Eco Mudra
January 29th, 2006
On the drive home on Friday, I was something was nagging me regarding the post about kinesthetic cues and cognizance of action. I’d missed something, some illustrative example of consciously utilizing mudra to trigger mental set changes.
The example was an activity of Umberto Eco. (Which, if you haven’t read either Foucault’s Pendulum or Name of the Rose, do yourself a favor and buy them. Trust me, you’ll either want, or more likely, need to read them more than once. Positively a brilliant mind of our times, and germane to the current reflection on symbols as he’s a professor of semiotics. Eco has three separate rooms, on three different floors if I recall correctly, in which he writes. One contains only pen and paper, one his typewriter of choice, and one a computer with a words processor. In an interview he reveals he uses each one for specific purposes, that each medium lends itself to different styles, modes, or discourses. Furthermore, he actively chooses his environment to suit the narrative he intends to pen.
Eco is using mudra, a physical action, to alter his mental chemistry. What more is this than a personal adaptation of esoteric or hermetic alchemy?
Yup, that makes that last post feel a bit more concrete.
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