What a person needs to perform a task is a practical model of how the task works, not necessarily a model that ultimately explains what the thing "is" and how it fits into the universe.
This sounds dangerously close to admitting that the majority of humanity is and should continue be little more than a cargo cult that got just enough practical instruction from John Frum to function. But of course that's not what you really meant, is it?
"Thus, in the same way that I don’t need a “science experiment” to demonstrate that my cell phone needs to be charged, I don’t need a “science experiment” to demonstrate that there is a True Will." (Your words, my emphasis). I said nothing about "discovering the True Will", I questioned your belief in True Will as a thing that can be distinguished from nothing (to use a wise philosopher's favored turn-of-phrase). A phone only needs to be charged because something called "charge" exists. The nature and origin of this "charge" was discovered and developed into a usable form through scientific inquiry. How have you drawn your factual conclusions about the existence of a thing called "True Will"? If it's only through this non-scientific day-to-day inquiry that reminds you to plug in your phone, then that's not much.
Sure we can. Get one of these supposed storm creators to do a storm ritual every week in a really dry climate and record the rainfall. Measure the "results" against the range of rainfall that we would expect to occur naturally. If he can really cause storms to happen, then we should see rainfall amounts well outside the range of what should be expected.
But those who have determined to evaluate those claims and search for ways to test them outside of the current common sense paradigm are following the path of my Australian physicist.
What way do you propose to test the claim that a person can cause storms with rituals, and what do you think makes it a better method than the one I proposed above?
By the way, as I pointed out in my earlier post, the claim that a person can *cause storms* isn't some abstruse, theoretical hypothesis about alternate dimensions or about blackholes. It's a claim about reality that -- if true -- would produce measurable, detectable results. Your insistent attempts to draw parallels to theoretical physics do not work for that reason.
You seem to be hanging yourself up on this term, "claim". I -- and I believe others -- are positing hypotheses, not necessarily making claims, none of which can be verified using current methods.
If the "hypotheses" can't be verified (yet), on what grounds do you make the hypotheses?
Give me an example of one of your hypotheses, and explain the evidence that has led you to conclude that it's a hypothesis with a decent chance of being true and that it should therefore be tested.
Honestly, the more I read of your word soup, the less impressed I am. Give me a specific example of what you're talking about because right now you're just kind of meandering through a bunch of platitudes.
I already explained this. When a person succeeds in shutting off conscious thought (usually through meditation), they will discover that there still exist preferences, even without the thoughts (including those thoughts that tell us that some actions are "good" and others are "bad," etc.)
Those preferences are what I'm calling True Will. That's how each individual can demonstrate to himself that the True Will exists and is distinguishable from nothing.
Sure we can. Get one of these supposed storm creators to do a storm ritual every week in a really dry climate and record the rainfall. Measure the "results" against the range of rainfall that we would expect to occur naturally. If he can really cause storms to happen, then we should see rainfall amounts well outside the range of what should be expected.
Circles within circles within circles.
Once again, you seem only interested in the practical, day-to-day, binary logic, cause-and-effect model of magick that posits: "ritual A caused result B". And that's fine. If you want to ride that horse into the sunset, tally-ho! I have no skin in that game. Rain dances don't much interest me.
But those who have determined to evaluate those claims and search for ways to test them outside of the current common sense paradigm are following the path of my Australian physicist.
What way do you propose to test the claim that a person can cause storms with rituals, and what do you think makes it a better method than the one I proposed above?
I would propose searching for a method of testing non-linear/non-local cause-and-effect (or, more correctly, cause/effect) in much the way that modern physics does. Dutch physicists at the U. of Leiden have managed to create non-local binary circuits utilizing Bell's theorem to transfer information over distances violating both the speed of light and common sense. And yet they work. I propose some similar paradigm-shifting method of looking at conscious will.
"Better" can't be determined until after development and comparison. Yours is fine for now. But resting on it alone stagnates progress.
I'd flip that on it's head to say that your insistence on seeing Magick as only capable of something along the lines of the cause-and-effect storm-ritual limits it to a mere fraction of what the underlying theory encompasses. That's certainly not a limitation Crowley put upon it. Or have we entirely given up on pretending this forum is meant to be about him?
Give me an example of one of your hypotheses, and explain the evidence that has led you to conclude that it's a hypothesis with a decent chance of being true and that it should therefore be tested.
I make my hypotheses on the grounds that I am not nearly as confident as you are that consciousness is simply a function of brain chemistry. I certainly embrace your model as a working hypothesis on occasion but I have not found convincing evidence to elevate it into a solid theory that no longer requires testing. This is analogous to a physicist who finds discomfort in the model that black holes somehow empty into nothingness or a theorist who notes that there is a hole in the maths when we try to pin down the source of gravity. The effects of gravity are obvious to a child learning how to push herself onto her feet for the first time. The source? Possibly to be found in 11 dimensions of strings. We won't know until we posit the hypothesis, determine a way to test it utilizing non-current methodologies, and then see how it stacks up to observed phenomena.
Meanwhile, yes... your phone will continue to charge just as it always has done. Your slice of reality is safe.
How do you know that you have successfully shut off conscious thought? How do you determine that these preferences, as you call them, are not conscious? How do "you" register these preferences and bring them back to your normal day-to-day if your consciousness is shut off?
Seems like a case of special pleading to me. 😉
You don't seem to be following. It's not that I'm "only interested" in "practical" magick, and it's not that I insist that magick can "only" be such-and-such. I'm responding to things that people have actually said about it.
We had a guy in this very thread who claimed he has the magical power to cause storms to happen! So I responded to what he said, and I pointed out that if he really has such a power, then that's something that's testable and demonstrable. Don't you agree that if someone could *really* cause storms to happen that that would be something we could test?
And I'll be glad to respond to your hypothesis if you can ever explain what it is that you hypothesize.
I propose some similar paradigm-shifting method of looking at conscious will.
Like what? And to what end? What's your hypothesis?
I make my hypotheses on the grounds that I am not nearly as confident as you are that consciousness is simply a function of brain chemistry.
That's not grounds for making any specific hypothesis -- which may explain why you've not given any specific hypothesis.
We won't know until we posit the hypothesis
What hypothesis? What are you talking about?
Someone who can't tell whether he's thinking or not has bigger problems than practicing Thelema.
How do you determine that these preferences, as you call them, are not conscious?
What exactly do you mean by this? As I already explained, after I shut off thought, the stuff that's left over is what I'm calling True Will. Whether you want to call it "conscious" or not is a matter of labeling, though I'm not sure it quite makes sense to describe one's preferences as "conscious." For example, I didn't choose to like coffee by a conscious act of will -- I found that preference waiting for me when I looked, and it persists regardless of whether I'm thinking or not. But whether we choose to call such a preference conscious or not is irrelevant. The relevant point is that one can learn to distinguish that sort of preference from another sort of preference, such as, for example, wanting my neighbors to think certain "good" things about me. This preference is clearly the creation of my conscious thoughts because when I stop focusing on it, it goes away. Yet my preference for coffee persists, regardless of whether I'm focusing on it.
What I'm describing is essentially a process by which an individual gets better at discriminating between two kinds of preferences, whatever we choose to label them. By identifying and ameliorating the influence of the latter kind of preferences, one comes to perform the former kind of preferences (what I'm calling the "True Will") more and more, almost by default.
This is a skill, and like any other skill it can be practiced and mastered.
How do "you" register these preferences and bring them back to your normal day-to-day if your consciousness is shut off?
One generally shouldn't do that -- because that's precisely how one ends up creating a mental representation of the Will and confusing that representation for the real thing.
It's almost too easy to formulate some mental ego ideal, call it the "True Will," and spend one's time chasing it. But that's not at all what the True Will is. It doesn't guide a person in that sort of way.
But then again, if one is going to navigate life, that involves making choices based on what one *thinks* that one will prefer in the future, so it would seem that developing *some* kind of mental model for the Self is unavoidable to an extent. The key is that one should observe how the self *actually behaves* and *actually reacts* to situations, and then use those behaviors and reactions to formulate a tentative idea of what preferences the self might have. *Importantly*, this should not be a self-image or a story about the self. Just the facts: self likes coffee, self likes children, self seems to have a penchant for writing about Thelema. It can only be detrimental to develop fantasies based around facts like these. One is not some sort of chosen world-teacher, one does not have some sort of duty to be father of the year, etc. There is a self, and it seems to like certain things and dislike others.
Using this tentative model as a guide, the conscious mind can put the self into situations that it suspects the self might like, and then one observes the self's reactions to these new situations. The feedback can then be used to adjust the model.
At every step of the way, one supplements the bare-bones model with consistent observations of the Will itself. It's the observations, the inclinations in the moment, that *are* the Will. It's very important not to mix these up for the mental model.
There's the process in a nutshell for you.
Seems like a case of special pleading to me.
How so?
What about the social conditioning that's been going on since you were a child? That's part of "the stuff that's left over", isn't it? So that's part of your "True Will" is it?
What about the social conditioning that's been going on since you were a child? That's part of "the stuff that's left over", isn't it?
Is it? I guess it depends on exactly what we're talking about.
I'm willing to accept that some kinds of social training shape our authentic preferences and actually do inform the True Will. As a sort of trivial example, I've been conditioned to eat with utensils, rather than my bare hands. I don't know about you, but I feel confident that I now authentically prefer to eat with utensils, and I feel like eating with my bare hands would be needlessly messy and burdensome. Would I feel this same way if I were not so conditioned or if society was filled with people who eat with their bare hands and who encouraged me, from childhood, to eat with my bare hands? I don't know.
But then, on the other side, there are some preferences that appear so strong that social conditioning is insufficient to change them. I have friends who are gay who report that attempts to "condition" their sexuality from childhood did not succeed.
Altogether, it's a complicated question, but it's not one that I think a person has to solve in order to practice Thelema. Just like I don't need to take a course in electronics to use a cell phone, I don't have to have a rigorous explanation of where the True Will "came from" in order to recognize it and use it.
Could you say a little more about this objection, perhaps with specific examples?
What about the social conditioning that's been going on since you were a child? That's part of "the stuff that's left over", isn't it?
Is it? I guess it depends on exactly what we're talking about.
I'm willing to accept that some kinds of social training shape our authentic preferences and actually do inform the True Will. As a sort of trivial example, I've been conditioned to eat with utensils, rather than my bare hands. I don't know about you, but I feel confident that I now authentically prefer to eat with utensils, and I feel like eating with my bare hands would be needlessly messy and burdensome. Would I feel this same way if I were not so conditioned or if society was filled with people who eat with their bare hands and who encouraged me, from childhood, to eat with my bare hands? I don't know.
But then, on the other side, there are some preferences that appear so strong that social conditioning is insufficient to change them. I have friends who are gay who report that attempts to "condition" their sexuality from childhood did not succeed.
Altogether, it's a complicated question, but it's not one that I think a person has to solve in order to practice Thelema. Just like I don't need to take a course in electronics to use a cell phone, I don't have to have a rigorous explanation of where the True Will "came from" in order to recognize it and use it.
Could you say a little more about this objection, perhaps with specific examples?
It's not an objection, just an observation. You can call what you are peddling "True Will" as much as you like, and you can buttress it with as many Crowley quotes as you like, but to me it's risibly superficial.
Los, 93!
That's one of the points you made about the True Will. Depending on exactly what you mean, I'm not sure I agree with it.
I don't think that I am making that point but Crowley did. But anyway, I accept that by your definition a one true will evidently exists for every individual. And one can discover it, thus finding out the WHAT THOU WILT part. But Thelema also states that it is then possible to discover you "own consecrated course" and be "ready to run it". This is the DO part. Do you think it is possible to prove that claim? That there is ONE consecrated course only? As in: he IS a sailor and all else he cannot be (when following his course).
Love=Law
Lutz
That's called an objection: you apparently deny that I'm correctly identifying "True Will" because you find my reading "risibly superficial."
I'm willing to discuss that. In what way do you think I'm being "superficial," particularly given my last response to you?
Well, Crowley wrote that in one particular place. That's not the same thing as "Thelema...states." Not the least because Thelema isn't an entity that can "state" anything.
To be clear about all of this -- since I can see this becoming a source of confusion -- I take Thelema to be entirely defined by The Book of the Law. However, although the Book entirely defines Thelema, it is likely that the Book doesn't completely explain Thelema -- hence, commentary is necessary.
Crowley's interpretations of the Book form the bulk of "Thelema" and "Thelemic doctrine," but I don't think Crowley was infallible or correct on every point.
For those reasons, I don't think it's good policy to hang one's interpretation of Thelema around a handful of Crowley phrases. I think it's a better idea to pull back and try to get as wide a picture as possible of general trends in Crowley's interpretation of the Book and ways in which that interpretation is most accurate.
As far as I'm concerned, Crowley trumps other commenters, the Book trumps Crowley, and investigations into reality trump the Book.
Do you think it is possible to prove that claim? That there is ONE consecrated course only? As in: he IS a sailor and all else he cannot be (when following his course).
I'm not totally following the question. You're asking if I think it's possible to demonstrate [demonstrate, not "prove"] that there is "ONE consecrated course only"? But what does that mean? Your follow up to clarify ("As in") isn't 100% clear.
There are a number of things you could be asking. To list a few examples:
Are you asking whether a person has one and only one course of action designated "True Will" that's mapped out ahead of time, which he can choose to discover and choose to follow or not?
Are you asking whether a person has one and only one course of action that he can ever do (i.e. hard determinism)?
Are you asking whether there is only ONE single action dictated by an individual's true nature and his environment at any given moment, thus producing a "path" that arises from their intersection (but not a path that's been mapped out ahead of time)?
Could you ask your question again with more specificity?
Los, 93.
Crowley very often illustrates this consecrated course of each individual with the course of a star. Since stars do not tend to change their course at any given moment the logical question would surely be:
But since your own position is
I am sure you would go for option #3 and decide that Crowley either did not choose a good illustration or is once again trumped by reality.
The Law is for all.
Love=Law
Lutz
Actually... yes, there is. And apparently gravity makes more sense there than it does in our 3D projection.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/universe-really-is-a-holo/
It's a fringe idea. Most working physicists will tell you that. Until the atom collision experiments provide solid evidence then the 11D model is of the realm of science fiction. Keep it real.
Crowley very often illustrates this consecrated course of each individual with the course of a star. Since stars do not tend to change their course at any given moment the logical question would surely be:
Well, if that's your question, then I would dispute that each person has a course that's mapped out ahead of time, in the same way that I would dispute that a star has a course that's mapped out ahead of time.
The "course" that a star follows -- and that each person follows in his or her life -- isn't pre-planned, but it is the *product* of various forces (in the case of a person, those forces include nature and environment).
Does that answer your question?
Sure we can. Get one of thes supposed storm creators to do a storm ritual every week in a really dry climate and record the rainfall. Measure the "results" against the range of rainfall that we would expect to occur naturally. If he can really cause storms to happen, then we should see rainfall amounts well outside the range of what should be expected.
But those who have determined to evaluate those claims and search for ways to test them outside of the current common sense paradigm are following the path of my Australian physicist.
What way do you propose to test the claim that a person can cause storms with rituals, and what do you think makes it a better method than the one I proposed above?
By the way, as I pointed out in my earlier post, the claim that a person can *cause storms* isn't some abstruse, theoretical hypothesis about alternate dimensions or about blackholes. It's a claim about reality that -- if true -- would produce measurable, detectable results. [...]
It now seems to be a bit out on its own in view of all the other involved discussion - and sorry for seeming to butt in, if that’s the case! - but I mentioned previously in a post way, way back the example of Wilhelm Reich and his “cloudbuster” - an apparatus which consisted of nothing more eldritch than a series of hollow circular steel pipes (sorry that I do not have an image I am able to upload – possibly someone else might be able to oblige) which, after its being switched on & used, produced – or to be more accurate, appeared to produce, so far as is known - startling and dramatic effects on the immediate local weather and climate.
Such goes against the grain of all current theories regarding weather control, and in terms of basic cause-and-effect remains just as hard to explain as a bunch of natives cavorting about and doing a raindance, or a magician casting spells to raise a thunderstorm. The point I am making being, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio. It’s true (and as I did remark before) W.R. wasn’t a card-carrying mystic or magician à la Jack Parsons for instance, but that shouldn’t exclude this example nor does it alter the fact that it is comparably difficult to explain his well-scientifically-documented experiments and exercises in terms of what are currently known “scientific” hypotheses and explanations…
Meanwhile, back to your scheduled programming...
♫ “Rainy day, rain all day, ain’t no use in getting uptight, just let it groove its own way –
Let it drain your worries away: lay back and groove on a rainy day; lay back and dream on a rainy day…” ♫ (J. Hendrix: "Electric Ladyland")
N ~ J[sub:3c833y76]0[/sub:3c833y76]y
Were we discussing WR's machines and their alleged effects in the original example in this thread?
No.
Were we discussing WR's machines and their alleged effects in the original example in this thread?
No.
We weren't discussing a lot of things in the original example in this thread! Fred!
N Joy
. 'Tis the downside of binary thinking. We can indeed verify the *effects* of the magick (the statistically unlikely storm in the desert, for `example). We cannot currently verify whether there definitely is or definitely is not a causal connection between the practice of the magician and the recorded result. We can certainly fall back on common sense and "most likely" explanations to get us through our day-to-day existence, and it is your Nuit-given right to do so. But those who have determined to evaluate those claims and search for ways to test them outside of the current common sense paradigm are following the path of my Australian physicist. You choose to reduce the possibilities down to the Aristotelian A therefore B. It seems to me that those truly engaging in magical research are searching for something more along the lines of A dfn%sal B. And, since Aristotelian either/or logic has, by and large, been discarded in the realms of scientific research (thanks, Heisenberg), why should this particular branch be any different.
etc etc etc
These hypothetical models have been posited by physicists to attempt to explain outliers from what one would expect based on our current model of reality. This is very like the hypothetical models created by working magicians to explain the outliers that they themselves have experienced. If all you're interested in is getting through your day-to-day existence based on what is most likely to be true given current consensus reality paradigms, then by all means, have at it. But this constant raging against those who have found interest in exploring the supra-mundane and seeking new methods of measuring it echoes the cry of the Luddite.
I knew someone would invoke wacky, pseudo science i.e. new- age quantal mysticism sooner or later. It holds no weight. I picked up these points from an article on physics. As follows.
Influenced by Einstein’s insistence that quantum mechanics is an incomplete theory, that “God does not play dice,” and while such theories are possible, no evidence has yet been found for subquantum forces. Furthermore, experiments have made it almost certain that any such theory, if deterministic, must involve superluminal connections.
The fact is the “holistic” wave nature of particles can be understood in a manner that requires no superluminal motion and certainly no intervention of human consciousness. The quantum jump is random and no signal or other causal effect is superluminally transmitted.
Thus quantum mechanics, as conventionally practiced, describes quantum leaps without too drastic a quantum leap beyond common sense. Certainly no mystical assertions are justified by any observations concerning quantum processes.
Quantum mechanics, the centerpiece of modern physics, is misinterpreted as implying that the human mind controls reality and that the universe is one connected whole that cannot be understood by the usual reduction to parts. However, no compelling argument or evidence requires that quantum mechanics plays a central role in human consciousness or provides instantaneous, holistic connections across the universe. Modern physics, including quantum mechanics, remains completely materialistic and reductionistic while being consistent with all scientific observations.
The apparent holistic, nonlocal behavior of quantum phenomena, as exemplified by a particle’s appearing to be in two places at once, can be understood without discarding the commonsense notion of particles following definite paths in space and time or requiring that signals travel faster than the speed of light.
No superluminal motion or signalling has ever been observed, in agreement with the limit set by the theory of relativity. Furthermore, interpretations of quantum effects need not so uproot classical physics, or common sense, as to render them inoperable on all scales-especially the macroscopic scale on which humans function. Newtonian physics, which successfully describes virtually all macroscopic phenomena, follows smoothly as the many-particle limit of quantum mechanics. And common sense continues to apply on the human scale.
I agree that if someone innately and permanently has the power to cause storms, that is something we could test using common sense, current-paradigm methods. I disagree that the ability to influence reality in extra-normal ways is necessarily permanent or repeatable. Or even testable in current-paradigm ways.
Note I used the plural, "hypotheses" not the singular "specific hypothesis". As I said before, like my Australian physicist, like Robert Anton Wilson, like anyone actually interested in moving the bleeding-edge forward rather than merely having a usable phone, I don't rest on any one "most-likely" model of reality. I'm not content with a single hypothesis at a time.
1. Reality is an unending chain of cause-and-effect, slavishly following the laws of physics set in motion by the Big Bang.
2. Reality is a 3D projection of a 10D hyper-reality in which the laws of physics are nothing like what we currently assume them to be.
3. Consciousness is a function of brain chemistry, nothing more nor less than another link in the cause/effect chain.
4. Consciousness is a thing separate from the matter/energy matrix, not measurable by physical means but able to influence the cause/effect chain.
5. Tao called Tao is not Tao.
6. Meditation, dreams, psychedelic visions are nothing more than a scrambling of the brain's signal paths, creating crossovers between the sensual receptors.
7. Meditation, dreams, psychedelic visions connect certain latent receptors in the mind to extra-normal information pathways unbound by physical needs.
8. Gods and Angels are poetic anthromophisations of natural occurrences created by the primitive mind to explain the world.
9. Gods and Angels are super-human intelligences that interact with humanity in a non-physical way to forward mental and spiritual evolution, leaving behind the impression of natural forces.
10. Ra-Hoor-Khuit hath taken his seat in the East at the Equinox of the Gods.
11. The chakras are symbolic ideas that allow one to focus on certain archetypes as one meditates.
12. The chakras are subtle centers of connection between the human nervous system and a non-physical realm of energy which can be accessed through a point located in each person's sacral plexus.
I could formulate these all day but, I think this makes the point. Each of these are equally true, false, true-and-false, and not-true-and-not-false. Occasionally I'll elevate one or more of them to a working hypothesis to test the effects it has on my perception of reality. Some bear fruit at times, some do not.
That does not necessarily make any of them more or less "likely".
If we use your preferred model that consciousness is simply brain chemistry, someone who clocks that she "is not thinking" is actually thinking. It would require something external to the brain to register that the thinking brain has stopped functioning.
Oh dear. Your definition of True Will really rests on something of a kind with coffee preference? If so, I'm going to have to side with Lutz on this one. Take one trip to a hypno-therapist and see if she can't turn that "preference" into a revulsion or, more to the point, a non-issue.
Even using your example of sexual preference, as much as it pains me to admit it, hypnotherapy can remove that "preference" as well. If you'll forgive the dated language that hetero-normative sexual preference is an "improvement":
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1935956/
If that's the definition you want to run with, by all means, shoot for the stars. But I fail to see anything beneficial in seeking out the tendencies that are currently "hard-wired" into me (in only the most rudimentary sense) by genetics and conditioning as the goal of my search. I also don't read in Crowley that this is what he was intending by the term.
I don't have my library shelf in front of me so please forgive the lack of cut-and-paste citations from across his ouvre but I always got the sense that his intent was that one should find these tendencies (preferences if you like), not to embrace them but to annihilate them through the act of Love (i.e. 1 + (-1) = 0) Thus, if one were to discover that the preference for coffee was a thing that didn't go away, one should actively counter it with a loathing of coffee until coffee no longer held an instinct-level grip on one's being. By eliminating all of these seemingly hard-wired personality quirks, one would have the chance of coming face-to-face with the true self underneath, a thing that is not a function of brain. A thing that can only be apprehended when the brain is truly turned off.
This, of course, requires something outside of brain to do the apprehending.
Hmm... reads to me as if what your aiming at is discovering your animal instinct (guph, if you'll forgive a modicum of qabalah) and allowing it to guide your life. Sounds a bit regressive to my ear.
Seems like a case of special pleading to me.
How so?
I think I addressed this above but, just in case:
This notion that there are things that you can register after you've turned off thought begs the question: What is doing the registering? There is the possibility that we have a different understanding of the terms consciousness and awareness when looking at this issue. I take you to mean that all awareness, like consciousness, is a function of a thinking brain so I find it a bit of a paradox when you say that you are able to register base-level preferences once this thought/awareness/consciousness is turned off.
What is doing the registering?
If someone has a power but it's not testable in any way, then nobody -- not even the guy with the supposed power -- has any reason to think that he has the power.
Let's say that guy has the ability to summon storms but it only works on occasion, in ways completely indistinguishable from random chance. How would anyone -- including him -- know that he actually has said power?
I could formulate these all day but, I think this makes the point.
Yes, indeed. It makes the point that you don't know what a hypothesis is, and it also makes the point that you sound like an idle stoner who thinks that repeating the word "Aristotelian" often enough will make him sound like he isn't a kook.
So many false assumptions, all to spew a bit of bile. Pity. I thought we might be getting somewhere.
Eh bien.
Yeah, this is just a matter of definition. When I say "turn off thought," I'm specifically talking about turning off mental chattering, including thoughts that are explicitly "articulated" (for want of a better term), thoughts that aren't so explicitly articulated, emotions, opinions, hunches, judgments, and similar sorts of phenomena. I would even expand "thought" to include unconscious neuroses.
But I obviously don't mean to turn off all *awareness* because that can be achieved quite easily by going to sleep, and I don't interpret "Do what thou wilt" to mean "Get a solid eight hours each night."
I take you to mean that all awareness, like consciousness, is a function of a thinking brain so I find it a bit of a paradox when you say that you are able to register base-level preferences once this thought/awareness/consciousness is turned off.
Again, in order to do the work, it's not necessary to formulate a rigorous theory that precisely describes what everything ultimately is, but I don't see any reason to think that both what I'm calling "awareness" and what I'm calling "thought" are anything other than the products of brain chemistry.
It would require something external to the brain to register that the thinking brain has stopped functioning.
No, it wouldn't because I'm not saying that the goal of meditation is to get your brain to "stop functioning." That would be dumb. Your brain functions all the time -- it's what makes your lungs contract so that you don't die.
The goal is to get your thoughts to shut up. Like I said, if you can't tell whether you're thinking or not, you've got much bigger problems than practicing Thelema. And if you're going to respond with something like, "But realizing that you're not thinking is a kind of thinking!!" then you're just playing word games and not paying attention to the substance of what I'm saying.
Oh dear. Your definition of True Will really rests on something of a kind with coffee preference?
One's True Will deals with how one conducts oneself through life, including the beverages one chooses to consume. If Thelema really is the Supreme Rule of Life -- if it's true that There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt -- then Thelema must necessarily govern every aspect of an individual's life.
Have a look at the examples Crowley gave of people discovering their True Wills. They almost entirely consisted of concrete, practical, everyday life stuff.
I fail to see anything beneficial in seeking out the tendencies that are currently "hard-wired" into me
You fail to see how it's beneficial for individuals to discover their authentic preferences and to live their lives from that depth? Alright. I wouldn't expect someone with such a slipshod understanding of the concept of "hypothesis" to be able to understand the importance of Thelema.
I always got the sense that [Crowley's] intent was that [...]
Oh, this oughtta be good....
one should find these tendencies (preferences if you like), not to embrace them but to annihilate them through the act of Love (i.e. 1 + (-1) = 0) Thus, if one were to discover that the preference for coffee was a thing that didn't go away, one should actively counter it with a loathing of coffee until coffee no longer held an instinct-level grip on one's being.
What you're describing here is one valid kind of practice that Crowley discusses in some places, but the point of the practice is not to thwart one's authentic preferences but to combat the mental preferences that one confuses for the authentic ones.
It's one thing to have a Will to drink coffee, but it's another thing entirely to drink it only out of mental or physical dependence (mental dependence might include also modeling oneself subconsciously on another coffee drinker and drinking the beverage only out of an unconscious desire to emulate him). There are various kinds of practices by which one can attempt to overcome mental and physical dependence to get at the authentic preference beneath.
By eliminating all of these seemingly hard-wired personality quirks, one would have the chance of coming face-to-face with the true self underneath, a thing that is not a function of brain.
Not a function of the brain? What aspect of human behavior do you think is "not a function of the brain"?
Hmm... reads to me as if what your aiming at is discovering your animal instinct (guph, if you'll forgive a modicum of qabalah) and allowing it to guide your life. Sounds a bit regressive to my ear.
No, not "animal instinct," because the Will can't be identified entirely with the instinct (in the simple sense) or the Id (in the simple sense).
The True Will includes lots of activities we might call "animal" or "instinctual," but it also includes a whole lot more activities that we might call something like "higher activities," such as composing music, writing stories, planning parties, putting up Christmas trees, even making posts on websites.
I think you’ll find that that was one simple example that anyone could understand and relate to. I take it that you do ingest fluids?
This is your argument? True Will as natural inclinations isn’t True Will because someone could allow themselves to lie on a couch and have some quack twist their mind? Surely anyone who allows that to be done to them isn’t doing their True Will anyway.
That figures.
Now why does it not surprise me that you should totally miss the point of that exercise? You attempt to, “annhilate them”, not to annhilate them in actuality as the aim is have as much of a well rounded view as possible of what your actual preferences are then you have succeeded in the challenge.
Hmm... reads to me as if what your aiming at is discovering your animal instinct (guph, if you'll forgive a modicum of qabalah) and allowing it to guide your life. Sounds a bit regressive to my ear.
so you don’t know the difference between Guph, Nephesh, Ruach and Neshamah now?
This notion that there are things that you can register after you've turned off thought begs the question: What is doing the registering? What is doing the registering?
Who cares? My guesse is “higher” cybernetic brain centres, as it were. Now, who was it who said that spirit(s) is, "a portion of the human brain!"?
We don't have to limit it to brainwashing. There are cases on record where brain damage has led to dramatic shifts in an individual's preferences. The argument that "True Will" can't be the authentic inclinations because such inclinations might change is silly at best.
Surely anyone who allows that to be done to them isn’t doing their True Will anyway.
It's a difficult question because I could imagine someone who had some kind of preference and who also had a second preference to no longer have the first preference. To use an extreme example, someone with urges to be a serial killer might also have a stronger preference to live a long life outside of prison. I could imagine such an individual seeking out ways to sublimate or even "treat" his serial killer preferences to enable him to participate in society and avoid punishment.
It's hard to say much about it, though, because it's such a hypothetical situation.
Crowley’ use of the term “mythopoeia”, just for reference.
It’s not one of his favourite words, but it is in his arsenal, and appears four times between 1913 and 1946. If anyone finds other instances, or in the forms “mythopoeic”, “mythopoetic”, or even, possibly, “mythopoesis” (although that does not seem in Crowley’s style), please add them.
His use of the term, were he to have defined it, seems to indicate that it is basically “making up grand stories” about mere historic figures, or mundane subjects, or, as in the Magick chapter 8 example in the OP, with the Müllerian qualification of “Disease of Language”, about mythologizing any tangible thing. He does not use it in the sense of the OP’s source, though, which is a modern literary usage defining “mythologies” that are completely invented, like those of the fantasy genre – Tolkein is given as preeminent example.
Rather, Crowley’s usage, apart from the parody of Müller in the Magick quote, seems to be once as a synonym or substitute for euhemerism, which does not appear to be a word Crowley ever used (“euhemerism” after Euhemerus, a 4th century b.c.e. philosopher who explained the gods as once real people whose fame made them into gods with the elaboration of their exploits in repeated retellings), and the rest of the time as something in between legendary accretions to historical facts and pure invention intended to make some historical facts stick together, a pseudohistory.
Its first appearance is in the “Syllabus of Official Instructions of the AA Hitherto Published”, for Liber LXI vel Causae, in Equinox I,10 (1913), where he writes:
“The object of the book is to discount Mythopoeia.”
In this statement he is clearly alluding to the origin myths of secret societies such as the Freemasons and Rosicrucians, the latter including that of the Golden Dawn, which are pseudo-historical with large doses of fabrication – i.e. “myth” – or even fraud.
Next in the commentary on The Book of Lies, Chapter 7 (circa 1921):
“All these were men; their Godhead is the result of mythopoeia.”
Here he clearly means “euhemerism”.
Next in the Magick note in Chapter 8 cited in the OP (this could have been written earlier or later than the commentary on The Book of Lies).
Finally in letter LXXVI Magick Without Tears, “The Gods: How and Why They Overlap” (1946, IIRC):
“But it is at least equally plausible to suggest that these Gods are different individuals, although of the identical Order of Being, characteristics and function. Very much as if one took Drake, Frobisher, Raleigh, Hood, Blake, Rodney and Nelson, as seen through the mists of history, tradition, legend and plain mythopoeia.”
Here he comes close to a definition, by what he excludes from “mythopoeia” – it is more than the mists of history, tradition and legend. What is left must be “invention”, or the stuff that makes the various historical and legendary pieces fit together into a relevant narrative. It is therefore much like his first use of the term to characterize the foundation-myths of the secret societies.
Great post as usual, belmurru. Thanks for this.
We don't have to limit it to brainwashing. There are cases on record where brain damage has led to dramatic shifts in an individual's preferences. The argument that "True Will" can't be the authentic inclinations because such inclinations might change is silly at best.
Brain damage can radically alter True Will?. That makes sense seeing things from a sceptical-materialist position. When I used to think that True Will was some sort of transmigratory multi-lifespan product of a quasi-Krsna consciousness emanating from the pulsating void of Ain Soph Aur then I wouldn't have accepted this position. This is what toying with vast gaseous invertebrates does to one's mind. It distorts reason.
Los, 93!
It isn't MY question, it is a logical question that arises when comparing what Crowley wrote with stuff you write.
As you probably realize your answer was clear to me (anybody I guess) beforehand, when you presented your three possible questions.
Thanks anyway.
Love=Law
Lutz
Citation?
I found it here:
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Briefs2/Quantum%20Quackery.pdf
It's not actually 'on physics' it's part of the anti pseudo-science agenda.
OK
cheers
I found it here:
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Briefs2/Quantum%20Quackery.pdf
It's not actually 'on physics' it's part of the anti pseudo-science agenda.
OK
........which happens to be on the subject of physics.
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/quantum_quackery/
...........is the weblink. I think that there is clearly a need for most occultists to bail from their family's (or their school's) dubious faith-based religions and jump into the occulture but without truly disregarding that dubious spiritual faith. Amongst the more educated, quantal mysticism appears to be the most potent tool for maintaining this charade. Here's some more quotes;
Although they are usually not so explicit, quantum mystics seem to interpret the wave function as some kind of vibration of a holistic ether that pervades the universe, as “real” as the vibration in air we call a sound wave. Wave function collapse, in their view, happens instantaneously throughout the universe by a willful act of cosmic consciousness.
In their book The Conscious Universe, Menas Kafatos and Robert Nadeau identify the wave function with “Being-In-Itself":
One could then conclude that Being, in its physical analogue at least, had been “revealed” in the wave function. . . . [A]ny sense we have of profound unity with the cosmos . . . could be presumed to correlate with the action of the deterministic wave function . . . .
(Kafatos and Nadeau 1990, 124)
Thus they follow Capra in imagining that quantum mechanics unites mind with the universe. But our inner sense of “profound unity with the cosmos” is hardly scientific evidence.
The conventional interpretation of quantum mechanics, promulgated by Bohr and still held by most physicists, says nothing about consciousness. It concerns only what can be measured and what predictions can be made about the statistical distributions of ensembles of future measurements. As noted, the wave function is simply a mathematical object used to calculate probabilities. Mathematical constructs can be as magical as any other figment of the human imagination-like the Starship Enterprise or a Roadrunner cartoon. Nowhere does quantum mechanics imply that real matter or signals travel faster than light. In fact, superluminal signal propagation has been proven to be impossible in any theory consistent with conventional relativity and quantum mechanics (Eberhard and Ross 1989).
The scientists haven't a good understanding of the quantum universe at all yet, many of the the phenomenons that occur are considered to be irrational and contradicts the laws of the atomic universe. So how can quantum mystics explain it all? There are hypothesis and that's all.
http://www.side3.no/vitenskap/dette-nasa-romskipet-skal-fly-raskere-enn-lyset/8454075.html
It is refreshing, david, that you yourself would (by implication, anyway) apparently know the difference between these terms, as that wasn’t immediately clear at all from some of your earlier posts – especially the differences between the last two, which can also be interpreted in English as the “Rational” and the “Intuitive” Mind...
But what can this “Guph” be, I wonder? I've never come across that particular attribution before. (As a wild guess, might you possibly understand it as relating to the Qlipoth, perhaps?!?!)
Enquiringly yours,
N Joy
He's probably not alone. The others I've heard of before, but what the hell is Guph?
89
Yes, belmurru, GVPh is indeed = 89, or even 809 if you want to get fancy with the Phay final.
It is a term for the gross, "physical body".
In that case, I stand corrected, and apologise to david.
“Ditto”, here.
Through the wonders of the holy google, and for the benefit of anyone else who might not kno, it seems the phrase also stood for
Guph, Guf, Guff (Hebrew)
A hollow or empty body, a shell; commonly used in the Qabalah to signify the human physical body … The celestial store-house where these souls await their time to inhabit a human body … The lowest part of the soul, centered in Malkuth. A low level of subconscious intelligence allied to the physical body. The autonomic nervous system.
Also spelled G'uph.
Hmmm ..“shells”… so not too far off the mark with the Qlipoth, then...
Still, my ignorance sits in good company with Michael's here! We do indeed learn something new everyday...
And so I bow – although I wouldn't presume to speak on his behalf! - to your apparent superior knowledge with this one, david:
Bowing (tho' not necessarily scraping),
'N Joy
Apologies to those for whom this is a new term. Some things have been in my lexicon so long that I forget when and if they need accompanying definitions.
Just to clarify, though, I brought "guph" into the conversation as a description of what I perceived to be Los's aim for an animal-level living out of one's life. His "True Will" to me reads as nothing more than instinctual, animal-level, first circuit tendencies.
However, david's response was to question my understanding of the qabalistic levels of the psyche.
I have yet to see an explanation of how that questioning is justified. Guph is the exact term I meant in this context. Perhaps in his rush to tar the qabalah with his brush of absurdity, he has himself misunderstood the terminology.
apology accepted.
annnnnd that is why we like Michael around these parts. Good show.
However, david's response was to question my understanding of the qabalistic levels of the psyche.
I have yet to see an explanation of how that questioning is justified. Guph is the exact term I meant in this context. Perhaps in his rush to tar the qabalah with his brush of absurdity, he has himself misunderstood the terminology.
No, if you want to know why I asked you that question then look at what you wrote. You were insinuating that Los's concept of True Will is no more than allowing animal instincts hold sway which is an overwhelmingly ridiculous insinuation.
Here is what you said,
Hmm... reads to me as if what your aiming at is discovering your animal instinct (guph, if you'll forgive a modicum of qabalah) and allowing it to guide your life. Sounds a bit regressive to my ear
Well I'm not speaking for Los but I strongly assume that any receptivity towards True Will is a Neshama function.
I wasn't insinuating anything, I was outright stating it.
Obviously not as Los managed to respond to my statement directly. Compared my writing to that of an idle stoner and a dude first (I'm not sure which was meant to be the greater insult but, water off a duck's arse), but he did bring himself to actually respond to what I had written.
If that's truly what you thought, why the need to mention Nephesh and Ruach? How do they play into your correction of my understanding of Los' True Will?
Or is this actually, as it appears on the surface, just a bit of backpedaling from what was an attempt to lampoon my grasp of the qabalistic levels of the soul? In line with every other bit of over-heated, under-thought-out, dismissive rhetoric you threw against the wall in that barely comprehensible post?
::)
If that's truly what you thought, why the need to mention Nephesh and Ruach? How do they play into your correction of my understanding of Los' True Will?
Or is this actually, as it appears on the surface, just a bit of backpedaling from what was an attempt to lampoon my grasp of the qabalistic levels of the soul? In line with every other bit of over-heated, under-thought-out, dismissive rhetoric you threw against the wall in that barely comprehensible post?
::)
Back pedalling etc etc? No and I'm not looking for some petty conflict here. Why do I bring in nephesh and ruach?? I didn't you did. Seriously, maybe you need to google the levels of the Cabbalistic soul because your thinking seems to be muddled on the matter.
Which is why, as I said, it's not actually irrational for someone to work on the hypothesis that Bartzabel is an objective entity with his own life and attributes that go on whether we're perceiving him or not.
Well, I would disagree with the second part. If we agree -- as we appear to do -- that it's possible that Bartzabel is an "objective" entity that manifests in ways that make it indistinguishable from nothing, then it does *not* follow that "it's not actually irrational for someone to work on the hypothesis that Bartzabel is an objective entity with his own life and attributes that go on whether we're perceiving him or not."
In fact, I think it most definitely *is* irrational to accept X as a working hypothesis without any good grounds for thinking the hypothesis might be true.
Scientists don't just pluck hypotheses out of a hat, you know. They have reasons -- rooted in evidence -- for thinking that their hypotheses *might* be true. You, on the other hand, have exactly zero reasons to think that "Bartzabel" exists independently of human minds.
You're about as good on scientific method as you are on Crowley's parables Los 🙂
A thing only becomes evidence in the light of a hypothesis, before that it is just a brute fact of someone's experience. A dial jiggling on a bit of scientific equipment isn't evidence unless it's connected to a hypothesis that's being tested - until then, it's just something happening - causally connected to the rest of the world in some way, we can be sure, but in what precise way, well, that's the question.
No, if it's actually the case that X exists but is totally indistinguishable from not existing, then the only rational position is not to accept that X exists until such time as evidence *enables* someone to distinguish X from not existing.
Yes, but you don't sit around on your fat arse waiting for something called "evidence" to turn up - that's precisely what hypothesis-construction is, it's making something up that might be true (because it's at least internally coherent), the implications for experience of which you then test against experience (the distinguishable). The resultant experience then gets to be called "evidence" one way or another vis a vis that hypothesis.
But internal coherence is, strictly speaking, the only logical desideratum prior to that testing. Coherence with what we think we know so far (which is what you're banging on about) is just rule of thumb.
Now of course working scientists build on what they think they know so far, and their punts are in a relatively narrow range of likelihoods - but that's really a function of sociology and common practice (again, rule of thumb), not scientific method (in the sense of a criterion that distinguishes science from rule of thumb). There's no logical path from here to there that makes any one hypothesis any more likely than any other, the only logical path (i.e. method of using strict logical necessity in one's arguments) is in the disconfirmation of a hypothesis in terms of its expected logical implications (if it were true) not panning out.
This is why things like "truth", "reality", etc., are ideals, not experiences. Truth (correspondence with reality) is perennially an objective possibility, but we will never know, and never can know, with absolute certainty, that anything is true - that is built into the very concept of objectivity itself. Even common everyday perceptual sentences have conditions. What we can do is say "well IF it's true, then we should expect THIS to happen", and see if it does or doesn't (while agreeing beforehand on the perceptual range - e.g. this instrument reading under normal conditions, say). That's when a sheer occurrence becomes evidence, in the light of that process, in the light of using truth as an ideal towards which we aim.
What you would have us do is go only by what's coherent with what we think we know so far. But nothing would ever get discovered that way, because nobody would be making punts beyond what we know so far, and testing them against fresh experience.
"Maybe" does not mean "definitely not", it means maybe.
If you don't want a petty conflict then don't start one, boy-o. You brought up nephesh and ruach:
so you don’t know the difference between Guph, Nephesh, Ruach and Neshamah now?
I know precisely what those levels mean and I used the term "guph" precisely. Given Los's response to my post, he read it precisely as well. The question remains, why did you feel the need to bring all four levels into the conversation if not to unnecessarily attack my grasp of the qabalah... as you are once again doing in this post.
You're really almost not worth engaging with at this point but, if you're going to insist on tossing out sideways and unfounded accusations, expect them to get called out.