Abstract
Arriving at Tucson, Arizona, USA, Gabriel and Tilda fetched their rental car. They had meetings both in Tucson and in Phoenix and had decided to establish Tucson as their base for flying in and out of Germany. Already in the morning after their arrival, they went off to Phoenix. It was a nice day. Tilda was driving. Sitting in the passenger seat, Gabriel was in high spirits while preparing some PowerPoint slides for their Phoenix partners. “The Phoenix workshop will use participatory formats and ‘energisers’ to get everybody going. I will teach you some dances,” he said eagerly. Tilda scowled. “Please don’t. I can do without,” she said.
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Arriving at Tucson, Arizona, USA, Gabriel and Tilda fetched their rental car. They had meetings both in Tucson and in Phoenix and had decided to establish Tucson as their base for flying in and out of Germany. Already in the morning after their arrival, they went off to Phoenix. It was a nice day. Tilda was driving. Sitting in the passenger seat, Gabriel was in high spirits while preparing some PowerPoint slides for their Phoenix partners. “The Phoenix workshop will use participatory formats and ‘energisers’ to get everybody going. I will teach you some dances,” he said eagerly. Tilda scowled. “Please don’t. I can do without,” she said.
Are You Going with Me?
While driving through the sunny Arizona landscape, they listened to some music coming from their smartphones, connected to the car’s sound system. “I like to listen to my rap and hip-hop stuff,” Tilda said, “but what else do we have for later?” Gabriel hastily searched his files. He thought Pat Metheny’s “Are you going with me?” from the album Travels was the perfect choice, especially to match the situation they were in. After arriving, they first checked into their motel, which was quite far away from the meeting venue, which they learnt the hard way after having decided to walk there. They had a lovely workshop day. Their hosts had a huge virtual and augmented reality facility. It was a kind of stage where people could walk around changing things with their body presence. For example, there was a kind of “heat map” where they could virtually take a stroll on the property and where the temperature would change in accordance with where their shadows shifted on the ground.
Their hosts applied these techniques to their projects on heat-management policy in hot and dry Arizona. Fascinating! They also had some fun participating in and interacting with the VR environments. Gabriel taught people a group dance with a pairwise choreography. “Men stand in a row opposite a row of women,” he advised. “Each one has somebody to pair up with directly before him or her.” It was a kind of hide-and-seek dance, quite sensual. Irritatingly, Gabriel ended up forming a pair with their main male host, while Tilda danced with some student assistant. What a waste. They danced around with many red and white balloons in the augmented reality environment, pushing virtual and real balloons up again whenever one came by on its way to the floor. The next day, the group went out for adventure. They were scheduled to visit “Biosphere 2” in a small Arizona town called Oracle.
Methods at Safe Spaces
The drive from Phoenix to Oracle was long, but Gabriel and Tilda were used to long periods of silence in the car and enjoyed it. They drove through the lonely desert of Arizona, admiring the huge cacti. “We should definitely have a dedicated desert walk before returning home,” Tilda said, and Gabriel wholeheartedly agreed. “But that’ll have to wait because today is solely for teaching us to love the nature of our green-blue planet, right?” “Right. But might I still ask about yesterday, Mr David?” Tilda inquired. “Why did we spend our days at workshops where we sang, danced, meditated, played with balloons and engaged in further nonsense? What was this actually good for?”
Gabriel had expected these questions. He said, “Remember the Post-Normal Science Symposium at Barcelona. One of the specific objectives of new science and technology is to empower and engage the expertise of marginalised communities, minorities and other vulnerable populations, right?” Tilda nodded. “How happy, do you think these latter people will be to meet professionals they think to be intellectually highbrow, politicians-in-charge that they see as responsible for their disadvantages, other groups they conceive as competitors for social services, people from industry they distrust because they are considered—probably rightfully—as exploiting their work and so on? And how happy are all those people to talk to any of the other groups?” Tilda shook her head. “Not very happy,” she responded.
Gabriel nodded. “Exactly,” he said, “‘a participatory multistakeholder approach’ sounds nice and easy. In reality, this is one of the most conflict-prone, difficult arenas you can imagine, where different interests and high emotions crash into each other. If we want to create safe spaces for vulnerable people, we need a method to make this a fruitful and successful experience for everybody. You can imagine: At the beginning of such a project, distrust, suspicion, bad moods, depression, low energy, anxiety and hate will be at the forefront of people’s feelings. Not a good atmosphere for discussion.” “Yes, but how can we make this a safe space for everybody?” Tilda asked curiously. “The first approach that needs to constantly accompany any ‘serious method’ is for people to befriend each other,” Gabriel answered. “People need to become friends,” he continued. “This will enable them to listen to each other, to stay patient in cases of dissent and to seek solutions. The best fundament for cooperation is to like others.”
“And why all this dancing and stuff?” Tilda asked. Gabriel laughed before replying: “There is a very serious basso continuo in all of these ‘playing fields,’ Mrs Toelz: This is where we stiffy professionals learn and experience participative and interactive formats that can quickly engage people with each other. It’s autoethnography again. People who dare to move dare to speak. People who dare to move with each other dare to speak to each other.” “Yes, but why are we dancing all the time?” Tilda asked insistently. She was obviously very uncomfortable with that component. “During workshops, as this one here in Arizona, we can test out specific formats: Is this dance low threshold enough to get people into contact with each other? Is another dance doing the trick in a better way? Does it make people feel good and competent? Is it soothing, exhausting or activating? Is it enjoyable to join forces in playful dance? Does it encourage you to be really ‘here in space and time’? Do you feel energised enough to engage in serious discussion afterwards? Are you feeling courageous to speak up in the company of your dance partners? Can you not see?” “Hm,” said Tilda, “what I see is that, so far, we are experimenting with these bedrock elements while pre-empting a safe space method. We do not consider these questions explicitly in all our ‘energising’ methods. We experience the effects and keep them as body knowledge for further use.” She was certainly right. Gabriel agreed. “OK, let’s say that one objective of our India project could be to develop a systematic approach including tested and approved bedrock elements that empower people to become friends with each other.”
“A whole method?” Tilda asked incredulously. “Yes, Mrs Toelz,” Gabriel answered. “Of course, the methods for such a project are more than singing, dancing and making friends. One basic approach was already mentioned between the two of us. It’s autoethnography. Basically, the underlying message is that we cannot take ourselves out of the solution—or the whole process leading to the solution. We need to be so deeply part of the whole enterprise that we are engaged with our full personality. We have ‘to live’ the process.” Tilda was again very suspicious, and with good reason. She obviously thought about her expected role in that.
“I want to read out to you what Bede Griffiths thinks about this,” Gabriel said. He fetched out of his rucksack the book authored by Griffiths titled The Marriage of East and West, which Tilda has not seen before. Then he read out to her a text passage starting on page 152. Though he had read it before, he was a bit embarrassed because it interpreted their intuitive relationship in a way that he was not very happy with:
“What has to take place is a ‘marriage’ of East and West, of the intuitive mind with the scientific reason. The values of the scientific mind must not be lost, but they need to be integrated in the wider vision of the intuitive mind. … Reason itself, the active intellect, is taken up into the intuitive mind, that is, into the reflective knowledge of the self, and reason itself becomes intuitive. … It is the discovery of this infinite, eternal, unchanging being, beyond the flux of time and change, beyond birth and death, beyond thought and feeling, yet answering to the deepest need of every human being, which is the goal of all religion and of all humanity. Here there is no longer a division between man and woman, for male and female are one. Here there is no longer a division between man and nature, for nature and man have found their unity in their source. Here there is no longer a division between classes and races and religions for here all have found the truth and the life for which they were seeking. … the intuitive vision is a vision of the whole. The rational mind goes from point to point and comes to a conclusion: the intuitive mind grasps the whole in all its parts.”
Angels’ Play
Location:
Heaven above Tempe, Arizona. Shared-Office Cloud.
Time:
Real-time GMT, Tuesday, 23 April 2019, 17:06
Players:
The two angels as before and St. Christophorus (SC).
Setting:
Both angels are sitting in their cockpit seats, leaning and giggling over a book and loudly reading passages to each other.
TA:
Here you go: Lady Chatterley sees her hunter in the garden and thinks that he has some nice…. hihihi (nearly falling from its cockpit seat)
GA
(switching its head mike to ‘mute’):
Please! We have been briefed that Pater Bede is a big fan of this D.H. Lawrence. And DHL is even in the Saints Section. Do not make fun of him. This is supposed to be part of the Script literature.
TA
(incredulously checking the Script):
Cannot be. There must be a mistake. A Benedictine monk cannot be the fan of a pornographic writer.
GA
(correcting):
Erotic novelist. And you know the sad story of D.H. Lawrence in this regard. Frieda totally messed him up after he went off with her to Taos, leaving Europe behind. All his erotic dreams and musings ended in impotence. Too bad.
TA:
What are we supposed to do now? How is this sad guy supposed to help us?
GA:
We need (reciting the equipment list) a rattlesnake, a whole handful of Pita Jungle restaurants, cheap motels with Jacuzzis, two seat reservations for the Lufthansa return flight to Berlin, and—oh, no!…
TA
(apprehensively leaning forward, trying to peep at the list):
What is it?
GA:
We need our fighting gear! Script says: Full armour. (disapprovingly watching TA’s delighted grin)
This might set us back for months, and you seem to enjoy it.
Already hectic alarm beeps from all consoles. Both angels in great distress pushing away the D.H. Lawrence book to make space for emergency equipment.
TA
(shaking its head in dismay while checking the incoming emergency signals):
A blue-sky attack! We have not had one for ages. (trying to make contact with the Saints Section to follow emergency instructions) This is an emergency 14 case. We need Christophorus support. Now!
After some discussions with Saints management, St. Christophorus, patron of all travellers, apparates on the cloud. He is the jovial and comforting type who looks perfectly at ease with himself.
SC
(smugly):
Problems with the car?
TA
(rolling its eyes at GA, but reporting politely):
Yes, sir. Enemy has meddled with the artificial intelligence GPS in the car. Enemy has organised a street gang ambush that our charges cannot avoid when they follow GPS.
SC
(defensively):
Everybody follows GPS nowadays. People have unlearnt to navigate complex landscapes themselves. It is really tempting to delegate every challenging decision to machines.
GA
(anxiously):
Can you repair the car navigation system, sir, please?
SC
(scanning GPS programme code, AI systems and projective scenarios, starting to look a little concerned):
That would take me an hour or two.
GA
(even more anxiously):
We do not have that much time. Can you not do anything else? A quick fix?
SC
(musingly):
I can get them out of that car. There is a scenario available that is not perfect.
It still has all the threads, such as criminal suburbs, corruption, blackmail, exploitation, dark streets, long walks and late hours.
Furthermore, it would cost them their car for the night and create some bad moods among them. But at least it would separate them from their car, and they would avoid the bloody ambush.
GA
(encouragingly):
Do it, sir, please. I have Teo, the singing taxi driver, who is one of our field service staff down there, on standby availability for tonight. He can raise their spirits and help out with transfers.
Both angels silently observe the apparition of St. Christophorus’ tow car with all its gear for emergency car repair and wrecking. Everybody is preparing for a long and laborious night shift.
Pita Jungle Detours
Biosphere 2 turned out to be a large science research facility for Earth systems. It included a vivarium, which was an artificial, materially closed ecological system mimicking the real ecological system of planet Earth—i.e. Earth 2. Arizona actually managed to keep a group of volunteers alive there who agreed to isolate themselves for years without contact with the outer world except in an emergency. Biosphere 2 was one of the world's largest facilities for understanding global scientific issues such as climate change, natural resource scarcity and biodiversity threats. It was all about complex systems, but everything was concentrated, like under a microscope or in a burning glass. After the guided tour in Biosphere 2, the group met in the car park to discuss where to go for dinner that night. They decided to return to Tempe and opted for a Pita Jungle chain restaurant that the locals in their little group highly recommended. They started from Oracle driving in a convoy at first but soon losing the others, such that Tilda and Gabriel were again alone on the country roads going through the fabulous sunset of the Arizona desert. Very soon, the sinking sun made space for a gigantic dark night sky with millions of blinking stars. It was beautiful. Coming closer to Phoenix as Tilda drove and Gabriel navigated, they looked for the quickest way to Pita Jungle by using Gabriel’s mobile’s GPS.
Then, a horrible odyssey through the dark suburbs began. Gabriel misread the information on the GPS twice, and they ended up in front of two Pita Jungle restaurants before reaching their actual destination. Tilda was cross with Gabriel for his bad map reading. In the end, he was so frustrated with himself that he let her do both, the driving and the navigation, which got them at least at some point to where they should have gone in the first place. Too bad. The others had long ordered, and they could hardly keep pace with their dinner. This was why Tilda and Gabriel stayed behind the group to finish their meal as the last guests of the restaurant while the others had already said their goodbyes after this very long day. However, it was not over for the two of them. Entering the nearly empty car park of the restaurant, they discovered that their car was gone. They could not believe their eyes. They were totally exhausted, it was very late, they were far away from their motel, it was pitch dark, everybody else was already gone, and the two of them were alone in a foreign megacity, unfamiliar with the local infrastructures and processes. Could it get worse? They were both speechless and perplexed—and that did count for something because usually at least one of them had an idea about what to do next.
They wandered a little around the place where the car had been, checking the dark walls and windows around them. Gabriel then discovered a little sign on the wall saying that this car park was not to be used by the Pita Jungle guests but was reserved for patrons of another restaurant. Pita Jungle guests would be towed away. Every hour in the car park of the towing company would cost 100 dollars. Below, a QR code of the towing company was provided. They were shocked. There had been no sign at the entry of the car park, which was actually the backyard of Pita Jungle. There was a guy cleaning in the other restaurant, but he refused to open the door when he saw that they came from the car park. However, he was only the cleaning boy and would not have been the right person for their complaints anyway. Therefore, it could not be helped: Gabriel and Tilda had to phone the towing company to avoid being ruined by the 100-dollar hourly rate for ‘hosting’ their car. They phoned and got a guy advertising his being in operation 24/7, and they could come and fetch the car any time. The operator gave an address that was just outside Tempe. Gabriel did not know whether it could add to their mounting frustration when they phoned for a taxi and learnt that it would need about forty minutes to fetch them.
At least Pita Jungle was still open, and the restaurant staff let Gabriel and Tilda wait inside while the staff cleaned the place for the night. The waiters told them that what the two of them were just experiencing was actually the ‘business model’ of the other restaurant. It was, otherwise, a complete failure as a restaurant with zero guests and a bad reputation for food. However, the owner of the restaurant was the owner of the car park property between the two restaurants and also owned the towing company. They said he had installed CVT sensors that wait for ignorant victims like them to go to Pita Jungle, which then automatically alert his drivers to tow the cars away. Usually, Pita Jungle would warn their guests against this practice, but tonight they had been very busy, and they thought that Gabriel and Tilda were part of the group that they sat with, without a separate vehicle. The practice of the car park owner was not completely illegal anyway, because there was this mini-sign on the wall as justification. Mood hit rock bottom when the taxi did not even arrive after forty minutes. Instead, the taxi company told Gabriel and Tilda when they phoned again that there would be no service anymore that night. They could not help it: They had to set out on foot in the direction of their motel because reaching the car park of the towing company on foot was out of the question. They silently trotted through the night when suddenly an illuminated taxi turned up with an elderly Latino at the driving wheel.
The USA Case
Teodoro Morales was a Hispanic born in the US whose family originated from Nicaragua, having immigrated in the 1980s. He was on night shift with his yellow taxi. The odd couple wildly waving to get his attention at the kerb of the dark and empty Pita Jungle restaurant were the only late customers to be seen in the empty streets of Tempe. He sighed and caressed the little silver replica of St. Christophorus dangling down from his rearview mirror. He did not like to be called in the streets. It was dangerous sometimes. He approached them with more than a little apprehension.
They could totally understand his precaution; they must have been looking weird. When they told him their story, however, he immediately shared their wrath. “I am Teo, with Latin American origins—though I might not look like it,” he said. “I've had US citizenship from birth and have always been an American. But tonight I am not proud of it. I profusely apologise for my countrymen.” “No need to do that,” Gabriel said. Teo started singing. And he sang all the way driving to the car park of the towing company where they had decided to go despite the late hour, having finally found a mode of transport. However, the closer they came, the less the taxi driver sang. It was the darkest, meanest, ugliest suburb part of Tempe that one could imagine. “Poorest businesses and highest criminal rate,” Teo said disdainfully. Nissen huts and shanties all over the forlorn place, wrecks of cars and scrap all over. When they came to the address given, nobody was there. It was a backyard ring fenced by a big wall with two doors—both barricaded. Phoning did not elicit any response. There was nothing else to do but to give up the car for the night and fetch it the next morning, before the next workshop slot, even though this would cost a fortune in car-park fees. Gabriel and Tilda were very grateful that at least musically gifted Teo had not done what they had asked him to do after they had paid him, namely drive away and leave them to their devices. While they had circled the car park looking for an entry and somebody to serve them, Teo had waited with the motor running, checking how this would work out. He took them in again, mumbling that this was a really bad place. On their way back, they discussed the CVT sensor infrastructure of Tempe. Teo proved to be very knowledgeable. He was obviously a very clever person. Tilda asked shyly, “Why are you driving a taxi? You sound like a traffic engineer.” Teo was flattered.
“I have no education. School was a complicated issue when I was young. I am indeed interested in technology, but school was pretty hard for me. My parents were poor. They had jobs, but because they did not immigrate legally, they always feared being deported. My father worked on construction sites. Hard work and low pay. My mother cleaned the houses of rich people. My sisters and I were left to our own devices. Nobody could help with homework and such. At home, we spoke Spanish. All our neighbours did as well because we lived in a Latino neighbourhood. English lessons at school were difficult. I was only good in math. That is international.” Teo laughed. “Does the government not offer any training programmes for talented people like you?” Tilda asked. Teo shrugged his shoulders before responding: “Being from a poor immigrant family was always a problem. After high school, I tried to get into a public training programme for computer technicians but was rejected because of my bad grades. Private training facilities, we couldn’t afford. It is simply that government could not see talent because of the many obstacles working against me. They could not find me in their databases for any recruitment purposes.” Teo laughed again. “You do not seem to feel bad about that,” Gabriel said, revealing his observation with slight surprise in his voice. “I like to work as a taxi driver,” Teo responded. “I like the job. But I think it is a waste. Instead of designing computer infrastructure for the city centre, I drive around in the suburbs. With a good job, I would pay higher taxes and contribute more to society. I think a good government should make sure that everyone can reach their full potential, because in the long run, it is better for everyone. If a politician would promise that they had a plan for how to organise, for example, more and better education for people like me, they would certainly get my vote. But you probably need a very clever artificial intelligence algorithm to score people correctly!”
Teo’s last words ended as he brought them to the motel, which they reached at a little after 2 am. Teo was singing again when he left them. “He is definitely a candidate for our new project,” Tilda said pensively, “that one on fairness in social service provision that we are planning. How about a US case study on vulnerable people like Teo?” Gabriel nodded. “Splendid idea. I wonder how the US government deals with delivering education services to migrant communities, especially the Hispanic ones, and what the ideas of social justice behind this are.” He made notes on his computer about this when he was in his hotel bed later. “Never ever will I set my foot into a Pita Jungle restaurant again,” Tilda said to her boyfriend on the phone after she had told him the whole story of the evening, though it was the middle of the night. But she was not prepared for the storm that broke loose. “I am worn out with listening to your adventure stories with Gabriel. You are my girlfriend!” Ken was desolate and angry. “What are you doing with this old fart over there?” he asking demandingly. “What an inconsistency! You walk into an artificial habitat mourning over climate change but drive around there endlessly with an air-polluting car! Are you insane?” He accused Tilda of betraying their ideas and their relationship at the same time. It was not agreeable, but Tilda thought she deserved it. He was right. She was cheating.
She had not dared to tell him how she felt about Gabriel, but somehow, he had guessed and was deeply jealous. “You let yourself be manipulated by a member of the ruling class; you even seem to like him.” She had to distance her mobile phone from her ear because he got really loud. “Can you not see what he is doing to you? He is brainwashing you; he is totally turning you around. What about your own insights? What about your personality? Do you want to be an appendix to his corrupted, Americanised world views?” Tilda could not honestly defend herself; he was right. She was only afraid that Ken would start to troll Gabriel on the Internet with dirty emails to administer some punishment. A friend of theirs was very much into darknet cyber services. She did not exclude the possibility that Ken would make use of these while investing a little money to release his wrath. Ken was real. Singing Latino taxi drivers named Teo were just figures in a dream.
Elopement
After two more lovely workshop days, they were quite happy to be set free over the weekend for a sightseeing trip. Their plan was to go to New Mexico to visit Santa Fe and Taos. For Gabriel, it felt like an elopement—not only from work but from megacities such as Phoenix, with heat, pollution, overpopulation, crime, consumption, traffic jams and fast food—in short, civilisation as he knew it. When he talked about that to Tilda, she shared this feeling and completely agreed in his rejection of the present system of civilisation. She talked a lot about the options for an alternative society during the long hours in the car.
Angels’ Play
Location:
Heaven above motorway I-40 E, Arizona. Shared-Office Cloud.
Time:
Real-time GMT, Friday, 26 April 2019, 15:15
Players:
The two angels as before and Bede Griffiths.
Setting:
Both angels and Bede Griffiths are dreamily watching the slow progress of the car as it adheres to the speed limit on US motorways. They are nearly asleep. However, the alarm button is still on red alert. Nobody dares to give way to their desire to take a nap.
TA
(trying to stay awake by way of conversation):
Ho, Father! Have you ever thought of elopement?
BG
(surprised):
But of course, my dear! All the time!
TA
(awake again):
Your holy self? How is that?
BG
(warming to the topic):
As I have written in Essential Writings, on page 95f, in 1930, after my friends and I graduated from Oxford, we were led to reject the Industrial Revolution and to try to shape our lives by a simpler and more traditional way of life. We were almost blindly seeking an escape from the world in which we had grown up and trying to discover a more natural way of life on our own. But since that time, this rejection of the present system of civilisation has spread throughout the world.
Everywhere is a search for an “alternative society,” a way of life that will be more natural and more human and is equally opposed to the capitalist and the communist systems. This is why I eloped from the reigning system in 1930. And I would always do it again!
TA
(mildly):
Father, your elopement ended up in a monastery next door to your hometown. One can say that the church of that time well represented the system that you wanted to leave.
BG:
Yes, I myself was led to the discovery of religion and Christianity as giving a meaning to life and to the monastic life as an alternative way of life.
Yet it was always clear to me that religion and Christianity, and to a large extent monasticism, were caught up in the present system and had failed to offer the way of life which people are seeking.
GA
(reaching down to Essential Writings at its feet, reading out loud):
“In the Roman Empire it was the monastic life which saved the world. It was the monks who fled to the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia and founded a way of life based on prayer and work in conditions of the utmost poverty and simplicity who alone survived the collapse of the Roman Empire and whose teaching and example led to the foundation of monasteries all over Europe, in which the basis of a new civilization could be found.”
This is what you wrote, Father. Do you think monasteries can do this job again today? Can they do something for the world at large and help civilisations to survive by promoting an alternative society?
BG
(only at the surface switching topics):
Monasteries need to be cultural and spiritual frontrunners again. In all topics. For example, the search for an alternative form of energy may decide the future of our civilisation. If an attempt is made to use the natural sources of energy from the sun and water and wind, it may be that civilisation will survive. Monasteries could start to build a spirituality of change around this.
TA
(observing Gabriel and Tilda in the car, pointedly):
Not everybody wants to live in a monastery.
BG
(pensively looking down at their two charges):
I see what you mean. And monasteries are themselves victims of the current system. They need to change too. Otherwise, they will not survive.
GA
(questioningly):
What then to do?
BG
(visionary):
The hope of the future would seem to lie in the small communities that are springing up all over the world, consisting of men and women, married and single, seeking a new lifestyle that will be in harmony with nature and with the inner law of the Spirit. These communities cross all barriers of race and religion and are the expressions of the urges to go beyond the present economic, political and religious systems and to open a way to the future.
TA
(sceptically):
Men and women. Married and single. Crossing everything. Sounds quite flippant to me.
BG
(patiently, having listened to suchlike anxious objections all his life):
No, no, not flippant at all. They can be likened to the monasteries of the Middle Ages, the centres of a ferment that would gradually transform society to make possible a new civilisation.
GA
(curiously):
And Gabriel and Tilda?
BG
(eagerly):
They can go to India. Like I did in the middle of my life. I thought then that I had reached the end of my journey, at least in the world down there, but then The Golden String led me to India, and a whole new understanding of the world opened before me. I will lead them there. They will become sannyasis.
TA
(sceptically):
I doubt it.
“We” and “them”
While driving in the car to Santa Fe, Tilda and Gabriel talked a lot about what kind of life each would actually find desirable. What might an alternative society look like? This hit very close to home because they both had pertinent professional backgrounds and strong opinions, having seen a lot of planetary destruction in their work on many social development projects that aimed to combat social inequalities; violence and war; climate change and ecological crisis; and energy and natural resource scarcity.
“I have already given up on society as it presents itself today,” Tilda opined. “I opt for radical revolution. We need to get rid of the status quo. Forget about collateral damage!” Gabriel was shocked by her radicalism. However, even he felt that she still held back her obviously strong emotions on this issue. He would nearly call it hatred because she despised her fellow humans for destroying nature and for their usual human ways of living together. “Do you want to turn your back on people?” he asked. “Yes, I would like to go to the desert and be on my own. I want to find myself. People can get lost. They are all egoists. I do not care what will become of them. There is no universal solution. Maybe there is a small number of people that are OK. I say ‘small number.’ My close friends. There is a deep gulf between us and them.” Gabriel felt that he represented “them” in Tilda’s eyes.
“I see universalism more as a matter of finding a way of living together as different personalities,” Gabriel said cautiously. He referred to the abundant literature on criticising capitalism and suggesting alternative forms of organising societies to make them more natural and human. “Fleeing to the desert can be a first response, but then you need to go back and change the ways of life for everybody.”
Tilda scowled: “I would not wait for ‘everybody,’ because ‘everybody’ is far too stupid to see sense. If at all, it can be small communities that act like secret societies establishing a new way of life and escaping the lifestyle of the majority.” Gabriel did not agree. “That is not what living in small communities means. If we are going for an alternative society, we go for everybody, not only for a hand-picked few. Small communities will just provide environments where everybody has an own space within, where people know and trust each other. As Bede Griffiths says here on page 7 already, ‘The more universal you become, the more deeply personal you become.’ This is what I will go for.”
Tilda repeated her spite for “everybody.” “The majority is lost and can stay lost as far as I am concerned,” she said. They quibbled terribly over that. “This sort of selfishness is not acceptable to me,” Gabriel objected. “It has never been—this talking about the ‘holy rest,’ predestination and such. Wasn’t it Ernst Bloch who mockingly said that he would rather refute personal salvation than accept that others would be left behind?” Tilda shook her head; obviously she had never read Ernst Bloch. He continued: “I remember how shocked I was when I once saw a drawing in Max Weber’s Ethics of Protestantism about this Calvinistic family father leaving his wife and kids, who clung to his clothes for support, trying to prevent him from abandoning them for what he considered his ‘salvation.’ The painting is subtitled ‘Life, Eternal Life!’ Absolutely disgusting!” Gabriel tried to look up the picture on the Internet to show Tilda, who was driving, but there was no connection on the highway. “It is a deeply resigned, antisocial and elitist way to think about your fellow humans as hopeless leftovers. Who could stand to be saved if your fellow creatures were abandoned to suffer?”
Gabriel was really annoyed and started preaching: “All will be one: Hell will be empty in the end. That is my opinion!” Tilda shook her head at his words before replying: “I will not wait for this illusionary final unity. This is asking too much patience from me for people I actually despise!” Gabriel was really upset. “I do hope that I will never have the cruelty to abandon anybody with the verdict of their being lost. I hope love and patience will always be strong enough in me to go after a person whenever he or she runs into doom. If you stop going after others, stop hoping against hope, you stop being human. I could agree that you can become too weak to persevere, but as long as there is any strength in you, you should go.”
He was very depressed because he clearly saw how far away Tilda was. They lived in two worlds with mountains of separation and differences between them. How could two people who thought they were mutually telepathic have such different lines of thought? He looked sadly at her and then voiced his thoughts: “Can people understand each other at all? Or are we all totally alienated from each other? This would be horrible because then all our work for a ‘world society,’ which is supposed to be a better society for all of us, would be futile.”
“Right,” Tilda said unaffected, “if not even you and I can find a way to one another, then how can we find a participatory approach to understanding and to finding solutions suitable for a plurality of perspectives and intercultural diversities, on a system level?” Gabriel slowly said, pointing to Essential Writings, “I do hope there is a resource that enables us to find solutions to the problems of building an alternative society while respecting high degrees of differentiation.”
Tilda shook her head. She did not buy it. He continued: “Interestingly, Western social philosophy says there is. Our species has a great potential and ability that is called communicative competence, Jürgen Habermas says. But it needs to be displayed in the social world of trust and shared experience that is just at our feet, not in the world of ambition, systemic pressures and power dynamics.”
They discovered the Griffiths text on an alternative society on page 95ff before they finally arrived at Santa Fe. It was sometimes outright funny how even the wording of their discussions was taken up by Essential Writings. In the meantime, they were already used to this type of interplay between text exegesis and their travel life.
Not Going Anywhere
Gabriel and Tilda were booked into two nice rooms in one of the better hotels in town—but still on the outer ring of the Paseo Peralta, the circle road around the city centre of Santa Fe. They met for breakfast at the hotel’s terrace at 9 am. It smelt of pine trees and fresh coffee. Gabriel was already sitting at one of the little garden tables outside on the shady terrace when Tilda arrived with her tablet.
Her face was dark; she was sullen and quiet. Then, she suddenly spoke: “I have talked half the night with my boyfriend on the phone.” “What is the matter?” Gabriel asked. “He is not happy. I had to calm him down by promising that you have no other relationship with me than the one you have with all your other employees.” Gabriel’s smile must have looked quite incredulous. “You know very well that this is not the case. We are in this together,” he softly protested. This did not go down well with her in her current mood. “I do not want it,” she bellowed. Other people looked over at their table. Obviously, she had had a hard time explaining their weekend trip to her boyfriend. For Gabriel, it felt unjust and disproportionate. He was not after her panties, for God’s sake. “I will do the Bede Griffiths project without you. Taos is no longer on our travel route. And I will certainly go alone to India,” he told her while they walked on the baking-hot Paseo de Peralta in the direction of the city centre. He was disgusted: of the place, of her, of the whole situation, of everything. “I want to put an end to all of this here and now,” he added. “Fine for me,” said Tilda.
Freedom and Determination
The journey by car back to Tucson started full of tension. At first, Tilda looked out of the window for nearly an hour. It did not seem as if she was sorry and wanted to talk about their conflict. “Do you see any purpose in life as such?” she began, however. It simply took Gabriel’s breath away. “Of course,” he answered before continuing: “Think of all the revelations and insights that we have had together lately. Don’t you feel the invisible hand leading us like we’re attached to a golden string along a path towards a specific goal?” Tilda was quite concerned. “Do you feel a kind of ‘marching order’ stemming from these insights?” she asked softly. It was time for honesty. “Yes, but I have very ambivalent feelings about that marching order,” Gabriel told her.
He continued: “There definitely is a marching order, but—so far—I only half understand what it is about; and about what I understand, I have very mixed feelings.” “What is it that you do not like?” she asked curiously. “First, I have issues with the mere existence of the marching order as such,” he told her. “I have the feeling that I have no choice. If I hear and understand the marching order, I have to act accordingly, right?” She calmly nodded. “There is no chance to say no—at least not for me. It would run against any feeling of logic, rationality, consequence and sense. It would be horrible nonsense to say no. Therefore, I have an issue.” Tilda shook her head a little disbelievingly before asking, “Why?” “I want to have freedom, to be a free individual with choice. However, I feel like I’m under a sword of predetermination given the powerful marching order with all the evidence it came with.” Tilda looked unconvinced. Gabriel did not know whether she understood half of what he said. Maybe even he did not understand it himself.
“What is the other issue?” she asked softly. “That concerns the content of the marching order.” “What is wrong with it?” she asked in a surprised voice. “I am not overly happy with what this seems to imply or about the direction it’s taken,” Gabriel smugly said. Of course, this was evasive, and she was after him in no time. “What do you mean?” The next bit was painful and embarrassing. “As far as I understand, all of this is about unity, about overcoming the dualities of this world, which are structured in archetypes. That is, male/female, rational/intuitive, active/passive, young/old, rich/poor—you get the idea. Categorisations. These dualities appear everywhere: in an individual person, between people in social relationships and between whole societies on the system level. You and I represent a nice range of archetypical dichotomies on the middle level, sitting at opposite ends of the continuum in many areas.”
She looked a little insulted after this revelation. “What do you mean: I am female, intuitive, passive, young and poor? How about also stupid, small and ugly?” Gabriel continued as if she had not interrupted because in his opinion, she had missed the point: “If I am not totally wrong, the idea of Pater Bede seems to be that integrating dualities on the personal level happens via meditation, and integrating them on the system level happens via sociocultural development work. The main level, however, which works like an activating and enabling joint for the other two, is the relationship level in the middle where dualities are remedied, overcome and reconciled by love between people, a man and a woman.” Now it was out.
Tilda was very quiet for a long time. Gabriel was nervous. It sounded horrendous. “What about love between gay people? What about transgender people? Aren’t you—and thereby Bede Griffiths—terribly dualistic?” she asked, to Gabriel’s surprise. He had not thought about that. But then he responded, “Male and female stand for archetypes. For any dualities that separate people and that need to be overcome.” “I do not want an archetype making an example out of me and messing up my life!” Tilda exclaimed. “In the meantime, I think that this is exactly the imposition that is asked of us—not more and not less,” Gabriel said, and he felt forced to continue: “If this is really true, we would need to act like a secret society because this is the totally weirdest mandate I have ever heard of. People would think we are wildly and utterly mad, and they would be right to think so.”
“What about faith?” Tilda asked. “I mean sexual faith. You are the religious and Catholic type, aren’t you? This is what they teach in church if I am not mistaken, right? It is one of the Ten Commandments: Do not have sex with somebody other than your spouse. This is why matrimony is sacrosanct. I am surprised. Imagine if my boyfriend did such a thing as you seem to consider. I would immediately leave him to his devices. If I cannot rely on him, he can go where he likes. If you are with somebody, you are with them and nobody else. If you are together with somebody, you stick with them. Period.” “Yes,” Gabriel agreed, “I am a happily married person. I appreciate monogamy. It sounds all wrong that adultery is the recommended way forward in spiritual terms.” What he did not say was that he was not even hopelessly smitten with Tilda in terms of attraction. Of course, he did not tell her. This would have been mean and tasteless. But why her of all people?
“All these things about male and female archetypes, about reconciliation, about snakes in the desert, about D.H. Lawrence and so on—I beg your pardon!” Tilda exclaimed. For her, it was very clear that Gabriel was just a slave to his dirty desires. That was all this fishy talk amounted to in the end. “I am not happy about all of this either,” Gabriel confessed, trying to convince Tilda. “Maybe, I am too morose about my great revelation story, and other people would rejoice to have half of it. However, I feel like heavy burdens are resting on my shoulders. And I have to be faithful to the message I have understood. Everything else would be a mortal sin.” Tilda laughed. But then she saw that he meant it. “You are a strange man” was all she said, though all she wanted in that moment was to escape this weirdness that Gabriel was constantly bringing up, like a bloody volcano spitting magma.
The Serpent in the Wilderness
Angels’ Play
Location:
Heaven above motorway I-10 W, Arizona. Shared-Office Cloud.
Time:
Real-time GMT, Sunday, 28 April 2019, 13:27
Players:
The two angels as before, Bede Griffiths and D.H. Lawrence (DHL).
Setting:
GA, BG and DHL debate in front of a small herpetarium that GA has extracted from the big gearbox containing animals. They look at a collection of snakes in different shapes and colours—all eager to help.
GA
(disapprovingly):
I do not think that we need to take the biggest rattlesnake we have to support the Script! It is much too dangerous. Imagine they get bitten in the middle of the desert! Can we not do with a grass snake?
DHL:
I insist on the rattlesnake. We cannot have a harmless and meaningless German garden snake. We need it standing as a symbol of sexual power, seduction and big emotions.
BG
(supportive):
And of salvation and elevation too. It is in the Script, and they will read that passage shortly. Do not forget that. You cannot take the grass snake as symbolising salvation, sorry (the grass snake huffily recedes between some stones in the herpetarium).
GA
(hesitatingly):
OK, but only one rattlesnake, and you must promise that it will not do anything but look impressive.
BG
(grinningly taking an Indian pungi out of the pocket of his white Camaldolese cowl):
No problem, I was a great snake charmer during my time in India (with this, he starts playing the pungi, and the rattlesnake leaves the herpetarium to follow him under the admiring eyes of DHL).
The Rattlesnake
“It is more than obvious that hiking in a desert at a national park of Arizona belongs to the must-dos when you are visiting the US,” Gabriel said to Tilda on Monday morning when they discussed what to do with the time before their next business meeting in the late afternoon. Tilda was enchanted; she liked hiking. They went to the Rincon Mountain Visitor Center in Saguaro National Park, where they were precautioned by park rangers against sunstroke, wildlife, heat, thirst, Western diamondback rattlesnakes, insects, prickly plants, black bears and further dangers on their way. Then driving away on the Scenic Loop, they looked for good hiking opportunities, starting with the Cactus Forest Trail, to go to Mica View. It was hot and sunny. The high saguaro cacti, with their mighty arms, were impressive. They saw many strange animals, such as roadrunners and Gila monsters.
Then they saw it. “Stop!” Gabriel shouted. Tilda hit the brakes, and they stuttered to a stop in the middle of the road, just half a metre away from a gigantic snake. “There it is! How well adapted it is to its environment: perfectly blending into the colours of the desert road.” Gabriel bent his neck far out of the car window towards the snake to take a closer look. “Don’t,” Tilda anxiously objected. “I have never seen a living venomous rattlesnake up close before,” he protested. It was fascinating. The animal was about two metres long and maybe about four kilograms.
Tilda, however, was wildly afraid, though they were sitting in the car. Gabriel completely lowered the car window to lean out of the car to take pictures, which had him in proximity to the serpent’s head. Tilda screamed: “Come inside again immediately! It can jump into the car!” “You are exaggerating.” Gabriel could not get enough of admiring the long body of the light-brown snake and the diamond shapes on its back.
The snake actually rose its triangular head towards the car window, letting them see the vertical pupils of the eyes and the lambency of its tongue. “Close the window! Snakes that hiss with their tongue are getting aggressive,” Tilda said, and she pawed at his arm. Because of this, the only picture he got of the snake’s head was a bit shaky, which was a pity. Then the serpent turned its back to them, rattled with its black-and-white tail towards them and slowly glided into the grassland border of the road. Not hurrying by the way, so Gabriel could at least take a last good picture of its receding back. What an adventure!
Following their sighting of the rattlesnake, it was quite difficult to convince Tilda to step out of the car again to hike up the mountain woodlands full of scrub oaks and pines. “Pater Bede has talked about one snake, not about two or many,” Gabriel complacently told her. “Therefore, we are already past danger and can rely on having snake-free trails from now on.” Something in this reasoning convinced her because she had read the same passage herself. They looked for the entry to the Loma Verde Trail but somehow missed it, ending up at Javelina, where they simply went right up into the mountains following a small steep path upwards through forests of ponderosa pines and Douglas firs. It was beautiful, and Pater Bede proved as good as his word: They did not meet another rattlesnake—much to Gabriel’s regret.
After the snake experience, he was more convinced than ever of what he called his marching order. How he would have loved to discuss this with someone clever. However, there was nobody that came to mind. How could anybody understand what he was supposed to do with Tilda? He could hardly understand it himself. It was rationally absurd and morally objectionable. He could not tell anybody. He could not communicate this to anybody. He wanted to be considered neither as absurd nor as a hypocrite who looked for a good excuse to have an affair with a young woman outside marriage. He hated illegitimacy and lying. It seemed that ‘fighting dualities’ could happen only as a secret between Tilda and him. It would get them into trouble because this was not only about spirituality but also about emotions, which were not really in Gabriel’s field of expertise. This story did not offer any bridge to ordinary life. No safe grounds. The truth happened where nobody was before. Gabriel did not expect to receive any understanding or acceptance for this. The marching order was an imposition—not only with regard to legitimacy and communication but also in terms of freedom and choice. If it had to be done, why with Tilda of all people?
Tilda was turning in her bed that night. She was deeply disturbed by the snake experience and the conversation around it. “Here now finally comes Gabriel’s full cruelty in the disguise of religion,” she thought bitterly, “and he cannot even see or consider it. He is totally selfish and can only see himself and his own narrow world. Not for a single second does our having a serious relationship come to his closed mind. I mean, one out in the open where he stands by me and I by him. It is not even an idea for him to consider the real consequences of his own bloody story. If this whole revelation stuff is substantial, he should leave his wife and start afresh with me. His bias and discrimination against people like me have sunk so deep that he is not even aware of having them.” She felt bad and belittled. Fucking idiot. He made her sick. He was the one working against his so-called marching order, not her. “He talks about ‘secrets,’ which means he thinks we should have an affair in secret. No way. I am taking love serious for a change. Am I nobody? Why does he think he can diminish me like that? Am I only good enough for the dark corners?” She sobbed into her pillow until she fell asleep, exhausted.
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Ahrweiler, P. (2024). An Alternative Society. In: Angels and Other Cows. Artificial Intelligence, Simulation and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60401-0_4
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