A whole hour-long youtube video about Nietzsche to supplement Wikipedia-skimming?
Well, clearly an expert then.
Still, there is something to be said for actually reading the stuff, even if you may miss a lot due to the lack of needed background as has been pointed out.

***********

Michael Staley: "Whoosh" indeed. Not for the first time on all points, and perhaps not for the last time either.

No, it's no slip of the keyboard. A few months ago, when responding to Tao on some thread or other, Los made a remark to the effect that Tao and Gnosomai Emauton (an adversary from heruraha.net) were the same person. David picked that up, decided that Los must clearly be right, and taken it as fact.

If david has evidence that they are one and the same, then it is appropriate for him to take it up with the webmaster. If he doesn't have any evidence, but is merely echoing His Master's Voice, then he might consider maintaining silence on the issue.

http://hermetic.com/crowley/book-4/chap18.html

Do you think that rising in the planes is an important part of helping to unveil True Will?  Crowley seemed to think so...or did he? ; "The Magician can hardly take too much trouble to develop this power in himself. It is extremely useful to him in guarding himself against attack; in obtaining warnings, in judging character, and especially in watching the process of his Ceremonies"

Magick in Theory and Practice

CHAPTER XVIII
OF CLAIRVOYANCE AND THE BODY OF LIGHT
ITS POWER AND ITS DEVELOPMENT
ALSO CONCERNING DIVINATION

Whenever I've done the rising on the planes exercise it strikes me as a temporary form of body/emotion awareness.  A focus.  Sure it's a warm feeling of "expanded consciousness" which lasts for a while but I'm not so sure that this is an essential regular practice.  Disidentification is part of unveiling True Will/Real Self.  It is important, I feel for the purposes outlined in the OP, that we do disidentify with our physical body, our changing feelings, our changing desires and our changing thoughts.  We can achieve this without rising on the planes.

I suspect that the basis of Los's wildly speculative unfounded claim (so uncharacteristic of a "skeptic"), that david has aped here (I believe it was JB who first mentioned organ-grinders' amanuenses?), that Tao and Gnosomai are the same person, is that both showed some evidence of grad school (or very rigorous undergrad background) in philosophy, in actually knowing the technical meanings, etc., of various terms Los has gleaned from the Amazing Randi, et al., and thus made similar arguments in dialogue with Los when Los unleashed his usual barrage of misappropriated signifiers invoking various concepts in science and philosophy that he imagines that he understands.
david's non sequitur response is impressive even by the standards he has set.

This again? Honestly?

I got the impression that that's exactly what "Thelemic Practice" was aimed at: stirring up the hornets nest of pre-conceived notions and comfortable self-delusions in order to confront them. If you can't stand up to a few hornets, how do you expect to stand up against the Dweller on the Threshold?

Your choice, of course, but to an uninvolved reader it must look pretty foolish when you continue to bumble around the china shop despite regular reminders from the ignored that you are playing the proverbial bull.

What was that phrase you like to quote so often... "A man may think it his duty to act in a certain way, through having made a fancy picture of himself, instead of investigating his actual nature."

I must admit, its not a program I've ever indulged in. However, you make a very good point. Continue on in your quest to make an intellectual fool of yourself, trolling your pseudo-Nietzsche and transcendental value systems that aren't "transcendental", with my blessing young chap. I will hereby refrain from encouraging you to base your unruly attention-seeking in fact, citation, or well-reasoned argument. Have a field day! 😉

OT http://hermetic.com/crowley/book-4/chap18.html

Oh, the comedy!

You might as well just copy and paste this into your posts, as your all-purpose response: egwgherhwerhwerhsedhdjhsdfhdfhdfhedfhdfhdfhedhfd

I'm not  a mind reader.  If you have something to say or dispute then please use the normal avenues.

Snarf 😉

I was trying to be nice and engage in Thelemic Practise talks but then Los said I was disabled and then David said that Los was right so now I am sad. I guess I won't play anymore. I am going to go read comics.

I'm pretty sure I said nothing of the sort.

lol. man you must troll this forum like a junkie.
Anyway, you basically said that most people with religious/spiritual/metaphysical beliefs were doing it because they needed a crutch. 

Again, if you look back at the posts I made, you'll see that what I actually said was that in the situations you were specifically asking me about -- people thinking that their religious beliefs improve them or help them cope -- I think they are crutches for actual problems, but I also acknowledged that lots and lots of people are religious because they don't think very hard about it or because it's just a tradition or hobby. People are religious or spiritual for lots of reasons.

At no point did I say or even imply that you were "disabled" in any sense. I swear, if you were to just pay attention to what's actually being said -- instead of paying attention to what you imagine is being said -- you'd have a much easier time of it.

Okay, I'll break it down for you.

This is not rising on the planes proper. It may, with all other factors considered, be an attempt to rise on the planes, but nevertheless it is not rising on the planes proper. Keep at it. Surely you'll get it eventually.

I am going to assume that by the term 'disidentification' you mean indifference. If you don't, feel free to explain away.

On the rest, you are only speculating or repeating what you have been told. If you want to ride Los' curtail, you could at least give him the dignity of doing your own experiments (assuming that he deserves said dignity, but he can create his own mess), and not regurgitating what he says or what other people say on the matter. We all do/ have done it at some point, but when you put yourself into the proposed framework of being 'super-skeptical' about every little thing, especially trying to run around here challenging everyone like you do, then you really put your foot in your mouth any time you are taking about True Will without quotation marks, as you are only speculating or repeating.

In other words, gwegwerhwerhwerghwghqwegwegqwegwe. Meaningless drivel.

You have decided to create a little pedestal of your own, no doubt with Los in plain view, and you are trying to shout from it without really knowing what the hell you are talking about.

If you want to repeat someone, use quotes. If you want to speculate, then speculate. Sitting there and repeating or speculating about something you really have no idea about without making such caveats, in favor of trying to sound like you have a clue, can really do genuine 'seekers' a disservice.

Before you go on a rant about how you weren't doing this, take a look at one of your statements. You said, "We can achieve this without rising on the planes." The only way you can know if this is true is if you had already achieved it, which you have not. So you don't know.

The Sphinx has Four Powers, not three. Silence is a virtue.

I am religious. I am not religious in the traditional sense. I do not believe in or worship a personal deity in the superstitious hope that it will, in reward for this service, redeem me from eternal suffering, nor so that it will bless me in any way. I certainly do not engage in religious activities to help me cope with life's problems. The suggestion that I do so because I "do not think very hard about it" -- I think you mean to say that the religious-minded are dense or even altogether stupid -- is wrong. You lump everyone in the same category, because of your own failure to understand. It isn't, for me, either tradition or hobby that determines this pattern of doctrine or course of practice; and it most certainly isn't a crutch on which I lean  for strength of will or some miraculous intervention. Encountering something superior in intelligence and power to myself, I took the initiative to pursue it, not to seek its approval and favor, but to rip away the veils keeping it at a distance. Once I did that, I began to realize that this supernal being was at some level linked with my own. And the nearer to it I got, the more I improved -- in intelligence, in talent, in execution, and in character.

I think you should stop assuming that all forms of religious approach are the same. Religion is for many a mindless and possibly dangerous superstition, but I see it as a mere means to an end.

No, I mean to say that they don't think very hard about it. There are some very intelligent religious people. But the reason that many of them are intelligent seems to be that they don't apply that intelligence to examining their religion: they don't think very hard about a select number of claims that they want to be true. [Then there are others with the opposite problem: they use their intelligence to construct elaborate rationalizations for their preferred beliefs. It's no secret that cults often recruit on college campuses. People who are intelligent and educated are often much better at deluding themselves because they can construct spurious justifications for their beliefs]

A great example of the intelligent person who doesn't think very hard about religion is Francis Collins, former head of the human genome project and evangelical Christian. Collins is a brilliant scientist, but many of the things he's said about religion are idiotic. He has recounted the story of what convinced him that God exists: essentially, when out for a walk in nature one day, he came across a waterfall that had been frozen in three parts; he was convinced that this sight was a sign that the Holy Trinity is true.

Now, Collins is very smart and intelligent. But he refuses to think very hard about this particular issue, probably because it means something to him. I find that it's very, very common for religious people to think in this way: they wall off certain preferred beliefs and refuse to examine them with the kind of rigor with which they would examine any other claim. In some religious believers, they even have a ready made justification for this: "reason is a lie," so we shouldn't use reason to analyze certain claims; or "faith is a virtue," so it's a vice to question certain claims; et cetera. But other religious believers think that they are examining their beliefs, when they in fact do so only in the most cursory and insufficient ways.

Since you offered yourself as an example, let's consider your own beliefs:

Encountering something superior in intelligence and power to myself, I took the initiative to pursue it, not to seek its approval and favor, but to rip away the veils keeping it at a distance. Once I did that, I began to realize that this supernal being was at some level linked with my own. And the nearer to it I got, the more I improved -- in intelligence, in talent, in execution, and in character.

So, in the first place, I would consider what you described to be roughly on the level of a "hobby." This is something you do in your spare time because you find it fun and helpful to you. I know people who study music as a hobby in their spare time because they enjoy it (that is, they enjoy getting "nearer" to the genius encoded in sheet music) and they find that it sharpens their mental faculties and provides them with a fun skill.

In the second place, I don't think anyone -- including you -- has any reason to think you've actually encountered "something superior in intelligence and power" in the way that you seem to mean (I'm assuming that you mean an incorporeal intelligence, which you've said elsewhere that you believe in because you think you've encountered them). This is an example of not thinking very hard about your beliefs, in fact. I'm not saying that you're stupid; I'm just saying that you haven't used your intelligence very well in analyzing this claim. My guess is that you're making a mistake similar to the one Yeheshuah was making earlier in this thread.

In the third place, I remain skeptical that you've actually "improved -- in intelligence, in talent, in execution, and in character." Considering that you're being a little imprecise with language -- intelligence, talent, and character are arguably inborn attributes, not qualities that can actually be improved per se -- what you're probably talking about, if I had to guess, is that you find yourself better able to use and fully express these attributes and, by virtue of doing so, you find that you can execute various tasks in improved ways. That's your claim, but I'm skeptical of it. I'm not saying that you haven't "improved" in this way, but I'm at least doubtful of your subjective self-assessment.

In the fourth place, if I were to grant that you have "improved" in some way as a result of your religious practices, I see no reason to think the improvement has anything to do with your religious practices or beliefs. People get better at stuff by practicing the stuff. If you're better at thinking, then it happened because you practiced thinking. If you're better at painting, then it happened because you practiced painting. Pretending to talk to goblin men doesn't make you better at anything except pretending to talk to goblin men.

So anyway, the above gives you an insight into what I mean by not thinking very hard about these claims. I'm not calling you stupid at all -- I think you're failing to be very rigorous about thinking through some of these ideas because those ideas are appealing to you. In this respect -- as much as you don't like hearing this -- you're very much like religionists of the more dangerous variety.

This is because many (most?) of them had their religious imprints programmed into them when they were just kids and their intellect wasn't up-to-speed yet. The Jesuits say, "Give me a child until the age of seven and I will give you the man."

The basic religious imprints are often locked in just as though they were "hardware" and not a type of "software." Thus, many people who are rational and intelligent in their daily, working lives, will also firmly believe in a God (with certain characteristics), and will often believe in the teachings of a particular prophet - usually resulting in a lessened respect for followers of other prophets. Sometimes they want to kill those other infidels, heathens and protestants. >:(

The most intelligent among these folks will at least allow other people to think-worship-believe as they will, and suc generous people are said to be "open-minded."

But they rarely are so "open-minded" that they will actually dissect and question their own religious beliefs. When they do, they are at risk of leaving their church and reading books by Aleister Crowley ... or [gasp] perusing the posts at lashtal.com. 😮

Since someone had to do the 666th post here, I decided that it might as well be me.  And then Shiva did it first.

Yours childishly,
N Joy

No:  los is post 666
@ least on this tapatalk application

This is a discussion board after all isn't it?

Wow.  Here we go.  So ....wait for it.....drum roll...I'm not doing it right?  You're assuming i'm a "beginner" and I need to keep at it until I "get there"?  Get what?  You, OTOH know how to rise on the planes properly because.....?

Incidentally when crops failed in some superstitious societies then more people had to be murdered en masse, ritualistically, in order to placate the crop-controlling disembodied man-things ("gods").    They (the priests) only "knew" that they "got it right" when the crops didn't fail.

So keep at it and eventually ...what?  Transitory psychedelic glory?  Talking to angels?  Attainment of true will? Please elaborate. 

The word I used was probably the best way of articulating my point within the confines of the English language.  I can only lead you to a  dictionary definition of "disidentification" for clarification.

Am I?  How many times do you think I have tried rising on the planes?

Y'know this idea that I'm Los's "fanboy" and therefore all of my points are therefore invalid, this crops up now and again and is a pretty pathetic character assassination attempt and an unconscious diversion tactic..  Thelemic scepticism is, if you like and dare I say, a movement.  Now , imo it's analogous to the early attempts at heavier than air flight or wireless radio.  Naturally the conservative element who had no idea what was being discussed at that time could only resort to bemused ridicule.     

What I suggest you do is pay attention to my points and arguments and not me as such.  Like I said this is a discussion board.

Talking of which are you still talking about my rising on the planes work here?  If so, I'd love to hear how and why I've been doing it wrong.  Please don't resort to "try harder" because that won't make any sort of sense. 

How do you know I "have not"? 

Virtue huh?  A vague term if ever there was one. 

Keep silence?  That's interesting you think if someone attains then they shouldn't talk about it?  I am perfectly capable of trans-ego discussions.  By the way, why are you so freaked out by sceptical enquiry like it's some brand new aberration?  What about Lucifer getting kicked out of Heaven at the beginning of creation, as it were?  What about Socrates in ancient Greece or Descartes before the industrial revolution?     

You can take my word for it or not. It makes no difference to me.

In case the language is confusing you, the statement "rising on the planes proper" is an indication of the practice within the result. Just like "Asana proper" has nothing to do with the bowl of water on your head, or what you are sitting on, etc.

There are indeed certain tests for the type of thing such as rising on the planes.

Surely you will eventually get the 'results' of rising on the planes. What you described are by-products of the beginning elements of the practice.

In that case, no, your description of "disidentification" with your own body is inaccurate at worst, partial at best.

You know, Liber E, Chapter VI, is a series of beginning practices that have to do with, oh, identification.

That does not interest me.

Oh, you are definitely a fan boy, just as Los was a fan boy of Erwin. Just own it. Accept it.     

When you make valid points, sure. When you present the beginning stages of a practice, and jump right to their application in regards to what you imagine about the K&C, not so much.

I didn't say you were doing it wrong. What you described are early by-products of the practice. 

If you have, it wasn't by the practice of rising on the planes. I'd be willing to bet 'no' anyway, depending on the sense in which we are discussing the subject.

No. It means that if you don't know what you are talking about, maybe you should try being quiet, instead of your usual route, which is to spout off at the mouth anything you can in regards to a subject, up to and including blind speculation.

Not so. Be as skeptical as you want to be. What I said was that you claim to be so very skeptical, yet you are very quick to make assumptions. The two generally don't mix.

"I stand for skepticism in the face of scientific inquiry!"
"Now, I speculate that science will eventually learn x, and so I will treat x as though it is already a known fact."

Almost hypocritical, wouldn't you say?

No interest.

Descarte posited, "I think, therefore I am."

Have you ever considered the statement, "If you don't think, are you there"?

Just so.  As I observed in ”The ordeals” thread on the Magick board:

Reply #51 on March 02, 2015, 08:29:28 pm:

This reminds me a bit of (the answers to) those old Eleven-Plus verbal reasoning type tests, where e.g.

"BOAT is to LINER        as          CANOE is to BOAT"

as in,

“LOS it to ERWIN as DAVID is to LOS”

I don’t think anybody is saying that “all of your points are therefore invalid”, david (maybe just “a lot of them”! ;D) but here you are shrieking defensively again about “pathetic character assassination” attempts, etc. when I am sure Lashtalians have more important business to attend to than to want to try to assassinate your character, fine and noble as I'm doubtless sure it is.  In fact, if anything you have generally been wished well, given encouragement to do better and hope expressed that you will eventually find your own independent voice which has seemingly been a bit lacking!  If people wish to have a little fun with you, which you do rather invite I must say, you should take it in the spirit meant and not take it to heart and assume the worst. 

And as for Thelemic Scepticism being a movement – well, maybe this is indeed so: if you mean as in a bowel movement here (and that its commencement is therefore the result of the same as in Liber AL I:55, perhaps)?

N Joy

For what it's worth, I don't particularly like the term "Thelemic scepticism," nor do I think of it as any sort of "movement."

What I write about is Thelema, not some kind of Thelema. The core tenets of Thelema, as I write about it, were all laid down by Crowley himself when he created it. Now sure, I've developed it and explored some areas of it in more depth and (I hope) clarity than previous writers on Thelema, but it's still recognizably the Thelema that Crowley was talking about. A rough analogy is that we say modern biologists study evolution -- whose basic ideas were laid down by Darwin. We don't invent a new name for the field of study just because modern biologists have developed it a great deal or because some chowderheads (like creationists) know little about it and misrepresent it.

"Los-ianity" is really just Thelema, you see, after Los & Erwin have cleared up all the "misunderstandings" as to AC's work being about ookey-spookey spacemen and goblins.
Of course, those "misunderstandings" were/are shared by every one of AC's disciples and students (who had the benefit of actually talking with the man), all his biographers (some of whom knew AC personally), and every serious academic who has studied his work.
We are so fortunate to have you to lead us from darkness into light.

We've been over this before. Obviously AC's "work" -- as in, everything he ever did and wrote -- involves spacemen and goblins. But Thelema doesn't.

If you weren't so fixated on making these childish accusations whenever you can -- likely in a desperate bid to get me to pay attention to you -- you might figure this out.

Why on earth anyone would want your attention escapes my notice, though we have noticed you have a rather grand opinion of yourself.
I, like some others around here, have a low tolerance for pompous nonsense.
We have indeed been over this ground before, and your tired old "No True Scotsman" defense ("everything AC wrote that supports my arguments is 'Thelema', everything else is unfortunate confusion") rings no truer than in the past.

Oh, ok.  Are you going to tell us what we are expected to achieve as we advance in this practice over time?  In fact,  keeping it OT;

1) What is the practitioner trying to accomplish by this rising on the planes?
2) How does rising on the planes achieve this goal?
3) How does the practitioner *know* that rising on the planes *does* achieve this goal, and by what *specific criteria* does the practitioner determine that the goal has been reached?

It doesn't surprise me that you might not take notice of your own potential motives. Your posts suggest that you are not very perceptive.

your tired old "No True Scotsman" defense ("everything AC wrote that supports my arguments is 'Thelema', everything else is unfortunate confusion")

It's not a "No True Scotsman" fallacy to point out that Thelema, as Crowley described it, is a philosophy of individual conduct that in no way requires belief in anything supernatural. You might as well say that it's a "No True Scotsman" fallacy to point out that Newton's Calculus is a mathematical system that in no way requires someone to accept Newton's beliefs about the Bible and alchemy in order to use it.

It is wonderful to have the benefit of your insights into my motivations, especially given the opinion i have of your intelligence.

This analogy would make sense if Newton himself said that the reason we should accept his mathematical postulates is that they were communicated to him by a praeternatural intelligence.
You're the one who keeps bringing up "belief"; others speak of "certainty".

http://lib.oto-usa.org/crowley/essays/duty.html

Could you read Crowley's "Duty" (a note on the chief rules of practical conduct to be observed by those who accept the Law of Thelema) and tell me where he talks about how we need to listen to actual disembodies intelligences in order to do our will?  If your answer is, "well of course there aren't any but he keeps quoting from Liber Al which was dictated by such an entity so ...etc" then that's not valid as we could just say that's just his own unique and personal way of backing up his points by referencing a poem that he held in high regard.   

I mean this is for another thread but if Crowley had said that the words of Liber Al just "magically" appeared on some paper like "magic ink" then would you still have the same views on the matter? 

Imagine if you were in that Cairo hotel room at that time of reception.  You would've seen a man writing furiously with a pen.  Could you please answer how humans write things on paper?  Do they use pens or pencils?   

Finally, if you have 8m42s you may want to be entertained by this banned cartoon on the real Mormon tenets.  Honestly, George Lucas would be impressed by this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3BqLZ8UoZk  It's scary crazy how this bizarre cult flourished.  You will see how it's actually based on space-beings from other planets.  Mormonism teaches that "countless gods" are scattered throughout the cosmos on other planets who once were human.  A spirit-child named Elohim was born and elevated to godhood.  He lives near Kolob, a mysterious star and through "endless celestial sex" he produced many spirit-children.  Haha , anyway they had a meeting to decide what to do with all of these baby-spirits, the Mormon-god Jesus attended as did his naughty brother, Lucifer so on.  They voted to send the baby-spirits to earth.  Jesus was sent to the earth to protect them but Lucifer didn't like the idea.  He took a third of the baby -spirits as his own army and this explains where the negro race comes from.

By the way Elohim came down from space to have sex with the virgin Mary??  He had come down previously with one of his harem, Eve to create the human race.

Wait, I forgot the bit about native Americans really being Israelites who were preached to by Jesus.  By wearing special sacred underpants, performing secret temple rituals and by abstaining from coffee these special baby-spirit Mormons will posthumously become space-gods on other planets having endless celestial sex producing their own special kind to rule the universe..... it's great you have to watch it. .   

Anyway if you believe one guy's account of metaphysical entities from outer space telling people to write books then how come you don't accept this Mormon story?  How do you use discernment?  They're both the result of subjective metaphysical speculation.  Right?

Mormonism teaches that "countless gods" are scattered throughout the cosmos on other planets who once were human.

Ignore that typo grammar mistake.

Anyway I forgot, if a male Mormon doesn't make the grade then when he dies he faces a panel comprising of Christ, Smith and Elohim (the (err?) man-god) and he is then castrated.  No celestial sex for him then.  Whether the sinful Mormon women-spirits undergo enforced eternal sterilization they didn't say.  I must email the Church and find out. 

The thread is called "Thelemic Practices," not "Mormon Practices." ♫ Because you're mine ... please walk the line 😀

An excellent question, david, to which you might devote some thought; it is clear that this is an issue with which you struggle. Even unperceptive clots such as myself have noticed this.

To return (more directly) to the topic, religious "belief" certainly has no place in Thelema.
Religious practice, however, leading to religious experience, is central to Thelema, and AC's work- i think he would have been rather indignant at Los' suggestion above that there was some valid separation to be made between the two.

Skilled in the art of not paying attention I see.  Ignant said that Los was guilty of "not true Scotsman" fallacy a la "Los-ianity" as Crowley believed in space gods who help to write religious texts.  I pointed out that he, Ignant in declaring that is no better than a Mormon.

OT?  Well yes because the unveiling of True Will does not necessitate recourse to belief in space gods, whether they be Mormon, Typhonian or from the Might Marvel universe.  I also pointed him towards Crowley's essay, "Duty" as evidence that Thelemic practice is not grounded in Mormonesque metaphysics.

Please, keep up.   

David and Los and other dear 'Thelemic Skeptics,'

I was reading Magical and Philosophical Commentaries on the Book of the Law this morning and came upon this passage regarding 'truth' and 'perception' and 'science' versus belief (at least in my mind [ha that's like a triple entendre]) and I wanted to discuss it:

From AC:
Mathematical ideas involve what is called a continuum, which is, superficially at least, of a different character to the physical continuum. For instance, in the physical continuum, the eye can distinguish between the lengths of one-inch stick and a two-inch stick, but not between these which measure respectively one thousand miles and one thousand miles and on inch, though the difference in each case is equally an inch... Thus, in the physical continuum, if we have three terms, A, B, and C, A appears equal to B, and B to C, yet C appears greater than A. Our reason tells us that this conclusion is an absurdity, that we have been deceived by the grossness of our perceptions. It is useless for us to invent instruments which increase the accuracy of our observations, for though they enable us to distinguish between the three terms of our series, and to restore the theoretical Hierarchy, we can always continue the process of division until we arrive at another series: A', B', C', where A' and C' are distinguishable from each other, but where neither is distinguishable from B'.

On the above grounds, modern thinkers have endeavoured to create a distinction between the mathematical and the physical continuum, yet it should surely be obvious that the defect in our organs of sense, which is responsible for the difficulty, shows that our method of observation debars us from appreciating the true nature of things by this method of observation...

All these considerations depend upon the assumption that every number is no more than a statement of relation. The new conception, indicated by the Book of the Law, is of course in no way contradictory of the orthodox view; but it adds to it in the most practically important manner. A statistician computing the birth-rate of the eighteenth century makes no special mention of the birth of Napoleon. This does not invalidate his results; but it demonstrates how exceedingly limited is their scope even with regard to their own object, for the birth of Napoleon had more influence on the death-rate than another other phenomenon included in his calculations.

A short digression is necessary. There may be some who are still unaware of the fact, but the mathematical and physical sciences are in no sense concerned with absolute truth, but only with the relations between observed phenomena and the observer. The statement that the acceleration of falling bodies is thirty-two feet per second, is only the roughest of approximation at the best. In the first place, it applies to earth. As most people know, in the Moon the rate is only one-sixth as great. But, even on earth, it differs in a marked manner between the poles and the equator, and not only so, but it is affected by so small a matter as the neighborhood of a mountain.

It is similarly inaccurate to speak of "repeating" an experiment. The exact conditions never recur. One cannot boil water twice over. The water is not the same, and the observer is not the same. When a man says that he is sitting still, he forgets that he is whirling through space with vertiginous rapidity.

It is possibly such considerations that led earlier thinkers to admit that there was no expectation of finding truth in anything but mathematics, and they rashly supposed that the apparent ineluctability of her laws constitutes a guarantee of their coherence with truth. But mathematics is entirely a matter of convention, no less so than the rules of Chess or Baccarat. When we say that "two straight lines cannot enclose a space", we mean no more than we are unable to think of them as doing so. The truth of the statement depends, consequently, on that of the hypothesis that our minds bear witness to truth. Yet the insane man may be unable to think that he is not the victim of mysterious persecution. We find that no reason for believing him. It is useless to reply that mathematical truths receive universal consent, because they do not. It is a matter of elaborate and tedious training to persuade even the few people when we teach of the truth of the simplest theorems in Geometry. There are very few people living who are convinced -- or even aware -- of the more recondite results of analysis. It is no reply to this criticism to say that all men can be convinced if they are sufficiently trained, for who is to guarantee that such training does not warp the mind?

But when we have brushed away these preliminary objections, we find that the nature of the statement itself is not, and cannot be, more than a statement of correspondences between our ideas. In the example chosen, we have five ideas; those of duality, of straightness, of a line, of enclosing, and of space. None of these are more than ideas. Each one is meaningless until it is defined as corresponding in a certain manner to certain other ideas. We cannot define any word soever, except by identifying it with two or more equally undefined words. To define it by a single word would evidently constitute a tautology.

We are thus forced to the conclusion that all investigation may be stigmatized as obscurum per obscurium. Logically, our position is even worse... Not only is all argument confined within a vicious circle, but so is the definition of the terms on which any argument must be based.

It might be supposed that the above chain of reasoning made all conclusions impossible. But this is only true when we investigate the ultimate validity of our propositions. We can rely on water boiling at 100 degrees Centigrade,<> although, for mathematical accuracy, water never boils twice running at precisely the same temperature, and although, logically, the term water is an incomprehensible mystery.

To return to our so-called axiom; Two straight lines cannot enclose a space. It has been one of the most important discoveries of modern mathematics, that this statement, even if we assume the definition of the various terms employed, is strictly relative, not absolute; and that common sense is impotent to confirm it as in the case of the boiling water. For Bolyai, Lobatschewsky, and Riemann have shown conclusively that a consistent system of geometry can be erected on any arbitrary axiom soever. If one chooses to assume that the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is either greater than or less than two right angles, instead of equal to them, we can construct two new systems of Geometry, each perfectly consistent with itself, and we possess no means soever of deciding which of the three represents truth.

So in other words he is pointing not just to the subjectivity of truth (lower T, because its not absolute), but to the fact that even holy science fails at finding true answers, because the mental faculties of humans are not equipped by nature for Absolute Truth and therefore run in circles.

This therefore shows the 'necessity' in man for 'metaphysics' or 'spirituality' not just science and reason, because we are incapable of grasping Absolute Truth any other way.  Therefore the foundation of the AA with the method of science the aim of religion; ie you have to unite belief and spiritual concepts with scientific process and thought.  At least that's what I got out of the passage.

Thoughts?

This is a non-partisan website. Demeaning Mormons is partisan. If you say similar things about Islam, the fanatics may come and shoot you. Why do you feel the need to reduce Ignant to Mormonism?

Please note that discussion of Thelemic Practices is fading, Yeheshua has gone away (to return another day?), and aggressive personalitites are raising their heads and voices.
Alas!  Is there no hope for [s:hlefiy56]the widow's[/s:hlefiy56], er, Aiwass' son?

There are three questions hidden in the above post. Answer all three correctly and win a trip to Cefalu 8)

Please, keep up.

You mean "tag along on the divergent dialoque?"

It's a matter of semantics. 

Mere bi-products of the actual goal.  I think Crowley would've said don't dwell on dalliance; move on.

AC sez: "Mathematical ideas involve what is called a continuum, which is, superficially at least, of a different character to the physical continuum. For instance, in the physical continuum ..."

And I was (Aiwaz ;D) just writing in my new book about the spectrum and how those clever fellows, the scientists and the engineers, have discovered "gaps" in the spectrum, which are the same as (or reflections of) veils like Paroketh and Abyssiana (which are "gaps in consciousness).

"The spectrum of the Sun is not a solid band of color (known as a continuous spectrum), there are small, black gaps, or lines, in it! These small gaps are known as an absorption line spectrum."
- http://projects.astro.illinois.edu/data/Spectra/

The Spectrum with gaps, imposed on The Mountain of Initiation - with Veils

[/align:x59b98vd]

Thoughts?

Heavens no!  Perdurabo demonstrated the self-contradictory nature of the thinking principle. It says so in Liber Causae.

Thats fascinating Shiva thank you 🙂
Mysticism and science are meeting more and more every decade which is as it should be.
Lift up thyself unto the mountain of initiation.

Because this morning I happened to find  a cartoon on Mormon space-gods which is similar to the Thelemic Sirius dogma.  I'm not singling out any one faith and it's pretty strange of you to come out with such nonsense. 

Islam, Catholicism, Lutheran Protestantism any and all religious faiths demand a shutting down of our critical thought don't they?  This is basic stuff.

Your sense of humor has been deprived.

What's the "Thelemic Sirius dogma" when it's at home, david?

Its Catma. miau. 😛 Ie. fodder for conspiracy skeptics?  And I would love for people to address my post I just did with the quotes it showed me that Crowley is not just Mr skeptical scientist nor should Thelema ever be viewed as negative-nancy-what-I-see-is-the-only-thing-that's-real territory.

Ah, Cosmic Michael.  I thought these space gods would be of interest to you.  I think you already know about eg Graham Hancock's Texas sharp shooting over Orion's Belt from the Great Pyramid but this is a given in a lot of New Age circles and amongst many Thelemites.    It's one of the brightest stars in the night sky Michael.  It isn't a wandering star is it?

I'm presently enjoying a cosmic cup of coffee.

I have to admit, I was curious about this as well. For a religion based on a holy book that repeatedly damns the unworthy to the dogs, a dog star dogma sounds... interesting, to say the least.

No interest in doing that, sorry. You'll have to ask someone else.

The written material is widely available. It is worth reviewing The Wand in Book 4: Part 2, Chapter 6.

I will say what I have said - that what you have described are the beginning effects and by-products of the practice. You appear to have a decent start.

The rest, you have to figure out on your own. Such a task of helping point towards the moon is often under taken by a "Superior" in some sort of organization that deals practically with such matters, such as the A:.A:.. I have no interest fulfilling that role for you.

Each star-cluster segment of the night sky was given an animal name.  Why not?  That one, that constellation was named  Canis Major the Big Dog and it stuck as did the other constellation names.  No mystery, just a tradition passed down , no doubt from some powerful priest who got to give names to the sky-segments. 

Calling someone "a dog" is an ancient derogatory tradition.  Man's best friend who generally submits to his master for a scrap of meat or the like. 

Reason.   

You are made of stardust.

~ Love,

Science

Ahem!!  Ok.  Thanks for that opinion.  It's totally wrong and irrational but thanks anyway.

I don't want to sound like a parrot but did you ever pay some sort of tradesman to do a job in your house?

Um, I believe it was Kenneth Grant who stated that the One Star in Sight was Sirius - or was it the Silver Star? - the brightest star in our Terran heavens. Alice Bailey states that our Planetary Hierarchy is the White Brotherhood, and it is directed by the Great White Lodge on Sirius (which implies a cosmic viewpoint).

Sure, there's a correlation: The brightest external Star is Sirius. The brightest internal Star, an archetypal symbol related to the Angel or the "higher self," is the One Star in Sight. Every man and every woman is a[n internal] star. It's just an internal/external reflection.

By the way, I will sell you the Sirius Star System at a very cheap price 😀

Aliens in spaceships come from both the Pleiades or from Sirius. This explanation has nothing to do with my "esoteric" explanation, and is assigned to the aforesaid conspiracy theorists.