Esemplasy
“Coleridge [used the word] “esemplasy” [to mean] the gathering (Logos) of diverse things into unity — the Original Unity, the Plotinian One, the One which is not a number. This cannot be defined by contrast to anything else, but is provisionally termed “Mind” by those who have awakened to it. Blake called it the Imagination. Everything that appears, emanates out of it. There is no “external” cause. It isn’t one’s personal discriminating mind, the one that muses about “this” and “that.” But it is not different from that mind. “Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.” [not sure who Bob's quoting here] It is simply awakening to the one mind, which only from the perspective of relativity separates into “enlightened” and “deluded” minds. There is no “meaning” to latch onto. But it is the fulfillment of all our groping after meaning. Meditation is the tool granted us by Buddhas and Patriarchs for exploring it.”
From the Religioblogathon
Winter, 2006
“Esemplastic…a term invented by S.T. Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria. In chapter X of that work he defines it as follows [watch the quotation marks]: “‘Esemplastic: The word is not in Johnson, nor have I met with it elsewhere.’ Neither have I. I constructed it myself from the Greek words, eis en plattein, to shape into one; because, having to convey a new sense, I thought that a new term would both aid the recollection of my meaning, and prevent its being confounded with the usual import of the word, imagination.” We suggest [this is in the context of the fictitious co-authors of Lingerman's Handoracle [[Bob would probably bristle at my use of the word fictitious]] that in Lingerman’s usage one should extend the definition so it reads, “to shape into oneself,” and further that one should think of this as a kind of bootstrap operation, Manchhausen elevating himself by his own pigtail. [This notation extends another 500 words]
Lingerman’s Handoracle
Year????