A Unique Form of Literature

one of the most important elements in these traditions, in using language to make an end run around the verbal intellect, to affect a mode of consciousness not reached by the normal verbal intellectual apparatus.

the linear, cumulative mode of gathering knowledge is again contrasted with a holistic and tacit mode which can appear only when consciousness is organized differently.

Never Know When It Might Come in Useful

Nasrudin sometimes took people for trips in his boat. One day a fussy pedagogue hired him to ferry him across a very wide river.

As soon as they were afloat, the scholar asked whether it was going to be rough.

“Don’t ask me nothing about it,” said Nasrudin.

“Have you never studied grammar?”

“No,” said the Mul... See more

The two major types of psychology have each predominantly investigated one mode of human consciousness. Modern science is primarily verbal-logical; esoteric traditions have specialized in the tacit holistic mode, one largely inaccessible to language and reason.

The logic of these stories is not ordinary: it is more like that of the dream. In the stories, linear time, for instance, has little value. In fairy tales, events occur in, around, before, during, and after each other. Indeed, magic carpets exist here, which can transcend time. Many symbols in fairy tales, if looked at in terms of the psychology of... See more

we recognize only the familiar. Recall that we can hear our name quickly, at lower intensity than most other words. We can recognize an English word more quickly than a random sequence of letters. We see red sixes of hearts much more quickly than red sixes of spades.

Reading aloud takes longer and allows the events more importance. Listening takes the burden off our eyes and our visual system and returns balance to the ears. It allows us to picture the events as they occur in space. Some of these books, especially the fairy tales, are illustrated for this very purpose. Finally, listening involves the sound of t... See more

The techniques of these esoteric traditions are often thought to involve deliberately exotic and mysterious training, such as the use of special, mysterious magic words in meditation. However, the essence of meditation is the focusing of awareness on a single, unchanging source of stimulation. It is the attitude, not the specific form, that is prim... See more

These stories have been given the name “teaching stories,” since their effect is not only to provide pleasure or a useful parable, but also to connect “with a part of the individual which cannot be reached by any other convention,” and establish “in him or in her, a means of communication with a nonverbalized truth beyond the customary limitations ... See more

Reflection can mean both “to think about” and “to mirror.” Often an action caught in a story forms a pattern which is also present on another level of consciousness