From: Daniel Sapen [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
        Subject: Re: art-link-letter

        The paper is "Bion's transformation in O and the Concept of the
        Transcendent Position", James Grotstein.  It can be found at:

        http://www.sicap.it/~merciai/bion/papers/grots.htm

        His language and his descriptions are compelling.  he puts Bion's
        F(aith) in the context of an unconscious thinker - the dreamer of
        dreamwork-alpha - who can reconcile divisive categories of language and
        thought in order to offer the conscious psyche an"intuition" of an
        ungraspable reality.  This is an oversimplification, and I recommend
        reading the paper and absorbing it for yourself.  I'm very curious to
        hear more impressions.

        Dan


        On Jul 9, 2004, at 7:38 AM, Murray Schwartz wrote:

        > From: francina valk [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
        > Subject: Re: art-link-letter
        >
        >
        >         Daniel wrote about  his reading a James Grotstein paper on
        > Bion's elaboration of Klein's P-S to D. Though I am not familiar with
        > Grotstein's work I  think understand the latter's (Daniel's version of
        > it) interpretation of the cyclical movements of the psyche.
        >         But I have some questions about the rest of the story:
        >
        >         <<<<The self-sustaining capacity of this dynamic is F - a faith
        >> that there is a supra-ordinate COHERENCE that, beyond any sensuous or
        >> factual/particular formula, is felt to reconcile, resolve and unify;
        >> the sense that the confluence of fact and imagination can be relied
        >> upon to have a foundation and a teleological relation. ""
        >>>>>
        >
        >         What does Gr.mean by 'faith'' : assumption, perhaps, or
        > mystical (non-conscious?) ''knowing''?
        >         Suppose Gr. 's hypothesis is right about the nature of the
        > psyche doesn't he conflate the nature with the methodology? And, to
        > return to our question why we tend to think within the context of
        > epistemologies:  is that 'faith', or assumption the agent of our
        > thinking in epistemologies? Though I admire the imaginative powers of
        > Gr. :
        >
        >         "for Grotstein, part of a picture in which ordinary thinking
        > is the barest skin on a corpus of dreamwork that generates all meaning
        > - a greatly expanded basis for understanding the ucs, thinking,
        > creativity, psychoanalysis and pathology"
        >
        >         I simultaneously feel I have to read more to accept his
        > imaginative constructions. Could you give the title of the paper you
        > read? Greetings, Francina.
        >
        >
        >
        >         ----- Original Message -----
        >         From: "Murray Schwartz" <[log in to unmask]
        > <mailto:[log in to unmask]> >
        >         To: <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> >
        >         Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 3:16 AM
        >         Subject: FW: art-link-letter
        >
        >
        >> From: Daniel Sapen [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
        >> Subject: Re: art-link-letter
        >>
        >> Francina  -
        >>
        >> Interestingly, just moments ago I was  reading a James Grotstein paper
        >> on the transcendent position and  Bion's O.  He presented Bion's
        >> elaboration of Klein's P-S to D thus:  there is a cyclic movement,
        >> dialectical, if you will, in which a psyche able to emerge from the
        >> insular P-S position, offer the beta elements (inchoate impacts
        >> between
        >> itself and unprocessed Reality)  up  through K (knowledge) and
        >> achieving a provisional clarity, of psychically functional plateau;
        >> facing again the compromise nature of this plateau, consisting of
        >> given
        >> mental object - a known thing - this psyche can retreat to a P-S state
        >> in which its "autochthonic" nature - its private, schizoid "home base"
        >> for dreamwork - can prepare for the next imaginative apprehension of a
        >> bit of O. The self-sustaining capacity of this dynamic is F - a faith
        >> that there is a supra-ordinate COHERENCE that, beyond any sensuous or
        >> factual/particular formula, is felt to reconcile, resolve and unify;
        >> the sense that the confluence of fact and imagination can be relied
        >> upon to have a foundation and a teleological relation.  This coherence
        >> is the source of all the higher-order aspects of psychic activity;
        >> also
        >> for the most basic sense of continuity and living integrity.  This is,
        >> for Grotstein, part of a picture in which ordinary thinking is the
        >> barest skin on a corpus of dreamwork that generates all meaning - a
        >> greatly expanded basis for understanding the ucs, thinking,
        >> creativity,
        >> psychoanalysis and pathology.
        >>
        >> Its exciting to consider!
        >>
        >> DS
        >>
        >>
        >> On Jul 7, 2004, at 7:31 PM, Murray Schwartz wrote:
        >>
        >>> From: francina c. valk [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
        >>> Subject: fwd:art-link-letter
        >>>
        >>>
        >>>         Dan Sapen wrote<<<I've been thinking about the concept of the
        >>> epistemophilic instinct, and the notion that there is a "drive"
        >>> towards coherence, or toward integration, a dynamic center of gravity
        >>> for thoughts.>>>
        >>>
        >>>         What a refreshing and interesting thought! His message
        >>> obviously refers to previous mailings I have not read. To me the
        >>> question calls up the mind/body relation As the (sound) body is a
        >>> coherent , selfregulating integrated system, a biological
        >>> ly/chemically integrated whole, and, as such ,able to exist in
        >>> 'reality', why would n't the mind  'take' that coherence (on whatever
        >>> level or context) as a (the only??) condition for/or principle of
        >>> 'reality'? The difficulty is that this happens on a non-conscious
        >>> level thus becoming a non-conscious criterion sine qua non for what
        >>> is
        >>> ''real', even in madness, and art. A second thought that crops up is
        >>> the book Genesis which, in its first chapters tells us about the
        >>> creation of the world representing that process in terms of a logical
        >>> succession of events gradually growing into a coherent whole, ready
        >>> to
        >>> receive another coherent whole: Man. In other words: one of the
        >>> oldest
        >>> myths about the creation of life illustrate the tendenc!
        >>> y Dan writes about. I see the artist as some one artistically (like
        >>> Dan does philosophically) sensing   what most people do not realize,
        >>> recognize, and by representing images questioning the drive to
        >>> coherence, to shock their audience into uncertainty and perhaps
        >>> awareness, but I think even that artistic pursuit is not a conscious
        >>> one.  Francina
        >>>
        >>
        >