From the Archives: Part 23 of The Self and its Sources

Self and Soul

From the Archives: Part 22 of The Self and its Sources

Martin Buber: prayer and sacrifice.

From the Archives: Part 21 of The Self and its Sources

The modern self exists because it inhabits a world lacking transcendence.

From the Archives: Part 20 of The Self and its Sources

The world that shaped the novel is dying and the novel is dying with it.

Pascal:

“We are not satisfied with the life we have in our selves and in our being; we want to live an imaginary life in the eyes of others. “ So, we try to make an ‘impression’.

From the Archives: Part 19 of the Self and its Sources

The ontological disease - continued: Dostoyevsky’s ‘Underground Man’

Levi’s ad:

“I’m not trying to be noticed…but I won’t be ignored”

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 18

The ontological disease as exemplified by the character Hap Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman".

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 17

Mimetic Desire: 'internal' versus 'external' mediation

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 16

Sacrifical violence transcendentalizes desire.
The revelation of the truth about the sacrificial structures of human culture is found in the story of the crucifixion of Jesus

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 15

A biblical echo of sacred transcendence in Numbers 25 - the righteous sacrificial act of Phinehas

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 14

How does this sacred transcendence come about?
An example from Aztec myth.
Is there another way to create transcendence?

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 13

Examples of images of fanciful prestige that keep humans from slaughtering each other.

Lord of the Flies: British officer as representative of the sacrificial system - a form of transcendence.

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 12

Democracy as the myth of the death of kings (Charles I and Louis XVI).
Plato: let no one disturb the small stone that separates friendship and enmity.
Prestige: those illusions that kept us from slaughtering one another.
The Caiaphas principle: it is better that one should die than the whole nation be destroyed.

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 11

The main story of human culture – culture’s ‘plot’

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 10

More definitions of "plot": the main story.
Myth (an operative fiction with its fictionality suppressed).
Western skepticism and the scientific spirit have a moral core.
Plot: a secret plan or scheme.

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 9

Sacrifice at the heart of the central monument of western culture. The ancient Greeks as “equal opportunity victimizers”?
The plot is where the sacrificial victim is buried.
The cosmos and the corpse come into being at the same instant.

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 8

A new interpretation of the Parthenon frieze.

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 7

Plot – the ground plan of a building - Mircea Eliade: a New Guinea ritual

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 6

Ancient historic background of the word ‘plot’ as a measured piece of land - the sacrality of the terminus.

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 5

Ancient Roman practice of demarcating a plot of land.

From the Archives: The Self and its Sources Part 4

The source of primitive people’s attention. The tended plot of ground, a garden and a grave - the site of sacrality.