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Conversation with listener Tim K on writing, language, ironism, the nature of evil, Christianity, the life force, and community life.
Part One: Crucial Fictions (0 – 32 mins)
The writing & speaking process, Sebastian Horsley’s sticky notes, precomposed speech, the Leo life as performance, the dandy as human billboard, identity-creation, Seen & Not Seen, the mechanics of speech, internalized the brother’s voices, writing with the body, philosophical pursuits, driven by a feeling of inauthenticity, the path of relentless self-doubt, writer-to-reader direct interface, where true voice comes from, Whitley Strieber, truth & language, a cry for help disguised as performance, crucial fictions, the stories we tell ourselves, what are we before the trauma?
Part Two: Truth Has No Temperature (32 mins – 1 hr 4 mins)
Secret knowledge, The Satanic Bible, occult language & trauma imprints, words as carrier-pacifiers, traumata as empowerment narrative, distress signals disguised as answers, sentences vs. vocabularies, the ironist, the contingency of language, nihilism and the abandonment of integrity, inversion and oppositional identity, language as disruptor, no temperature for life force, the mind as commentator at race track of life, economy & responsibility of language, writing as ineffective speech, the imaginary reader, let’s talk about evil, theodicy, on the fence with Satan.
Part Three: The Vocabulary of Religious Discourse (1 hr 4 mins – 1 hr 42 mins)
Entities & the literal-minded, Satan as eggregore, God’s plan, the nature of evil, the original flinch, Lucifer’s huff, original wound, A Wandering God, from nomads to sedentary, the origins of othering, transitional objects for children, graven images, Zen, Oshana, enlightenment, what does transmission look like, playing with ideas, naming the Tao, finding one who notices, switches the emphasis, a positive feedback loop, letting language be there, reading the ancients, back to irony, calling a spade a trowel, living with ambiguity, the bottomless trauma, the question who am I, your own best-kept secret.
Part Four: The Shocking Gulf Within (1 hr 42 mins – end)
Jay Dyer and Orthodoxy, Tim’s trajectory, community projects, thrift store, relating to community, the invisible community, a continuum of consciousness, bar vs. café in community, bees make honey what do humans make, rediscovering instinct, the beginnings of working together, clearing the slate via human acceptance, possessed by trauma, out there and in here, the shocking gulf within, colonized by culture, to write or not to write, more of a tactician, something to deliver, hell of academia.
Songs: “Pirates” by Entertainment for the Braindead; “A Prayer” by The Bones of J.R. Jones; “Song for Obol” by Arborea; “Changes” by Short Hand
Empathy is the ability to share another’s experience to some degree. In order to share you have to be aware of all your sensations. Trauma can cause a person to block the awareness of pain and suffering, thus also the ability to share anothers pain and suffering. This leads to a lack of empathy. Empathy is an innate human ability that brings to awareness the love or lack of love our actions cause. It helps guide us as training wheels help a child to ride without falling. Evil is an action that causes or perpetuates fear and suffering or lack of love. It exist because free will exists. Without free will there is no right or wrong, good or evil. Just a predetermined mechanism. Some people, presumably, are born without empathy. They have no built in guidance for others state of experience, but they still have access to the life force or love. They will have no need to hurt others as access to the life force does not come from other but from “God” or universal will. They must experience life guided only by this direct connection, thus giving them more freedom of choice or more responsibility to use their free will. They live with the training wheels off, more freedom, but also more ability to harm themselves and others. This could lead to greater Evil, but also must be experienced in order for humanity to mature. As a side note Tim has a very pleasant speaking voice. Enjoyed the conversation.
how or why would a child be born without empathy, do you think?
Two possible reason’s depending on your outlook. If you believe every human trait that survives through multiple generations is an advantage to survival, then lack of empathy is some how associated with giving humans which carry the lack of empathy gene a survival advantage. This could be a direct advantage, such as enabling such a person to be a better hunter or warrior which helps the entire tribe. Of course this would have to be balanced by the destablizing affect to the whole tribe, so perhaps there is an optimum percentage of psychopaths for every tribe depending on enviroment. Also, it may be a recessive trait linked to an advantage in another way, such as sickle cell genes give protection from malaria. This is evolutionary viewpoint. Now if you believe this life is an educational experience for the “soul” then being born without empathy is a life experience that teaches a lesson, such as the theory I gave earlier. Or if this is a simulation then psychopaths are here just to improve the dynamics of the story. What is a James Bond movie without a villian? The next one is directed by a female so we may find out. Chauvinist that I am
Personally I think they are not mutually exclusive and it is a combination of all the above. Granted my knowledge of evolutionary sociology and evolutionary psychology doesn’t extend much past a light knowledge of Jordan Peterson and occassional science article. Just coming up with a solid definition of evil is not so easy.
the idea of a baby without empathy only makes sense to me if it’s equivalent to a baby born without a soul, without sentience. Or perhaps conceived that way.
That would require the assumption that empathy is a characteristic of the soul, and is evident in nature in different degrees depending on the developement of the soul. That is a different viewpoint that could be true. The question is how to test, eliminate, or adjust each assumption to get to the truth? Also, this would lead to evil being caused by deciscions of immature souls and a natural byproduct of soul maturation. Another viable explanation of the existence of evil. Hope I’m not putting words in your mouth.
Should read “a natural byproduct of soul maturation process”.
Enjoyed this talk. Recognized Tim’s voice from a very lengthy and meaty podcast series he did a year or two ago with some one about what post modernism is. If any one wants to take a deep dive into the subject I highly recommend it. Can’t remember the name of the podcast, I don’t think it’s active anymore. It was a philosophy podcast by a guy that worked in a watch shop. Maybe Tim can post a link if anyone is interested in it.
It delights me how often your invitation to listeners to be guests bares fruit. More often than not the result are excellent conversations and I’m thankful to have had the opportunity to break that listeners fourth wall with you. It really does make your podcast unique in this space.
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard you cover animism before. As you sort of got through Christianity in this conversation and moved into metaphysics it seemed to be approaching something like animism. But the term was never brought up. I wonder if you identify with animism or have some issues with it. It’s certainly the De jour spiritual concept in contemporary occultism as it tries to decolonize itself. But obviously is it’s own thing, much older than civilization, standing on its own and apart from occultism recent interest in it. It does seem like a more sophisticated spiritual model of the universe than idealism. The hierarchy implicit in idealism feels very antiquated and Victorian to me. But I identify with both animism and idealism basic tenant of mind proceeding matter. Animisms belief in a living universe seems impossible to deny. At least from my POV.
The correlation between language, speaking and magic has always been interesting to me. Seems to be the front line of the reality matrix we construct for our selves. Terrance McKenna has his flaws but he has a sound bite about this relationship to language that has always intrigued me. On YouTube you can find it with the search “Terence McKenna – We Are Language”
Egregores and Tulpas always perc up my attention as a subject. Satan, Lucifer, omnipotent personified evil seem more like archetypes to me than egregores. But I’m in no way resolved with that statement. Not even sure I have entirely cracked the riddle of what an archetype is so I’m by no means making a proclemation. Just throwing it into the mix as it came to mind while listening. Good to hear Gib is on deck. Was wondering where he’s been just last week, so right on time.
Enjoyed this comment and generally appreciate the long-form response to podcasts that keep the conversation going in the ether. I wonder if Tim K used his last name on those podcasts (if so he may not want to link to them), but would presume not. I used to be animist/pantheist and you are right that it’s au courant now, and seems precariously compatible with the secular religion of (new age) scientism in which Universe places God, and we are left with immanence but no transcendence (and an unconscious God who can only become conscious through Man, a la CJ Jung’s Answer to Job).
Oddly this also speaks to the question of eggregore vs archetype, the former being something “immanent” that emerges out of human organisms and their psychic relations, a parasocial dimension of (fake) gods, where archetype pertains to pre-existing principals out of which humanity is created and is given the free will to some day align.
Yes, I did use my last name on the postmodern podcasts, but, alas, it seems that the episodes are lost because the guy who ran the podcast dropped out.
A shame, because I did 9 hours’ worth of content on postmodernism. 🙂
out of curiosity: why the transparency there and not here?