spike418 wrote: ›

Why do you assume they would have such plans? You make far too many assumptions

Erwin wrote: ›

Then you agree they have no plans to help "mankind advance as a whole"?

Good, you agree with my original statement. Well done.

spike418 wrote: ›

False extrapolation from my words, I agreed to no such thing.

Iskandar wrote: › Camlion, thanks for the kind words (I hope you were not being sarcastic )

MichaelStaley wrote: › Whilst I am inclined to accept as a working hypothesis that there may well be existence outside my imagination, I'm aware that I cannot prove this, much less pay a great deal of attention when what may well be figments of my imagination appear to bawl about how we cannot accept propositions without evidence.

MichaelStaley wrote: › Time for this particular figment to enter the sunken city for a few hours - not dead, but dreaming ... or am I?

Quote: ›
Everything I've ever observed tells me that *even if* the world is an illusion, it's a remarkably consistent illusion that obeys certain rules and about which I can learn much.

Quote: ›
actual knowledge yields results. Every practical benefit we get from using evidence is another reason to continue relying upon evidence

kidneyhawk wrote: › For example, in the Lam Statement, written by Kenneth Grant and published in Starfire, it is stated that a highly desirable condition for such investigation to occur is in isolated cells over a period of time where the results are unbeknownst amongst participants, thus allowing for an impartial assessment of the data gleaned.

Quote: › "Evidence," however, may be of a nature that defies attempts to neatly rationalize it by particular standards. As such it may be very true that certain things I find as compelling evidence to pursue a particular route of research are wholly unsatisfactory to rational thought.

kidneyhawk wrote: ›
I think there's a point where Reason and Imagination are no longer at uncomfortable odds and both rise and fall as a person does his or her "Will." There's no longer argument or tension but vital activity, shifting from one plane to another.

Yathaniel wrote: › <b>Let me propose a scenario for you. I give a "magic stone" to a child and tell them they can use it whenever they do not want to have nightmares by performing a ritual of simply placing it under their pillow (this sounds "new agey" enough, so I am sure you'll love it). That child believes, and by use of the stone (which inspires and gives direction to the belief), whenever they chose to, they can ensure they do not have nightmares. It works. That makes it successful, and that "proves" as good as is necessary that it is a magic stone. To them it is. That's a fact. It works. That's a fact.</b>

You come into the picture and with (hopefully) the best of intentions, tell that child the whole thing is bullshit, and that the stone doesn't work, because it is just a rock. Rather than attempting to focus on what makes the stone work, you focus on "proving" the stone is not magical and that the whole idea is simply ridiculous. That child is convinced by your apparent conviction that nothing you can not comprehend could possibly exist. You make a passionate (artistic license here... I know you'd prefer cold and logical), and articulate argument against using the stone, and how archaic and ridiculous the ritual is. As for the results, you declare that the child must still be having nightmares and forgetting them upon waking, and is thereby deceiving themselves.

kidneyhawk wrote: › Los, I agree with this-and I think its a basis for the magickal inquiry into phenonmena that some here would scoffingly dismiss. For example, in the Lam Statement, written by Kenneth Grant and published in Starfire, it is stated that a highly desirable condition for such investigation to occur is in isolated cells over a period of time where the results are unbeknownst amongst participants, thus allowing for an impartial assessment of the data gleaned.

kidneyhawk wrote: › If all we have is some "belief" in Aliens and Fairies and Angels and such, backed by nothing, we really ARE in sorry shape.

kidneyhawk wrote: › But Crowley, as an example, explored these areas and drew various conclusions based not on credulity and "belief" but on experiences he had which motivated the Quest. I doubt he would have repeatedly pursued the Amalantrah Workings if he didn't feel that something genuine was being contacted through them.

kidneyhawk wrote: › "Evidence," however, may be of a nature that defies attempts to neatly rationalize it by particular standards.

kidneyhawk wrote: › As such it may be very true that certain things I find as compelling evidence to pursue a particular route of research are wholly unsatisfactory to rational thought.

kidneyhawk wrote: › Yet I'm not limited by the confines of such thinking in working with such evidence towards results. That doesn't mean I've gone mad and have tossed rationality to the winds. Rather, I've found another zone in which to operate while dealing with particular phenomena.

kidneyhawk wrote: › A poet may process wholly "irrational" emotions via a medium of artistry and find it the great work of his life, which all of his rational thought processes help make happen by successfully maintaining his material life, the vehicle of the art.

kidneyhawk wrote: › I think there's a point where Reason and Imagination are no longer at uncomfortable odds and both rise and fall as a person does his or her "Will." There's no longer argument or tension but vital activity, shifting from one plane to another.

Erwin wrote: › Please tell me that your case consists of more than "well, Crowley wouldn't have tried to talk to spacemen if he hadn't scientifically proved they existed, so that's good enough for me."

MichaelStaley wrote: › This is a bowlderisation of what Kyle said, in order for you to set up a straw dummy that you can then knock down. Get's a cheap laugh, no doubt.

Yathaniel wrote: › I am not reducing magick to a placebo effect, only pointing out that since you want to discuss truth, it is always subjective and therefore should be a truth which works to one's benefit, and asking what the "benefit" of your truth really is. It seems to have very little.

Yathaniel wrote: › It is not about believing something because it makes me feel good. It is about recognizing there are forces at play that are not understood scientifically at this time, and if I derive practical benefit thereby, it is to my advantage.

Yathaniel wrote: › Do not make the error of deciding my example is based on magick being a placebo effect.

Yathaniel wrote: › You are making the error of projecting your reality upon everyone else,

Yathaniel wrote: › If you are so certain you can have no influence on the world around you through any but physical application of force, nothing I say will convince you otherwise, and I hasten to agree with you,

Yathaniel wrote: › but that is your reality, not mine.

Yathaniel wrote: › You are limiting yourself thereby,

Yathaniel wrote: › My belief is not faith-based...

Yathaniel wrote: › If I want to hang a picture on a wall, it is beneficial to me to believe that wall is solid,

Yathaniel wrote: › If I can believe that wall is not solid, but fluid, and therefore cross through it unhampered...

Yathaniel wrote: › You arguments are rather puerile, though they are masked by verbosity, and a well trained intellect, in that you are attempting to tell someone who crosses that which you believe is uncrossable that such a thing is impossible to do, and is the result of self-deception.

Yathaniel wrote: › Do you know by your own experience the world is round?

Yathaniel wrote: › I do not see you applying the same level of critique and analysis to your "reality" that you apply to other peoples.

Yathaniel wrote: › Many of your beliefs seem to be as much based on faith as any rational science, but you fail to grasp that...

Yathaniel wrote: › I wonder what conclusion you would draw if you were in a room with 4 other people, all of whom are convinced you are levitating, though it appears to yourself that your feet remain of the floor...

kidneyhawk wrote: › You have, in fact, missed my point, which is hardly: "Crowley said it, I believe it, that settles it." What Crowley thought on this matter I AM regarding as quite relevant to the topic at hand. And, as we both know, Crowley's critical mind was not one to go chaing after pipe dreams. I'm not saying he was never misled or mistaken. But I think its worthwhile to examine, from a variety of perspectives, what the man who devoted his life to examining and experimenting and promoting what you seem to embrace as the ultimate code of conduct saw of value in the affirmation of "discarnate Intelligences." Conclusions may vary but its worthwhile to inquire.

kidneyhawk wrote: › Now as to this "proof" for the "supernatural," I don't have as strong a dualistic sense of natural vs. supernatural that you do. When I began my spiritual voyage and occult quest or whatever we want to call it, I did have that sense of duality. There is this world of "matter" and then some "hidden" or "occult" world that we could look into. But along the way, I've found that such division is counter-productive. As much as invisible microwaves and such can be considered just as much a part of the "natural" universe as the table at which I sit, so we can see discarnate Intelligences ("should they exist") as being the same. Of a differing NATURE but part of the same totality of the Universe which, depending on the factors involved, we may experience.

kidneyhawk wrote: › You have such a bone to pick with "belief" but I also choose to let that word slide for the time being. Do I "believe" in LAM? The word doesn't really apply, Erwin...but I know you want so much for it to be one way or the other. I EXPERIENCE LAM. The experience may yield up consistencies which I find startling and which cause me to reconsider how I view what is really going in a vast Universe of which my knowledge is limited. But in the experience, I don't arrive at the final ultimate knowledge of what "it" is.

kidneyhawk wrote: › When I referred to how "evidence" may not fit nicely into rational thought, I was using Los' word but perhaps should have clarified that I was refering to experience of a type of phenomena which isn't of the same categorical nature as that which you seem to want to cram the entirety of EVERYONE's experience and knowledge into.

kidneyhawk wrote: › My "agenda" is not to convert you or anyone else with a rational argument on a computer screen but rather to look at where human experience can open beyond its present state.

Erwin wrote: › Everyone is subject to the same reality. That's what "reality" means. People don't have their own individual realities, despite what the chaos crowd and the new-agers might like you to believe.

Poelzig wrote: ›
The vast majority of people I've encountered involved with various species of "magic," "occultism" or "spirituality" were/are notably deficient in rationality and critical thinking skills.

Invariably they make pretenses of "transcending" rationality by way of their "spirituality."

Unfortunately for them, the basic truth they have missed or ignored is that you have to embrace and master something before you can "transcend" it.

Thus the intellectual ghetto conditions in which "magick" and "spirituality" continually subsist.

Erwin wrote: › There are no spacemen out there which you can contact via the power of your mind in a trance state ...