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percy-l - Re: transcendence and immanence

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Subject: Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion on Walker Percy

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  • From: SrCoyote AT aol.com
  • To: <percy-l AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: transcendence and immanence
  • Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 10:39:21 EST


Oh, shoot. While we're at it, I have a couple of questions myself. I was
tempted to answer the original question of transcendence vs. immanence, but I
can't help but feel that I am not quite grasping Percy's ideas on the
subject. In lost in the Cosmos, he spends a chapter or two on means of
re-entry from the transcendant to the immanent. Made perfect sense to me at
the time, but since I've read it, I've read The Thanatos Syndrome, some Jung,
and some Ken Wilber, and it then seemed to me that Percy was mired in a
separation of self in which he was trying to marry the angelism and
bestialism into one whole being which I thought was ground already covered by
others (such as Jung). So now my questions:

1. He briefly mentions Eudora Welty as a person who's immanent self had
expanded to encompass her transcendant self. He stated that she could finish
writing a transcendant novel and then go make small talk at the local post
office without any problem of re-entry. Isn't that the answer he was looking
for?

2. Is it possible that the whole thing gumming up his search was his
orthodox Catholic view of Christ which made it necessary for an external
salvation by Christ rather than an internal salvation by Self and subsequent
loss of self(in the Buddhist sense)?

Please do not mistake my question as being Anti-Catholic (or Anti-Christian).
And I realize that I may have taken the discussion beyond Percy, but I guess
I am more interested in the Percy-ian view of these questions. He was
obviously reaching beyond an either/or dualism of angelism vs. bestialism,
but I'm unsure of where he was headed.

Thanks.

David Dreith




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