"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Matthew 5:8
Even today, the conviction of ancient peoples, in the matter of the heart as the center of spiritual activities, is still alive and largely utilized. Of course, any kind of mental activity, including emotions, is rooted into the brain, and not into the heart. Nevertheless, when one talks about rectitude of behaviors and altruistic attitudes, the vast majority of persons utilizes the expression “pure in heart”. Pureness of heart is a concept particularly important to religions, but is also commonly referred to sociality. So, what exactly is it? It is a dynamic mixture of qualities, and of states of mind. Normally, they say that newborn children are “pure in heart”, because not yet attracted by sin, and immune from malicious thoughts. However, ingenuousness is involuntary, while true pureness requires conscious choices. More properly, heart pureness is a fundamental attribute of mutual respect, independent from personal interests, and aspirations. For that, mundane activities are hardly associable to the cited pureness. In detail, pureness requires complete acceptance of other human beings, not subordinated to a positive evaluation of the content of mutual relationships. Moreover, those who are pure in heart can’t have any prejudice, especially when not motivated. Finally, pureness implies to not create barriers to love. Are religious faith and obedience to God’s will necessary to pureness of heart? Well, religious faith serves to have more moral strength, and is founded on the implicit promise of safeness from death, or eternal perdition. For that, sometimes it might be an obstacle to pureness, that requires disinterested human participation in social relationships. At the beginning of the page, there’s an excerpt of Christian Sacred Scriptures, taken from Matthew’s Gospel. The phrase says that God appreciates pureness of heart, and that it is one of the ways to deserve the blessings of the Grace of God. However, Christian Sacred Scriptures don’t say that there’s only one road to salvation, and it is the main reason for their large and long-term success. Of course, nothing belonging to mankind, or coming from mankind, can be perfect. Thus, the pure in heart are never perfectly pure, and never permanently pure. With other words, pureness is not a status, but an evaluation a posteriori.
How can you experience transcendence? Is pureness of heart essential to transcendent experiences? Well, all humans are exclusively living in the present, that’s permanently and unstoppably moving. It means that past times don’t mean anything to you, except for the traces left into your mind. Given that pureness can’t be definitely acquired, it’s evidently not directly bound to transcendence. Transcendence requires another mental thing, namable “fear of God”. The fear of God is a way of describing the consciousness of wise men, who should admit their ignorance, and the necessity of being humble, after a correct deepening of the contents of human condition. Well, Gods and religions are many, but the fear of God, as defined above, is always the same, or, at least, always similar.
Coming to the focus of the blog, I have asked to myself if I have known the story of some disco DJs truly pure in heart, as pure as common humans can be. The answer is yes, and the most popular of the names is the one of David Mancuso, a historical NYC DJ dead on November 14, 2016. He was an orphan educated by Christian religious persons, who became a convinced believer of Buddhism, and a follower of uncommon intellectual models, belonging to counterculture. The best of David’s legacy is an example of identification of DJ culture with hospitality of the soul, based on respect and tolerance, interracial, multicultural, and independent from sexual orientations. He was pure in heart, because conceived his role as an altruistic effort, in order to offer to guests the emotion of being intellectually welcome, and excellence in sound. During the last years of his lifetime, David gave himself to peculiar house music, in which there are echoes of jazz-blues and other kinds of black music, and changed his hospitality into hospitality in motion. Yes, he toured the world, to popularize his peculiar vision of the DJ profession. The mix of the page is a volume 2, a second attempt of personal interpretation of David’s favorite tunes of house music. My interpretation includes mixes on the beat, even rather long, for obtaining a fluid program, easily danceable, immune from the boredom of waiting for the end of percussion breaks, and far from aseptic perfection.
File name is “impure transcendence for welcomed people, by Max Look DJ (Sept 2024)”, about 1 hour and 23’ of house music tracks loved by David Mancuso, even in posthumous versions.
A house that’s home of the soul, the playlist:
Cure – lullaby (extended remix, 1989)
M.I.A. – paper planes (DFA remix, 2008)
Locussolus – next to you (2011)
Cerrone – hooked on you (the Reflex Revision, 2022)
Linda Lewis – class/style (I’ve got it) (Marc Hartman 88 extended mix)
Gorillaz – dare (DFA remix, 2005)
Instant House – lost horizons (1993)
Frankie Knuckles – the whistle song (12”, 1991)
Gregory Porter – liquid spirit (Claptone remix, 2013)
Ten City – my peace of heaven (International mix, 1992)
Cassio – baby love (Chord mix, 1992)
Larry Spinosa – so good (1993)
Luna Project – I wanna be free (the Higher mix, 1994)
