sf51. With respect to life after death and the problem of retention of individuality, Paul Edwards observes
This note may be of interest:
Of course, if one thinks of an individual as a stream, one sees that quite some while may elapse before the stream merges into a river and the river into the ocean. In other words, Edwards does not account for an in-between possibility. Such a possibility is given in the occasional testimonies of people who have experienced the merger of one "soul" with another. That is, such a person reports that, at least for short periods, there is an inability to distinguish the self – in the sense of who I am – from the other person (usually a lover). Many take such accounts to be poetic or metaphorical. But, if we regard the existence of spirits as just as plausible as the existence of matter, then such a possibility need not be regarded as a simple illusion.
On Edwards and his 'messiah'
Edwards saw Wilhelm Reich, a fellow Austrian Jew who had also escaped the Nazis, as a very important man, saying that on his arrival in New York in 1947, the "talk of the town" was Wilhelm Reich and that for years he and his friends regarded Reich as "something akin to a messiah."
"There was ... a widespread feeling that Reich had an original and penetrating insight into the troubles of the human race." Twenty years later, as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (published by Macmillan), Edwards wrote an article about Reich, comprising 11 pages as compared to the four devoted to Sigmund Freud. Edwards pointed out what is of interest to philosophers in Reich: his views concerning the origin of religious and metaphysical needs, the relation between the individual and society and the possibility of social progress, and, above all, the implications of his psychiatry for certain aspects of the mind-body problem. An abridged version of the article appeared in the Encyclopedia of Unbelief (ed. Gordon Stein, 1985).
Edwards omitted Reich's "orgone therapy" from the Encyclopedia article because, he said, "it is of no philosophical interest." But, in a BBC interview he said, "I concede that Reich had no real competence as a physicist... At the same time I am quite convinced that the orgone theory cannot be complete nonsense. For a number of years, largely out of curiosity, I sat in an orgone accumulator once a day."
One might wonder whether these irreligious men were seeking some way of fulfilling a religious impulse with orgone energy via the orgone accumulator.
Reich, who has been dubbed the "father of the sexual revolution," wrote in The Mass Psychology of Fascism:
Reich's scientific expertise was not as silly as has been widely claimed, according to James Strick. In 2015 Harvard University Press published Strick's Wilhelm Reich, Biologist, in which Strick writes that Reich's work in Oslo "represented the cutting edge of light microscopy and time-lapse micro-cinematography." Strick argues that the dominant narrative of Reich as a pseudoscientist is incorrect and that Reich's story is "much more complex and interesting."
Reich's updated book on fascism included a condemnation of Josef Stalin. Hence, he had few friends on the left when the federal government prosecuted him over sales of his orgone accumulator and "associated literature." Following two critical articles about him in The New Republic, headed by Stalin's former spy, Michael Straight, and Harper's in 1947, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration obtained an injunction against the interstate shipment of orgone accumulators and associated literature, believing they were dealing with a "fraud of the first magnitude." Charged with contempt in 1956 for having violated the injunction, Reich was sentenced to two years imprisonment, and that summer over six tons of his publications were burned by order of the court. He died in prison of heart failure just over a year later, days before he was due to apply for parole.
Much, but not all, information on this page is taken from two Wikipedia articles on Edwards and Reich.
For other footnoted information on Edwards, please see:
Footnote dh97
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-dh97.html
Footnote np54
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-np54.html
Footnote ds45
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-ds45.html
Footnote gk63
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-gk63.html
The appeal to individuation does not prove that disembodied mental existence is impossible. It only shows that we would not be able to justify believing in a plurality of disembodied minds as opposed to a single such mind; and [H.D.] Lewis rightly observes that it does not rule out the kind of Absolute Mind or Consciousness postulated by post-Hegelian idealists and certain Indian religions, or the "ocean of consciousness" of William James, [Erwin] Schroedinger, and [Arthur] Koestler... It is true that the ocean of consciousness theory has nothing to fear from individuation, but two other very serious problems arise in connection with it. In the first place it is not clear that we are dealing with a genuine theory. We are given no more than a vague picture – individual minds are said to merge into the Absolute Mind after death, just as drops of water merge into the ocean. We certainly understand what is meant by an ocean composed of water. We also understand what would be meant by an ocean composed of some other liquid – milk, for example, or champagne. But what is an ocean composed of "mental stuff," to use an expression common among philosophers writing during the last decade of the nineteenth century [and later]? And even if this difficulty is waived and we concede that statements about an ocean of consciousness possess some literal significance, there are strong reasons for supposing that no such ocean exists.(To learn more about those "strong reasons," please consult Edwards's anthology Immortality (Prometheus 1997). The above quotation is from his introduction to that anthology.)
This note may be of interest:
Of course, if one thinks of an individual as a stream, one sees that quite some while may elapse before the stream merges into a river and the river into the ocean. In other words, Edwards does not account for an in-between possibility. Such a possibility is given in the occasional testimonies of people who have experienced the merger of one "soul" with another. That is, such a person reports that, at least for short periods, there is an inability to distinguish the self – in the sense of who I am – from the other person (usually a lover). Many take such accounts to be poetic or metaphorical. But, if we regard the existence of spirits as just as plausible as the existence of matter, then such a possibility need not be regarded as a simple illusion.
On Edwards and his 'messiah'
Edwards saw Wilhelm Reich, a fellow Austrian Jew who had also escaped the Nazis, as a very important man, saying that on his arrival in New York in 1947, the "talk of the town" was Wilhelm Reich and that for years he and his friends regarded Reich as "something akin to a messiah."
"There was ... a widespread feeling that Reich had an original and penetrating insight into the troubles of the human race." Twenty years later, as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (published by Macmillan), Edwards wrote an article about Reich, comprising 11 pages as compared to the four devoted to Sigmund Freud. Edwards pointed out what is of interest to philosophers in Reich: his views concerning the origin of religious and metaphysical needs, the relation between the individual and society and the possibility of social progress, and, above all, the implications of his psychiatry for certain aspects of the mind-body problem. An abridged version of the article appeared in the Encyclopedia of Unbelief (ed. Gordon Stein, 1985).
Edwards omitted Reich's "orgone therapy" from the Encyclopedia article because, he said, "it is of no philosophical interest." But, in a BBC interview he said, "I concede that Reich had no real competence as a physicist... At the same time I am quite convinced that the orgone theory cannot be complete nonsense. For a number of years, largely out of curiosity, I sat in an orgone accumulator once a day."
One might wonder whether these irreligious men were seeking some way of fulfilling a religious impulse with orgone energy via the orgone accumulator.
Reich, who has been dubbed the "father of the sexual revolution," wrote in The Mass Psychology of Fascism:
The basic religious idea in all patriarchal religions is the negation of the sexual needs. Only in very primitive religions were religiosity and sexuality identical. When social organization passed from matriarchy to patriarchy and class society, the unity of religious and sexual cult underwent a split; the religious cult became the antithesis of the sexual. With that, the cult of sexuality went out of existence. It was replaced by the brothel, pornography and backstairs-sexuality. It goes without saying that when sexual experiences ceased to be one with the religious cults, when, instead, they became antithetical to them, religious excitation assumed a new function: that of being a substitute for the lost sexual pleasure, now no longer affirmed by society. Only this contradiction inherent in religious excitation makes the strength and the tenacity of the religions understandable: the contradiction of its being at one and the same time antisexual and a substitute for sexuality.Shortly after he arrived in New York in 1939 Reich reported discovery of a biological or cosmic energy, an extension of Freud's idea of the libido. He called it "orgone energy" or "orgone radiation." His orgone accumulator supposedly cured cancer and effected other wonders.
Reich's scientific expertise was not as silly as has been widely claimed, according to James Strick. In 2015 Harvard University Press published Strick's Wilhelm Reich, Biologist, in which Strick writes that Reich's work in Oslo "represented the cutting edge of light microscopy and time-lapse micro-cinematography." Strick argues that the dominant narrative of Reich as a pseudoscientist is incorrect and that Reich's story is "much more complex and interesting."
Reich's updated book on fascism included a condemnation of Josef Stalin. Hence, he had few friends on the left when the federal government prosecuted him over sales of his orgone accumulator and "associated literature." Following two critical articles about him in The New Republic, headed by Stalin's former spy, Michael Straight, and Harper's in 1947, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration obtained an injunction against the interstate shipment of orgone accumulators and associated literature, believing they were dealing with a "fraud of the first magnitude." Charged with contempt in 1956 for having violated the injunction, Reich was sentenced to two years imprisonment, and that summer over six tons of his publications were burned by order of the court. He died in prison of heart failure just over a year later, days before he was due to apply for parole.
Much, but not all, information on this page is taken from two Wikipedia articles on Edwards and Reich.
For other footnoted information on Edwards, please see:
Footnote dh97
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-dh97.html
Footnote np54
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-np54.html
Footnote ds45
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-ds45.html
Footnote gk63
https://thetaman.blogspot.com/2020/05/footnote-gk63.html
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