Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Oops....
Guess neither spell check nor I know how to spell sublime ;-).
  

    
I once described myself as having signed on to a succession of lost
causes in my life. The counterculture, comix, anarchism, Whole Earth,
Western esotericism, and most recently Freemasonry. However, a friend
told me that this was too negative a way to characterize my life and I
should look at it as a series of adventures. 

I started out my career as a cartoonist and, for anyone who knows
cartoonists, that says it all. Just about every cartoonist I've ever
known was introverted, depressed, and passive aggressive. I don't think
I'd call myself an exception to that description. <g> But who knows? I
think we are often the least capable of giving a good objective
account of ourselves.

My whole adult life has been spent either trying to overcome those
personality traits or learning to live with them. We spoke earlier of
the value of a community and I've certainly found that a sense of
community can be especially helpful for those of us inclined to be
loners and misanthropes. Heh.

GNOSIS magazine was, in many ways, my culminating life's work - an
instance where everything came together: a clear vision, talented
people, a receptive audience, and a quality product. I sustained the
magazine through thick and thin for 14 years and was emotionally
crushed when circumstances forced its death. It is still tough for me
to talk about it. <g> 

Why was I so committed to GNOSIS? Because experiences in my own life
had convinced me of the reality of an underlying order and intelligence
in the universe. And I felt that the unsung Western approaches to that
reality deserved to be better known. The idea for the magazine - its
design, contents, voice - dropped into my mind as  a whole gestalt, as
if it was meant to happen and I was just the caretaker or implementer. 

But needless to say, having that project suddenly end triggered a kind
of spiritual crisis which I've been slowly overcoming since then. I
will say this: I don't think there are any "quick fixes" in this life.
Sometimes one's main spiritual work is just finding a reason to get out
of bed in the morning. 
  

    
You wrote; "I will say this: I don't think there are any "quick fixes"
in this life.  Sometimes one's main spiritual work is just finding a
reason to get out of bed in the morning."  Given my dark years and the
position I find myself in at this point in my life, I can identify with
those comments all too well ;-). 

I notice though, you still have a web-site up for the magazine and are
offering for sale copies of all the old issues at
http://www.lumen.org/ for those who might be interested.  When I was
searching out information about you, I read the articles you had put
on-line there from the magazine and found them fascinating.  

It really is too bad there will be no new ones. But, looking at the
articles that are listed for the various issues, I sure hope you will
continue to find other ways to get that information out to the world. 
There has to be a treasure drove of information/ideas in that archive
for you to mine for MORE books the way it was for your latest. 

I haven't really had a chance to take a serious look at your web-site
though and was curious about what you have there that might be of
interest to me and our readers?  
  

    
The GNOSIS website features listings of the contents of all 51 issues
of the magazine, sample articles from many issues, a searchable index
of the contents of every issue by key word or author, and ordering
information for back issues. 

One of the virtues of GNOSIS was that the material it ran was pretty
timeless, so there is not a high degree of "out of date" material in
the back issues. 

I've been dedicated to keeping back issues available for as long as
possible...which boils down to for as long as enough orders keep coming
in to cover the storage and overhead costs. I have a nice, dry storage
container full of some 20,000 or so back issues (we commonly overran
1000 or so copies of each issue and also took whole copy returns from
distributors). 

About 10 of the issues are out of print but we do small runs of
quality reprints of them as needed, especially so that we can make full
set orders available.

Check out the site for more info. ;-) 
  

    
Now, how about giving us a tour of this one ;-)

http://www.jaykinney.com/
  

    
That's my Clinic of Cultural Collision...a mock clinic for web-induced
culture shock. It's really just a site I put together which collects
some of my more off-the-wall articles and a slew of links to mostly
little known websites that provide intriguing information and diverting
stimulation. I've had it up on the Web, in one form or other, for
close to ten years. (It was originally a user page on the Well, come to
think of it.) One of these days I vow to re-do the whole design and
jazz it up, but as it is currently it is so simple that it loads
quickly. 
  

    
You are right, it is an easy load  ;-).  I just took a look around and
found your "Reading Material" almost immediately.  And, in the
pamphlets & Articles section, I spotted a word which I've thought about
frequently over the years. So, I immediately clicked on your article'
"The Pornographic Impulse," which originally appeared in a special
issue on "Sexuality" in Critique #29 (1988).

When I read it, what struck me most about it was the way you were
attempting to expand the meaning of the word pornography.  

When you spoke of the 'Pornographic Impulse', you defined it as "the
tendency to create (or seek out an already created) media image or
fantasy which substitutes for that which is represented" and as I read
further, the sense I got of the concept you were attempting to attach
that label to was that you were looking for another way to talk about
the commodification of our culture, especially various aspects of our
cultural experience and the way representations of things can, not only
stand in for the real, but become more important to the individual and
reinforce the alienation that is endemic in civilized society.  

I loved your addressing the concept but, have to admit, I didn't agree
with the way you labeled it.  For me at least, the term pornography
has always just meant sexual imagery, whether written or visual,
commercial or not.   Why conflate the concept of pornography (which
literally means the writing of/or about prostitutes in the ancient
Greek) with commodification fetisism?   

I guess the old activist impulse to protect and defend sexual
expression sparked my attention ;-).  So, what do you think these days
about the concepts you were dealing with in that 16 year old article
these days?  
  

    
I'm sure I wasn't the first - and won't be the last - to use the words
"pornography" or "pornographic" for something beyond the strictly
sexual definition of the terms. Words in social usage are fluid things.
Words like "pimp" or "whore" get applied to people or actions beyond
the merely sexual as well.

The phenomenon I was discussing in that old article is certainly still
with us - more than ever - so I think the article still stands up
well. We are increasingly sucked into representations of reality
substituting for the real thing, so much so that it is almost a cliché
to complain about it. Today's Doonesbury strip is about video games
sucking up one's youth. 

I don't have a wholly negative take on pornography. I certainly defend
its right to exist and I've enjoyed my share over the years. With that
article, though, I was just trying to examine how it works in a
general sense and then apply that principle to wider matters. 

Like the saying goes, Width Matters.   Haha.
  

    
Since I don't believe that it's posted anywhere else on the Web, I
thought I'd post the contents page of The Inner West to give readers a
better sense of what the book covers.

Introduction to the Inner West • by Jay Kinney

The West’s Esoteric Roots

1. Hermes & Alchemy: the Winged God and the Golden Word • by Richard
Smoley
2. The Star-Gods of Neoplatonism • by Kenneth Stein
3. The Quest for Spiritual Freedom: the Gnostic Worldview • by Stephan
A. Hoeller
        

The Inner Side of the West’s Religions

4. Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism: An Overview • by Pinchas Giller
5. The Mysticism of Christian Teaching • by Theodore J. Nottingham
6. Sufism: A Path to Human Wholeness • by Kabir Helminski

The Secret Teachings
        
7. The Quest of the Magus: A Summary of the Western Magical Tradition
• by Thomas D. Worrel
8. The Unexamined Tarot • by Chas S. Clifton
9. Ladder to Labyrinth: The Spiritual and Psychological Dimensions of
Astrology • by Priscilla Costello
10. Sophia: Goddess of Wisdom • by Caitlín Matthews
11. Explaining Wicca • by Judy Harrow

Esoteric Brotherhoods

12. The Hidden Sages and the Knights Templar • by Robert Richardson
13. The Rosicrucian Dream • by Christopher McIntosh
14. Masonic Civilization • by Richard Smoley

Mystics and Teachers

15. Heavens and Hells: The Inner Worlds of Emanuel Swedenborg •
by Gary Lachman
16. Blavatsky and Her Masters • by K. Paul Johnson
17. The Apocalyptic Steiner • by Anastasy Tousomou
18. Rene Schwaller de Lubicz and The Intelligence of the Heart • by
Gary Lachman
19. G.I. Gurdjieff: Meetings with a Remarkable Paradox • by Richard
Smoley
20. Facing the Traditionalists • by Joscelyn Godwin
  

    
Jay,

I'm glad you posted the book's contents page.  Unfortunately, it's not
easy to give any real sense of it's scope in a format like this one
but that page does it very succinctly.  

Interestingly enough, I thought I noticed a change in the way the Well
is advertising our discussion.  Did they always use "Finding Religion"
for their Title/link' and ask the question, "Does God play spiritual
hide and seek?" or has it just changed it's position on the page? 
Anyway, whether it's new or just new to me again, it's a good question
so, how would you respond to that one?  

I had to laugh at your ending comment in #58; "Like the saying goes,
Width Matters."  But, but...you know, that doesn't necessarily mean
it's always a "good" thing ;-).  Have to admit, I feel "protective"
about the word but my concern wasn't just because it was being widened
so much as I was worried about the potential for it becoming even more
distorted that it has been in our sex negative culture. However, since
that discussion might be a little off topic,  I'll restrain myself.  

On the other hand, given the reality that so much of today's world is
fundamentally sex-negative, I feel it's important to affirm that
sexuality itself has a strong spiritual component that, given the right
frame of mind/spirit, can help one understand our connection to the
universe every chance I get and, would bet that both of us are in
agreement about it being a link to the divine.
  

    
I just re-read this whole discussion and it makes me appreciate the
importance of editors ;-).  

No matter how many times I re-read or re-write my posts for this
discussion, seconds after I've finally posted it, an awkward
construction or misspelling or missing word pops out at me.  It's too
bad there's no way to correct mistakes like that once I've let my
thoughts loose in the world....sure wish this was as editable as a Wiki
  

    
Jay, I have not read your books, but will soon obtain your The Inner
West as a promising reference to metaphysical traditions.  Thanks for
sharing your inquiries and practices.

Have you studied a branch of the U.S.  Christianity from the early 19
hundreds? The mentor of the movement was Emma Curtis Hopkins. Her many
students started new Churches such as Science of Mind, Unity, Christian
Science.  During Emma Curtis' prime she spoke to large audiences on
her lecture curcuit. High Mysticism was her last work.  

Also, the Tarot system of symbolism comes out of the Kabbalah, as does
Christianity.  Each of the Tarot major arcana represents aspects of
human intelligence.  There is a western mystery school based on this
discipline still in existence in L.A. It teaches the principles and 
practice  of Kabbalistic metaphysics to its aspirants through a Tarot
curriculum handed down progressively by its masters.  I don't think
this is the Madonna connection to  the kabballah.

In both of these esoteric streams of thought is an emphasis on the
universal inner life and the major collective objective to promote the
welfare of humanity. They do not advocate any "ism" nor promote
specific economic or political systems.  But they do turn the powerful
light of occult knowledge upon human and social problems to show what
can be done by exercise of intuition and reason.
  

    
Bobby wrote:
"Interestingly enough, I thought I noticed a change in the way the
Well
is advertising our discussion.  Did they always use "Finding Religion"
for their Title/link' and ask the question, "Does God play spiritual
hide and seek?" or has it just changed it's position on the page? 
Anyway, whether it's new or just new to me again, it's a good question
so, how would you respond to that one?"

I think they updated the blurb to keep it fresh. The hide and seek
question was probably just picking up on a comment I made a couple of
days back: "I think that we are engaged in a 3-way hide and seek
between our psyche, the universe, and an underlying order or
intelligence or consciousness." 

You know, I prefer not to think of God as a separate entity, but its
hard for our minds not to think of it that way. Any encounter between
the finite and the Infinite is going to subjectively feel like hide and
seek. 
  

    
Bobby wrote:
"On the other hand, given the reality that so much of today's world is
fundamentally sex-negative, I feel it's important to affirm that
sexuality itself has a strong spiritual component that, given the
right frame of mind/spirit, can help one understand our connection to
the universe every chance I get and, would bet that both of us are in
agreement about it being a link to the divine."

I have to suspect that the majority of human culture throughout
history has been "sex-negative," if by that you mean being wary of it,
fearing it, being confused by it, regretting it, and so on. For most of
history, sex was perforce intertwined with pregnancy and thus with the
pain of childbirth and the real danger of death from childbirth. So I
suspect that women always tended to hedge in the free expression of
sexual impulses with boundaries that could be seen today as
"sex-negative." 

But that aside, America's heritage is one of the puritans and pilgrims
and other religious dissenters who took a dim view of sensual
pleasures in general (not just sexual). The result today is a truly
schizophrenic society which embraces gluttony but gets a charge out of
denying others pleasure. 

But, to answer your question, I do agree that sex can be a link to the
divine. This has been more fully explored in Eastern paths like Tantra
than in Western ones, alas. But even just for the average person on
the street, sex may be as close as they get to an ecstasy that pulls
them outside of their daily cares.
  

    
Joy, I've read a fair amount about the whole New Thought movement,
which Emma Hopkins falls within. I would have included a piece on it in
my book if I had been able to find a good succinct history/summary of
it. I looked for such a piece but never found one to include.

The L.A. outfit that you may be referring to is probably the Builders
of the Adytum, no? I've had a generally good impression of them, based
on speaking with people who have taken their lessons.

The connection between Tarot and Kabbalah is relatively recent, I
believe. It's my impression that the French occultist Eliphas Levi
invented the relationship between the Tarot Major Arcana and the paths
on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. That was in the mid-1800s. 

There are actually several approaches to Kabbalah. There's the
traditional Jewish mystical one, but there have also been Christian
variants and Magical ones. So, things can get a bit confusing depending
on which one one is referring to. ;-)
  

    
Jay,
When I used the term "sex negative" above, I wasn't talking about
anything as simple as a realistic wariness or fear of sex because of
it's connection with childbirth and the very real danger of death from
childbirth which tended to hedge in the free expression of its
impulses.  Nor was I talking about fears that limited orgiastic or
promiscuous sexuality because of the threat of disease.  I was trying
to address something much more malignant that transforms a relatively
healthy respect for (fear of) a natural force of immense strength and
power into a control mechanism that can be used by whoever the "powers
that be" are to maintain and reinforce their position.  I was trying to
point to the morphing by religious hierarchies and others of that
respectful fear into mechanisms to maintain and reinforce their control
of very diverse cultures around the world.  

I believe that America today has it's own legacy of "sex-negative"
control mechanisms and that, although some of them may appear have
eroded, I fear that they have actually just been transformed not
eliminated.  You were right, our heritage is one of puritans and
pilgrims who took a dim view of sensual pleasures including the sexual,
although I suspect that is an over-generalization since we also hear
of practices during the early years of our country that even today many
would consider shocking like” bundling” and I understand many
dissenters also had a healthy respect for sexuality and sensuality
though its indulgence/expression was controlled/limited to certain
"approved" situations.   

Looking at the world I was born into, it's possible to tease out
strands of the mindset that those mechanisms create.  My grandmother
was berated by her father, called a sinner and a loose woman and at 14
years of age shamed for having a pink ribbon threaded through the
eyelets of her camisole.  I can point to the reality that 62 years ago
my mother was fired from her job as a secretary in a high school office
when she became pregnant with me once she began to show.  In her world
it wasn't acceptable for teenagers to be exposed to the fruits of
sexuality even if it had been socially sanctioned by marriage. Sex was
perceived, not only as dangerous, but as something inherently dirty and
evil.   I grew up in a world where people only a few years older than
me felt too uncomfortable to even announce a pregnancy without
resorting to euphemisms.  

I'm talking about a world in which women my age were being send out of
state to give birth or submitting to illegal abortions (with their
risk of death) because of shameful stigma that would destroy not only
themselves but shame their family and blight all their futures.  I'm
talking about a world in which a rational response to the AIDS epidemic
was delayed due to the perception that it was just a "homosexual
disease" that wouldn't affect anyone but those who, in the minds of
large segments of society, were "degenerates" and that legitimated
letting them suffer and die.  I'm trying to find words to talk about a
world in which sex was seen as so shameful that any participation, no
matter whether it was engaging in a commercial act, having been the
victim of rape or merely swept away by desire in the embrace of their
legally wedded spouse would leave participants with a sense of guilt
and shame.   In some cultures, sex workers may have been honored and
respected members providing a needed service to those without a partner
but not in ours.  Even in this country, prostitution itself was not
always criminalized, but it is now.  

I see the applicability of that term even today because I see our much
more overtly sexually open society still controlled by negative
mechanisms linked to our desire to be attractive not to mention the
push by certain to reinforce old ones around issues of abstinence and
control sexual orientation to mention just a few of them.  The
mechanisms may not always be obvious in today's apparently sex-obsessed
society but they are there and at the bottom there is still a sense of
dirty shamefulness not joyous abandonment when it comes to sex which
is why I used the term "sex-negative".   Oops, better get of my soapbox
before I get too carried away ;-).
  

    
Haha...too late! <g>

Thanks for clarifying what you meant. I don't really disagree with you
on all that. I do kind of wonder if any society has existed that you
can point to as a baseline for "sex-positive", though. Most cultures
that come to mind, that I know anything about (which isn't all of them,
by any means), seem to have some components of control and shaming in
the sexual area. 
  

    
You wrote; "I do kind of wonder if any society has existed that you
can point to as a baseline for "sex-positive", though."  And I'm afraid
I can't.  I'm not scholar enough to know when or where or even if an
"ideal" sex positive culture ever existed.  And, have to agree with you
that most cultures I remember hearing about seem to have some
components of control and shaming in the sexual area.  But, as an ideal
to emulate.   It can be better expressed in one culture than another
and even differently in the same culture over time.  And, I know that
it is a direction I'd like to encourage in the world in which I live. 
To be honest, I don't see those two characteristics as polar opposites
so much as recognize that each path holds the seeds of the other and
that to grow individually or culturally, there is an ongoing
search/struggle/attempt to find a balance between the two. 

I'd like to get back to your answer when I asked you what you thought
of the question "Does God play spiritual hide and seek?".  In an
earlier post<63> you wrote, "You know, I prefer not to think of God as
a separate entity, but its hard for our minds not to think of it that
way. Any encounter between the finite and the Infinite is going to
subjectively feel like hide and seek.  I just wanted to say, I think
the two of us are on the same wave length here. Although, here again I
wouldn't be absolute in any assessment that encounters between the
finite and Infinite are enigmatic and may subjectively be felt as
playing hide and seek.  
  

    
I'm rarely absolute in any assessment of anything. ;-) This hide and
seek notion is just a whimsical metaphor for the ebbing and flowing of
awareness or the ongoing repositioning of one's subjective location in
the greater scheme of things. (If that makes any sense whatever...)

Sometimes I feel in touch with the divine and other times I don't. I
suppose that if I were better at maintaining a regular meditative
practice I could better sustain the "in touch" feeling. But, at any
rate, since I take it for granted that the omnipresent infinite is
always present, this fluctuation in connection must be due to
variations in my own awakeness. But from my limited perspective it
feels like God is playing hide and seek with me. 
  

    
Thanks ,Jay, for that possibility about the synthesis of kabbalah and
the tarot system long after the advent of kabbalah.  That is not my
impression, so you have given me something interesting to research that
well could be. Also integrated into the tarot system are astrology and
numeralogy.  I'll get back on that one.

You win on the L.A. group!  I am currently interested in the writings
of Ann Davies, who was the last master of the group.  She has a way of
conveying so many "great notions" in personable ways that open the mind
and the consciousness very succinctly.

I have no accomplished absorbtion or description of E. Curtis to
offer.  I find her very difficult to paraphase--perhaps that's true of
all the truth language.  She is a mystic of who focused on the
Christian . I know of no biography.  It seems that the best way to find
out about her is to go back to the time when she was better known.
Actually I have never "googled" her, but I do have some unpublished
works of hers.

I required some years and methodology for observation of my inner
relationship, to identify my game of "hide and seek.  For me it is not
that God plays hide and seek--alas it is I who hide and seek.  My ego
and all its deluded self interested motivations, "often hides" those
motivations and behaviors that I would rather not recognize or change. 
I have " hidden/separated myself from God.  Those times seem to be
when I am waylayed by my habit/racial mind, acting out emotions therein
attached; or when, as Jay say, I am not living out of my higher
principles and understandings.  I think this must be a necessary
tension as long as we are incarnate.  As Jesus guided his apostles: you
must learn "to live in the world but not be of it".  Simple, not
easily done. Because of some basic duality we best overcome, we all
have a very steep learning curve to enlightenments.

About the level of cultural understanding and judgements about sex: a
reflection of our difficulty with intimacy of all kinds.  I feel like
the sad thing is that in this culture the iconization of "getting sex"
has become the only way to experience intimacy.  And then of course,
"the getting of it" mentality, robs these interchanges of any real
intimacy. Separating sex from other human expressions of intimacy,
generally contributes to the negative ways in which sex is used,
routinized,  practiced and experienced.  The occult saying is that: "As
above, so below" and vice versa. Our cultural "above" or
consciousness, usually interferes with our expressive natures, so
necessary in finding  our natures and identity.
  

    
Just another way to say, we have not slipped the bounds of
judgementalness consciouness even long years after the tale of Adam and
Eve's fall out of paradise. 
  

    
Joy,

I really liked the your comment when you said, "For me it is not that
God plays hide and seek--alas it is I who hide and seek."   I can't
emphasis how important an understanding that is to know it is your own
ego that masks the connection with the infinite that exists in all of
us.  Although, I probably wouldn't call the ego's "self-interested
motivations" necessarily "deluded" ;-).  

From my perspective, they are merely limited understandings which it
is important to pay attention to and ultimately accept and will be
better understood when integrated within the larger context of your
self, your life and your relationship with others and material reality
itself. Higher principles will lead to to fuller understandings which
in turn will lead to becoming more emotionally aware which will shape
the choices one makes.  One needs to start by cultivating an awareness
of what one feels and the "truth" behind WHY one feels the emotions
fueling those motivations.  They are not something to be repressed or
denied or even necessarily acted upon, just accepted as one more bit of
information about the state of one's relationship to the material
world.   
  

    
Joy, I think your observation says it very well:
"I required some years and methodology for observation of my inner
relationship, to identify my game of "hide and seek.  For me it is not
that God plays hide and seek--alas it is I who hide and seek.  My ego
and all its deluded self interested motivations, "often hides" those
motivations and behaviors that I would rather not recognize or change.

I have " hidden/separated myself from God."

Re Emma Hopkins, I recommend a book that discusses her and other
founders of New Thought. It is _Spirits in Rebellion: The Rise and
Development of New Thought_ by Charles S. Braden, published by SMU
Press, 1963. It is, I think, long out of print, but there are probably
used copies around. She began with Christian Science and then branched
out on her own.
  

    
Jay,

After our comments about the need for community, it was interesting
for me to find in the current SF Weekly (Aug 4-10) that their Night
Crawler column on-line at
http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2004-08-04/nightcrawler.html 
is focusing on "One Space" an "urban retreat center" that the column
characterizes as a "mindful-living clubhouse and transcendental
marketplace for all your California-conscious needs." which was founded
by theosophy students.  Sounds quite new and VERY interesting.  Do you
know the place?    
  

    
Bobby, I'm not familiar with the place, though its name appears to be
One Taste (not One Space)... ;-)  It sounds like an idealistic endeavor
and I hope it flourishes. It would have helped if the column had given
their address. It also sounds like a generational project, based on
the article's description. Let's hope they can bring in all ages and
not just be one more club for 20-something vegans. (Not that I have
anything against 20-something vegans.)