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Return conversation with Kurt H on 16 Maps of Hell, Orthodox Christianity,
Part One: Eating Infinity (0 – 31 mins)
Manual labor, meeting farmers in Galicia, the promise of Hell, geeking out on 16 Maps, an author fade, a real tabloid, the softest 4th wall break, meditation depths, the choice between embodying & articulating, the mechanics of the struggle, wrestling with an angel, completed by the reader, the impression of a subject, the angelic hierarchies, fractal imagery on drugs, the orthodoxy ladder, Charles Upton, submitting to orthodoxy, training wheels in hell, Christ’s face, the church as sense organ, a transcendental anchor, covid in the church, a clarifying struggle. (volume down)
Part Two: Between the Animal & the Angel (31 mins – 1 hr 3 mins)
Approaching the transcendental, the revolving door of the identity, going to the immanent, touching heaven, attachment to passions, latah, the equivalence of heaven & hell, dying in resistance to God, the realm of the dead & the animal kingdom, the passion of Christ, the passion of athletics, a non-transcendent human layer, turning nature into hell, culture as mold, pockets of culture unchanged, when nature becomes culture, the US as cultural wipe, a country with body dysphoria, a cultural export of dissociation, transcendence without immanence, Strieber as spiritual automaton, the US experiment, Oshana on extraterrestrialism, between the animal & the angel.
Part Three: Shit Work in Hell (1 hr 3 mins – 1 hr 36 mins)
Different strands of humans, the fall of Adam, Garbanzo the soul-cat, souls through the meat grinder, a perceived lack of empathy, a neighbor from hell, interacting with latahs, hatred of inauthenticity, shit on the burger, working in the sewers, under a woke bureaucracy, trapped in the church, the price of belonging to a group, Kurt’s shit work in Hell, where heaven touched time, the pirates of penance, bestowing blessings, pure ball being, hitching a wagon to an organization, the rebel-saints, ready to die for the church.
Part Four: Artificial Copies of Christ (1 hr 36 mins – end)
Leaving the church, method spirituality, the liminal state, not limited but localized, a razor blade in the apple, the church as boat, keeping the truth out, finding oneself by delivering to others, an encounter with Antichrist, the sacraments, Christians who don’t grok Christ, artificial copies of Christ, the church inside a church, the story of Hell, a diamond in the rough, the earth emerges, the coordinates of epiphany, participation in a process, parasocial relations, a womb of concepts, movie maya, threads into multiple psyches, the mansions of Hell, the Christian narrative, Rosemary’s baby, Rene Girard, making Christianity coherent, the gospels as a key, the solution to the problem of religion, Sartre’s hell.
Songs: “Primitive” & “Chasing Time” by Joy Zipper; “Familiar Song” by Widow’s Ride; “What I Believe at Night” & “The Olde Trip to Jerusalem” by The Mekons.
Thank you Jasun and Kurt for a very interesting conversation.
To my way of thinking, Orthodox Christianity in the true sense is an oxymoron. One has nothing to do with the other when we consider that Christ, when he embarked upon his ministry spoke against organized religion claiming it to be as an empty sepulcher, having no power within thus making it pointless. It, religion causes the adherents to focus on self, ritual and dogma rather than that of the Spirit of Christ and the work he did on the cross for us. True Christianity is not a religion; something that escapes many. Rather, it is a relationship with the living God through the Holy Spirit which will indwell us if and when we ask him.
Our righteousness is no better than that of filthy rags when compared to the gift God gave us in his son. His finished work on the cross compared to filthy rags. I’ll take the gift, thanks. Not many people who call themselves Christians actually get this. It’s too simple. But it’s the narrow gate we must aim for to enter the promised land. And few there are who find it according to scriptures.
On another note, the masked, non-discerning, ignorant, bumbling, accusatory idiots who threaten to be the social death of me have upon occasion been able to cause me to will to rise above my natural disdain for them and desire to walk a bit in their shoes.
I understand the struggle with empathy, which for a social worker used to be second nature or at the very least, easy to do when I was paid to do so.
J’nia
Gday mate
Great to hear you have landed in Spain and are meeting the locals. They are probably wondering who is this strange Pom from Canada wandering around the roads looking to experience nature. They wouldnt give two hoots about the social emgineers or 16 maps of hell i bet.
Speaking of which, my copy hasnt reached Australia yet as of Feb 7 so rather than the promised hell trip, i am stuck firmly in Limbo and Satan is refusing to stamp my passport, at least until i agree to a gene therapy MRNA vaccine.
If nothing shows up, i may have to catch the Angel bus, which from all accounts is quite boring (on account of the incessant harpsichord sound track.
Anyway, good luck, and just be yourself , you are a nice fellow after all, albeit one who doesnt suffer fools gladly.
good day
au contraire, the last farmer I met assumed I was a Spaniard, if not a Galician farmer (yet)
add 4 months to your order date if it came after Christmas; if before, even paperbacks weren’t sent out before mid Nov so there’s still a month before ringing any alarm bells
I am my own crucifixion.
This thought came to me while listening to the first half of the conversation.
I’ve been exploring apophatic mysticism during this last period of time and I have returned to the notion of the power of silence – exploring the limits of human experience within the mystical framework explored and laid out over several thousand years. Even Castaneda wrote of the power of silence (as you know) and it hints that he really did know at least a little something (as I know you feel also).
The mystical tradition has always been there at the heart of history, making profound contributions. I’ve never been inside an orthodox church let alone attend a service but I’ve poked around online and I like it’s metaphysics and theology, their deference to mystical experience, and hesychasm. But it can still lend to fascism and for some there, God still hates fags.
Elsewhere we find Meister Eckhart (Steiner was also influenced as was Jung), Jacob Boehm, Jon Scotus Eriugena, Dionysius the Areopagite, amongst many to explore.
I attended my cousin’s funeral recently at a moderate sized Catholic church. I was kind of spellbound by the mystical commentary inlaid in the mass, and also by the massive cross behind the alter. I thought, “well that about says it all really, this is a religion primarily focused on the mystery of death and the mystery of its transcendence.” The priest at some point towards the end of the mass turns directly towards my grieving Aunt, a dear woman in her 90’s, terribly frail, and smiles and jokes to her about who my cousin may be meeting in heaven and what good times he might be enjoying there, for which I wanted to stand up and slap him down hard with true anger for being a fool and a devilish trickster and a liar, while taking my Aunt’s hands and telling her that her son has gone where we are all going to go, into the unknown.
Mystery is critical, and the mysterium stays mysterious, unknowable, inexhaustible but with the capacity to extend human experience to its limits. Reflection on these mysteries within traditional frameworks provides illumination with the protection of the good that is love and ground. The power of the tradition comes from the history of spiritual endeavor that has labored through key questions regarding humanity over a large period of time.
Faith, reason, silence, stillness, letting the nous, the logos, and the unknown in.
Waiting (patiently! 🙂 ) for maps to arrive here in remote island Oz. Thanks for the opportunity to drop a line.
Kurt, I’m glad you got around to expressing your feelings about people wearing masks in church, and looking askance at any physical contact, I feel a similar righteous anger when I’m getting groceries, about the only place I go anymore when I’m out.
Lordy. I knew Kurt H. through my college years. He’s always had a way of talking without actually saying anything. He linked in with Hollywood’s super culture? Okay? It’s always weird to me that I randomly run into his online presence articulating nothing and I’m not even search for anything related to him. He was always this imaginative overly talky way at swim parties at UW (University of Washington). He’s gone from veganism to raw meat consumption claiming both have given him enlightenment while the other state cannot.
Save yourself the snake oil.