Ourea, or the numinous presence of Allt-fawr

 

Capel y Gorlan, Cwmorthin

Numinous this, numinous that, all I know is that sometimes we are forced out of our skin. A moment in time that is different, where we are knocked sideways whether we would or not. 

That is what happened to me in Cwmorthin, near Capel y Gorlan (chapel in the sheep fold). It is a stiff walk up into the mouth of Cwmorthin, and then along the cwm to the tumbled down remains of the chapel. A  remote place in a deserted valley where the stillness soaked through the skin along with the damp. A silence so deep that even the grazing of the odd sheep on the far hillside could be felt; and then a sense of presence overwhelming. Something ancient. Something that had taken form both of itself and of the communion offered in the chapel, and, who knows, of older offering long before time was counted. Allt-fawr – its name a tribute to its size – a presence by it sheer wall of endless hill stretching up beyond the cloud, and wrapping the valley in its curve to the exclusion of all else. No wonder the Greeks thought such mountains to be gods, 'ourea', their brooding presence being so tangible. 

I sensed a fluidity over time in the presence. The last imprint on it being the close harmony hymns of the slate miners sung on their one day off. Their one day not under the ground. Miners who had hollowed out that vast hill. A slate mine 1500 feet from the top level down 25 floors of stale caverns to its lowest. 50 miles of tunnels and tramways all inside Allt-fawr, the mountain. A mine as big as the vastness of its name. The scars of the mining now fading as the mountain reclaimed them, wreathing them in rain soaked moss, lichen, bracken and grass. The soft tread of sheep being all that disturbed them now, and the chapel itself fallen to ruin. 

But still the presence persists, tentatively described by a word from a tongue alien to those Welsh hills – god? – and that from one who is no theist; hills that were used to hearing the word "Duw" sung with confidence in their embracing fold. 

The theologian Rudolf Otto was in want of a term to describe what he felt was special about religious experience, so he created 'numinous' from the Latin numen, meaning "arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring."  Jung found Otto's term of great value, because he knew how such moments shone in the minds of his patients – they were touch-stones of religious experience; the access points where the safety and supposed sufficiency of the rational ran out and exposure to the spiritual happened. Once exposed the doorway was open to growth by incorporating the spiritual, the numinous, the religious, into the life of his patients, releasing them from their psychological malaise. They were suffering because they were shut off from deeper communion with life, often by their overdeveloped rationality, and their rejection of the mystical, the numinous, the religious.

In a letter to P.W. Martin (20 August 1945), the founder of the International Study Center of Applied Psychology in Oxted, England, C.G. Jung confirmed the centrality of numinous experience in his life and work: "It always seemed to me as if the real milestones were certain symbolic events characterized by a strong emotional tone. You are quite right, the main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character" (Jung 1973, 1: 377). If one holds the classical Jungian view that the only genuine cure for neurosis is to grow out of it through pursuing individuation, then treatment based on this model would seem necessarily to include "the approach to the numinous," as Jung states so firmly in this letter.   [ Jung - Martin letter 1946 "On the Importance of Numinous Experience in the Alchemy of Individuation" Murray Stein, Ph.D.]

P W Martin was one of the main members of the Geneva Quaker-Jungian group to which Irene Pickard belonged. Her archive included papers by Martin. He was perhaps the most enthusiastic of the group, often travelled to Zürich to see Jung during the 1930s, and maintained contact with him after the war, gaining Jung's support over the establishment of the centre at Oxted.

Spiritual experiences, religious experiences, are not rational. They are something else; divine intoxication; divine madness; opening of the being; being touched; stopping the world: they are a door into another way of relating to the world; to another dimension of being. They have the authenticity of the moment of transport; they need no validation because in that moment they simply are.

Jung was a complete relativist at this point. He did not believe that only one source of the holy could have a healing influence. He did not subscribe to the view, for instance, that only Jesus can give us the salvation we need. Jung believed that the numinous could derive from countless sources, and religious traditions, from mythologies, cosmologies, esoteric systems, and arts and science. Moreover, he believed that the numinous is present, at least potentially, in common experience, and can be felt and made known through meaningful coincidence, synchronicity and an ‘inner’ relationship with the facts of the world. He did not believe that institutions of faith or creedal doctrines could regulate the spiritual experience, but that such experience occurs spontaneously, as we enlarge life with depth and commitment.   [David  Tacey: How to Read Jung: Granta Books, London, 2006]

Nor did Jung think that belief, whether inherited, inculcated or otherwise acquired, was any form of substitute for honestly accepted experience, of openness to the numinous:

When people say that they believe in the existence of God, it has never impressed me in the least. Either I know a thing and then I don’t need to believe it; or I believe it because I am not sure that I know it. I am well satisfied with the fact that I know experiences which I cannot avoid calling numinous or divine.    [ Jung in answer to Philp’s question #3: Is the God-archetype All?: H L Philp: Jung and the Problem of Evil: Rockliff, London, 1958]

Vranyo

A blatant lie that it is necessary to believe. A substitute truth that forms an integral part of a fabricated reality. Vranyo say much about the power of the networks that promotes them and are supported by them in turn. It is a Slavic word that says much about Russia's past. 

When we were in Ukraine, Yuri explained how it was during Soviet times: "They pretended to tell us the truth, and we pretended to believe them." An entire web of vranyo. 

Another description I came across recently, dating from 1983 by David Shipler in Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams: A Russian friend explained vranyo in this way: "You know I'm lying, and I know that you know, and you know that I know that you know, but I go ahead with a straight face, and you nod seriously and take notes."

When we were in Lviv and being shown round one of the folk museums we came across a pair of candelabra proudly displaying a sign below them saying A pair of bra. We couldn't help but giggle and comment on the mistranslation. The attendant looked sad. "Yes, I know" she said "All the English speakers giggle about it and tell us it is wrong, but the Director says we must keep it because that is what it says in the Department of Culture's manual." The power of vranyo. 

At worst they are official lies that it would be dangerous to disbelieve. Stalin's purges relied deeply on them, as did the Tsarist regime before his time. Authur Kustler's Darkness at Noon explores how it is to be trapped in a web of them. Both his inquisitors and Rubashov are aware that they live inside a spiders web of vranyo. However, this week's official vranyo must be believed, which is why Rubashov, someone who promoted yesterdays vranyo, must confess his guilt, and in doing so agree to the necessity of his own execution. 

When Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, declared himself victor the the election in 2020, the people came out on the streets because they were no longer prepared to play their part in that particular vranyo. His security forces explained to them why they should. Thousands have been arrested and suffered. Not playing your part in vranyo can have deadly consequences.

So what of the post-truth world of Donald Trump? They counted all the the votes, carefully, accurately. Then comes the big lie claiming that he won the election by a landslide, except in the eyes of many it is not a lie, not even an alternative truth, but the truth: his victory in spite of all of the evidence. In the minds of believers all that evidence simply proves just how successful the fraud was. The biggest electoral fraud ever. A conspiracy by the the deep state to thwart the ascension of the rightful victor.  A fraud so well executed that how it was done cannot be found out, even when challenged in the courts. But it was done – of that believers are sure: it has become an article of faith. And America steps into the world of post-truth, a world that blurs the distinctions between misinformation, disinformation and malinformation – the three disorders of information – and takes a step closer towards adding vranyo to the list. 

Fake, such a useful appellation when you wish to dismiss discomforting or challenging news; the dissonance between what you would like to be true and what you are being confronted with. Humans do not like dissonance. We work hard to dissipate it. It invites a blurring between belief and knowledge in order to make ourselves comfortable: comforting beliefs are so much more preferable than confronting discomforting truths. Belief may allow and element of choice, of choosing the comforting, because believing is not knowing. It has a degree of latitude; it might be so, it might be not so. Knowledge does not: there is no latitude. Beliefs may be plural because there is uncertainty. Knowledge is always singular: it is what is. Acquiring it is is hard work. It tests itself against reality. 

Has the consumer society engendered consumer truth? Versions the tests for which is that they sit comfortably with you. Fast food versions that need little effort to acquire and which are tested against how little discomfort they cause rather than against the hard edge of reality? 

Fake, ersatz, faux, fabricated, surrogate, facsimile, artificial, substitute, imitation, synthetic, false, mock, simulated, pseudo, sham, bogus, spurious, counterfeit, forged, pretended, manufactured, forgery, fraud, hoax: there are so many words with which to convey information distortion or substitution, but perhaps the worst modern concoction is 'alternative'. It invites the Schroedinger possibility of manifold truths about the same thing at the same time – but even Schroedinger knew the box would be opened and only one truth would remain – we simply would know which in advance. There is no such thing as an alternative truth. There are alternatives until the box is opened, but then reality rules, OK!

As for Britain, an adept of the 50 shades of untruth is now its leader. According to one observer, he has perfected the art of lying, in fact he has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence, and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie and the bullshit lie.

Poor truth has taken a battering in recent years. Post-modern sophistry has made it seem a hall of mirrors. It is not reality's problem: that is always singular. The moment we attempt to transpose it into words it become a plurality of possibles, but they are far from all equally good. Sifting to the best fit, the most authentic, is the service required. That is where the danger lies of generating alternatives; a stopping short of refining down to the singularity; of choosing to be blind to the evidence for reasons of political expediency, or in order to avoid the dissonance. 

In our world of political affairs, respect for truth is pivotal: edging towards that singularity matters. Discounting the weaker alternatives, screening out prejudices, watching for confirmation bias are all part of what is required. Truth is not what makes us feel comfortable: often it is what makes us feel uncomfortable. The blight of populist 'truth' and the lack of integrity shown by the holders of public office has led to the formation of organisations concern with returning truth in public affairs to where it belongs – as something fundamental to our democracy.

Neither America nor Britain have not yet passed from alternative-truth to vranyo. There is still choice to believe the alternative or reject the 'alternative', or even to insist on doing the hard work of finding the truth. With vranyo there is not. Such is the potential danger of not believing the vranyo that feigning authentic belief is a matter of survival: it is a way of life within the spider's web. In Russia vranyo has returned with a vengeance.

 

Wars are like fires

War is like a fire – if you do not put it out, it will burn itself out:  Sun Tzu, The Art of War 

The fact that Sun Tzu called his book of The Art of War speaks to how far wars are created by powerful elites for political gain, or as Carl von Clausewitz put it "War is a continuation of policy by other means". Means which inflict great suffering on populations, but little on the elites that command them into existence. Too often they are the play thing of bored autocrats or glory seeking politicians. They are too often attempts to alter the world to the likings of the powerful.  

But Sun Tzu's truth holds good: few wars end in a decisive victory that will 'put it out', but all too often end in a stalemate – the smouldering and smoking embers that all too easily can flare back up, but which have consumed and destroyed so much, mostly to no purpose. The exhausted combatants have then to be extricated by a protracted peace negotiation, during which the stalemate grinds on claiming lives.

Peace is often misunderstood as an absence of war, as if war was the normal default state and peace an aberration that fills in the gaps between. That is a hawk's vision of peace: a gap between wars to be tolerated whilst preparations are made for the next conflict, wherever it can be found. That is why we have a professional full time military – what other justification can there be for them? If there was never a next fire, there would be no need for a fire brigade?

The truth is peace is very much a constructed state that has to be built and maintained, just as wars have to be; but it takes a far greater amount of work and investment to maintain a war, far less to maintain peace. Besides, in peace societies and cultures flourish and become pluralistic, in wars they wither and become totalitarian – the single objective of survival and, ultimately, victory disciplining the society into a monoculture and justifying draconian controls. So much the better for leaders in war – they are massively elevated and empowered – so much the better for people in peace. Perhaps it is no wonder that leaders love to have war, or the fear of war, as a means of control and as the ultimate aggrandisement?

Investing in peace is very cost effective by comparison to the escalating cost of maintaining wars. That is because wars are indeed like fires. They need to be fed fuel, lots of fuel; and if defeat is to be avoided, the amount of fuel will increase up to a level that overwhelms and defeats the 'enemy'. (Isn't it interesting that we have a special word which legitimises lethal violence against those branded with the term?)

Much the same applies to the anticipation of war, which involves escalating expenditure on an armed peace. One might ask if armed peace is simply deferred war? That was certainly the logic that lead to the term 'cold war'. It also gives rise to what has been termed the Military-Industrial complex.

The peace theorist, Anatol Rapoport, suggests that there has been a decoupling of war making from the traditional goals of expressing and giving realisation to political power to that of a profession intent on perpetual preparation and organisation as a continual process. The military–industrial complex thus formed becomes a self perpetuating business with the military as consumers and the arms manufacturers as suppliers locked in what can be, at times, an economically cancerous cycle.

Reflecting on the post 1945 world economy, it is notable that for many years the two fastest growing and most successful economies were the two peace economies of the losers – Japan and Germany: they were not carrying the economic burden of high military expenditure.

The event horizon at the boundary between peace and war marks a complete shift in frames of reference. Many factors influence decisions in times of peace. There is much debate and disagreement about what should be invested in, what governments should or should not do, how much liberty might be enjoyed by people. All that stops the moment wars start. There is only one frame of reference for their duration – survival and, if possible, victory. 

The vortex of war sucks in resources and attention, just as raging fires draw in winds. A fact that the British relied on when setting fire to German cities or the Americans when they bombed Tokyo. The resultant firestorms creating infernos in which few could survive: those sheltering in cellars and basements being incinerated – even metal pots and pans melting. There is no discrimination in war as to who is killed and who survives: vulnerability alone determining fate. Anyone can be sucked into its vortex, regardless of their status. Wars kill babies, the elderly and the infirm as readily as they kill soldiers, especially as they are less able to escape from war's vorticities. The Americans even coined the term 'collateral damage' to help sanitise the truth that the innocent, the non-combatants, those unable to flee or to shelter, are routinely killed in war.

Economically, wars also suck in increasing amounts of resources, ultimately impoverishing the combatants and leaving them with debt burdens which may take generations to pay off. Britain's debt to the USA incurred prior and subsequent to the Lend-Lease – the agreement that allowed Britain unlimited credit for the duration of its war with Germany – only finally being paid off in 2006. Britain's part in the victory impoverished it for 60 years – a mere $3.75 billion at 2% interest ($40.5 billion plus interest at modern values). Some years Britain was so economically stretched that it could not even pay all the interest, let alone reduce the principle.

There is a sense in which wars could be regarded as a from of potlatch: countries investing in increasing stores of weapons until the stock piles are dissipated in a fest of violence. Acts which gains successful leaders considerable political kudos even whilst impoverishing their peoples. Exhortations as to the benefits of the sacrifices made to achieve victory being trumpeted by the very leaders who are usually the least at risk. 

War, famine, plague and death: the four horsemen of the apocalypse. No wonder they are so closely linked. War almost always bringing famine and plague in its wake; but unlike them, war is entirely man made – and one might add, man, not woman made. There is little history of armies of women facing each other off on battlefields, or their indulging in rape, pillage and wanton destruction: those are very much male prerogatives. 

War: commanded by the most privileged; fought by the least privileged; suffered by the most vulnerable. They are indeed the greatest of human failings.