Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 17:51:05 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Rooney <rooney-AT-tiger.cc.oxy.edu>
Subject: Re: Deleuze & mysticism


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On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, Juha Rainio wrote:

> What is "the" mystical tradition you are refering to?

Pseudo-Dionysius, St Bernard of Clairvaux, Eckhart,
et alia.  The Christian tradition which criticizes
or downplays reason in favor of an immediate, pure
communion with God, or in particular with a hidden
or mysterious "huperousias" of God.  This simplified
definition shares evident connections with pre- or
non-Christian traditions such as Plotinism and the
varieties of Gnosticism, as well as some family
resemblance with non-Western mysticisms.


> Mysticism "buggered forth from Deleuze"
> is similar to the "mysticism" in certain traditions
> of Zen, Dzog Chen, Mahamudra (Tilopa, Naropa et al),
> Carlos Castaneda. All of these traditions, or at
> least some of their originators, are typically against
> all kinds of mystification (and new age didn't even
> exist during their time). In these traditions mystical
> experiences are derived from "killing the Buddha", not
> thinking (anything!), _not_ trying to transcend the immanent
> (especially in Mahamudra and Dzog chen).  Some yogic
> practises are ascetic only because people are doing serious
> experiments with their bodies (since they don't
> want to end up like Nietzsche-the-god-of-deleuzian-scholars),
> not (_always_) because of religious beliefs. Some
> Zen-masters could get further from mystifying
> than few western scholars I've come across, or
> daddy-Deleuze for that matter.               

So what's mystical about it, then?  Why go by
that name or its equivalent?  Why not "The No
Bullshit Monks"?  Or, say, "materialists who
like to stay in shape through yoga"?


> ps. It would be rather arrogant to think that in no
> other culture in no other time has anyone been able to
> understand mystification than we, just now, in the west.

Never said or implied anything like that.
And who, "we"?  I am only partially "Western"
myself.


Cordially,

M.

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