Saturday, August 25, 2018

Message for Sunday 26 August 2018

Sunday 26 August 2018

Moon in Pisces

On August 17 while Mercury was still retrograde (and even now it is very slow, hence the Dark or Slow Hermetic Epoch until September 2) I posted here:  Elon Musk tweets that he will take Tesla private, gets all kinds of flack from everyone, then changes his story, and even now the whole thing is in limbo and the SEC is investigating. One wonders if he has REgrets.  

Now, on Saturday 8/25, I find in the NYTimes: 

Elon Musk Says Tesla Will Remain a Public Company

Mr. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive announced that the electric car company would remain public, despite considering making it private earlier this month.

So, he did have REgrets, and as I stated, even one of the richest men in the world was not free from the toils, tribulations and uncertainties of Mercury Retrograde and the Dark Hermetic Epoch. 

We do not do the regular daily sort of forecast for Sunday. Here is something I wrote lasst night:

Stranger Things: Borrowed Character, or Redemption?

As for "the childlike ones" ("they are the ones to emulate," I said yesterday) I am watching the Netflix series Stranger Things for the second time and find that "Eleven" is the only character I can fully believe in, and she is the most "childlike" and perhaps the wisest. Most of the others are too "fucked up" (is there a better expression for it?) to be trusted or liked. Loved? Kierkegaard said that we are commanded to love, but I am not sure if he would extend the purview of that commandment to fictional characters! When they seem unreal it is hard to love them. People in the flesh hardly ever seem unreal, although perhaps a sociopath might. I am not sure I have ever met one and am quite sure I do not wish to.

Everybody likes Eleven because of her purity and sincerity. It is wonderful to believe that those qualities might go along with her semi-omnipotence or magical powers. Actually these are supposed to have come from her suffering, that is, from the ordeals to which she was exposed by her original "Papa" who rather than making her a monster, as he seemed to wish, strengthened her good qualities along with her "powers" so that she became a magical heroine.

Are both innocence and suffering required to yield a human character imbued with magical powers? Vide Jesus for example.

Innocence enduring through persecution is a magical formula. One wants to do away with the persecution, and some have said that is possible, though to do it one might have to assimilate oneself to the suffering of another who was persecuted, as Christians assimilate themselves to the suffering of Jesus and through that are saved and made impervious to much of the suffering he had taken upon himself.

It is interesting that in the non-Christian secular or humanistic world many assimilate themselves to the suffering of imaginary heroes and heroines, as in The X Men or Superman, Batman or others. By doing this they internally strengthen themselves, imagining what it would be like to suffer in order to to good deeds. This can be a real strengthening of character. It can be a medicine for the soul. But this would not work if the way the hero wins out over "evil" is by deliberately torturing it or causing it pain in a way which is enjoyed. Here is where too many of the popular series on TV or in movies fail, ethically. Ultimately the best remedy for evil is causing it to be self-seen and self-obliterated through conversion or reformation. The best heroes and heroines are those who rather than vengefully or sadistically killing evildoers manage somehow or other to show them how to change their ways. This ideal is too seldom displayed in popular culture.

Jesus has for the Western world been the paradigm of that ideal, as well as the saints who have emulated him.

I am agnostic as to whether or not there can be other saviors (I prefer "saviour" because there is an "our" in it, just as there is an "us" in Jesus) than Jesus. If we think of him as "our" saviour , and as one with "us," then there is no other. I leave such a decision to you.

HHH / CP

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