Traveling to Other Worlds: Lectures on Transpersonal Expression in Literature and the Arts

Description

The lectures collected for this book focus on transpersonal expression – heightened states of feeling, emotion, and deeper regions of the psyche, from the Paleolithic (so-called rock art), to the medieval (Solomon Ibn Gabirol), to the modern (Rilke), and postmodern (Haruki Murakami). This study suggests the psyche is hard wired for spiritual experience, for aesthetic and ethical expression, and that transpersonal expression in literature and the arts is a universal human exploration of perhaps a fundamental ground of being. The focus of the chapters provide evidence for these suggestions: mysticism in Gabirol, Rumi, and Rilke; reckoning with suffering in Murakami’s postmodern fables; spiritual failure and grace in the triptychs of Bosch, Beckman, and Bacon; epiphany in Basho, Suthorn Pho, and contemporary world travel haibun; altered states in Romantic ballet; metaphysical space in Ra’anan Levy’s painting; epiphany and social communion in Paul Theroux’s travel writing; sustaining the world in modern Aboriginal art; the nature of «big mind» consciousness as internal space; visitation to the heavens in world petroglyphs and pictographs; «absolute metaphor» in traditional American haiku; and spiritual spaciousness as a key element in haiku. Table of Contents List of Illustrations ix Introduction 1 Chapter 1. A Poetry of Mysticism: Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi, and Rainer Maria Rilke 7 Chapter 2. Words Turn into Stone: Haruki Murakami’s after the quake 33 Chapter 3. The Triptych between Heaven and Hell: The Case of Bosch, Beckmann, and Bacon 41 Chapter 4. Matsuo Basho, Suthorn Pho, and Contemporary World Travel Haibun 61 Chapter 5. Altered States: The Artistic Quest in The Stone Flower and La Sylphide 73 Chapter 6. Ra’anan Levy’s Metaphysical Space 81 Chapter 7. The Kindness of Strangers: Epiphany and Social Communion in Paul Theroux’s Travel Writing 89 Chapter 8. The Songlines: Dreaming the Ancestors and Sustaining the World in Aboriginal Art 101 Chapter 9. Big Mind: The Nature of Consciousness as Internal Space in Transpersonal Experience 109 Chapter 10. Traveling to other Worlds: Visitation to the Heavens as Transpersonal Experience in Rock Art 119 Chapter 11. Haiku Mainstream: The Path of Traditional Haiku in America 127 Chapter 12. Spaciousness as a Key Element in Haiku 137 Note on the Lectures 145 Notes 147