The Institute for the Advancement of Psychedelic Christianity

Click here to go to Mary Jo’s site and listen to our new song, “At the Blue Edge of Somewhere.”

https://maryjocall.wixsite.com/music

“Here, as everywhere, the Unfulfilled Intention, which makes life what it is, was as obvious as it could be among the depraved crowds of a city slum. The leaf was deformed, the curve was crippled, the taper was interrupted; the lichen eat the vigor of the stalk, and the ivy slowly strangled to death the promising sapling.”
–Thomas Hardy, in The Woodlanders

The initial capitals of Hardy’s “Unfulfilled Intention” suggest that it is God’s intention that is unfulfilled, but Nicolas of Cusa says that only creatures have, seemingly, unfulfilled intentions, because “each loves by preference that perfection which God has given it and strives to develop and preserve it intact.” This purpose is only seemingly unfulfilled due to wasted talents, errors, injuries, and deaths, because

“Only in a finite fashion is the infinite form received. Every creature is, as it were, ‘God-created’ or ‘finite-infinity’, with the result that no creature’s existence could be better than it is. It is as if the Creator had said ‘Let it be produced’, and, because God, who is eternity itself, could not be brought into being, that was made which could most resemble God. The inference from this is that every creature, as such, is perfect, though by comparison with others it may seem imperfect.” [Here follows the favorite passage I quoted at the front of Dreams and Resurrection.]
–Nicolas of Cusa, Of Learned Ignorance, The Second Book, Chapter II

Thus, Hardy’s “depraved crowds of a city slum” seem imperfect, exemplifying an unfulfilled intention, compared to one’s family and friends who are more prosperous and cultured, but they bear no less a resemblance to God, and each of them, as such, is perfect. The deformed leaf, with its crippled curve and interrupted taper, seems imperfect, and an example of an unfulfilled intention, compared to more well-formed leaves; and we can imagine the deformed leaf wishing to be a well-formed one; but if Nicolas is right, it, like every other creature, “rests content in its own perfection, which God has freely bestowed upon it.” Nicolas says that every creature “loves by preference that perfection which God has given it and strives to develop and preserve it intact.” Then, when, for whatever reason, a stalk grows less vigorously than others, it would be wrong if it were jealous and compared itself to a stalk on a nearby tree that is lichen-free, because its perfection consists in its striving to grow in its own circumstances. And similarly with the promising sapling strangled by the ivy.

And similarly with us in our finitude, our frustrations, sicknesses, and mortality. These constitute the perfection that God has given us, even though they may seem to be imperfections in comparison to someone else’s circumstances. We are right to love the perfection God has given each of us, and right to strive to develop and preserve it intact. I can compare myself with someone else who seems more perfect in some way than me. But I shouldn’t be jealous, because I could exchange my perfections, which seem by comparison to be imperfections, for those of someone who seems more perfect, only if I could cease to be me and become somehow that other person, and he me. But in that case, nothing would really be any different. We are each of us, in some way we can’t understand, images of the unique infinite form. That is what I take, so far, from my reading of Nicolas of Cusa’s Of Learned Ignorance.

PS
See “Kurt Gödel’s Argument for an Afterlife” to see how he used the idea of unfulfilled intention in this world as a premise of his reasoning to the conclusion that there is another world where the intention is fulfilled.
https://myiapc.com/kurt-godels-argument-for-an-afterlife/

What is the connection/difference between fun and beauty? Beauty is more serious. Something can be fun but not beautiful, but if something is ugly, it isn’t really fun. Which is worse: a failed attempt at beauty or a failed attempt at fun? A failed attempt at fun can be worse. A tragedy that occurs when someone was trying to have fun may be worse than a similar tragedy that occurred when someone was attempting something noble. “What a waste!” one might say in the former case. Nobody thinks seeking fun is noble, but trying to create beauty is. When beauty and fun are combined, they enhance each other. These thoughts were prompted by seeing strings of lights on some trees during my walk this evening. They reminded me of an amusement park, and they were beautiful. But if one were feeling dizzy or sick from a failed attempt at fun, they wouldn’t help at all and might lend a mocking air of scorn as if someone were judging you.

Here are the lyrics I wrote for the hymn of the Church of Sunshine, sometime in the 1980s. I would love to have this recorded some time with a choir and organ.

Driving on in cold black rain,
Leaving back there that whole scene,
Arriving on the coastal plain,
Waves of color wash the screen.

People always rediscover,
Things of true and lasting worth.
O'er a dazzling model world I hovered,
Then opened my eyes to a transformed earth!

Tenderfoot, the L-train calls you.
Mystic veteran, come on home.
Bright reminders, yellow and blue,
Light your way where'er you roam.

Perfectly tiny, the mighty engine,
Of LSD, O happy race,
Helps you make a great religion,
Of weird and familiar both the base.

Here are the lyrics I wrote for a new song by Mary Jo. I’ll post a link to the music after she and the singer record it.

At the blue edge of somewhere,
At a time, who knows when?
Wise children have fun there,
And link now to then.

We are those children,
And the world is brand new,
Glist'ning with fresh morning dew.

Air begins flowing,
Cold winds start blowing,
We stand here strong and free.
Older, maybe wiser, maybe not, let's see.
Pains will test us.
How strong can we be?

Now the tears of frustration
Make it all seem so vain.
A dark tide is rising.
We're pelted by rain.

Feeling uneasy,
Not sure just what is wrong,
What were the words to our song?

Then, at the edge of the darkness,
Bright'ning begins in blue.

Someone sings,
Of worlds
Unseen,
It's clear,
We're here,
Still.

At the blue edge of somewhere,
At a time, who knows when?
Wise children have fun there,
And link now to then.

We are those children,
And the world is brand new,
Glist'ning with fresh morning dew,
Golden and shining and blue.

Early this morning, lying in bed, this thought came to me: All that we can accomplish in this life (and it is well worth accomplishing) is an approximation to the real thing which requires no accomplishing by us. Later this morning, on X, I saw a posting from Lara Buchak of this Aeon article about Kurt Gödel’s argument for an afterlife: https://aeon.co/essays/kurt-godel-his-mother-and-the-argument-for-life-after-death

Is there only one place, or are there many places? Why isn’t this like asking, “Is there only one world, or are there many worlds?”

–Because I’ve been in many places, but I’ve only been in this one world.

If you have been only in this world, then where were you before you came into it, and where will you be when you leave it?

–Nowhere.

Nowhere is relative to somewhere. If I ask you where you have been, and you answer “Nowhere”, then I take you to mean that you were here all along or else that you don’t want to tell me.

We think of this world (universe) as if it were a single place with no other places, nothing outside it, as if all possible places must be contained in it, and console or frighten ourselves with its vastness, despite being confined to one small part of it. But just as we know that its history is not the only possible history and that the future is open to many alternatives—and if you deny that you know these things, I challenge you to quit talking and acting as if you do–, so its space is not the only possible space, its regularities are not the only possible regularities, and one’s habits are not the only possible ones.

It doesn’t follow that there is any urgency to change or move. Neither does it follow that there is no urgency. One always needs urgently to repent, but this has nothing to do with making history or moving things around in space or changing worlds.

I’ve heard people say, “We all want to change the world.” But the only time you change worlds are the times when you die and the times when you are born. Maybe that’s why the desire to change the world leads to war. Make love not war?

Is this all just false wisdom and pretentious foolishness? If so, may it be vanquished by Christ.

Mary Jo has posted her new song on her website: https://maryjocall.wixsite.com/music

It’s a beauty, and the lyrics are something else, man!

At long last, I’ve begun reading Heidegger. I think I am understanding it so far, despite its reputation for being so difficult. Metaphysics is always difficult, because it addresses the deepest and most important questions. With Heidegger there is also the problem of his flexible and sometimes deliberately ambiguous use of German and the scholarly questions of how best to translate this into English. As an English speaker who has only barely started learning German, I can only take note of what the translators say about this, but it seems to me, just from the side of my understanding of English, that they do a good job of explaining the terms that he coins.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is not to make any comments about Heidegger’s thinking, but as a way to try to clarify my understanding of what it means to claim that the Bible is “the inerrant Word of God.” Let us suppose that we had been taught by our elders, and, in general, by everyone whose opinion we respect, that Heidegger is unquestionably the ultimate authority on the most important questions of metaphysics, and that Being and Time is the inerrant word of Heidegger. This would not automatically solve everything for us. We would still have to come to an understanding of what Heidegger means, and, in particular, of what his writings mean for oneself in one’s own particular situation. And we would see that, until we could succeed in that, our agreeing that Heidegger is the ultimate authority on matters metaphysical would be mostly empty and merely verbal. The favorable opinions of Heidegger on the part of those whose opinions we respect would motivate us to read and try to understand what he wrote, but until we succeeded in understanding, our agreement with their judgment would have only this value as a motive for trying to understand, and our own recommendation of Heidegger to our children and friends could be only half sincere.

I hope the implication is clear: believing that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God might be a necessary first step towards understanding the Scriptures, but it wouldn’t get you very far by itself. If you are to really believe it, you need to understand what a particular part of the Scriptures, or the whole of the Scriptures in general, are telling you right now under your present circumstances. At that point, whether you really and truly and deeply believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God will be proven by the effectiveness or not of your understanding.

But is believing in the inerrancy of the scriptures a necessary first step to understanding them? And is the effectiveness in your life of your understanding of the Scriptures the proof that you believe in their inerrancy? I suggested that we suppose that we had been taught as a doctrine that Being and Time is the inerrant word of Heidegger and that he is the ultimate authority on the most important questions of metaphysics. And that was to make the point that unless you understand what Heidegger meant, belief in this doctrine would be rather worthless, except to motivate you to take the trouble to try to read and understand what he wrote. In fact, I don’t know if anyone professes or confesses the inerrancy of Heidegger, and yet there are people who take the trouble of reading and trying to understand his writings and to explain them to others, and it may be that this has done them good. May it not be likewise with the Scriptures?

Someone might object that it is wrong to compare a human philosophy with the Gospel, except to show the shortcomings of the former. But I am not comparing the merits of Heidegger’s philosophy with those of the Gospel. As yet, I don’t even have a well-informed opinion about Heidegger. As I said, I’ve only begun reading him. And the Gospel is more than a discourse on the nature of ultimate reality. But the comparison is apt, I think, in bringing out what makes the Gospel interesting intellectually, apart from all its other appeal, in a way that might fill out the feeling that it is the inerrant Word of God.

So, my answer to the first question I posed above, “Is believing in the inerrancy of the Scriptures a necessary first step to understanding them?” is No. And my answer to the second question, “Is the effectiveness in your life of your understanding of the Scriptures the proof that you believe in their inerrancy?” is Yes.