I Think Therefore I Am; or I Think I Think I Am!

I read this in Descartes' "Meditations on First Philosophy";

Next I examined attentively what I was. I saw that while I could pretend that I had no body and that there was no world and no place for me to be in, I could not for all that pretend that I did not exist. I saw on the contrary that from the mere fact that I thought of doubting the truth of other things, it followed quite evidently and certainly that I existed; whereas if I had merely ceased thinking, even if everything else I had ever imagined had been true, I should have no reason to believe that I existed. From this I knew that I was a substance whose whole nature is simply to think, and which does not require any place or depend on any material thing, in order to exist. Accordingly this I-that is, the soul by which I am what I am-is entirely distinct from the body, and indeed is easier to know than the body, and would not fail to be whatever it is even if the body did not exist.

In the end Descartes 'resolves' the whole problem of the mind-matter interaction by an act, it might be thought, of intellectual bad-faith; by saying that it is a mystery, only understandable to God.

Picture, if you will, the following images. There is a bewigged philosopher in a pensive mood. A bubble appears from his mind with a question mark. “Ah”, says the sage, “I think therefore I am.” The said philosopher continues in his pensive mood. Another bubble appears. This time nothing comes. A look of panic appears on the thinker’s face. The bubble only contains an exclamation mark. And then-POOF!-the thinker vanishes from the scene, wig and all! :))

Time as Experience

Henry Bergson's seminal Time and Free Will distinguishes scientific knowledge of ourselves from our own experience of ourselves. The division here is between time as a spatial concept, a succession of separate and distinct events, and time as a living experience, a flow or a stream, uniting the present with the past and the future. According to Bergson, this flow resists any kind of measurement. The notion of 'time experience' was to be highly influential, used by Marcel Proust, among others, in À la recherché du temps perdu.

In his work on phenomenology, Edmund Husserl deepened Bergson's work by analysing exactly how time appeared in consciousness. Under the influence of both Bergson and Husserl, in 1927 Martin Heidegger advanced the notion that Dasein-subjective existence-has its being in all three temporalities; its past, its present and its possible futures.

Sulis-Minerva

The brilliance and all-encompassing nature of Roman paganism is fully demonstrated by the tendency to adapt local cults and fit them within a wider pantheon. A perfect example of this can be found in the treatment of Sulis or Sul, the Celtic goddess of healing, long associated with the hot springs in what is now the city of Bath in south-west England.

After the occupation of Britain Sulis was conflated with Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. It was at the heart of the cult of Sulis-Minerva that the new city of Aquae Sulis arose, a destination for pilgrims from across the Empire. It is reasonable to assume that while the cult of Sulis had been in part latinised, the Celtic element was always uppermost, in that her name always came before that of Minerva.

Sulis, like most ancient deities, had more than one dimension their power. She was a gentle goddess, whose curative waters could be used to cure a whole range of conditions. But her name could also be invoked to bring vengeance upon the enemies of those who sought her protection.

Sex Goddesses-Oh no they were not!

Yet another good piece I came across by the delicious and talented Bethany Hughes, historian, author and my perfect role model! It begins with the following statement;

Every Pagan season the priestesses of Avalon meet in Glastonbury to worship “Goddess.” As they point out: “this is not New Age religion, if you want something New Age go to the Catholic Church. We’ve been worshiping our Goddess for 30,000 years”.

They could have a point. Female figurines appear in the archaeological record from around 29,000BC. The Venus of Wildorf is the most famous. With her oval, full breasts, rotund stomach, wide thighs and faceless head, she has been taken to represent the enigmatic power of a sublime female force.

Well, yes. The figure was given that name by Josef Szombathy, he excavator, in the early 1900s and has been accepted as a divine symbol ever since. But, Bethany asks, who is to say if she is divine, if the many other such figures are divine, rather than human? It is now thought, by the archeologists working in this area, that such figures represent real women giving birth, depicted in the knees-up squatting position. At the execrations of a Copper Age site near Paphos in West Cyprus a terracotta model of a pregnant woman has been found wearing one of these figurines, presumably as a practical example and mentor!

There are also questions being raised about other such assumptions. The ‘Snake Goddess’ of Knossos on Crete are almost certainly high-priestesses, not divinities. Other such figures depicted in the Minoan Palaces are not ‘earth mothers’ but important women of the day, dressed in the latest fashions. The important thing about these depictions, and these figures, is that they tell us much about the lives of real people, a simple fact obscured by the male fantasists, like Sir Arthur Evens, who described one terracotta woman as ‘Aphrodite.’ Sexy, yes, but real females, not chimeras

Death and Dilemma

This is an answer I gave to a question centering on certain moral dilemmas.

But you already know my views on the first dimension of your question-or dilemma-so no need to travel again down beaten paths. I will just add one small caveat. For me it’s not a question of being pro-life or pro-choice. When it comes to questions of pregnancy and abortion I do not take an abstract position. I know what I would do in the circumstances I alluded to in our past discussion. I will not be dictated to, and I will not dictate to others.

The second element is pitched, I think, more at your fellow Americans, or to people that still live under a system of justice where death is the ultimate penalty. We haven’t had the death penalty in England for almost fifty years now, and I simply cannot envisage it ever returning. To me it seems positively barbaric, no matter the method. Albert Pierrepoint, the last official hangman in England, wrote an autobiography, in which he said that the death penalty was not about justice; it was about vengeance. These are his exact words;

I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people...The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off.

Now, I do not want to misjudge you but you seem comfortable with the notion of vengeance. I am not, because I feel that it uncovers even baser emotions. But I’m talking in the abstract, am I not? That’s the very thing I said I would not do over the issue of abortion. I can’t honestly say how I would feel if someone close to me was the victim of some awful crime. I may very reach deep into notions of revenge, of a need for satisfaction in revenge.

But I note that one of your respondents has taken that final step, arguing even for drawing and quartering, even using the vilest of imagery to express her enthusiasm. I suppose it might even be a spectator sport, in the same fashion as the Middle Ages; to watch a man hung and then cut down still choking; to then have his penis and testicles cut off, his chest opened and his bowels removed, all this while alive and screaming-screams that would echo in one’s mind for as long as one was alive-, with the executioner, covered in blood, right up to his elbows, looking like a butcher. Women avoided this: they were simply burned alive. In killing monsters are we to become monsters? One Hannibal is destroyed; a dozen more arise in his shadows. Yes, it’s true: if you stare into the abyss long enough the abyss stares back into you.

As far as thinning out the herd is concerned, yes, there are some people I think should never have been placed upon this planet, but I’m mindful of the words of the Ghost of Christmas Present to Scrooge;

If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost,”will find him here. What then. If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. “Man,” said the Ghost,”if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die. It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God. to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.

Can I pose a moral dilemma for you? It’s a bit of a trap, fashioned around your personal convictions, so please avoid it if you wish. Anyway, I’m going to give you a time-machine, to take you back to Europe over a hundred and twenty years ago, to Austria, to be precise.

It’s the autumn of 1888. Twenty-eight year old Klara Pölzl is pregnant. She is delighted; this will be her fourth and, although she does not yet know it, the baby is a boy. Yes, she is delighted…and she is afraid; for, you see, she lost her previous children-two boys and a girl-in infancy. This little one, who is destined to survive, will be truly special, given all the love and devotion of which Klara is capable.

Now, your task is to persuade Klara-force her, perhaps- to have an abortion. Why? What reason would you have for so wicked an act? Well, you see, Pölzl is Klara’s maiden name: her married name is Hitler. You have the power to save millions of lives, the lives of so many children not yet born and not yet conceived; children who might very well have grown to be great people, to have discovered a cure for one or other of the dreadful diseases that still haunt the human race, or to be a great writers or artists. Could you do it; would you do it?

Beowulf

Hweat!

I love Beowulf, love the rhythms and the cadences of this wonderful poem. It’s about journeys of different kinds, between places and between worlds Even when it ends with Beowulf’s death it’s just the beginning of another sojourn; for the Anglo-Saxon verb ‘to die’ also means ‘to go on a journey.’ It’s an epic of ‘worda and worca’-words and deeds-as the poet puts it, transfiguring the mundane.



Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,



monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð
feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad,
weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,
oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra



ofer hronrade hyran scolde,
gomban gyldan. þæt wæs god cyning!
Ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned,
geong in geardum, þone god sende
folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat



þe hie ær drugon aldorlease
lange hwile. Him þæs liffrea,
wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf;
Beowulf wæs breme (blæd wide sprang),
Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in.



Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean,
fromum feohgiftum on fæder bearme,
þæt hine on ylde eft gewunigen
wilgesiþas, þonne wig cume,
leode gelæsten; lofdædum sceal



in mægþa gehwære man geþeon.
Him ða Scyld gewat to gescæphwile
felahror feran on frean wære.
Hi hyne þa ætbæron to brimes faroðe,
swæse gesiþas, swa he selfa bæd,



þenden wordum weold wine Scyldinga;
leof landfruma lange ahte.
þær æt hyðe stod hringedstefna,
isig ond utfus, æþelinges fær.
Aledon þa leofne þeoden,



beaga bryttan, on bearm scipes,
mærne be mæste. þær wæs madma fela
of feorwegum, frætwa, gelæded;
ne hyrde ic cymlicor ceol gegyrwan
hildewæpnum ond heaðowædum,



billum ond byrnum; him on bearme læg
madma mænigo, þa him mid scoldon
on flodes æht feor gewitan.
Nalæs hi hine læssan lacum teodan,
þeodgestreonum, þon þa dydon



þe hine æt frumsceafte forð onsendon
ænne ofer yðe umborwesende.
þa gyt hie him asetton segen geldenne
heah ofer heafod, leton holm beran,
geafon on garsecg; him wæs geomor sefa,



murnende mod. Men ne cunnon
secgan to soðe, selerædende,
hæleð under heofenum, hwa þæm hlæste onfeng.



LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!
To him an heir was afterward born,
a son in his halls, whom heaven sent
to favor the folk, feeling their woe
that erst they had lacked an earl for leader
so long a while; the Lord endowed him,
the Wielder of Wonder, with world's renown.
Famed was this Beowulf: far flew the boast of him,
son of Scyld, in the Scandian lands.
So becomes it a youth to quit him well
with his father's friends, by fee and gift,
that to aid him, aged, in after days,
come warriors willing, should war draw nigh,
liegemen loyal: by lauded deeds
shall an earl have honor in every clan.
Forth he fared at the fated moment,
sturdy Scyld to the shelter of God.
Then they bore him over to ocean's billow,
loving clansmen, as late he charged them,
while wielded words the winsome Scyld,
the leader beloved who long had ruled....
In the roadstead rocked a ring-dight vessel,
ice-flecked, outbound, atheling's barge:
there laid they down their darling lord
on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings,
by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure
fetched from far was freighted with him.
No ship have I known so nobly dight
with weapons of war and weeds of battle,
with breastplate and blade: on his bosom lay
a heaped hoard that hence should go
far o'er the flood with him floating away.
No less these loaded the lordly gifts,
thanes' huge treasure, than those had done
who in former time forth had sent him
sole on the seas, a suckling child.
High o'er his head they hoist the standard,
a gold-wove banner; let billows take him,
gave him to ocean. Grave were their spirits,
mournful their mood. No man is able
to say in sooth, no son of the halls,
no hero 'neath heaven, -- who harbored that freight!

Day of Wrath: Remembering Anna Pedersdotter Absalon

It’s impossible to recall all of the victims of the great European Witch Hunt; there are simply too many. But I have made it my task to spotlight at least some, those who may stand for all of the others, both known and unknown; those whose lives and deaths serve to memorialise all of the martyred and butchered children of the earth.

I’ve only just become aware of the case of Anna Pedersdotter Absalon, who was burned alive in Bergen in 1590, having been found guilty of a charge of witchcraft, the most noted case of its kind in the history of Norway.

Anna is unusual in that most of the victims of the witch hunt were poor women, women at the outer fringes of society. But she was not. Anna was the wife of Absalon Pedersen Bayer, a Lutheran minister and humanist scholar, who taught at the University of Bergen. She and her husband were prominent in the local Reformation, seeking to destroy the old holy images in the area, considered to be idolatrous. Those who held to the Catholic faith resisted in any way they could. People like Absalon were too powerful and well-connected to be attacked, but Anna, as a woman, like all others, was vulnerable to an accusation of witchcraft, used, in her case, with a clear political intent.

In 1575 she was charged with having used witchcraft and sorcery to kill Bishop Gjeble Pedersen, her husband’s uncle, in order to make Absalon bishop in his stead. Her husband, calling on the intervention of the King of Denmark himself, then ruler of Norway, managed to have the charges dismissed. Absalon died soon after, leaving Anna wealthy and vulnerable to accusations that simply refused to go away.

In 1590 the case was finally reopened, with Anna now old, cantankerous and friendless. The usually accusations of maleficia were presented, and Anna was indicted on several cases of murder by magic. With courage and presence of mind, she rebutted these charges, including one that she had caused the death of a child.

Proceedings continued with the introduction of a diabolic element. Anna’s own servant testified that her mistress had turned her into a horse and ridden her to a Sabbath at a mountain called Lyderhorn, where she and other witches plotted to raise a storm to wreck ships arriving at Bergen. Even as a horse this servant seems to have lost nothing of her human comprehension. It was on the basis of such testimony that Anna was condemned and burned. All the way to the site of her execution she called out her innocence.

I suppose Anna might have been completely forgotten if it had not been for Hans Wiers-Jenssen, a Norwegian playwright, who brought the story to public attention in the early part of the twentieth century. Anne Pedersdotter, his play, was translated into English by John Masefield. Later still it inspired the making of a film, Day of Wrath, directed by Carl Theodore Dreyer. It was screened in his native Denmark in 1943, then under Nazi occupation, a time when the echo of an old witch hunt would resound among the new.