A brilliant lecture and a man far ahead of his time. i just read "Dreamtime" so much of this was familiar to me yet, still, powerful. Every so often the Universe sends a messenger. I pray we listen to this one.
"Great things happen when men and mountains meet". Never was this truer than with John Moriarty. There is something primeval and atavistic in him, calling to us in our " civilised" state.
I recently visited Clogherjordan eco village to study Peramculture. Clogherjordan is the birtplace of Thomas MacDonagh poet ,Irish patriot. I sat on the hill behind the eco village which Thomas wrote about with a copy of Johns work and it suddenly made sense and i took these notes. Bright Angel Trail- Birdsong,i have set foot upon it Birdreign,the fourteenth way of looking at a blackbird Wallace In a Blackthorn-she looking over her fledglings Manannans Song from the sea Alighting to the scent of sea air From a train,silver branch perception Novus Mundus,Bull chews the cud Europa marries Buddh Gaia What would Moriarity think? Bird reign,bright Angel trail Gets up off her tepee floor Stands on a shell,the Camino begins To Buddh Gaia,Triple moon Yellow Bittern wordsmith Booming-Thunder dreamer,Black Elk Black Elk rosary in hand, Labyrinth center-Manannans song From the sea Triple moon Fullfillment of promises Proclamations of a man from Galilee Yellow Bittern,Curlew hills -wha theHeron said Thanks John where ever you are i only hope your work does not cause the confusion St Augustine ' suffered in the future.
I so agree with the story about humans having the sensory narrow light. We humans do not have all the necessary capacity to understand all, possibly. We are only part of a larger picture. We can seek and seek the answer but we'll never reach the end as we need to continually seek. This is part of being human. It may be the end if we do find the answer.
I've just completed reading "living the mystery" (Mark Patrick Hederman) a book which tries to reconcile the scientific and religious and maintains the voice of the 'mytho-poetic' delivers as much value as the aforementioned in living an enriched, full life. Clearly John held that as a core fundamental of his being. Fantastic stuff.
There are a few people in the field in which I'm interested (Philosophy/Theology) that I would use the term genius; Kant, Wittgenstein, Cupitt and I would certainly suggest Moriarty is with them; and yet still widely unknown. Thank you so much for this posting.
Hey, there was a Moriarty lecture on TH-cam until very recently called "Seeking to Walk Beautifully on the Earth" - do you happen to know where to find it? I can't seem to find it anymore.
It seems to have been removed but it's available in the library(Ireland) in a collection called One Evening in Eden'. If outside Ireland it's available at @Lilliput press, I believe.
I've rarely heard a more gently delivered misunderstanding of the nature of humanity and it's relationship to science and technology. I wish I'd met Moriarty in that bog in Connemara so that I could have given him the contradiction he sorely needed. There are precious few of his beliefs about science presented here that bear more than a passing resemblance to the reality of science. When he lay his head down in that hole and sought to find a new mind I'm afraid that what he let go of was his ability to understand what exactly it was he was letting go of. He latched onto that quip from Haldane because he was already confused about the purpose and nature of science. He would have found no comfort or succour in Haldane's company. Haldane was expressing his wonder at the universe, not the fatalism in it's face that Moriarty found. But having lashed himself to that misappropriated understanding he moved from wondering if it were true to declaring it as fact in a matter of minutes. He railed against the epistemology of science but he offered no replacement. What he proposed here was little more than a return to the dark ages. He advocated a halt to the search for knowledge because he thought the work of it had no hope of completion. Let poets and painters and writers and dreamers be given an equal recognition for their efforts, and let _their_ form of knowledge be equivalent to that of those men and women 'in their lab coats'. He pined for us to turn the clock back and halt the Enlightenment as though we might find there more freedom for the artistic mind. And that, I'm afraid, is utter nonsense. In every city, town and suburb can be found a shop for art supplies, and ordinary folk can buy there the technology of art (if he can call a spoon technology then I can call an artist's brush the same). Could Moriarty have been so ignorant of history to imagine that the access to such technology, and the freedom in time and social station to employ it, would have been available to the common folk of the pre-Enlightenment era? Could he really have failed to recognise that the achievements of that Enlightenment he so regretted have produced for us the very environment where everyone is free to be a poet, musician, writer or painter if that's where their inspiration takes them? Has he forgotten that DaVinci was as skilled with the artists brush as he was with the technology of the engineer and scientist? “Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.”, wrote DaVinci. He, at least, understood what Moriarty had chosen to ignore - that art and science have always been complimentary. Both the artist and the scientist are searching for a better, a deeper and a more complete understanding of the universe Moriarty cowered away from in the wilds of Connemara. Science is not the enemy of art or culture, it's an expression of it. So far as anyone can tell right now, in all the vastness of space stretching farther away from us than light can ever travel, both art and science only arise together in one place in all the universe - inside the human brain. "I'm uncomfortable with anything more complicated than a spade" Moriarty says towards the end here, as he tells us of his horror at the notion that we can consider ourselves and the cosmos in mechanical terms. That's 'end-game', he says. And he closed with what he thought was a wish that was unlikely to be fulfilled - for a space to meditate in MIT. That there should exist such a space, so that perhaps in some way the technologists there might not miss the opportunity to experience the revelations he found in the hazel woods. It's a pity he chose to ignore what he feared, because even as he spoke back then in 2003 there were scientists not only meditating in MIT, they were in the process of proving it's effectiveness. Science is no less an expression of our imagination than art is. Science, despite Moriarty's misgivings about it, doesn't fear the esoteric It only seeks to understand it, and surely that striving for hidden knowledge is precisely what he was pressing for here? What Moriarty feared we had lost the opportunity to achieve was already happening even as he stood there squeezing his head in pointless befuddlement. If only he had kept his eyes open he might have put those wild thoughts of his to a more productive use. Instead he hid in the woods playing all three wise monkeys rolled into one, his senses folded inwards. There's a fourth wise monkey that many people haven't heard of because it's only those passive three we're familiar with: Mizaru sees no evil, Kikazaru hears no evil and Iwazaru speaks no evil. The fourth wise monkey is called Shizaru, and he sits with his arms folded imploring us to 'do no evil'. Moriarty seems to think that only by doing nothing we can do no evil, whereas I'd be more inclined to think that to do nothing _is_ to do evil.
Daithi. that is a really well constructed argument and an aspect of Johns thinking that I really struggled with. As a scientist I had long debates with him about how science and mysticism (to some degree) could inform one another. Near the end of his life he did buy into the idea that science could make immense contributions to our enlightenment by enabling better thinking, teaching and inclusion. However, at the heart of his thinking was a deep concern that we do not 'admit' to the animal that we truly are and by not doing that we are at the mercy of animal instincts. Technology by extension, in the hands of an animal, can be a very dangerous thing. I think that is what his ultimate point was. Haldane was one scientist that he references but even the great Einstein had strong arguments in Moriartys favour - 'it is clear that our scientific understanding has far outpaced our humanity'. My own view? Science is wonderful and we should move forward with it. However, we need to temper our scientific pursuits with a greater purpose than just simply the need to know how to control our universe. Its a much longer conversation but I really appreciate your perspective!
Gary McDarby Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, Gary, I may have just missed your response in the new comment system. In any event, thanks for the reply. I can sympathise with that idea of our lack of recognition of the animal part of our nature, the lizard brain, or however you might put it. It's a valuable notion to keep in mind, and one we ignore at our peril. The reverse is equally dangerous, I think. To embrace the our animal nature without the assistance of technology can lead us to draw some faulty conclusions about the world. Before the spread of technology our perspectives were far more inward looking and tribal, and left us blind and deaf to what happened beyond the borders of our attention. Technology has allowed us to open our horizons. Not always for the good, I'll grant that, but collectively it has been favourable, in my opinion. John seemed like a fascinating character and for all that I disagree with him I imagine he would have made excellent company. I'm curious enough now to pick up one of his books when I come across one. That's probably the better way to assess where he was coming from. The sense I got from this talk was that he was warning us against technology instead of advising us to be better stewards of it. Would you have a favourite of his that you'd recommend?
+DaithiDublin Wow your reply is equal to his exploration, he would have loved to have met you. Gathering from your second comment here, you have not read his books, which from a certain point of view, is not really fair to the statement you made above, as his novels are something of an experience, as well as a treatise in themselves. He lived the life as he spoke of, not separate, and not from an elevated point of view, which in itself is to be acknowledged, because walking away from the establishment always comes with a price and a label. Also it would be necessary for you to understand the term "seanchai ". If you understand this I apolgize but if not, you must understand how that role disappeared, and reappeared in this man in a very profound way. This is third way, which you have not spoken of, which is the third option. What I have an issue with what you wrote above, is that you give two options to our reason for exploration, or for being here or for talking about Moriarty and what he got wrong. Two options is very much in alignment with an establishments way of dealing with ideas that cannot be labelled or proved, so usually science throws that into the dustbin of the dirty world of the Arts, as if they too are opposite to one another. First, when you read one of his books, particularly the larger formats in his oeuvre, the 700 pages category, you will find that you drop into a way of being, because reading his books is not for the faint hearted, they are full of way of being that you must partake in, like an experience, he wrote as he lived, and though it is quite cerebral, there are depths in it that only really Joyce knew of, a way with language that maybe Ireland has a way with. A sort of invocation quality, which leaps off the page if you have settled into his unique language, this is especially true with his book "Buddha Gaia". His first book "Dreamtime" is a good place to start, and as you travel through his work, you will realize he begins to talk of personal experiences to make way for his proposals about humanities movements across the earth and its mind. See the way I see it, is Science has much to learn from the artist, but we are at a stage now where a third party must come into the picture, or else we must create a round table, because alas hierarchy in thinking is so like the last 2000 years of weighted specifics...aka one sided, and let us please be honest here, Art was only created to serve the hierarchical aspects of life, its only just beginning to get out from under the wings of the dicatated patrontage or bourgeois tastes. The need of art is for another discussion. If your above statement is suggesting a way for art and science to meet, thats cool. But really I sense you seek something deeper in understanding his work, which would take a journey in Ireland along with listening very deeply to his other talks. He did make the journey to understand literature of all civilizations and countries, and many different avenues, but it was journey back to Ireland that put him in certain repose beyond other writers, because there is something here that is very special, he talks around it, but that is how you do with something that is without name but living. Lilliput Press put together a large CD set that has all of his talks, which will give you an insight to something much deeper about him and his ideas. However, to bring things further, his deeper truth was quite simple, which is in his book "Invoking Ireland" a treatise that delves into the realms of what happened to the soul of the Irish, and this can only be traveled through myth...aka story. I consider story the original medicine, but that would fall into shamanic realms, or tribal realms which science tends not to acknowledge but rather dissect. See some realms belong beyond explanation, and great thinker, a great mystic, a great teacher, does not give you answers, he may give you questions, but alas his truest calling to you will be...get lost in the world and see that all is being...that we are witness to something beyond our reach, and that all we can do in our time here, is participate in ways within our selves to return to the divine. His greatest cry to me, was that he wanted us to come home...you may or may not understand this, but it is the great call amongst us all...maybe Science can answer it...or maybe the harp player can sing its tune..but alas I believe the soul, which cannot be defined or held is just dancing for a time with a purpose only old gods and stars know......
Years later...a good argument, no doubt, but I wonder if you missed the forest for the trees here. His boldest statement, at least to me, was "We are neither morally nor spiritually mature enough to handle fire". As I write this reply on my laptop I can not deny the positive aspects of science. But, I can not deny, in a world becoming more ruined by our misuse of it, the seeming validity of this statement.
@@patrickmac2799 Well said. I would say that John's point with his talks were to set people on the path to Enlightenment and to spiritual growth. To take a look at what science cannot and never will see. As science may provide many things in which we need, and we should be grateful, it cannot provide all which we need and which, it could be argued, are the most important things in life and perhaps beyond life. As an ordinary bloke with a family, just as much a part of western civilisation as anyone else, I find that his work has been of utmost importance to me and hugely important in the awakening of some kind of awareness of something special to pursue and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has John to thank for that.
Outstanding. Moriarty operating at a different level as he usually did.
A brilliant lecture and a man far ahead of his time. i just read "Dreamtime" so much of this was familiar to me yet, still, powerful. Every so often the Universe sends a messenger. I pray we listen to this one.
Being here shows me I'm on a right path
A beautiful mind, a beautiful train of thought.
Thank you God for John Moriarty
Yes yes so yes
"Great things happen when men and mountains meet". Never was this truer than with John Moriarty. There is something primeval and atavistic in him, calling to us in our " civilised" state.
I recently visited Clogherjordan eco village to study Peramculture. Clogherjordan is the birtplace of Thomas MacDonagh poet ,Irish patriot. I sat on the hill behind the eco village which Thomas wrote about with a copy of Johns work and it suddenly made sense and i took these notes.
Bright Angel Trail-
Birdsong,i have set foot upon it
Birdreign,the fourteenth way of looking at a blackbird Wallace
In a Blackthorn-she looking over her fledglings
Manannans Song from the sea
Alighting to the scent of sea air
From a train,silver branch perception
Novus Mundus,Bull chews the cud
Europa marries Buddh Gaia
What would Moriarity think?
Bird reign,bright Angel trail
Gets up off her tepee floor
Stands on a shell,the Camino begins
To Buddh Gaia,Triple moon
Yellow Bittern wordsmith
Booming-Thunder dreamer,Black Elk
Black Elk rosary in hand,
Labyrinth center-Manannans song
From the sea Triple moon
Fullfillment of promises
Proclamations of a man from Galilee
Yellow Bittern,Curlew hills -wha theHeron said
Thanks John where ever you are i only hope your work does not cause the confusion St Augustine ' suffered in the future.
Thank you for posting this. What a wonder!
I so agree with the story about humans having the sensory narrow light. We humans do not have all the necessary capacity to understand all, possibly. We are only part of a larger picture. We can seek and seek the answer but we'll never reach the end as we need to continually seek. This is part of being human. It may be the end if we do find the answer.
God bless you sir, may you rest in peace ,
Thanks so much for posting this. It resonates very deeply with me.
He was a great man
I've just completed reading "living the mystery" (Mark Patrick Hederman) a book which tries to reconcile the scientific and religious and maintains the voice of the 'mytho-poetic' delivers as much value as the aforementioned in living an enriched, full life. Clearly John held that as a core fundamental of his being. Fantastic stuff.
God bless him
There are a few people in the field in which I'm interested (Philosophy/Theology) that I would use the term genius; Kant, Wittgenstein, Cupitt and I would certainly suggest Moriarty is with them; and yet still widely unknown. Thank you so much for this posting.
I've returned again.
Hey, there was a Moriarty lecture on TH-cam until very recently called "Seeking to Walk Beautifully on the Earth" - do you happen to know where to find it? I can't seem to find it anymore.
It seems to have been removed but it's available in the library(Ireland) in a collection called One Evening in Eden'. If outside Ireland it's available at @Lilliput press, I believe.
@@diarmuidlyng8 Lilliput press has a collection of John's stories on compact disc, you can buy it and they'll post it to you.
I have it at home.
I've rarely heard a more gently delivered misunderstanding of the nature of humanity and it's relationship to science and technology. I wish I'd met Moriarty in that bog in Connemara so that I could have given him the contradiction he sorely needed.
There are precious few of his beliefs about science presented here that bear more than a passing resemblance to the reality of science. When he lay his head down in that hole and sought to find a new mind I'm afraid that what he let go of was his ability to understand what exactly it was he was letting go of.
He latched onto that quip from Haldane because he was already confused about the purpose and nature of science. He would have found no comfort or succour in Haldane's company. Haldane was expressing his wonder at the universe, not the fatalism in it's face that Moriarty found. But having lashed himself to that misappropriated understanding he moved from wondering if it were true to declaring it as fact in a matter of minutes.
He railed against the epistemology of science but he offered no replacement. What he proposed here was little more than a return to the dark ages. He advocated a halt to the search for knowledge because he thought the work of it had no hope of completion. Let poets and painters and writers and dreamers be given an equal recognition for their efforts, and let _their_ form of knowledge be equivalent to that of those men and women 'in their lab coats'. He pined for us to turn the clock back and halt the Enlightenment as though we might find there more freedom for the artistic mind. And that, I'm afraid, is utter nonsense.
In every city, town and suburb can be found a shop for art supplies, and ordinary folk can buy there the technology of art (if he can call a spoon technology then I can call an artist's brush the same). Could Moriarty have been so ignorant of history to imagine that the access to such technology, and the freedom in time and social station to employ it, would have been available to the common folk of the pre-Enlightenment era? Could he really have failed to recognise that the achievements of that Enlightenment he so regretted have produced for us the very environment where everyone is free to be a poet, musician, writer or painter if that's where their inspiration takes them?
Has he forgotten that DaVinci was as skilled with the artists brush as he was with the technology of the engineer and scientist? “Art is the queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.”, wrote DaVinci. He, at least, understood what Moriarty had chosen to ignore - that art and science have always been complimentary. Both the artist and the scientist are searching for a better, a deeper and a more complete understanding of the universe Moriarty cowered away from in the wilds of Connemara. Science is not the enemy of art or culture, it's an expression of it. So far as anyone can tell right now, in all the vastness of space stretching farther away from us than light can ever travel, both art and science only arise together in one place in all the universe - inside the human brain.
"I'm uncomfortable with anything more complicated than a spade" Moriarty says towards the end here, as he tells us of his horror at the notion that we can consider ourselves and the cosmos in mechanical terms. That's 'end-game', he says. And he closed with what he thought was a wish that was unlikely to be fulfilled - for a space to meditate in MIT. That there should exist such a space, so that perhaps in some way the technologists there might not miss the opportunity to experience the revelations he found in the hazel woods. It's a pity he chose to ignore what he feared, because even as he spoke back then in 2003 there were scientists not only meditating in MIT, they were in the process of proving it's effectiveness. Science is no less an expression of our imagination than art is. Science, despite Moriarty's misgivings about it, doesn't fear the esoteric It only seeks to understand it, and surely that striving for hidden knowledge is precisely what he was pressing for here?
What Moriarty feared we had lost the opportunity to achieve was already happening even as he stood there squeezing his head in pointless befuddlement. If only he had kept his eyes open he might have put those wild thoughts of his to a more productive use. Instead he hid in the woods playing all three wise monkeys rolled into one, his senses folded inwards.
There's a fourth wise monkey that many people haven't heard of because it's only those passive three we're familiar with: Mizaru sees no evil, Kikazaru hears no evil and Iwazaru speaks no evil. The fourth wise monkey is called Shizaru, and he sits with his arms folded imploring us to 'do no evil'. Moriarty seems to think that only by doing nothing we can do no evil, whereas I'd be more inclined to think that to do nothing _is_ to do evil.
Daithi. that is a really well constructed argument and an aspect of Johns thinking that I really struggled with. As a scientist I had long debates with him about how science and mysticism (to some degree) could inform one another. Near the end of his life he did buy into the idea that science could make immense contributions to our enlightenment by enabling better thinking, teaching and inclusion.
However, at the heart of his thinking was a deep concern that we do not 'admit' to the animal that we truly are and by not doing that we are at the mercy of animal instincts. Technology by extension, in the hands of an animal, can be a very dangerous thing. I think that is what his ultimate point was.
Haldane was one scientist that he references but even the great Einstein had strong arguments in Moriartys favour - 'it is clear that our scientific understanding has far outpaced our humanity'.
My own view? Science is wonderful and we should move forward with it. However, we need to temper our scientific pursuits with a greater purpose than just simply the need to know how to control our universe.
Its a much longer conversation but I really appreciate your perspective!
Gary McDarby
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, Gary, I may have just missed your response in the new comment system. In any event, thanks for the reply.
I can sympathise with that idea of our lack of recognition of the animal part of our nature, the lizard brain, or however you might put it. It's a valuable notion to keep in mind, and one we ignore at our peril. The reverse is equally dangerous, I think. To embrace the our animal nature without the assistance of technology can lead us to draw some faulty conclusions about the world. Before the spread of technology our perspectives were far more inward looking and tribal, and left us blind and deaf to what happened beyond the borders of our attention. Technology has allowed us to open our horizons. Not always for the good, I'll grant that, but collectively it has been favourable, in my opinion.
John seemed like a fascinating character and for all that I disagree with him I imagine he would have made excellent company. I'm curious enough now to pick up one of his books when I come across one. That's probably the better way to assess where he was coming from. The sense I got from this talk was that he was warning us against technology instead of advising us to be better stewards of it. Would you have a favourite of his that you'd recommend?
+DaithiDublin Wow your reply is equal to his exploration, he would have loved to have met you. Gathering from your second comment here, you have not read his books, which from a certain point of view, is not really fair to the statement you made above, as his novels are something of an experience, as well as a treatise in themselves. He lived the life as he spoke of, not separate, and not from an elevated point of view, which in itself is to be acknowledged, because walking away from the establishment always comes with a price and a label. Also it would be necessary for you to understand the term "seanchai ". If you understand this I apolgize but if not, you must understand how that role disappeared, and reappeared in this man in a very profound way. This is third way, which you have not spoken of, which is the third option.
What I have an issue with what you wrote above, is that you give two options to our reason for exploration, or for being here or for talking about Moriarty and what he got wrong. Two options is very much in alignment with an establishments way of dealing with ideas that cannot be labelled or proved, so usually science throws that into the dustbin of the dirty world of the Arts, as if they too are opposite to one another. First, when you read one of his books, particularly the larger formats in his oeuvre, the 700 pages category, you will find that you drop into a way of being, because reading his books is not for the faint hearted, they are full of way of being that you must partake in, like an experience, he wrote as he lived, and though it is quite cerebral, there are depths in it that only really Joyce knew of, a way with language that maybe Ireland has a way with. A sort of invocation quality, which leaps off the page if you have settled into his unique language, this is especially true with his book "Buddha Gaia". His first book "Dreamtime" is a good place to start, and as you travel through his work, you will realize he begins to talk of personal experiences to make way for his proposals about humanities movements across the earth and its mind.
See the way I see it, is Science has much to learn from the artist, but we are at a stage now where a third party must come into the picture, or else we must create a round table, because alas hierarchy in thinking is so like the last 2000 years of weighted specifics...aka one sided, and let us please be honest here, Art was only created to serve the hierarchical aspects of life, its only just beginning to get out from under the wings of the dicatated patrontage or bourgeois tastes. The need of art is for another discussion.
If your above statement is suggesting a way for art and science to meet, thats cool. But really I sense you seek something deeper in understanding his work, which would take a journey in Ireland along with listening very deeply to his other talks. He did make the journey to understand literature of all civilizations and countries, and many different avenues, but it was journey back to Ireland that put him in certain repose beyond other writers, because there is something here that is very special, he talks around it, but that is how you do with something that is without name but living. Lilliput Press put together a large CD set that has all of his talks, which will give you an insight to something much deeper about him and his ideas. However, to bring things further, his deeper truth was quite simple, which is in his book "Invoking Ireland" a treatise that delves into the realms of what happened to the soul of the Irish, and this can only be traveled through myth...aka story. I consider story the original medicine, but that would fall into shamanic realms, or tribal realms which science tends not to acknowledge but rather dissect. See some realms belong beyond explanation, and great thinker, a great mystic, a great teacher, does not give you answers, he may give you questions, but alas his truest calling to you will be...get lost in the world and see that all is being...that we are witness to something beyond our reach, and that all we can do in our time here, is participate in ways within our selves to return to the divine. His greatest cry to me, was that he wanted us to come home...you may or may not understand this, but it is the great call amongst us all...maybe Science can answer it...or maybe the harp player can sing its tune..but alas I believe the soul, which cannot be defined or held is just dancing for a time with a purpose only old gods and stars know......
Years later...a good argument, no doubt, but I wonder if you missed the forest for the trees here. His boldest statement, at least to me, was "We are neither morally nor spiritually mature enough to handle fire". As I write this reply on my laptop I can not deny the positive aspects of science. But, I can not deny, in a world becoming more ruined by our misuse of it, the seeming validity of this statement.
@@patrickmac2799 Well said.
I would say that John's point with his talks were to set people on the path to Enlightenment and to spiritual growth. To take a look at what science cannot and never will see. As science may provide many things in which we need, and we should be grateful, it cannot provide all which we need and which, it could be argued, are the most important things in life and perhaps beyond life.
As an ordinary bloke with a family, just as much a part of western civilisation as anyone else, I find that his work has been of utmost importance to me and hugely important in the awakening of some kind of awareness of something special to pursue and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has John to thank for that.