The Craft

William and Liam have both recently left interesting posts about the history of mysticism in Spain round-about the 13th century, a time when Jewish, Christian and Muslim mystics riffed off of each other's work in pursuit of the divinity. Much of what we know about of western mystical practices stem from this time and place. It was a time of rich flowering.

It's arguable, too, that much of modernism has been sort of a secularization of the mystical tradition, with its phenomenological and ontological interrogations of experience. But as the decoding process continues, our friends the Marxist critics will say, so does the acquisition of its fruit into market practice. Where once we had a guru and a disciple, or a maestro and an apprentice, now we have an executive coach nd his client.

This need not be as painful as it may sound. The coach often teaches the manager how to behave himself. Sometimes this benefits the employees.

Where once there was a mandala, now there is a pie chart, a target. Where once there were narrative frescos filled with mythic beasts and heros, now there is a performance chart.

Things ain't what they used to be, that's for sure.

I don't know anyone who has an executive coach, not that I know of, though most people I run with aren't executives. No mentors, no coaches, no Merlins or Obi Wans to guide us, we rely on our stupidity to keep us on our habitual course.

As if the river would kill us if we moved a little to the left or right.

Most of those Spanish mystics were likely not working full days either. There is a whole history of people living off of others' efforts.

Sometimes the workers would organize. Different versions of this were more effective than others. Notice that many UAWers are out of work and out of luck, but the Masons... don't they run everything now? And I believe the Masons started out as masons.

Along with the mystical, this economic pattern was another thing modernism tried to take on.


But what do I mean by "take on?"


In broad and simplistic strokes: Fauvism and Expressionism attempted to translate the unsayable in terms of emotional experience into form and color; Cubism broke vision down into composite parts in order to study it and its relationship to consciousness; Dada and Surrealism played with the shattering of belief systems and the construction of new ones, searched for buried treasure in chance operations and the unconscious; Abstract Expressionism attempted to trace the basic impulse of thought and emotion in a trail of paint, sound or language. I could go on. Anyone who has dabbled in mystic practices, whether it be ceremonial magick or Tibetan Buddhism, should see a relationship here. These are all ways to break out of one's current framework and experience life differently. In other words, they are ways to break with the isms of identification, everything from the way one sees depth and colors, to the "ego" or self-identity itself.

And of course, Marxism attempted to help us break free of our identification with a particular class, an economic class. A liberal democracy, as we supposedly practice in the U.S., was supposed to help as well, but its critics claim that its reliance on a capital-fueled engine to power itself inevitably stratifies class to near medieval levels.

I don't know whether to agree or disagree with that. All I know is most of us have to work, and because of that, work has to change. Over time, it demands more of us, and in the end is making us less intelligent. Powerful and stupid. Not a good combination.

But you can't wait around for someone to change work for you. No one has any interest in making your life any better, making you more intelligent and capable. Not really.

One reason why you and I may not be as successful at creating our own realities as Genet was, is probably because we are not as able at the craft, whether that craft is writing, dancing, or counting one's breaths in a lotus position.


I don't want to preach; these things in themselves will likely lead you nowhere in the long run, but they may provide you with momentary lapses which might help you form a different relationship to yourself, and even with your work. I say work, in particular, rather than something else, because it is often the context in which you need these lapses most, where you most likely need to be able to set yourself free.


And freedom, like all things, is imaginiary.


If only imagining it within yourself, with no witness besides yourself.


And once you can accomplish this, to believe it is true, you may begin to have interesting reactions from others around you.


But don't say a word.