Sunday, June 27, 2010

Integration of good and evil in the Mandala (cf. Jung)

[T]he refusal [of the supernatural] is no integration of good and evil. it is choice of constant rotation within a presently achieved flexible circle of ranges of schemes of recurrence, when the invitation to a supernaturally transformed finality is to transcend the circle to a new and higher integration effected by an 'otherwordly love'. Such a choice

{rests on man's proud content to be just a man, and its tragedy is that, on the present supposition of a supernatural solution, to be just a man is what man cannot be. If he would be truly a man, he would submit to the to the unrestricted desire and discover the problem of evil and affirm the existence of a solution and accept the solution that exists. But if he would be only a man, he has to be less. He has to forsake the openness of the pure desire; he has to take refuge in the counterpositions; he has to develop what counterphilosophies he can to save his dwindling humanism from further losses; and there will not be lacking men clear-sighted enough to grasp that the issue is between God and man, logical enough to grant that intelligence and reason are orientated towards God, ruthless enough to summon to their aid the dark forces of passion and of violence. }( B. Lonergan, Insight, p. 729)

This is not to negate, but to relativize, the mandala as symbol of the flexible circle of ranges of schenmes of recurrence. The mandala is a legitimate elemental symbolization of a temporary integration of the various dialectics of contraries that consolidate human development. It becomes demonic when it is willed as constant rotation, and so when it becomes the symbol of a consolidated resistance against the transformative dynamism of thye 'operator'.

(R.M. Doran, "Psychis Conversion and Lonergan's Hermeneutics", in: Sean E. McEvenue, Ben F. Meyer,Lonergan's hermeneutics: Its development and application, 1989, p. 163-164)

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