Notes -- William James / new habits

          I slept the same, Amorella. Up at three for the bathroom, cuddled the cat who came by wanting warmth, back in bed and eventually, by four or so back to sleep. Up a little after eight. When in the bath this morning I was thinking about William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience which I re-read back in 1988 and have read at least once since. Below from Wikipedia:


 ** ** 
The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature is a book by the Harvard University psychologist and philosopher William James that comprises his edited Gifford Lectures on “Natural Theology” delivered at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland between 1901 and 1902. These lectures concerned the nature of religion and the neglect of science, in James' view, in the academic study of religion. Soon after its publication, the book entered the canon of psychology and philosophy, and has remained in print for over a century. James went on to develop his philosophy of pragmatism; there are many overlapping ideas in Varieties and his 1907 book, Pragmatism.  


[Views without citation below] 


Proposition of value versus existential judgment James believed that the study of the origin of an object or an idea does not play a role in the study of its value. He asserted that existential judgment, or the scientific examination of an object's origin, is a separate matter from that object's value. As an example, he alluded to the Quaker religion and its founder, George Fox. Many of the scientists in James' audience immediately reject all aspects of the Quaker religion because evidence suggests that Fox was schizophrenic. Calling this rejection medical materialism, James insisted that the origin of Fox's notions about religion should not come into account when propositioning the value of the Quaker religion. As an aside, many believe El Greco to have suffered from astigmatism, yet no one would dismiss his art based on this medical detail. James proposed, somewhat sarcastically, that his audience's atheism was perhaps a dysfunction of the liver. Some believe science to be superior to religion because of religion's seemingly vain, unfounded, or perhaps insane origin. In his lectures, James asserted that these claims, while perhaps historically or epistemologically interesting, play no role in the separate question of religion's value. 


Reality versus symbols of reality The lectures discussed the distinction between symbolism and reality. Symbols, such as the word "steak" on a menu, do not embody the actuality of the objects they represent. The word "steak" on a menu merely points to some slab of meat in the back of the restaurant. In a similar way, James posits that all of science is fundamentally detached from reality since the tools of science are merely pointers to some actual objective realm. He criticized his audience for the scientific tendency to ignore the unseen aspects of life and the universe. As an example, he discussed the way the notion of a lemon causes salivation in the mouth of an individual; while there is no lemon, there is clearly a process occurring worthy of academic inquiry. 


Wikipedia


 ** **


         You have a doctor’s appointment in less than an hour. Jadah is playing with a red-tail hawk feather you found in the yard. Carol just dried her hair. Another day slowly passing by.  


          I forgot about Halloween this week. Is that what the ghost business was about – to get me in the mood? 


You were thinking about William James earlier because it bothers you that you wrote “religious experience” in your 1988 work. You do not think you have ever had a religious experience in your life – a spiritual-like experience is the best wordage you can come up with, and I agree, it is the best, truest term for a heartansoulanmind like yourself. To each herorhis own is a good phrase here for those who think ‘it’s their way or the highway’. Enjoy the cool but sunny day, boy. More later. Post. – Amorella. 

         You were thinking about William James earlier because it bothers you that you wrote “religious experience” in your 1988 work. You do not think you have ever had a religious experience in your life – a spiritual-like experience is the best wordage you can come up with, and I agree, it is the best, truest term for a heartansoulanmind like yourself. To each herorhis own is a good phrase here for those who think ‘it’s their way or the highway’. Enjoy the cool but sunny day, boy. More later. Post. – Amorella.

         After 1700 hours and you are at Pine Hill waiting on Carol after finishing your walk. Today is one of those watershed days when, for a period of time, you have to take your blood sugar as Dr. Jeff took you off metformin for the first time because of complications with your kidneys. You have set up a November appointment to see an endocrinologist and tomorrow you will have an appointment to see a nephrologist.  You stopped by Kroger’s and picked up a One Touch UltraMini glucose monitoring system, a box of One Touch Delica lancet refills and alcohol swabs.

         After 2000 hours. I have read all the directions to everything and will begin testing when I am up before breakfast. Looks interesting and I downloaded a free log for the Mac. I’m ready.

         Time to do some thinking, old man. – Tomorrow some new habits. – Amorella.

Notes - Response to "Ghost Adventures"- Part B / self-evident truth / the tug from below / spooky enough

         Late morning. You skimmed over your old Dialogues material, “Lines in Search of Meaning” from April, 1987 until January 1988 by A. Skrohl [yourself]. You asked over 2736 questions on 246 pages via the string and washer technique which was refined several times in the process.

         I have not read over it in years. In the Preface –

         I’ll edit, orndorff.- Amorella.

** **

         © 1988                  Dialogue’s Preface (edited)

         This report contains question and answer sessions of one individual’s conscious mind directed toward his subconscious and unconscious mind. . . . The work contains assorted private imaginations and a religious experience. . . .

         In an April, 1987 session with Dr. Paul, psychologist . . . said I should look for consistencies in the responses. We were searching for evidence that I might be a multiple personality because of two recent incidences of involuntary changes in handwriting styles. An EEG test and a CT scan were scheduled and performed at a nearby university hospital to note if any neurological abnormalities existed.

         . . . My questions are mostly by free association with some answers arrived at by the process of elimination. For example: ‘How old are you?’ ‘Are you one? Ans. No. Are you two? Ans. No. Are you three? Ans. Yes. . . . As the reader may appreciate, the procedure was very time consuming and tedious. . . .

         I informally began this report on the afternoon of April 9, 1987. Although my raw data has times and dates throughout, I have decided to set this up in a simplified diary style with numbered sessions (when they existed) within each day. Also, the questions are numbered to make it easier reading.  Personally, I feel some of these questions and answers jump beyond personal fantasy and secret, unconsciously wished dreams, and even beyond imagination.

         One of the keys in reading this is to ask yourself how you would have answered the questions, or first, perhaps, what questions would you have created? Remember, ask your heart for what you would answer but use your intellect, powers of logic, and intuition as strong guidelines.

[Here are some examples of early questions and responses. – Amorella]

April 12, 1987

21. Are you a ghost or spirit?                  No. (string moves back and forth horizontally)

22. Do I have two separate personalities?         Yes. (string moves back and forth vertically)

23. Do I have more than two personalities?         I do not know. (string circling)

24. Do I have secret personalities hidden in me?         Yes.

25. Is one of the personalities a girl?         Yes.

26. Did I have two personalities in me when I was born?         Yes.

27. Do I have two souls?         Yes.

28. Am I making this [up] out of my imagination?         No.

29. Am I possessed?         No.

30. Have I ever seen evil angels?              No. 

31. Have I ever seen good angels?          Yes.

** **

         Today as I look at these questions and responses after typing I think they are a bit silly, yet in some ways not so. I was experimenting – I think because Dr. Paul was looking for multiples I might have been creating them unconsciously for myself and for him. I wondered if I could somehow, using this string, washer and target devise, connect with a part of myself that was immortal. If so, I had some questions to ask even if it turned out to be imagination I thought I might learn something about myself in the process. – rho

         I will show a few more questions and responses conjured by the string, washer and simple target. Some of the responses appear totally out of character for Richard consciously and they were psychologically bothersome because of it. Note. The complete work was given to Dr. Paul after the U.C. sessions were long over. Richard received no response. 

It was found on the two EEG tests and CT scan that Richard had no evidence of a multiple personal disorder. Post. – Amorella.

As I continue to scan over material I realize all the responses, mentally created or imaginary, fit in the logical fallacy: self-evident truth. Well, at the time it was a free and intuitive experiment – I wanted to see what responses I would come up with.

         Let’s include a bit from this ‘Chapter Four’ in Dialogues. Amorella.

** **

May  3, 1987 – Session Four

478. Is Threebee a spirit guide?         No.

479. Is Threebee a personality?          Yes.

480. Normally, can a human being talk directly to his soul?         No.

481. Was Threebee caused by the Grace of God?         I do not know.

482. Do I speak to Threebee telepathically?         No.

483. Threebee, are you here?         Diagonal; (which brings on chills)

I conclude this session by asking if BB is here, he responds enthusiastically. As I am still a bit unsettled by the diagonal response and chills (I have the feeling there is a presence in the room), I thank BB for being there, and he responds positively [strong swings of the string and washer) again.

May 4, 1987

Normally, I would not think to include dreams in this work, but there are a few from time to time during these sessions that seem to have a direct bearing on the dialogues so I have decided to include these.

DREAM

I have a dream or memory recollection of Fourbee. My mother and I are fighting in the public library while there is a celebration going on outside. We fight over girls. . . . We fight over money, peanuts, staying home, my father, eating candy. Drama – stupid drama over peanuts.

Suddenly, in the dream, I hate them all, I hate everybody. They are all arrogant. No one owns me, no one! My mother threw [my favorite] blanket, my Bee, away in the trash [I was four at the time]. The blanket was my friend and Mother killed it.

The dream shifts. The letters are also my special friends, the white letters on the black keys of an old typewriter. The “Underwood” typewriter!

I have a revelation. These letters on the keyboard are my ‘woodworkers’! (My third novel, which I have tried rewriting at least three times, it is titled: The Woodworkers [never completed]. I get about 100 pages into it with each rewrite and stop.) The letters in all combinations are all my friends, so I write them out! Deep chills, like ten thousand ghosts, immediately pass through me. I suddenly remember: no one can take away my friends, no one! Mother took the typewriter away. I remember something I have not consciously thought about for forty years.

** **

         You are at a loss of words.

         I had forgotten these things; yet I see a connection with the Merlyn series: The Rebellion of the First Ten-thousand. Ten thousand ghosts is what it felt like passing through me; a poetic ten thousand I’m sure, but there is it, long before the Merlyn series. Weird stuff, Amorella. Creativity from the mind is weird stuff.

         Remember, boy, I said these books are built as a dream. Nothing irregular or untoward here. The books are just as I said they would be and it will continue that way until you are done or can no longer write. – Post. – Amorella.

** **

May 6, 1987 – Session One

552. BB, is another soul inside?         Yes.

I suddenly fear that this personality business will soon stop, that all this will just go away. I am afraid I’m going to miss asking myself the right questions. I just don’t know how to proceed other than to ask the questions as they come to mind. I feel really stupid.

Another observation. When the pendulum [string and washer] moves in its diagonal fashion my fingers sense a slight tug pulling downward, like something is holding the pendulum from below. I have sensed it the last two or three times the diagonal has come on line. To my finger and thumb it feels like a small fish nibbling at bait.

553. BB, is the diagonal (presently) caused by a soul other than yourself?          Yes.

554. BB, is it another human soul?                  Yes.

555. Is it a male oriented soul?         No.

** **

         This section above has the tug you were considering, Amorella.

         Yes. How do you explain the tug phenomena?

         I have no idea. It was spooky.

         Try it with the washer and string and see if it happens again. – Amorella. Anyone can make the simple device: a washer and string and make a paper and pencil a crosshair target below. It is supper time and the news will be on. Post. – Amorella. 

         It is 2215 hours and you are upstairs ready for bed at any time. You did not use the washer and string even though you still have a couple of them stashed somewhere around. – Amorella.

         I don’t like to use the ‘alphabet and number wheel’. I think it gave me a high; it was intoxicating to play the letters and numbers – not much different than an Ouija board except mine is an original. I remember once when I had an incident that was similar in some details to that in last Friday’s Lizzy Borden “Ghost Adventures”. 

         It too was sometime in the 1980’s and we lived in west Mason on Majken Place, a bi-level starter home with a two car garage. It was maybe nine at night and Kim and Carol were watching television downstairs – a good size room with two windows out the front and a back door with a window, fireplace and off to the left of the backdoor there was a small water closet with a toilet, sink and mirror. I had finished it myself – insulation, heating ducts, wired the electric, wallboard, mud, paint, popped the ceiling and had it carpeted. Very cozy. Put in a door to be shut in winter to keep the heat from coming up the stairs. It was winter because the door was shut and they couldn’t hear upstairs and I couldn’t hear the cable television or the Betamax video tape player downstairs.

         I was lying in bed reading when I heard a ‘click’ in the darkened hallway. Curious, as it was an unusual noise, I got up to investigate. Surprisingly, the hallway, about three feet from the stairs to the first level, was very silent and cold. Near the floorboard I saw a small oddly green flickering. Immediately goose bumps up and down my spine. A ‘presence’ I thought, and it was not a good one. Something bad had happened here – came to mind, but we had built the house new. Then, something bad was here. I backed away. I was afraid to call to Carol and Kim because I felt I had walked into an alternate reality, a real twilight zone. I sensed a wetness as the small ghostly light flickered out. For the next few nights I could not sleep well. I did not mention this to anyone because although a presence seemed to move from one end of the hallway to another, no one else appeared to notice anything abnormal except on one of the nights Carol said that the hallway seemed cold and rather spooky. I dismissed it with a chuckle.

         The next weekend I talked to the neighbor who lived to our left and he said they had had a ghost for some time and they had called a priest and had it exorcised. He said he thought it was his lost brother who had died in a submarine during World War II. I felt the chills when I heard that but never said a thing about the incident in the hallway. To this day I don’t know what was in the hallway. It could have been a spirit but if it was it was stuck in a terrible personal place. Maybe I have mentioned this story before, I can’t remember. That’s all there is to it. I felt better when we moved a few years later.

         Presences I have felt as long as I can remember. With them there is no sense of darkness and foreboding, just that someone else is in the room. Never saw anyone though. No drawers open or close; nothing otherwise abnormal. I figure the presences are in my head, imagination with a persona that likes the company of knowing someone live knows she or he is there once in awhile. That’s how I rationalize it when the situation arises.

         This is indeed how you see things and how you witnessed a stranger aspect of your imagination or perhaps a real unsettled human spirit. You needed to get this out, orndorff. It has festered for too long. You hope that if it was a troubled spirit, that it no longer is such. “Ghost Adventures” triggered those memories. Fortunately for you, you have the notes that go with it.

         That story was easier to recollect than I thought it would be. Still, how could my finger and thumb tips holding the raw end of a piece of string sense a ‘tug’ on the bottom of the washer when nothing was under the washer. An ever so slight tug that continued to happen from time to time when I used the simple target or the more elaborate alphabet wheel. The string would stop dead in its tracks over the center cross point and be pulled downward.  Now, that is spooky.

         Spooky enough that you stopped using the string and washer and target. Actually, I am much more efficient. Once I came along and you adjusted to “automaticity” in your writing the other became old fashion and basically impractical. - Amorella

         I think that you evolved from those earlier experiments, Amorella. I like to think that as the most rational explanation and one of the simplest. Clarifying imagination, that’s pretty much what I’m about – mostly fiction.

         Post, old man. You ought to sleep well tonight. – Amorella.

Notes - Laney asked me to watch: [Response to Ghost Adventures"]

          It will soon be 2230 hours. You had a usual day until an hour or so ago you decided to watch “Ghost Adventures” from Friday. The ghostly focus was on the Lizzy Borden house in Massachusetts. Laney suggested you watch it last Friday. You are not sure what you can say about the show other than after its conclusion you did have goose bumps on your right arm as you climbed the stairs for bed.

         With the goose bumps I realized why Laney made the suggestion. I thought of my own encounter, the only one similar to what I had seen. My goodness, I don’t think I have ever mentioned this before in print or anywhere.

         Start with the tug. – Amorella.

         Okay, first, something that happened before the incident. Back when I first began this experimenting with my subconscious muscles in the tips of my thumb and forefinger. This experiment was suggested by my psychologist, Dr. P, at the University of Cincinnati after a hypnosis session in the 1980’s. (I have made reference to these sessions before in this blog.) What I was told to do was to put the weight of a washer (as in nut, bolt and washer) at one end of a twelve-inch (or thereabouts) piece of a lightly threaded string like one might use on a kite. I put the empty end of the string and held it by a normal pinch of the forefinger and thumb and the weight of the washer dropped the string to about an inch above the table. On the table, according to instructions, I had drawn a crosshair of two four-inch lines. The vertical line had “Yes” under it and the horizontal line had a “No” beside it. If the string circled the crosshair in either direction it was to be considered “Unknown”.

         I was to think of a question and see what answer would appear from those subconscious responding muscles in my finger and thumb. Personally, I remember being very curious as to what would happen – actually thinking nothing would. I recorded all the sessions of that experiment which evolved with working my way through the fourth novel. Amorella introduced herself into my notes one night and she has been with me ever since. I have my notes, my journal documentations (before any novels relating to Braided Dreams) from those days to the present.

         Call it a night as you have to get up early tomorrow for a blood test for your doctor’s visit on Tuesday. You feel the need to include a few notes from those early days and I agree. Tomorrow then. Post. Amorella.

         This is weird, Amorella. I can remember those feelings of being haunted into my very bones.

         Subjective reality, orndorff, but you did witness events. To deny this would be dishonest. – Amorella.

         Why in the world did I watch that show? I don’t like to go to this setting of experiences.

         You watched it for the most obvious of reasons, Laney asked you to watch it. Post. – Amorella.

Notes - Reflective Passion / Books & Scones / Wrong on both counts

        The mid-morning is sunny and cloudless. Good for clear writing. I cannot imagine such a circumstance that would cause heartansoulanmind to be collateral damage in the Creation of All Things and Beyond (as the marsupial-humanoids put it in the “Pouch Text” selections of the Merlyn’s Mind series). The closest thing I can project this alien ‘Creation’ on is what I call passion.

         The definition I use here for passion is: 1. A strong and barely controllable emotion; and 2. An intense unconscious desire for a project.

         Beyond this I am out of words.

         Thus you have your analogy, boy. Looks pretty straight-forward from here. Post. – Amorella. 

         Late afternoon, and you had an excellent lunch at Longhorn’s, one of your favorite more special restaurants. You are at Kroger’s on Tylersville after stopping to look at outdoor lighting at the VOA Centre.

         Yesterday, you and Laney, your old friend and former colleague had a pleasant and lingering encounter at the Kenwood Barnes & Noble. You had a wonderful catching-up after almost two years of not visiting one another. You are so very proud of her and what she has accomplished over the years.

         Laney is so perky and I am continually drawn to her right and left braininess: intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. She has been and is a hope and inspiration (for humankind) to me. What else can I say, it was so very good to meet once again, and in a place we usually meet, a place surrounded by books, tea, hot chocolate and blueberry scones.

         You need not say more, old man. Laney has carved her own niche in the world through herself and her devoted family. Laney-in-your-life is no accident, boy, not from my perspective. She is one of your deepest inner reminders of how it is to be human. – Amorella.

         You are sitting in Pine Hill City Park waiting on Carol still walking the east pond after you taking your own shorter walk to the west pond before returning to the car.

         I did my barbell exercises this morning too. I have been fairly regular since we returned from our New England vacation in September. It has been another good day. Laney said several things yesterday that caught my attention, but one was in reference to ‘happiness’— she said, ‘When I am in a hurry and someone ahead is going too slow, I think to myself, “God is telling me to slow down,” and I feel better.’ A bit of wisdom I, myself, ought to take to heart.

         You are ready for bed as local time is moving towards 2300 hours. You had a couple more errands and enjoyed ‘make-up the week’ TV tonight. Post. – Amorella.

         I think, within the Merlyn books, creation of this and perhaps multitudes of universes and multitudes of Beyonds was much more of an ordeal and ultimate consequence than the ‘Big Bang’ of physics. Even free will and individual responsibility appeared tied in with it long before humans and marsupial-humanoids ever existed.

         You are wrong on both counts, orndorff. In here, free will and individual responsibility for one’s actions cannot arrive before the many species who are conscious of them. Where is the natural social-bearing efficiency in that for individual heartsansoulsanminds, whether alive or dead? – Amorella.

Notes - Not so, orndorff / cornucopia of unmitigated Will / the distance between the Living & the Dead

        Mid-morning. Carol is off to breakfast with her retired teacher friends and you just finished the morning paper. The beginnings, you think, of a so-so day, full cloudy, cold, with an intermittence of rain and gusty wind.

         I am bedroom cornered, in the black easy chair looking out at the dispersal of yellowing green leaves and a backdrop of woods-down-to-Muddy Creek trees with Halloween-like sticky bone bark tops. Alas, the best of Fall is done in this small region of the world.

         This reminds me of what the geography of HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither must look like – that is, I have no idea. Virgil had his nine rivers and Dante his nine circles of hopeless hell up into the wonder of a heavenly rose. Milton made it mental, which, of course, this book is a copy to that extent.

         Not so, orndorff. – Post. – Amorella.

         You had a late morning nap; which, from time to time, helps your lower back as much as any medicine has. The cold and damp works the arthritis into a solid four pain at times. The solid soreness of semi-hard smack of a padded baseball bat on the buttocks is what it seems to you at the moment.

         What is ‘not so,’ Amorella, besides that fact that The Rebellion is really nothing like Paradise Lost?

         The books are setting up an analogous setting already. You have the River with cultural regions of Dead along its banks. Merlyn has ‘seen’ the river appear to flow vertically in a infinity figured pattern, Avalon is an island surrounded by the River, and earlier, when alive, Ezekiel ‘saw’ a ‘sense’ of the shaman dancing slightly above the River. The marsupial-humanoids also set along the same banks. Other islands exist where the River is wider than, let’s say, the Pacific and/or Atlantic Oceans. All of this in a cornucopia so tiny at one end that nothing of elementary physics could enter and wider and deeper than human imagination at the other end. A cornucopia, an abundance of collateral damage, caused by an unmitigated Will-without-force alone.

         If that is going to be a part of the description that is fine with me. Very cool. I particularly like the ‘cornucopia’ part and “an unmitigated Will-without-force” and “collateral damage”.  It fits right with what has been written in the series, and even within myself as my accidental ‘meeting’ of angelic-like Amorella in the first place – an existential fit, an esoteric summary, a charm, if you will, that one could dangle herorhis soul by. Good stuff, Amorella! Thank you.

         Now that that is settled, take a break. Post. – Amorella.

Now that that is settled, take a break. Post. – Amorella.

         It is almost 2100 hours and I have two images above that I have been attempting to absorb somehow almost together yet in a physical sense (as Milton put it in another context) three times the distance from the center of the earth to the edge of the universe. A tweaked image of the sky from NASA and a color tweaked image of an empty green-glassed cornucopia. Mentally place a further condensed cornucopia within the darkened upper left corner of the NASA image. I need this image to nest in heartansoulanmind and think on the conditions, the juxtapostioning esoteric geography that would allow the metaphysical collateral damage to coexist with modern physics, and how it is (fictionally) possible for Ezekiel to envision ‘a wheel within a wheel’ from a dance of twelve shamans above the waters of the Styx.

         Now, I like this stuff! Even if it doesn’t go into this scene in chapter eight I need to pull this together – a strong rationalization will not do. I need a plausible connection. This is because the heartansoulanmind (in the story) do exist within the unconscious nature of both humans and marsupial-humanoids. This is a given in the series. The stuff of the soul has to be a key ingredient because the Supervisor and the human soul are somehow of the same source material, a least that is the implication. Is this correct thinking in context, Amorella?

         Sleep on it, orndorff. Perhaps something will come to mind. You want so much to reason this through but Will-without-force must be reckon with too. Collateral damage is accidental, but then so are you and many others born and living and dead for that matter. Keep in mind the focus is a warming not a division. This is not the distance between Heaven and Hell, it is the mystical distance between the Living and the Dead. Post. – Amorella.

Notes - Purpose of the Marsupial-Humanoid Place of the Dead ? / laid back / chimed out

        A few minutes ago you were glancing over what postings your readers were reading in the last twenty-four hours and saw the almost daily blog titled: “The Fox” on 1 December 2009. You cannot remember what you write from day to day let alone almost two years ago when it appears you were about to begin book four, The Rebellion.

         As I read the old post, which I had indeed completely forgotten, I was surprised as to how this book had its beginnings. Here is the latter selection after an analogy with the fox marking territory in a human area, and me, drilling into my mind to mark out new territory about the human condition. At least that is the sense of it as I read it now. Then you speak, I assume to other readers, about my perceptions of you, Amorella, at that point in time.

** **

From blog notes: 1 December 2009:

You see, at times (almost instinctively), I am perceived by orndorff as an uncommon, unknown-scented presence. Thus, the ‘caution’ flag is raised when I point further into the woods of human literary unconsciousness for which he appears to have no natural GPS to give him guidance.

This is the edge that Dante began from and he used Virgil (Reason) and Beatrice (Angelic-like love) to help him climb down into the very Classical and Medieval descriptions of the Inferno and eventually up into Purgatory and then up once again into and through the Rose of Paradise.

The theatre of books four, five and six will take place in the common center stage of the first ten thousand Dead at about the time of Homer. It is interesting that Homer supposedly lived in the eighth century BC at about the same time period that the Greek alphabet was created.

Scholars can spend lifetimes debating these things but the story has to have some actual historical time in terms of the now Living. Ten thousand human heartansouls in rebellion is a rather poetic number like Helen of Troy having launching a thousand ships.

Milton used the Biblical story of Adam and Eve in Genesis as a part of the rebellious setting of his metaphysics which would have easily captured the imaginations of the English readers of the time period. I am sticking with the Rebellion of the Dead during eighth century BC before Virgil, Dante, and Milton.

Okay, Amorella, but I am no Virgil, Dante, or Milton. I make no claims that direction. You are putting the rather rotund old guy in a foot race with Olympic winners here. Good grief, my fingertips are cooling down right before my eyes. I don’t mind a challenge, but let’s don’t go overboard.

Who else writes on metaphysics as well as the above three?

No one as far as I know though I am not very knowledgeable on the subject. I had logic in a philosophy course in grad school, that’s it, and I only earned a B in the class. The focus of my class presentation was on The Milesians: Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes. I don’t remember what my paper was on. I realized in that class that I wasn’t ‘philosopher’ material. I am an esoteric thinker but these people were quite scholarly and esoteric, they went overboard on minute details that I didn’t find all that interesting. I enjoyed the Milesians because they were scientific thinkers first, at least in my mind they were. They came to wrong but (at that time) valid conclusions on their observations on how parts of the world system worked.

I will construct a simple metaphysical system based on what you already have in books one, two and three. That is, the system will coincide with what is in the Merlyn books.

Amorella, I can’t remember what is in those books in terms of metaphysics. There were so many words and concepts, many of them from the alien marsupials. It is too much material. I can’t even remember writing most of it, even as keyboarding. It was like a three year dream.

We will assume the marsupial aliens are a separate region of HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither but that the two are connected. I want the Place of the Conscious Dead to be greater than just a human centered place.

That’s fine with me, Amorella. I think it was inferred somewhere in the story anyway.

It is better (in the books' presentation) if the reader becomes conscious of the concept of a Place of the Dead that is bigger than herorhis own species. Like you say, too much self-centeredness. 

I have no problem with that. I am assuming here that the reader will not have to have read the first three books.

This is a correct assumption, orndorff. We are starting fresh, where all this began.

[Blog Notes: 1 December 2009]

** **

         Your point of view and perspective at the time, Amorella, shows you have already established a connection with the first three books with, “where all this began.” A flashback, a connection with the Dead (both marsupial-humanoid and human). “It is better (in the books' presentation) if the reader becomes conscious of the concept of a Place of the Dead that is bigger than herorhis own species.”

         I did not realize how important the marsupials are going to be in book six, but there is more to this book four than is being written. The only point so far, that I can remember, is that “Mother” or “Gloama” as she is known to her grandfather, Takis, died and went to the Place of the Dead of the marsupial-humanoids first and then chose (Free Choice) to ‘found’ her own Place of the Dead for humans. I never thought of how she arrived at the Marsupial-Humanoid Place of the Dead in the first place. How did this happen? And, why?

         Carol is fixing lunch. Let’s take a break first. Post. – Amorella.

         An egg salad sandwich (multigrain) with plenty of sweet pickles piled on and a dollop of extra mayonnaise is your idea of a treat, which is what you had for lunch as you read the two newest magazines to arrive, Harpers and Newsweek.

         I didn’t find much interesting in either one, which is usually not the case. Perhaps it is the gloominess of the day – cold and a fairly steady rain. I haven’t seen the cat in hours; she has buried herself somewhere private for a long day’s nap.

         I am beginning to see that writers who capitalize on the ‘cause of the day’, i.e. Occupy Wall Street and Company, are hedging their bets as to its worth. Well, perhaps that is not the case, but at least I wished Occupy Cleveland well. Again, the ‘mood of the day’ may be playing for center stage here. Good old Steve G’s, “Cheer up, things are bound to get worse,’ is howling like a major bank’s loan wolf in the distance. Thank goodness we have no personal debt, but that doesn’t help a myriad of the current masses around the world, who for no or little fault of their own find themselves in precarious times.  

         You just awoke from a nap on the living room floor to find it is after four in the afternoon, and you have letters to take to the post office. ---- Carol went along and you picked up a hot chocolate, a decaf coffee and two small cookies for a late afternoon get-out-of-the-house treat. The cat is up and snuggled comfortably on the black Chinese chair next to the living room window above and to the right the heating duct. Carol said she had been in the smaller back bedroom, curled up under the spread.

         What a warm and fuzzy practical shorthaired cat we have. Her no eared furry toy brown mouse with a string tail is setting up on the chair beside her. Jadah’s black tail covers her pink tipped lower white haired nose and a touch of the tail also covers the far end of the mouse’s tail. Jadah is a cat that cares for her nearly worn out toy. She’s our comfort cat and we love her dearly.

         That is not a very masculine statement, boy. A little unlike you to be so all-sentimental, ain’t it, kid? – Amorella.

         Jadah is a cat-furred charmer. What can more I say?

         Later, orndorff. You are presently too laid back to write. The local news is on. Post.- Amorella.

After 2200 hours.

         It hit me that it is bound that HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither is the same place for both the marsupial-humanoids and the humans.

         Bound it will be if you finish the series. All those who have a consciousness that survives death are in the same place, boy, no matter what universe they drop into and consciously live a life.

         This concept a far cry from that of Virgil, Dante and Milton.

         You are a product of a different time.

         I think, following this reasoning, consciousness in these books is more than the dreaming.

         You are dreaming, not the characters; who are, in a particularly spiritual way, as wind chimes. Your Angels, if you will, are the wind. Who listens to the sounds of the chimes? In here, it is the Supervisor who prefers a protective harbor of harmony to chaos, just as the lesser embodiment, the soul, innately prefers. That’s the way it is in these books. The books show examples of how, but not the why, and not nearly enough, no more than a six volumed peek into a heartansoulanmind. Post. – Amorella