My Vision
When I came to men I found them sitting
on an old conceit: the conceit that they have long known what is good and
evil for man. All talk of virtue seemed an old and weary matter to man; and
whoever wanted to sleep well still talked of good and evil before going to
sleep.
I disturbed this sleepiness when I
taught: what is good and evil
no one knows yet, unless it be he who creates. He, however, creates man’s
goal and gives the earth its meaning and its future. That anything at all is
good and evil – that is his creation.
And I bade them overthrow their old
academic chairs and wherever that old conceit had sat; I bade them laugh at
their great masters of virtue and saints and poets and world-redeemers. I
bade them laugh at their gloomy sages and at whoever had at anytime sat on
the tree of life like a black scarecrow. I sat down by their great tomb road
among cadavers and vultures, and I laughed at all their past and its rotting
decaying glory.
My wise longing cried and laughed thus
out of me – born in the mountains, verily, a wild wisdom – my great
broad-winged longing! And often it swept me away and up and far, in the
middle of my laughter; and I flew quivering, an arrow, through sun-drunken
delight, away to distant futures which no dream had yet seen.
Thus Spake Zarathustra
Let me get
personal. Lately I have been thinking: what do I want to do when I grow up?
Well, I probably will never really grow up, not emotionally, anyway.
But I have been thinking how I’d like to pursue a dream Carol and I have
dreamed on and off for some years. I would love someday to operate a study
and retreat center something like the one (or what I know of it) over which
Joseph Campbell presided at Esalen. It would be a place where people could
come for a time of refreshment and personal enrichment. Nature would be near
at hand, with plenty of places for private meditation. I picture Carol and
me living on site in the compound. I would make my personal library
available to those who stayed with us. I would like to offer lectures, even
short courses, on all the matters that interest me, including biblical
criticism, comparative religion and myth, weird fiction, philosophy,
esotericism, theology, free thought, etc. No accreditation, no exams, no
credits. Just people taking their fill from the scholarly Smorgasbord. And
plenty of discussion. I have always found that what interests me turns out
to be of interest to numerous others as well; I’m not so unique. And I would
like to have spent my time on earth as a resource for others to find their
own way, sharing ideas with them, and information, for them to make their
own syntheses. And I can’t think of a more pleasant way of doing it. Sure
beats teaching in organized seminaries and colleges with their politics,
both departmental and ideological.
We’d invite speakers to offer other
courses on other matters, not excluding techniques of spirituality and
meditation. I’m thinking of something like the Open Center, the Ecumenical
Seminary, and the Interweave Center. You could earn yourself a certificate
of academic achievement if my approval meant anything to you. It wouldn’t
help you get a job. I envision our “school of the mysteries” as something of
a return to monastic learning, as we have entered a sterile period in which
academic standards have suffered, in which all academia has been perverted
into conservative religious apologetics, or, alternatively, facile political
indoctrination. I want to help make available, even on my tiny scale, the
resources of the classical Higher Criticism of the Bible as well as
theological study.
But there is more than that to consider,
more existential issues to be dealt with. There would be evenings of
“Heretics Anonymous” discussions, with suggestions on how to take the
experience home to plant one’s own ongoing group. Such groups are
opportunities for remaking society from the inside out, as attendees are
moved to examine themselves, their deep assumptions and unsuspected motives.
The greatest heresy is, of course (as the Delphic Oracle and Alan Watts both
said), to “know thyself.”
I’m thinking we might also start up our
old quasi-church, The Grail. I picture Carol as the spiritual leader. She
possesses pastoral skills that I envy, and she has a message of
encouragement and possibility to preach. She lives out dreams and interprets
dreams.
We’d offer film series like those my old
pal and parishioner Bob Jackson pioneered at my old Baptist church. He
taught me that many issues can be adequately conveyed only through the
director’s art and the camera eye; especially moral and theological issues.
Accatone changed my view of morality and poverty. And I recall how my
view of abortion was affected by a popular film like The Seventh Sign,
my view of assisted suicide by an episode of Millennium. Film, one
soon realizes, is scripture, and group discussions of shared films are my
replacement for the old Bible study groups I attended in my youth but now
cannot bear.
Folks might arrange to come to our center
and stay for longer periods as resident scholars. Some might want to live in
adjacent apartments, and it could turn into both an artists colony
(including writers) and a think tank producing scholarly works or theorizing
social programs.
What a way to live! It is a vision I
cherish, and I keep my eyes open for opportunities to make it real, as
improbable as it sounds in some ways. I believe there are great
possibilities out there in the future, even in the present, which we will
never be able to recognize and seize hold of unless and until we start
forward in their direction. Perhaps others attracted to such a dream could
band together with ideas and resources, and what do you know: it might
happen!
So says Zarathustra.
