Tagged with Language

As I was re-reading Lin Yutang's masterwork, I found so many passages that seem custom-made for the Dude that I thought it might be fun to explore the points of departure and arrival of both works, in tandem. To do that, I need to start from the not-so-distant premises that prompted Lin Yutang himself, back in 1937, to write his book. (more)

The introduction of the written word into social discourse initiated a fundamental change in the way human beings understood their reality. Alphabetic writing rewired our brains into left-dominant meme machines, instituting a period of intensive philosophical and cultural progress. But it would also, ultimately, initiate our long decent into self-destruction. (more)

Janiger is responsible for "turning on" many well-known literary figures and Hollywood celebrities in the late fifties and early sixties, when LSD was legal. In the late eighties,  he founded the Albert Hofman Foundation, whose purpose is to establish a world information center dedicated to the scientific study of human consciousness. Jeanne St. Peter and David Jay Brown spoke to Oscar about his scientific research, creativity and psychopathology, and his discovery of the psycho-active effects of isolated DMT. (more)

Many spiritually-inclined people dismiss what they call "Western philosophy" as inferior to what they designate "Eastern thought," or "indigenous spirituality." But I would offer that this dismissal, to borrow a phrase from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, "does not reflect correct understanding." They have not understood mind as metaphor. (more)

Can we really prepare for the future by paying more attention to the Internet? The predictive linguistics pioneers at the Half Past Human project are cracking the code. (more)

Oddly, there is a starless zodiac. But there is also a zodiac formed of patterns of stars. The difference between the two is virtually unknown, even to most astrologers. (more)

Prior to embracing the Mayan calendar, the author and art historian José Argüelles once espoused that a collective shift in consciousness would come in the form of a new archetypal language. The author and botanist Terence McKenna made similar connections. Is that language now in formation? (more)

The Green Language that enables communication and interaction with the living intelligence of the planet is experiencing a verdant resurgence. Long relegated to the "occult," this expressive grammar has been kept alive through the ages by poets, alchemists, mystics, and wise women. At the first annual Conference on Green Hermeticism, brainchild of independent scholar Peter Lamborn Wilson, an inspired group of colleagues offered an astonishing array of facts, assertions, and speculations about our ability to connect to the planet. (more)

[Time for An Upgrade] • G.O.D. is an idea or an intent given corporal form. Interestingly, the people that reify corporations generally do so in order to limit personal responsibility and liability. Then the high executives act in the name of G.O.D. with protection from direct judgment. There is a higher power, however, that the high executives of G.O.D. do have to answer to: The Board. (more)