Power Quote
Power Quote: G.K. Chesterton
Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight. He has always had one foot in earth and the other in fairyland. He has always left himself free to doubt his gods; but (unlike the agnostic of to-day) free also to believe in them. He has always cared more for truth than for consistency. If he saw two truths that seemed to contradict each other, he would take the two truths and the contradiction along with them. […] The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand.
– Orthodoxy
Tags: G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Thanks for this, Justin.
Thanks for this, Justin.
Justin, thanks for this great piece of wisdom from Chesterton.
I don’t know you from squat. But you seem to be a real thinker, and your posts run the gamut.
I remember talking w/PR at this blog about “mystery” and related concepts. Those days are gone. Mean weak was fun (from afar) and the Abramson shenanigans are fascinating, in a morbid way. But this stuff is why I come to HTMLGiant (you, Blake, Sam, etc. make me *think*).
Have a good night–
Justin, thanks for this great piece of wisdom from Chesterton.
I don’t know you from squat. But you seem to be a real thinker, and your posts run the gamut.
I remember talking w/PR at this blog about “mystery” and related concepts. Those days are gone. Mean weak was fun (from afar) and the Abramson shenanigans are fascinating, in a morbid way. But this stuff is why I come to HTMLGiant (you, Blake, Sam, etc. make me *think*).
Have a good night–
The reason mysticism keeps men sane is because genetically, instinctually, naturally the material mysticism deals with is a part of our beings. While some of what is labeled under ‘meta’-physics and mysticism are the ghosts of our percetual machine, the majority of it is us sensing and experiencing that which goes on behind the scenes of the universe, and a lot of the dysfunction we go through is because of our socially engrained and growing ignorance/nullity to those things. We attempt to understand consciously what is occuring and this chase, I agree with Chesterton here, is what keeps us going along.
I disagree with what I believe (key words here, what I believe) Chesterton is regarding an ordinary man. The ordinary man in modern society is the ordinary man as persuaded by others. I mean: there are specific human forces trying to designate what is to be believed (misinformation) in hopes to guard certain secrets (ie, that which mysticism deals with) so that they can more easily contain and control. I guess Chesterton can be saying ordinary man is man as he naturally is, uncontrolled, but….
The reason mysticism keeps men sane is because genetically, instinctually, naturally the material mysticism deals with is a part of our beings. While some of what is labeled under ‘meta’-physics and mysticism are the ghosts of our percetual machine, the majority of it is us sensing and experiencing that which goes on behind the scenes of the universe, and a lot of the dysfunction we go through is because of our socially engrained and growing ignorance/nullity to those things. We attempt to understand consciously what is occuring and this chase, I agree with Chesterton here, is what keeps us going along.
I disagree with what I believe (key words here, what I believe) Chesterton is regarding an ordinary man. The ordinary man in modern society is the ordinary man as persuaded by others. I mean: there are specific human forces trying to designate what is to be believed (misinformation) in hopes to guard certain secrets (ie, that which mysticism deals with) so that they can more easily contain and control. I guess Chesterton can be saying ordinary man is man as he naturally is, uncontrolled, but….
“Hitherto, the world had been permeated with invisibilities, a condition that Christianity called paganism. When the invisible forsakes the actual world — as it deserts Job, leaving him plagued with every sort of physical disaster — then the visible world no longer sustains life, because life is no longer invisibly backed. Then the world tears you apart.” James Hillman
“Hitherto, the world had been permeated with invisibilities, a condition that Christianity called paganism. When the invisible forsakes the actual world — as it deserts Job, leaving him plagued with every sort of physical disaster — then the visible world no longer sustains life, because life is no longer invisibly backed. Then the world tears you apart.” James Hillman
Fantastic. I’ve got to read some of his work.
Fantastic. I’ve got to read some of his work.
Orthodoxy is a fascinating book. I’ve reach parts of it before–“The Ethics of Elfland,” and especially “The Romance of Orthodoxy”–but never taken the full measure of the thing. A couple years ago I read his novel, The Man Who Was Thursday. It’s about as heavy-handed as allegory gets, but still- if you feel like Learning some Valuable Lessons….
Orthodoxy is a fascinating book. I’ve reach parts of it before–“The Ethics of Elfland,” and especially “The Romance of Orthodoxy”–but never taken the full measure of the thing. A couple years ago I read his novel, The Man Who Was Thursday. It’s about as heavy-handed as allegory gets, but still- if you feel like Learning some Valuable Lessons….