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Nobody can ever know more than a little, so more knowledge seldom solves anything; but when knowledge is systematically incomplete, then the distortion is irrevocable - and increased information merely increases the persistence in error.
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Imagine that we live in that world we recognize in Mundane public discourse, but that Faery is also real - in a different dimension (accessible at certain nodal points, in certain circumstances).
But Mundane reality and Faery are real, both exert an influence on our lives.
There are two possible errors we might make, from our perspective in the Mundane world:
1. Ignore Faery, deny its reality, leave it out of all calculations.
We do not understand because we lack intuition - consequently all our predictions and prophecies will be wrong (except by chance - which will mislead us into thinking we know more than we do) and our interventions to shape the world will fail to achieve the desired effect.
We will be sustained in our error by our refusal or inability to consider any consequences except the Mundane.
2. The second error is to assume that Faery is real, and the mundane world merely a shadow.
We will devalue, write-off our mundane experience - because it entails that we Mundane creatures can known nothing real or true, and our experiences count for nothing - this will lead to monstrous misapprehensions, callousness, nihilism, despair.
So, only consideration of both Mundane and Fairy worlds is real.
Where, then, may such a consideration be attained?
Not, for sure, by any mundane system. But only in the individual mind of a person whose soul 'fuses' both Mundane and Faery elements into something inclusive of both.
Such a person would be the only entity capable of governing well. Anything other would be like a creature that was aware only during daylight and did not realize that he slept through all the nights - hence he knew nothing of night - hence he assumed there only was daylight.
Now: unravel the parable...
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5 comments:
What does 'belief' in supernatural entities gain one, in metaphysical terms, over reading good fiction like Harry Potter or LotR?
-- Tom
@Tom - Not quite sure what you are asking - but you know the feeling that you get from books like that, the yearning feeling. The question is whether it is just/merely an emotion in your head, it happens to be there now, but you might forget it, or it may become distorted, and it will die when you do, for sure --- or whether that feeling corresponds to something real and independent of you; something that you have reason to hope you may actually experience (not just remember).
Bruce, you've just nailed the Scylla of Gnosticism and the Charybdis of naturalism.
Nice. I hadn't tied them to Faery and Middle Earth before.
@Kristor - Thanks!
Which is mundane and which is Faery are just a matter of perspective.
Most people are stuck in either one or the other perspective.
The ones that can transcend are the lucky few, but we often just seem weird to those who can't see the other side from where they are. There is magic all around you.
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