I make no bones of the fact that the following essay was rejected out of hand by a psychical research journal of record for being ‘philosophical heavy’ (sic) after what must have been a thorough reflection of 36 hours or less over a weekend. Familiarising myself since with the conventions of that publication it’s obvious why such an – admittedly convoluted – exercise in philosophical critique would be out of synch with the static cognitive ideals which govern such research. There was really nowhere else I could have gone with this material and in response to the rejection I uploaded a pdf of the essay to academia dot edu. I’ve come to realise that that platform still presents insurmountable barriers to many, requiring an account to be opened, so I’m belatedly uploading the pdf here so it’s more accessible. As with anything Microsoft Edge-related, caution should be exercised – don’t (as I nearly did) accidentally set it as your default browser!
Here’s the abstract:
This essay investigates the anomalous character of two neurological episodes undergone by the author. Their perceived correspondence with periods of directed focus on archaeological and topographical themes has connotations beyond their ostensible neurobiological origins. These heterogeneous elements comprise a dynamic experiential complex, implicated in the induction of meaningful coincidence. The nonidentity of this indissoluble, contradictory ‘something’ with the static cognitive ideal of the concept elicits an approach informed by principles of philosophical presentation elaborated, respectively, by Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) and Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969). I draw on their theologically inflected attempt to retrieve the truth content in the object, which eludes identification and classification in customary philosophical and scientific determinations of the object of knowledge. That the proper approach to the unknown object is, rather, a self-forgetful immersion in it, and possession by it, implies a mimetic style of interpretation that takes shape immanently to the strange encounter with phenomena. Attempting to glimpse, in their subsequent development, essential qualities in the sphere where neurology and topography coincide, I stage a retrospective choreography of individually opaque elements, to spark ‘auratic’ moments of sudden reciprocal insight, illuminating the transitory promise of fulfilment which is repeatedly broken to preserve its truth. For Adorno, the immediate, definitive resolution of tensions riddling this constellation is impossible in the non-redeemed world. Hence, descending into the abyss of significances, I trace intimations of a latent transcendence, which has found refuge in art and registers in anomalous experience, its evanescent glow imbuing the ‘esoteric’ form of this essay.
The Grammar of Matter 