Edward O. Wilson’s pontificating that “it’s a toss-up” whether St. John the divine was doing hallucinogenic drugs or was a paranoid schizophrenic, is not news. Nor is it news that the Baptist turned deist favors the latter, as he announces with the usual evolutionary hubris in this video. It is all just more evolutionary metaphysics parading as knowledge. But if the media is the message, then the news here is that the Bloomberg financial news service found Wilson’s anti intellectualism to be newsworthy. Bloomberg’s cheerleading of evolutionary big health care at least falls somewhere close to financial reporting. But here, sandwiched between stories about the US economic recovery and the outlook for stocks, we have evolution’s raw religion on display. It’s a “Now for something completely different” moment and Wilson’s Monty Python-esque deadpan arrogance does not disappoint. But for Bloomberg news it’s no joke, and that’s the news.
[2:28] In the case of the book of Revelation, however, it’s a toss-up I think, when you read the ramblings of St. John the divine, on whether he was in fact doing it with hallucinogenic drugs, which was a common practice, even people celebrating ceremonies, religious ceremonies, in more primitive societies, or whether he was a paranoid schizophrenic. I favor the latter. And I’ve talked with psychiatrists who discuss what kind of rambling he did—what kind of dreams he had—they were fantastic, they were jumbled, they were reflective of his likes and hatreds and so on. …
Now I know that recent historical, history-oriented, interpretations of St. John the divine, would like to put it that John was using an elaborate metaphor and symbolic way of attacking Rome, seven, you know, heads, crown heads of the serpent and so on, for the seven Ceasars, and that may be true, it may also be true that John was suffering from the residue of the catastrophe of the destruction of Jerusalem which had occurred only something like 38 years before he wrote the Revelations, that may be very true, but nonetheless it has all the appearance of a paranoid hallucination, and that is I believe the correct way to look at it, rather than to constantly mine it as have evangelical organizations, and others, mine it for deep meaning about the future, the history and future, of humanity.
Religion drives science, and it matters.
The insufferable pomposity and condescension of the evolutionist/atheist camp are now legendary. Wilson is a pompous elitist arse and his opinion of John is obviously crap. LOL. But then again, traditional theological interpretations of Revelation also miss the mark. I have excellent reasons to suppose that John's occult little book is a clever metaphorical description of certain scientific secrets written almost two thousand years ago for our age. As far as my research can ascertain, these secrets have to do with fundamental physics, biology (the tree of life and immortality) and the workings of the brain and intelligence. Two examples:
ReplyDelete1. The sea of glass and the four creatures
Physicists believe that motion is acausal, i.e., that two particles in relative inertial motion remain in motion for no reason, as if by magic. This is nonsense, of course, since every effect must have a cause. In other words, motion requires continual interactions. Believe me, you don't understand motion even if you think you do.
Revelation's sea of glass (crystal) represents an immense 4-dimensional lattice of particles in which the entire universe is moving. In fact, nothing could move without it. The four six-winged creatures, which are the seraphim (or burning ones) of the book of Isaiah, are metaphorical representations of the constituents of the lattice. The four faces symbolize properties associated with the four dimensions of the universe (no, time is not a dimension). The closest analogs to the seraphim in modern physics are photons.
2. The seven churches of Asia
These represent seven functional areas of the left hemisphere of the brain. For examples, the church of Pergamum represents the brain's speech area while the church of Laodicea symbolizes the cerebellum.
From my research into the symbolic meaning of the seven churches, I have been able to determine that the cerebellum is an automaton that controls all sorts of motor activity except speech (3:16. I will spew you out of my mouth). In other words, speech is entirely volitional. Let me add that the symbolism of the seven churches cannot be fully understood unless one also understands the meaning of Zechariah's vision of the golden lampstand or menorah.
For several years, I have been writing experimental AI code based on my progressive understanding of the metaphors. I am close to a breakthrough but recent happenings in my life have brought my research to a standstill.
John was neither schizophrenic nor hallucinatory. He was merely reporting a vision as faithfully as he could. He had no idea what it meant. The above is for the record only. Take it or leave it.
And I ain't talking to you, bonobo face. LOL.