https://thetattooedbuddha.com/2015/09/25/what-is-crazy-wisdom/
https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?t=2823
One day in 1968 I walked into a meeting of THE BARTONIAN METAPHYSICAL SOCIETY in Ottawa. I sat at the back of a large, empty room. By the time a short, squat woman who introduced herself as Dr. Winifred Barton started to speak there were over a hundred people.
As she spoke I looked at the people sitting there. I was surprised when a fellow sitting by the exit door on the right faded from view. “Interesting,” I said to myself.
Over the course of the hour she spoke I saw him two more times.
At the break I introduced myself to Dr. Barton. I told her what I had seen. “Wait here,” she said leaving the room.
“Is this the man?” she said when she returned with a photograph.
It was. I said, “Yes.”
She said, “That’s the caretaker. He died yesterday. Where you saw him was his favourite place to sit during our meetings. Would you like to speak to the group after the break?”
I spoke for two hours.
“You belong here,” said Dr. Barton.
I spent an interesting year there. Saw auras, had of body experiences and more. Got drunk. Got stoned. Made love with legions.
When I was at The Bartonian Metaphysical Society in Ottawa there was a circular Aura chart. I was told red was the carnal color, orange was healing, yellow was learning, green was teaching, blue was enlightenment and purple was perfection.
Most–almost everyone–followed red, orange, yellow, grenn, blue, purple.
I saw that purple is the marriage of red and blue.
If I was in the red–which I was told starting out we all are–well, that meant purple was just next door. I decided to take the opposite direction to everyone else. Still taking that direction. It has paid and is paying off huge.
A few years ago–in the ’80’s–when my Dad was living with me I invited a wonderful woman I had met at the screenings over for supper. At the sight of her my father started to embarass me to no end.
To my surprise she said, “Reg, I love your father. He’s just like mine.”
Being a jerk is very much part of being a human being. The brighter we are the more likely we will be seen as a jerk by the not so bright.
Will Sloan https://www.willsloan.ca/ was a regular at one time at my screenings around 2009. He wrote a piece in, I believe THE VARSITY, in which he stated, “What I like about Reg Hartt and what makes him a valuable figure is his belief in cinema as a living, breathing thing, something to be enjoyed and argued about, not genuflected at or framed on a wall and revered at a respected distance. In his presentations he refutes the conventional wisdom that films like THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915), THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925), and THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925) are better appreciated as historical artifacts than entertainments. To see KID DRACULA, his show that pairs F. W. Murnau’s NOSFERATU (1922) with Radiohead to surprisingly effective results is to be reminded that the classics were made for the raw public before they were made for cinema studies syllabi. I have rarely felt a film’s greatness in a classroom but I have often felt it at Reg Hartt’s CineForum.”
That quote is gold. It is too good not to use. I made a street flyer. It was not designed to pull people in. It was designed to piss off the people who dismiss the value of my work. What people? David Beard, the owner of the wonderful store CINEBOOKS, stated in a piece in THE TORONTO STAR in 1979: “This man has devoted his whole life to bringing the film classics to the public. He treats animation-cartoons, if you will-as art. He is underfinanced, overworked and snubbed. I think we should pay tribute to him.” For example: “I used to go (to Reg Hartt) often,” says (Richard) Crouse, now seen regularly on CTV and heard on Newstalk 1010 every Saturday afternoon. “I’d always bring a sandwich because you never knew if Reg was going to talk for two hours or two minutes before a movie. But that’s part of the fun.” https://xtramagazine.com/culture/poster-legend-1912
Will did not handle the use of the quote or the comment well.
He sent me an email in which he wrote, “I did not write that for you to use on a poster. I don’t like you telling people I’m hot.”
I thought, “Has Will never read an ad for a book, a movie, a play, a concert, a singer? Who does not like it being said they are hot?”
I wondered, “Has Will ever looked at an ad for a book, a concert, a movie, a play, a singer?” Note the quote from Anthony Hopkins on the cover of David Mamet’s book, TRUE AND FALSE. Emo Philips sent me a postcard on which he wrote, “I honestly believe you are the greatest teacher I know for only you preach the evil of teaching. Well, not only you. David Mamet, in his new book TRUE AND FALSE confirms everything you’ve been saying all along.” I bought the book. Mamet writes, “Invent nothing. Deny nothing. Stand up. Speak up. Stay out of school.”
Omar got it right.
From TRUE AND FALSE BY David Mamet: “The American educational process prepares those with second-rate intellects to thrive in a bureaucratic environment. Obedience, rote memorization, and neatness are enshrined as intellectual achievements.
“Any system built on belief functions through the operations of guilt and hypocrisy. Such a system, whether of acting training, meditation self improvement etc., functions as a Pseudoreligjon and is predicated on the individual’s knowledge of his or her own worthlessness The system holds itself out as the alleviator, cleanser, and redeemer of the guilty individual
“Now none of us is free of self doubt, and none of us is free of guilt. We all have thoughts, feelings, episodes, and tendencies which we would rather did not exist.
“A guilt-based educational system, which is to say, most acting training, survives through the Support of adherents who were guilty before they signed up. who came to classes and failed (how could they do otherwise, as the training was nonsense), and were then informed that their feelings of shame which they brought in with them—were due to their failure in class, and could be alleviated if and only if the student worked harder, “believed” more. “
“You will encounter in your travels folks of your own age who chose the institutional path, who became administrators rather than doers. These folks chose to serve an institutional authority in exchange for a paycheck, and these folks are going to be with you for the rest of your life, and you who come up off the street, who live without certainty day to day and year to year are going to have to bear with being called children by these institutional types; you will, as Shakespeare tells us, endure ‘the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes.’ “It is not childish to live with uncertainty, to devote oneself to an idea rather than an institution. It’s courageous and requires a courage of the order that the institutionally co-opted are ill equipped to perceive. They are so unequipped to perceive it that they can only call it childish, and so excuse their exploitation of you.”– David Mamet, TRUE AND FALSE. (Edited)
“Judith Merril was the strongest woman in a genre created by weak and ineffectual men,” wrote J. G. Ballard.
Judy said, “We only really learn in conversation after sex.”
Judy Merril’s right. Stay out of school. Learn in bed.
–Reg Hartt 2/25/2026.
https://btlbooks.com/book/better-to-have-loved
Jesus was dirt poor.
Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them…. for really new ideas of any kind–no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be–there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.
–Jane Jacobs. THE CINEFORUM is located in Reg Hartt’s home. THE LONELY PLANET places it among the top places to see in Ontario. It is an old building.
The first event Jane Jacobs and her family went to when they arrived in Toronto in 1968 was a screening of the 1923 Lon Chaney HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME at Reg Hartt’s The Public Enemy on Yonge Street at Yorkville. The City Of Toronto shut down The Public Enemy shortly after. Reg Hartt served as Director Of Cinema Studies at Rochdale College in Toronto. Jane Jacobs was a regular. The City Of Toronto shut down Rochdale.
The City Of Toronto has been trying to shut down Reg Hartt’s Cineforum for decades. “Reg Hartt’s Cineforum is everything Jane Jacobs wrote about. She was a regular.”–Laura Lind, EYE Weekly. What makes Reg Hartt’s Cineforum everything Jane Jacobs wrote about is that the City Of Toronto steadfastly chooses to remain blind to its value.
“Taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there’s another side to the coin, and you can’t remember it when it wears off, but you know it. It reinforced my sense of what was important—creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could.”
http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com . THE CINEFORUM was Al Aronowitz’s favourite place on earth.
When Jerzy Zaborski said to me, “You are a Crazy-Wisdom’Yogin” I said, “I hear crazy often enough. What does the rest of that mean?” to which he replied, “That you are living absolutely the lidfe you are teaching. It is the highest compliment I, as a Buddhist, can pay,” I replied, “I know how far below the mark I fall however I am making the effort. Anything less is hypocrisy. Would you care for a beer?”
Google AI:
Crazy Wisdom (ye-shes ‘mgo-btags) in Buddhism refers to an unconventional, often shocking teaching style used by enlightened masters to break through students’ ego, attachments, and rigid conceptual thinking. Popularized in the West by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, it emphasizes acting without attachment while appearing “mad” to conventional society.
- Core Concept: It represents a state of being “completely awake” and free, breaking down the dualistic, conceptual, and rational mind to directly experience reality, often referred to as “perfection upon imperfection”.
- Purpose: The aim is to wake students up from complacency by acting against conventional social norms, forcing them to face their own projections, expectations, and dualistic judgments (e.g., good vs. bad).
- Origin: The concept is rooted in the Indian siddha and Tibetan tradition, often associated with figures like Padmasambhava, who used erratic behavior to tame wild minds.
- Context: While it can involve challenging behavior, it is supposed to be rooted in compassion and wisdom, not just chaos. However, it has also faced scrutiny, particularly in the case of Trungpa Rinpoche, whose actions (e.g., heavy drinking, sexual relationships with students) sparked debate on whether his actions were truly “wise” or merely “crazy”.
- Significance: It serves to challenge the “spiritual materialism” of treating spiritual practice as a way to acquire comfort, inviting practitioners to accept and work with all aspects of life.
It is important to note that this path is considered extremely advanced and dangerous for an un-enlightened person to imitate, as it requires absolute, non-dualistic realization.