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| Published oringally in 1963 |
Despite all the efforts of the prosecution, everybody could see that this man was not a “monster,” but it was difficult indeed not to suspect that he was a clown.
[N]o elimination of errors or dispelling of illusions can arrive at a region beyond appearance.
Even more tantalizingly suggestive is another fragment: “Bad witnesses are eyes and ears for men if they have barbarian souls” [Plato], that is, if they do not possess logos—for the Greeks not just speech but the gift of reasoned argument that distinguished them from the barbarians. In short, wonder has led to thinking in words; the experience of wonder at the invisible manifest in the appearances has been appropriated by speech, which at the same time is strong enough to dispel the errors and illusions that our organs for the visible, eyes and ears, are subject to unless thinking comes to their help.
And this is why we need the Wedge: because it forces us to focus on the connections between the environment, sensory system and conscious experience. When we consciously form new neural symbols, we aren’t just acting in the present moment; our choices and emotions right now also inform how we feel in the future.
[A.R.] Orage contrasted what he called the “occult arts” with “occult faculties,” arguing that while the former obsess and “devour” people, resulting in “cranks,” “occult faculties” free the mind, allowing it to soar into new dimensions. Intuition, insight, and imagination—the faculties in question—were, Orage said, “winged thought,” “winged judgment,” and “winged sympathy.”
The battle to combat entropy by continually having to supply more energy for growth, innovation, maintenance, and repair, which becomes increasingly more challenging as the system ages, underlies any serious discussion of aging, mortality, resilience, and sustainability, whether for organisms, companies, or societies.
