The reality that belongs to the realm of mystery—some photos of Grantchester Meadows and Byron's Pool and a insight of Eric Voegelin's (1901-1985)

Being owed a couple of days of TOIL, I took myself off out of town today, along the River Cam, through Grantchester Meadows and on to Byron's Pool—a walk much loved by many Cambridge residents over many, many years. On the way back I stopped for a pleasant hour at the splendid Green Man pub for a pint of English cider and to read over once again some sections of a fine and (to me) inspiring essay by Franziska Hoppen called “A Reflection on Mystical Anarchism in the works of Gustav Landauer and Eric Voegelin” (available freely at this link: https://doi.org/10.16993/bak.f ).

Over the past couple of years I've got know some of Landauer's work first-hand and have been very taken with it—indeed, this was one of the main reasons (along with an essay by Justin Meggitt) for getting hold of a copy of the book—however, until the week before last, I did not know anything about Eric Voegelin (1901-1985). Without Hoppen's essay I'm not sure I would have stumbled upon him and now I find I am excitedly awaiting to read him first-hand too. You will quickly discover that he wrote a great deal but, thank heavens, only last October the University of Missouri Press published "The Eric Voegelin Reader: Politics, History, Consciousness" (eds. Charles R. Embry, Glenn Hughes). Given my words above it will come as no surprise to you that I'm currently awaiting the book's arrival on my doormat.

As usual, during my walk I took a few photographs and paste them here for your pleasure. Along the way the following words by Hoppen (quoting Voegelin) particularly occupied my thoughts . . .

According to Voegelin, “the ultimate, essential ignorance is not complete ignorance. Man can achieve considerable knowledge about the “order of being”, and not the least part of that knowledge is the distinction between the knowable and unknowable.” While the ultimate essence of reality, which has neither cause, matter, form, nor attributes, cannot be known by  humans, the knowledge that can be gained is that of seeing the world no longer as self-subsistent truth, but understanding that its various phenomena and events refer to and reflect the reality that belongs to the realm of mystery.

All photos taken with a Fuji X100F

Just click on a photo to enlarge it