Abelard & Peterson: Tractatus de Intellectibus

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_honorentheos
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Re: Abelard & Peterson: Tractatus de Intellectibus

Post by _honorentheos »

Kishkumen wrote:
honorentheos wrote:I was hoping someone would make something of the clues to the narrator's identity in this last entry. Most specifically -

One could say that my relationship with Daniel was the median value between what Socrates was to Alcibiades and what Abelard was to Heloise. During the first decade of this century, going to BYU to study with the known “Apologists” was physically daunting, spiritually demanding, and mentally draining. It was a strange but intoxicating socius where intellectually defending the Priesthood and the Gospel was seen to be imitatio of the transcendent. Men like Hugh Nibley were no more and no less an auditor of inspiration and we came to sit at their feet.


As usual, you are honing in on important questions, honor. I don't know, though. This passage rings strangely hollow to me. I was not at BYU after 1999, but does that description really match the a student's experience in the early 2000s? Let me put it this way, the hub of would-be Nibleyites and wannabe professors in the College of Religion were generally Ancient Near Eastern Studies students, not the Classicists. Also, our writer is very keyed in to the concerns of Daniel Peterson, in particular, minus the Medieval Islamic aspect. We are getting a heavy dose of Plato, Athenian history, and Western Medieval culture from this person. Is that really representative of the Mopologists on BYU campus in the early 2000s? Maybe.

Thanks, good sir. My initial thoughts were also along the lines you bring up. I read the paragraph as telling us information about the narrator that is both intentional and unintentional, among which is that our narrator is untrustworthy though this could very easily be due to memory issues rather than intent to deceive. The most immediate item that made this seem apparent to me was that I was pretty sure Nibley did not teach at BYU in the 2000’s with his passing away in 2005 as well. Now it could be that he was merely telling us that Nibley was the model for the men our narrator was enraptured with to the point he describes the experience as sitting at their feet. But it seems that with your additional thoughts our narrator could just as easily have false memories or compressed memories of their time at BYU. That said, it seems to me our narrator is someone whose education began but did not end at BYU. Could it be their obvious focus on the classics came with graduate studies elsewhere?

The reference to Socrates to Alcibiades, and then Abelard to Heloise puzzles me the most. I’m far from well informed about either, and the little I knew before looking at the references after the third day post was limited to Socrates and Alcibiades. When our narrator describes their relationship to Daniel as being the mean between the two relationships, my first thought was that since Socrates was the failed teacher of Alcibiades but one who Alcibiades held in regard that this might suggest the kind of student/teacher relationship they shared. But as I read about Abelard and Heloise that seemed to be the reversed, with Heloise being the object of Abelard’s desire and advances if ultimately resulting in their both suffering for their love through entry into the clergy as I understand it.

It left me hoping someone more familiar with the stories of both would be able to unravel the relationships further and perhaps get us closer to understanding just how our narrator is related to Dr. Peterson.

It would seem the number of classicists who originally studied at BYU around the the period of the early days of internet Mopologetics, who would also be a candidate for having strayed into the occult, and perhaps find themselves in the fold but as a heretic would narrow the field. I confess, a name came to mind I hadn’t thought of in a long while: Joseph Antley.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth?
~ Eiji Yoshikawa
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Re: Abelard & Peterson: Tractatus de Intellectibus

Post by _Kishkumen »

Young Antley strayed into the occult?

I did not know that!
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
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Re: Abelard & Peterson: Tractatus de Intellectibus

Post by _Kishkumen »

Johannes wrote:INcidentally, I noticed that Kishkumen was addressed as "Right Reverend". This is an address reserved in Episcopalian circles for bishops. No-one would address a university chaplain with that title (I can be very certain on thsi point).

This is the sort of slip that any Mormon might make, but it sticks right out to someone who is familiar with the Episcopalian terminology. So I decided to search this site to see who had addressed Kishkumen using the title of "Right Reverend" in the past.

There were two such posters. One of them was Prester John. The other was MrStakhanovite.


Oh man, I do hope our Agromanticus is Prester John! (Crossing fingers.)
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_honorentheos
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Re: Abelard & Peterson: Tractatus de Intellectibus

Post by _honorentheos »

Kishkumen wrote:Young Antley strayed into the occult?

I did not know that!

I'm not saying he did per se. But who knows what the future holds? ;)
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth?
~ Eiji Yoshikawa
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In A Gadda Da Vida

Post by _Agromanticus »

In A Gadda Da Vida

The reason I said Daniel Peterson was more akin to Isocrates than Socrates is fairly clear, or so I thought Jaxon. Socrates was an intensely religious man who also happened to be brilliant while Isocrates was merely a competent technician of language. Socrates was trying to help us understand our true natures while Isocrates was merely interested in persuading us of this proposition or that one. Daniel was uninspired. An anatomically correct man without a religious bone in his body, who excelled at the common day to day duties required of academic bureaucracy. What gift did he leave us Mormons with? Did he use his considerable abilities with language to render us a clever or grand translation of Islamic wisdom? Where is his careful meditation on the human condition seasoned with his familiarity of Neoplatonism? Did he create something of worth or did he merely and unfaithfully masticate the labor of others only to condescendly regurgitate it for a crowd of admirers in Sandy Utah? We should always take care Jaxon about what issues forth from our many orifices because that is what defiles and not what is ingested.

Of course I sound bitter Jaxon, that was the point. I was not the Iscariot as is claimed, I was the one who was betrayed! Ohhh Jaxon, if you had asked me if I reckoned Daniel a Socrates or an Isocrates the morning I left for my Cassius Orientation I surely would have given you a much different account. The world was much different then and I was a different man. [FRAGMENTARY]

One always needs a guide Jaxon. To refuse a master is a refusal to be instructed and so one who refuses to submit in all things will find themselves disqualified. It may seem harsh but the obstinate will suffer the same fate as Pentheus if their hardened hearts cannot be replaced by ones of flesh. Knowledge is a gift from the Divine and we all need a guide in our journey to that knowledge. Are you familiar with Genesis 28 Jaxon? No? BYU has changed. Don’t bother looking it up, I can simply tell you about it.

Isaac summons his son Jacob and commands him to visit the house of an Aramean by the name of Bethuel, a relative of theirs, to find a wife. Jacob was not to take a Canaanite woman as a wife and then Isaac blessed him and sent him on his way. During his travels Jacob stops at a particular site to sleep and props his head up with a rock and is soon dreaming. What Jacob saw in his dream was a ladder with one end here on earth and the other end leading to heaven, and he saw angelic beings going up and down the ladder. Jacob suddenly realizes that Jehovah was standing over him who identified himself as Elohim of Abraham and Elohim of Isaac his father. Jehovah more or less repeats the blessing that Isaac spoke at the start of his journey, but adds that he will not abandon his promise to Abraham which now includes Jacob. When Jacob awakens he is quite disturbed and he says aloud...let me see if I can still remember how the King James puts it:
How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

Check to see if my memory holds true. Excellent Jaxon! Well I had to utter those exact words to Daniel before the sun made its appearance on the day I was to leave for Cassius. What if I told you there was ladder to the Empyrean in Utah? I’ll give you a hint, it is within the zipcode of 84102. I suppose “ladder” is actually incorrect, the word being translated is a hapax legomenon afterall. It means that the word occurs only once in the Hebrew text Jaxon. I will tell you this though [CENSORED] thought that it should be translated as “ramp” instead and that the language of this particular passage was more in keeping with a Mesopotamian ziggurat.

So like Jacob I was to be a traveler, a true liminal being. A week prior I had been given a piece of limestone which I was put next to my head every night before going to sleep. On the sixth night I bed down before a free standing arch and shortly after midnight I was awoken by a figure wearing a white suit with an animal mask hiding his visage. White shoes, white slacks, white shirt, and a white dinner jacket, though I cannot say what animal in particular the mask was. When I got to my feet I was treated to a lesson about the arch, but I must warn you I cannot divulge the true substance of the lesson for I am bound by a most sacred oath to keep this knowledge a secret. I can, however, provide a summary of the less important aspects of those divine doctrines.

You see Jaxon the church is the church. Except when it is not. Knowing the difference is what divides the common folk from the more cunning folk. The Brethren often speak in soft tones when they address the keys of the priesthood and when the Brethren do so many millions of Mormons think of the famous iconography of Peter holding keys, the kind that are made to go into locks. Ah, but what if what is really being referenced is keystones? Yes indeed and the keystone of that particular arch was very large. I wonder even now how many people travel to that arch and don’t notice that keystone held aloft by seven stones on each side.

Do you find that number significant Jaxon? You should. There are seven days in a week. Our music is composed in heptatonic scale. Elohim and Jehovah resting on the seventh day. Joshua and the Israelite army marched around Jericho for seven days in the company of seven priests with seven trumpets, and on the seventh day they circled seven times and shouted. That is what Daniel did. Clothed in white he circled me six times in a clockwise fashion and then once counterclockwise before removing his mask in a flourish.

Even though it was a new moon, his cherubic face was shining to me. Though this was a momentous moment for me. For us. He still managed to have an impish smirk as he begun to reveal to me all that I was to know. All that Nibley had meant us to know. Did you know that the Mopologist has a different canon of scripture than you? Their standard works includes a very curious text known in English as ‘The Ladder of Jacob’ that you would do well to acquaint yourself with. It is a particularly inspired piece of writing that adds important details to the dream Jacob had that evening at Bethel. If we could consult it, you’d have read that the “ladder” that Jacob saw had twelve steps to it and the arch where I fell asleep and woke under was just one of twelve stations I was to receive instruction that morning from more masked figures [FRAGMENTARY]

It was before that dreadful sphinx that I formally met the Old Man. Even those who were older than Gee still referred to him as Old Man. When Oedipus defeats the Sphinx the poor creature dives into the abyss, this symbolizes that the elements are not actually Gods, but powers to be mastered and harnessed by us. When one begins to understand the celestial evolution the material evolution of the scientist becomes a farce best performed by the puppets of the industrial-science complex. When that certain principle is learned and recited, the scales fall away from your third eye and the blindfold is removed. The 12th Apostle had removed his mask and it the was the Old Man with his trademark taciturn scowl. I can tell you honestly I was seized with terror as he advanced toward me to welcome me with the holy kiss and I could still find traces of him on my lips when I glanced in the rearview mirror to see the Salt Lake skyline growing smaller behind me. I was set apart by those who know and given a very special calling while I was studying at Cassius.

Image


OIC MISSIVE # N/A
[FRAGMENTARY] The Welch estate has requested that all references to John Woodland Welch before censored from the records.
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Re: Abelard & Peterson: Tractatus de Intellectibus

Post by _honorentheos »

I didn't notice there had been a new report until this morning.

Whether the intention of the narrator or not, it's interesting to consider the imagery of ascending and descending, being raised up or encircled in a dream as the beginning of a journey of import in both the referenced story of Jacob as well as the earlier mentioned Chymical Wedding.


"It is, mother, thus ordained by God, against whom we may not contend. If we were all of us lords, and possessed all the goods upon Earth, and were seated at table, who would there then be to bring up the service?"

Whereupon his mother held her peace, but soon after she said, "Well, however, let these be freed from their fetters," which was likewise presently done, and I was the last except a few; yet I could not refrain (though I still looked upon the rest) but bowed myself before the ancient matron, and thanked God that through her, he had graciously and fatherly vouchsafed to bring me out of such darkness into the light. After me the rest did likewise, to the satisfaction of the matron.

...

Hereupon I prepared myself for the way, put on my white linen coat, girded my loins, with a blood-red ribbon bound cross-ways over my shoulder. In my hat I stuck four red roses, so that I might sooner be noticed amongst the throng by this token. For food I took bread, salt and water, which by the counsel of an understanding person I had at certain times used, not without profit, in similar occurrences.

But before I left my cottage, I first, in this my dress and wedding garment, fell down upon my knees, and besought God that in case such a thing were, he would vouchsafe me a good issue. And thereupon in the presence of God I made a vow that if anything through his grace should be revealed to me, I would employ it to neither my own honour nor my own authority in the world, but to the spreading of his Name, and the service of my neighbour. And with this vow, and good hope, I departed out of my cell with joy.
The world is always full of the sound of waves..but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it's depth?
~ Eiji Yoshikawa
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