Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Wisdom-ing
Spectrums: Publicity
I wrote about this a few days ago, and here’s more: Proudly announcing a new book by David Blatner titled Spectrums: Our Mind-Boggling Universe From Infinitesimal to Infinity . November, 2012. 192 pages. Walker, hardcover, $25.00. ISBN 9780802717702 Library classification number: 539.2. Information about the book, including the video teaser and links to buy: […]
Spiraling “Upward”
A correspondent asked me about alchemy and process philosophy, of all things. Here is the gist of my reply: There is a spiraling upward happening, metaphysically speaking. It must be imagined on a higher dimensional level, weaving together all of the accumulating advances. These advances are happening more rapidly, I think. Saying it another ways: […]
Spontaneity Development
There are needs for this skill set in a rapidly changing world. When once young people had been taught to simply follow directions, now they’re expected to not only think for themselves, but also innovate. We’ve discovered that the key to creativity is improvisation, and spontaneity development is improvisation training. For example, Justine Jones and […]
Springtime ‘Splanation
Somebody asked me, “Whaddaya mean, ‘Splanations’?” So okay here’s uh xample. Why does the cosmos go “bloom”? Well, first of all, most folks don’t even see spring bloom because it sorta sneaks up on you, goes too slow for your brain to sort it out. There are naked trees, then pregnant trees, then “Bloom!” There […]
Sri Yantra as Metaphysical “Organism”
Some abstract things become enlivened by our minds contemplating them. That’s how our clapping can bring Tinkerbelle (the fairy in Peter Pan story) alive. The Sri (pronounced Shree) Yantra is a pattern imagined by many contemplatives in India (South Asia). It has become alive or active or serves as a force—as angelic dynamics do—when enough […]
Stimulating You To Learn On Your Own
My friend Russ Williams works to promote ethics and a kind of non-denominational spirituality at his website, “Ethical Edge.” Lately he ran a small column on me, my history. So I thought I’d at least link to it here.
Story-telling and Truth
People keep up their interests by wondering about what happens: Did it have to happen that way? What was behind what happened. Why did he do it that way and why did she take it this way? What might happen next and what might lead up to that? Which factors contributed to this situation? What […]
Subtle Arrogance?
What other term should be used for the all-too-common set that doesn’t recognize vividly that it might be mistaken, or limited? The illusion that what one knows is sufficient is the foundation of a great deal of error, and error can easily be magnified into great evil! This is an amplification of the words of […]
Surrealism’s Relevance
Creativity is our new meme—the theme that is relevant for our time. The surrealistic artists anticipated this by a century, but so much creativity has characterized the many “inventions” of the 20th and beginning 21st century that it’s time we became aware that, as the philosopher Nikolai Berdyayev said (in Rissian), “Be creative, and foster […]
Taking Stock
This phrase is used as an opening to an idea that people should re-evaluate their lives periodically, perhaps as often as they change-up their computer systems. Changing circumstances, growing maturity, refined values, all are appropriately met with a taking of time, respecting oneself enough, to take stock of priorities. Since life is so complex and […]
The “Right” Answer
(So here’s this morning’s reflection: seeing the title, that’s a funny spelling: It should be aensur . Ah phonetics.) There’s a whole category of answers that must be discovered repeatedly by people for themselves, an ongoing complex inner “map” that continuously gets revised. In this category are such questions as: – What is God? What […]
The “Sweet Spot” of Faith-ing
It turns out that we are far from able to create our living completely. Humanity is as yet quite immature and in need of help from those angels (for want of a better word to call “them”)—forces, energy fields, guardian spirits, agents of the Great Creative Source, whatever—that are mysterious and yet incredibly capable. Those […]
The Adaptive Unconscious (Book Review)
Timothy D. Wilson, a psychologist at the University of Virginia, wrote a lovely book titled “Strangers to ourselves: discovering the adaptive unconscious. (2002, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap press of Harvard University Press). Lovely book that is worth studying. It seems to me that it overlaps with my theory of the Amplified Unconscious, and, indeed, I […]
The Adventure of Dialogue
There’s a quality of dialogue that, when refined, illustrates an interesting dynamic: The superstars of Jesus’ childhood were the wise elders of that culture, the scholars who debated the deeper meanings of the Holy Scriptures. Two were outstanding: Rabbi Shammai and Rabbi Hillel, the former being somewhat conservative, the latter somewhat liberal, but both were […]
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 Communi-cube as Oracle
My friend John Casson in England created an instrument to get people communi-cating: The communicube. They communicate more articulately to themselves. You can see it on his website. My wife has used it in her spirituality group to get the small number of people involved to reflect more on their lives. She’s used it several […]
The Conundrum of Consciousness
I am fortunate to have a few acquaintances who think deeply about conundrum of consciousness. The word is “qualia”—how it “feels”—how it’s “experienced”—addressed in part by the philosopher Thomas Nagel, in 1974: “What is it like to be a bat?” … and the problem in my mind resolves somewhat when one hypothesizes that consciousness is […]
The Dingle-Derry Complex: Unrealistic Expectations
Reading Jean Houston’s mythic take on the classical Wizard of Oz 1939 movie, I was reminded of my own take on a tiny element in that great epic, the wistful song sung by the Scarecrow, “If I Only Had a Brain.” The Lyrics: I would while away the hours / Conferin’ with the flowers […]
The Dramaturgical Model
I have been involved with psychodrama for 50 years and have written books about it. The idea of life-as-drama is intriguing. I have taught “psychological literacy” to senior adults and I realized another point about this: It’s time that practical psychology escapes from the clutches of academia! Practical psychology should be like reading and writing […]
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 Experience of Vitality
Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), the noted pioneer of contemporary views of mythology, wrote: “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will […]