Mythopoetics

  Mi abuelo paterno, ciclista amater por la montañas de Ávila, soldado en la Guerra de Marruecos, después mecánico de locomotoras de Renfe y siempre un hombre bueno en el mejor sentido de la palabra, trabajó 12 horas al día toda su vida, librando un domingo de cada dos, hasta que la gangrena le deboró una pierna y tres dedos del pie de la otra. Su salario apenas sirvió para dar de comer a su familia lo que hizo que mi abuela tuviera que regentar una tienda de ultramarinos en la Calle de la Toledana, tienda adjunta a la casa en la que pasé mágicas temporadas de mis vacaciones infantiles, días fabulosos que me reviven con su recuerdo, las horas en las que disfruté de su compañia con la veneración del niño que se siente en presencia de un héroe legendario y amoroso. Estas líneas son en su memoria. Cada generación se yergue sobre los hombres y mujeres de las generaciones previas, sobre hombros de gigantes sin duda alguna, aquellos benignos titanes que nos han permitido tomar aire, mira...

     The concept of the Unconscious certainly predates Freud. It has been traced back to Paracelsus, but we can find other precursor concepts in the upokeimenon (what lies behind) and in the different formulations of the substance-accident semantic operator used by several philosophers. Advaita Vedanta talks about the formation of waves in the sea, waves that appear and return to the sea without ever ceasing to be the sea. Our most intimate intuitions tell us of a more fundamental reality than those reported by the appearances of consciousness. When I speak here about the unconscious, I do it starting from the theoretical context developed by Carl Jung and Eric Neumann. It is a non-reductionist psychological orientation. Neither is matter reduced to a simple mental or spiritual projection, nor is spirit an emergent property of matter that can be explained in terms of mathematical physics theories. As such, it is in tune with various forms of ontological non...

       To understand and give meaning is to limit infinity. Whether in a model of physics or in an old myth, we limit reality (whatever it is) and only then claim to understand it. To understand is to verbalize, to make Logos, speech, and communication. And to do so, our limitation needs some rules and procedures. That apparent taming of the indomitable Universe is its conversion into a game. Kant said that we understand the universe insofar as we consider it the creation of an unknown creator. This amounts to saying that we understand the universe insofar as we consider it a work of art, or what is equivalent, we understand the universe when we see it as a game. Every explanation has to be made from outside of the explained system if it aspires to more than being mere gibberish. However, this simplistic distinction must be clarified: the game we are talking about, the Cosmic Game, is not a dual-action, there is not a game and a non-game (there is nothi...