Why Does the Mystic Walk into the Dark Night? Part Two

This is the episode in which I finally get to use the word "Mereology," which is the study of part-whole relationships. The word "holy" came into English through the Proto-Germanic root "haling," which meant whole, but it can be traced even further back to its Proto-Indo-European root "Kailo," which also meant whole but also "uninjured" and even "wealthy." However, the sense in which wholeness connotes being set apart is how it came to be associated with the sacred. Making whole is a semiotic as well as a religious impulse. The most basic religious impulse is to make holy by setting a part and making different. The most basic semiotic impulse is to represent by individuating a conceptual object through the processes of semiotic differentiation. The mystic walks into the Dark Night to differentiate new concepts from the failure of the old.

Baddass vibes mixed by James Reeves of Midnight Radio: jamesreeves.co