The Method of Science
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Continuing No. 5:
"1. We have one method, that of Science.
- We have one aim, that of Religion."
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There is more. If the above isn't enough, then the rest probably wouldn't be any better. So I cut to the end:
"This, then, in one language or another, is our philosophical position. But for those who are not content with this, let it be said that there is something more behind and beyond. Among us are those who have experienced things of a nature so exalted that no words ever penned could even adumbrate them faintly. The communication of such knowledge, so far as it is at all possible, must be a personal thing; and we offer it with both hands."
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I was going to post from Postcards to Probationers as well. It is too lengthy and others can find it.
It is quite brilliant, though.
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I considered that as well and skipped it for the same reason. Equinox I.ii really is a treasure trove.
I chose to go with The Psychology of Hashish because there's so much good in there that I completely forgot about until a recent re-read. The title and the dry science of pt.I has always thrown me off. Oliver Haddoo is the same voice that wrote The Soldier and the Hunchback which gets recommended a lot. I really think PofH should get just as much attention.
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Speaking of "portions of the human brain," has anyone considered that sometimes we are not, in fact, dealing with other whole-minded humans who are free to reason correctly? - and that instead, we are actually sometimes dealing with humans whose minds have been at least temporarily overthrown by a portion of their mind devoted to the defense of the rest of their sanity?
Just wondering if you've ever thought about those "portions of the human brain" and their functioning outside of a ritual evocation context.
Sometimes, when this is the case, the trick is to let them have the last word and not to continue to pry open their mental CPU.
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"In fact consciousness itself is cerebral activity. We know this when brain surgeons prod brains with electrodes and rearrange consciousness and we know it when car accident, neurologically damaged people or brain tumour victims lose memory functionality. We also experience, " altered consciousness" when drugs affect our cerebral bio chemistry."
I was reading Mouni Sadhu's book, "Concentration" the other day, your comments here reminded me of something he wrote...
"In mentally deficient individuals, scientists have discovered different abnormalities present in the structure of their brains. On occasions surgery is used in an attempt to rectify the deficiencies of these ailing organs. Malignant tumours can also affect a man's mental abilities, as does any damage indicted on certain important centres in the brain. There have been cases where formerly brilliant and highly intelligent men have lost their powers because of physical changes in their brains, due to disease or loss of portion of their grey matter,following accidents or unsuccessful operations. In some such unfortunate cases, the persons concerned have even become hopeless idiots, lacking every trace of their former intelligence and culture.
These are facts, and in them we can find another support for the assertion that, in the ultimate
sense, the mental and astral planes are still material (although subtle) and dependent on physical matter for their manifestation. " -
One of the major purposes of achieving that highest state of unitary consciousness is that precisely because it is so simple, universal, and pure, it is only that which the human mind may imagine as something of the the form of consciousness held by pure energy, of which matter is also made, ...which energy is also the primal substance of our most simple, pure, and universal experience.
The possibility you have to respect enough to consider is that it may be more accurate to say that thoughts are an "epiphenomenon of matter," but Consciousness, which may be experienced as one in the same with Energy, just IS, whether there are thoughts or Not, even in matter.
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The First "Emanation" of the Absolute. Kether is in Malkuth and Malkuth is in Kether, but after another manner, Malkuth reflects Kether, for that which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is like that which is above. (Little Essays Towards Truth)
I mean, not to quote this as some mindless mantra, but to say, when the ancients struggled with this same matter versus spirit question, this is the weird shit they recommended pondering: "It's the same but not." Looking in versus looking out.,,
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@kasper81 said
"In fact consciousness itself is cerebral activity. "
It depends on what you mean by "consciousness". There are two (why always two?
) generally important uses of that word:--
"Consciousness" in what I'll call the public sense. In this sense, consciousness has signs that anyone can see, it's not something hidden. It is in fact a type of behaviour, or a classification of behaviour, in terms of a living thing being goal-directed, able to avoid things bad for it and cleave to things good for it. In a trope, it's like, "how many fingers am I holding up?"
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"Consciousness" in what I'll call the private sense. In this sense, its something each person seems to have for themselves, nobody else can see your consciousness (as opposed to anybody being able to see your consciousness1 and know whether it's there or not). It seems like one is an entity peeping out from behind the eyes. One feels that this rather mysterious entity is the thing that's conscious, and that the world is either impinging on it (so to speak, i.e. everything's zooming into a notional "point of view", from which a perspective on the world is apparent), or is contained by it (i.e. one might feel that, rather than consciousness being a point, it's more like a bowl or container, or a kind of void or space, in which the phenomenal world appears like a jewel, or something like that).
Generally speaking, science finds that consciousness1, consciousness in the public sense, the consciousness that's publicly discussable and publicly checkable, is (not identical with, but rather driven by) cerebral activity; that is to say, the jury's in, the fat lady has sung, there's no debate about it. Every kind of behaviour that can be observed that's called "conscious behaviour" is driven by the brain. A kind of electro-chemical brainstorm causes the body to fulfil goals, behave rationally in relation to those goals, cleave to things and avoid them.
With consciousness2, the consciousness we seem to have "from the inside", a connection to the brain is not so clear. There's a term in philosophy for this at the moment, "The Hard Problem". Some philosophers think it's not a problem at all, and that consciousness2 can either be somehow reduced to consciousness1, or it doesn't actually exist (it only *seems *to exist); others think that consciousness2 is an irreducible fact that each of us experiences for ourselves and that one's own consciousness2 is hidden from others, and that it stands outside and distinct from consciousness1, though obviously connected with it in *some *sense.
No conclusion to this, just wanted to flag the distinction.
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Well, what you have to take seriously is the period before the laws of Gravity and Electromagnetism were named and understood, or at least made predictable.
Basically what's being postulated is the existence of another such "field," which is Consciousness. A field is static and undetectable unless it is excited, but if it becomes exited, the result is a particle. In the case of a field of Consciousness, it becomes a particle of Consciousness.
Now whatever else may be said, all of the spiritual symbolism of Thelema points to the consciousness of being a particular point within Nu, which fits the model of *field/particle" precisely.
The entire system seems to be set up to aid ones journey to the conclusion that the most simple particle of one's own consciousness and the simplest particle of the material world are one in the same.
Or at least, that which lies hidden beyond the ability of perception in each direction is unified into the theory that the question of Spirit versus Matter may be resolved within a third term, Consciousness, which is equated to both, and identified as that one energy that vibrates in one manner to generate matter and vibrates in another manner to generate thought.
Some say their experience of testing this theory results in an observable and predictable model.
They have created a system for you to experiment for yourself. Now, this doesn't mean some people don't achieve anything outside of this particular experiment. It also certainly doesn't mean that people can't have an incredibly fulfilling experience of Thelema outside this particular experiment. It means that this is the given experimental procedure for this particular experiment - all the way through to the end.
So, this is the thing. It's a long experiment you perform on yourself - not others, not random samples - yourself. If you want your opinions to count, you simply have to prove you're doing the experiment. It doesn't mean we can't discuss things. But I know at the end of the day, I'm a shaman who stumbled upon truly proven and degreed Masters of this experiment. I just kinda grasped the significance of it all late in life, after I'd played most of my hand.
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This thread just MELTED MY MIND. Thank you.
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