Dear Marion,

Thank you for your letter. It's obviously very helpful to
me to be questioned or challenged about my verbal - or verbose
improvisations. I wouldn't necessarily call them "ideas".
When your letter came, I was working on Chapter 43. You
may remember that Mengs has fallen asleep, starts to dream,
finds himself in darkness, wonders whether he is dead,
recites lines from the 1st Duino Elegy, then lapses from
Rilke's ultra-refined esthetics to Theodor Storm's unfeeling
and hence cruel "Knecht Ruprecht". As he adapts to darkness,
Mengs finds row upon row of cardboard boxes labeled as 
decisions of the courts, but when he opens them, they are
either totally empty or filled with trash. Chagrined, Mengs
moves to the adjacent basement room and finds there in a dungeon,
a garbage dump including human remains from prisoners who
perished chained to the walls. He sees a fragile and rickety ladder,
which he hopes might be an escape route, but the vision turns out
initially at least to be the product of wishful thinking, a
mirage. At the ladder's apparent location, Mengs finds a small 
cubicle with a desk and a chair, paper and pencils, and 
instructions for a ladder escape the precondition of which is
a written examination. There's much overlapping between Mengs' answers
to the examination questions and the exposition which in Chapter 44,
(the angel) Gabriel gives of the teachings of Katenus. These are
topics that I must sort out. After he completes and presumably
passes his exam, Mengs is allowed to start his climb up the ladder
into the Harvard Law School library described in the following
chapter.

You ask about my comment,
"that law is language - that all language has the propensity
of controlling action, and that because language is incapable
of expressing (subjective) experience (Erleben),
law is predestined to failure."

You ask: 

Is the argument that "failure" of the law is inevitable
because "success" would require that each individual's
Erleben be considered when deciding what legal measures
are appropriate, and the language-dependent law cannot
encompass Erleben? 

Yes. Life (Erleben) is so varied, with so many nooks and
crannies, that rules, regulations, laws can never anticipate
the needs of the moment, the exigencies of particular
circumstances. That is why laws cannot be self-enforcing,
but require the interpretation of judges. These interpretations,
by definition, are outside and beyond law. They in effect
supersede the law and set it aside, as did my Appeals Court
when it completely ignored requirements of procedure (MGL 30A)

You ask further:

Is this why the Chancery (Equity) alternative to "Due Process of Law"
is so important to you, because it could take account of Erleben? 
How could it do that exactly?
 
If "is so important to you" is replaced with "seems to significant
to you." then the answer is "yes". Chancery in its origins was the
(arbitrary) judgment of the Chancellor consonant with the imperatives
of the particular circumstances, which Law could never have
anticipated. Ideally the chancellor, as the king's representative 
was endowed with perfect knowledge, wisdom, sympathy and judgment,
like God himself. It's interesting and significant that in time Equity
developed its own rules and became more and more like Law, became
in fact a Law of its own, so that about 100 years ago Courts of Law
and Courts of Equity in most jurisdictions were merged. The incapacity
of Law to accede to particular circumstances remained and remains, and
is reflected, as I understand it, in blatently illogical inconsistencies
of adjudication, the nature of which few lawyers can explain but which
they intuitivelt understand and universally accept.

You ask about my statement:

Underlying is the premise that it is truth - the intellectual
apperception of truth which makes us free.
 
You write:

"Would you explain your thinking on this topic? 
I have assumed that "The truth shall set you free"
(which Google tells me originates from the Gospel of John)
refers to being released from confining circumstances
that resulted from ignorance (e.g. a superstition,
or a mistaken belief about history). 

But I don't see exactly how it applies in a legal context. 
You may understand the origins and motivations and consequences
of the actions that Nantucket's functionaries have taken,
but freedom would be to be able to get on with your house
as you wish.  An imprisoned person may know the truth about
why and how he was railroaded and falsely convicted,
he may be certain he is innocent and know who is guilty,
but as long as he remains locked up, he's less than free,
even though understanding the truth may allow him to enjoy
some freedom in his mind."

The 8th Chapter of John is remote from what's on my mind.
John attempted to fuse Platonism and the Hebrew tradition.
The notion that the wrong-doer (sinner) is in bondage to
evil (passions) is Platonic. The notion that no one knowingly
does wrong (sins) is Socratic. c.f. Oedipus who committed
incest from ignorance. Accordingly truth (knowledge) sets
one free from the bondage of evil (ignorance) because when
one is in possession of knowledge one will act virtuously,
no longer passion's slave and therefore "free".

My considerations are fundamentally different. Knowledge is
the source of freedom because it enables me to compensate for
or to escape the limitations imposed by illusion or ignorance.
My distress at Nantucket shenanigans dissipates when I understand
them as a psychic and social consequence of insularity, the
expression of an emotional and social disorder. My disappointment
at the inconsistency and irrationality of the Appeals Court
decision disappears when I understand that the postulates of
legality (Law) are pretexts which make the essentially arbitrary
political process of adjudication socially acceptable. In these
ways my "intellectual apperception of truth" liberates me from
illusion and from the pain of disappointment. The freedom 
ensuing from the apperception of truth is the freedom of
intellectual autonomy.

An interesting sidelight on these considerations
is shed by a song from my childhood which may be
familiar to you. It was banned for decades in Austria
being deemed too revolutionary.

Die Gedanken sind frei, wer kann sie erraten
sie fliegen vorbei, wie  nächtliche Schatten.
Kein Mensch kann sie wissen, kein Jäger erschießen. 
Es bleibet dabei: Die Gedanken sind frei!

Ich denke was ich will und was mich beglücket,
doch alles in der Still', und wie es sich schicket.
Mein Wunsch, mein Begehren kann niemand verwehren,
es bleibet dabei: Die Gedanken sind frei!

Ich liebe den Wein, mein Mädchen vor allen,
sie tut mir allein am besten gefallen.
Ich bin nicht alleine bei meinem Glas Weine,
mein Mädchen dabei: Die Gedanken sind frei!

Und sperrt man mich ein in finstere Kerker,
das alles, das sind vergebliche Werke.
Denn meine Gedanken zerreißen die Schranken
und Mauern entzwei, die Gedanken sind frei!

Drum will ich auf immer den Sorgen entsagen
und will mich auch nimmer mit Grillen mehr plagen.
Man kann ja im Herzen stetz lachen und scherzen
und denken dabei: Die Gedanken sind frei!

About the constraints which medical guidelines impose on
freedom of thought and action, more in another letter.

Good night.

Jochen