[Mark Delepine]

Hi Christina I’m glad you were able to attend – and in person. Though I live just across the bay from where the conference was held I was too busy to attend in person myself. I was happy to be present online for Iain’s talk but Saturday could not make any of the other sessions so look forward to seeing the recordings soon. I think like you I’d require the recordings anyhow just to fully process it all. Thanks for sharing your take on it and if, after digesting the recordings, you have more to add I hope you will do so. Please do @me if you do as I’d greatly appreciate reading that and comparing notes.

[Mark Delepine]

I wonder if a link could be included to the article. I haven’t read it yet.

[Mark Delepine]

Thank you for the video and your insight, Samuel Ford. I’m a total outsider where music is concerned but those certainly sound like important values to me. Regardless the contribution of each hemisphere, what really matters is how the whole individual embraces and embodies them. It sure sounds like Herbie Hancock managed that quite well.

Not sure why I lost track of this conversation but I’m happy to have found my way back.

[Mark Delepine]

Hello and welcome. I was just reading last night the chapter in TMWT on Reason’s progeny, just into the section on mythos and logos. Fascinating. As an undergraduate philosophy major I found the discussion leading into it of the psychopathology of philosophy interesting as I imagine you must have too. The extreme positions of Kant, the early Wittgenstein and plenty of others should give us pause to question the wisdom of the view from no where, logical positivism and the analytic approach generally I think.

One place you see analytic philosophy whole heartedly embraced is in the practice of Christian apologetics among mainstream Christian evangelicals. I am not a Christian except culturally myself but I’ve become increasingly interested in what it is about us which gives rise to and still supports that conception of God. Recently I joined a group of very thoughtful Christians (as well as a few heresy fearing literal minded ones) on the forums at the BioLogos website to read and discuss Penner’s book The End of Apologetics, a post modern critique of the ill effects of analytic argumentation on the way their faith is understood. It really is quite odd when you think about it. It’s like that lot is eating the forbidden fruit all over again.

[Mark Delepine]

Afraid I caught on too late for 3/5. If you do it again I’d like to join you.

[Mark Delepine]

“The involvement the vocal cords in music has always fascinated me- these muscles are bilaterally controlled but in normal use are ‘in sync’ with each other. It would be interesting to know if these involuntary vocalisations represent independent control of the left and right vocal cords, entrained with the activity of the hands as they play the piano.“

It would indeed be interesting to know that too, Paul. I’m not a musician but it sounds like you have some insight into that. I had a gf in the late 70’s who played piano and I got hooked on Jarrett the first time she played a recording of the Koln concert. Of all the possible choices we don’t make in life, not being more involved in music is up there for me

[Mark Delepine]

Listening now. Errol Garner is new to me. Thank you for that! I’m envious of your musical talent. I used to say the only thing I play is my iPod and that is mostly true though I’ve had a few wonderful experiences making music with more accomplished people. Visual art was where I discovered what I believe about talent. My old arthritic hands make drawing less enjoyable but luckily my artistic interests have shifted entirely into my garden now. My wife is a textile artist and many of her artist friends seem to likewise have moved their real creative juices to their gardens too.

I’ve always thought that talent and access to that talent are two different matters. There may or may not be a ‘there’ there but to find out you need to be able to get there, and getting out of your own way is the first step. Something like faith involved here too, our disposition to the world and how we conceive our place therein.

I look forward reading more about flow and the sacred but I haven’t yet gotten that far in TMWT. If I get a paper version I’d be able to skip around more easily but I only got my Kindle to read this book and so don’t know how to navigate it very well. I’m debating getting the paperback version but I also need to replace my old car this year, so we’ll see.

[Mark Delepine]

I would prefer we go on practicing silence. I had contacted Channel McGilchrist about the trouble I’ve had with your abusive manner and they had promised to look into it. But then after you suggested we avoid one another (assuming that is what you had in mind) by “practicing silence” I told them we might have worked it out, but here you are back again addressing me again. I still do not welcome any conversation with you and repeat that I feel insulted by much of what you’ve said to me whether or not you consider it to have been so. Can you return to the terms of our truce or do I need to seek outside help?

Perhaps Mark H will be so kind to help by not addressing you in this sub forum.

[Mark Delepine]

I was a huge fan of James Hillman. Healing fiction as well as the conceptual power of “it is as if ..” to avoid getting bogged down in the purely theoretical and objectivity obsessed modernity. That is what I fall back on as a handle on the supernatural aspects of Christian belief. Maybe it is like the cosmic counterpart of how one thinks of their own inner complexity. Anyone involved in a creative endeavor knows the importance of flow. Waiting for the muse or opening to God, does it really matter? Some activities require subtlety, not carefully moderated control. Maybe it takes a creative approach to access the sacred just as it does to access our talents?

But I did hear McG mention Hillman on a video I think, perhaps in an interview. I think they both channel a muse and are very agile about crediting sources, but I’d give the edge to McG for the breadth of his sources and the depth to which he has pursued the many threads he draws together.

By the way I had to abandon the thread I opened at BioLogos on David Hart’s Experience of God book. I became uncomfortable sharing so many passages and I’m currently joining three friends there in reading Soren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling in a private thread. I’m absolutely repulsed by that biblical story but find SK’s approach pretty interesting. I’d never read anything by him before this. It is only the opportunity to discuss it as we go with this crew that draws me in. Otherwise I still have loads of fresh ground to cover in TMWT and would rather have a good novel going on the side if anything. I’m not a fast reader never like to rush it.

PPS I’m curious what you thought of that Wendell Berry description of “soul” if you have seen it. I certainly do hope more McG readers will join in here. I find it very challenging to share anything from his books with anyone not already interested. It requires so much filling in and sometimes the tiresome task of differentiating his hemisphere theory from the dated pop culture trope.

[Mark Delepine]

I was raised in a household that went to a Christian church early in my life but stopped before I started elementary school. As a result my dismissal of everything regarding the sacred had been dismissive in a facile way. Now I just own being agnostic but no longer think the question of God belief comes down to thinking there is an intentional being who created everything. Rather, now I ask what has made God belief so compelling for so long and almost everywhere? I suspect it has had a role in shaping how we are as persons. But “theology” as such is a foreign concept for me too.

I find your perspective refreshing:

“Buddhism does not recognise a ‘God’, and yet, not wanting to let the words we give to things get in the way of hearing and reflecting, I look forward to more reflections in this area.”

I don’t know that any kind of theology is particularly relevant or important for me but I was hoping it might speak to some of my Christian friends. So far only one person I don’t know much about responded about this video and he said: “it strikes me as a sort of dignified solipsism”. I find that disappointing but then I’m not saddled with a belief that entails so much highly specific dogma. The Christians I’ve met who show their perspective can be beneficial rather than a mill stone don’t look to the Bible for specific marching orders and acknowledge that what we can know about this is always filtered through our cultural lenses and individual lived experience. I find that so much more hopeful.

[Mark Delepine]

I forgot to say you were dead right about this.

“You’re a fan of Rick Beato I’m guessing? “

Nice to find someone who can communicate more of what is going on in music for we musically undeveloped folks. Just as Iain has been a rich source of leads for writers Beato has also brought music I’d missed to my notice. You know what I’d really like to get from Iain next would be a top 10 or 20 list of favorite novels. Until I retired I almost never read fiction but seven years ago I started in hailing good novels and I find them very uplifting.

[Mark Delepine]

Don wrote: “I’m afraid we’ve misunderstood each other one more (and obviously one last) time. I had assumed it would be enough if I didn’t respond to you directly (ie keeping silent in relationship to you). I hadn’t *planned* to write either, but when Mark H mentioned my name, I had – evidently incorrectly – assumed if I don’t respond to you directly (ie keeping silent) it would be enough.”

You assumed correctly so initially when you responded to Mark H I ignored it entirely. But before I wrote back to the support staff I took another look and found you had addressed me at the end of your final paragraph to the other Mark, though that seems to have been edited out now. It is at the very end of what you’d originally written:

“Don Salmon

Member January 1, 2023 at 2:59 pm

Hey Mark,
Clinical psychologist (composer/pianist in the old days here too)

Can you say a bit more about the practical use you find in Hillman’s writings and in Jung’s depth psychology as well?

There’s an interesting term that Frederick Meyers coined back in the late 1890s – “subliminal” – this encompasses and, I think, goes beyond much of what Jung and his followers (Like Marie von Franz) have described. Meyers refers to a vast wealth of experience which goes beyond anything we know of in the physical sciences.

Ed Kelly, a research psychologist at the University of Virginia, has a group of over a dozen physicists, philosophers, therapists, biologists and more who have come out with several books exploring the realms that contemplatives around the world have described. Ed was also involved in parapsychological research for years. His first book, Irreducible Mind, gathers together an amazing wealth of evidence for telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis and much more.

In terms of practice (for therapy or any other area) I wonder if you know about the latest trend in non-dualist therapy. It’s quite close to that practice I suggested from Alan Wallace. You could almost think of it as a “scientific” exploration of these subliminal worlds Meyers and Jung described, yet going even beyond that.

At the most practical level, I’ve found if introduced well, it has profound and VERY quick positive effects on patients. If you’re interested in practices, you might look at Loch Kelly’s work. For Mark D, you’d be amazed at how thoroughly Loch presents his work in a purely agnostic fashion. Doesn’t matter, he says, what people believe, the recognition of non dual awareness through practice, can have powerful healing effects for just about any challenge.”

Don, I wish you no ill will and if you will refrain from posting or addressing me as you have in this forum I will be content. If we cross paths on another forum let’s hope for a better start.

Sincerely,

Mark D

[Mark Delepine]

Regarding the other essay it seems obvious we will never master thinking like a mountain, or a wolf or a deer. So the wiser choice is to leave sufficient wildness intact. We are not in either hemisphere wise enough to speak for the planet so the best approach is to refrain from cutting the safety net of the wider biosphere out from under ourselves. A disposition to trust more to the right hemisphere can at least foster a disposition to recognize our own limitations and respect that which we depend on.

[Mark Delepine]

Thank you for the essays too. That is the poem I remember best. Wonderful. B

[Mark Delepine]

You’re very welcome John. The part about the ripples being slats through which what we can see seems perfect, other worldly takes me back to being 4 or 5 years old when imagining was so easy and merged interestingly with perception. We needed no unknowing then.

I wonder if you have other titles by WB you can recommend. I’ve read a couple of poems but don’t recall the titles now. I have other quotes from Jayber Crow I found moving but this one will always be my favorite. I’ll look through the few I described to find another to share here.

Mark H, I felt sure you would like it too