What is Will? Are we not, by definition, conformed with it?
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A short interlude (while I collect my thoughts):
Last night I decided to close out the weekend by watching a movie. First choice was Conan the Destroyer, currently On Demand and a suitable followup to last Sunday's viewing of Conan the Barbarian. Unfortunately, there seemed to be something wrong with the film transfer as it was filled with digital artifacts. I surfed around the free On Demand choices to see if there might be a suitable alternative, first contemplating The Beastmaster -- which I, somewhat surprisingly, have never seen -- and finally settling on Wonderland. Sadly, a few seconds into that and I realized that the problem wasn't with the film transfer but with the cable line. Digital artifacts, once again.
Miffed but undeterred, I switched over to Netflix and spent my standard 15-20 minutes scrolling through titles to find the one that spoke to me. This time, it turned out to be John Dies At The End, a film that's been sitting in my queue probably since it was released but which has never quite made it over the threshold. Tonight was the night.
I had intentionally refrained from finding anything out about the film because it seemed like one that should be entered virgin. The Netflix blurb: "Promising a trip that transcends time and space, a drug called Soy Sauce is sweeping the landscape -- and quietly robbing users of their humanity." The only recognizable name in it was Paul Giamatti, someone who typically rubs me the wrong way, probably why it took me so long to get around to watching it.
I won't ruin any of you with spoilers but will just say that there are core threads of the film that specifically relate to everything I'm wrestling with in this thread. The drug, Soy Sauce, fractures time and space for the user and puts him in direct communication with every point-event in the universe. This is, needless to say, very weird.
About half-way through the film, our hero gets hit with a double shot of Soy Sauce and falls backward through reality in a split second of figuring out how to evade the bullet heading his way. His thought-stream:
"Okay, think. You're standing on the thin cool crust of a gigantic ball of molten rock hurtling through frozen space. You're in a situation that could threaten the nature of said existence on said molten ball, depending on which decision you make. But wait. There are a shitload of subatomic particles in the universe, each set into outward motion at the moment of the big bang. Thus whether or not you move your right arm now or nod your head or choose to eat fruity pebbles or corn flakes next Thursday morning was all decided at the moment the universe crashed into existence 17 billion years ago. Thus it is physically impossible for you to deviate...
I never finished this thought, as I suddenly realized I was no longer in the trailer."Once the film was over, I hopped online to find out more about its origins. Turns out the writer/director is Don Coscarelli... the writer/director of The Beastmaster.
Synchronicities descending.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"I think there is a tendency to try to anthropomorphize Will (we see everything, including the Infinite, in terms we recognize as ourselves) - to ascribe to it characteristics of intentionality and choice."
I think this is actually the opposite of what I'm doing here. What I'm having difficulty with is intentionality and choice as actual things rather than illusions. Will, as outlined above, is the motive life-force that flows through everything and, as such, is everything. It's the thing that moves, the motion that moves it, etc. etc. Giving it "choice" would be to anthropomorphize it. I'm using it in its most basic definition as the force that energizes and moves.
@Jim Eshelman said
"Returning to my earlier metaphor, in talking about water flowing downhill it is easier to speak as if water wants to run downhill, and to think in terms of it being better if it runs straight downhill. Ah, but it's only the judgment that makes it wrong, and there is no judgment in the plane of physical mechanics - only on the plane of intellect and, in a different way, in the plane of reactive emotion, does judgment exist."
This section also seems to be adding ideas to the problem that weren't there to begin with. I don't think there were any judgements in the original question. I at least don't see any of these things as better or worse, I'm simply looking at them as what natural law/Law/Chiah/Will dictates. Water runs downhill because, in our reality, large conglomerations of motion attract smaller conglomerations of motion, pulling them toward each other. The water and the earth don't merge because, in our reality, motion spinning clockwise repels other clockwise spinning with a force comparatively stronger than the gravitational attraction and thus keeps the surfaces of the water and the earth at a mathematically specific distance from each other. No judgement there; just math.
@Jim Eshelman said
"Second, I think I see a bias in your thinking. (All thinking has a bias. That's part of thinking's job, i.e., to have a distinctive point of view.) You are thinking about this in terms of the infinite and disregarding the experience of the finite. That's a useful exercise, and I can tell it's serving you.
Ah, but as part of that exercise, you've actively enlisted other voices to struggle with you on it. How could we turn down a brother's request?
And in doing this, you are enacting the processes I am talking about.As I meander through thought corridors, keep visualizing water running down a rocky, mixed-earth, uneven hillside.
First, you are yourself enacting the resistance of which I speak. It's in the architecture of your mind. Second, you are engaged in a struggle between two things your intellect has "divided for love's sake.""
Your observation of my bias in this discussion is likely correct. Patrick's later support of it sums me up as well. I tend to think in the infinite while doing my best to work in the finite. I would guess this parallels my initial approach to the Work from the mysticism side and my consequent difficulties getting the magick side to fit comfortably. Nevertheless...
I think I also see a bias in your response that the processes you are talking about are dependent on me actively enlisting other voices. This seems to presuppose that there's a "me" who has the volitional capability to alter the flow of the stream of cause and effect through these actions "I'm" taking.
From your previous post:
@Jim Eshelman said
"Will is always successful within the conditions of its context; which is another way of saying that water always runs downhill in the particular path that it ends up following.
Therefore, that part doesn't matter, right?
What I think matters is the optimization of each distinguished construct through which Will moves."
To extend your metaphor, in its running downhill, the gravitational attraction between the water and the center of the earth will, at individual point-events over time, surpass the friction holding soil and rock together. As this process continues through the aeons, the path of the river will straighten and the banks will smooth as the water reforms it into a closer and closer approximation of a straight line: the optimization of its particular construct. Does this mean that the water is consciously reshaping the river? Or is that a personification of a mathematically precise cause-effect process?
Are we consciously streamlining our personalities to enable the freer flow of Consciousness? Or are they streamlining because the cause-effect chain has progressed to a point where that's what they do? Am I asking these questions because something called "I" exists outside of the cause-effect chain and can volitionally perturb it with my thoughts? Or are these questions being asked because the cause-effect chain that produced my mind is playing out the effect necessitated by its previous cause?
Sardonyx's now deleted post (dammit Sardonyx! Stop it!) pointed to our awareness of these point-events and our inability to predict their outcome as the crux of this process. One particular molecule of water could flow left or could flow right and there is no possible way for us monkey-bots to know the outcome for sure, no matter how big our computer is: Chaos theory -- specifically the butterfly effect -- in a nutshell. But, the thing is, chaos theory depends on a deterministic universe. The inability for us to predict an outcome doesn't change the fact that the outcome is inextricably linked to the cause-effect chain. Our instruments aren't fine enough to measure or calculate the infinitesimal differences between one trial and the next to discover which micro-event pushed one molecule left and the other right but the math that makes it work depends on the inviolability of natural law. Consciousness "choosing" left over right violates that model.
I guess, in some ways, we could envision the Chiah as the computer that calculates each and every one of those point-events. A computer the size of the universe to calculate the running of the universe.
@Jim Eshelman said
"Consider the human nervous system's ability to process high levels of sophistication. This is something that has developed through time. If one steps outside of time, from the perspective of the infinite, that's all one - big deal - aeons are just part of an instantaneous fiat - but from within time there are gradients or incapacity.
One can take this from a mystic's point of view and say, "See, in the whole scope of things, it's all good. It's complete. And at any moment, it's just right, too, because it's moving through that texture called time in its own right way." OTOH from the point of view of the magician, situated at an intersection of time and space, there is far more than the infinite - there is the infinite and all of its differentiations and diversities as part of a tapestry that is being consciously chosen and woven by a specific, distinguished individual's choices. "
The first half of this vision makes perfect sense to me. The second half does not, specifically because of this idea of "conscious choice" within a system that is "all one". You seem to be bending the definition of "infinite" in a way that robs it of its meaning. Stepping out of time doesn't suggest to me that we're only looking at infinite space on one discrete slice of the timeline but that we are observing the infinite entirety of space-time. The "infinite and all of its differentiations and diversities" are all enclosed in the "infinite" as conceptualized by the mystic, are they not? That includes this thing we call "conscious choice".
To cite Takamba's example, if we lived in a world where there was a magical IHVH in the sky who told us to procreate and then we did or did not as we individually saw fit and this was possible, then fine... Conscious choice. Free will. But in the model we are looking at, we are asked to believe that this choice isn't actually a choice. It's not that IHVH makes a commandment from his cloud and then some of us willing sinners choose not to follow it. Law Is. Gravity Is. Magnetism Is. The Magical Theory of the Universe adds to this that Consciousness Is. The only way I can fathom a system that also allows for individual choices made by individual personalities that may not always line up with what we perceive to be the absolutes of Law -- "Won't power" -- is if we are mistaken about Law.
The one out that I see in this is if "choice" is itself part of the system. If there is an aspect of Chiah that not only moves and attracts and repels but also volitionally chooses when those laws don't apply. But that would be to personify Chaih, wouldn't it?
This does seem to be the standard understanding in the literature. Because I have him in front of me, I'll quote P.F.Case but this or similar exists in pretty much every explanation of magick that I've read:
"First of all, know that the Way is an Art. The consciousness beyond thought is, to be sure, a gift of the Life-Power; but we receive that gift through the working of another. The Life-Poswer has made us able to take natural conditions as we find them, and adapt them so as to produce novel results.
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By slow processes of evolution, the Life-Power brings us to the point where, by thinking, we may discover the laws of hidden forces which are manifested in the conditions of our environment. To go beyond those conditions we must make a new combination. We have to begin where nature leaves off.- Occult Fundamentals and Spiritual Unfoldment, p. 186 emphasis mine"
This echoes H.P.Blavatsky's, "Nature unaided fails," and points to some version of this Chiah that is exclusive to human personality that can and does perturb nature from it's "natural" course. This doesn't feel right, and everything in my scientific mind rebels against it but, if change is something that can actually be initiated by a human personality, I don't see a way around it.
All Chiah is equal; some is just more equal than others.
"The uninitiated believe their "will" to be something originating in personality. The occultist, without in the least denying the fact that free will is part of our equipment, refuses to believe that "personal" free will exists. For the occultist, all that we mean by "volition" is but a synthesis of innumerable cosmic influences, coming to a focus at a point within us.
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The more perfectly we understand that the office of human personality is to serve as a vehicle for cosmic forces, the more freely does the Primal Will behind all manifestation find expression through us. To others we may seem to have very strong personal will. We ourselves will learn from our practice that the strength of our volition is measured by the degree of our willingness to let life find unobstructed manifestation through us.This willingness takes form in thought and word, and the thought itself is unuttered speech. It is a willingness developed through purposeful concentration. Relaxation of body, passivity of mind, one-pointed attention to the real presence in our personal field of the limitless powers of the whole universe, with progressive freedom in the expression of those powers as our dominant purpose - this is the infallible practical formula for triumph in the mind and elsewhere.
Impress subconsciousness again and again with the suggestion that it is the vehicle for Universal Will. Base these suggestions on reason. See that the One Energy enters into all modes of power, celestial and terrestrial. Self-examination will convince you that not the least of your personal actions is anything more or less than a particular manifestation in time and space of some phase of the sum-total of cosmic influences. At our present stage of mental development, perfect conceptions of this truth may be impossible, but reasonable ones we may have at a little expense of observation and reason.
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Complete receptivity is the secret of the most powerful manifestations of will. Receptivity may be increased by control of language. Herein lies the key to all mighty works of practical occultism, for, as Eliphas Levi says truly, "All magic is in the will."- THE TAROT: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages, p.99. emphasis mine"
Over and over, this points to the idea that Chiah controls everything and that the thing commonly understood as volition/free will/choice is the result of cosmic forces not originating in our individual personality. And then we are directed to use our volition/free will/choice -- as commonly understood -- to streamline our vessel.
I feel like a monkey rattling his cage in desperation while the key sits unnoticed in the lock.
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One last thought that occurred: If we recognize Thou as ××ª× = Tav = Universe (or, frankly, any other of the many attributions that connect ××ª× to the concept of the All), then "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" potentially points us in this direction as well. The Will of the All (Chiah) is the whole of natural Law. There is no personal will, no individual volition. There is only Chiah, doing what it does: moving.
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That layout.. "Paste the sheets."
Paul Case, wherever he got it, made a big deal about those seven columns of tarot keys laid out in that format and related it to a process of development. I'm sure Crowley does too, but you can tell there's some stuff I haven't made a priority to read as yet.
Anyway, you're describing stage 1 (column 1), with the result, in Case's tarot imagery, of the sense of being bound to the Devil. Crowley's key forgoes this bondage symbolism and forfeits some good things for others, imho. But it's that sense of identifying with the personality and feeling bound to the material. In this sense, it would represent the bondage of the personality to the outcome of the "break" (as in a game of pool) of the original impetus of the universe.
The next stage, however, (he said pointing to your synchronicity) is the Tower, and the destruction of the illusion of personal Will.
It doesn't resolve through reason, but rather through an experience of transcending identification with the personality. The Tower.
It is Will itself that is free. And you, but not your personality, are that free Will.
But can you identify yourself with it instead of your personality?
If so, then you move on from the Tower to the Star, etc.
Identifying with the Will itself, which has freely entered this Game of Life and form is entirely scandalous. And if you are successful in accepting your bound personal Will as ultimately the result of a perfectly freely acting Thing, you ultimately find yourself to BE Babalon, perfectly accepting of the Will in all of its questionable, scandalous, painful, joyous forms - and then, even more scandalous, the terrible, premoral Chaos Itself - the only perfectly free thing in the universe.
But we're talking above the Abyss, before the value judgements that require the later, moral realm, where pain and struggle seek a more stable balance.
That which is perfectly Free is free also of morals. And that is the only truly free thing in existence.
But can you identify yourself with That without losing your f-ing mind and becoming a psychopath?
That's a good question, and the tricky bit.
But the point is to transcend the sense of self identified with the bound personality and, instead, identify with that Will that scandalously even now freely chooses the experience of playing Houdini with your sense of being bound.
You actually are that free thing, playing at unbindling itself in order to remember its true freedom in/through you. That's the Game.
Anyway.
Words...
Experience!
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The thing about this game is that it only exists in the present moment.
In the present moment alone lies the Chaos that is the only free thing. And you are bound to its decisions.
Yes, it is a trick of Mind and something of an illusion - not a trick and illusion of words but of Living Mind. Which "you" is really "you"? But it is the very trick of Mind that causes/enables the illusion of individualities. Without it, there is no fun at all.
I am divided for love's sake...
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Anyway, that's the best I got.
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My current solution: "No my will but Thine be done" while I do the best I can.
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Not a reply (no offense), but continuing.
What will you be freely fated to choose if I, myself, am freely fated to choose to encourage you to try to stop being the Ruach so much and to start being the Chiah a little more?
Knight to Queen's Bishop 3.
And is the King your Ruach?
Will you strive or yield?
Are you still interested in the game, or are you Not?
Now, decide.
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@Sardonyx said
"Anyway, that's the best I got."
Pretty great stuff. Definitely got some new synapses firing in all the right ways. No ultimate solutions yet but, then again, I'm still alive so I wouldn't really expect any.
@Sardonyx said
"But it's that sense of identifying with the personality and feeling bound to the material. In this sense, it would represent the bondage of the personality to the outcome of the "break" (as in a game of pool) of the original impetus of the universe.
The next stage, however, (he said pointing to your synchronicity) is the Tower, and the destruction of the illusion of personal Will.
"This! Stages. One foot in front of the other. Horse before the cart.
Also, apparently the Large Hadron Collider is spinning up to possibly create some mini-black holes this week or next which might possibly leak some gravity out of our dimension into a parallel one which might possibly disprove the Big Bang theory and replace it with an eternal universe theory (something I've long thought was overdue) based on the idea that universal forces affect things differently based on their wavelength, meaning that each color or sound has its own intrinsic experience of reality. In other words, the universe may be on the verge of getting a lot weirder than even I give it credit for and perhaps I should just stop pretending I know how it's meant to work and start letting it show me for itself.
Meantime, thanks for the posts... as long as they may last
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@Sardonyx said
"Anyway, you're describing stage 1 (column 1), with the result, in Case's tarot imagery, of the sense of being bound to the Devil. Crowley's key forgoes this bondage symbolism and forfeits some good things for others, imho. But it's that sense of identifying with the personality and feeling bound to the material. In this sense, it would represent the bondage of the personality to the outcome of the "break" (as in a game of pool) of the original impetus of the universe.
The next stage, however, (he said pointing to your synchronicity) is the Tower, and the destruction of the illusion of personal Will.
It doesn't resolve through reason, but rather through an experience of transcending identification with the personality. The Tower."
This just landed with a whole lot more resonance. Thanks again for the pointer... it sent me in exactly the right direction.
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Such an important question, and good thread.
If I may contribute, there's two main senses of "will" that are important here, and many shadings inbetween.
A human being wills something, meaning they have a preference for one state of affairs over another, and they go into action to realize that state of affairs.
A cosmic sense of will is more like this: even if there were nothing, there would still be the possibility of something. One of the possibilities is that there should be some means of canvassing those possibilities - of "running through" them in some sense. Existence, actualization, is a device whereby Nothing comes to realize the possibilities that are latent or inherent in it. Or something like that
Anyway, the point is, the cosmic will is very much tied up with this sense of running through possibilities, of experiencing the "rich tapestry" and all that.But that being the case, there's a right way and a wrong way to go about it if you have a body, the sense organs of which are the means whereby God's possibilities are canvassed. And the prior possibilities that form the conditions of the possibility of experience in a human body are quite rigid and delicate. Food (labour), climate (shelter), mental stability (friendship, love). All that good stuff.
So it turns out, that while God is impartial (His experience of His possibility of being some person horribly murdered is on a footing with His experience of His possibility of being in love on a sunny day), we cannot afford to be so impartial. Don't mix the planes. That means: there are requirements for being a vessel of, or incarnation of, God - there's a "path", a path through possibility, that has to be carved out or chosen by the total human organism, in order for that work of experiencing stuff to occur.
And this is the human will in conformity with, or aligned with, God's will, or the cosmic will. You choose things, and forego others, on the basis of a trajectory that suits your capabilities in life while obeying life's rules (in a practical sense), and in doing so, you are the envoy of God, as God sits in the chariot that is you, and runs through just those possibilities. Everything that happens now, and now, and now, is it. But there are ways of doing that that are, so to speak "ecological", and ways that aren't. Which doesn't matter to God, but it does matter to the human organism.
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Hey GG, thanks for swinging by. I've always enjoyed running across your posts in the archives. Your introduction of "body off" awhile back on some other thread was a game-changer for me. Good to see you in the digital-flesh, as it were.
I've managed to find a new rabbit hole to fall down on this topic thanks to some of the suggestions above and it's proving to be very fruitful so I don't really want to reset myself back to the square one at which I started the thread, but your post does seem to take as read a few of the things that are causing me to get hung up on this issue. Mainly, in your last paragraph, you seem to hinge it all on an individual's choice but that sort of personal volition is what I'm having trouble getting to jive with my understanding of natural law. So as not to leave anything out, what I'm working through now is pushing me toward a realization that choice is somehow part of that law, thus making it both necessary and voluntary at the same time. But no Aha! moments yet.
Any thoughts on that? Do we really have volitional ability to change the direction of cause-effect? Or is there another angle to look at it that helps to break down the resistance my mind is giving me?
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From the perspective of someone who has little experience in Thelema but some experience in thinking about this... yes and no.
Yes in that what is at our core drives our feelings and interpretations of the world around us whether we're being self- and other-destructive, or self- and other-productive.
No, in that the core -- like many traits -- is not fixed. Passion in the wrong context or used in the wrong ways can be destructive, and anger in the right context or in the right ways can be productive. Representative of someone's intention and identity or not. Whether the emotion is real or honest or not doesn't matter at all. Kind of like how I see some people causing damage with their emotions and think that part of themselves that's otherwise fine is just not in a good place at the time or being turned to healthy ends.
Maybe useful, maybe not. Hope I at least didn't waste your time.
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Will is what works for you, if what works solves your conflict then its good for you.
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@Vadox said
"Will is what works for you, if what works solves your conflict then its good for you."
Thanks for joining the discussion, Vadox, but I'm going to have to ask you to be a bit more specific. How does this address the particular questions of the OP?
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Hey GG, thanks for swinging by. I've always enjoyed running across your posts in the archives. Your introduction of "body off" awhile back on some other thread was a game-changer for me. Good to see you in the digital-flesh, as it were.
I've managed to find a new rabbit hole to fall down on this topic thanks to some of the suggestions above and it's proving to be very fruitful so I don't really want to reset myself back to the square one at which I started the thread, but your post does seem to take as read a few of the things that are causing me to get hung up on this issue. Mainly, in your last paragraph, you seem to hinge it all on an individual's choice but that sort of personal volition is what I'm having trouble getting to jive with my understanding of natural law. So as not to leave anything out, what I'm working through now is pushing me toward a realization that choice is somehow part of that law, thus making it both necessary and voluntary at the same time. But no Aha! moments yet.
Any thoughts on that? Do we really have volitional ability to change the direction of cause-effect? Or is there another angle to look at it that helps to break down the resistance my mind is giving me?"
Hey there, sorry I didn't reply to this earlier.
Of course it's the old philosophical problem of Free Will. I think the correct answer is always going to be some kind of Compatibilism. The solution is ditching the pompous philosophical notion of a Free Will that could be free of causation, and understanding that the only kind of free will (no caps) worth wanting is perfectly compatible with determinism, and in fact depends on determinism to function.
It's the same kind of free will a sophisticated robot would have, which makes sense as we are basically "moist robots" - IOW, a deterministic mechanism requires deterministic methods to negotiate a deterministic world, but, for the simple reason that it lacks total information about the state of the deterministic world, it still needs to make decisions and choices (on the basis of that limited information) about what to do next (therefore concomitantly, what options are thereby foregone) and it can make wrong and right decisions.
Which leaves determinism as the "free will" of the Universe at large - i.e. just the way the Fool happens to wander. But we, as mechanisms embedded in that wandering, don't have that kind of free will. Even though we can attain a sort of consciousness of that state of God's free wandering.
UNLESS the internal magickal theory is correct and there are ways, as-yet-uncanvassed-by-science, but known as a rough and ready art by magicians, to influence or alter determinism as we know it. As I'm in a rationalist phase, I doubt the possibility of that, but even if it were the case, I don't see how that wouldn't be just a deeper understanding of determinism really, still some kind of law-governed flowing of stuff, those "laws" being as above said, a description of the stuff's free wandering (looked at from a higher point of view).