Elijah

Come on try. You should consider this a good test to practice getting your understanding across clearly in your own words without having to send them to a book. This is all practice and practice is the only way to get better.
I don’t know anything German but all of those can be understood as spiritual constants if you are coming from an idealist perspective, where there are universal constants in the universe but not if you believe in one substance that is in constant flux and nothing else. One substance with infinite attributes.
This isn’t about his thingness. And that’s a problem, he and yourself are overly focused with the “thing” aspect of the materialism or understanding substance and begging the question that substance is all that there is.
What’s the ultimate truth then? He called the “the one motion ( the doctorine)” (p.161 Idealism paper.) Motion is his miracle (p 114)
Maybe you’re right. I surely wouldn’t try to be like one of them but just recognize what makes them “them” and try to incorporate that into your personal philosophy. For me it all comes down to trust of people for them which we seldom have. You don’t have to act like them you just have to love them more than you fear them.
Yea I can’t accept that answer… sorry. It just looks like he couldn’t come up with even an idea so just conceded the fight to the authority. Oh… did he still have authority in the society he was trying to create? Was the spiritual elect supposed to be in charge or was there intended to be equality? Is that why he wouldn’t even consider ridding humanity of its rulers?

John 12:31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

Shine light on the problem. Let them know that they made slaves of your parents and they will make slaves of your children unless you fight now for your freedom.

The problem is directing the people towards tearing down the authority without tearing down the society they control.
Yes this “thing” deal is causing a lot of problems in communication. We won’t be addressing the thing issue because I have no belief of things in the substance and anything that is mentioned is for communication sake. Have you seen “I heart Huckabees” where Dustin Hoffman explains the universe as a blanket?
Plato’s Idea of ideas is constant and Spinoza’s substance if Brunner is correct is in constant flux. Two fundamentally contradictory concepts. Brunner is trying to pull his infinite attributes concept out of a single entity and is interpreting Plato’s Idea as that entity even thought that are fundamentally different. One being in flux and one being constant.
How would you know? How do you know anything about physical constants? That’s the difficulty, they are impossible to know about. They are constant and beyond our ability to perceive because we can only detect motion and change, but that doesn’t mean that is all there is to the universe.
What makes the atom fiction to Brunner is that it is a thing made up of other things not the material aspect of the atom.
That’s just conceptualized rest.
It’s hard to speak on the beliefs of Heraclitus, there may be a way to interpret his logos as spiritual or his nature hidden comment as a spiritual element at rest. I think you are getting overly focused on the thing aspect again.

Logos is not an immaterial principle, spirit permeating matter, as later Idealists conceived it, but is one of the four elements, fire. (From link)

I don’t know if fire or human reason would be correct or if an actual spiritual constant would be. What is Brunner’s equivalent to the Logos?
I just watched this but I don’t recall the scene exactly, but I probably am referring to something similar. Jesus is coming from the perspective of believing in the resurrection of the dead and eternal life so sacrificing his is just a sign of his faith. You can’t challenge the authority unless you are willing to die so it was a necessary component. Once you create a meme where every time you kill a believer you increase the faith it becomes nearly impossible to destroy the faith and eventually Rome just had to join them since they couldn’t beat them.

Matthew 10:38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.

I’d go with a purpose.
Well you are surely correct in that his final impact may not have been felt yet but you and your community are the fruit by which he is judged by. His writings aren’t going to be able to take him out of the category of just a talker no matter what his strategy is. The spiritual elements that he passed on to his followers aren’t going to be written out directly in his words. Where the conviction lies in his followers (you) is how he will be judged. Like Jesus isn’t judged by what he said but by the behavior of his followers today.

No Robots

It’s very simple. The Messiah was supposed to be a political/military leader, but Christ appropriated the title to himself.

There is only one spiritual constant.

There is no flux in this, just an infinite number of ways of conceiving it, including as flux.

The doctrine of motion is part of the practical understanding; and not part of philosophy, which deals only with the eternal and unchanging Absolute.

True.

He was in a difficult situation. All he could really do is lay the groundwork, and try to inspire some disciples.

He described himself as a servant of the cause.

My own view is that this was supposed to be a society of friends. I think it was meant to be liberating yet cohesive like a good marriage, but involving many people.

He thought that the emancipation of mankind required the advent of the community of the free spirit, that this was the only way to keep the rulers in check.

I think it has to be made clear that the problem goes beyond politics right to the core of the human condition.

Things are just localized concretizations that we perceive as material isolates in the continuum of substance. I must be starting to sound like a broken record on this.

I have posted Brunner’s presentation of the doctrine of motion in Greek thought.

They are just made up, constructive fictions. The speed of light is said to be a constant, but it is so only because that is the limit of our power to observe. Ultimately, in science, the only thing that is constant is motion itself.

For Brunner, the atom is not composite, it is the constructive fiction of the indivisible particle. We know that there is not really any such thing as an indivisible particle. All the same, we need to act as though there were such a thing. Without this fiction, we cannot conduct science. Ultimately, there is no such thing as particles at all, no such thing as matter. These are merely our way of perceiving substance, the One.

The only rest is in thought itself. This is the homeland of the soul.

Take a look at Brunner’s take on this, and you’ll see how fallacious it is to make Heraclitus out to be an absolute materialist.

Das Denkende, which translates as the Cogitant or as the cogitans, is the principle of eternal and infinite thought with infinite attributes.

I like all this and agree with it.

Some of Brunner’s devotees are very reluctant to speak too boldly for fear of getting it wrong (See this blog post). I don’t suffer from this problem. As Chesterton said, “if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”

Elijah

So because the majority of the people then were expecting one thing and Christ gave them another he doesn’t get the title? Even if him filling that role is part of his plan for riding the world of earthly authority and anticipated earthly authority?
The Cogitant or the eternal substance?
I don’t know if that’s correct.

The abstraction of motion is to all thinkers, right from the beginning, the supreme explanatory principal. (p.159 S.S.S.)

No doubt that already Thales clearly recognized motion as the central principal – that is, the motion and oneness of that which is qualitatively indeterminate. (160 S.S.S.)

That eternal unchanging absolute is just mental construct or a universe in motion though. The eternal unchanging aspect of his philosophy has to do with the conservation of energy and is why he is trying to frame it as spiritual but at the end of the day it is substance in constant flux.

i.e. of the motion of unitary matter, the substance of which remains constant amidst all change. All is held to be change, a becoming different of the One which, however, notwithstanding all change, remains the same; and change is to them always equivalent to motion. (162 S.S.S.)

It’s parts are changing, itself, however as a whole is unchangeable. (162 S.S.S.)

The primary experience of the many and various things is cancelled out by the abstract thought of the One, the transmutation of motions of which is conceived as the true nature of all that appears to primary experience. (164 S.S.S.)

Yea he was and we are now but you should be aware of the work he left for you though. I would say that is a good spot for you and your Brunnerians to try and come up with something new but when you do, don’t keep it a secret for your society, share it.
Is there going to be distinguishing between the spiritual and the common or is it intended to be a blending?
And by free spirit is he talking about rebellious natured individuals or people who see the world without thinglyness?
Sure it does but that doesn’t mean the political arena and the earthly rulers can be ignored because they certainly won’t be ignoring you or leaving you alone anytime soon.
Yea the things not being present in the substance I get. Is the substance the only thing there is in this worldview or is the Cogitant or anything else actually present.
I took a look at it and still seems consistent with a materialist reinterpreting Greek thought as it is commonly understood into his version of the materialist position.
What happened to the eternal unchanging Absolute? Are you saying that Light is moving faster than we are aware of? And again how would you know if they are just made up or are the basis of the universe if they can’t be physically detected? How do you know that change is all that there is and not just the limit of the physical bodies ability to receive information?
The point I was making, that Brunner’s problem with “materialism” in his writings was that it was understood as composed of parts… and didn’t account for thinking.
Don’t turn the soul into a thing… that’s superstitious talk. Thought isn’t rest or in rest it is the substance responding to itself. The idea of rest is just as in motion as everything else.
And by this you mean that Heraclitus had things and didn’t account for thinking?

Materialism and idealism are however not a duality – the genuine idealism embraces the genuine materialism. I say to you: you are superstitious when taking things for things, all the more so, and thousand times so, if you do not take first of all as a real materialist the things from the view point of relativity as things, yourself as a thing, together with your thinking of things. (82 Materialism Idealism.)

And this is an actual thing in his worldview? Could you point me to where Bruner compares this to the substance in motion? I may have missed it thinking it was just referring to mental cognitive functions.

Never get it right that way but fear of getting it wrong does silence me often as well so I can’t be too critical.

No Robots

It's more like he showed them what a true Messiah looks like. Like Crocodile Dundee said, "That's not a knife. This is a knife."

Spinoza says that rights are co-extensive with power. Christ had the power to take over the title, and thus he has the right to do so.

Well, yeah, I mean, his plan is certainly more effective at undermining earthly authority than anything else ever conceived. Christ is the living Archimedean point, giving us the leverage to change the world.

Yes, these are one and the same.

You have to look at the preceding sentence:

One cannot help feeling that the inquiry into motion or transformation of things is the guiding and basic question of all Greek speculation insofar as it is concerned with the world of things.

Brunner's position is that there is a double aspect to all true thinking: the unmoving Absolute of spiritual thought, and the material motion of practical understanding. In this passage, he is concerned only with the latter aspect of Greek thought. But he is at all times careful to point out that this is only one aspect. He reserves full discussion of the spiritual dimension for subsequent works.

You have to completely separate the two views of reality: material motion complex from eternal motionless idea. This is difficult. Here is Goethe on this:

[T]he difficulty in reconciling idea and experience [is] most troublesome in scientific research. An idea is independent of space and time, while scientific research is limited to space and time. Hence simultaneous and successive elements, which are always separate from the viewpoint of experience, are intimately fused in the idea. In the realm of the idea, we are compelled to think of a natural effect as being simultaneous and at once successive, which seems to translate us to a state of mind akin to insanity. Reason is unable to accept in unison what the senses show it to be separate, and thus the conflict between the perceptual and ideational remains forever unsolved.—quoted in Goethe as a scientist / Magnus, R. (Rudolf), p. 72.

Beauty, truth and goodness are not motional things, they are eternal ideas that express the ultimate spiritual nature of reality.

The idea is to effect complete physical separation, especially to end the possibility of marriages between the spiritually oriented and the materially oriented.

We're trying to come up with a good translation of die Gemeinschaft der Geistigen. Suggestions? The basic idea, though, is that these are indeed rebels against the notion that the world must only be seen as motional thingliness. They uphold the idea that thought itself is primary, and that ultimately thought arrives at the eternal ideas of beauty, truth and goodness.

The Cogitant is substance. This is the same as saying Spirit is God (Jn 4:24). Things are present in the substance not as things, but rather as the substance itself. It is like a hologram, where each portion contains the whole.

See variable speed of light.

Isn't that what I am saying, that it is because of the limitations of our bodies that we see everything as motion?

Yeah, that is his problem with absolute materialism all right.

The goal of spiritual thought is to suppress entirely the individual ego in its motional complex, and attain to the universal and infinite I-Self that stands entirely beyond motion.

I mean that Heraclitus understood everything as in essence One Thought, but we experience this One Thought as the motional material manifold.

Here's a quotation that I gave earlier:

The Cogitant is the One and the All and each component of the Many, of the thingly reality of this world of motion, of the ideatum. For everything ideated is what is ideated by the Cogitant; it is the relative of the Absolute, the Absolute in the form of relativity. Happy or unhappy, all of us in the world of motion live the Many, ideated by the Cogitant. But the Cogitant, the essence, is One, and we are blessed in the Cogitant, in the essence, which is in us, not like the being of things, ideated things, things in motion, but which is truly in us, without having been drawn into motion; we become aware of it, secretly, at the point where motion ceases.

Elijah

I like him as a leverage point but that only works when pushing him as a Messiah not a mystic. As a messiah he’s the king of kings but as a mystic he’s just an unreachable example that you can’t use for anything but personal direction. It’s like taking Excalibur and using it to chop firewood.
To be understood exactly the same? Just two words for the same thing? Not an attribute or a thought of one or the other? Just using multiple words to describe the same thing exactly?
Yea the thinglessness of the one substance in motion is the core of his worldview. He isn’t against motion at all and there is nothing that is at rest. If there was a part at rest then there would be a duality in his universe and a thing, which would be considered superstitious by his understanding.

God isn’t the spiritual source for being for Brunner but just another word for the substance again. Instead of trying to put a theory forward on the beginning he just goes there isn’t one and calls what we have before us God.

"All of these thinkers name this one prime matter of theirs God, in order to thereby to bring into relief it’s living nature." P.160 S.S.S.

Compared to a spiritual constant source.

"Old Man: But what do you call God?

Justin: That which always maintains the same nature, and in the same manner, and is the cause of all other things—that, indeed, is God." Justin Martyr Letter to Tyrphro

Anything more? This still just looks to me like it’s a perspective of everything in motion but nothing more than a specific thought of the One. I’m still confused on using multiple words for the same thing.
“Things” is the key word there, motion isn’t an aspect it’s the core of being. That absolute spiritual thought is just a thought (I think), not an attribute nor part of the universe or even the true nature of the universe. It’s merely an imagined point of view of the universe that shows it to be one substance in motion.
I don’t know if Goethe had spiritual elements or a spiritual understanding of a completely materialistic view but there is a huge difference between an idea and an ideal, like the difference between something’s form and its Form. The reason stuff not accepting the union would be good for discussion of Philo’s Logos and Berkeley’s immaterialism.

There are two basic camps in understanding ideas and what they represent. Idealist say that even though we can only perceive what changes we can conceive of constants in the universe and that these constants actually exist, acting like the coding behind what we see.

The other camp says that these ideas aren’t real and are just a phenomenon due to our interaction with the universe. They are just part of our imagination/thinking and the only thing real is motion/material before us, which our imagination is part of or one with.

And if you do believe in actual universal constant’s/spiritual elements then there is still argument over what is an actual universal constant and what is just a mental construction like Plato’s “Love” not being a God but a great daemon.
Must remember NoRobots is a separatist. Go Union!
Not sure but if it’s not about actual types of individuals but defined by a specific “no things” substance philosophy then it should reflect that.
I’m not sure what you are referencing there but unless you think it is going to add something we can probably skip it.
I don’t know if that’s what you are saying, more than a little bit of confusion on my part. I was assuming you were in agreement with how I’m understanding Brunner and it’s the thingness not the motion they are trying to get past. The motion is what you realize is the basis of being from an absolute thought or perspective.
And the one substance in motion is the basis of reality, right?
I don’t think it would be very effective for you to stand beyond the motion in order to lose your sense of self, you would need to visualize yourself as one with the motion in order to do that, not separate. That’s an effective way to understand the universe in motion but not to lose your “I”. Imo at least.
We are kind of back at the two camps thing again. When you say that essence of the One is thought that’s equating it with a constant like Parmenides where everything is at rest and motion is the illusion. That’s not what Brunner is putting forward. He’s saying motion is the reality and the thoughts are just the product of the motion. He has thinking in his worldview but it is only the substance response to itself, not anything that is beyond the substance.

No Robots

Yeah, I see what you mean. Perhaps we need to divide Christ as he is absolutely, ie. a mystic, from what we understand him as practically, ie. the Messiah.

Did you read "The Attributes"? It is attached to the back of Materialism and Idealism. Brunner interprets substance as thought. Extension is our particularly human attribute, ie. way of thinking of substance.

Quite so. But his worldview is not his philosophy.

Right. But the universe considered philosophically as eternal beauty, truth and goodness is not a moving thing, it is not a thing at all.

Right. He is opposed to the idea of any kind of prime mover. Mover and moved are one.

Brunner is trying to get across that the Absolute is not inert. It is the principle of activating power itself, viewed abstractly as infinite and eternal.

I don't see Brunner and Justin as being at odds here.

There are many words for the Absolute: Substance, the One, the Father, Beingness, the Tao, Brahman, Logos. They all have in common the idea of activating power that is in itself changeless. Brunner's use of the word Cogitant is designed to emphasize that the Absolute is Thought.

How can a fan of Plato refer to the idea of ideas as "just a thought"? The idea of ideas is the really real, no?

Maybe we're getting somewhere. The practical understanding is about forms, whereas spiritual thought is about Form.

Exactly. And ultimately we arrive at the Constant itself.

Right. In the end, the war is against those who declare that ideas are fundamentally unreal.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about Plato to discuss him in particular. But all true thinkers are united in affirming the universal Constant.

Much of the widespread domestic unhappiness is due to confusion of material orientation and spiritual orientation. It would be a great boon to adequately separate these two in thought and practice.

I just mean that all physical constants are more or less contrived. The only true constant is the spiritual One.

You have it wrong. Motion is not the basis of being from the perspective of absolute thought:

For the theory of motion is, after all, not philosophy, is not absolute thought: it is relative thinking, it is our world-view in our Practical Understanding, fundamentally different from the thinking of spiritual truth – that being quite another faculty of thought.—SSS, 165.

Substance as things in motion is how we see reality in our practical understanding. Substance as eternal and infinite Constant is how we see reality in spiritual thought.

That is precisely what absolute materialism asserts. Frankly, nothing is more horrifying to me. The idea that there is nothing but ceaseless motion without an underlying Absolute is the ultimate abomination. We are in the world, but we are not of the world.

Brunner talks about Parmenides in the passage that I quoted above:

For the theory of motion is, after all, not philosophy, is not absolute thought: it is relative thinking, it is our world-view in our Practical Understanding, fundamentally different from the thinking of spiritual truth – that being quite another faculty of thought. And even this difference between the two faculties of thought I find clearly stated by some Greek philosophers. For instance by Parmenides who, by the way, has grasped the depth of the theory of motion as already evidenced by these few lines: ‘for it is one and the same that quickens man’s thought and that moveth his limbs and propelleth all; for in all resideth the spirit’. Thought and existence are to him the same; there is but one existence wherein nothing can either originate or disappear.... After Parmenides concludes the presentation of his philosophy proper, he, wishing now to apply himself to the thoughts of relative Practical Understanding, does so with the following words:

‘Herewith now have I concluded the faithful discussion on thoughts concerning truth: now shalt thou of mortals’ opinions be apprised, the deceptive conceit in my words perceiving.’

For the thinker, the world as motion is a kind of deception, but a deception that we need in order to conduct the practical business of living. Ultimately, there is the only the One, infinite and eternal. And we, too, are that One.

Elijah

Can you use a title like “mystic” if thinking absolutely or is that thingery for practical communication only? Wouldn’t it be more correct to understand him as just a part of one continuous act of God (the substance), if working from the absolute perspective?

I think it comes down to, do you want to use Jesus as a spokesperson for a particular belief system or as a spiritual authority to counter the earthly authority. Gnostic vs Orthodox.
Yes I read it. I didn’t take notes or focus on anything in particular since I didn’t know where the disagreement would be. IIRC, attributes are more along the lines of variance in the flux creating the categories and differences in the one substance. The thought and thinking is the substance responding to itself and that variance.
Are you saying the Cogitant is a specific attribute of the substance now and not synonymous with the substance itself?
And what is the difference because I’m using the words synonymously? Is it his worldview was mystical without things but his philosophy for sake of communications needed to use words which reflect things which distorts what he is actually preaching?
It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to call it a thing and want to call it eternal and beautiful it’s still only moving substance. Understanding it mentally as an idea or a particular idea doesn’t change what it actually is and doesn’t add anything to the One.
And a beginning.
Brunner is taking the word God and reinterpreting it as universe instead of the source/cause of the universe so that he can reinterpret Greek thought to his own personal philosophy that doesn’t have a beginning/God.
It doesn’t maintain the same manner, it’s in flux. It’s not the cause of things because there is neither a cause nor things in Brunner’s philosophy/worldview.
Still isn’t making sense to me sorry.

Activating power? It’s taking something from inactive to active? Is this a distinct spiritual element in the universe or is it the same substance in flux we are talking about?
Am I the fan or Brunner here? Brunner is reinterpreting Plato differently than normal. Plato’s Idea of ideas is equivalent to the Good (I think) which is a spiritual constant, that is the source of the forms, which is the source of the things/particulars in matter, which Brunner doesn’t personally believe in.

The idea of ideas to Brunner is just another name for the substance that creates the illusion of ideas/things.
It’s just an argument against things again but what we are trying to figure out is if “Form” to him is the same substance again or a distinct spiritual ideal like Plato had it.
I don’t think there is any arriving at the constant from the idealist perspective. You can realize they exist but that’s it. Like you can realize the constant motion in Brunner’s theory but there is no actual point of rest in his universe.
I thought the war was against the idea of things being real which would include spiritual things like ideals actually existing.
All great thinkers may see the substance’s base essence as motion but not all of them think that is the sum total of the cosmos.

I would recommend if you haven’t’ already read them to at least check out Theaetetus and the Sophist since it’s mostly an actual argument against Brunner’s position.
If spiritual orientation was talking about actual types of individuals and not just people who follow a particular philosophy, I still wouldn’t agree. I would say the problems usually come down to money and slaving their lives away for the man instead of working on their relationship. The war between the man and the women is based on more than spiritual incompatible personalities. Mankind has placed woman under its heel and there is going to be hell to pay for that collectively and individually.
You may be slightly missing what kind of physical constants I’m talking about. What is physically constant isn’t the limits on the physical but actually physically constant elements/aspects in the universe that you can’t detect physically.
I think it comes down to when you talk about it or philosophize about it you aren’t getting a truly accurate picture because you are creating thingery even when trying to discuss no thingery. Spiritual truth is awareness from that point of view but when articulated in philosophy by using words it loses its true meaning. It’s something you have to experience to see truthfully because words create illusions of things. Motion is still the base of the One. It’s when you say the one is in motion you are creating a thing so it’s not spiritually true from Brunner’s perspective.
I think you got it somewhat backwards or I’m not understanding you correctly. There are no things in the substance which is in motion, nor are there actually eternal ideas that exist (which would be things) in Brunner’s understanding of reality.

I’ll go back to the water analogy. The universe is like one big piece of water with complex waves/attributes (due to variance in the flux) crashing into each other and creating ripples/thought. Our particular attributes creates a specific extension so that when we think about the absolute itself we are in position to hit the surface of the water just right and instead of merging as a ripple/thought in the water it bounces up and creates a little perfect bubble so that for a moment you can see yourself separate from the unified motion of the water and realize the true reality.

In reality the bubble doesn’t actually separate from the rest of the water nor is it a thing in itself because there are no thing’s in reality, there is only constantly moving water.

Now, the formation of this bubble is consistent in that it’s the same kind of bubble formed every time with the same exact shape and shows the physical world as a unified One in motion every time. This eternal consistent nature of what you are thinking about is why you can consider this absolute thought spiritual but that doesn’t mean there is anything actually constant in the universe. It’s still all just water in motion including the absolute thought/bubble.
Stole your soul back from Brunner huh? (P. 89 Idealism Mat)
Again (IMO) he is interpreting Parmenides to fit his understanding, he’s not coming from a position of the universe at rest. If he was he would be trying to explain the illusion of motion which is the difficulty for the idealists. But instead he is trying to explain where/how the ideas are forming from our perception/thinking/responding to the attributes which are due to variance in the flux of the One.

No Robots

Yeah, but that is mysticism.

Both.

No. That is, however, the way that Spinoza is usually understood.

Yeah, I noticed. The difference is that worldview is restricted to the practical understanding of reality as a continuum of things in motion. Philosophy is reflection under the aspect of eternity wherein reality is understood as one timeless abstraction.

It's the other way round. Philosophy and mysticism have the same content, but to communicate they need to use words, which are necessarily only capable of describing the relative worldview.

Nope, just eternal and infinite beingness.

I dunno. Your summary of Plato is pretty much how I see Brunner.

True.

Correct.

You have a very good grasp of the principle of the practical understanding. To attain to spiritual thought, you have to see that you, the bubble and the water are all one whole eternal self-regarding act.

He has given my soul to my body, without taking away my body.

Have you ever heard of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy? Pullman describes a process called intercision, by which the body and the soul are sundered. This is a brilliant insight into the spiritually destructive tendencies of the absolute materialism manifest in both religion and scientism.

Rest is a very tough thing to explain, because it belongs only to the province of spiritual thought. Thinking finitely, we will always see the infinite and eternal as seriation in time and space. To see everything at once and as one is the goal of spiritual reflection.

***
In this post of yours, there is quite a bit of commentary that relates to your misconstrual of Brunner as an absolute materialist. I have attempted to respond to this in a couple of ways, but I think this is a major stumbling block that will require a high level of reflection on both our parts.

gurugeorge

Oh they're quite plentiful now. By now, loads of people who started meditating as hippies in the 60s and stuck with it have done a lot of practice of one kind or another, and some of them have matured. There's also a healthy and growing non-dual "scene" in the West.

You will find some Christian mystics amongst them (following in the footsteps of famous Christian mystics like Thomas Merton). Access to Eastern mysticism has I think actually rejuvenated Christian mysticism, although at the same time it has loosened the moorings of Christian mysticism somewhat from Christian dogma. (Ultra-highbrow Western philosophy, itself somewhat influenced by Eastern ideas, is a pretty safe alternative mooring too.)

I would consider myself a rationalist mystic: I have had "glimpse" or "awakening" experiences, nothing like full Enlightenment or Liberation, but hardcore non-dual moments of seeing and living the present non-existence of what I am ordinarily pleased to call my "self", along with a concomitant presence of a sense of the Universe as (so to speak) my True Self.

I'd say that what the German mystic and sociologist, Agehananda Bharati, called the "zero experience" (the absence, disappearance, abeyance, etc., etc.) of the ordinary sense of self (in clinical terms, Depersonalisation) is kind of the essence of the business of mysticism, Christian or otherwise. It's an experience, but it's not correct to call it an experience in the ordinary sense, because there's nobody here (as ordinarily understood) to experience it. It's also an understanding, and (contrary to some beliefs) it can actually be put into words with crystalline clarity.

What's present in the absence of that ordinary sense of self (and what makes the difference from Depersonalisation) is the noticing of what's variously called "God", "the Absolute", "Mind", "Universe", "Self", "Ordinary Mind", "Nothing", etc., etc., et multae ceterae.

This sort of thing I would consider the "real deal" - stuff to do with "visions" is relatively trivial, and can be mimicked by taking hallucinogenic drugs or inducing certain trance states through sleep deprivation, breathing exercises, etc. Really, you have to forget about the term "mysticism" for a moment, and consider there is a sociological phenomenon X, which is a broad spectrum that includes on one side, certain kinds of ecstatic and occult religious practices of primitive tribes and ancient peoples, and on the other pure non-dual Seeing. X-ers are people who have a drive to get to the bottom of things, I guess you could say, and they will find whatever in their culture promises to help them get to the bottom of things, and follow those paths. If they are an X-er living in a village in Africa, that may lead them to a somewhat shamanistic path; if they are an X-er living in Canterbury, that might incline them to a Christian non-dual mystic path of the likes of Traherne, with a zillion possibilities inbetween.

I am of the belief that Jesus Christ wasn't a man, but there were many men like him, and some of them wrote the early Christian material (e.g. Paul) - some of them even wrote some of the later Christian material too (e.g. Origen).

Unfortunately, while mysticism was sort of allowed by orthodox Christianity, any kind of mysticism that offered words that seemed to deviate from a certain set understanding of theology were disallowed. There have been a few genuine mystics in Christianity - Eckhart and Boehme, obviously, but also others, even some in the orthodox fold (who were either clever enough to word their visions carefully, or avoided talking about the high-end stuff, like Aquinas), and some more controversial in their day, not so well-known now, but at one time famous, like Miguel de Molinos.

Elijah

Huh? I was trying to say that from the mystic’s perspective you couldn’t/shouldn’t label Jesus a mystic because that is thingery. Kind of like being impossible to talk about the absolute from the perspective of the absolute.
Not that the two contradict each other but IMO you should put what makes the person unique and defines their purpose before you consider trying to convince others of a trait that makes him one of a million others and doesn’t matter at all to the plan. Jesus the messiah comes before Jesus a mystic.
So no need to consider the Cog any longer, it’s just another name for the substance in flux, even though you are still arguing against that it’s substance or in flux, correct?
Still missing the difference. Are you trying to say that worldview is what you actually see and not your particular view/understanding of the world and philosophy is your understanding conceptualized with abstract concepts?

Or is it a worldview is abstract things and Philosophy is a single unified abstract thing?
And it’s because mysticism has a problem with words, because there is actually one thing in existence from that perspective?
Which is why his philosophy is going to be different than someone one who has a beginning like Plato. When you go from “nothing to One” it’s going to start you off differently than when you are trying to explain the one in flux that you believe has always been. Two completely different philosophies will be produced.
It would be funny if Brunner’s followers interpreted him as a dualist and an idealist after he interpreted Plato as a materialist.
What act? What action? Is it that activating power that you mentioned in the last post?

I included that the bubble and the water were still one in my example. Anytime someone is communicating about the absolute it’s going to be from a practical perspective because communicating from the spiritual perspective is nearly impossible. The words fall apart into one word. Same problem happens in unified matter as it does in an unified ideal philosophy.

You know like once you leave Plato’s cave and see the light, words lose all their meaning and communication becomes difficult. Which is why I think it’s best to stay out of the unified area of discussion until everyone is caught up to the concept of we are chained up forced to face the shadows on the wall but that’s not the true reality.

Brunner is saying that only the wall is real and the shadows are just illusions because the wall is moving. But the idealists say that wall isn’t moving but the shadows are due to things beyond our ability to perceive. Which Brunner would respond with there are no things but only the one wall, which he believes he himself is a part of and actually nothing real because he believes in no things but the wall.
Nope. Haven’t read it. Saw the one movie.

I think you may be using spirit and soul synonymously or understanding the voice in your head as your soul instead of as your daemon. Brunner explains thought and thinking but I don’t see him explaining the observation of that thinking in his materialism.
Seeing it at once or visualizing any way you want doesn’t create an actual point of rest in the universe. If he had any points of rest it wouldn’t be a single One, it would have parts.
Feel free to elaborate at length but so far he looks exactly like an absolute materialist in that he believes in a single unified substance that can move and is in constant flux is the basis of the universe and the only thing that truly exists. He’s not an absolute materialist from the point of view that the matter is composed of things or is finite.

The more words you use, the more likely I will be able to understand how you are using them.