Liber Indigo
Liber Indigo is a delightfully weird book. It has some incredibly concise criticisms of rationalism and is a very scattershot survey of some thinking around the limitations of materialism. Reading it made me want to revisit Against Method, and think about how to think about things beyond the boundaries of rationalism.
The writing is also incredibly clear and compelling, right up to the left turn into discussing magic and mysticism.1 Some of my favorite quotes:
The highest truth cannot be spoken; it must be enacted.
In the act of creation, an artist stands at the nexus of heaven and earth and pulls the unseen into the realm of the seen. This makes the artist an active participant in the construction of the universe, incarnating artifacts of the dreaming universal mind. The act of creation takes nerve, pluck, and audacity. I propose that all human beings, in homage to their inner divine spark, should endeavor to create art of some variety. Further, I suggest that all art should aim ludicrously high in its ambition, for a work of art whose ultimate goal is anything less than revolution is mere decoration. There is no shame, however, in settling for beauty, novelty, and truth when revolutionary aspirations fall short.
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Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy that part to, I even learned some things. But it strains credulity. ↩