aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh…………….

Ok. That’s better.

I find I am having to read this book of Versluis’ in the same way I read Bachelard. Let me give you an example from his book.

In setting up the thesis that text has become a primary route for initiatory transmission of esoteric understanding in the Western tradition, Versluis has come up with a three-fold description of readers (i.e. potential receivers of this proffered understanding). These are:

1.Closed readers—those who come to a work with predetermined theses that disallow their imaginative entry;
2.sympathetic readers, who enter into a work imaginatively; and
3.Initiates, who see the work as mirroring a process that they seek to undergo in themselves.

While I agree with Versluis that text is being used as a tool for esoteric transmission, and while I agree that to understand these texts as intended one must imaginatively allow the world entry in one’s imagination, I think number three above would be more accurately stated as

3.Open readers—those who come to a work with predetermined theses that allow their imaginative entry. (And perhaps permanent residence if these readers tend to think of themselves as initiates. –perhaps this last coda is a touch uncharitable of me, but I am irritated–)

And perhaps number 2 might be better if it read:

2.Sympathetic readers, who enter into a work imaginatively but also maintain simultaneously an active recognition that the world of the text is provisional.

OK, Mary, calm down. (Breathe, breathe, breathe….)

Having got that little hissy fit over and done with, I will now proceed to read the rest of the book.