The Silent Orgasm: From Transpersonal to Transparent Consciousness

Rating:
Summary: All about wonder
Review: This is a philosophy book along the lines of Descartes' meditations. The author has not divorced his personal identity from his logic. The title seems a bit misleading, but probably intentionally so. Nitschke wants to be sure no one mistakes his desire to put passion back in philosophy. Perhaps Nitschke has reworked 'dispassionate knowledge' into 'silent orgasm.' Dispassionate knowledge seems safe and familiar. The same cannot be said for 'silent orgasm,' but how different are the two terms?

Nitchke asks if we can ever separate knowledge and passion. Prior to Kant and the rise of university philosophers, the passions were always understood to be essential to the search for knowledge. Descartes names wonder as the first of the passions, a prerequisite for any learning. The passion of wonder has always been described by scientists and mathematicians as the heart of their experience of knowledge. Philip Fisher in the Vehement Passions claims a similar role for anger, fear, grief, and shame. Thus Nitschke's comments are in stark contrast to the idealism of Plato and Kant, where the passions preclude clear thought and 'true' knowledge.

Nitschke evokes an understanding of knowledge in terms of meditation, but illuminates 'meditation' in active and passive forms. Using the metaphor of 'hunting', he suggest mankind has long had two styles of seeking knowledge. The hunter can 'chase' the prey or 'be still' and let the prey come to the hunter. Examining these two methods of hunting knowledge, their reliance upon each other and apparent differences, occupies most of the book.

Rather than focus on 'knowledge' as an object or fact, Nitschke grounds his comments upon an assumption that our personal nature cannot be frozen or objectified for personal study. Thus, the existence of the unknowable must be accepted as one of the 'knowns'. The gap between known and unknowable becomes the hunting ground for knowledge. He reviews the Vedanta, Bardo, Yoga and Zen models of consciousness and then contrasts them with Western models. He finds the Western models delusionary.

With the Western models cast aside in favor of a more dynamic and individualized sense of knowledge, Nitschke begins a somewhat Socratic discussion of the relationship between knowledge and orgasm, using tantric ritual for road signs along the journey.