++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ARCHIVE.
For a list of all my published posts:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Blog
entries beginning with #101 are not essays but minimally-edited notes and
reviews from the files I've collected over the last few decades. I no longer
have the time and energy needed to sort out and put together into decent
essay-form the many varied ideas in these files, but I would like to share them
with all who are interested.
If
you have questions and think I might help, you're welcome to send me a
note: sam@macspeno.com
This post #149 contains some thoughts stimulated by a master's thesis, "Henry Corbin and Russian Religious
Thought," submitted in August 2013 as part of Master’s of Arts program at
the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University in Montreal, by Hadi
Fakhoury. The full text is available on Tom Cheetham's website.
The main
idea of Fakhoury's thesis is straightforward: that the noted Islamic scholar
Henry Corbin (1903-1978) was considerably influenced by Russian religious
thought.
In the
first of its four chapters Fakhoury gives an excellent introduction to Russian
religious thought over the last two centuries. He shows how Corbin made use of
the work of Sergius Bulgakov (1871-1944) to spell out his own understanding of
the Islamic expressions of Divine Wisdom and its guidance in human life.
I found
the fourth chapter, where Fakhoury spells out Corbin's use of the work of
Alexsi Khomiakov (1804-1860) to explain the Iranian spiritual world, most
fascinating.
The main
idea is that that there is in fact an Iranian "spiritual universe"
which came into existence long before the beginning of Islam and which persists
even to this day in Islamic Sufism.
Its roots
go back to the ancient Persian religious leader Zoroaster (628-551 BCE), and
was brought to new life through the efforts of the work of the 12th century Sufi leader, Suhrawardi (1155-1191 CE).
In
spelling out Suhrawardi’s “Iranism,” Corbin also draws on the concept of
“Byzantinism” coined by the conservative Russian religious thinker Konstantin
Leontiev (1831-1891).
It is a
somewhat bewildering mix-- of ancient Persian, Medieval Islamic, and Russian
religious thought-- but Corbin would like to see it incorporated into the
contemporary understanding of global religious perspectives. I think Corbin
is right.
===
Personally,
I find several things of major significance in Fakhoury's presentation of
Corbin's ideas. The most important, I think, has to do with my life-long
interest in the nature of religious ritual.
Another,
closely related, is the nature of the long-neglected fourth function of human
awareness for which we still lack a commonly-understood name. Jung calls it
"Intuition," others call "Imagery" and "Super-sensory
perception." Corbin's name for it is "Creative Imagination."
A third
item of major significance is a very clear understanding of the nature of
modern matter-mind rationalism and of body-spirit dualism which emerges from
Corbin's presentation of what I think of as his mistaken need for an
intermediate realm of reality which he calls the mundus imaginalis.
===
Some
words about Corbin's understanding of Suhrawardi’s lifework will be helpful. In
a 1966 essay titled “From the Heroic Epic to the Mystical Epic," Corbin
describes Suhrawardi’s interpretation of the ancient Iranian-Persian heroic
epics. He saw Suhrawardi’s project as a “resuscitation” of the theosophy ("religious wisdom")
professed by the Sages of ancient Persia.
Suhrawardi
saw those ancient sages as predecessors in the Islam of his time of those
called Ishraqiyun,
"Disciples of Light."
Corbin
makes the point that, while Suhrawardi's work of proclaiming his kinship with
the sages of ancient Iran reveals that Suhrawardi did envision an “Iranism,” he
was not describing objective history but a “meta-historical” fact, something
psychological. Corbin describes it as an “event that took place in Suhrawardi’s
soul."
As I see
it, Corbin's emphasizes the non-historically-factual nature of Suhrawardi's
perspectives because Corbin wants to say that they are, or belong to, another
realm of reality, that 'in-between' realm which he calls the mundus
imaginalis.
In the
course of Fakhoury's presentation, an amazing number of names are used to
describe the soul-event being talked about here: besides
"meta-historical" and "imaginal," some are more
psychological-- such as "personal," "experiential" and
"existential"-- while other are more conventionally religious-- such
as "spiritual," "priestly" and "holy."
Of great
interest to me is Corbin's own term for Suhrawardi's psychological-religious
soul-event: “creative intuition.” The emphasis is not just on the fact that it's
a perception of reality, but that it is a new-- previously non-existing--
perception.
Corbin is
describing an essential aspect of that long-neglected fourth function of
consciousness: creativity. "Creative intuition" doesn't mean seeing
something new, but seeing something in a new way. My wording for it is "seeing
newly."
It's like the phrase used by liturgical theologian Alexander Schmemann
(1921-1983) to describe the nature of the new creation: "not new things,
but things made new."
Corbin
says this soul-event is its own "source and principle of explanation." I want to
emphasize that it is a new perception, a new conscious awareness, and that the
change is epistemological, not-- as Corbin's words would seem to imply--
ontological.
Corbin
also uses a phrase I like a lot in describing the results of this creative
soul-event; by it, he says "a new past emerges."
===
Fakhoury
points out that the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948) uses a
similar term: "creative newness." Both Berdyaev and Corbin are
talking about the same thing, a perception by personal consciousness that
didn't exist before.
In
explaining why a creative perception doesn't have a past, Berdyaev says it is
achieved "in existential time." I'd emphasize that his use of the
term "existential" is his way of saying that a human person, a consciously
aware being, did
the perceiving. (With philosophers, such things aren't necessarily obvious!)
Berdyaev
also notes that “creative newness” cannot be explained in terms of the past,
because, being achieved in existential time, it knows "no system of causal
links.” Although I have more to say about this below, I want to note here that
from this we can see that neither Corbin nor Berdyaev value cosmic space and
time as they might; they are both operating in a pre-evolutionary worldview.
This point helps make sense of the strong dualistic language used by both of
them.
Fakhoury
includes a reference to Berdyaev's 1941 book The Beginning and the End, where Berdyaev makes the point
that there is "no new 'object" in a creative intuition, that it only
makes sense "when we start from the subject." Once again, Berdyaev is
simply saying that creative newness comes only by way of personal
consciousness-- indeed, a very important point.
In describing
creative newness Berdyaev uses language which demonstrates a very negative view
of the world: “It is in fallen time," he says, "that the life of
nature and historical life flow on. But everything that happens in time which
has broken up into past, present and future, that is to say in time which is
sick, is but a projection on to the external of what is being accomplished in
depth."
I find it
sad that these thinkers have to negate and devalue the real world in order to
make their point about creativity and newness. From my perspective, they lacked
the age-old and four-fold, "mandalic" understanding of personal
self-awareness.
Berdyaev
also uses the language of "vertical vs horizontal" in talking about
"true creative newness." He says it's not only achieved "in
existential time" but also vertically, not horizontally.
Again, it
seems a pity that he has to negate one dimension of reality to make another
dimension more important. There's no reason to exclude relationships just to
say other realities are valid, too. (Bruno is the one religious thinker I know
who emphasizes that for a complete picture the four-fold view is needed. And
once again, Hooray for Bruno!)
As a
summing up of this point I want to note that there is simply no need to mistake
epistemology for ontology. I am sympathetic with their efforts, but the
world-negating wording they come out with-- left over from a static-dualistic
worldview-- is neither helpful nor valid for today. Our great need is not to
negate the world but to understand our place in it.
===
Corbin
uses the phase "a new past emerges" when he is discussing what are
called the "recitals" of Suhrawardi. The "recitals" are a
ritual re-telling and re-living of the stories of the old Iranian myth-heroes.
That the
past becomes present in acts of creative intuition is an understanding
long-familiar to me from my interest in ritual. It has been especially well
described in the works of early- and mid- 20th century liturgical scholars.
(And here I offer special thanks for the work of Alexander Schememann mentioned
above).
What
Corbin calls "reversal of time"-- his wording for saying that the
past becomes present for those participating in the 'recital'-- validates for
me the correctness of my understanding of ritual.
Corbin
also says that in the creative act the past is "absolved" (and I
thought maybe a better word would be "dissolves"), but either word
would seem to miss the main point: that while what was, remains in the past, it
also becomes real in the present. I think this is the essence of what's being
described here, whether we call it "recital" or "liturgy"
or "ritual"-- or even "dance" as some Native Peoples do.
===
A major
question is how this "seeing, newly" happens. And that question is
much more readily answer-able in the modern evolutionary worldview than in the
static, dualistic and patriarchal perspectives of the past.
In the
energy-focused dynamic cosmic context we can more easily understand that what makes the newness available--
both then and now-- is the tune-ing in, by personal consciousness, to the
energy processes of the universe.
And that,
as I understand it, is the very essence of religious experience via ritual. As
I see it, this is one of the places where a more complete understanding of
science-- as the understanding of time and space, matter and energy-- allows us to move far beyond
the antagonisms of religious fundamentalism and scientific rationalism.
===
Corbin
was opposed to both religious fundamentalism and scientific rationalism, and
yet he seemed to remain stuck in the worldview of static dualism.
For
example, in talking about how a new past emerges Corbin uses the Arabic word hikayat, which means a narration that is
at the same time an imitation or a repetition. The word applies to the kind of
ritual which is a re-telling and/or an acting out of 'the old (or
"basic", "foundational") stories and myths. Corbin says
that in the hikayat, the Reciter is the actual and active actor. And this makes good sense.
But then,
speaking from his anti-reality attitude, Corbin also says that "we ravish
this past, and ourselves with it, from the causality known as historical
causality." I think this is an especially important source for an
understanding of Corbin's Docetism and his strong anti-Incarnation views.
It's also
helpful for understanding the reasons for his "anti-historical"
perspective, manifest when he notes that the creative act is a “history that
breaks history.” He calls it an eschatological history-- which "in
reverting the deeds of the heroes of ancient Iran to their “true,” “inner”
meaning, simultaneously leads the mystical pilgrim “to his real being, to his origin,
to his ‘Orient’.”
I hear
all this as talk about human purpose and meaning, about eschaton and what I like to call "our
fullest significance." Unfortunately, Corbin, like Berdyaev, again seems
to need to negate one view to affirm the other. (More on that, shortly.)
In any
case, we can learn a great deal of wonderfully valuable stuff from these
various religious thinkers-- Medieval and modern, Islamic and Russian-- despite
their inability to express themselves in a more contemporary non-dualistic,
not-static and non-patriarchal socio-cultural context.
===
I see
this inability as a major problem, so it seems important to spell it out a bit
more here. Suhrawardi's idea of "Iranism" is a good place for that
effort.
In
spelling out Suhrawardi’s “Iranism,” Corbin also draws on the concept of
“Byzantinism” coined by the conservative Russian religious thinker Konstantin
Leontiev (1831-1891).
Corbin
relates Suhrawardi’s “Iranism” to the "Byzantinism" of the
conservative Russian religious thinker mentioned earlier, Konstantin Leontiev.
It is a bit complicated, but well-worth staying with, for the sake of the
resulting clarity.
Corbin
sees Suhrawardi’s “Iranism” and Leontiev’s “Byzantinism” as both being in
contrast to their opposite, which Leontiev called "Kush-ism." Corbin
says all this as a version of "Hegel’s system."
According
to Corbin, the whole philosophy of Hegel (1770-1831) "rests upon the
contrast between two types and upon the conflict of two principles in
history": freedom and necessity.
These
opposites, also referred to as spirituality and materialism, result in
Leontiev's "Iranism-Byzantinism vs "Kushism," which is then
extended to include "Russia vs Europe" and "East vs the
West."
According
to Berdyaev, the "principle of necessity" has to do with materialism
and logic, while the "principle of freedom" has to do with creativity
and morality.
From a
mandalic perspective, we can easily see that materialism and logical reasoning
come from the Sensing and Thinking functions of consciousness (our awareness of
matter and sequential time), while morality and creativity come from the
Feeling and Intuition functions (our awareness of spatial relatedness and the
dynamic energy of the cosmos).
The
dualistic implication is that the fixed necessities, matter and time, are bad,
while space and energy, the more free aspects of reality, are good. In a
patriarchal context, this also makes the bad-and-necessity aspects 'masculine'
while the good-and-free aspects are 'feminine.'
Note,
too, that it is the "good" group which is called by the dozen or so
different names I mentioned earlier: "meta-historical,"
"imaginal," "creative," "religious,"
"priestly," "holy," "spiritual,"
"personal," "psychological," "experiential,"
"existential."
The whole
point here-- of Khomiakov, Hegel, Berdyaev and Corbin-- is that what's of
highest value is freedom and spirituality, in contrast to necessity and
materialism. And this, of course, is a most blatant dualism.
They also
found "necessity"-- that is, the power of materiality over the
spirit-- in pagan religions, in Roman Catholicism and in Western rationalism.
It's "us vs them" on a very large scale!
===
(This
present paragraph should probably be a footnote, but I want to add it for
completeness.) Fakhoury makes clear the emphasis, essentially and primarily by
Khomiakov, on the presumed superiority of Iran-ism over Kush-ism. Iranism
"is founded on tradition and cannot be restored by a purely logical
action, because the concept of creative freedom cannot be chained to and
deduced from formulae."
This is
being said in support of Corbin's ideas about Suhrawardi making the past
present (i.e., that "a new past emerges"), and that Iranism "can
only be discerned by a superior intuition [i.e., some kind of higher activity],
going beyond the narrow limits of reasoning." Khomiakov also associates
the notion of "creative freedom" with “tradition.”
Fakhoury's
point is that this view anticipates Corbin’s own association of the notion of
“renaissance” with “tradition”: what Corbin has to say about Suhrawardi's
'recovery' of the pre-Islamic Iranian views is coming from-- and, at least in
some sense, based on-- Khomiakov.
This is
important because Corbin draws a parallel between Khomiakov’s notion of
“Iranism,” which denotes “creative freedom” rooted in tradition, and the “free
creative inspiration” which Corbin saw enabled Suhrawardi to claim he was the
“resurrector” of the theosophical wisdom of ancient Persia.
Corbin
ends all this with a kind of hymn to what I think might be described as the
"superior superiority" of Iran-ism over Kushitism. In "Irani-ism" Corbin
includes Suhrawardi and those he calls "the Platonists of Persia,"
and in "Kushitism" he includes "Peripatetic philosophy, the
dominion of Logic, and the necessity of the laws of rational
understanding."
He adds
that logical and physical necessity "is shattered by the visionary
theosophy of the Khosrawaniyun from Iran, by the free flight of the configuring vision,
the 'superior intuition' penetrating into the spiritual universes forbidden to
the dialectic of Logic."
So all
these Russian themes-- of freedom vs necessity, intuitivism vs rationalism,
East vs West, Orthodoxy vs Catholicism-- ultimately come together for "the
affirmation of the mundus imaginalis." And in which, Corbin adds, is
"therefore the paradox, which in daring to 'exit' the constraints of
empiricism and rational Logic, surmounts their antagonism."
My
response: I don't think so!
===
One more
point. Fakhoury observes that Corbin also notes that there is a divergence
between Khomiakov's and Suhrawardi's versions of “Iranism.”
Corbin
notes that the Russian version is “the desire to elevate the hidden type at the
root of the life of a people to a universal value.” He names this value “pravo-slava” (literally "right
praise," a self-description of Russian Orthodoxy).
Corbin
criticizes this “populism” as being too concerned with the consolidation of a
“temporal ideal.” The pravo-slava ideal is too 'materialistic."
It's not
sufficiently 'spiritualistic,' so Corbin uses the term "Oriental"
describe what he saw as the purely spiritual “Iranism” of Suhrawardi. He notes
that "the knowledge of the ancient Sages was not 'Oriental' simply because
they happened to live in the geographical East. Rather, inversely, it is
'Oriental' knowledge that made these Iranians 'Orientals' par excellence."
Corbin
calls this “Oriental" knowledge "the Light of Glory," and gives
the Zoroastrian name for it "Xvarnah." He describes as "a hieratic ascendant in the
Neoplatonic sense of the word."
His point
is that “Orient” does not designate a geographical East, but rather symbolizes
a spiritual light and knowledge which contrasts with knowing in a physical and
material sense.
===
To
illustrate the point that "Orient" doesn't mean a geographical east
but a spiritual knowing, Corbin draws a parallel between Suhrawardi and
Konstantin Leontiev.
Fakhoury
notes that Leontiev was at one time an admirer of Solovyov and an aesthete
["a person who has or affects to have a special appreciation of art and
beauty"] but died as an Orthodox monk.
Leontiev's
religious and political conservatism placed him at odds with the other religious
thinkers of his generation. He rejected Solovyov’s “humanism,” charged
Dostoevsky of promoting a “rosy Christianity,” and considered Khomiakov’s
Orthodoxy as “too liberal and modernised.” In contrast, he affirmed Byzantine
Orthodoxy and the ascetic monasticism of Mount Athos.
Fakhoury
says Leontiev “placed his faith neither in Russia nor in its people, but in the
sacral and hieratic ideal of the Byzantine world.”
Corbin
favors Leontiev here because, as he says, the Ishraqi Light-wisdom ideas in Iranian-Sufi
Islam come from ancient Persia via Suhrawardi, there is "an essential
affinity between the Byzantine and Iranian spiritual universes."
Fakhoury
makes the point that Corbin's saying that Byzantium and Iran are alike is meant
not in a 'historical' but in an 'ecumenical' sense.
Fakhoury
also notes that the perceived “sacral” and “hieratic” sympathy between
Byzantium and Iran "defies every historical analysis." Corbin gives
an example from an exhibit of Byzantine mosaics in Isfahan: at least in the minds
of the Islamic observers, Byzantine mosaics shine with a light of their own
just as do the famous ceramic tile artworks of Isfahan.
Corbin
also claims that for both Leontiev and Suhrawardi, it is not the people that is
in itself essential, but the sacral idea which inhabits it and prevails in it.
He's saying that what's really important is not the place or the people but the
"concept." I find the language here-- saying that people are too
material and too physical-- to be the grossest kind of dualism.
===
But if we
can move beyond the dualistic wording, there is something of the greatest value
in all this. It sounds like Corbin is talking a dualism language of light vs
darkness, but he is not.
The
Zoroastrian Xvarnah is not about darkness vs light or evil vs good. Rather,
the Light of Glory is about the goodness of the world which is already actual,
and the goodness of the world which is yet to be realized. It's such a
different perspective that it's difficult for us to even hear correctly what's
being said.
It is an
eschatological view, in the sense that it sees a purpose to reality. With it's
distinction between what is and what is yet to be, this 25-century-old
dynamic-emergence perspective is eminently suited to the modern evolutionary
worldview!
===
So
despite all the dualistic language-- matter vs spirit, physical vs spiritual, a
people vs an idea of them-- some very positive views comes from all this.
For one
thing, my perception of the great need for a mandalic rather than
patriarchal-dualistic understanding of human consciousness is greatly
reinforced.
For
another, Fakhoury's note that Corbin’s explanation of Suhrawardi’s claim to
have revived the illuminative philosophy of ancient Iran, helps to clarify the
nature of Corbin's own project. He is trying to do something very similar for
our day.
As I
mentioned earlier, Corbin says that in defining his spiritual lineage,
Suhrawardi is not writing an objective history of philosophy or mysticism but a
"history of souls." But I think it's not so much a
"history" of souls that's being offered by Corbin's understanding of
Suhrawardi as much as a psychology which is both non-static and non-dualistic.
In
describing what's happening to people's consciousness, Suhrawardi is offering
stories of soul-experiences, stories about the changes in humans' deepest
awareness. And these inner transfiguration-events do not require us to remove
ourselves from the world of time and space, matter and energy.
In many
ways, I find it difficult to understand why this is such a big deal for many.
Except that I realize, of course, that there are many-- academics and all who
are greatly influenced by both rationalism and fundamentalism-- who still don't
think too much in terms of mind or soul or psyche or conscious awareness. They
think even less in terms of transformation, and not at all in terms of the
dynamic means by which such transfiguration occurs.
They are
still stuck in a static patriarchal psychology.
So what a
delight it is for me to realize that this whole issue, of Corbin's use of
Russian thinkers to make sense of Suhrawardi's recovery of the ancient Persian
perspectives, ultimately comes down to what seems to me to be a especially
successful attempt to describe both the methods and the efficacious effects of
ritual.
We have
the beginnings, at least, of a non-static psychology suitable for the New
Cosmology!
=== +++
===
No comments:
Post a Comment