... going beyond the finite infinite ...

Aristotle (384–322 BC), Metaphysics

Metaphysical vibe

Quantum realm

Mobile in time

The Symbolic and Metaphysical Meaning of Water - Ancestral Connections and Self-Recognition by Daniel Arrhakis (2025)

With the music : VÉRA // ⫶ somewhere other, somewhere else by INEKT

The Hereios are in a funk. You will find them in exile today at the Metaphysical leper colony, the Flickr home to “castaways, cast outs, social rejects, pissed-off individuals, perverted hermits” and the self-exiled.

Over at 7 Days of Shooting the weekly theme is “A Book Title”.

All that, and the fact that it’s “Black and White Wednesday, sent me off in search of a book title about leper colonies. I know that’s all very strange – but it’s just how my mind works.

Anyway, I found a book title, and it is so utterly intriguing I put a hold on it at the library and will probably lay my hands on it this weekend. It sounds like fiction, but it’s a true story about a real place. Here’s a good recording about the place:

www.thestory.org/stories/2013-08/legacy-home-leprosy-pati...

Here’s a bit of the review from Goodreads:

In the Sanctuary of Outcasts

by Neil W. White III

White . . . had it all . . . The problem was he didn't have the money to pay for it. So he began kiting checks [and] found himself sentenced to a year and a half in prison. Justice, it turned out, would be more than skin deep. White was assigned to Carville, a prison that doubled as a leper colony. Everything about Carville was tailor-made to make White rethink his priorities. He didn't change overnight, but as White turned his incarceration into a crusade to end the stigma of leprosy, he learned lessons in humility, generosity, and the simple transcendent beauty of the human spirit. His story is well worth reading.

www.goodreads.com/book/show/6217732-in-the-sanctuary-of-o...

Book jacket for the New Metaphysical Library no.006,

Contemporary, depending on whatever place in time you find yourself...

Chapters include: Staying on the Path, Ethics of Time Traveling, Avoid Imploding the Universe.

(oh and Olly Moss and Spacesick hold the crown for fake-retro book covers!)

Everything Falls In Line

To discover that metaphysical Tree which hid

From my worldling look its brilliant vein

Far deeper in gross wood

Than axe could cut.

But before I might blind sense

To see with the spotless soul,

Each particular quirk so ravished me

Every pock and stain bulked more beautiful

Than flesh of any body

Flawed by love's prints.

— Sylvia Plath “On The Plethora Of Dryads”

In civilizations of a traditional nature, intellectual intuition lies at the root of everything; in other words, it is the pure metaphysical doctrine that constitutes the essential, everything else being linked to it, either in the form of consequences or applications to the various orders of contingent reality.

Not only is this true of social institutions, but also of the sciences, that is, branches of knowledge bearing on the domain of the relative, which in such civilizations are only regarded as dependencies, prolongations, or reflections of absolute or principial knowledge.

Thus a true hierarchy is always and everywhere preserved: the relative is not treated as non-existent, which would be absurd; it is duly taken into consideration, but is put in its rightful place, which cannot but be a secondary and subordinate one; and even within this relative domain there are different degrees of reality, according to whether the subject lies nearer to or further from the sphere of principles.

Thus, as regards science, there are two radically different and mutually incompatible conceptions, which may be referred to respectively as traditional and modern. We have often had occasion to allude to the 'traditional sciences' that existed in antiquity and the Middle Ages and which still exist in the East, though the very idea of them is foreign to the Westerners of today. It should be added that every civilization has had 'traditional sciences' of its own and of a particular type. Here we are no longer in the sphere of universal principles, to which pure metaphysics alone belongs, but in the realm of adaptations.

(…)

By seeking to sever the connection of the sciences with any higher principle, under the pretext of assuring their independence, the modern conception robs them of all deeper meaning and even of all real interest from the point of view of knowledge; it can only lead them down a blind alley, by enclosing them, as it does, in a hopelessly limited realm.

Moreover, the development achieved in this realm is not a deepening of knowledge, as is commonly supposed, but on the contrary remains completely superficial, consisting only of the dispersion in detail already referred to and an analysis as barren as it is laborious; this development can be pursued indefinitely without coming one step closer to true knowledge.

It must also be remarked that it is not for its own sake that, in general, Westerners pursue science; as they interpret it, their foremost aim is not knowledge, even of an inferior order, but practical applications, as can be deduced from the ease with which the majority of our contemporaries confuse science and industry, and from the number of those for whom the engineer represents the typical man of science.

(…)

Modern experimentalism involves the curious illusion that a theory can be proven by facts, whereas in reality the same facts can always be equally well explained by several different theories; some of the pioneers of the experimental method, such as Claude Bernard, have themselves recognized that they could interpret facts only with the help of preconceived ideas, without which they would remain 'brute facts' devoid of all meaning and scientific value.

Since we have been led to speak of experimentalism, the opportunity may be taken to answer a question that may be raised in this connection: why have the experimental sciences received a development in modern civilization such as they never had in any other?

The reason is that these sciences are those of the sensible world, those of matter, and also those lending themselves most directly to practical applications; their development, proceeding hand in hand with what might well be called the 'superstition of facts', is therefore in complete accord with specifically modern tendencies, whereas earlier ages could not find sufficient interest in them to pursue them to the extent of neglecting, for their sake, knowledge of a higher order. It must be clearly understood that we are not saying that any kind of knowledge can be deemed illegitimate, even though it be inferior; what is illegitimate is only the abuse that arises when things of this kind absorb the whole of human activity, as we see them doing at present.

(…)

One of the characteristics of the present age is the exploitation of everything that had hitherto been neglected as being of insufficient importance for men to devote their time and energy to, but which nevertheless had to be developed before the end of the cycle, since the things concerned had their place among the possibilities destined to be manifested within it; such in particular is the case of the experimental sciences that have come into existence in recent centuries.

There are even some modern sciences that represent, quite literally, residues of ancient sciences that are no longer understood: in a period of decadence, the lowest part of these sciences became isolated from all the rest, and this part, grossly materialized, served as the starting-point for a completely different development, in a direction conforming to modern tendencies; this resulted in the formation of sciences that have ceased to have anything in common with those that preceded them. Thus, for example, it is wrong to maintain, as is generally done, that astrology and alchemy have respectively become modern astronomy and modern chemistry, even though this may contain an element of truth from a historical point of view; it contains, in fact, the very element of truth to which we have just alluded, for, if the latter sciences do in a certain sense come from the former, it is not by 'evo-lution' or 'progress' - as is claimed - but on the contrary, by degeneration.

(…)

These are the two complementary functions proper to the traditional sciences: on the one hand, as applications of the doctrine, they make it possible to link the different orders of reality and to integrate them into the unity of a single synthesis, and on the other, they constitute, at least for some, and in accordance with their individual aptitudes, a preparation for a higher knowledge and a way of approach to it - forming by virtue of their hierarchical positioning, according to the levels of existence to which they refer, so many rungs as it were by which it is possible to climb to the level of pure intellectuality.

It is only too clear that modern sciences cannot in any way serve either of these purposes; this is why they can be no more than 'profane science', whereas the 'traditional sciences', through their connection with metaphysical principles, are effectively incorporated in 'sacred science'.

The ways leading to knowledge may be extremely different at the lowest degree, but they draw closer and closer together as higher levels are reached. This is not to say that any of these preparatory degrees are absolutely necessary, since they are mere contingent methods having nothing in common with the end to be attained; it is even possible for some persons, in whom the tendency to contemplation is predominant, to attain directly to true intellectual intuition without the aid of such means; but this is a more or less exceptional case, and in general it is accepted as being necessary to proceed upward gradually.

The whole question may also be illustrated by means of the traditional image of the 'cosmic wheel': the circumference in reality exists only in virtue of the center, but the beings that stand upon the circumference must necessarily start from there or, more precisely, from the point thereon at which they actually find themselves, and follow the radius that leads to the center. Moreover, because of the correspondence that exists between all the orders of reality, the truths of a lower order can be taken as symbols of those of higher orders, and can therefore serve as 'supports' by which one may arrive at an understanding of these; and this fact makes it possible for any science to become a sacred science, giving it a higher or 'anagogical' meaning deeper than that which it possesses in itself.

Every science, we say, can assume this character, whatever may be its subject-matter, on the sole condition of being constructed and regarded from the traditional standpoint; it is only necessary to keep in mind the degrees of importance of the various sciences according to the hierarchical rank of the diverse realities studied by them; but whatever degree they may occupy, their character and functions are essentially similar in the traditional conception.

What is true of the sciences is equally true of the arts, since every art can have a truly symbolic value that enables it to serve as a support for meditation, and because it’s rules, like the laws studied by the sciences, are reflections and 'applications of fundamental principles: there are then in every normal civilization 'traditional arts', but these are no less unknown to the modern West than are the 'traditional sciences'. The truth is that there is really no 'profane realm' that could in any way be opposed to a 'sacred realm'; there is only a 'profane point of view', which is really none other than the point of view of ignorance.

This is why 'profane science', the science of the moderns, can as we have remarked elsewhere be justly styled 'ignorant knowledge', knowledge of an inferior order confining itself entirely to the lowest level of reality, knowledge ignorant of all that lies beyond it, of any aim more lofty than itself, and of any principle that could give it a legitimate place, however humble, among the various orders of knowledge as a whole. Irremediably enclosed in the relative and narrow realm in which it has striven to proclaim itself independent, thereby voluntarily breaking all connection with transcendent truth and supreme wisdom, it is only a vain and illusory knowledge, which indeed comes from nothing and leads to nothing.

This survey will suffice to show how great is the deficiency of the modern world in the realm of science, and how that very science of which it is so proud represents no more than a deviation and, as it were, a downfall from true science, which for us is absolutely identical with what we have called 'sacred' or 'traditional' science. Modern science, arising from an arbitrary limitation of knowledge to a particular order-the lowest of all orders, that of material or sensible reality-has lost, through this limitation and the consequences it immediately entails, all intellectual value; as long, that is, as one gives to the word 'intellectuality' the fullness of its real meaning, and refuses to share the 'rationalist' error of assimilating pure intelligence to reason, or, what amount to the same thing, of completely denying intellectual intuition.

The root of this error, as of a great many other modern errors - and the cause of the entire deviation of science that we have just described - is what may be called 'individualism', an attitude indistinguishable from the anti-traditional attitude itself and whose many manifestations in all domains constitute one of the most important factors in the confusion of our time; we shall therefore now study this individualism more closely.

----

excerpts from The Crisis of the Modern World by René Guenon

Chapter 4: Sacred and profane science

----

Dekoulou Monastery, Greece

Today's We're Here Challenge: Metaphysical Leper Colony

As soon as I read this challenge I thought of an abandoned building outside of Palm Springs. I have no idea what kind of building it was. The temperature of 101F made me hurry my photoshoot so it didn't come out how I'd pictured.

"The distinctive characteristic of a traditional society is order."

Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

"A normal civilization is one that rests on principles, one in which all is ordered and in a hierarchy consistent with these principles, so that everything is seen to be an application and extension of a metaphysical doctrine."

René Guénon

Kharkiv,Ukraine

Giordano Bruno..Giordano Bruno (Latin: Iordanus Brunus Nolanus; Italian: [dʒorˈdano ˈbruno]; 1548 – February 17, 1600), born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and astrologer. He is celebrated for his cosmological theories, which went even further than the then-novel Copernican model: while supporting heliocentrism, Bruno also correctly proposed that the Sun was just another star moving in space, and claimed as well that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds, identified as planets orbiting other stars. Beginning in 1593, Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges including denial of several core Catholic doctrines (including the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the virginity of Mary, and Transubstantiation). Bruno's pantheism was also a matter of grave concern.[4] The Inquisition found him guilty, and in 1600 he was burned at the stake in Rome's Campo de' Fiori. After his death he gained considerable fame, particularly among 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who regarded him as a martyr for science,[5] though scholars emphasize that Bruno's astronomical views were at most a minor component of the theological and philosophical beliefs that led to his trial.Bruno's case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the future of the emerging sciences. In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. Historian Frances Yates argues that Bruno was deeply influenced by Arab astrology, Neoplatonism, Renaissance Hermeticism, and the Egyptian god Thoth. Other studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial paradigms of geometry to language. Born Filippo Bruno in Nola (in Campania, then part of the Kingdom of Naples) in 1548, he was the son of Giovanni Bruno, a soldier, and Fraulissa Savolino. In his youth he was sent to Naples for education. He was tutored privately at the Augustinian monastery there, and attended public lectures at the Studium Generale. At the age of 17, he entered the Dominican Order at the monastery of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, taking the name Giordano, after Giordano Crispo, his metaphysics tutor. He continued his studies there, completing his novitiate, and became an ordained priest in 1572 at age 24. During his time in Naples he became known for his skill with the art of memory and on one occasion traveled to Rome to demonstrate his mnemonic system before Pope Pius V and Cardinal Rebiba. In his later years Bruno claimed that the Pope accepted his dedication to him of the lost work On The Ark of Noah at this time. While Bruno was distinguished for outstanding ability, his taste for free thinking and forbidden books soon caused him difficulties. Given the controversy he caused in later life it is surprising that he was able to remain within the monastic system for eleven years. In his testimony to Venetian inquisitors during his trial, many years later, he indicates that proceedings were twice taken against him for having cast away images of the saints, retaining only a crucifix, and for having made controversial reading recommendations to a novice.[16] Such behavior could perhaps be overlooked, but Bruno's situation became much more serious when he was reported to have defended the Arian heresy, and when a copy of the banned writings of Erasmus, annotated by him, was discovered hidden in the convent privy. When he learned that an indictment was being prepared against him in Naples he fled, shedding his religious habit, at least for a time. First years of wandering, 1576–1583 Bruno first went to the Genoese port of Noli, then to Savona, Turin and finally to Venice, where he published his lost work On The Signs of the Times with the permission (so he claimed at his trial) of the Dominican Remigio Nannini Fiorentino. From Venice he went to Padua where he met fellow Dominicans who convinced him to wear his religious habit again. From Padua he went to Bergamo and then across the Alps to Chambéry and Lyon. His movements after this time are obscure. The earliest depiction of Bruno is an engraving published in 1715 in Germany, presumed based on a lost contemporary portrait. In 1579 he arrived in Geneva. As D.W. Singer, a Bruno biographer, notes, "The question has sometimes been raised as to whether Bruno became a Protestant, but it is intrinsically most unlikely that he accepted membership in Calvin's communion"During his Venetian trial he told inquisitors that while in Geneva he told the Marchese de Vico of Naples, who was notable for helping Italian refugees in Geneva, "I did not intend to adopt the religion of the city. I desired to stay there only that I might live at liberty and in security." Bruno had a pair of breeches made for himself, and the Marchese and others apparently made Bruno a gift of a sword, hat, cape and other necessities for dressing himself; in such clothing Bruno could no longer be recognized as a priest. Things apparently went well for Bruno for a time, as he entered his name in the Rector's Book of the University of Geneva in May 1579. But in keeping with his personality he could not long remain silent. In August he published an attack on the work of Antoine de la Faye, a distinguished professor. He and the printer were promptly arrested. Rather than apologizing, Bruno insisted on continuing to defend his publication. He was refused the right to take sacrament. Though this was eventually reversed, he left Geneva.

He went to France, arriving first in Lyon, and thereafter settling for a time (1580–1581) in Toulouse, where he took his doctorate in theology and was elected by students to lecture in philosophy. It seems he also attempted at this time to return to the Catholic fold, but was denied absolution by the Jesuit priest he approached. When religious strife broke out in the summer of 1581, he relocated to Paris. There he held a cycle of thirty lectures on theological topics, and he also began to gain fame for his prodigious memory. Bruno's feats of memory were based, at least in part, on his elaborate system of mnemonics, but some of his contemporaries found it easier to attribute them to magical powers. His talents attracted the benevolent attention of the king Henry III. The king summoned him to the court. Bruno subsequently reported "I got me such a name that King Henry III summoned me one day to discover from me if the memory which I possessed was natural or acquired by magic art. I satisfied him that it did not come from sorcery but from organised knowledge; and, following this, I got a book on memory printed, entitled The Shadows of Ideas, which I dedicated to His Majesty. Forthwith he gave me an Extraordinary Lectureship with a salary." In Paris Bruno enjoyed the protection of his powerful French patrons. During this period, he published several works on mnemonics, including De umbris idearum (On The Shadows of Ideas, 1582), Ars Memoriae (The Art of Memory, 1582), and Cantus Circaeus (Circe's Song, 1582). All of these were based on his mnemonic models of organised knowledge and experience, as opposed to the simplistic logic-based mnemonic techniques of Petrus Ramus then becoming popular. Bruno also published a comedy summarizing some of his philosophical positions, titled Il Candelaio (The Torchbearer, 1582). In the 16th century dedications were, as a rule, approved beforehand, and hence were a way of placing a work under the protection of an individual. Given that Bruno dedicated various works to the likes of King Henry III, Sir Philip Sidney, Michel de Castelnau (French Ambassador to England), and possibly Pope Pius V, it is apparent that this wanderer had experienced a meteoric rise and moved in powerful circles. England, 1583–1585 Woodcut illustration of one of Giordano Bruno's less complex mnemonic devices In April 1583, Bruno went to England with letters of recommendation from Henry III as a guest of the French ambassador, Michel de Castelnau. There he became acquainted with the poet Philip Sidney (to whom he dedicated two books) and other members of the Hermetic circle around John Dee, though there is no evidence that Bruno ever met Dee himself. He also lectured at Oxford, and unsuccessfully sought a teaching position there. His views spurred controversy, notably with John Underhill, Rector of Lincoln College and subsequently bishop of Oxford, and George Abbot, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. Abbot mocked Bruno for supporting "the opinion of Copernicus that the earth did go round, and the heavens did stand still; whereas in truth it was his own head which rather did run round, and his brains did not stand still",[22] and reports accusations that Bruno plagiarized Ficino's work. Still, the English period was a fruitful one. During that time Bruno completed and published some of his most important works, the six "Italian Dialogues," including the cosmological tracts La Cena de le Ceneri (The Ash Wednesday Supper, 1584), De la Causa, Principio et Uno (On Cause, Principle and Unity, 1584), De l'Infinito, Universo e Mondi (On the Infinite, Universe and Worlds, 1584) as well as Lo Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante (The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, 1584) and De gl' Heroici Furori (On the Heroic Frenzies, 1585). Some of these were printed by John Charlewood. Some of the works that Bruno published in London, notably The Ash Wednesday Supper, appear to have given offense. It was not the first time, nor was it to be the last, that Bruno's controversial views coupled with his abrasive sarcasm lost him the support of his friends. John Bossy has advanced the theory that, while staying in the French Embassy in London, Bruno was also spying on Catholic conspirators, under the pseudonym 'Fagot', for Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State.

Last years of wandering, 1585–1592 In October 1585, after the French embassy in London was attacked by a mob, Bruno returned to Paris with Castelnau, finding a tense political situation. Moreover, his 120 theses against Aristotelian natural science and his pamphlets against the mathematician Fabrizio Mordente soon put him in ill favor. In 1586, following a violent quarrel about Mordente's invention, the differential compass, he left France for Germany. Woodcut from "Articuli centum et sexaginta adversus huius tempestatis mathematicos atque philosophos," Prague 1588 In Germany he failed to obtain a teaching position at Marburg, but was granted permission to teach at Wittenberg, where he lectured on Aristotle for two years. However, with a change of intellectual climate there, he was no longer welcome, and went in 1588 to Prague, where he obtained 300 taler from Rudolf II, but no teaching position. He went on to serve briefly as a professor in Helmstedt, but had to flee again when he was excommunicated by the Lutherans. During this period he produced several Latin works, dictated to his friend and secretary Girolamo Besler, including De Magia (On Magic), Theses De Magia (Theses On Magic) and De Vinculis In Genere (A General Account of Bonding). All these were apparently transcribed or recorded by Besler (or Bisler) between 1589 and 1590.[24] He also published De Imaginum, Signorum, Et Idearum Compositione (On The Composition of Images, Signs and Ideas, 1591).

The year 1591 found him in Frankfurt. Apparently, during the Frankfurt Book Fair,[citation needed] he received an invitation to Venice from the patrician Giovanni Mocenigo, who wished to be instructed in the art of memory, and also heard of a vacant chair in mathematics at the University of Padua. At the time the Inquisition seemed to be losing some of its impetus, and Venice seemed especially safe as it was the most liberal state in Italy; therefore Bruno was lulled into making the fatal mistake of returning to Italy. He went first to Padua, where he taught briefly, and applied unsuccessfully for the chair of mathematics, which was assigned instead to Galileo Galilei one year later. Bruno accepted Mocenigo's invitation and moved to Venice in March 1592. For about two months he functioned as an in-house tutor to Mocenigo. When Bruno announced his plan to leave Venice to his host, the latter, who was unhappy with the teachings he had received and had apparently developed a personal rancour towards Bruno, denounced him to the Venetian Inquisition, which had Bruno arrested on May 22, 1592. Among the numerous charges of blasphemy and heresy brought against him in Venice, based on Mocenigo's denunciation, was his belief in the plurality of worlds, as well as accusations of personal misconduct. Bruno defended himself skillfully, stressing the philosophical character of some of his positions, denying others and admitting that he had had doubts on some matters of dogma. The Roman Inquisition, however, asked for his transferral to Rome. After several months and some quibbling the Venetian authorities reluctantly consented and Bruno was sent to Rome in February 1593. Imprisonment, trial and execution, 1593–1600 In Rome, Bruno's trial lasted seven years during which time he was imprisoned, lastly in the Tower of Nona. Some important documents about the trial are lost, but others have been preserved, among them a summary of the proceedings that was rediscovered in 1940. The numerous charges against Bruno, based on some of his books as well as on witness accounts, included blasphemy, immoral conduct, and heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, and involved some of the basic doctrines of his philosophy and cosmology. Luigi Firpo lists these charges made against Bruno by the Roman Inquisition: holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers; holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, divinity of Christ, and Incarnation; holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith pertaining to Jesus as Christ; holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus; holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both Transubstantiation and Mass; claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity; believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes; dealing in magics and divination. The trial of Giordano Bruno by the Roman Inquisition. Bronze relief by Ettore Ferrari, Campo de' Fiori, Rome.

Bruno continued his Venetian defensive strategy, which consisted in bowing to the Church's dogmatic teachings, while trying to preserve the basis of his philosophy. In particular, Bruno held firm to his belief in the plurality of worlds, although he was admonished to abandon it. His trial was overseen by the Inquisitor Cardinal Bellarmine, who demanded a full recantation, which Bruno eventually refused. On January 20, 1600, Pope Clement VIII declared Bruno a heretic and the Inquisition issued a sentence of death. According to the correspondence of Gaspar Schopp of Breslau, he is said to have made a threatening gesture towards his judges and to have replied: Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam ("Perhaps you pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it"). He was turned over to the secular authorities. On February 17, 1600, in the Campo de' Fiori (a central Roman market square), with his "tongue imprisoned because of his wicked words", he was burned at the stake.[29] His ashes were dumped into the Tiber river. All of Bruno's works were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1603. Inquisition cardinals who judged Giordano Bruno were: Cardinal Bellarmino (Bellarmine), Cardinal Madruzzo (Madruzzi), Cardinal Camillo Borghese (later Pope Paul V), Domenico Cardinal Pinelli, Pompeio Cardinal Arrigoni, Cardinal Sfondrati, Pedro Cardinal De Deza Manuel, Cardinal Santorio (Archbishop of Santa Severina, Cardinal-Bishop of Palestrina). Physical appearance The earliest likeness of Bruno is an engraving published in 1715[30] and cited by Salvestrini as "the only known portrait of Bruno". Salvestrini suggests that it is a re-engraving made from a now lost original.This engraving has provided the source for later images. The records of Bruno's imprisonment by the Venetian inquisition in May 1592 describe him as a man "of average height, with a hazel coloured beard and the appearance of being about forty years of age". Alternately, a passage in a work by George Abbot indicates that Bruno was of diminutive stature: "When that Italian Didapper, who intituled himselfe Philotheus Iordanus Brunus Nolanus, magis elaborata Theologia Doctor, &c with a name longer than his body...". The word "didapper" used by Abbot is the derisive term which in period meant "a small diving waterfowl".Cosmology

Cosmology before Bruno. Illuminated illustration of the Ptolemaic geocentric conception of the Universe. The outermost text reads "The heavenly empire, dwelling of God and all the selected" Despite Copernicus' recent publication of his heliocentric work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, during Bruno's time most educated Catholics subscribed to the Aristotelian geocentric view that the earth was the center of the universe, and that all heavenly bodies revolved around it. The ultimate limit of the universe was the primum mobile, whose diurnal rotation was conferred upon it by a transcendental God, not part of the universe (although, as the kingdom of heaven, adjacent to it[34]), a motionless prime mover and first cause. The fixed stars were part of this celestial sphere, all at the same fixed distance from the immobile earth at the center of the sphere. Ptolemy had numbered these at 1,022, grouped into 48 constellations. The planets were each fixed to a transparent sphere. In the first half of the 15th century Nicolaus Cusanus (not to be confused with Copernicus a century later) reissued[citation needed] the ideas formulated in Antiquity by Democritus and Lucretius and dropped the Aristotelean cosmos. He envisioned an infinite universe, whose center was everywhere and circumference nowhere, with countless rotating stars, the Earth being one of them, of equal importance. He also considered that neither were the rotational orbits circular, nor was the movement uniform. In the second half of the 16th century, the theories of Copernicus (1473–1543) began diffusing through Europe. Copernicus conserved the idea of planets fixed to solid spheres, but considered the apparent motion of the stars to be an illusion caused by the rotation of the Earth on its axis; he also preserved the notion of an immobile center, but it was the Sun rather than the Earth. Copernicus also argued the Earth was a planet orbiting the Sun once every year. However he maintained the Ptolemaic hypothesis that the orbits of the planets were composed of perfect circles—deferents and epicycles—and that the stars were fixed on a stationary outer sphere. Few astronomers of Bruno's time accepted Copernicus's heliocentric model. Among those who did were the Germans Michael Maestlin (1550–1631), Christoph Rothmann, Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), the Englishman Thomas Digges, author of A Perfit Description of the Caelestial Orbes, and the Italian Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). Curiously, Bruno's Nolan compatriot, Nicola Antonio Stigliola, born just two years before Bruno himself, believed in the Copernican model. The two, however, probably never met after their youth. Bruno's cosmology Bruno believed (and praised Copernicus for establishing a scientific explanation for the fact[citation needed]) that the Earth revolves around the sun, and that the apparent diurnal rotation of the heavens is an illusion caused by the rotation of the Earth around its axis. Bruno also held (following Nicholas of Cusa[citation needed]) that because God is infinite the universe would reflect this fact in boundless immensity. The universe is then one, infinite, immobile.... It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile. Bruno also asserted that the stars in the sky were really other suns like our own, around which orbited other planets. He indicated that support for such beliefs in no way contradicted scripture or true religion. In 1584, Bruno published two important philosophical dialogues in which he argued against the planetary spheres (Christoph Rothmann did the same in 1586 as did Tycho Brahe in 1587). Bruno's infinite universe was filled with a substance—a "pure air," aether, or spiritus—that offered no resistance to the heavenly bodies which, in Bruno's view, rather than being fixed, moved under their own impetus (momentum). Most dramatically, he completely abandoned the idea of a hierarchical universe. The Earth was just one more heavenly body, as was the Sun. God had no particular relation to one part of the infinite universe more than any other. God, according to Bruno, was as present on Earth as in the Heavens, an immanent God, the One subsuming in itself the multiplicity of existence, rather than a remote heavenly deity.Bruno also affirmed that the universe was homogeneous, made up everywhere of the four elements (water, earth, fire, and air), rather than having the stars be composed of a separate quintessence. Essentially, the same physical laws would operate everywhere, although the use of that term is anachronistic. Space and time were both infinite. There was no room in his stable and permanent universe for the Christian notions of divine creation and Last Judgement. In Bruno's model, the Sun was simply one more star, and the stars all suns, each with its own planets. Bruno saw a solar system of a sun/star with planets as the fundamental unit of the universe. All these planets constituted an infinite number of inhabited worlds, a philosophical position known as cosmic pluralism. According to Bruno, an infinite God necessarily created an infinite universe, formed of an infinite number of solar systems, separated by vast regions full of aether, because empty space could not exist (Bruno did not arrive at the concept of a galaxy). Comets were part of a synodus ex mundis of stars, and not—as other authors maintained at the time—ephemeral creations, divine instruments, or heavenly messengers. Each comet was a world, a permanent celestial body, formed of the four elements. Bruno's cosmology is marked by infinitude, homogeneity, and isotropy, with planetary systems distributed evenly throughout. Matter follows an active animistic principle: it is intelligent and discontinuous in structure, made up of discrete atoms. This animism (and a corresponding disdain for mathematics as a means to understanding) is the most dramatic respect in which Bruno's cosmology differs from a modern scientific understanding of the universe. During the late 16th century, and throughout the 17th century, Bruno's ideas were held up for ridicule, debate, or inspiration. Margaret Cavendish, for example, wrote an entire series of poems against "atoms" and "infinite worlds" in Poems and Fancies in 1664. Bruno's true, if partial, vindication would have to wait for the implications and impact of Newtonian cosmology. Bruno's overall contribution to the birth of modern science is still controversial. Some scholars follow Frances Yates stressing the importance of Bruno's ideas about the universe being infinite and lacking geocentric structure as a crucial crosspoint between the old and the new. Others see in Bruno's idea of multiple worlds instantiating the infinite possibilities of a pristine, indivisible One, a forerunner of Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. While most academics note Bruno's theological position as pantheism, physicist and philosopher Max Bernhard Weinstein in his Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Nature"), wrote that the theological model of pandeism was strongly expressed in the teachings of Bruno, especially with respect to the vision of a deity which had no particular relation to one part of the infinite universe more than any other, and was immanent, as present on Earth as in the Heavens, subsuming in itself the multiplicity of existence. Retrospective views of Bruno The monument to Bruno in the place he was executed, Campo de' Fiori in Rome.

41°53′44.16″N 12°28′19.80″E Late Vatican position The Vatican has published few official statements about Bruno's trial and execution. In 1942, Cardinal Giovanni Mercati, who discovered a number of lost documents relating to Bruno's trial, stated that the Church was perfectly justified in condemning him. On the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death, in 2000, Cardinal Angelo Sodano declared Bruno's death to be a "sad episode" but, despite his regret, he defended Bruno's prosecutors, maintaining that the Inquisitors "had the desire to serve freedom and promote the common good and did everything possible to save his life."[38] In the same year, Pope John Paul II did make a general apology for the deaths of prominent philosophers and scientists due to the Inquisition. A martyr of science

Some authors have characterized Bruno as a "martyr of science," suggesting parallels with the Galileo affair which began around 1610. They assert that, even though Bruno's theological beliefs, or perceptions of them by others, were an important factor in his heresy trial, his Copernicanism and cosmological beliefs played a significant role in the outcome.

"It should not be supposed", writes A. M. Paterson of Bruno and his "heliocentric solar system," that he "reached his conclusions via some mystical revelation....His work is an essential part of the scientific and philosophical developments that he initiated." Paterson echoes Hegel in writing that Bruno "ushers in a modern theory of knowledge that understands all natural things in the universe to be known by the human mind through the mind's dialectical structure." Ingegno writes that Bruno embraced the philosophy of Lucretius, "aimed at liberating man from the fear of death and the gods." Characters in Bruno's Cause, Principle and Unity desire "to improve speculative science and knowledge of natural things," and to achieve a philosophy "which brings about the perfection of the human intellect most easily and eminently, and most closely corresponds to the truth of nature" Other scholars oppose such views, and claim Bruno's martyrdom to science to be exaggerated, or outright false. For Yates, while "nineteenth century liberals" were thrown "into ecstasies" over Bruno's Copernicanism, "Bruno pushes Copernicus' scientific work back into a prescientific stage, back into Hermetism, interpreting the Copernican diagram as a hieroglyph of divine mysteries." Theological heresy In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy Hegel writes that Bruno's life represented "a bold rejection of all Catholic beliefs resting on mere authority." Alfonso Ingegno states that Bruno's philosophy "challenges the developments of the Reformation, calls into question the truth-value of the whole of Christianity, and claims that Christ perpetrated a deceit on mankind... Bruno suggests that we can now recognize the universal law which controls the perpetual becoming of all things in an infinite universe."A. M. Paterson says that, while we no longer have a copy of the official papal condemnation of Bruno, his heresies included "the doctrine of the infinite universe and the innumerable worlds" and his beliefs "on the movement of the earth". Michael White notes that the Inquisition may have pursued Bruno early in his life on the basis of his opposition to Aristotle, interest in Arianism, reading of Erasmus, and possession of banned texts.[48] White considers that Bruno's later heresy was "multifaceted" and may have rested on his conception of infinite worlds. "This was perhaps the most dangerous notion of all... If other worlds existed with intelligent beings living there, did they too have their visitations? The idea was quite unthinkable." Frances Yates rejects what she describes as the "legend that Bruno was prosecuted as a philosophical thinker, was burned for his daring views on innumerable worlds or on the movement of the earth." Yates however writes that "the Church was... perfectly within its rights if it included philosophical points in its condemnation of Bruno's heresies" because "the philosophical points were quite inseparable from the heresies." According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "in 1600 there was no official Catholic position on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy. When [...] Bruno [...] was burned at the stake as a heretic, it had nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology." Similarly, the Catholic Encyclopedia (1908) asserts that "Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skillful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc." The website of the Vatican Secret Archives, discussing a summary of legal proceedings against Bruno in Rome, states: "In the same rooms where Giordano Bruno was questioned, for the same important reasons of the relationship between science and faith, at the dawning of the new astronomy and at the decline of Aristotle's philosophy, sixteen years later, Cardinal Bellarmino, who then contested Bruno's heretical theses, summoned Galileo Galilei, who also faced a famous inquisitorial trial, which, luckily for him, ended with a simple abjuration." Artistic depictions Following the 1870 Capture of Rome by the newly created Kingdom of Italy and the end of the Church's temporal power over the city, the erection of a monument to Bruno on the site of his execution became feasible. The monument was sharply opposed by the clerical party, but was finally erected by the Rome Municipality and inaugurated in 1889. A statue of a stretched human figure standing on its head designed by Alexander Polzin depicting Bruno's death at the stake was placed in Potsdamer Platz station 52°30′35.4″N 13°22′33.5″E in Berlin on March 2, 2008.Retrospective iconography of Bruno shows him with a Dominican cowl but not tonsured. Edward Gosselin has suggested that it is likely Bruno kept his tonsure at least until 1579, and it is possible that he wore it again thereafter.

An idealized animated version of Bruno appears in the first episode of the 2014 television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. In this depiction, Bruno is shown with a more modern look, without tonsure and wearing clerical robes and without his hood. Cosmos presents Bruno as an impoverished philosopher who was ultimately executed due to his refusal to recant his belief in other worlds, a portrayal that was criticized as simplistic or historically inaccurate. Appearances in fiction Bruno and his theory of 'the coincidence of contraries' (coincidentia oppositorum) play an important role in James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake. Joyce wrote in a letter to his patroness, Harriet Shaw Weaver, 'His philosophy is a kind of dualism – every power in nature must evolve an opposite in order to realise itself and opposition brings reunion'. Amongst his numerous allusions to Bruno in his novel, including his trial and torture, Joyce plays upon Bruno's notion of coincidentia oppositorum through applying his name to word puns such as "Browne and Nolan" (name of Dublin printers) and '"brownesberrow in nolandsland". Bruno Giordano features as the hero in a series of historical crime novels by S.J. Parris (pseudonym of Stephanie Merritt).

The Last Confession by Morris West (posthumously published) is a fictional autobiography of Bruno, ostensibly written shortly before his execution. In 1973 the biographic drama Giordano Bruno was released, an Italian/French movie directed by Giuliano Montaldo, starring Gian Maria Volonté as Bruno. The computer game In Memoriam features a lead character who claims to be Bruno, returned from the dead to seek vengeance. Bruno features as a main character in the historical segments of John Crowley's mystical Ægypt tetralogy of novels. The story covers his education as a Dominican and his investigation for heresy, and presents multiple versions of his execution on the Campo de' Fiori. His name appears and he is recognized in the novel Children of God by Mary Doria Russell. Deborah Harkness' A Discovery of Witches mentions Bruno and quotes from Eroici furori: "Desire urges me on, as fear bridles me." He is mentioned in 'A Man against a Background of Flames' by Paul Hoggart (2013). Giordano Bruno Foundation] The Giordano Bruno Foundation (German: Giordano Bruno Stiftung) is a non-profit foundation based in Germany that pursues the "Support of Evolutionary Humanism". It was founded by entrepreneur Herbert Steffen in 2004. The Giordano Bruno Foundation is considered critical of religion, which it characterizes as detrimental to cultural evolution. Giordano Bruno Memorial Award

The SETI League makes an annual award honoring the memory of Giordano Bruno to a deserving person or persons who have made a significant contribution to the practice of SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence). The award was proposed by sociologist Donald Tarter in 1995 on the 395th anniversary of Bruno's death. The trophy presented is called a Bruno. Astronomical objects named after Bruno The 22 km impact crater Giordano Bruno on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor, as are the main belt asteroids 5148 Giordano and 13223 Cenaceneri; the latter is named for one of his works.

It's the 15th day of February Alphabet Fun, and the We're Here! gang is visiting the group Metaphysical Leper Colony. The group lists hermits as admissible subjects, and this of course, is a hermit crab.

But I thought about the group name after I chose it for today's theme. Leprosy (Hansen's Disease) is no laughing matter, and it still exists in our world. There are hundreds of thousands of new diagnoses every year, and many who go undiagnosed. Leprosy is curable, not highly contagious, and most people have a natural immunity to it, but a lack of knowledge and understanding about the disease is one of the key challenges as we seek to defeat it entirely.

When I was a kid, as many of you know, I lived on a tiny island lighthouse (Race Rocks). Weirdly, the words "quarantine" and "leper colony" were commonplace for me, because we lived across from Albert Head, where the original Quarantine Station stood, and across from Bentinck Island -- a leper colony from 1924 to 1956. It is now a national defence site, where they test weapons.

Before Bentinck, the leper colony (also known as a lazaretto, leprosarium, or lazar house), was on D'Arcy Island. From 1891 to 1924, Chinese immigrants with leprosy were condemned to D'Arcy Island. It was basically a life sentence.

www.timescolonist.com/life/victoria-banished-chinese-lepe...

And in the U.S., a tiny number of cured Hansen’s disease patients still remain at Kalaupapa, a leprosarium established in 1866 on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.

www.history.com/news/leprosy-colonies-us-quarantine

METAPHYSICAL TORSION AND CELESTIAL ABANDONMENT / THE FINAL / CHRISTELLE GEISER & AEON VON ZARK / NAKED EYE PROJECT BIENNE / ALTERED STATE SERIE / THE WEIRD DREAM / PORTRAIT.

TRADITON AND ANTITRADITION

291. Tradition means a handing over: the handing over of a supertemporal circle of principles here in time.

292. Tradition is the atemporal thrown into temporality.

293. Knowledge of the origin, knowledge of the path, knowledge of the all-transcending, ultimate goal: this is metaphysical tradition.

294. Tradition springs forth from the eternal, points at the eternal, and in the human modality of being represents the aspiration towards the eternal.

295. Metaphysical tradition is at the same time solar and polar: polar for though it appears in the earthly-human sphere, yet it is of heavenly origin and for this reason its origin is not subject to the whirlpool of existence (samsara), it is solar for the powers characteristic of my self-awareness which provide the rule of the auton are present in it.

296. There is only one primordial tradition for there is only one metaphysics, and there is only one metaphysics for there is only one being.

297. Tradition can never be identified simply with metaphysical doctrines or with symbology bearing a doctrinal value, and even less with the archaic documents that present these. Tradition is the total acceptance of a world and the total denial of another.

298. Metaphysically speaking, tradition is nothing other than »remembrance«, and the bearing of the connection with the origin. Modernity, however, is not only the lack of this »remembrance«, but at the same time the denial of this metaphysical »remembrance« and aims at the destruction of every kind of representation of remembrance.

LENS TEST: ASAHI PENTAX smc Pentax 200mm f2.5

Metaphysics of a bottle bead-cork. In the neighborhood, Tokyo, Japan. © Michele Marcolin, 2023. K1ii + smc Pentax 200mm f2.5

Some time has gone since I cquired it, but it happened right that I completed the clad during the crush of my computer, so images, homework and everything ended up in a tail. Anyway...

This is not a lens: it is a plasma gun that liquefies everything around your subject! A fantastic tool! I can't possibly conceive how somebody can spend negative reviews on Pentax Forum lens listing not recommending it: must be the fruit of complete photographic infancy... the use of a faulty lens... or the need of a psychological-mental examination (at least an optometric eye test)!

The smc Pentax 200mm f2.5 has virtually the same lens design of the 135mm f 2.5, with which it evidently shares the same great sharpness wide open, the solid contrast/color rendering, and the essential, but effective mechanical quality (and also some negative points). It is an incredible photographic tool of a gone age, which pairs perfectly with Pentax K-1, offering yes a heavy combo, but very well balanced when hand-held. Not really saying that it is perfect or easy to hand-hold (despite you do it most of the time); but it is a lens that does not like strong light (not incidentally the 8 blades of its aperture close down until f32), therefore in low light it demands great care in nailing perfectly your subject in focus, due to the extremely thin DOF it achieves. And the weight becomes a challenge. It has also sometimes inconsistent erratic rendering, probably results of its extreme design.

I do not have a completely mint copy, despite functionally it has no problem. It is a foundling: I rescued it on the junk market in a very poor state. It took quite a while to restoring it, since some internal rings where oxidized and hard to remove. It is a lens that was manufactured in a industrial age (despite not in large numbers), with good quality standards, but without an eye to its maintenance in time and the manual built of the Takumars. Internal components often used to be fixed with bonds or solutions that are not impossible to overcome for a clad, but that were not originally intended for that. Solvents and a-like don't go well hand in hand with coatings and glass. Lenses are large and it is pretty challenging avoiding touching them or damaging them. Users were probably expected to buy a newer one, when something got compromised inside (during bubble economy time it might not have been an issue). My lens withstood my siege on my work bench for some weeks, before I was finally able to access the internal lenses, to remove the mold they had. And I had to use pretty unorthodox systems to complete the work. So, despite I originally acquired it to fix it end reselling it for good bucks, due to some faint marks that remained in a couple of spots and an internal ring that I had to force and recycle in a different way, I decided to keep it. But I am so glad for that, because I got to discover a marvelous photographic tool.

Ideal for environmental portrait (in a studio a 200mm is probably too long - min. foc. is around 2 m), astrophotography, travel photo, it has an amazing dreamy blur (the background one, but particularly the foreground). I can only compare it to H.I.H. smc Pentax* 135mm f1.8 for general rendering. Being a tool of its age, it comes with the usual 'disclaimer' of most legacy lenses: some CA in very strong light and some fall of contrast in frontal illumination. Nothing tragic: you know it, you avoid those situations - if you purchase one of these lenses and then complain, you are a fool. Better drop photography and go fishing. That is part of its charm. Beside, if I recall well, this was the first 200mm lens with an f2.5 aperture, put out by Pentax in a momento of show-off of its technological capability - I believe only Nikon had a Nikkor 200mm f2 (!!) that came out that same 1977, which is faster and with a very beautiful rendering, but less sharp wide open and with more CA. On digital this one still kicks!

“There was something disquieting about the way an intimate object, seemingly withdrawn into its solemn steadfastness, could affect human emotions. Any old thing forgotten in a corner, if the eye dwelt on it, acquired an eloquence of its own, communicating its lyricism and magic to the kindred soul. If a neglected object of this kind were forcibly isolated, that is, divested of its warmth and of the protective coat of its environment, or even ironically combined with completely unrelated things, it would reassert its dignity in the new context and stand there, incomprehensible, weird, mysterious.”

—Werner Haftmann, Painting in the Twentieth Century (1982)

Grand Rapids, Michigan "Frozen Photowalk" with....

Don: www.flickr.com/photos/12295985@N05

Gary: www.flickr.com/photos/gsyrba

Molly: www.flickr.com/photos/itsonlyjustme

Tom: www.flickr.com/photos/13566761@N06

[...] Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is [...]

-- Quote by Voltaire (French Philosopher and Writer. One of the greatest of all French authors, 1694-1778)

Nikon D70 and Nikon D200, 3 shots collage for info let's see the comments.

Rome, Italy (April, 2014)

Visit this location at Echoes, Metaphysics of frequencies in Second Life

The mysterious metaphysical novel impressed anyone who read it. Podcasters called it an "EXISTENTIAL MASTERPIECE" and non-paid or requested reviewers called it "EXCEPTIONAL."

It should not be missed from any shelf or library.

THE HIDDEN FACE by author M. I. VERRAS.

Amazon, EBay, Barnes&Noble, Walmart, Target and more.

Published by Palmetto Publishing.

Facebook | Website (temporarily offline) | Instagram

These pipes just go on forever. If they are parallel they will never meet...but since the universe is curved I think they converge in another dimension. Or maybe the curve around and connect to themselves.......

Sentimental Exploration's.

Metaphysics literarische Ästhetik systematische Dialoge Inspirationen ausgerichtet,

milieux philosophiques matérielles fondamentales visions subordonnées embrassant principes,

poesie composte esterni drammi legislative beni leggi concorsi di assistenza,

plé rannáin fóillíochta mearbhall tuiscint dealbh bhréige le chéile codanna údaraithe,

gwybodaeth ystyriaethau parhaus strategaethau reslo rhifyddol gwyddorau gwleidyddol arddangos gwallau,

similes species, perpetuis plures differentias rerum est episodic quae praestat casus tragoediis,

necesaria conexión prosa perceptible revelar secretos opuestos cosas inanimadas articulos para recreo o funciones se separa,

υποχωρώντας υπόλοιπα αυτοσυνείδησης γνωρίζοντας προς τα μέσα νόηση εκπρόσωπος αποφάσεις ξεφυτρώνουν απόψεις σαφή,

medidas distintas subsequentes autênticos princípios infinitos beleza modelar reino habita razões luminar,

基礎原理静止自然熟考文字行為を見つめ別送知覚フィギュア.

Steve.D.Hammond.

Frome, Somerset, UK

Smena 8M

Svema 125 Film

Visit this location at Echoes, Metaphysics of frequencies in Second Life

Another necklace from the LIFESTRANDS series I’m doing.

Sergei Sharov

Post Metaphysical Interior - Homage to Carlo Carrà [1991]

All rights reserved - Copyright © Alessandro Signore - www.alessandrosignore.it All images are exclusive property and may not be copied, downloaded, reproduced, transmitted, manipulated or used in any way without expressed, written permission of the photographer.

Luminaire dans l'atrium, Université Paris VI

Le titre est emprunté au neuvième roman d'Amélie Nothom, publié en 2000 chez Albin Michel

Lamps in the Atrium, University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris.

The title is taken from a short novel by the Belgian author Amélie Nothomb (2000). In English it is "The Character of Rain", but, in French, it is "Métaphysique des tubes" (Tub's metaphysics). The English translated edition of the novel was published by Faber and Faber.

Thank you Wikipédia for a part of the explanation.

Strictly speaking doctrinal knowledge is independent of the individual. But its actualization is not independent of the human capacity to act as a vehicle for it. He who possesses truth must none the less merit it although it is a free gift. Truth is immutable in itself, but in us it lives, because we live.

If we want truth to live in us we must live in it.

Knowledge only saves us on condition that it enlists all that we are, only when it is a way and when it works and transforms and wounds our nature even as the plough wounds the soil.

To say this is to say that intelligence and metaphysical certainty alone do not save; of themselves they do not prevent titans from falling. This is what explains the psychological and other precautions with which every tradition surrounds the gift of the doctrine.

When metaphysical knowledge is effective it produces love and destroys presumption. It produces love, that is to say the spontaneous directing of the will towards God and the perception of "myself" - and of God - in one's neighbour. It destroys presumption, for knowledge does not allow a man to overestimate himself or to underestimate others. By reducing to ashes all that is not God it orders all things.

All St. Paul says of charity concerns effective knowledge, for the latter is love, and he opposes it to theory inasmuch as theory is human concept. The Apostle desires that truth should be contemplated with our whole being and he calls this totality of contemplation "love".

Metaphysical knowledge is sacred. It is the right of sacred things to require of man all that he is.

Intelligence, since it distinguishes, perceives, as one might put it, proportions. The spiritual man integrates these proportions into his will, into his soul and into his life.

All defects are defects of proportion; they are errors that are lived. To be spiritual means not denying at any point with one's "being" what one affirms with one's knowledge, that is, what one accepts with the intelligence.

Truth lived: incorruptibility and generosity.

Since ignorance is all that we are and not merely our thinking, knowledge will also be all that we are to the extent to which our existential modalities are by their nature able to participate in truth.

Human nature contains dark elements which no intellectual certainty could, ipso facto, eliminate...

Pure intellectuality is as serene as a summer sky - serene with a serenity that is at once infinitely incorruptible and infinitely generous.

Intellectualism which "dries up the heart" has no connection with intellectuality.

The incorruptibility- or inviolability- of truth is bound up neither with contempt nor with avarice.

What is man's certainty? On the level of ideas it may be perfect, but on the level of life it but rarely pierces through illusion.

Everything is ephemeral and every man must die. No man is ignorant of this and no one knows it.

Man may have an interest that is quite illusory in accepting the most transcendent ideas and will readily believe himself to be superior to some other who, not having this interest (perhaps because he is too intelligent or too noble to have it) is sincere enough not to accept them, though he may all the same be more able to understand them than the other who accepts them. Man does not always accept truth because he understands it; often he believes he understands it because he is anxious to accept it.

People often discuss truths whereas they should limit themselves to discussing tastes and tendencies ...

Acuteness of intelligence is only a blessing when it is compensated by greatness and sweetness of the soul. It should not appear as a rupture of the equilibrium or as an excess which splits man in two. A gift of nature requires complementary qualities which allow of its harmonious manifestation; otherwise there is a risk of the lights becoming mingled with darkness.

-----

Frithjof Schuon

-----

Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)

Carlo Carrà (1881-1966) - Still life with set-square (1919). In the Collezione Jucker at the Museo del Novecento, Milan.

It is helpful that it is clearly signed by Carrà because it could otherwise be mistaken by a painting by Giorgio de Chirico. Carrà met de Chirico in 1917 when they both convalescing at the military hospital in Ferrara and for several weeks even painted together, with Carrà borrowing many of de Chirico’s stylistic tropes. Carrà who had previously been a prominent Futurist, became the co-founder of the Metaphysical School of Painting, together with de Chirico. But in 1919 Carrà broke with de Chirico and left the movement, seeking instead inspiration in the paintings of old Italian masters.

Homage to the hippy era.

I see this building and Wolseley, the area in which it is located as a last bastion of hippydom in Winnipeg. I used to regularly go to lunch in this building over 30 years ago at Mrs Lipton's, a former neighbourhood institution. The building was showing its advanced age even then.

The Metaphysical Moon is an antique store with limited hours of operation. The chalk board at the side advertises The Healing Edge Studio/Gallery for Art, Heart, Mind. I am glad that stuff like this is still around.

Across the street at this corner is an old fire hall now used as a private residence and soon to be a multi family residence.

Visit this location at Echoes, Metaphysics of frequencies in Second Life

Metaphysical certainty is not God, though it contains something of Him. This is why Sufis accompany even their certainties with this formula: ''And God is more wise".

A cult of the intelligence and mental passion take man further from truth. Intelligence withdraws as soon as man puts his trust in it alone. Mental passion pursuing intellectual intuition is like the wind which blows out the light of a candle.

Monomania of the spirit, with the unconsious pretension, the prejudice, the insatiability and the haste which are its concomitants, is incompatible with sanctity.

Sanctity introduces in the flux of thoughts an element of humility and of charity, and so of calm and of generosity. This element, far from being hurtful to the spiritual impetus or the sometimes violent force of truth, delivers the spirit from the vexations of passions and thus guarantees both the integrity of thought and the purity of inspiration.

According to the Sufis mental passion must be ranked as one of the "associations" with Satan, like other forms of"idolatry" of the passions. It could not directly have God for its object, for, were God its direct object, it would lose its specifically negative characteristics.

Man must beware of two things: first of replacing God, in practice if not in theory, by the functions and products of the intellect, or of considering Him only in connection with this faculty; and, secondly, of putting the "mechanical" factors of spirituality in the place of the human values - the virtues - or only considering virtues in relation to their "technical" utility and not in relation to their beauty.

Intelligence has only one nature, that of being luminous. But it has diverse functions and different modes of working and these appear as so many particular intelligences. Intelligence with a "logical", "mathematical" or- one might say - "abstract" quality is not enough for attaining all aspects of the real.

It would be impossible to insist too often on the importance of the "visual" or "aesthetic" function of the intellective faculty.

Everything is in reality like a play of alternations between what is determined in advance - starting from principles - and what is incalculable and in some way unforeseeable, of which we have to get to know by concrete identification and not by abstract "discernment".

In speculations about formal elements it would be a handicap

to lack this aesthetic function of intellect. A religion is revealed, not only by its doctrine, but also by its general form, and this has its own characteristic beauty, which is reflected in its every aspect from its "mythology" to its art.

Sacred art expresses Reality in relation to a particular spiritual vision. And aesthetic intelligence sees the manifestations of the Spirit even as the eye sees flowers or playthings.

Thus, for example, in order to understand Buddhism profoundly, if one is not a Buddhist born, it is not enough to study its doctrine; it is also necessary to penetrate into the language of Buddhist beauty as it appears in the sacramental image of the Buddha or in such features as the "sermon on the flower".

The aesthetic function of the intelligence - if you may call it

that for lack of a better term - enters not only into the form of every spiritual manifestation but also into the process of its manifestation.

Truth must be enunciated, not only in conformity with certain proportions, but also according to a certain rhythm. One cannot speak of sacred things 'just anyhow", nor can one speak of them without limitations.

Every manifestation has laws and these intelligence must observe in manifesting itself, or otherwise truth will suffer.

Intellect is not something cerebral, nor is it specifically human

or angelic. All beings "possess" it. If gold is not lead, that is because it "knows" the Divine better. Its "knowledge" is in its very form, and this amounts to saying that it does not belong to it itself, for matter could not know. None the less one can say that the rose differs from the water-lily by its intellectual particularity, by its "way of knowing" and so by its mode of intelligence.

Beings possess intelligence in their form to the extent that they are "peripheric" or "passive" and in their essence to the extent that they are "central", "active" and "conscious".

A noble animal or a lovely flower is "intellectually" superior to a base man.

God reveals himself to the plant in the form of the light of the

sun. The plant irresistibly turns itself towards the light; it could not be atheistical or impious.

The infallible "instinct" of animals is a lesser "intellect", and man's intellect may be called a higher "instinct". Between instinct and intellect there stands in some sense the reason, which owes its troubles to the fact that it constitutes a sort of "luciferian" duplication of the Divine Intelligence - the only intelligence there is.

Knowledge of facts depends on contingencies which could not enter into principial knowledge. The level of facts is, in certain respects, inverse in relation to that of principles in the sense that it includes modes and imponderables that are the extreme opposite of the wholly mathematical rigour of universal laws. At least this is so in appearance, for it goes without saying that universal principles are not contradicted.

Even beneath the veil of the inexhaustible diversity of what is possible their immutability can always be discerned, provided that the intelligence is in the requisite condition for being able to discern it.

If the intellect is, so to speak, sovereign and infallible on its own ground, it cannot exercise its discernment on the level of facts otherwise than conditionally. Moreover God may intervene on the level of facts with particular things willed by Himself that are at times unpredictable, and of such things principial knowledge could only take account a posteriori.

-----

Frithjof Schuon

-----

Quoted in: The Essential Frithjof Schuon (edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)

Visit this location at Echoes, Metaphysics of frequencies in Second Life

let me know if you like it, original one is here:

www.flickr.com/photos/elvisequalgod/14666100776/in/datepo...

back cover

Minneapolis