aphorisms - E.M. Cioran

amongst the thinkers of 20th century europe
e.m. cioran ranks with elias cannetti as a pioneer
of thinking beyond the scope of existentialist nihilism

a mind that seeks to disturb and offend
and is doubtless so gutwrenchingly opposed to
the tradition of philosophical and theological speculation
so as to make himself all but irrelevant
for even while dismissing a life of faith
he abhors the "petty" atheism of his age

however, it is that shred of relevance that we must look to

in the next few posts i intend to comment on
some of his aphorisms
found in his book THE NEW GODS
-translated from the french by Richard Howard

"strangled thoughts"

think of god and not religion, of ecstacy and not mysticism.
the difference between the theoretician of faith and the believer
is as great as between the psychiatrist and the psychotic.

it is nothing less than vogue in our day
to disavow organized religion
- individual freedom or we should perhaps say
'the illusions of individual freedom'
have granted us a level of practiced ignorance whereby
it is a matter of popular expression
to insist that one is "spiritual" and not
"religious"
some of this comes no doubt
from having been reared in a context of
what may have seemed an oppressive and stultifying
religiosity
and i would be the last to suggest that this cannot happen
(however i would attest to my own upbringing
as being rather healthy sort of roman catholicism)

a big theme for cioran seems to be desire
he returns to the word and the idea often
generally in the sense that it is a little understood
human motivation
while in his eyes it accounts for almost everything

thus, to proclaim ecstacy over mysticism
is a way of wrenching the reader out of
some preconceived category of religious experience
which could be expressed
or pursued for the sake of knowledge

any practice is bound to be confronted
with its limitations
and even this ardent denouncer
of what appears to be shallow preoccupations with
what nobody understands
wants the stakes to be higher than mere study

to apprehend the experience of ecstacy from the position
of objective deliberation is a way of falling sadly short
of the object
but cioran at least wants to say
"if you're set on the religious path
don't go in for half measures" (my paraphrase)
if the heart desires to "know" god
then how could the heart possibly be satisfied
with merely knowing some things about the being we call
god

it would seem then that cioran acknowledges
that tendency in the human being
to want to know of a life beyond the
world of perceivable reality

he would
it appears
laugh, indeed scoff, at the scholarly attempts
of theological thinkers
and at the same time
turn to the old woman saying her rosary
alone in an empty church
and be struck with a sort of unimaginable
admiration

it occurs to me then
that he is lingering quite close
to the theological propositions held
under
the heading of "divine eros"
a theme which has surfaced in
a number of theological thinkers
and explored most recently
(20th century) by
hans urs van balthasar

and is the overarching theme in
discussing the religious significance
of the celebration of the easter passion

one cannot help but be a little amazed at
the efforts of a mind like e m cioran's
for he comes very close to the
expressions of people like john of the cross
and theresa of avila
and others who have felt afflicted with the tendency
of the soul to seek god
indeed it is perhaps a useful way
of reading the psalms
as expressions of a soul
afflicted with god

i read something very close to the
passionate expressions of darkness
of spiritual writers in cioran when he utters things like -

"incurable - an honorific that should be applied to only one
disease, the most terrible of all: desire."

his is not a skepticism which merely wishes to defy
on rational grounds
rather he takes human nature fully into account
and articulates ideas which arise in us
from the bowels of our darker understandings

i will leave you today with a testimonial -

"Skepticism is an excercise in defascination."