and haven’t much like new stuff.
ddavitt: Rosenberg
joelrmpls: It’s the subject matter — responsibility, the matter of brutal necessity.
RaShaKaela: Ah
AGplusone: That would be great … perfect, the new book, in fact. When’s it due out.
ddavitt: Out already
SAcademy has entered the room.
ddavitt: According to Amazon
AGplusone: Name?
DavidWrightSr: Hi Ginny. Welcome
ddavitt: Not Quite Scaramouche
ddavitt: Hi SA
joelrmpls: Depends on which new one — Not Quite Scaramouche has been out since January.
SAcademy: Good evening, all.
AGplusone: LOLOL!
RaShaKaela: [bow] Welcome, dear Lady.:-)
AGplusone: I read Scaramouche just last week
joelrmpls: Good evening, Mrs. Heinlein.
ddavitt: :-(I haven’t yet
ddavitt: Is there another new one then?
joelrmpls: It’ll still be there when you’re ready, ddavitt. 🙂
RaShaKaela: Ginny, what do you think of the new Heinlein Chair at the Naval Academy? 🙂
ddavitt: True
AGplusone: There’s a site I downloaded it from. Belongs to a member of this chat group. David Tibbetts in Wales.
joelrmpls: The other new one is called Foreign Land, and it’s not only not out, but it is, as of this moment, unsold. First spec novel I’ve written in twenty years.
ddavitt: Spec/
ddavitt: What is that?
ddavitt: On spec?
AGplusone: ‘to specification’ by someone else
joelrmpls: “Novel written on spec.” No publisher; no contract. Yet.
AGplusone: ? … okay, ‘nerstand now
joelrmpls: Most fun I’ve had writing a book in many years, though.
ddavitt: Fantasy? SF or something else?
joelrmpls: Something else.
joelrmpls: Technically, a murder mystery, I’d guess.
ddavitt: Hmm..getting curious:-)
ddavitt: Like the D’Shai?
AGplusone: Really … love murder mysteries …
ddavitt: Or set in the here and now?
joelrmpls: Best opening line I’ve ever done. Almost Heinleinien.
joelrmpls: Set in the here and now.
ddavitt: I read almost all mysteries nowadays
AGplusone: Says?
ddavitt: I’l look forward to that one
joelrmpls: “Thirty years later, the phone rang.”
ddavitt: Intriguing.
AGplusone: Like the opening to the Waverly …
AGplusone: Sixty years past, or whatever it is …
AGplusone: Or am I thinking of something else …
AGplusone: Did you ever read John D. MacDonald, Joel?
ddavitt: I have those books but haven’t read them; i rescued them from a library sale
joelrmpls: Yup; although not for many years.
RaShaKaela: Oh, you posted that opening line over on rasfc, didn’t you? 🙂
joelrmpls: In mysteries, I’ve always been a Chandler fan, and some of Robert B. Parker’s stuff. (And, yup, I did.)
AGplusone: I started going back through all mine, old, yellow and brittle, just like me … I like Parker, glad he’s finally getting away from solely writing about one character.
RaShaKaela has left the room.
SAcademy: What about Donald Hamilton?
joelrmpls: I don’t like how the conflict between Spenser and Hawk has been left lying.
AGplusone: Westlake, isn’t he?
joelrmpls: I’m a big, big Donald Hamilton fan. And no, he’s not Westlake.
ddavitt: i don’t like the hard boiled ones much..more of a cosy I suppose…with a few exceptions
joelrmpls: Although Westlake is wonderful.
AGplusone: Hamilton … real dim bell (in a real dim mind) ….
AGplusone: remind me, Ginny, please.
joelrmpls: Matt Helm books — among other things. Wonderful books.
joelrmpls: Death of a Citizen is among my absolute favorite books.
AGplusone: Oh, yes!
SAcademy: Remind you of what?
AGplusone: what they were … Matt Helm
AGplusone: I used to have them all.
joelrmpls: Trouble is, the time’s passed them by.
AGplusone: Talk about a butchery when they were brought to screenplays …
SAcademy: Robert liked them and kept them all. I think they’re here today.
AGplusone: that’s true, but for the time … “Eric, I have another mission” said the Old Man.
joelrmpls: A man who was old in the late sixties, and who was a young assassin in WWII, really isn’t going to be getting around much around now.
DavidWrightSr: Reminds me of Tommy Hambledon
AGplusone: He went into Norway with the OSS
DavidWrightSr: Anybody ever read Manning Coles?
joelrmpls: Don’t recall the name.
ddavitt: No
Dehede011 has entered the room.
SAcademy: How about SS Van Dyne?
ddavitt: Hi Ron
DavidWrightSr: Two Brits. something Manning and Something Coles. Both involved in WWII and pre intelligence
Dehede011: Evening folks.
AGplusone: Van Dyne is a name I remeber, but nothing about him …
AGplusone: Hi, Ron …
joelrmpls: I’m not surprised that Mr. Heinlein liked them; they shared some of the same sensibility, and writing style, for that matter.
AGplusone: My wife was born in St. Paul, Btw, Joel
SAcademy: Or E. Phillips Oppenheim?
joelrmpls: Neat. Does she know the city’s original name?
DavidWrightSr: ‘Drink to Yesterday’ and ‘Toast to tomorrow’ were the first two. Great reads.
AGplusone: I’ve read some of that. I’ll ask her when she gets home in an hour
AGplusone: Anyone read James Lee Burke, writing today?
Dehede011: ga
ddavitt: Nope
joelrmpls: Not me.
DavidWrightSr: Hey Where’s Bill. I thought he was going to lead our discussion on ‘Mysticism’?
AGplusone: Worth a shot … prolific, writes about a Cajun detective in N’leans and vicinty
AGplusone: and another one in Texas …
joelrmpls: Friend of George Effinger?
AGplusone: Alex Baldwin made one movie based on a James Lee Burke … dunno, Joel.
AGplusone: (which was well done, for a change)
ddavitt: Two minutes to go Dave; Bill will probably be along soon
joelrmpls: Ooops… got to turn into Daddyman in a few minutes… younger daughter needs to be read to and put to bed.
DavidWrightSr: Sorry. My mind slipped. I thought that we had already passed the time. Getting old.
ddavitt: My two are tucked up asleep:-)
AGplusone: Let me light up my AOL and I’ll try to drag them in too
joelrmpls: I live with three Spice Girls. Nagging Spice, Whining Spice, and Premenstrual Spice.
joelrmpls: Only the latter thinks that joke’s funny.
ddavitt: Mine are 5 and four months; still at barbie stage for the oldest
ddavitt: Youngest is in blissful ignorance of such things
DavidWrightSr: I see Bill. should be here soon.
ddavitt: Good.
AGplusone: Mine are 31 and a bit older than that, but further deponent saith naught (sposal overlord unit will spank if I tell you her age)
Dehede011: Yes, my baby daughter will be 43 this year.
ddavitt: maybe, as the only English person i should apologise for the SG’s…but then maybe not.:-)
AGplusone: spousal … d’oh
joelrmpls: Makes me feel young. A rare feeling, these days.
BPRAL22169 has entered the room.
DavidWrightSr: Spasi Bog. I was afraid that I was going to have to talk and I still am not sure what the meaning of the discussion topic is 🙂 Mine are 32 and 33 this year
ddavitt: About time too:-)
BPRAL22169: Sheesh! 5 minutes late!
joelrmpls: And on that note, I’d better go be a Daddy. G’night all; see you at the end of the month, if not sooner.
ddavitt: Looking forward to it
AGplusone: Only four, Bill.
BPRAL22169: Thanks for dropping in.
Dehede011: Nite Joel
joelrmpls has left the room.
BPRAL22169: I’ll take that extra minute.
DavidWrightSr: Nope. only 3 minutes by my clock and it is synchronized to Naval Observatory.
BPRAL22169: Oh, that’s right: my computer clock runs a little fast.
ddavitt: Mine says 2 but let’s not nit pick
AGplusone: Thanks for the tip on Not Quite Scamouche
BPRAL22169: 3 minute sby my watch.
ddavitt: Mine loses; I don’t know how but it does
DavidWrightSr: I told joel how to set the shortcut, so he might be back. He said that he had several things to do.
BPRAL22169: I think we can take a bit more free chat. I’d like to wait on
SageMerlin to show up if possible.
Dehede011: My Naval O clock says 2006
ddavitt: That book may confuse you AG id you haven’t read the others…
BPRAL22169: Yours is faster than my watch by about 30 seconds, Ron.
BPRAL22169: That will give me a chance to look at e-mail and hang up my jacket.
DavidWrightSr: I am off of yours by about 20 second Ron.
Dehede011: And you could well be right Bill
Dehede011: I am ready an analog watch
Dehede011: reading
DavidWrightSr: I use a program called Dimension 4 which synchronizes each time I get on the internet.
ddavitt: We need Deety…
Dehede011: I still keep a shortwave receiver and periodically set it by WWV
DavidWrightSr: Dimension 4 is a freebie. If anyone is interested, I’ll look up the URL
Dehede011: Please David.
BPRAL22169: Where’s a good telechronometer when you need one?
Dehede011: Hey, my shortwave receiver is battery powered. Want me to bring it to the computer.
SAcademy: Wish I knew.
SAcademy: This computer says 9:02
Dehede011: I take the silence as a resounding vote of NO.
SAcademy: My watch says 9:15
AGplusone: 6:11:59 PM, PST
ddavitt: Is Oz expected?
AGplusone: Yes, and Sage
AGplusone: And I’ve got JenOMalley d/l AIM
ddavitt: Good.
markjmills has entered the room.
ddavitt: Shouldn’t take too long IIRC
ddavitt: Hi mark
AGplusone: Hi, Mark!
markjmills: ‘ello ‘ello. How is everyone? I missed you all.
ddavitt: Got the Journal thanks Bill; you still have my post code wrong though:-)
ddavitt: That’s nice:-)
AGplusone: How’s the son? Still giving power to the people signals?
BPRAL22169: Oh, Jane, I’m sorry. Give it to me correct, and I’ll put it in my list.
ddavitt: I also finally posted my Heinlein Society money off…
ddavitt: OK; didn’t seem to slow it down
ddavitt: Just one digit.
AGplusone: Arrived today. Nice postal money orders Canada uses, Jane.
ddavitt: Is tawn dealing with that now?
AGplusone: No, I am.
ddavitt: Oh good! That was quick
ddavitt: Yes, it was pretty!
AGplusone: Tawn’s membership … me banker and issuer of stuff like membership cards and receipts
ddavitt: Sorry it’s taken so long; bank isn’t far away but I kept forgetting
ddavitt: Blame the baby
AGplusone: no problema
ddavitt: :-)i can use that excuse for a few more months
markjmills: Heinlein Society money? Do I owe anyone anything?
DavidWrightSr: Poor Baby. She’ll get back at you for that one 🙂
AGplusone: [I get to give myself $200 for Passing Go if you don’t watch me all the time.]
ddavitt: No mark; it’s not connected with the chat
markjmills: Thanks.
ddavitt: People here can tell you more about it than me
AGplusone: OTOH … I’ll send you a little recruitment letter
markjmills: LOL
SageMerlin has entered the room.
markjmills: Herdng cats?
AGplusone: maybe give it to you at brunch this week
ddavitt: Hi Sage
SageMerlin: okay, you guys, let’s get this show on the road;
AGplusone: Hi, Alan … here we be with bells on.
BPRAL22169: Yo, Sage.
Dehede011: Howdy, Sage
BPRAL22169: We’ve got 9 in the room, I say let’s start.
ddavitt: Go right ahead:-)
SageMerlin: Some wise guy asked me to help host this kelp twist
BPRAL22169: David Wright, did the messages help at all with your question.
BPRAL22169: Kelp twist — I like that.
SageMerlin: I’m playing hookey from work to do this, so let’s do it…..hey, that’s a cool web site.
DavidWrightSr: Do you mean, do I understand better what we are talking about. I think so, but I’m going to sit on the sidelines while the big brains talk.
BPRAL22169: (Sage, did you get a chance to look at the message posts?)
AGplusone: I picked up my copy of collected Emerson and Oupenski and Frye’s Words With Power this week, but not ready for exam yet.
BPRAL22169: No, I think one would need more than a week to digest any one of those.
SageMerlin: negatory response
ddavitt: I have been comparing Lost Legion with Lost Legacy
SageMerlin: Point me there and let me read up now.
BPRAL22169: Sage, David Wright is our “test case” for this discussion.
BPRAL22169: David S, could you accommodate Sage?
SageMerlin: You mean he’s our proof source?
ddavitt: Quite a few differences…not got far enough to see if they’re significant
AGplusone: at least a couple more days …
Dehede011: The time is 20 past the hour — now
AGplusone: Hyperlink on AOL to Lead-off: ===>AIM Readers Group March 1, 3 “Heinlein and Mysticism”
DavidWrightSr: He means, If I understand it then anyone can 🙂
BPRAL22169: OK — let’s start off with an important distinction about what we’re NOT talking about:
ddavitt: They said that about Hilda and she ended up as Captain Dave:-)
ddavitt: GA Bill
pakgwei has entered the room.
BPRAL22169: Heinlein was interested in a lot of thigns, some of them pretty exotic. Psi (I don’t think) he regarded as anything more than an exotic but still normal-type fact. At least the stuff Rhine had demonstrated and Twain and Upton Sinclair had talked about: telepathy and clairvoyance, possibly low-level levitation.
pakgwei: which story tonight?
ddavitt: Mysticism
BPRAL22169: Is this a distinction everyone can live with so far?
ddavitt: I suppose
ddavitt: Only just started pakgwei
AGplusone: I’ve got a malfunction, going out and coming back in …
BPRAL22169: Hi, pak gwei — we’re talking about mysticism in Heinlein tonight, with emphasis on two stories in particular, “They” and “Lost Legacy” (Stranger as supplement)
BPRAL22169: David, do you need help getting back in?
AGplusone: On second thought, no, I don’t.
AGplusone: Okay.
BPRAL22169: OK.
SageMerlin: Macinstuff.
ddavitt: So what’s left then Bill?
SageMerlin: bill oh bill
BPRAL22169: While Sage is getting caught up, let’s throw one more element into the mix: the dictionary definition of mysticism has to do with stuff like the experience of the fundamental unity of everything
SageMerlin: Gnosis
AGplusone: “I grok, you grok, we grok”?
SageMerlin: I would love to know the exact derivation of grok….
DavidWrightSr: I heard a discussion on Buddhism week which sounded a lot like that definition.
SAcademy: Pure Heinnlein
SageMerlin: It is such a powerful, evocative word, and yet its e(n)timology is almost onomonopeic.
ddavitt: Just picked out of thin air because it sounded right SA?
BPRAL22169: For most of human history, religion had nothing to do with god. God was invented about 2500 years ago (3000 years ago if you count Akhenaton). That’s just an eyeblink in human history. “The Gods” go back two eyeblinks. What was religion about before “the gods”were invented? That’s what mysticism is about, if you’re starting off from a Christian — or a god religion — basis.
SAcademy: Robert always liked words that were short and punchy
BPRAL22169: OK, my two bits done. Floor is open.
DavidWrightSr: etimology, entimology is study of bugs, IIRC
SageMerlin: But mysticism doesn’t necessarily depend on God. I know some very heavy mystics who don’t believe in God at all.
AGplusone: What about the fat fertility female statues … what were they? charms?
ddavitt: How can you have a religion without a god?
DavidWrightSr: That topic is reserverd for ST 🙂
SageMerlin: Ask any budhist.
Dehede011: By being a buddist.
AGplusone: ‘mater magna’?
ddavitt: explain more please
BPRAL22169: Or by being an animist.
ddavitt: Isn’t the idea of worship inherent in a religion?
SageMerlin: We are going to spend the night redefining definitions.
BPRAL22169: Depends on what you mean by “worship.” Ritual is not inherent in religion (though it is inherent in societies)
ddavitt: Might be self worship if you believe we’re all part of god…but still
ddavitt: We do that a lot!
BPRAL22169: “The noble soul has reverence for itself”
SageMerlin: Let’s focus on the source of our discussion.
JenOMalley has entered the room.
SageMerlin: Which is what Heinlein thought about mysticism
ddavitt: Heinlein’s books? Now there’s a novel thought :-):-)
JenOMalley: Hello all…
AGplusone: Welcome Jen
ddavitt: Hi jen
BPRAL22169: Yo, Jen-o.
JenOMalley: What’s up?
BPRAL22169: We could focus on one particular scene if you like —
Dehede011: Hi Jen
markjmills: Hello, Jen
SageMerlin: Some titles have been thrown out as being of mystical interest….but I don;t agree with them
ddavitt: talking about mysticsm
AGplusone: Just started … with definitions of mysticism … I’ll send you a quick copy of pertinent log
AGplusone: by e mail
JenOMalley: okay…I won’t be here long, but I’ll be happy to be here for a bit…
SageMerlin: Let’s expand the horizon
JenOMalley: 🙂
BPRAL22169: /ga
DavidWrightSr: As I mentioned earlier, The closest thing that I see in ‘They’ is the ‘dream recognition’ that the protag experiences. I don’t see the same thing in ‘Lost Legacy’, but I do see simlilar experiences in ‘Beyond This Horizon’ and ‘TEFL’.
BPRAL22169: That dream recognition is exactly where I was going to go.
DavidWrightSr: Go Right Ahead 🙂
AGplusone: incoming, Jen
JenOMalley: right..
BPRAL22169: Sage has a thesis he wants to develop.
SageMerlin: I do….I mean I do
SageMerlin: do I?
ddavitt: What books do you see as mystical then sage?
BPRAL22169: /ga. *You said you wanted to broaden it out instead of looking closely at a single scene and that you disagreed with the references to mystical books.
SageMerlin: Not books….characters
SageMerlin: In every case, I have always found RAH’s Martian characters the epitome of the mystic.
BPRAL22169: explain, please.
BPRAL22169: Hm-mmm. And, of course, they don’t have religion.
ddavitt: Yes; i pointed that out in an afh post. The Red planet martinas especially
BPRAL22169: Not the way we humans, do.
ddavitt: martians that is
SageMerlin: No but they have rituals, practices, beliefs and acts…all of which are elements of a mystical tradition.
ddavitt: They have tabgible gods; like the little people?
ddavitt: Tangible; darn these fingers
SageMerlin: Einstein once said that only fools fail to see God wherever they look
SageMerlin: ((One of the schools I flunked out of was called the Einstein Academy))))
JenOMalley: Okay, but what about the Jockaira?
SageMerlin: An example of Clarke’s definition of magic.
DavidWrightSr: Can we assume that the Martian ‘old ones’, i.e. the dead ones, were somehow directly experiencing the full reality? Seems reasonable, since they no longer have physical existence.
AGplusone: their god may well be the glaroon …
BPRAL22169: Were the gods of the Jokaira actually gods in the same sense the god of judaism is god of creatoin?
ddavitt: The 1990’s RP shows the Martians as being very contemplative and unhurried yet capable of great power and swift action when needed
JenOMalley: Not sure
AGplusone: ad infinitem …
SageMerlin: RP???????
ddavitt: Red planet
SageMerlin: Red Planet is exactly another representation
AGplusone: Red Planet, the uncut publication
JenOMalley: brb
ddavitt: My speciality:-):-)
BPRAL22169: It could be that the Martians are all in real reality all the time, which is why discorporation is a trivial event in their lives.
DavidWrightSr: Was there anything in RP (TUV), that throws extra light on this subject?
SageMerlin: I have always thought that RAH used the Martians in his stories as representatives of a higher reality to which humanity might aspire…..at the possible expense of what we laughingly call human nature.
ddavitt: Like moving from kitchen to bathroom level of event; unimportant in the scheme of things?
SageMerlin: But there is something almost inhuman in the mystic….a detachment from some of the motivations that activate everyday life.
pakgwei has left the room.
ddavitt: I think so; more spelled out that they can change emotions
SageMerlin: Am I scaring everyone out of the joint David?
BPRAL22169: Umm — more like changing which room you have your bedroom in.
AGplusone: Half a mind in the afterlife …
JenOMalley: damn…dinner and soldier stuff calls, but David wanted emt o tell you all that he’s not scary in person…:-)
DavidWrightSr: pak is having trouble. He’ll probably be back.
JenOMalley: me to, rather…
ddavitt: We know that:-)
AGplusone: 🙂
JenOMalley: LOL….then what’d he need me for? I gotta do grunt stuff…:P
pakgwei has entered the room.
JenOMalley: I mean that literally, too…I’m in the infantry, now….
ddavitt: Bye Jen
SageMerlin: Damn military plantation we got going here.
JenOMalley: Scary place….
BPRAL22169: “Shines the name –”
SageMerlin: Attention to orders folks.
pakgwei has left the room.
ddavitt: But whose side was heinlein on? In SIASL it’s definitelty the humans
JenOMalley: LOL…g’night, y’all…
JenOMalley has left the room.
SageMerlin: Not sure about that…..
AGplusone: ‘side’?
BPRAL22169: I don’t know you have to choose sides for this kind of thing.
ddavitt: They will surpass the martians who are shown as static in their detatchement
SageMerlin: Michael seemed to be creating the forth side of the triangle]
BPRAL22169: He has the humans getting in touch with the human dimension of the same reality the martians are in.
ddavitt: Heinlein would always choose the humans IMO
pakgwei has entered the room.
AGplusone: Difference between Willis and an Old One, doesn’t require sides
pakgwei: too many da** buttons
ddavitt: The martians were onsidering obliterating Earth; I’d say that made them a dnager
BPRAL22169: Hint: don’t touch the “ESC” button.
SageMerlin: Now he tells me.
ddavitt: What, this butto…
ddavitt: 🙂
DavidWrightSr: Joker
BPRAL22169: Maybe the Martians had angelic compassion, too.
SageMerlin: They were considering the obliteration of Earth because humans were insufficiently contemplative….and their solution was to send them a teacher instead of a planet buster.]
AGplusone: only after they’d grokked the necessity sufficiently … then they’ll turn around and notice that homo sap has half a mind in afterlife as well
ddavitt: They thought they knew best; another version of Mother Thing’s lot
SageMerlin: Of course, the teacher was also a spy.
ddavitt: think they’re superior, entitled to judge…pah, piffle etc.
SageMerlin: (((which, by the way, is a fairly often occurence. Gurjieff was a spy during WWI)
BPRAL22169: Interesting thought: did the Martians know that VMS would become a teacher?
SageMerlin: Hard to see otherwise….
ddavitt: Poor Mike; that must have been hard to realise
AGplusone: And also able to fix his mind if need be on a bit of subterrean rock and twist it just so … and nova terra!
ddavitt: Quite…
AGplusone: Mike was a mine.
ddavitt: deep and dark?
BPRAL22169: But, Jane, all that groks is suitable to judge.
SageMerlin: Also a source of wealth
AGplusone: Nope. Anti-tank.
ddavitt: full of usefiul stuff to be extracted at personal risk?
ddavitt: Ah…but my analogy works too
SageMerlin: The idea of the mystic as a contemplative sitting somewhere in an ashram doesn’t fit the facts
AGplusone: Pandora’s box … nice, is that Mysticism, Sage?
ddavitt: I’ve never subscribed to that POV; Mike had a damn cheek if you ask me
DavidWrightSr: Just think of it as ‘trimming diseased branches’
BPRAL22169: There are some mystic traditions that insist on living in the world and not apart from it.
ddavitt: I find that POV disturbing somehow
DavidWrightSr: or ‘simply sending back to the rear of the line’
SageMerlin: I have a tree in my back yard….well it used to be a tree…one of my mystic friends was asked to trim it. He trimmed, and trimmed it, but by the time he got the symetry just right, the tree was a shrubb.
AGplusone: If you think about it Mike is a virus …
ddavitt: If they are apart how can they be cpapble of understanfing it?
SageMerlin: Too much pruning and the tree becomes a shrub…if you get my drift.
BPRAL22169: The ascetic traditions say you can’t understand it if you’re in it.
ddavitt: But i still think he wasn’t around for long enough to truly infect earth
SageMerlin: He wasn;t?
BPRAL22169: How about Christ?
ddavitt: Have to step aside to see the big picture you mean? maybe
SageMerlin: Mike is infecting generations around the world.
ddavitt: How long was the Nest up and running?
BPRAL22169: His ministry only lasted three or four years, tops.
ddavitt: Not as long as jesus was teaching
SageMerlin: Regardless of what RAH thought about it himself, Stranger was to a large extent responsible for the entire commune thing.
BPRAL22169: I’d say about the same. It’s implied there are hundreds of Nesters.
AGplusone: We just haven’t got to the point of a poet writing: “Mike is not risen, no, he lies, and molders low.”
DavidWrightSr: Jesus only taught for 3 years.
BPRAL22169: In dozens of cities.
SageMerlin: And now, a generation later, a lot of those nesters are running things,.
ddavitt: I got the impression the nest was less than that; going by the age of the babies
SageMerlin: But the point….and this is important folks
SageMerlin: is that a communication is its effect
BPRAL22169: False impression — remember the secretaries didn’t join the nest completelyuntil Jubal had “cooked” done.
DavidWrightSr: But the nest wasn’t started until he had been out for some time.
DavidWrightSr: Carney time, Army time etc.
SageMerlin: And the effect of Stranger was that people in the real world started to emulate the community that Heinlein described in fiction.
ddavitt: fatima is about 18 months old when the story ends i think
AGplusone: Until the three women saw the angels, ‘so they said’ outside his tomb early that Easter morn.
ddavitt: Not important; i just think without him it would fizzle but i could be wrong
BPRAL22169: Right, and Miriam has not married when Ben reports on the fully functioning Nest.
AGplusone: Or was it two women and John, Bill?
BPRAL22169: No, David: Jubal is the Rockof the CAW.
AGplusone: That ties in to the three children of ‘front’
BPRAL22169: Sorry, I don’t catch the reference, AG+
SageMerlin: Are we getting lost in the details here, folks?
AGplusone: okay, GA
BPRAL22169: Sorry, I just thought that timing detail could be cleared up.
ddavitt: But have the 60’s had a lasting effect? look at the 80’s ; total opposite behaviuor
SageMerlin: No just in the news coverage.
SageMerlin: Programs and services created during the sixties are still functioning today, without attention or publicity.
AGplusone: We don’t know about a martyrdom of St. Steven, yet …
BPRAL22169: Note the Civil Rights Act of 1965
SageMerlin: Saint Steven with a Rose…..
BPRAL22169: How much of the human potential movement has gone into making up the PC philosophy?
ddavitt: I’m still a bit lost though; everything Mike does in the book can, Bill was saying be explained away, all that’s left, apart from discorporation, is the “Thou art God ” bit; is that ll the mytical part of the book then?
SageMerlin: Very little, in my opinion
BPRAL22169: The liberation movements that flowered in the 60’s and 70’s are orthodoxy now.
DavidWrightSr: The question is; is what Mike could do mysticism, or simply unknown ‘normal’ powers. Apart from whether the Martians themselves were mystics
SageMerlin: That is the point.
SageMerlin: Nothing that mystics do is beyoind the rank and file of humanity
BPRAL22169: No, Jane, though that’s the biggest single chunk. There is other stuff.
ddavitt: No, because they ARE human
SageMerlin: All a mystic is, is a person with the ability to focus attention in a different way
ddavitt: Such as?
SageMerlin: Meditation
SageMerlin: Everyone meditates, but most people do not realize it.
BPRAL22169: Very good point, Sage. Heinlein made a continuum in Stranger between ordinary abilities, and the demonstrations of Yoga and the Martian powers of mind.
ddavitt: Like, we all run, but we’re not all Olympic standard
SageMerlin: Have you every set out in your car and found that you could not remember locking the front door before you left.
ddavitt: Yep
AGplusone: including maybe the ability to put others into yet other’s minds … a la Jill the stripper?
SageMerlin: Somehow, you fell out of ordinary reality during those few moments.
ddavitt: Or gone into a room and stood there unable to remember why I went in
SageMerlin: All of these things are part of the overall schema
RaShaKaela has entered the room.
DavidWrightSr: Nope. that just bad short term memory. I’m good at that 🙂
AGplusone: That sounds like the ability to express oneself to me, what a good writer can do …
ddavitt: I agree; not mystical, just short circuit
AGplusone: or the, forgive me, “Great Communicator”
SageMerlin: Remember Clark, any sufficiently advanced technology seems like magic to more primitive cultures.
ddavitt: that was mystical…or was it just more telepathy, a three way conversation with mike/Jill and the man in audience?
SageMerlin: The great danger in describing mysticism is that people always say, oh, is that all it is.
ddavitt: If so, according to Bill, not mystical…
SageMerlin: Let me give an example from my own experience./
ddavitt: Well, we do seem to be chewing away at the apple and getting down to a tiny core
SageMerlin: Something so perfectly ordinary and yet not.
BPRAL22169: I’ve got one, too, when you’re finished.
SageMerlin: I went to visit my teacher on one occasion, several years ago, and injured myself getting off the plane, reducing me to depending on a cane.
SageMerlin: The first thing my teacher said to me on that occasion was, “Alan, you got old!”
SageMerlin: Two years passed, and on my next visit, having lost weight and being in good condition, his first words to me were, “Alan, you got younger again”
SageMerlin: Perfectly ordinary behavior….for an 80 year old man who has seen 10,000 people come and go between those two occasions????
AGplusone: Are you telling me there was an aura you emitted that he perceived?
SageMerlin: If I ever met someone in the flesh who was a living embodiment of Mike, it is this man….who has been on the Mullah’s death list for 20 years, and never so much as locks the door of his castle.
DavidWrightSr: You lost me on that one. I don’t see the point at all. Sorry.
SageMerlin: No, I am saying that he remembered and savored the details of each meeting…he grokked it in its entirety and said the one thing that …very Mikelike…would crystalize the moment for me.
ddavitt: i don’t quite see what you’re getting at Sage
ddavitt: Oh.
SageMerlin: Now you see…..???
ddavitt: No and yes
AGplusone: Hmm …
SageMerlin: So let’s turn to the controversial question of whether RAH actually knew or was in touch with any of these so called mystical types.
ddavitt: I can see it meant a lot to you but I don’t quite see it as mystical.
SageMerlin: ((Keep tlhinking about the story. You will get there.)))
SageMerlin: We all know that he knew at least one man who actually founded a new religion.
DavidWrightSr: Don’t see the connection. Looks like a case of good memory in this instance vs. bad memory in your earlier example.
SageMerlin: Keep trying folks.
SageMerlin: As I said earlier, the great danger in mysticism is that it always seems so ordinary when you deconstruct it because it really is so ordinary in an extraordinary way.
ddavitt: LRH has been mentioned on afh a bit this week; as possible source material for variuos characters
BPRAL22169: Warning: put it in your mental back burner rather than trying to work it out here-and-now.
SageMerlin: Thanks Bill.
BPRAL22169: But don’t forget it.
SageMerlin: I couldn;t say what you just did.
ddavitt: Waiting is.
AGplusone: [Maybe, possibly, an ability to perceive, record and express the absolute essence of Sage’s person, David?]
BPRAL22169: Waiting is. Exactly.
RaShaKaela: Heh
BPRAL22169: That’s kind of what is meant by that — and the Taoist “practice inaction.”
DavidWrightSr: Ok. Bill. Now put the ‘lost legacy’ into the mysticsm context
AGplusone: Okay, back to possible contacts … he knew L. Ron … what next?
SageMerlin: I retreat]
ddavitt: We haven’t discussed Lost legacy/Legion much. Do you see master Ling as a good example of a mystic Alan?
ddavitt: Oh sorry, forgot we hadn’t finished that
BPRAL22169: Can we move “Lost Legacy” to the second hour?
SageMerlin: Seconded
DavidWrightSr: Thirded
ddavitt: YEp, excuse me.
BPRAL22169: We’re on a good track here, and I’d lilke to hear Sage’s
BPRAL22169: development.
SageMerlin: The next question is, knowning that RAH knows LRH who did LRH know…..
BPRAL22169: Jack Parsons, for one.
BPRAL22169: That’s fairly common knowledge.
SageMerlin: and here we are more fertile ground…..as the present earwitness may testify
DavidWrightSr: Who is/was?
BPRAL22169: Two things:
SageMerlin: ga
AGplusone: ID Parsons, please …
BPRAL22169: 1. A brilliant rocket scientist who invented the red fuming nitric acid propulsion used by the Redstone rockets in use while most of us were growing up, and
BPRAL22169: 2. Arguably The most important magic-maker in the 20th century (in the hermetic traditions)
BPRAL22169: A mage of the first water.
AGplusone: sometimes spelled “magi”?
BPRAL22169: Alaister Crowley’s chief disciple in the United States until he got kicked out of the OTO
BPRAL22169: or magus.
Dehede011: I noticce you haven’t mentioned Crowley. Of what importance was he?
Dehede011: OOPS
BPRAL22169: Crowley also founded a religion
labert8 has entered the room.
BPRAL22169: Thelema. There is a very interesting essay at wegrokit.com that suggests Stranger was a public recapitulation of Thelema.
SageMerlin: Is there anyone here who wants to uphold that idea?
AGplusone: Is that the Adams Walks essay?
ddavitt: I read that a while ago
SageMerlin: I want to spurn it if anyone will join me in it.
BPRAL22169: Yes to Jane and David.
ddavitt: I don’t know enough about it
AGplusone: Yo, Bert … I’ll send you a log to date by e mail
ddavitt: Hi labert.LTNS
labert8: hello all.
DavidWrightSr: Hi. Welcome
BPRAL22169: I think RAH might have used some bits and pieces here and there in Stranger — but Idon’t think it’s propaganda for Thelema.
Dehede011: Welcome
ddavitt: Is that the ‘do what you will’ idea?
BPRAL22169: Heinlein used a lot of bits and pieces in Stranger.
SageMerlin: Let me disclaim something here.
BPRAL22169: Yes, Jane, the first law of Thelema is “do what Thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”
BPRAL22169: /ga
DavidWrightSr: In that regard. Heinlein was a lot like ‘Bonforte’. “He would accept ideas from anyone, but his speeches were his own”
DavidWrightSr: IMHO
SageMerlin: I think that anyone who tries to base his life on Stranger has a screw or two that needs tightening.
AGplusone: labert@_____.___?
labert8: fast.net
BPRAL22169: Agreed wholeheartedly.
ddavitt: And society would pretty soon get out the screwdriver…
AGplusone: otw
Dehede011: Who was it that said RAH was about questions not answers.
ddavitt: pink monkeys is in there as a warning ( and in Lost legacy curiously)
BPRAL22169: RAH said that, Ron.
SageMerlin: But, having said that, I do carry a small hideaway and sharp blade wherever I go…..and I revere so many of the ideas that RAH espoused that I would really hate to have to deconstruct him to figure out which of his ideas came from which arcane and my humble opinion disreputable sources.
RaShaKaela: Definitely some good philosphical points, but without the missing element (Martian influence) it’s just a nice bit of fiction.
DavidWrightSr: He said it himslf in Grumbles
ddavitt: And in NOTB…”the things some authors will do for money’
RaShaKaela: Although I have personally met some people who think it’s a full-blown religion.
BPRAL22169: The Martians are what made the particular literary creation of STranger work the way it did.
SageMerlin has left the room.
ddavitt: It made a big impression on me as a 14 yar old though…
BPRAL22169: I don’t think Sage had completed his thought there.
ddavitt: It all seemed to make a lot of sense…
BPRAL22169: 14 is a little too young, IMHO.
DavidWrightSr: Discorporated. I hope not 🙂
SageMerlin has entered the room.
BPRAL22169: Ah, the Old One!
SageMerlin: Oh, so that’s what happens when you hit the escape key
BPRAL22169: Notice how he just popped right into our reality.
RaShaKaela: Heh
ddavitt: I was very advanced for my age Bill…and I had a mother who never restricted my reading
BPRAL22169: yup
SageMerlin: What a bummer
BPRAL22169: Mine tried to — unsuccessfully, I might ad.
DavidWrightSr: I loved that part about the Martian who got so engrossed that he didn’t notice that he had died.
ddavitt: Apart from Mills and Boon books that is…
BPRAL22169: I think that’s RAH talking about himself.
Dehede011: RAH also had another book in which he either reported a religion not very many have heard of or invented a religion for at least a few.
ddavitt: Really/ ,giggle>
SageMerlin: ga Ded
ddavitt: that’s funny…
ddavitt: Which Ron?
DavidWrightSr: What was that?
SageMerlin: (Ron is invited to the podium
BPRAL22169: Think about it. He started the book in 1948 or 49, whenhe was a vigorous adult and finished it when he was approaching 60.
BPRAL22169: No — that’s wrong. mid-50’s.
AGplusone: RAH thought he’d discorporate before he finished …
ddavitt: True..never thought of that. interesting!
BPRAL22169: He became an Old One during the composition of Stranger.
ddavitt: I like that…
Dehede011: Am I still on line?
SageMerlin: Indeed, was RAH the martian among us????
AGplusone: yep
BPRAL22169: You have the floor.
ddavitt: I always wondered what conclusion the martians would reach
DavidWrightSr: No. we are discerning you mystically
BPRAL22169: I am only an egg.
ddavitt: Tell us the book Ron!!
ddavitt: I am frantically thinking and can’t
BPRAL22169: (and be quick about it!)
ddavitt: Sir issacc?
SageMerlin: Jeez, what a tease
ddavitt: Spelling..
BPRAL22169: “If This Goes On?”
ddavitt: Between planets?
BPRAL22169: I’d forgotten about the Venerian dragons.
AGplusone: Ron says he’s stalled out … waiting for the screen to catch up with the scroll
ddavitt: Descende from the great egg
ddavitt: we’ll forgive him the tantalsing cliff hanger then:-)
BPRAL22169: He might be able to drag the scroll bar to the bottom of the scroll.
BPRAL22169: (speak for yourself, Jane!)
ddavitt: 🙂
BPRAL22169: You know, this might be an opportune moment to take a break.
Dehede011 has left the room.
DavidWrightSr: We all do speak for ourselves. That’s what makes us all ‘rational anarchists’. 😎
SageMerlin: second brfeak
SageMerlin: I second the call for a break.
BPRAL22169: Just got more opportune. Didyou have an immediate point you wanted to develop, Sage.
BPRAL22169: Ok
ddavitt: OK where is Oz btw?
AGplusone: Ron’s rebooting … watch for him to come back on … he’ll need an invite
SageMerlin: I am writing an offline mini essay that I will share with all when we reconvene
BPRAL22169: Ok — I’ve got 7:12; why don’t we reconvene at 7:20. Ron should be back by that time. We’ll have to give him a concerted drum-roll.
AGplusone: Okay, prime coffee pot break for me. Back at 20 pasty the hour.
ddavitt: ‘kay
ddavitt: But I’ll be heading off to bed soon after.
AGplusone: I got an invite out to Ron
ddavitt: good
Dehede011 has entered the room.
AGplusone: brb … off to water Bob
RaShaKaela: Dratted hubby stuffed all the loose books into a box and stuck it in the basement. :\ Can’t find Assignment.
BPRAL22169: OK — Jane, if there’s anythig you particularly wanted to talk about Lost Legacy that would be a good time to bring it up.
Dehede011: That was a weird experience
DavidWrightSr: Mystical?
RaShaKaela: 😀
Dehede011: Well, mystifying at least
DavidWrightSr: Like the Buddhist monk said to the hot-dog vendor’ Make me one with everything’
ddavitt: Well, nothing special…wondered about the cuts; nothing like as many as RP but lots of the futuristic bits in the magazine aren’t carrid forward into the book.
ddavitt: Few name changes to uodate it; Paderewski replaces bauer
DavidWrightSr: What are you referring to Jane?
ddavitt: Main thought was that the people there are like the nset people in SIASL
ddavitt: Lost Legion was original publication; Lost legacy is a bit different
BPRAL22169: I think there’s a direct reference in Stranger to “Lost Legacy” — the bit about the cleansing of St. petersburg is right there in Lost Legion (of Los Angeles)
BPRAL22169: As well as the implication at the end that everyone will become Goddists. I guess after the CAW takes over, it can leave the earth for the next wave of evolution.
ddavitt: Mentions that the people are ‘so alive’; same sense in SIASL; rushing without hurrying, experiencing life more deeply.
BPRAL22169: That’s a common remark of religious communities.
ddavitt: back to religion again?
BPRAL22169: Mysticism is religion is mysticism.
AGplusone: RaSha … “They” in Hoag or Fantasies of RAH, “Lost Legacy” in Assignment in Eterniy
ddavitt: Would you class the colony in Lost legacy as religious?
AGplusone: Eternity
ddavitt: Or mystical?
ddavitt: Or both?
BPRAL22169: Dogmatic religion can be social or political, but mysticism is always just religion.
RaShaKaela: Recently read Hoag. Lost Legacy, I’m still drawing a blank on, unfortunately.
BPRAL22169: Let me seeif I can find that short plot summary I did a couple years back.
ddavitt: It’s got a very pulpy villain; legless horror who floats
RaShaKaela: If it’s true mysticism, it will be.
AGplusone: Legacy is the one that Has the boy scout camp up in NorCal involving Twain
ddavitt: Lost legion was online
Dehede011: And Mount Shasta?
AGplusone: Yes, it was …
DavidWrightSr: Where Jane?
ddavitt: A university site that had reproductions of some pulp magazines
AGplusone: A college site studying old scifi pulps …
ddavitt: Don’t know if it still is; this was 3 years ago
RaShaKaela: Speaking of University sites, have any of you seen this? http://web.usna.navy.mil/~aeroweb/admin/HEINLEINCHAIR.htm
AGplusone: Indeed we have!
AGplusone: Isn’t it wonderful.
RaShaKaela: :-D:-D:-D:-D:-D:-D:-D:-D:-D:-D:-D:-D
BPRAL22169: Huxley, Coburn, and Freeman discover how to teach themselves psi powers but can’t get anyone from the academic community to believe them. They are drawn to Mt. Shasta and a group of adepts for advanced training. They work out a plan to disseminate their training through a special Boy Scout camp, but the camp comes under attack by a group of evil adepts.
AGplusone: The Estate (i.e., Ginny) endowed it.
RaShaKaela: Was wondering. I’d asked about it twice, earlier, and no on esaid anything
RaShaKaela: Oh, cool!
BPRAL22169: The Shasta group wipes out the evil adepts, clearing the way for mankind to claim its lost legacy of powers.
BPRAL22169: -30-
RaShaKaela: Okay, that sounds somewhat familiar.
BPRAL22169: You try doing that in 82 words.
RaShaKaela: Heh
AGplusone: written originally in 41
RaShaKaela: =-O
BPRAL22169: No — written in 39, but not published until 41.
AGplusone: right, sorry!
Dehede011: Is it fair to say “but can’t get anyone from the academic community to believe them.”
ddavitt: the one they approach is evil isn’t he?
Dehede011: Right, and fully believed them.
ddavitt: The students won’t beleive their eyes; another link to mike as a carnie
BPRAL22169: Sage are you back at keyboard?
ddavitt: His ‘magic’ is real but they explain it away. Ye have eyes but cannot see…
AGplusone: Assignment in Eternity republished late last year by Baen in paper ISBN 0-671-57865-0
ddavitt: I had it originally in 2 volumes
BPRAL22169: I have about 7 copies of that book.
AGplusone: has Lost Legacy
DavidWrightSr: “most of the ones they found were good Joes, but often, there was someone that they trusted who was not a good Joe” (probably not accurate. from memory)
Dehede011: SIASL did not have an equivalent to the “evil one” did it?
AGplusone: well, April last year … looking at flyleaf
ddavitt: Not as such
SageMerlin: I am here never left
ddavitt: Fosterites not evil
Dehede011: You too, Bill?
BPRAL22169: The whole idea of “evil adepts” was dropped from Stranger.
BPRAL22169: How’s that, Ron?
ddavitt: Ron, are you going to tell us the book you meant before i have to go?
Dehede011: You have many copies of AIE also
AGplusone: Had Agnes, who turned out to be employed as a scourge by same company …
ddavitt: Oh it was there then?
BPRAL22169: I was about to suggest we could get undeer way again.
SageMerlin: go for it
AGplusone: as Mike
ddavitt: It was a working break:-)
Dehede011: Unpleasant Profession of……………
BPRAL22169: We left off with Ron’s teaser.
ddavitt: Oh……yes, Sons of the Bird
BPRAL22169: Oh, the Sons of the Bird.
ddavitt: nice one!
BPRAL22169: I forgot about that one, too.
BPRAL22169: Where were you going with that, Ron?
Dehede011: I wasn’t teasing I lost communications
Dehede011:
BPRAL22169: You got old, Ron!
Dehede011: No where, just wanted to keep in mind that there were two instances not one
BPRAL22169: (or else very, very young)
ddavitt: Interesting that the Venerians and the martians had eggs…
ddavitt: Link to barsoom?
BPRAL22169: Burroughs’ Martians had eggs.
BPRAL22169: GMTA, jane.
AGplusone: so did Dejah Thoris
AGplusone: ditto
ddavitt: I never quite got how Dejah laid an egg…that would have got censored in a heinlein juvenile!
BPRAL22169: Ok, Sage, what about your mini-essay. What’s the subject?
SageMerlin: QUESTION
BPRAL22169: /ga
SageMerlin: Does anyone know if RAH ever met Huxley?
BPRAL22169: Aldous or TH?
SageMerlin: A
ddavitt: Brave new World Huxley?
SAcademy: No, he did not.
AGplusone: Aldous of course …
AGplusone: Okay, that answers that.
SAcademy: None of them
SageMerlin: Good to know.
ddavitt: How does that affect what you were going to say Sage?
SageMerlin: Now, the point I was dwelling on while we were on our hypthetical break
BPRAL22169: He had a fairl long overlap with TH Huxley, but I don’t think he got to England until after THH’s death.
BPRAL22169: Sorry, /ga
SageMerlin: was what other novels we are ignoring.
SageMerlin: So how do I publish this mini essay?/// right here?
ddavitt: cut and paste?
BPRAL22169: You can take about 450 characters at a time in this dialog box.
SageMerlin: When you follow the thread there is a sense of a conversation in RAH writing about religion in general such as when he writes about Revolt in 2100 against a religious hierach who bears a suspicious resemblance to the religious fanatics that Heinlein describes in Stranger who then turn out to appear in heaven after all which has always really thrown me for a loop.
ddavitt: I love cut and paste….
AGplusone: right …
BPRAL22169: That’s how I got the story summary in up above.
SageMerlin: In Revolt, one notices that the organized cadre that forms the nucleus of the anti-clerical revolutionaries are in fact the Masonic lodges that have gone underground. And then one remembers that the Committees of Correspondence that husbanded and fomented the
SageMerlin: that husbanded and fomented the t of the founding fathers were in fact Masons….and the Masons form the nucleus of the revolution in 2100.
AGplusone: (and in Italy, the anti-papal Masons of whom Garibaldi is Grand
Mason, that resulted in revolution that destroyed the Papal States)
SageMerlin: Another book in which the concept of a scientific religion figures prominently is, of course, Sixth Column, in which RAH supposes that a cadre of scientists can in fact mount an insurrection by clothing their science within the trappings of religion, successfully as it turns out.
SageMerlin: But, here diverging from the RAH works, is the point. Mystical traditions all agree that their teachings are in fact remembered from an ancient wisdom that constitutes, if you will, a Clarkean sophistication that leaves us primitives in wonderment.
BPRAL22169: Hence the Akashic records of Theosophy which show up in “Lost Legacy.”
DavidWrightSr: Them ‘Rosy Crushons’
DavidWrightSr: 🙂
SageMerlin: Which, now in the present tense again, to tie these ideas together there is this: In Stranger, RAH presents both sides of the spiritual dilemma with respect to religion and mysticism, which are not the same thing at all really
AGplusone: und das Gospel of Valentinius that shows up in Egypt in late 1940s of the gnostic branch of Christianity …
SageMerlin: because we see the powerful but restrained aspects of mysticism in the Martians and the uncontrolled abuse of power amongst the Christian sects that (in an earlier book) turn into an oligarchical dictatorship
ddavitt: But Sixth Column was really just a trick, using the loophole that the pan Asians gave them.
BPRAL22169: That last remark of Sage’s was rather pregnant
Dehede011: Sage are you aware that when we speak of religions degenerating into empty ritual the one prominent Sufi charges that the Freemasons are a Sufi group that has degenerated into empty ritual.
SageMerlin: Perfectly
Dehede011: sorry, that one prominent…….
AGplusone: Sage and I been talking about that for years …
RaShaKaela: That’s an interesting view.
SageMerlin: I am also aware that the Sufi in question, now dead, was told to sit down and shut up by the current sitting master
BPRAL22169: Re the Martian/Low Protestant Fundamentalists. RAH ties it to Nietzsche’s apollonian/dionysian dichotomy.
SageMerlin: because it is well known that the current Masons are not the same Masons of antiquity, albeit that they are wonderful people who do good things.
AGplusone: 😉
SageMerlin: I think he resolves the Apollonian Dionysian dichotomy. IT IS ALL GOOD
SageMerlin: Mike is neither above it all nor against a little horizontal recreation
BPRAL22169: Yes — in fact, that’s how I see the Greeks, too, on the same matter. in the Bacchae, Pentheus is torn to pieces by the Maenads, and that is a restoration of the balance of divinities.
Major oz has entered the room.
AGplusone: Yo, Oz
BPRAL22169: Yo, oz.
SageMerlin: Way out OZ
SageMerlin: Or way in
Major oz: yo, all
Dehede011: Howdy, Oz.
AGplusone: wanna copy of log?
SageMerlin: Someone send this man the log
Major oz: took me 2 1/2 hours to get signed on
BPRAL22169: Out of propane?
SageMerlin: I told you to buy a PC
ddavitt: Hi oz
Major oz: I still can’t get to AOL via TCP/IP
markjmills: Ho, Oz
Major oz: I’m on with my local browser
ddavitt: Got you a copy of have Space Suit today if you still want it
SageMerlin: Oz, there is a trick to that…..
pakgwei: ???
SageMerlin: I do it all the time at work
Major oz: I will e-mail you with the address, Jane.
ddavitt: OK
Major oz: what’s the trick?
Major oz: ……normally, it works just fine
SageMerlin: I have this machine set up to BYOISP
BPRAL22169: The CAW is both Martian/Apollonian combined with Dionysian/Fosterite. Abd “Our way is better.”
Major oz: …sounds like Bill……
SageMerlin: I piggyback on Worldnet at home and the DLS at work….and it works fine in both locations.
SageMerlin: Let me look at my settings….
AGplusone: incoming, Oz
Major oz: I get onto my local server (4 modems, with one usually down, providing parts for the other three) and go to AOL via bring-your-own-ISP
Major oz: But can’t get to AOL tonight
Major oz: If it is on AOL, Dave, I can’t get to it.
Major oz: I will just sit back and catch up with the conversation.
AGplusone: give me, by IM your ISP e mail addy, please.
ddavitt: I have to go; can’t keep my eyes open:-(,see you saturday hopefully, enjoyed the chat.
SageMerlin: Okay folks attention to orders…oz and david will work that out.
AGplusone: see ya, Jane
SageMerlin: Good night Jane
Dehede011: Nite, Jane
ddavitt has left the room.
BPRAL22169: See you Saturday.
SAcademy: Nite, Jane
RaShaKaela: g’night
BPRAL22169: OK, where are we?
SageMerlin: minnow
SageMerlin: Come on, isn’t anyone going to ask?
RaShaKaela: What, you fishing for an answer? 😉
Major oz: what are we working out ?
BPRAL22169: “Sit right back and I’ll tell a tale –”
SageMerlin: FISH
SageMerlin: GA, Billl
BPRAL22169: as in ichthus?
SageMerlin: That was beneath itself.
BPRAL22169: Sorry — I was quoting the Gilligan’s Island theme song.
BPRAL22169: Ooooh!
Dehede011: Nite folks, this little indian is fatigued.
Dehede011 has left the room.
AGplusone: Nite Ron … thanks for coming
RaShaKaela: That was quick. :-\
Major oz: Geeeezzz, I bathed this week. I come in and you leave………..
SageMerlin: Happens to me all the time
AGplusone: You’re supposed to use soap, Oz, too.
Major oz: ooohhhh….shucks…..
SageMerlin: Attention to orders…..Brother Bill has the floor
Major oz: ga
AGplusone: /ga
BPRAL22169: Let’s see —
BPRAL22169: I’ve lost the thread. Please refresh me.
SageMerlin: We’re talking about Mysticism,,,,,the red socks chances this year,….
BPRAL22169: We were talking about both sides of the mystical … what, dilemma.
Major oz: ….something about Dionyses ?
AGplusone: BPRAL22169 (7:39 PM):The CAW is both Martian/Apollonian combined with Dionysian/Fosterite. Abd “Our way is better.”Major oz (7:40 PM):…sounds like Bill……
Major oz:
BPRAL22169: Is that where you wanted to go, Sage?
SageMerlin: You said you had a story just before I told mine, but I didn’t think you ever got yours in
BPRAL22169: There is also the bit about “power” and its abuses we could go out on.
BPRAL22169: Oh, that — the moment has passed. I just had handy a little anecdote about an ordinary moment that passed into the extraordinary.
SageMerlin: There is a saying among the Sufis that the secret protects itself.
AGplusone: which ties in to Mysterious Stranger and I Will Fear No Evil … with three in the brain and a bubble ending …
BPRAL22169: It’s an experience, so it’s awfully hard to talk about it in any meaningful way.
SageMerlin: Oh, one of those.
SageMerlin: never had one myself
BPRAL22169: Never. I’m sure.
SAcademy: Falling asleep. Nite, all.
SAcademy has left the room.
AGplusone: Isn’t the ability of literature to evoke experience ‘mystical’ in a way, e.g., “The Long Watch” that makes us all cry every time we read it?
BPRAL22169: No, this was quite odd. I was riding while a friend was driving, and some dry leaves blew across the road. My mind automatically started following the rhythm of one of the leaves bouncing on the roadway, and then another and another. If you listen to polyphonic music a lot, you develop the skill of follwoing multiple threads simultaneously.
AGplusone: Or ‘time-binding’
BPRAL22169: Only there were hundreds of leaves and they wree all bouncing in different rhythms. My mind went on “hold” — but it was an extraordinarily active hold.
BPRAL22169: Those leaves became the most important fact in the universe.
BPRAL22169: See what I mean about the experience. You had to be there — and even if you were…
AGplusone: Hmm … let me tell you one and you tell me if it’s like what you’re talking about.
AGplusone: Oddly enough it’s in the same venue as Lost Legacy.
BPRAL22169: It was like I was doing the whole of the cosmos, but it was the leaves doing it.
BPRAL22169: The leaves and I were grokking together, I guess.
RaShaKaela: Sounds wonderful.
BPRAL22169: /ga
BPRAL22169: Extaordinary experience — quite incommunicable.
Major oz: different from the normal evocative experience, bill?
AGplusone: My honeymoon … left LA after 6 PM, driving north to Seattle, and hit Shasta about 4 AM. Was year they first put Botts bumps on freeways in California
BPRAL22169: Yeah — butin a way I can’t explain in any linear fashion. “I have not words. I will read and read–”
AGplusone: Suddenly, the reflectors of the bumps, stretching out ahead went all over the road and started flashing, in the utmost darkness … no moon. Woke me up.
AGplusone: We stopped next place we found a motel and went to sleep …
Major oz: I guess I haven’t had that kind of experience, Bill. Closest I can come is the first time I swam with sharks.
Major oz: ….talk about focus…….
SageMerlin: Jeez, I do that every day….oh, sorry, they are lawyers.
RaShaKaela: heh
BPRAL22169: There is something about regular repetitive patterns. Note how many mystical methods involve something rhythmic — rocking for Jewish mystics, mantras…
AGplusone: uh-hmm … what I was talking about too, Oz
Major oz: yeah, Sage……..99% of lawyers give all of the rest a bad name…….
SageMerlin: The repetition of a sound, with a rhythm…..
BPRAL22169: RAH talks about that kind of experience as to the Redwoods in Beyond This Horizon.
AGplusone: the sound of my sports car tires hitting the projections of the bumps in the road?
SageMerlin: How about this one…..
AGplusone: hypnotic, the first time, back then before we got used to them
Major oz: White Line Fever
BPRAL22169: Or the regularly spaced reflections of the bumps.
BPRAL22169: Railway wheels.
SageMerlin: One of the major mysteries of the universe is the Mi-Fa interval….does anyone know about this????
AGplusone: no
RaShaKaela: ?
SageMerlin: It is the break in the regular pattern that causes people to awaken.
BPRAL22169: In Gurdjieff? Oh I see what you mean.
Major oz: ….or riding a C130 with just barely non-synchronized engines. Hetrodyne will get to you.
BPRAL22169: There’s a fascinating thing in neuroscience that corresponds with the mi-fa mystery.
SageMerlin: God, I had that happen to me once…..on a commercial jet. Boy was I glad to touch down that ime.
Major oz: mi-fa? C – D ?
BPRAL22169: If you interrupt an expected pattern, you get a dizzying eruption of brainwave activity.
SageMerlin: Exactly
BPRAL22169: Like an unexpected sentence completion: I ate rocks for breakfast.
AGplusone: Exactly and in my case, adrenline coming out my ears
BPRAL22169: After about a 5 microsecond delay. Utterly fascinating.
Major oz: so what’s the connection, Sage ?
DavidWrightSr: I personally don’t think that these things are really mystical, simply a neurological oddity.
SageMerlin: That if there is a constant theme that runs throughout RAH that is not present in other writers, it is the shock of unexpecsted recognitionl.;
SageMerlin: is there anyone who does not open warmly to Sir Issac Newton?
DavidWrightSr: After all, the brain is having to process information. A regular pattern allows it to slow down and then it is forced to speed up processing again when a break is found.
SageMerlin: because of the juxaposition of this supremely dangerous and yet considerate creature
Major oz: I once had a faculty guy working for me that was born in north India. He was a Budhist and had his PhD in pyhsics from Brookhaven. He swears he has seen his uncle levitate.
AGplusone: The bubble ending that angered me so much at the end of I Will Fear NO Evil
SageMerlin: Levitation is easy….try paying the taxes on an estate in Banbury.
SageMerlin: The British are going to tax themselves off the planet
SageMerlin: (((I am heading over later this month.))))
DavidWrightSr: You have an estate in Banbury?
AGplusone: Due for a ten minute one?
BPRAL22169: The TMers have a sidde for levitation.
Major oz: ….who will notice when they are gone?
BPRAL22169: Fine by me.
AGplusone: ‘kay, I get to go kiss my wife who just got home. brb
SageMerlin: Nah, just an apple orchard
BPRAL22169: Shall we break for 10 minutes, reconvene at 8:15?
Major oz: so, did you all define mysticism before I got here ?
SageMerlin: But it has a 12th century stone mill on it
DavidWrightSr: Neat.
SageMerlin: If we had defined mysticism, none of us would need to be here any more.
BPRAL22169: Oz, if you can get e-mail, I can send you a copy of the log.
BPRAL22169: That’s right: we would be supermen and gone from human ken!
SageMerlin: It was once owned by Franklin’s great uncle, and it was farmed by Washington’s great grandfather.
SageMerlin: Go figure
Major oz: go ahead and send it to my AOL address. Eventually I will get on and see it.
pakgwei: would be martians
Major oz: brb
DavidWrightSr: I’ll have the log on by morning. I’ll send out the notice as soon as I can.
AGplusone: What are “TMers” Bill. Trancental Mediationists.
AGplusone: scental
DavidWrightSr: Transcendental?
AGplusone: them guys
pakgwei has left the room.
DavidWrightSr: I always wondered what Teeth had to do with it ‘Teeth that transcend’? 🙂
BPRAL22169: Sorry — I was over on AOL sending a preliminary log to Oz.
AGplusone: Actually, thing I had the most fun with in Lost Legacy this time was reading about how LA was laid out in 39 … and how RAH guessed, wrong, it would develop with hosptal etc in that area
BPRAL22169: And that teeth remark is infra dig.
AGplusone: And how living around Griffith Park was almost as good as the Baldwin Park Res area
BPRAL22169: Yeah, well in 39 that was a ritzy area.
AGplusone: it was indeed, all restrictive covenants, etc.
AGplusone: Still is a nice area to live … unfortunately white flight occurred when they broke the covenants
BPRAL22169: it’s really only since — gosh, what was the black mayor’s name — anyway it’s only since his day that the area surrounding downtown on the west side turned into a ghetto
AGplusone: Lovely homes still there, and kept up nicely
AGplusone: Bradley
BPRAL22169: Bradley. That was the name.
BPRAL22169: Right.
BPRAL22169: There was a sweep of realestate mayors in major California cities in the 60’s and 70’s that have just rack-and-ruined their cities.
AGplusone: And gentrification of that area just west of downtown is starting back up … yuppies moving into old Vics and turning them into showcases again.
AGplusone: Five minutes from work downtown
RaShaKaela: And now those poor areas are being left without power for days at a time while upper-class and business districts get 3-hour “rolling blackouts.”
AGplusone: Not in LA … DW&P is selling excess energy to the rest
Major oz: finally got AOL running and have the logs…..thanx guys
AGplusone: They didn’t sell off their generators to “Texas Power”
BPRAL22169: De Nada. We got to work relatively early, and the “definitions” (such as they are) are pretty close to the top.
AGplusone: What topic now … Sage, Bill?
SageMerlin: Well, do you all want to talk about lost legacy??
SageMerlin: I just read it during the break.
BPRAL22169: Lot of stuff in there.
AGplusone: LOL … lots
BPRAL22169: I was fascinated originally by the referenes to Theosophy and Anthrosophy. They dont crop up anywhere else in his stories.
Major oz: Anyone here ever read John D. McDonald’s Ballroom of the Skies?
AGplusone: yes
SageMerlin: oh YES
DavidWrightSr: Is the ‘passing on to a higher level of existence’ a part of mysticism.
RaShaKaela: enlightenment
DavidWrightSr: Yes. About 40 years ago. Can’t remember a thing
SageMerlin: I will let you know in a few years
SageMerlin: Hopefully quite a few
Major oz: It seems to me that it and Lost Legacy can be sequels of each other.
AGplusone: as soon as I discorporate before I finish that novel I keep telling everyone I’m writing … I’ll know, won’t I?
Major oz: or prequels, or whatever……..they are the same story…..same cast, but slightly different purpose.
SageMerlin: How come no one noticed the name of the characster Huxley
AGplusone: I did.
AGplusone: First thing I thought
SageMerlin: Or Bierce?
BPRAL22169: But he doesn’t develop the reference.
SageMerlin: As in Ambrose.
AGplusone: allusion is sometimes enough
Major oz: Bierce was a real person, yes?
AGplusone: Huxley is in “If This Goes On …” as well.
Major oz: who disappeared in 1914
BPRAL22169: Again, not developed. I think the Bierce reference may be a red herring.
SageMerlin: When did RAH ever hit us over the head with his references
DavidWrightSr: Maybe Huxley was just coincidence. After all characters have to to be named something.
Major oz: nah
Major oz: ..Sage
AGplusone: three separate stories?
SageMerlin: When did RAH every settle for coincidence?
AGplusone: Anyone ever read his debates with Wilberforce?
BPRAL22169: He hit us over the head with his references all the time — we’re often just too dense to realize we’ve been hit.
Major oz: Can the legless, faceless nasty be considered related to “black hats”?
SageMerlin: A book discussing the idea of waking up in someone else’s body with the name Huxley juxaposed?
SageMerlin: Your hit is my elegantly touched
BPRAL22169: Hmmm– perhaps you are more “sensitive” than I.
DavidWrightSr: Well, she said that he had never met Huxley, but he could well have read him/them, I suppose.
Major oz: ….or are we in a different universe…..not WAM ?
AGplusone: A book involving revolution against religion with Huxley as CINC of the rebels?
AGplusone: Who dies like Patton wanted to die?
BPRAL22169: And in charge of practical miracles.
AGplusone: Gloriously in the last battle.
AGplusone: And his lieutenant carries on to victory
SageMerlin: The pint comes across
SageMerlin: point
AGplusone: Could use a pint too
DavidWrightSr: I’ll take that pint. Where is Jani?
Major oz: Yankee showing through, Sage
SageMerlin: One of the problems with our reductions of RAH is that he never told ANYONE everything
SageMerlin: Some interesting nonsequiters:
Major oz: Thank dog for that.
BPRAL22169: Not only that — he didn’t get around to putting everything in.
BPRAL22169: So we’ve only got pieces of the puzzle.
AGplusone: secretive … yeah, that too … wonder where he was going to end up …
Major oz: If he did, our imagination wouldn’t carry us into the story as it does.
SageMerlin: Here is a man obsessed with his own impending death, in precarious health for much of his life…..
SageMerlin: who writes about a man who cheats death by living forever
AGplusone: always writing about immortality …
SageMerlin: and who is brought back from the edge…repeatedly…often not wanting to be back among the living
DavidWrightSr: That’s the beauty of Heinlein, leaves it to *our* imagination. Just like radio used be before TV
AGplusone: Time Enough For Love … what more do we need?
SageMerlin: And if he can’t get there one way, he will get there another way….
SageMerlin: Since he can’t rewrite his genes
SageMerlin: He invents a way to move his consciousness into another body
BPRAL22169: Karmic reincarnation with only some of the bother.
AGplusone: To Sail Beyond the Sunset … go, Odyseus, Go!
SageMerlin: The key question in in mysticism is this:
SageMerlin: What is this all about?
SageMerlin: Where were we before we came here and where do we go when we leave
BPRAL22169: And that’s Heinlein’s key question over and over.
DavidWrightSr: I can see why Bill equates mysticism with religion then.
Major oz: There is another way to put it: “do I / should I give a shit?”
BPRAL22169: Hamilton Felix’s dilemma.
SageMerlin: Which is the military part of RAH speaking?
AGplusone: It is …! I agree, Oz
SageMerlin: We all know that we may face a circumstance in which we have to lay down our lives, and we are all prepared to do that in our own way.
AGplusone: And the answer was always yes … but you got to pick what kind of shit you cared about
SageMerlin: But none of us wants to
BPRAL22169: So does that make Heinlein the most powerful religious writer in science fiction?
Major oz: exactamundo
SageMerlin: My God, the man has been preaching for five decades
DavidWrightSr: And you won’t really know the answer until it hits the fan.
Major oz: and each of us pipcks something different…..which makes it tolerable to live with each other.
BPRAL22169: If it is “the” and “answer.”
Major oz: picks
AGplusone: I read Long Watch today … there’s a part there when Johnnie is sitting perfectly happy and at peace with his situation … already dead, but allowed for a time to walk about the world … that’s the part that makes me cry, every damned time
labert8 has left the room.
SageMerlin: So, I carry my piece and my shiv, and David doesn’t want a weapon near jhim
BPRAL22169: But we’re all already dead and allowed to walk the erth for a time.
RaShaKaela: Good point
SageMerlin: I some ways that is RAH saying that;s how he wished he had gone out, a hero’
AGplusone: yep … life the terminal disease
Major oz: its the HOW, not the WHY
SageMerlin: Grok this.
RaShaKaela: Or perhaps the why, not the how.
Major oz: the how is now vested in my grandkids
SageMerlin: My nephew is in another window./
Major oz: the why used to be the most important
Major oz: ….not now
AGplusone: ” home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill …”
SageMerlin: telling me that my father is in the hospital right now
RaShaKaela: *comf*
Major oz: ……with no damn quail…..
BPRAL22169: Do you need to leave.
SageMerlin: No, this is the point of it
SageMerlin: He is happy to be there
SageMerlin: Because they are doing a procedure to relieve the pain from his neurlagia
SageMerlin: But through this modern miracle, I can carry on a conversation about his welfare while we talk about these things.
BPRAL22169: And that reminds me: we should wind this up thinking about grok.
AGplusone: ‘kay
DavidWrightSr: ‘grokking’ grok?
SageMerlin: Story Time
SageMerlin: Just for us chickens
Major oz: Is there such a thing as a young mystic, or are they all old?
AGplusone: /ga
SageMerlin: Most of the real teacher ascend when they are quite young.
SageMerlin: My master took the chair at 26
AGplusone: How old is Kim?
SageMerlin: and has been sitting on it for 50 years
SageMerlin: Who is kim?
Major oz: from RP?
AGplusone: Kipling’s Kim
SageMerlin: I think he is around 14
AGplusone: and about 18 or so at the end …
Major oz: For me, mysticism presupposes wisdom. Wisdom usually (not always) requires a minimum age.
SageMerlin: And how old was Einstein when he developed the theory or relativity?
SageMerlin: 26
Major oz: …..or, rather, a munumum experience with the world
AGplusone: And all his travels, which parallel Thorby’s result in his becoming a mystic … with his teacher dying at the end instead of the beginning like Baslim
Major oz: I don’t see anything mystical about alfred
Major oz: ….under any definition I know of.
Major oz: Now Feynman…….well there was one.
AGplusone: Baslim keeps giving Thorby instruction from the grave like an Old One …
Major oz: He never got to Tanu Tuva
AGplusone: the memorized instructions he doesn’t understand until he picks up the languages ..
SageMerlin: An old Sufi practice, by the way
AGplusone: The voice in his head like Hendricks that Max Jones hears
SageMerlin: No
AGplusone: No?
SageMerlin: Hendricks is there in person
Major oz: Jane and I talked about that, some.
AGplusone: Not the last time …
SageMerlin: He feels the old man;s hands on his shoulders
AGplusone: when Max thinks he feels the shoulders … yes, there in that sense
Major oz: Voices vs. thinking: “what would ______say to me?”
DavidWrightSr: Kelly thought he was there too
AGplusone: WWRAHD! 😀
SageMerlin: Thorby, as you all know I feel, is the epitome of the master student relations
SageMerlin: ship
SageMerlin: And it doesn’t hurt that Baslim plays the role of a beggar and is anything but….another Sufi tradition, by the way.
Major oz: Do you think it reverses, Sage?
AGplusone: That’s because Kelley was already a disciple of Hendricks.
SageMerlin: What do you mean, reverses?
AGplusone: Kelley probably heard him all the time
BPRAL22169: On the fringes of the divine clown tradition.
Major oz: Does thorby become the master?
AGplusone: We dunno … like Kim we’re left in the media res
SageMerlin: In the sequel I am writing – was writing before I started the dot.com – he was more the acolyte.
AGplusone: middle of things
BPRAL22169: Yes. I dont’ see Thorby ever becoming master of anything. he is mastered by some things. His fortune, for instance. His dedication to the ideas of the X corps.
Major oz: Mike and Jubal have a constantly reversing master/student relationship. Many flips in the course of the story.
BPRAL22169: Thorby is not an originator of traditions – he is not the overman that Baslim was.
AGplusone: Let him get a couple years on him, Bill … like say at age 40
SageMerlin: Actually, Thorby is something of a tragic figure.
SageMerlin: He is not Basilm
BPRAL22169: Yes. For exactly those reasons.
Major oz: …..my point about wisdom / experience / age
SageMerlin: No, not because of age or experience, but because Baslim was looking at slavery from the outside in, and Thorby is looking at it from the inside out.
BPRAL22169: Karmic.
SageMerlin: Do you know of any successful slave rebellion that did not turn tragic?
SageMerlin: I don;t
Major oz: I thought there were hints that Baslim had once been “inside”.
BPRAL22169: He was the pharmakos for his parents’ involvement in the slave trade.
DavidWrightSr: Baslim reminds me of Colonel Dubois/Major Reid in Starship Troopers. The teacher, physically disabled, but with the insight that transcends the disability.
AGplusone: Lost Prince story …
BPRAL22169: Through him comes purgation, katharsis, healing. But it’s not a light burden.
Major oz: The White Ship…..
SageMerlin: He is a dark deliverer
AGplusone: always left in the middle … with Prince going to become King, like Mowgli, some day
AGplusone: Tarzan coming back to Greystroke
RaShaKaela: Baslim = Bagheera? 😉
Major oz: ?
AGplusone: possible
SageMerlin: I suspect that Thorby would be come a lightning rod for evil energy
AGplusone: pass it safely into the ground
BPRAL22169: Certainly the potential is there. Would it come from the X-corps?
SageMerlin: But Baslim is indeed a model for a spiritual teacher because he transcends x corps.
AGplusone: Just as Kim’s potential playing the “great game” is there …
SageMerlin: He uses X corps to achieve his own ends
BPRAL22169: I seem to recall that X corps formed itself around Baslim.
SageMerlin: No, he joined it, not the other way around.
BPRAL22169: So in the Nietzschean sense, he had the X corps within him.
DavidWrightSr: I don’t think so. ‘He went to the only corps that would take him’.
AGplusone: Only place he could fit after he lost his legs
BPRAL22169: I meant it remolded itself to accommodate him.
SageMerlin: The sentence reads, that once he was invalided, the only service that would take him was X aco0rps
BPRAL22169: The way Gray Lensmen and then Second Stage Lensmen were developed.
SageMerlin: Oh, God. I want my lensmen back
AGplusone: Like the Commodant in Troopers, in his wheel chair, going back from CINC to a BrGen
SageMerlin: Are they in print
BPRAL22169: to accommodate the new potentialities that were coming into being under the Arisians’ breeding program.
AGplusone: Yes.
RaShaKaela: I believe they were all just recently reissued.
BPRAL22169: Now, Alan, it’s time for you to start buying the Shasta originals!
SageMerlin: Hey, I run a bank. I don;t own one.
BPRAL22169: There is absolutely nothing like the original Gray Lensman hardback with the rogers cover.
SageMerlin: Hurt me again, why don;t you.
BPRAL22169: Heheh!
SageMerlin: My mother decided I didn;t need tjhem any more.
Major oz: Yes, Sage. For Xmas, 99, I got the bound set with the original illustrations. They are in the “larger” paperbacks.
RaShaKaela: AAGGHHHHH
BPRAL22169: Arg! Argargargh!
SageMerlin: No kidding
RaShaKaela: Trade ppb.
RaShaKaela: Puts them out of my price range. :-\
AGplusone: http://168.150.253.1/~zlensman/lensfaq.html
AGplusone: EE Smith republications
SageMerlin: Speaking of which, I have never gotten around to reading the original version of Thorby because I can’t bear to touch the pages….they crumble
SageMerlin: I was going to scan them but I can’t scan them without destroying them
AGplusone: I made a xerox of them, Sage. I can send you a copy
BPRAL22169: I just looked on E-bay; the next Doc Smithup for auction is an original Triplanetary with dust jacket. $51 with 3 days to run.
BPRAL22169: If you’re not registerd with E-bay, Alan, i’ll be happy to purchasethem for you as they come up.
SageMerlin: David, please do. I can case the originals and not bear the guilt of distruction.
AGplusone: Okay … take me a bit of time, but we’ll talk this week via phone
SageMerlin: A very generous offer….my exchecquer must be consulted….
SageMerlin: My owner and I may be coming to a parting of the ways.
AGplusone: ummm … Mark are you there?
SageMerlin: Been thinking about relocating to the UK for awhile, after Asa goes off to college in the fall.
AGplusone: What did we finally decide about brunch, Bill?
AGplusone: Sunday, tenish, in Century City?
SageMerlin: About the phone, David….I am blitzed right now…..I am not answering my phone if I don’t know who it is, so if you use an id blocker you have to take it off before you call.
AGplusone: ‘kay … I’ll hit the code number or whatever it is … or IM you on line and give you a time
BPRAL22169: I just got an e-mail from RJ saying he cannot come either. shall we put it off for two weeks? (or else next Saturday)
AGplusone: Saturday is fine …
BPRAL22169: Alan, I just put in a preemptive bid of $75 on that Triplanetary and was immediately outbid, so whoever else is bidding it is serious.
SageMerlin: Hmmm.. Maybe I have to make do with the reprints.
Major oz: Do we have a subject for next time?
BPRAL22169: There are also reprints on E-bay. I see two lots of three paperbacks in the Lensman series.
SageMerlin: Let me wander over there myself.
BPRAL22169: We do have a subject for next time — but I cannot remember it offhand.
AGplusone: or the xeroxes … I love those illustrations … Rosenberg was here before we started, Oz, for about twenty minutes … but he’s four weeks off, isn’t he?
BPRAL22169: It was one Jane developed.
SageMerlin: Focus your concentration on your left indedx rfinger
DavidWrightSr: Joel is in 4 weeks. I don’t recall next topic either
Major oz: Jane has one ? OK
BPRAL22169: We’ve got a bit of time to get the kickoff post up.
AGplusone: Rasha? Any ideas?
BPRAL22169: yes – anything you’d be particularly interested in?
AGplusone: Topics for next times …
BPRAL22169: Or Mark or Alan either.
BPRAL22169: BTW, Mark, where are you located IRL?
AGplusone: Eagle Rock
Major oz: We no longer have a posting board that is specificaly related to this chat site, do we?
AGplusone: I think he’s afk
markjmills: A couple of things in the back of my mind…but I’d rather think thm through and write them down to be explored…
AGplusone: afh …
BPRAL22169: OK — so Century City would probably be more convenient fo rhim also. Shall we keep it at the Stage Deli next Saturday a.m.?
markjmills: W. 86th St., Manhattan — temporarily, at least.
RaShaKaela: Sorry, let me read back. Had to make a head call……..
AGplusone: Next as in 9 days …
AGplusone: or two?
Major oz: 14
BPRAL22169: Nine days. We still couldn’t get Cassutt in only 2 days; he’ll be out of town.
AGplusone: either is fine with me …
Major oz: sorry, thought you were talking to me…….
markjmills: Lucky Angelenos!
DavidWrightSr: Well, everyone. When Sage made the comment about the questions of mysticism, I think that I finally understood what Heinlein and mysticism had to do with each other. I think you are right.
Major oz: ain’t no such thing, Mark
Major oz: They just make the best of a bad situation.
Major oz: 🙂
BPRAL22169: Ah! We won! We won!
markjmills: LOL
DavidWrightSr: I graciously concede. So if I understand it , then everyone understands it. Right?
Major oz: ?
BPRAL22169: We are sometimes blinded by the dogmatic religions we are surrounded with.
markjmills: Absolutely NO one from the group is in MYC, though…
BPRAL22169: Heinlein did talk about important religious ideas.
Major oz: Moo York City ?
RaShaKaela: Heh
BPRAL22169: And “grok,” the only word of Martian we learn, means “mystical union.”
markjmills: The cattle are on in the subways.
DavidWrightSr: Makes sense.
RaShaKaela: another way of saying “enlightenment” perhaps
SageMerlin: Enlightment
BPRAL22169: Illumination.
markjmills: That is, if “mystical” can EVER be satisfactorily defined — and I posit that’s the toughest row to hoe.
SageMerlin: There was a sufi master who took ship to go across the boshperue
SageMerlin: you know what I mean
BPRAL22169: I’ve forgotten the buddhis term. Not Samadhi…
SageMerlin: Bospherus
DavidWrightSr: Bosporus
BPRAL22169: From Asia Minor to Europe.
SageMerlin: That too
Major oz: …easy for you to say….
AGplusone: wish you were still up in the Sierras, Oz, we could talk you into getting into your car one Friday …
SageMerlin: half way across a storm grew up
Major oz: Mayhap in late June
AGplusone: that would be a dream!
RaShaKaela: I can’t think of a topic, right now, sorry. Don’t know what’s been covered recently and my brain simply will not engage. :-\
SageMerlin: At the beginning of the trip,
Major oz: ok, Sage…..and then………?
SageMerlin: the teacher asked the sailor if he had read the great masters
SageMerlin: and the sailor said, no, he hadn’t the time
SageMerlin: and the teacher said
SageMerlin: then the first half of your life has been wasted.
SageMerlin: In the middle of the storm, the sailor asked the teacher if he had ever learned to swim
SageMerlin: and the teacher said no, he had never had the time
BPRAL22169: LOL
SageMerlin: and the sailor said, then the second half of your life has been wasted
RaShaKaela: Heh
SageMerlin: because we;re sinking
BPRAL22169: How very Sufi.
SageMerlin: It;s not over yet]
AGplusone: The Golden Mean … how medieval …
BPRAL22169: Does it get less Sufi?
AGplusone: keep going
SageMerlin: Some years later, the sailor having learned to read, had become a great mulla
SageMerlin: He was attending a meeting in Turkey
SageMerlin: when he heard someone singing
SageMerlin: La illah ha il allah
SageMerlin: off key and out orf cadence.
SageMerlin: Unable to to stand the cacaphony
SageMerlin: he jumped into a boat and rowed out to an island in the harbor
SageMerlin: where he found a ragged old dervish
SageMerlin: chanting his matra
SageMerlin: Being quite full of himself and not the simple sailor he had once been
SageMerlin: he remonstrated with the old dervish, giving him the correct pronunciation and cadence
SageMerlin: and not recognizing his former passenger started rowing back to shore
SageMerlin: The old dervish started his chant according to the mulla’s instruction but after a few mintuets
SageMerlin: he was back to his old form
SageMerlin: He stopped.
SageMerlin: The mullah heard a curious sound
SageMerlin: He turned to see the old dervish running toward him on the water
SageMerlin: calling out, “Master, master, how did you say that song goes….”
BPRAL22169: LOL
AGplusone: [ROFL!]
SageMerlin: at which the mullah replied, “You can sing it any way you want.”
Major oz: good show
RaShaKaela: 😀
SageMerlin: And that;s what I think that Robert was all about.
BPRAL22169: Very, very good.
RaShaKaela: [applause]
AGplusone: so the old ones have their old ones too, ad infinitum
BPRAL22169: And with that, we are at 9:05
BPRAL22169: And it’s time to end this chat — a very good one, I might add.
SageMerlin: Who are you kdding …it’s midnight
Major oz: good note to finish on
RaShaKaela: I’m definitely going to want a copy of this log! 🙂
BPRAL22169: Not on the left coast!
SageMerlin: rub it in why don’t you
BPRAL22169: You may rest content at being ahead of us!
AGplusone: And today we had bright sun and lovely blue skies, just as in 39 when these two were written …
BPRAL22169: Gentles, thanks for coming. We’llbe doing it again on Saturday at 2 pm PST, 5 pm EST, and middling times in the middle.
Major oz: see you all Saturday (assuming this stuff works then)
SageMerlin: Oh, one last thought…for us chickens
BPRAL22169: /ga
RaShaKaela: Grrrrrrrrr. [thinking about cold white stuff all over the ground outside, and only a couple days of sunshine in the last several weeks.]
AGplusone: ‘kay
markjmills: Time for good night, all. This was interesting — I’ll have to read the log MOST carefully! 🙂 Hope to see you all again soon; be well.
AGplusone: [reason it was so remarkable is it was shinning liquid sunshine on us the last three weeks]
markjmills has left the room.
Major oz: nite, all
AGplusone: shining … ?
Major oz has left the room.
AGplusone: Might be night …
RaShaKaela: good night, all
RaShaKaela has left the room.
AGplusone: real sleepy?
AGplusone: me too … see ya all.
BPRAL22169: Ok. I’ll *poof* deliberately now.
BPRAL22169: ciao.
SageMerlin: bailing
AGplusone has left the room.
SageMerlin: Geronimo
BPRAL22169 has left the room.
SageMerlin has left the room.
Final End Of Discussion Log
