pumpkinstrokemarrow

And then there are the pervasive deluge myths from ancient times. With or without arks. Plus the Sodom and Gomorrah variant. The focus here being fresh start.

In between all this stuff, finally knocked off 'The Plumed Serpent'. Fair amount of skipping as there was a fair amount of lecturing and fake liturgy which I found a bit heavy. Even for me. But interesting, all the same. In part because it made me see some point in the Holy Trinity, something invented by the Greek strand of early Christianity and the cause of all kinds of trouble in the first 1,000 years or so of the Christian era. So the Holy Trinity states without attempting to resolve the central mystery of a being which is father, son and holy spirit all at the same time. A rather sexist formulation, but one of its time, the Greeks having lost their earlier enthusiasm for earth goddesses. An early version of three in one. Parts further east contributed two in one - until Mohammed put an end to that with his back-to-basics one is one and all alone.

Now Huxley and Lawrence, on the pair of whom I have been spending quality time over the last few months, had both dumped Christianity. Both fairly aggressively. But Huxley spent quality time on exploring the proper relation between mind and body, at one time thinking that the answer was a balance. So he focussed on the father and holy spirit part of the trinity. Lawrence, at least some of the time, thought that mind and body ought to be fused, doing away with that part of the trinity, but spent quality time on exploring the proper relation between person and person, mainly but by no means exclusively between male and female. So he focussed on the father and son part of the trinity. And going in for balance rather than fusion in this department. Fusion was deplored. Maybe, if Lawrence had not succumbed to TB at a relatively early age, he and Huxley might have jointly worked up a new trinity from their two dualities. Don't quite see how male and female can be worked into such a scheme though. Gives one too many permutations.

All put a bit crudely, as usual, but hopefully it serves to make the point.

But I can see that the shared interest in balance and fusion might be part of what had drawn them together. And perhaps no accident that they both got a bit mystical towards the end of their lives.

PS: Mr G. now moved to tell me about http://www.counterthreatinstitute.com/. Clearly does not go a bundle on all this mind body stuff. Much more into deluges.