Thanks, Daniel. I really appreciate what you're pointing to here. It's particularly relevant for me now, as I revisit the mania / madness / possession that enabled me to follow a provocative spiritual teacher for some years. I suppose the phrase "crazy wisdom" is relevant, but it isn't only the "teacher" who must be crazy -- the "students," too, must join in the madness in order to partake of what's on offer. Your frames here feel quite useful in my contemplation.
What I'm struck by, though, is the often profound social costs of allowing ourselves to express this madness. It seems that some pretty deep marginalization and ostracization can result when one dares to speak outside the polite discourse of the "reasonable." That's leaving aside the actual costs of what can happen when a group enters true madness together, leading to destruction. I wonder if those kinds of costs are something you'll discuss in your course.
Nonetheless, I couldn't agree more that these registers must be re-embraced and re-animated at this moment in time. Thanks for all you do <3
" . . . in such a situation, madness— the arational break with consensus reality—can actually be a kind of sanity: a reasonable response to our true conditions."
I think most traditional societies recognized this truth and had mechanisms to account for it. Practices like Saturnalia, Carnival, and, even up until more "recent" times, charivari fulfilled this necessary societal function. I think a lot of transgressive behavior that we see these days is just empty gesturing, and serves no greater function other than helping to further destabilize our culture. I think the "Cult of Cool" has largely run its course. Whatever healing madness we pursue then, needs--perhaps counterintuitively--to be grounded in maturity. Learning to be adept at squaring the circle and maintaining psycholigical and spiritual superpostion is our Great Work.
As I understand it, in Anishnaabe culture (acknowledgement offered) the trickster figure is a messenger. We are not to emulate her/him but hear the message. Usually around greed. Otherwise we get the issues Dechen points to.
Thanks, Daniel, for your lucid articulation of the wisdom behind madness. Quick question: How exactly does the $100 fee that you mentioned for subscribers work in your upcoming workshop? From what I can tell, the course costs just under $3K or three installments of $100.
Thanks, Daniel. I really appreciate what you're pointing to here. It's particularly relevant for me now, as I revisit the mania / madness / possession that enabled me to follow a provocative spiritual teacher for some years. I suppose the phrase "crazy wisdom" is relevant, but it isn't only the "teacher" who must be crazy -- the "students," too, must join in the madness in order to partake of what's on offer. Your frames here feel quite useful in my contemplation.
What I'm struck by, though, is the often profound social costs of allowing ourselves to express this madness. It seems that some pretty deep marginalization and ostracization can result when one dares to speak outside the polite discourse of the "reasonable." That's leaving aside the actual costs of what can happen when a group enters true madness together, leading to destruction. I wonder if those kinds of costs are something you'll discuss in your course.
Nonetheless, I couldn't agree more that these registers must be re-embraced and re-animated at this moment in time. Thanks for all you do <3
" . . . in such a situation, madness— the arational break with consensus reality—can actually be a kind of sanity: a reasonable response to our true conditions."
I think most traditional societies recognized this truth and had mechanisms to account for it. Practices like Saturnalia, Carnival, and, even up until more "recent" times, charivari fulfilled this necessary societal function. I think a lot of transgressive behavior that we see these days is just empty gesturing, and serves no greater function other than helping to further destabilize our culture. I think the "Cult of Cool" has largely run its course. Whatever healing madness we pursue then, needs--perhaps counterintuitively--to be grounded in maturity. Learning to be adept at squaring the circle and maintaining psycholigical and spiritual superpostion is our Great Work.
As I understand it, in Anishnaabe culture (acknowledgement offered) the trickster figure is a messenger. We are not to emulate her/him but hear the message. Usually around greed. Otherwise we get the issues Dechen points to.
Thanks, Daniel, for your lucid articulation of the wisdom behind madness. Quick question: How exactly does the $100 fee that you mentioned for subscribers work in your upcoming workshop? From what I can tell, the course costs just under $3K or three installments of $100.
To be crazy in this insane world is the new normal.
Indeed the right has co-opted everything. Karp and Zamiska reference the same Kerouac quote in THE TECHNOLOGICAL REPUBLIC.