Coming out of hibernation
Tuesday, 24. April 2007, 23:07:34
What could make a man come out of blog retirement? Well, my two dear readers, I've been tagged and it's an interesting one:
The rules are as follows:
- Pick up the book you are reading,
- turn to page 123,
- post on your blog the fifth paragraph,
- put title and author of book,
- post it on your blog of course, and
- tag five others.
So...wait a minute! My book only has one paragraph on this page...so here goes.
"In the hermetic books it is written that what is down below is equal to what is on high, and what is on high is equal to what is down below; in the Zohar, that the higher world is a reflection of the lower. The Histriones founded their doctrine on a perversion of this idea. They invoked Matthew 6:12 ("and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors") and 11:12 ("the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence") to demonstrate that the earth influences heaven, and I Corinthians 13:12 ("for now we see through a glass, darkly") to demonstrate that everything we see is false. Perhaps contaminated by the Monotones, they imagined that all men are two men and that the real one is the other, the one in heaven. They also imagined that our acts project an inverted reflection, in such a way that if we are awake, the other sleeps, if we fornicate, the other is chaste, if we steal, the other is generous. When we die, we shall join this other and be him. (Some echo of these doctrines persisted in Léon Bloy.) Other Histriones reasoned that the world would end when the number of its possibilities was exhausted; since there can be no repititions, the righteous should eliminate (commit) the most infamous acts, so that these will not soil the future and will hasten the coming of the kingdom of Jesus. This article was negated by other sects, who held that the history of the world should be fulfilled in every man. Most, like Pythagoras, will have to transmigrate through many bodies before attaining their liberation; some, the Proteans, "in the period of one lifetime are lions, dragons, boars, water and tree." Demosthenes tells how the initiates into the Orphic mysteries"...
Whew...
That's from The Theologians, part of Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges.
After transcribing that, I can bear no more. I tag no one and will let this die with this post.
The rules are as follows:
- Pick up the book you are reading,
- turn to page 123,
- post on your blog the fifth paragraph,
- put title and author of book,
- post it on your blog of course, and
- tag five others.
So...wait a minute! My book only has one paragraph on this page...so here goes.
"In the hermetic books it is written that what is down below is equal to what is on high, and what is on high is equal to what is down below; in the Zohar, that the higher world is a reflection of the lower. The Histriones founded their doctrine on a perversion of this idea. They invoked Matthew 6:12 ("and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors") and 11:12 ("the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence") to demonstrate that the earth influences heaven, and I Corinthians 13:12 ("for now we see through a glass, darkly") to demonstrate that everything we see is false. Perhaps contaminated by the Monotones, they imagined that all men are two men and that the real one is the other, the one in heaven. They also imagined that our acts project an inverted reflection, in such a way that if we are awake, the other sleeps, if we fornicate, the other is chaste, if we steal, the other is generous. When we die, we shall join this other and be him. (Some echo of these doctrines persisted in Léon Bloy.) Other Histriones reasoned that the world would end when the number of its possibilities was exhausted; since there can be no repititions, the righteous should eliminate (commit) the most infamous acts, so that these will not soil the future and will hasten the coming of the kingdom of Jesus. This article was negated by other sects, who held that the history of the world should be fulfilled in every man. Most, like Pythagoras, will have to transmigrate through many bodies before attaining their liberation; some, the Proteans, "in the period of one lifetime are lions, dragons, boars, water and tree." Demosthenes tells how the initiates into the Orphic mysteries"...
Whew...
That's from The Theologians, part of Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges.
After transcribing that, I can bear no more. I tag no one and will let this die with this post.
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By redjava, # 6. November 2007, 16:57:08