Subject: Joking around with Thoth
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 13:51:00 -0400 (EDT)


You have read _Dissemination_ pseudo-Valentinus? Good, since I know
your memory is impeccable judging from your citations, I'll jump right
on it, stirring the waters so to speak that bring with them a stony
silence. Derrida writes: "The imprints (tupoi) of writing do not
inscribe themselves this time, as they do in the hypothesis of the
_Theaetetus_, in the wax of the soul _in intanglio_, thus corresponding
to the spontaneous, autochthonous motions of pscychic life"
(_Dissemination_ pg. 104). This would be correct if one were to assume
that the piece of wax is itself something solid, involving no dynamic
flexibility, no hardening and softening. It is softest when a living
voice is well represented in impressions that leave a deep groove, a
strong memory. And it is hardest when no sooner an impression strikes,
it vanishes. With regards to the latter, what is most in play is
_hypomnesis_, a ghostly crypt of living or knowing memory (mneme).
Writing as the god of death, "can no more answer for itself than a
sculpture or inanimate painting" (_Dissemination_ pg. 92). Thus, Thoth
behaves not only as a joking magician, or shifty signifier, but also as
"a chief of funereal protocol". Thoth keeps watch over the _passages_
of soul, of posts and positions on the underworld by way of the river
of forgetfulnes. Night arithmetic. The reed guided by a hand over the
tablet that keeps the records in the Arabic tradition is called a
Qualam, a Pen that is an angel or a transcedental force of imagination
which is what authorises a fictional turn, the taking up of a persona
dear pseudo-Valentinus. 

Ha-Ari ...

"mysticism and the disclosure of esoteric lore are signs of the
Messianic era"
_Studies in the Zohar_ Yehuda Liebes


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