{Chaotic Determinism (+ Extracts)}[3rd August 1988]

[Redbook5:248-262][19880803:1017b]{Chaotic Determinism (+ Extracts)}[3rd August 1988]

19880803.1017

[continued]

I’ve just this morning received James Gleick’s ‘Chaos: Making New Science’,** which could well complete the Circle’s structure – or destroy it.

.1253

Or just help to describe its workings. Already*** I have come across concepts from, or applicable to, Circles Analysis (a name which I doubt would be acceptable to Mathematicians) – 

for example, 

*the Lorenzian waterwheel, turning one way and another at certain water inputs;

*the Lorenz Attractor graph in 3 dimensions;****

Smale’s Horseshoe# (up to a point, anyway);

and most intriguingly so far,

*the ‘Point of Accumulation’#* where Periodicity gives way to Chaos, fluctuations that never settle down at all: in a series of bifurcations, 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 – the Point of Accumulation#** comes at 32,#*** in this particular example, but [is] not so far from the 16#**** (n=4)## after which the ordered development of the Circles turned into the variations of everyday experience, working down Pascal’s Triangle. And in the ensuing ‘chaos’, as the parameter##* (r) continues to rise, windows of periodicity open with different doubling sequences (i.e. starting with different numbers), e.g. 3, 6, 12, (24) or 7, 14, 28,##** then break off into ‘chaos’ again.

*Points of particular relevance to C[ircles] A[nalysis]. <880807>

**Gleick, ‘Chaos, Making a New Science’, Heinemann, London, 1988

***([Ibid ]to p.72)

****Ibid: p27,28

#Ibid p51

#*Ibid p72

#**or ‘Critical Amplitude’ per Pippard (T[imes] L[iterary] S[upplement], 22-28/7/88) <880805>

[See [Redbook5:218-239][19880722:2307]{The Sphere}[22nd July 1988]]

#***Is this general?

#****[[Redbook5:221][19880724:1443e]{The Sphere [continued (5)]}[24th July 1988]] p221,

[[Redbook5:223][19880724:1443h]{The Sphere [continued (8)]}[24th July 1988] (&/or f?)] 223,

[[Redbook5:228-229][19880724:2355g]{The Sphere [continued (19)]}[24th July 1988]? &/or 1/2 ant] 228 above.

(On Ibid p73 it is 16 after which chaos begins. Could this be linked with the Octet Rule?

[[Redbook5:222-223][19880724:1443g]{The Sphere [continued (7)]}[24th July 1988]])

##[ie for 2ⁿ]

##*eg in x_next = rx(1-x)

##**Prime numbers start them?

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{Ellipses and Things}[3rd August 1988]

[Redbook5:247][19880803:1017]{Ellipses and Things}[3rd August 1988]

19880803.1017

It is interesting that taking a Circle and square cross:

[See ms image below]*

– and skewing the cross piece, produces an ellipse-ish shape**

(I think!)**

– whereas if you first moved the crosspiece towards one end [–]

[See ms image below]*

[–] you get something rather like an egg.


*

**[No, surely you just get a circle with a non-square cross – unless the non-diagonal cross defines the container, which is maybe (presumably?) what was meant]

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{Booklets?}[2nd August 1988]

[Redbook5:247][19880802:1234g]{Booklets?}[2nd August 1988]

19880802.1234

[continued]

I believe that I may at last be near the proper framework and start-point for the Booklets.*

I have spent some time recently on philosophy, mathematics etc.: perhaps a little too much. I suppose the basic reason (apart from interest) is to equip myself to talk on a similar level to some of these I may have to address; but whether in fact the nature of my mind will allow** me to handle these materials in a way such people would appreciate, I do not know.

*A year almost to the day after IV. [[Redbook4:48-49][19870730:0010]{“Speak!”}[30^th July 1987] ] 48: ‘Speak!’

{But I had forgotten [[Redbook5:96-98][19880319:1910]{Type Cycles}[19th March 1988]] p96 (above) [at [Redbook5:98][19880319:1910b]{Type Cycles [continued]}[19th March 1988]].}

**[or enable. It seems clear that much of the mathematical exploration is misconceived, or in some instances just plain wrong.]

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{Crisis Revisited [continued (6)]}[2nd August 1988]

[Redbook5:246-247][19880802:1234f]{Crisis Revisited [continued (6)]}[2nd August 1988]

19880802.1234

[continued]

Rationally, it could seem that concentration on this sort of pre-occupation (e.g. this writing) at the expense of my family’s material prosperity was a selfish act.*

In my experience, this is not so: when I spend significant time and thought on material provision for them, I soon become selfish and cruel; when I spend time on doing what I feel is right for me to do – this sort of thing – I become more loving and self-less towards them.

It isn’t at all easy, because I am accustomed to do what I know the World expects me to do, rather than what feels appropriate for me, what makes me at ease inwardly. A sense of external obligation, for a dutiful person – whether it is motivated by family or social pressures, or just prudence – is the most difficult thing to overcome. It is significant that Prudence is the Virtue assigned to Degree S~, next after C setting out on the Outer Circle: Virtue though it is, it can actually be dangerous.

But for submission to the Will of God – whatever the Will is, and whatever God is – all other obligations must be overcome.

*Psychologically, it could also appear as a form of escapism. In a sense, it is an escape from danger; but escape may be life-saving. Whether it is seen as a disease depends on one’s point of view.

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{Crisis Revisited [continued (5)]}[2nd August 1988]

[Redbook5:245-246][19880802:1234e]{Crisis Revisited [continued (5)]}[2nd August 1988]

19880802.1234

[continued]

The way to turn,* is to seek to Love: by keeping Love as the immediate goal – not something to be put off until convenient – one can turn oneself round, onto the Inner Circle. I do not know of any other way: all other degrees of the Inner Circle, I should guess, are too far removed to be appropriate targets at this point.

I still fall short of this. I started off by inappropriate feelings towards female members of the Church congregation, feelings too easily converted to selfish lust; progressed through a purer love for my own little family here in [CH]: but have in recent weeks begun to realise the extent of my own selfishness as regards other people, e.g. other people’s problems in conversation: I realise afterwards that they have meant nothing to me.

What is required is that generalised and transforming love which I once felt towards all people, **many years ago, before I let myself be sucked down into the abyss. It should be possible to recapture or redevelop it.

*[See last previous entry]

**cf I [], II [] ?

[See [Redbook3:58-59][19870329:1210g](DEVELOPMENT [continued(4)])[29^th March 1987] ]

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{Crisis Revisited [continued (4)]}[2nd August 1988]

[Redbook5:244-245][19880802:1234d]{Crisis Revisited [continued (4)]}[2nd August 1988]

19880802.1234

[continued]

This* also helps to explicate the dual aspect of +C†I~. He is a source of comfort to all who seek him: but also a challenge.

I have no doubt that the experience of +C†I~ is available to those who pass on round the Outer Circle again, just as it is available to those who stay (for so long as such a thing is possible) at the point we call Attraction.

This is perhaps more in the nature of Raphael,** the affable Archangel of [the Book of] Tobit who helped Tobias, and one of the nicest characters in the Bible. My linking of him as a sort of pre-Christian type*** of Christ is I think totally heretical but is based on this characterisation in relation to the attributes of the other Archangels (particularly Michael[~] and Gabriel[~]).

Raphael, of course, is no more divine than they are; Chris† (I use the † [for] ‘t’ to distinguish him slightly from the historical Jesus Christ and link him with ****Christopher, Christ-bearer) is divine, that is partaking of the nature of God, in a sense# in which Raphael and the other Archangels (and particularly Azrael, who is not of the Christian hierarchy) are not. This does not stop Chris† and Raphael being two aspects of the same Archetype: hence +C†I~.

But Chris† is a challenge as well as a comfort: an experience perhaps in some ways harder for those who are to turn, than for those who are not. But as Christ sent his Apostles and Disciples out into the World, so he sends out those who turn.

*[See last previous entry]

**[The Muslim Israfel, hence I~ in these Journals, mainly so as to avoid confusion with R~]

***[in the technical sense, perhaps better as ‘Type’(rather than ‘type’) ie the Type of an Archetype]

****[As in the fictions [0]ff. Underlining added later]

#[or to an extent or to a degree...?]

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{Crisis Revisited [continued (3)]}[2nd August 1988]

[Redbook5:243-244][19880802:1234c]{Crisis Revisited [continued (3)]}[2nd August 1988]

19880802.1234

[continued]

To my mind, it* is a clear description of the choice to be made at the Crisis-point, where +C†I~ is, and the taking of the cross and following in Christ’s footsteps is applicable to setting out on the Inner Circle for the first time: starting from Christ, one is also following his way back to him, which is why it seems (astonishingly and distressingly at first) that one has to leave Christ having only just found him.

The point, I think, is that at this stage one can only make progress by yet further travel, and that necessarily implies leaving the Christ-degree again. It is important to realise that because Christ is the incarnate form (or ‘Son’) of God the Father, who is the Form of the Formless or Spirit, he has the characteristics in some degree of Unity and Ubiquity or Immanence of God, and can therefore be with the Traveller in some sense wherever the Traveller is, even though the Traveller is not at the +C†I~ position of the Circles.

*[Matthew X.34-39; see last previous entry]

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{Crisis Revisited [continued]}[2nd August 1988]

[Redbook5:242-243][19880802:1234b]{Crisis Revisited [continued]}[2nd August 1988]

19880802.1234

[continued]

This experience* seems to me to be the continuation of the Crisis point – the necessity to take and stick to clear decisions. One may wonder how and why it is that Christ can be associated with a degree that brings so much distress, even anguish, at times. But:

'Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword. For I have come to set son against father, daughter against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law; a person's enemies will be the members of his own household.

‘No one who prefers father or mother to me is worthy of me. No one who prefers son or daughter to me is worthy of me. Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me. Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.’**

I do not think this means that it is essential to reject family: simply that if you have to choose, if there is conflict,*** you must choose Christ or risk losing your (spiritual) life. It is, like many of Christ’s teachings, not a moral stricture so much as a description of a fairly automatic process.

*[See last previous entry]

**Matthew X.34-39, N[ew] J[erusalem] B[ible]****
[Underlining added in Journal ms]

***{(which there often will be)}

****[

He summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to drive them out and to cure all kinds of disease and all kinds of illness. These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon who is known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who was also his betrayer. These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them as follows:

'Do not make your way to gentile territory, and do not enter any Samaritan town; go instead to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. And as you go, proclaim that the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those suffering from virulent skin-diseases, drive out devils. You received without charge, give without charge. Provide yourselves with no gold or silver, not even with coppers for your purses, with no haversack for the journey or spare tunic or footwear or a staff, for the labourer deserves his keep.

'Whatever town or village you go into, seek out someone worthy and stay with him until you leave. As you enter his house, salute it, and if the house deserves it, may your peace come upon it; if it does not, may your peace come back to you. And if anyone does not welcome you or listen to what you have to say, as you walk out of the house or town shake the dust from your feet. In truth I tell you, on the Day of Judgement it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. Look, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; so be cunning as snakes and yet innocent as doves.

'Be prepared for people to hand you over to sanhedrins and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, as evidence to them and to the gentiles. But when you are handed over, do not worry about how to speak or what to say; what you are to say will be given to you when the time comes, because it is not you who will be speaking; the Spirit of your Father will be speaking in you.

'Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will come forward against their parents and have them put to death. You will be universally hated on account of my name; but anyone who stands firm to the end will be saved. If they persecute you in one town, take refuge in the next; and if they persecute you in that, take refuge in another. In truth I tell you, you will not have gone the round of the towns of Israel before the Son of man comes.

'Disciple is not superior to teacher, nor slave to master. It is enough for disciple to grow to be like teacher, and slave like master. If they have called the master of the house "Beelzebul", how much more the members of his household?

'So do not be afraid of them. Everything now covered up will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the daylight; what you hear in whispers, proclaim from the housetops.

'Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Can you not buy two sparrows for a penny? And yet not one falls to the ground without your Father knowing. Why, every hair on your head has been counted. So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

'So if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of human beings, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven. But the one who disowns me in the presence of human beings, I will disown in the presence of my Father in heaven.

'Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword. For I have come to set son against father, daughter against mother, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law; a person's enemies will be the members of his own household.

'No one who prefers father or mother to me is worthy of me. No one who prefers son or daughter to me is worthy of me. Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me. Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.

'Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

'Anyone who welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet will have a prophet's reward; and anyone who welcomes an upright person because he is upright will have the reward of an upright person.

'If anyone gives so much as a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple, then in truth I tell you, he will most certainly not go without his reward.'

(Matthew X)

]

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{Crisis Revisited}[2nd August 1988]

[Redbook5:241-247][19880802:1234]{Crisis Revisited}[2nd August 1988]

19880802.1234

A surprising feeling – not of depression but of inadequacy: of failure to fulfil my ambitions, my purpose, myself. This has been triggered off [sic] by contacts with two different sets of acquaintances, whose example indicated how far short I was falling in my own priorities: in vegetable gardening; and in general learning and re-learning. Interestingly, however, working on the small-holding (and, I think, on the inessential field of study in which my inadequacy was so pitifully exposed) does not help: only keeping to my purpose – that is, the purpose for me – satisfies the demands made on me.*

In practical terms, the first thing is to have a bath (and in this case wash off the morning’s sewer-clearance stains): I believe that the Bath used to be as much a religious, ritual purification as a method of personal hygiene, or more so, in some periods.** Certainly its psychological effect at the appropriate moment can be considerable.***

The second (yes, second, in this particular practice) is to consider God. In this context, God need not be defined except as that central source out of which comes goodness – that inner point of peace. It is not necessary to enter in to theological or scientific argument as to the existence of a personal, or even a creator, God.

And the third is to get back to the work of the purpose set for you.

*Also, get enough sleep: early to bed (yes, and early to rise).

**[In the first draft of [1] there was some discussion of this, which (along with the episode in which the discussion featured) was (correctly) deleted before the first typescript]

***[A former Vice-Chancellor (ie effective head) of the Chancery Division (ie a senior judge in England and Wales) used to conclude his list of guidelines for law students with the importance of regular baths, and not solely in the interests of personal cleanliness.]

[& cf New Scientist Daily email 23102018: 'Hot baths could improve depression: Treating mild depression could be as simple as a long soak in a hot bath. A small study has found that afternoon baths just twice a week produce a moderate but persistent lift to mood. The size of the benefit was similar to that seen with physical exercise, which is a recommended therapy for mild or moderate depression. The method could work because raising body temperature in the afternoon helps restore the normal circadian rhythm of body temperature, which is often disturbed in people with depression. The baths also improved people’s sleep patterns.']

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