Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Spirituality and Philosophy
Post-Post-Modernism
My friend Anthony asked me today, “What will be the philosophical trend after postmodernism?” I answered, a mischievous smile breaking out, “I dunno, maybe post-post-modernism?” “What’ll that be?” he asked, playing right into the flow of exploration. I warmed up to the idea: Indubitably, as knowledge and technology advance, there may be several waves of […]
Power of Words
I’m going to a conference titled “The Power of Words,” in Kansas in mid-September. I’ll be presenting on Role Theory as a User Friendly Language in Life. Words mean different things to different people Speaking of semantics, a friend sent me this by Simone Weil, page 271 from her Simone Weil Reader, titled, “Power of […]
Problems with “Past Lives”
Someone asked me for my thoughts about the theory of “past lives”—a take-off on reincarnation. First, I think the mind is a hundred times faster and more clever than what we think it is, and it can generate quite compelling and vivid fantasies that seem like realities. In a multi-dimensional universe, perhaps they are a […]
Psychodrama, Positive Psychology, etc.
Psychodrama offers a less specific type of positive psychology. The actual founder of PP is Martin Seligman, of course, but Seligman built on a number of previous workers. Barbara Fredrickson is another pioneer in PP. Neither bothers acknow-ledging Moreno, but I think Moreno (who created psychodrama) should be thought of as a pioneer also, whether […]
Psychological-Mindedness Confronts Simplicity
People have a deep sense of entitlement to being able to perceive and think about the world in simple terms. It’s easier to imagine that there is either sin or virtue, and we still have a subtle backwash from the belief in higher and lower classes. People feel entitled to scold: “Don’t muddy up the […]
Pure Rationality
The assumption that rationality in itself is sufficient and will gratify the soul is misleading. Indeed if just rationality alone is employed, and traced out rigorously, it will lead to existential despair. It is necessary and wise to shift to the trans-rational criteria of aesthetics: Things are justified by being beautiful, interesting, and in total […]
Purgatory
Zordak says that on planet Pfffft in the galaxy-with-no-name-yet, the sentient organisms there also theologize in their own way. They too have a concept of what roughly corresponds to what in some religions on our planet is called “purgatory”—a material realm in which souls are purified for the ‘next step up.’ (Certain nuances are lost […]
Re-Considering Epistemology
Epistemology is that branch of philosophy that addresses the question of how we know what we know. There are other branches of philosophy that address other questions, such as “what is fair or good in the realm of social relations”—ethics; or what is really real—metaphysics; and so forth. This topic of “epistemology” came up in […]
Re-Doing Your Philosophy of Life
Everyone generates a meaning system. Most often it is an unconscious set of assumptions that help you make sense out of things. Alfred Adler (a physician who was an earlier associate of Freud but then dropped away because of his own independent ideas) observed that children around the age of five begin to have provisional […]
Re-Enchantment (Cultural Trends-Part 2)
This continues a reflection on “whassup?”—what cultural trends we may be in the midst of. I wrote in a previous blog about the emergence of creativity. Another trend, I think, is towards what I call re-enchantment, or perhaps a more precise (and non-existent) term might be re-mythologize-ation. (what a mouthful!). It marks a swing back […]
Re-Incarnation Extended
Not that this is true, you understand, but it seems to me less weird than most other theories of how it works. The concept of aggregate soul in each new incarnation has a number of advantages and fewer flagrant disadvantages: The center of consciousness is multiple, shifting, and a composite of some fifty or so […]
Re-Thinking “Philosophy”
My dear wife Allee said that everyone had a philosophy of life, either implicit or explicit. I disagreed, saying that the word was appropriate only when there was some effort to rationally coordinate the different elements (to draw a phrase from Whitehead near the end of his book, Modes of Thought). I’ve come to see […]
Reasons for Non-Reason
A recent and most interesting book came to my attention, Matthew Hutson’s 2012 The Seven Laws of Magical Thinking, subtitled How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane (New York: Hudson Street Press / Penguin). I’ve been thinking of the phenomena associated with illusion for much of my life. From rhetoric, propaganda and semantics […]
Reconsidering Speculation
Speculation is a word that implies to some a less-worthy category than, say, knowing, or deducing. The latter have the aura of greater maturity, more certainty. However, I want to suggest a reversal of valuing here, at least in some arenas. There are a number of mysteries and domains about which we know very little. […]
Religion for Atheists (Book Review)
The sub-title of this book is “a non-believer’s guide to the uses of religion,” and the author is Alain de Botton (UK) (2011, New York: Pantheon). For a while it seemed to atheists that religion would disappear because it failed to be compelling at the level of of the critical intellect. The author notes that […]
Religious Insignia
In another world, they recognize that spirituality involves a confluence of spiritual images that work for the unique sentient entity—and there are billions of them, just like here on Earth. That is to say, they’ve passed the historical evolutionary period when people presumed to know what the Divine “was” and how it should be properly […]
RELINQUISHING THE QUEST FOR THE WHOLE TRUTH
February 15, 2008 One of the developments in the last half century has been an exponential expansion of information, areas of investigation and sub-specialization, and other variables. This is part of the postmodern condition—an accelerated state that differs qualitatively, not just quantitatively, from the early 20th century (which saw the apex of modernity). I suggest […]
Resonances in the Cosmos
Action in this world generates resonances, somewhat like ripples spreading from a pebble dropped in a still pond. But there are billions of sentient life forms just on this planet, interacting ever more intimately. We have no idea of the echoes of our being—or as Krishna advises Arjuna in the teaching story of the Baghavad […]
Responsibility for Spiritual Journey
I’ll be giving a talk in mid-May, 2014, on the topic of Taking Personal Responsibility for Your Spiritual Journey. (This will be for our local club in Sun City Georgetown Texas, Spirituality Anonymous.) Dare we realize that we do have the freedom to find our way to the Divine in our lives? Indeed, perhaps we […]
Reverence for Life? Wowsie!
Albert Schweitzer said that was his goal, and I sort of idealized him. Albert Einstein, too. If I could be like them then maybe my Mom would have been satisfied. She was channeling the mores of the mid-20th century upward-striving middle class, for which nothing was good enough. I was suffering from feeling not good […]
Scientism Criticized
Scientism is a term for applying the methods or criteria of science to assess whether something is true. It over-reaches, assuming that it is the only way to assess the usefulness of an idea. I think that scientism is wrong; while there are many things that merit being tested by science, there are other things […]
Sentimental-osis
I woke up from a dream, and on and forgetting the rich eventful-ness of what was going on in the dream, I experienced a pang of grief-loss. I sensed that dream was still engaging my interest, though I couldn’t say why. Dreams have that power. Then another frame of reference kicked in: I’ve learned to […]
Shadows on the Cave Wall
In a previous blog-post, I was reflecting on the acceleration of the appearance of mysteries. Now there are others that have come to my attention: changes in the speed of light?? What’s with “branes” (i.e., the concept of other-dimensional “membranes")? Static in the gravity field has been attributed to a magnification of the planck-sized (i.e. […]
Sharing Your Story
I’m suggesting some reasons why it would make sense to weave in a degree of group dynamics, sharing our stories—especially the stories of our spiritual journeys—, listening, offering support to each other, and even deepening this exploration together using certain psychodramatic methods. We were raised in an era before actual spiritual community. Some of us […]
Shifting Identities
In addition to my major profession “occupation” as a retired psychiatrist and visiting assistant professor, which I’m really not anymore since moving to the mid-California coastal town of San Luis Obispo—and becoming not-more every day—, I am presently editing a book about non-psychotherapeutic applications of Moreno’s methods. In addition, I’m editing and preparing to publish […]