James Burke and other thoughts

James Burke and other thoughts

I had a book on Death and Dying that stood pretty well by itself, but it seemed to fit so well into One Lifetime that I put it in there.  Is that the end of it?  Do I have more to say?

I see where the popular mags are just beginning to tackle the topic.  Modern Maturity Sep –Oct 2000 calls the subject ‘The Last Taboo: Straight talk from Bill and Judith Moyers’ by Mark Malonsek p 48.  This article is an interview concerning a PBS Special they prepared.  I didn’t see it.  We have one PBS Channel called PBSU – perhaps for PBS Univ.  Bill and Judith are called Journalists which means they are not promoters of a cause.  This article is followed by a pull-out section called Start the Conversation. 

The Article opens with a box called ‘In Search of a Good Death’.  The substance of the article seems sound.  It seems to be a summary of the latest thinking.

I saw a similar article, perhaps two, in some other popular mags, but I failed to take notes.

Also Note my entry on Peter Singer, which I did incorporate in One Lifetime.  I saw hundreds of articles and comments on Dr Singer on the net – many of which want to engage in dialogue about ‘Bio-ethics’ – a new and promising field.  This is Dr Singer’s field.  As luck would have it, there was a ‘monster’ born in England a day or so ago – Doctors want to experiment – parents say ‘dispatch it’.  Dr Singer’s is a voice to be heard.

A Study In Consciousness: A Contribution to the Science of Psychology by Annie Besant – 1938 – The Theosophical Publishing House  - Adgar, Madras, India

This book is unusual in that there is nothing on the dust Jacket – nothing on the inside flaps – in fact, not a clue as to its contents.

There is a clue in the name of the publisher and his address.

I don’t know anything about East Indian ideas, but I do know something about the ego.  Big Ego wants us to ‘Be Important!’.

If we can produce an idea or a thought that impresses our readers or hearers with our ‘importance’, then we have acquiesced to Big Ego’s urging.  Obviously, it is not necessary, or important, that the idea or thought have any substance or basis in fact.  All that is necessary is that the creator of the idea believe that it is ‘important’.[1]  If others also believe it that confirms the claim that it is ‘important’.  These others then rally around the leader, as described by Eric Hoffer in ‘The True Believer’.

A favorite tactic is to ‘create’ a new description of something familiar that already exists.  P18 – “Now the ultimate atoms of the physical plane are not the ‘atoms’ of the modern chemist, the ultimate atoms are aggregated into successive typical groups, forming ‘states of matter’, and the chemical action may be in the fifth, sixth, or seventh of these states, a gas, a liquid, or a solid.”  (Putting ‘states of matter’ in quotes tells us that she doesn’t mean states of matter.)

Many readers like to be told that the rest of the world is in darkness and that the reader is  being honored by being made privy to these secrets.

The test of any writer, such as Annie, is to look into some area where you are knowledgeable.  Does she know your field?

Now regarding Annie’s culture.  This book was published in some form in 1907, being revised and reprinted in 1928.  It is not a product of the hippie movement. 

Besant appears to be a French name, but there is no clue to her background.  It is hard to get much from her writings alone – she doesn’t say anything about herself.

She says that the field is vaster than this short introduction.  “In this little volume I have only arranged a small part of this material, in the hope that it may be useful now to some of the toilers in the field of the Evolution of Consciousness, and may serve, in the future, as a stone in the complete building.”

This concept surely gives her a feeling of ‘importance’.  It also tries to persuade the reader that the material is ‘important’.  Some of the writing appears to me to be pathological babble.

See The Merck Manual 13^th Ed – 1977 – Merck & Co – Rahway NJ

Under Schizophrenia – Thought Disorder: “Clear goal-directed thinking becomes increasingly difficult, as shown in a diffuseness or wooliness and circumstantiality of speech.”

This is not exactly what I had in mind but it illustrates the point.  Abelard said of Anselm (not St Anselm) that, “He had a remarkable command of words but their meaning was worthless and devoid of all sense.”

I do not find any evidence that Annie finds that any of this material is useful – that it does anything for her – or for anyone else.  She is strictly a reporter – this is the way it is – I am not involved in it.

What I suggested here is that we learn to ‘read between the lines’ – to see what isn’t written.

Later: Annie could very well have been near psychotic at this time, but in her prime, she was a woman to contend with.  Basically, she was into women’s lib.  In fact, she was ruled by compassion.  I never heard of her until I began reading Circles: 50 Round Trips by James Burke – 2000 – Simon and Schuster, NYC.  In his first Round Trip, Burke refers to ‘activist’ Annie Besant, who was one of the first to be concerned about birth control.  Burke implies that Annie was ‘somebody’.  The Net turned up something like 15,000 hits for “Annie Besant”.  Here is the first one.

Having Solomon on my mind, I recalled the story of David and Bathsheba where the implications were that David seduced the innocent and gullible Bathsheba.  Only later, when we read of the efforts of Bathsheba to get her son, Solomon. named king out of hundreds, or more, eligible sons of David.  Here she doesn’t sound so innocent and gullible – in fact, she seems to be conspiring.

We recall that women were 2^nd class citizens, if not lower in those days.  No woman could become king of Israel, but she could become the mother of one.  Who knows?  This may have been in the back of Bathsheba’s mind when she exposed herself to the lusty David.