Q:
   In some of our earlier talks you have spoken of, or alluded to, contemporary conflicts, by which I take it you mean not physical conflicts but conflicts of intention, in the philosophical sense, or conflicts of understanding, if it is possible to have such a thing.

J:
   These conflicts can and do lead to physical conflict.

Q:
   Indeed. You have said or implied, I think, that there is now, or at least there should be now, some urgency in at the very least recognising the existence of these, how shall I say, conflicts of apprehension?. Would you like to say more about this now?

J:
   Conflict may not be the correct word. But there are certainly misunderstandings and misapplications of understanding that are becoming more dangerous and therefore more crucial at the present time.

Q:
   For example...

J:
   A particularly dangerous and pervasive aspect is the confusion, the mixing up, the misapprehension of the difference, rather than the conflict, between illusion and hallucination.

   Illusion is a much misunderstood word, but illusion is fundamental to all art, to most of civil and social life, and it is increasingly taking hold of the increasingly mediated consciousness of humankind. By illusion I mean, according to the real root of the word in play - it comes from the latin Ludere, which is play, sport. In illusions our perceptions are not in question, what we see does not of necessity compromise what we understand. We do not confuse a photograph with what it appears to represent...unless we are very foolish.

   Where the danger lies is believing the illusion, in hallucinating. My etymological train of thought does not quite hold up but I take the difference between illusion and hallucination to be that in illusion it is possible to apprehend that a phenomenon is, not necessarily false, but of the mind, in hallucination the phenomenon is taken as fact. But of course phenomena cannot be facts, they are only appearances, by definition.

Q:
   Could you give us some concrete examples, in daily life say.....

J:
  Daily life, yes. An English poet, I think, once said "Days are where we live" perhaps he meant "Time is where we live", I don't know, he was a good poet so perhaps he meant what he wrote and I misunderstand. But.....everything, every event, has a position in time. But we understand everything through our perception of our position in time. Past, present and future are perceptions that are a function of our position in time, they are not absolutes, to say they are not real would not be correct, but they are phenomena, they are appearances, they are not facts.

Q:
   So are they hallucinations?

J:
   Hallucinations are products, illusions perhaps, of the mind, they are not facts either..........

Extract from ‘A Talk With Josef’, 1995.