Dear Renaissance Network,
On this Left Bio (deep ecology) list I'm on, the topic of magic has come up.
It seems to me magic can work in marvellously wierd and wonderful ways,
using even such a "sold out" figure as Santa to work its ways.
I can't help but love the way Francis P. Church replied to Virginia all
those years ago and will copy that famous text below. I'll add on part of a
discussion from the Left Bio list, including something Starhawk wrote about
magic.
Loving best wishes to us all (this list and, as native people might say "all
our relations" which includes non-humans as well), Jan
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Dear Editor,
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is
there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
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Yes, Virginia - there is a Santa Claus
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the
skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They
think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.
All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In
this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect
as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the
intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and
generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to
your life its highest beauty and joy.
Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would
be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike
faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We
should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with
which shildhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You
might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas
eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming
down, what would that prove? Nobody can concieve or imagine all the wonders
there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
Francis P. Church, New York, 1897
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From: "Postnikov" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: End-year letter: More on tactility
Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 23:57:01 +0300
>Dear John, and other LBs,
>
>I'm trying to recollect many pieces of thought these days that were
>scattered on many (uncoordinated) letters, responses, books, articles, etc.
>and, simply, sensations, that I had in recent days, or, maybe, months.
>Let me, first, identify the ideas that are brooding in me, and then I will
>try to coalesce them into a more consistent "vision".
>
>First, the idea of a lost tactility. This has been spurred, probably, by
>my unconscious personal dislike of numerical methods of calculations
>(specifically, finite elements method in electromagnetics) as contrasted to
>analytical methods that I was deeply involved with in the 80's, and the
>subsequent invasion of PCs in the 90's. (Or was it vice versa? I mean, were
>the numerical methods spurred by the computers? I guess it was a mutual
>amplification). Let me explain. In analytical method you are the major actor
>in finding the solution; in numerical, you delegate this function to a
>computer, and passively accept, or do not accept, the result. I mean, from
>now on, computers stood between the man and the world, and the humans were
>doomed to understand the world through the machines. (Actually, they were
>doomed much earlier since the invention of scientific tools). At once, I
>felt the enmity to science, and it lost any attractiveness for me ever
>since. I understood that humans yielded to a machine their most
>revered, ultimate faculty, i.e., an ability to understand the world first
>hand.
>
>I turned to poetry at once, with some unknown rapture and gratitude. I saw
>in it the only powers that could oppose the machine.
>At that moment (1995) at the America House library in Kiev, I haphazardly
>ran into a book by Stephen Talbott called "The Future Does not Compute", and
>immediately became addictive to it. Talbott formulates many ideas that were
>brooding in me for years, gives a thorough description of our phobias hidden
>in computers, and steadies my path towards poetry and tactility. Besides,
>thanks to Talbott, I'm acquainted with the anthroposophic literature, and
>Waldorf education - a perfect antidote to turning us into bio-robots. (I
>vainly searched for Waldorf schools here in Kiev for my daughter.)
>Here is only one citation from his book:
>
>The computer gains a certain autonomy - runs by
>itself - on the strength of its embedded reflection of human
>intelligence.
>We are thus confronted from the world by the active
>powers of our own, most mechanistic mental functioning.
>
>Several months of this year were spent by me in translating another book of
>crucial importance - that has a ring of Talbott's book - Marshall McLuhan's
>Guttenberg Galaxy (written in the 50's).
>McLuhan, has studied a long historical way on which humans have lost their
>inherent audio-tactility of language, mainly due to the print, introduced by
>Gutenberg in the 15th century. McLuhan calles the phonetic language the
>"first technology" that abstracted men from the world, with even more
>abstraction followed through printing. Print has triggered linear
>perspective, pictorial thinking, and markets, which finally, brought us to
>machines, and, their later hypostasis, computers. McLuhan sees this
>artificial human predicament, but, paradoxicaly, relies on the electronic
>world ("global village") as a retreat into tribalism, which, presumably,
>regains the lost tactility. I say "paradoxically" because, as S.Talbott,
>has shown, this is not the case: the monster of abstraction becomes even
>more shrewd.
>
>However, there is an attempt to "authorise" the development of machines from
>the side of modern philosophers which see the "naturalness" in increasing
>complexy of the artificial world. We, humans, are bound to develop our
>faculties through ever more sophisticated machines (nanotechnology, genetic
>engineering, nuclear fusion are only some examples) , in order to fight
>against the natural disasters (such as decease, imperfect genomes, possible
>asteroids, depletion of resources, etc), and, eventually, I gather, reach
>the state of immortality. But note that the complexity has a reference
>largely to technologies, no one is talking abour the raising the abilities
>of humans as such. The protesting voices are weak or are made so.
>Non-the-less, some are brave enough to get through the media, they receive
>both indignation and praise. (For example, see an amazing confession of Bill
>Joy, a cofounder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems in an article
>called "Why The Future Does Not need Us?" in a Wired magazine, Spring,
>2000. He echoes S.Talbott very much).
>
>The only powers that have enough magic to fight this "scientific
>spiritualism" is poetry and regained tactility, or what McLuhan calles
>"interplay of senses". This can be achieved by fostering human creativity
>which can by-pass the application of machines. In some respect, this could
>be the marrying of ancient Greece with medieval mysticism. There's much
>wisdom in Eastern philosophies, such as Tantra, or Zen. But it is important
>that we stay within our own, "western" context. We need to be ourselves.
>This will strengthen cultural diversity. I see the potentialities primarily
>in art, handicraft, music and... magic.
>Yes, yes, magic. The man has the powers that he does not even has a
>conjecture of. Humans need to develop their inherent faculties, for they
>will help to overcome the limits imposed by materialism. And what's more:
>these faculties will not require the depleting material "resources" of the
>earth; instead, they feed upon the earth's unfathomed spiritual resources.
>In this respect, the message by John (below), has this guessing about
>"other" human faculties that our ancesters have known long before but we
>lost on the way. Yet, on a more general basis, I tend to think that
>"modern sciences" as we know them today, also belong to the domain of magic,
>yet of a lower quality, or level, so that we are studying in the "primary
>classes", and still need more diligence to graduate to "real magic class".
>
>The people tend to lean to each other, they lean to nature, too, for this is
>their inborn tactility. But sometimes they do not know how to use this
>unconscious bent, and they act according to established formulas and do not
>have the guts to overcome their spell.
>The tension in the world is increasing daily, or, maybe, even hourly. The
>world that was built on materialism for the last several centuries is giving
>way to a new perception of humans - as spiritual creatures. All our
>institutions based on consumption, industrialism, exploitation of people and
>earth suddenly appear obsolete and poorly conceived, despite all
>high-praised rationality. The wars that we are witnessing today are only the
>convultions that the new world engenders. Or rather, it is the same old
>world that is struggling to throw away its chagrin skin of imposed
>rationality and reconsider its relations to earth.
>
>Taking this end year opportunity, I have to thank all folks for
>our communion which has been inspiring and suggested much food for thought.
>Good health and luck to everyone in the years to come.
>
>Victor Postnikov
>
>
> It is for the union of you and me
> that there is light in the sky.
> It is for the union of you and me
> that the earth is decked in dusky green.
>
> It is for the union of you and me
> the night sits motionless
> with the world in her arms;
> dawn appears opening the eastern door
> with sweet murmurs in her voice.
>
> The boat of hope sails along on the currents of
> eternity towards that union,
> flowers of the ages are being gathered together
> for its welcoming ritual.
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Jan,s message:
Dear Left Bios, Dec. 22
<snip>
And the topic of "magic":
>The only powers that have enough magic to fight this "scientific
>spiritualism" is poetry and regained tactility, or what McLuhan calles
>"interplay of senses". This can be achieved by fostering human creativity
>which can by-pass the application of machines. <snip> I see the
potentialities primarily in art, handicraft, music and... magic.
<snip>
What is magic? Starhawk wrote, in _Truth or Dare_ (p. 6): Magic is a word
that can be defined in many different ways. A saying attributed to Dion
Fortune is: "Magic is the art of changing consciousness at will." I
sometimes call it the art of evoking power-from-within [as opposed to power
vested in a person by virtue of their position, authority or whatever].
Today I will name it this: the art of liberation, the act that releases the
mysteries, that ruptures the fabric of our beliefs and lets us look into the
heart of deep space where dwell the immeasurable, life-generating powers."
This gets back to another thing Viktor wrote:
We, humans, are bound to develop our
>faculties through ever more sophisticated machines (nanotechnology, genetic
>engineering, nuclear fusion are only some examples) , in order to fight
>against the natural disasters (such as decease, imperfect genomes, possible
>asteroids, depletion of resources, etc), and, eventually, I gather, reach
>the state of immortality. But note that the complexity has a reference
>largely to technologies, no one is talking abour the raising the abilities
>of humans as such.
The path Starhawk outlines and the path I hope I am on require developing
our human potential in order to make love real/bring magic into our
struggles, etc. There is lots of work to be done!
<snip>
all the best, Jan
