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What are you reading? August 18, 2023 [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-08-18
In WAYR?, I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books…
I am reading:
Valis by Philip K. Dick - The combo of ancient religion and philosophy with pop culture gets funkier and funkier even if I can barely understand the plot.
The gentle sounds of the choir singing “Amen, amen” are not to calm the congregation but to pacify the god. When you know this you have penetrated to the innermost core of religion. And the worst part is that the god can thrust himself outward and into the congregation until he becomes them. You worship a god and then he pays you back by taking you over. This is called “enthousiasmos” in Greek, literally “to be possessed by the god.” Of all the Greek gods the one most likely to do this was Dionysos. And unfortunately, Dionysos was insane. Put another way— stated backward— if your god takes you over, it is likely that no matter what name he goes by he is actually a form of the mad god Dionysos. He was also the god of intoxication, which may mean, literally, to take in toxins, that is to say, to take a poison. The danger is there. ...What happened at Jonestown was the mass running of panic, inspired by the mad god— panic leading into death, the logical outcome of the mad god’s thrust.
Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan by Darryl Pinckney
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