Heidegger

Tympan: Jung’s discussion of Hermas sublimation of Rhoda is another way of
thinking about introversion. It defines spiritualization. The libido in this
case is flowing into the
spiritualized expression as much as sinking into the unconscious where it
provides the energy for images to rise that correspond to the spiritualized
expression. So the symbolic expression that emerges is actually a way of
retaining libido. If it is spiritual imaginative iconography then it
withdraws libido from inner and outer objects and that heals the soul. In
this case phrases would be the expression of a mandalic consciousness. So
you see for people like myself who are negative theologians introversion is
seen as  mystical praxis where there is a differentiation between desire
or
holy affections and need. The most important affections here are those that
come from the experience of being nothing which are painful or a difficult
enjoyment. For me the word “introversion” refers to contemplative prayer.
[Bernard] Good, You have done your homework. But I am not fain to limit
introversion as mystical forebearance. Only an extravert desperately
trying to get inside him/herself would see it in such unmediated extreme and
which simply amount to an attempt to further suppress the personality
attitude type, introversian.

Tympan: I’m supposed to understand that? If I understand you correctly it is
not an ummediated extreme if the ongoing transformative association of
symbols are being worked on. The symbols mediates ultimately which is
different for each person. Your libido seems to be turned on by the trinity
of Demeter, Persephone and Hekate but that’s just your imagination and
particular nostalgia that then you use against a generalizing description of
Christianity. Both your nostalgic mythologizing and the Christian one are
rafts that get us to the other side so to speak. For people with a different
accident of birth the symbols are all different. Your use of mythology is
too dogmatic and doctrinaire. The point it seems to me is to get to the
conflict that is there in a conjunction of opposites rather than to get
caught up in the waving of the flag of a particular cultural imagination
over and against others.

I don’t see at all how introversion as contemplation where there is a
constant withdrawal of libido from inner and outer objects is suppose to be
the extraverts suppresion of the intraversian. It sounds senile to me.

Bernard: Â I have had some extraverted art students who want to make
“mystical” paintings. This was, of course, a mere subterfuge for avoiding
introversion as a psychological state.

Tympan: “of course”? I expect people to say that any kind of imaginative
practice is a screen against the truth of the mystery of the Godhead or
whatever you want to call it, the ineffable, Sophia, depending on what
spiritual symbols you are attached to.

Bernard: On the other hand, if there is in fact a genuine inclination to the
mystical it must be understood as either apophatic or kataphatic,
respectively, either introverted or extroverted. But Jung does not go into
this and I shall not elaborate on it at this time (you might take a peek at
Rudolf Otto’s *Mysticism East and West,* copyrighted 1932 and 1960 byÂ
Macmillan Pub.)

Tympan: I’ll check it out but the best is to get closer to the primary
texts. I was talking about apophatic definitions which work through
abstraction in the sense of withdrawing libido from both inner and outer
objects. But that’s nothing the hard part is that one is always separating
from both inner and outer objects until there is the habitual clinging to
nothingness which for philosophers is the truth and has nothing to do with
symbolical mythology. I am trying to defend and give a place to the
imagination against a hardcore reading from philosophy like you hear from M.
Eldred. I am asking a question like what is the role of Biblical imagery
knowing that ultimately it has nothing to do with truth if the ineffable is
unknowable? The words “Biblical imagery” just points to a set of symbols
that could be something else. It’s a context of symbols that mediate
someone’s spiritual transformation. It’s different for different people.

Bernard: For the moment I would prefer to keep in discourse the subject of
extraverted sensation and which has to do with the material object (of
perception). If we get to it, the expression of introverted sensation is a
real hairy subject.Â

Tympan: Okay then tell what is the material object of perception?

Sincerely;
BernardÂ
regards,
Tympan

Posted on Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 2:50 am
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