Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. I finally finished photocopying
the Record Appendix of my appeal: 13 copies of each of 167 pages.
Tomorrow I'll start collating them, and bind one sample volume
to which I can refer as I draft my Brief.

If and when I resume work on my parents' transatlantic
correspondence, I shall prepare for your perusal, a catalogue
of otherwise unidentified personages; and perhaps we can find
some of the helpful individuals whose names you mention.

Your question about an apparent difference in opinion between
us concerning literature, music and/or art as religion, probably
has a relatively simple answer. I can see your point, if one
takes as a paradigm of religion what transpires in the Temple,
in Synagogue, in the village church or in the city cathedral,
in the Quaker Meeting House, at the Holy Roller Revival, or
perhaps even in the Masonic Lodge. Religion, however, assumes
a different aspect, if as I do, one considers it generically
as an integral and indispensable function of the human organism,
comparable perhaps to the immune system, to carbohydrate metabolism, 
to the functions of the autonomic nervous system, or comparable
to any of the various other identifiable patterns which make
possible our existences. Perhaps the system of Spinozistic 
spiritual optics, the reciprocal imaging of cosmos and spirit
which I recently hypothesized is not an inappropriate paradigm
for what I have in mind, - then those "religious" functions
which are commonly discharged in formal organized ceremony,
may be, and arguably are, discharged as effectively and
efficiently in music, in literature and in art, at least for
the creating artist and also for persons like myself who are
so disposed. I've not pursued the topics of music or visual arts
as modes of religious expression and experience, but I did,
seventeen or so years ago, write an essay about literature
as religion which I then incorporated as a kind of intellectual
overture into the opening chapter of my novel "Die Andere."
I've excerpted for you relevant paragraphs from that chapter
and append them to this letter as an attachment.

The other issue that you raise concerns Darwinism. You write:

"It's amusing that you are trying to undermine the effort
of Science to distinguish the reliability of it's assertions
from those not backed by empirical evidence. There is a lot
of empirical evidence underpinning Darwin's Theory of Evolution.
Darwin, himself, assiduously assembled a wealth of evidence,
and Geneticists, Paleontologists and others subsequently
gathered much more. Yet it is important to restrain onesself
from over-generalizing what has been demonstrated. It is only
a proposal that all of evolution happened utilizing the random
mutation and natural selection mechanisms that have been shown
to function in some instances. It is all too common for scientists
to confuse the model for reality. Yet I do find a qualitative
difference between the way Darwin set about elaborating his
Origin Story, compared to how it seems to have been done in
pre-biblical and biblical times."

You misunderstood me. I'm all gung ho when it comes to mathematical
or logical model making. I am fascinated by Darwin's Theory of Evolution,
wish I were more knowledgeable about its details. I acknowledge that
for a portion of the "scientific community", Darwin's Theory of Evolution
has come to serve as doctrine in a religious brawl with the "Creationists".
I have no objections to that either; I just don't allow myself to become
involved in "religious" controversies of any kind. I have no interest
in "undermining" the logical or the spiritual, the objective or the
subjective foundations of Darwinism. But, to continue the metaphor,
I'm the self-appointed foundation inspector, who presumes to assess
the cognitive and intuitive load that a theory can bear; and in the
case of Darwin's model, I respectfully suggest that however cogent
and persuasive it may otherwise be, it cannot fulfill the functions
of an "Origin Story" - to borrow your terminology, - until it has
come to terms with the psychic implications of time. Which is not
to imply that it is in this respect inferior to the Genesis account
of creation. To my mind, it's only the Greek Pre-Socratics, specifically,
Anaximander, who begins to do justice to my subjective experience
(Erleben) of time.

Jochen