August 7, 2004
mojo
Looks like I was wrong this morning when I predicted no partying tonight - well, as close as I get, at least.
I drove up Mt. Hamilton in search of photographs, according to my conscious mind. This was my 4th trip up the hill, my first in the evening. By the time I reached the telescope, entrance was closed to the public. I could have snuck in I guess but that's not my style. So I headed back down a couple yards to the first shoulder big enough to hold my car. Across the road from that was a ledge where I set up my tripod and went to work.
Not bad if you like that kind of stuff, and I do, so I declare it not bad.
So, once the fear of being mountain lion dinner finally sank in, I retreated to my car and opened the door to toss in the camera and leave. As I did, I happened to glance up, in the direction opposite of civilization. I nearly dropped my camera as I mumbled something to the effect of HFS...
There's a reason they built an observatory on top of this mountain.
The night sky was spectacular. I'd been wasting time looking at the little creation of San Jose when there was a much more impressive Creation right behind and above me. So I stared at the stars for a while and pondered infinity. I saw a shooting star and some airplanes. When another car showed up, I packed up and left.
On the way back down the hill, while avoiding badgers, deer, some kind of sloth or mole or something, and people who were still driving up the mountain, the old thinkomotron kicked into analysis mode. I discovered a couple of interesting things, the most interesting of all being the fact that I'd never noticed these things before.
Of course, I knew that I had at least two distinct "I"'s in me, how else could I have an "internal dialog"? One I tends to notice things and make connections and propose relations between things. That one says things like "that view of the stars moved my soul".
The other I is the cynic, the bullshit detector, the self doubter, the ridiculer. That's the one that says "soul? you sure you've got one?" Neither one takes much of anything very seriously.
So I've known about these guys all my life, but the interesting thing I noticed tonight was that the they seemed to have spatial locations: the Cynic seems to live in the upper right region of my head while the other guy is in the bottom left. To which the Cynic says: "my, what an imagination you have. time for some bed, I think".
But the other thing that I realized is that the key to having a "spiritual experience" is the same as the key to enjoying a Jerry Bruckheimer movie or listening to The Time or voting for GWB : suspension of dispelief and the silencing of The Cynic. Just turn off the critical thinking faculties. It doesn't hurt to crank up the other guy, either, until he's more sensitive than usual and ready to believe any mumbo jumbo interpretation of events that he can form into a memory.
Once this is done and the experience is experienced, it's too late for the Cynic to spoil things, even when he comes back on the scene. The memory has already been recorded as a "spiritual event", and not only that, the Cynic was complicit in that interpretation - he knew what you were up to when you told him to buzz off. During the experience itself, since the Cynic is AWOL, you get a nice positive feedback loop. The first I says "right on, this is some kinda one-with-the-universe deal right here" and since there's nobody to contradict him, the notion becomes more and more plausible.
The trip home was filled with the general euphoria and Panglossian sense of "all is well with the world" that one would expect from a soul touching moment. Cool. Tom Petty was singing from the dashboard about getting high on marijuana and cocaine or something, and meanwhile all I needed was a drive up a mountain, a little neck movement, and a neat mental trick.
So there you have it, if "it" makes any sense at all. The key to inducing a spiritual moment. Since it's also the key to enriching Jerry Bruckheimer and voting for GWB, please, use with caution.
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