Silence and the Disorder of Tongues

'In the active life, I can measure silence negatively as an interruption. In the contemplative life, I am without any measure. In the active life, the concept of experience is meaningful because I can suppose the existence of a subject and an object. In the silence of the sacrifice, the one object that exists must disappear and in this way must invalidate the idea of selfhood. Only with the ceasing of any exchange between subject and object does imminence as a way to transcendence take the place of experience. Immanence has a resonance that the concept of experience can never have.'
- Silence and the Disorder of Tongues

'Eric Rhode, in this far-reaching, deeply personal book, by careful use of the refracting lenses of Philosophy, Theology, Mythology, Fine Art and Psychoanalysis, shepherds the reader towards an inexpressible, immeasurable and infinite world of silence and contemplation that experience and thought cannot understand. He contrasts experiential tenets for living an active life of memory, anticipation and knowledge with the ‘breakdown’ entailed by the unveiling of the ‘magnitude of the immeasurable within silence, such that it can disorder all tongues’, and where the influence of the past and future on the present tense are without meaning. To read this book is to evanesce without defences to a terra inferma of incalculable riches. An astonishing achievement.'
- Paul Williams Psychoanalyst: Joint Editor-in-Chief, The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 2001-2007