I see such a hurry and yearning, in what gets called spirituality, for sublime experience, for the sublime explanation: ‘I saw spirit in everything’ ‘Really this pain is a divine lesson’ ‘I experienced universal love’ ‘God’s love is in everything’ - as if what is behind or transcends must be, oh, has to be good and all reconciling and fairly easy to sum up. This often seems like an escape to me - not saying it must be, just that often, perhaps nearly always when I encounter it, it seems ungrounded, yearning for replacing and quickly summing up what is now (experienced and known).
It seems to me that the uncanny is more likely to be behind this fairly tough world we are in. At least immediately behind. That insight first hits the unsettling, the hard to define and confusing, the eerie…
That behind [This] would suddenly be unveiled hallmark greeting card perfection…I wonder if it is more one little portion of the self, shooting into the noosphere, wanting it all to be settled now, right away. A sugar rush of spiritual projection.
Traditionally the uncanny is evoked around phenomena like very lifelike dolls, doppelgangers, feelings of disturbing presences…
think of David Lynch films
What is behind the uncanny, well…
but no shortcuts, eh.
When I meet people like these, they generally come across as not having ever thought too much about their beliefs, belief system, and world view. In fact, I almost always am certain that they’ve inherited their beliefs from their parents, and play “follow the leader” so to speak. Most people lead their lives this way, without deviating from the norm too far.
Beliefs are much more dangerous than people realize, because a subtle change in a deeper belief, can cause seemingly irrational behavior. This is why many people cannot fathom the Jihadists and other Islamic terrorists, like the Boston bombing. They’re amazed, shocked when these things happen. Terrified. Belief is the key. If a man truly believes he is going to get 72 virgins in Heaven, when he dies for Allah, then imagine the consequences of applying this belief to real life. Just imagine, a belief taken as Capital T Truth.
People should really reflect on these types of insights.
Reno, I’ve spent so much time of my life thinking about everything. There is a balance between too little self reflection, and too much. I’ve not yet found the limit of too much self reflection, but, there is one I am certain. As for this social setting, I encourage everybody to find his or her own personal balance, and carefully categorize your own beliefs in life. If a belief is valued as true, deemed truth, judged to become Capital T Truth, then it changes everything.
Faith applied to belief, becomes the human willpower. And this is the most frightening, the most horrifying, the most terrifying power of humankind, the ability to commit acts of evil, in the same way people commit acts of good.
People use sublime language to disguise the fact that they don’t think about much in life, especially their own beliefs.
What is uncanny is just the honest approach to admitting ignorance about spirituality. Atheism, for example, is forced not to pretend it knows anything significant about the universe or existence. The uncanny thing is to make some poignant point, some great insight, in spite of this fact. And it behooves the Christians when this occurs, frequently. Christians always enjoy to believe they have the upper hand on the sublime.
It reinforces their superficial approach to doubting traditional knowledge or falsity in general.
… Best–both. Rudolph Otto pins down the experience of the holy in terms of a Latin phrase, mysterium tremendum. The tremendum component of the numinous that is being experienced as comprising three elements: awfulness (inspiring awe, a sort of profound unease), overpoweringness (that which, among other things, inspires a feeling of humility), energy (creating an impression of immense power). It is an experience of “the total other”. The aspect of daemonic dread was suppressed as religion experience was domesticated by the church. [The Idea of the Holy: An inquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational.
Interesting, thanks. My first reaction to this is that it is so huge. Sometimes when a New Age person speaks about a sublime insight or experience, I get the feeling the word ‘nice’ would have sufficed. Or in relation to the idea a word like ‘pretty’ or ‘sleek’. IOW that what is actually being referred to is something more minor than the kinds of experiences you are describing, and also different in quality. I suppose that’s why I took a side move towards the uncanny, where there is some ambivalence, at least often, about whether something out of the ordinary or profound is happening. Something not quite so overwhelming as what you are describing and then also not quite so powerful also as the various kinds of religious sublmie experience, say something like Sartori or feeling Jesus in your heart.
But you are right in the area I mean, certainly. That there is this niceness to the sublime - something the sublime need not be limited by but often seems to be - whereas in religous experiences - including here Western, Eastern and indigenous/pagan - there are often unpleasant/uneasy/terrifying aspects and that perhaps we get an inkling of these even in fairly minor uncanny experiences.
I do Think this happens. I don’t Think that when people speak about the sublime, this is necessarily the case, but I do see it often as a rush to wrap things up with a bow.
Atheists, at least the online kind, tend to make implicit or explicit claims about what can be known - epistemology - which has implicit claims itself about the nature of reality, of us, or perception and so on.
Sure, many do. Though I don’t want to focus on Christians, or even the religious, since many other Groups will rush to their perception of the sublime.
Otto realized this. So did Tillich and Jung and Joseph Campbell. It the daemonic, irrational, monstrous aspect of the divine. In Christianity it is neatly split into God and the Devil. That goes back at least to Plato who has Socrates argue that the gods must be all ethical and good. Hinduism and Buddhism retain the uncanny as symbolized by the monstrous gods who populate their pantheon. It’s symbolized there in the gargoyls on the European cathedrals.
I agree with all this, though I am thinking of less spectacular phenomena when I mention the uncanny. I do Think these more limited phenomena can be a gateway to experiences such as the ones you have mentioned, though I also Think there is something more complicated going on than the major religions even consider. I suppose I have Always taken the uncanny rather seriously. some experiences can be associational or simply misundertandings. But others seem like Little glimpses of a more complicated, and also not simply nice, reality. I have generally been rather sensitive to places, even in nature, where things are off and horrible things have happened. The experience can actually also be attractive - while scary and even repugnant - because it seems closer to what is actually going on. Or better put, when I am having these experiences, I am closer to being awake or alive in some way(s). One such event I had with a dog companion. we both reacting in very odd ways to what seemed like a simple walk in nature we had done many times Before. Eventually he convinced me to turn back, and turning back was not an option he ever chose. I’d rather not go into details but several physically apparant things happened as we turned back the other way on the trail and on that walk away from whatever was really upsetting him and giving me the creeps. This dog would happily have Walking up to any human, and any large mammal - or skunks porcupines, whatever. But something was freaking him out and that something then seemed to manifest.
Whatver this was, I Think, in specific, is not that important. I Think there are other phenomena that are more critical and Deep, shall we say. But it was like a peeling back and however unpleasant, bracing in the realness of it.
When I hear, for example, New Age people speak about how wonderful Everything is, I feel like they are not finding what is behind our trained naive realism, because what is behind this shares the moral complexity of what is around us as face value.
When I was in high school the English teacher taught us that Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey exemplified the sublime and Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner the uncanny. That characterization still rings true. The modern mind seems to want to divide those qualities which were united in the experience of more primitive cultures. I liked Coleridge’s poem better.
It took me a long time to accept that good and evil come together as a package. Both must be present or both disappear. With that understanding, that which you call uncanny is all about you. What you sense is what I call the dance. All dichotomies require at least two components, and observing both as they play out their existence requires the larger or more encompassing perspective. There is room for both the sublime and the uncanny. You may observe either one or the other at any given time. Better to see both in their co-dependency.
I like Wordsworth better better as a poet, but I do prefer the imagery and weight of Coleridges poem. And I can see what your teacher meant. Wordsworth is a good example of sublime thinking, because his epiphanies can be appreciated by non-theists also. They are potentially secular. Coleridges World entails something supernatural, I would say. I don’t mean this as a criticism of the poem, hardly, but I want to make clear that these patterns are not simply religious ones. They are, at least at first, experiential, and in those first steps, at least, have to do with how we experience the World at a deeper level than - Oh, I am late for my bus, should I cut through the Alley…’
Another way to go for the issue is: on the Surface we have a trouble World, with good and bad people, natural disasters, disease and Death, cruelty and kindness - if you get a glimpse into the workings behind the scenes, it would be odd if suddenly it was all roses and giggles.
I just want to be clear that I am not saying there cannot be a sublime reconciliation…at some level. But my sense is that this is rushed towards, without really face what you are Calling the dance. And that on the way to any real understanding, secular or spiritual, the ah ha experiences are likely to be mixed - some sublime, some uncanny, some just plain horrifying.
Agreed. But if they weren’t all there at the same time, how would you sense any difference? I’m on board with the distaste for the superficial warm fuzzies. It is never all sweetness and light, and if there is any apprehending of the uncanny one must see both that which is good and that which is evil and have the courage to face up to both.
Observation: Our questions can be simplicity itself. But the answers are commonly a bit more complex…
We’re getting to an even more abstract and speculative level, but perhaps you can recognize that that there are two seeming different ‘things’ that are really one thing. I would guess there are examples in mundane reality of this or scientific reality, where two seemingly different kinds of things are found to actually be one. From that Point forward you can still notice those aspect that made you Think they were different, but you are aware of the underlying unity.
And that is certainly a good summation of part of what I am saying. A lot of the New Age sublime talk strikes me as disconnected rather than some real reconciliation achieved through facing reality.
The other thing, I Think, that set off this thread was the feeling that the sublime is too much emphasized - partly due to the domination of the what might be considered the better, not fire and brimstone, part of the Abrahamic religions - and the uncanny, let alone more awe full aspects of spirituality/facing reality, are ignored. But there we have this gateway to the profound, often more easy to access or right there in our faces, sometimes, than the nice stuff. There is Life in there and ignoring it seems a shame.
It is never all sweetness and light, and if there is any apprehending of the uncanny one must see both that which is good and that which is evil and have the courage to face up to both.
Observation: Our questions can be simplicity itself. But the answers are commonly a bit more complex…
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Though my english is not as good as other board members but i feel that there is subtle difference between the simple linguistic meanings of sublime and uncanny.
Uncanny has broader spread than sublime. Actually, sublime is pleasant subset of uncanny. IOW, sublime are those type of uncanny experiences which are pleasant, This is to say that an uncanny experience may be sublime or may be awful as well.
Spirituality covers both types of experiences; good and bad. More often than not, people interpret spirituality just as a simple feel good factor but it could and must be in both ways and deeper too.
Rununder,
That is true. And, there are only two ways of getting out of it.
Either one has to choose very wisely or should rely only on his realization. The first route is easy but odds are in the favor of being misguided and the second option is very difficult and lenthy. But, still the good thing about the second option is that atleast one can be sure of whatever more or less he realizes.
I could not be more agree with you on this.
The more important thing that people do not realize that accepting ignorence is the first step to learning. This step is a must ingredient of acquiring any knowledge. Accepting ignorence let the ego go and tends to create vaccum in the mind and subconscious in order to enable it absorb the new things.
Tentative,
You got is absolutely right.
[b]Actually, both good and bad cannot exist without each other. No matter how much good is created in any circumstances, bad cannnot be completely eliminated. It also works the other way around too.
The reason of this phenomenon is that both good and bad are comparative and depends on the ambient or surroundings. Iow, we can say that is always a fluctuating dividing line between good and bad. When we intencify good, the average density of the goodness increses and quite naturaly, that dividing line moves upwards and some portion of the previous good falls below the average and becomes bad[/b].
Thus, it is neither possible to have totally good nor bad.
And, that is what the ancient chinese symbol of Yin-yang also refers. There must be a small white spot in the black portion and a small black spot in white portion too. Otherwise, they (chinese) would had opted for showing simple and complete black and white portions.
Coleridge’s “Rime . . .” is my favorite poem. I see it as an existential plunge into the uncanny. Only after he blessed the water snakes could the mariner pray. The poem is about an archetypal journey into the subconscious–a spiritual odyssey.
Pour beer into a glass and it tastes uncanny. Sorry about that. The devil made me do it.
I think this is a fair objection, though I would go a little further on this point. To me the uncanny includes the idea of not being sure. There can be unpleasant, even horrifying spiritual experiences that the person experiencing them does not doubt in any way. It was real to them, period. So yes, the uncanny could include sublime type experiences - though generally the uncanny is disturbing and sublime experiences are more pleasant - but sublime experiences tend not to have the uneasiness of certainty. I am basing my ideas on the uncanny on several writers who have focused on the phenomenon but the generally public uses the term more broadly to mean weird experiences.
In much literature, e.g., “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, “Heart of Darkness”:, etc. there is the idea of a spiritual quest in which the hero must travel though jungles, deserts or strange seas in preparation for enlightenment. In these instances the uncanny appears to purge the one who is on the quest. It’s trial by fire in which the heat of the uncanny can hone a persons metal. This is a slow process toward the sublime. I really don’t see how this state of affairs could be otherwise. There is no quick fix.
Yup and yup… Uncanny is uncertainty at a extreme level. It is well beyond the expectation of experience and therefore, is unsettling. In it is the potential of a threat to what is experientialy known. So in a way, the idea that uncanny is “weird” is correct. The sublime is that which is known, comfortable, and non-threatening. It takes courage to accept the presence of both and even more courage to invite either. Few are capable of experiencing the uncanny or the sublime. Better the fog of ignorance than a confrontation with self.
Sorry about that. The devil made me do it.