Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Mind-Spectrums
Out-of-Control Panel and Adjust-ometer
I was just playing around, but the theme that I’ll be talking about in February on “Mind-Spectrums” really takes off on this idea: So many things operate on a spectrum, and the weird part is that “all the needles” are moving, waving, shifting. The mind is a profoundly dynamic process that is often operating more […]
Peace and Quiet
Ahh. In another dimension I’m a sort of hermit. (My wife Allee is too.) In this cartoon, if we were to put on an international hermit’s conference and not tell anyone where and when it was, that’s okay with us. Ha ha!
Philosophy & Depth Psychology
I’m pretty sure these two categories cannot be adequately separated. I’m not talking about the distortions of recognized mental illness, but rather the distortions and illusions imposed by pretty healthy folks who are moderately introspective and somewhat philosophical. As we have learned more about the prevalence of illusion and how compelling this is, it becomes […]
Playing with Mythic Meanings
Oh, sure, one part of life generates meaning, at first unconsciously, then more consciously. What is fun, though, is to add extras—all the possible stories that never were or are. I play many parts, some more real and serious, some more imaginal. For millennia we had stories that were sort of believed. The degree to […]
Prioritizing
My guardian angels are reminding me through many channels that I’m gonna die. My days are numbered. Maybe 4, maybe 4,000, maybe 40,000. So consequently—there’s a word I haven’t used for a good long while—I need to prioritize. In other words, what’s my bucket list? Not easy, but not that hard, either. First, keep on […]
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 […]
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 […]
Really, Really Like
There are tons of things I don’t care for that much. Meh. Some stuff I prefer not to encounter, engage, hear, go to. I don’t need to put them down, but they’re just so not my cup of tea. And then there are things I sort of like. And things I really like. But what’s […]
Sensitive Perception
What if some people are more sensitive than others, and pick up more stuff? We know about tetrachromats, a small minority of people who are sensitive to not three basic colors (like most people) but rather four (tetre) colors! This sensitivity allows for a richer perceptual field, more permutations than most people. What if this […]
Sub-Atomic Anatomy
“Big fleas have little fleas upon their back to bite ‘em, And little fleas have littler fleas, and so ad infinitum.” So said Augustus de Morgan—also similarly, Jonathan Swift in the 18th century. They were more right than they knew. God is so great that our whole universe of three dimensions of space […]
Synchronicity
An acquaintance of mine, Dr. Bernard Beitman, wrote a book recently titled Connecting with Coincidence. Beitman is a forward-looking psychiatrist who investigates synchronicity —better known as coincidence, but taken more seriously. The book recalls to mind the passing notion that we are not at the top of the hierarchy of mental prowess, but more somewhere […]
Talent
I just met a neighbor whose grandson is prodigiously talented at picking up music and playing it on his clarinet—which he just learned a few months ago. Another friend of ours used to be a ballet and modern dancer who just picked up steps when they were shown to her. Right brain stuff. Didn’t know […]
Teasing: Another Spectrum
Teasing can range from mild joshing to outright sadism, really nasty mean. The other extreme has nothing indirect, just people being kind, tactful, appreciative. There’s a good deal of communication that’s in-between. Some people feel anxious about being perceived as being “soft” by others. Others are are coarser: they interact by introducing an an edge […]
The Becoming-Ness of God
I give thanks this Thanksgiving for life, life with Allee, family, etc. I realize very dimly that I am part of this whole God-Becoming-Everything. Lest that seem too proud, you are also, and everything and everyone else is, also. I like that phrase, “becoming-ness,” actually. It could perhaps make for a good sermon. My life […]
The Big Joke
I heard this intriguing prayer: “Lord, if you can forgive the many little jokes I’ve played on you, I’ll try to forgive the one gigantic joke you’re playing on me!” I vaguely recognized that God’s big joke is that we die. I pondered this: How is it a joke? Well, our life story at this […]
The Bubbling Multiverse
In one sense there is indeed a Universe, as the ultimate God, the Everything Becoming, includes in its one-ness all dimensions, minds, potentialities, etc. But it’s a universe that is much vaster than the three-dimensions of space in which hundreds of billions of galaxies spread over inconceivable distances. This universe of space and mass and […]
The Dream Factory
We know that biological phenomena—DNA replication and such—that occur at rates far too rapid to be even sensed. There is an in-between rate at which dreams are constructed—far more quickly than we-of-little-brain can even imagine—but slower than cellular physiological activities. Being part elf myself (a literary conceit), I was privileged to perceive the dream factory, […]
The Evolution of Beauty
I found a book by a fellow who appreciates bird songs, Professor Richard O. Prum, who wrote a book called The Evolution of Beauty (New York: Doubleday. 2017). What struck me about the book is that Beauty is a transcendental quality vaguely describable by humans, but it really belongs to the 8th dimension. This requires […]
The Glass Bead Game (Revisited)
Herman Hesse in the early 20th century wrote a novel, “Magister Ludi” about the Glass Bead Game. In light of postmodernist ideas, what if these were elements, subatomic particles, or types of aesthetic variables, or whatever, that could be played, like a game of checkers, to collaboratively (not competitively) create a world, or an aspect […]
The Kabbalistic Tree of Life Diagram as Art
Below I’ve posted a number of drawings I’ve done over the past 30 years of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, the “Etz Khayyim.” I’ve found this diagram to be useful in evoking contemplations of what’s beyond this apparent reality, and what’s beyond that beyond. The “Tree” hints at these essences that give rise to less […]
The Mind-Field
There’s everything we think is material, and then there’s the mind-field, which is inestimably vaster. It involves the (many?) dimensions of consciousness, including our own levels and probably fuzzing into hyper-consciousness. It probably fuzzes into hypo-consciousness, the qualities of mind of a leaf or a cell or a virus or maybe even a grain of […]
The Spectrum of Imaginative-ness
Imagination is a basic function of human mind, a definite human potentiality. Most folks hardly exercise it, because we’re taught to get real as we head off to school. Of late, we’ve come to value creativity, and imaginative-ness is a component. Imaginativeness operates in many dimensions, as does mind: Spirituality, dreams, the arts, every day […]