Perennial Philosophy

  • Ready… set… leap!

    Obviously, folks make leaps all the time: they leap for real joy, they leap to invalid conclusions, they leap into bad deals, etc. So a distinction must be drawn between springing-forth from the solid ground of critical experience (the dance… Continue reading

    Ready… set… leap!
  • Philosophical Faith

    Philosophical Faith, according to Karl Jaspers, provides each person a way of understanding the world and their place in it. Unlike religious belief, there is no need for a special revelation from a prophetic figure nor any required dogma to… Continue reading

    Philosophical Faith
  • Magic and Mechanics

    Explore the historic connection between magic and mechanics. Continue reading

    Magic and Mechanics
  • Open Virtue, Closed Propriety: Considerations on Daoism and Bergsonism

    No consideration of parallels between Daoism and Bergsonism has been accomplished. Yet there is a profitable comparison to be made between the ancient Chinese philosophy of the Dào Dé Jing and the more contemporary work of French philosopher Henri Bergson.… Continue reading

    Open Virtue, Closed Propriety: Considerations on Daoism and Bergsonism
  • Abnormal Responses: Coaxing Animal Being into a Clearing

    There is a great responsibility in being those who not only name things but gather the world. Surely a part of that responsibility rests in letting things simply be themselves and not be turned toward some human end. It means… Continue reading

    Abnormal Responses: Coaxing Animal Being into a Clearing
  • Prayer and Thinking

    We began with me sharing some ideas about the connection between prayer and thinking. We discussed Poem 27 of the Dào Dé Jing along with some forays into Poem 1. Continue reading

    Prayer and Thinking
  • Apostle & Epistle

    The term apostle derives from L.L. apostolus, from Gk. apostolos “person sent forth,” from apostellein “to send away, to send forth,” from apo– “from” + stellein “to send.” One sent-forth is a messenger. To have a message is to be an apostle. Who sends forth the… Continue reading

  • Night Vigil 22 Oct 2014

    The enduring meaning of a process is the intuitive impulse to create. This is mirrored in the instinctual drives toward procreation and tool making. You can trace back any produced thing to its original. But the original is the expression… Continue reading

  • Colour My World | The Ptero Card

    Originally posted on Theoria: One of my favorite James Hillman books is his, “Alchemical Psychology,” which I have just recently read. The book is a fascinating tour of the alchemical process and its correlative psychological journey as told to us… Continue reading

    Colour My World | The Ptero Card
  • Amor fati

    Today everyone allows himself to express his dearest wish and thoughts: so I, too, want to say what I wish from myself today and what thought first crossed my heart -what thought shall be the reason, warrant, and sweetness of… Continue reading

  • Methods of Salvador Dali

    A nice overview of the philosophical methods and notions employed by Dali for aesthetic inspiration. Paranoid-Critical: Created in the early 1930’s by Dali himself, the “Paranoid-Critical” method is a Surrealist method used to help an artist tap into their subconscious… Continue reading

    Methods of Salvador Dali
  • Nothingness and Liberation

    As an anarchocynic, I find myself looking through the open and secret history of humankind very often. Part of my apparent contradiction to folks comes from how one must needs hop from this to that to the other in order… Continue reading

    Nothingness and Liberation
  • I contradict myself

    I post something about atheism then write a poem on the Transcendence to the Divine. I throw up the scriblings of mystics but then put forward the theorems of materialists. I co-translate the Dao de Jing yet entertain the truth… Continue reading

    I contradict myself
  • Mysterium Magnum

    Another of Jakob Böhme’s ciphers of the mysterium magnum appearing in his Theosophische Wercke (1682). The All Seeing Eye beholds the Phoenix Reborn. This is the Psyche/Soul transcending the encircling lifeworld. The break in the Ouroboros is the Nothing betwixt… Continue reading

  • Centrum Naturae

    “When thou art gone forth wholly from the creature [human], and art become nothing to all that is nature and creature, then thou art in that eternal one, which is God himself, and then thou shalt perceive and feel the… Continue reading