DIE SCHERE #13: Notes

[Rebing@t-online.de (Rebing)]

DIE SCHERE #13: Notes
Again EJ characterizes, with fresh images (the rings spreading round a stone 
dropped in water, traffic signal, uneasiness of someone just falling ill), the 
ambiguity and the disquieting effects of the spreading preference for the idea of 
the environment. This idea is not like a signpost indicating clearly which way to 
go. It is rather like a signal emitting in all directions premonitions of danger, 
vague and potentially fatal. 
It should be noted here that EJ, like in the preceding aphorism, is not out here 
for debunking the idea of protecting the environment. Like with astrology in the 
first part of AN DER ZEITMAUER, he avoids an evaluation of the term at hand 
itself. Rather, he asks what the current inflation of the term signifies. When 
more and more people are convinced that the environment (or astrology, for that 
matter) is paramount, the augur feels this is a challenge to read it as a sign of 
the times, as indicating a sea change deep below the surface. And again, as with 
that ideal being a new golden apple of Eris  that will cause new conflicts, it 
can portend anything, as he says here, preferably fatal developments. 
In the second and third paragraphs EJ presents a generalized justification of his 
auguring in matters of the environment. But here as ever so often he offers 
images again: before the avalanche comes down single rocks come rolling, someone 
susceptible to imminent weather changes feels the disaster coming before anything 
unusual is visible or audible. Granted, you might be able to see and hear further 
on such a fateful day, but such abnormalities are merely concomitant with or 
consequences of the climatic change. 
These are images taken from nature but designed to characterize the signals 
preceding an epochal change in history. Reading such signals, as the last 
paragraph defines, may be either a prediction or a prophecy. The former, 
remaining within the confines of measurable calendar time, can be corroborated or 
refuted by measuring and comparing. The prophecy, however, creates new data, the 
prophet being merely a tool or mouthpiece of a higher power. 
It seems to me that EJ is neither predicting nor prophesying here though assuming 
the posture of the augur. He is meditating on historical phenomena which, as he 
senses, indicate a change in the course of history. However, his general theory 
of the history of man, the planet and the universe, which he has more explicitly 
developed elsewhere, e.g. in the texts selected and commented upon by Bertil, 
influences perceptibly his reading of those signals. But like Bertil I prefer to 
proceed cautiously, to collect a lot more data doing a lot more of close reading 
before I would venture to expound that theory. 

Günter Rebing