From postmodernity to final participation: talking Owen Barfield 

This was a terrific conversation. I learned a ton. I'm still reading Mark's book as I grapple with other Barfield essays. Really helpful and wonderful stuff.

Awesome!

Thank you, Mark - brilliant and illuminating, as always.

Great conversation! I just ordered your book. Thanks

1:23:23 In order to enter the world of the apologetic style proofs for God/Faith is that you have to enter the mechanistic world. "The price for the proof is that you get alienated." 100% Perfectly, concisely said. That's a very short way to explain the problem with the modern Intellect of the Christian West. "Reason is valuable when it points beyond itself." Yes!

I haven’t yet finished this conversation but just thought of something I wanted to ask you. Mark, I llistened recently to your discussion on the Unbelievable podcast. Thoroughly enjoyed it and of course have loved learning more about Owen Barfield. I haven’t read anything by him yet but have plans to do so. The more I hear about his ideas of consciousness and language the more interested I become. I wanted to ask you if you have ever heard of the children’s book Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton.it was a favourite here with my youngest daughter and is very enjoyable for an adult as well. I think you might like it.....it’s about a conscious book. I love wandering through libraries and used book stores and this little gem of a book really captures the magic of the written word. I would love to be able to ask Matthew if he was a Barfield fan. I look forward to the rest of your conversation with Michael and I really enjoyed your conversation on Unbelievable.

Thank you for your work. It has helped me to better understand Barfield. "O happy fall" comes from the Exsultet, sung at Easter Vigil Mass, my favorite part of that Mass.

C. S. Lewis talks about Steiner in surprised by joy as well

“Pidgin maths” haha brilliant. I can totally relate to that.

'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - an inquiry into values' is more sophistry than formal metaphysics. A more structured description of the 'Metaphysics of Quality' can be found in his second book 'Lila - an inquiry into morals' (1991).

Mark, have you met Kate Farrell? (www.katefarrell.com/) If not, I recommend you get in touch. She has edited a special issue of the Journal For Anthroposophy dealing with imagination, and Owen's work is a central thread through many of the contributions. Also, I knew Owen in London in the 80s, and would love to chat sometime about this remarkable man....

​ @Mark Vernon I'm reading Eric Fromm's "Marx's Concept of Man" these days, and I found this quote, which sounds eerily similar to Barfield's view. Have you explored the link between Barfield and (the young) "Man, before he has consciousness of himself, that is, before he is human, lives in unity with nature ( Adam and Eve in Paradise). The first act of Freedom, which is the capacity to say "no," opens his eyes, and he sees himself as a stranger in the world, beset by conflicts with nature, between man and man, between man and woman. The process of history is the process by which man develops his specifically human qualities, his powers of love and understanding; and once he has achieved full humanity he can return to the -64- lost unity between himself and the world. This new unity, however, is different from the preconscious one which existed before history began. It is the at-onement of man with himself, with nature, and with his fellow man, based on the fact that man has given birth to himself in the historical process. "

I'm no expert on Plato, but I have been working on the assumption that the inner cave of temporal experience and passion was set against immortal intellectual form beyond. In my mind, perhaps overly simplistically, this directly relates to the subject/object emotional/rational split that runs throughout Western cultures.

Arius Calpurnius PISO wrote the Bible Joseph Atwill

"Christianity being something that's done to you by Jesus" That made me laugh out loud! 😂 It's so true! When I participated, or rather pretended to participate, in the catholic mass, I felt the same way. The dependence on priests makes me feel patronized.

Crows