Goetic "Demons"
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@Froclown said
"Intuition - the combining of disjointed particulars into continuous wholes, via filling in the gaps with educated guesses. A gestalt process where perception is shifted to higher order, seeing the forest rather than the trees.
Thus a spirit is an intuited whole, they mind projects a synergistic property to discrete events.
A forest is really just a bunch of trees, (and other organisms) but we intuit something beyond the facts, in order to make sense of the complex dynamics involved.
Calling forth spirits exploits this intuition process."
Yes, exactly my opinion as well, though I put just as much value into the intuited part of that spectrum as in the concretized part, so that's where we differ.
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I do not devalue the intuited part, but we must realize that a forest is the trees. But our minds project patterns on sequences of events and thew label those patterns of events as things in themselves.
We tend to see faces in wood grain for example, but the FACE is really just two knots we take as eyes, a swirl we take for a nose etc. We only see the face because our brains evolved to look for faces. When we do an evocation we prime ourselves to look for certain patterns, the ritual sticks those ideas and patters in the mind, and them we produce a chaotic medium like smoke, and just as creepy faces come out of the wood work when we are afraid, so too does the intuition pull spirits out of smoke and mirrors that reflect the expectations we create with the ritual drama.
If the ritual effect is pronounced, the effect is greater than just visual illusions, full contact and communication can be manifest.
It a dim room with a mirror, people who are told they will see dead relatives do see them, they see idealized images of them. They even make peace with them and relieve themselves of guilt. Not the actual relative, but the spirit of the relative, the ideas the living hold about the relative.
The effects of Evocation are of value psychologically, There is no evidence that spirits can whip up physical object from the ether at command. They may produce elements of synchronisity, self fulfilled prophesy, and other cognitive dissonance. But There has been not one shred of evidence that they have effects on the world other than via the mind of the magician.
Oh thats right we don't need evidence. Just because you can't see or touch the apples the spirit brings you, doesn't mean their are no apples. They are just spiritual apples, an apple essence that fills the room, not an oder or any measurable quality, just an appleness that isn't in your mind, no a real undetectable appleness.
Sure and the guy with the silly hat really does turn Wine into the blood of a dead jew, but in a non-physical way, that is not imaginary.
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@Malaclypse said
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Reality<tm> doesn't necessarily begin with "I think therefore I am". That's circular reasoning. A person can simply be aware, yet not choose to claim that the awareness is necessarily a thought of awareness."Matter o' fact, the spiritually awakened ones have consistently affirmed the opposite: "I think, therefore I am not."
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well if the "I" is an illusion then spirits are also illusions.
A spirit is the same order of entity of the "I" which is to say a projected identity upon a process.
A clock is also a spirit, the CLOCK is the spirit of the gears and springs.
Metal is the spirit of the atoms, just as Saint Nick is the spirit of Christmas.
Do you believe that the Christmas spirit really is a jolly man who gives toys to children with flying deer?
Or is that merely a representation a symbol of the actual events of Christmas time.
is there really a spirit of the times too, an actually being not just a looking at the culture of a period under a single term.
Maybe an invisible elf named Jack really does breath ice on the windows, Science has it all wrong, I mean condensation what boulder dash, truly invisible men made out of nothingness are far more believable.
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93,
Froclown wrote:
"well if the "I" is an illusion then spirits are also illusions."
A key element in magick is the magician's sense of conviction. To perform magick, he/she needs to have some energized enthusiasm: to <b>believe</b> in what is happening in the ritual. To go in with a sense of "I know this isn't real" is going to disrupt that, and counteract any benefits.
For the sake of reducing the tedium of this exchange, let's accept that everything in the universe is subject to the analyses of modern physics (though otherwise, I don't, and haven't for decades). If the focus is on the 'physical reality' of the process rather than the deliberate exploitation of the symbols in order to exploit their power over the psyche of the magician, and thus over his field of activity, what is there left to work with? All I can see is algebraic equations.
93 93/93,
EM
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@Froclown said
"well if the "I" is an illusion then spirits are also illusions.
A spirit is the same order of entity of the "I" which is to say a projected identity upon a process.
A clock is also a spirit, the CLOCK is the spirit of the gears and springs.
Metal is the spirit of the atoms, just as Saint Nick is the spirit of Christmas.
Do you believe that the Christmas spirit really is a jolly man who gives toys to children with flying deer?
Or is that merely a representation a symbol of the actual events of Christmas time.
is there really a spirit of the times too, an actually being not just a looking at the culture of a period under a single term.
Maybe an invisible elf named Jack really does breath ice on the windows, Science has it all wrong, I mean condensation what boulder dash, truly invisible men made out of nothingness are far more believable."
Now you're beginning to get it, maybe. Everything is illusion, so what's left? Only the Source from which all illusions spring forth, which makes anything at all, even a speck of dust, as remarkable as anything else. The fact that anything exists whatsoever is the miracle because it has no ground in anything.
A hologram, for example, is both real and not real. It is a real illusion made with physical substance, perceived with relative awareness, but it is a play of mind. Mind is the substance of all "things" in motion or at rest. In fact, there is no thing truly at rest, which again means there are no things at all. There is the movement of point-awareness; potentialities spring forth from the swirling void, rising up like a chain of friends to support each other in their mutual delusion.
You claim for certain that the ability to think arises only from energy stuffs in our physical stuffs (chemicals in the brain), but there is no proof of this whatsoever. In fact, philosophers have never solved this problem of "what is real". There is only proof that relative awareness of a perceived 'self' becomes disturbed when the physical aspect is also perceived to be disturbed (and, even then, this does not always hold true!).
A dream is just as real as waking life when we are in the dream. Waking life is actually a dream within a dream, not the "real deal" as you believe. Western tradition teaches us that we ground everything in Malkuth, enlightened or not. Eastern tradition teaches that the physical Buddha is the only Nirmanakaya; all else is maya. The difference is that the Buddha or realized magician has found the inner flame and intentionally created his physical surroundings by the light of that fire. This is the "stone of the wise" or "diamond vajra" which is Unbreakable Truth.
To approach it in reverse, as you are attempting to do, is not magick at all. It will never be magick at all. It is only delusion. Or advanced playing with delusion. And a good way to {shag} yourself up.
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@Froclown said
"I do not devalue the intuited part, but we must realize that a forest is the trees. But our minds project patterns on sequences of events and thew label those patterns of events as things in themselves."
Yes, I half agree with you here, but where we seem to differ is where you are adamant in calling the trees evidence in a necessarily higher degree than the forest. I'm of the opinion that they're both part of the whole relative mess, and some people find it easier to work with the forest whereas some others with the trees, though both parties should work as if neither was more true than another.
@Froclown said
"We tend to see faces in wood grain for example, but the FACE is really just two knots we take as eyes, a swirl we take for a nose etc. We only see the face because our brains evolved to look for faces."
Excellent example to show the difference in perspectives! You claim that we necessarily evolved into organisms that call themselves humans and see faces because they see themselves as having faces, whereas I make no claim at all. I neglect to do this - however deluded it may seem - in order to keep myself as objective as I can to the possibility of evolving beyond my present abilities, which I don't think I could with a bunch of reality chains holding me back. That works for me, but not for all.
So to me, the grains are as much "just two parts of the face" as the face is "just two knots we take as eyes", because I find it easiest to work with strictly relative factors; no I or U included whatsoever.@Froclown said
"But There has been not one shred of evidence that they have effects on the world other than via the mind of the magician."
But there is no evidence of anything to begin with. There are scientific observations, and there are religious observations.
@Froclown said
"Oh thats right we don't need evidence. Just because you can't see or touch the apples the spirit brings you, doesn't mean their are no apples. They are just spiritual apples, an apple essence that fills the room, not an oder or any measurable quality, just an appleness that isn't in your mind, no a real undetectable appleness."
No, that's not where I disagree with you. Success is thy proof, fair enough, but that's it. There is no apple and there is no I to taste it; it is a connection just as in the zen koan with the clapping hands. And in that perspective it's pointless to claim that the apple tastes better if I explain the phenomenon as "heavenly tasteful" or "activation of tactile nerve endings, corresponding to certain limbic functions", because the interconnection between A and B is what it is, and the explanation is something else, diverted from the experience through a Heisenbergian uncertainty tunnel. When it comes to magic it seems to me, the less we are able to explain about certain things the better the experience, so that's would be the value of not becoming over confident in our scientific explanations, but on the other hand, I wholeheartedly agree that we should endeavor to explain it afterwards so that others may be led to the same experiences, though only with the aim of religion.
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@Froclown said
"Maybe an invisible elf named Jack really does breath ice on the windows, Science has it all wrong, I mean condensation what boulder dash, truly invisible men made out of nothingness are far more believable."
Don't you see what you're doing here? You assume that everything must be concretized in the final sense into "an invisible elf named Jack" etc., and it seems we're actually talking about the same thing: that, yes! There is no "supernatural" because if it can be observed then it by definition interacts with nature.
Though you apparently conclude from that assumption that we have found The Truth and can define it, and I and seemingly most if not all others discussing in this thread (correct me if I'm wrong, of course) conclude that "we have a working theory until something better comes along", but at least I won't cash in and say that the truth about Jack the invisible elf is flesh and bone incarnated; that's just one way to judge it from one point of view, and seeing that one point of view as Reality is limiting in several ways for a magician.
I'm sorry if I repeat myself, but I try to pick out points where I find them and I finished the above post before I read this.
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The underlying theme of this conversation about the unreliability and unprovability of our observations of the most seemingly 'real' things, like the physical tangible universe which appears to our senses, is why Crowley said that demons may be in our heads, but it is best to treat them as if they were real... because scientifically and philosophically speaking, they are as real as anything else which we can't prove to actually exist, but we take on faith through experience.
I notice this is my post #418. Have you ever read Liber 418? It is a detailed account of Crowley's experience in the 30 Aethyrs. This is an example of his "method of science"... and it is titled: BEING OF THE ANGELS OF THE 30 AETHYRS, THE VISION AND THE VOICE
www.the-equinox.org/vol1/no5/eqi05016.htmlSpeaking of Jack Frost figuratively is convenient symbolism, but if you find yourself face to face with a freezing cold malicious entity intent on blackening your limbs with frostbite, it would make the most sense to treat it as though it was real, just as all wildlife explorers treat new species they've never seen or heard of before, rather than figments of their imagination. And, of course, this is a touchy subject. How do you know what's real, then, when you enter the realm of "magick"? "The asylums are overrun!" as Crowley once said (he was often accused of being crazy himself!)
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I am not disputing that everything we sense and think and know is pure information, that is it arises from the void of the mind. That neutral state I mentioned before, the 0 of 0=2.
What we experience are fluctuations or vibrations in the mind to but is in simple terms.
But what is this medium that fluctuates, this void, as you call it.
It is the physical brain itself, and what causes these fluctuation to happen in then "void" the brain, why its interaction with other physical entities, via the physical body. Yes, the body we see and feel is an "illusion" its information in the mind. and yes the ideas we have of our brain and the notion of mind, are also information. The entire world we see and touch is an illusion, it is information processed in the brain.
But does this information just hang out in the void and appear willy nilly, or do the things things of thought and sense, actually have counterparts in the actual world of physical entities, of which our impressions are models made of information.
Lets say we are in the matrix, better we are each 1 chip in the matrix computer, not a human brain. We seem to have human bodies, we see objects and interact with them. We have thoughts, etc.
Now it turns out that we actually have robot bodies in the world, and those robots encounter actual things, which create the objects we encounter in the matrix world. So maybe what looks like an apple to us in the matrix is more like a power cell for the robot. But the way we eat the apple relates to how the robot uses the power cell.
You see, it is the real world, the robot in the post apocalyptic future , that creates our illusion of being a human being in the garden of Eden.
This is a total dramatization of course, to explain what I am driving at.
Now by performing certain acts, we can create strange effects, which work on the system that creates impressions in the inner world, by confusing that software in the robot, via acting in unusual ways with the real stuff, which the programing is not designed for.
This is what I mean by Transcendental Materialism. That is the material world is the macrocosm and the microcosm is the world of information/idealism.
Yet there is a relation between the 2 worlds, As above so bellow, 5=6.
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This line of thought would get into karma, of cause and effect. This realm which we perceive, while on the face of it seems pretty definitive, is only the result of our karmic vision. There are numerous beings right now intersecting our daily experience which we typically don't see. If we condition our physical vehicles (the filter of relative experience) we grow "muscles," so to speak, and create a larger container with a wider-frequency filter, which then allows us to see these Matrix robots or whatever analogy you want to use. The physical realm is the product (effect) of our karmic vision (cause). And so, the physical is dependent on the spiritual moreso than the spiritual is dependent on the physical. A fully awakened being is not limited by any physical aspect whatsoever and will arise anywhere and in multiple places simultaneously which present the appropriate conditions. These conditions also are more spiritual than physical, as they are linked to causes and their manifestation is the effect. This is why there is a devotional aspect to all religious practices. We are creating the causes for a desired effect.
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You see the robot all the time, your arm is the robots arm, but the way seeing works is that the robot arm causes a change in the robot brain, producing the sensation of a flesh and bone arm.
You can not see things themselves, the act of seeing itself is one in which physical phenomena make impressions on the physical brain, and those impressions are what we are aware of.
Just as a foot leaves an impression in mud, the mud only knows mud, the foot imprint is all it knows, never the foot itself, however we must conclude that the print did not arise on its own, but is the result of an actual non-mud foot.
all this is allegory of course.
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Within the mystical system of Thelema, the Abyss is the great gulf or void between the phenomenal world of manifestation and its noumenal source.
"This doctrine is extremely difficult to explain; but it corresponds more or less to the gap in thought between the Real, which is ideal, and the Unreal, which is actual. In the Abyss all things exist, indeed, at least in posse, but are without any possible meaning; for they lack the substratum of spiritual Reality. They are appearances without Law. They are thus Insane Delusions. Now the Abyss being thus the great storehouse of Phenomena, it is the source of all impressions".—Little Essays Towards Truth, Aleister Crowley
The distinction between Noumena (thing in itself) and Phenomena (the appearance of a thing to the senses) must be studied in Kant's critique of pure reason.
Now a ritual consists of a set of sense impressions, phenomena, which have an effect on the the reason, and perception.
These phenomena when taken combined in certain ways, can seduce the mind to attribute an noumenal entity behind the disjointed phenomena. Just as a child may have empathy for a doll, its appearance being so like that of an infant that the girls instincts take over and believe tho "spirit" of a babe lies in the humanculus of plastic.
Even though the doll is not actually an infant, the girl develops her nurturative instincts, just the same. Thus, can we develop the logic or other capacity via the interaction with the Spirits of the Goetia, even though they are a phenomena distinct from their noumenal source.
children talk to imaginary friends, and those friends talk back, even if it is in the child's own voice. But the child learns in this way, and his mind develops as the imaginary friend of doll, acts as a medium of feed-back between two aspects of his mind.
And why should Magick be something more than an advanced version of this process? Must the spirit be really what it seems, does the child care if his friend is invisible, or her doll is made of rags?
Perhaps some things seem clear once the abyss has been crossed, that are not so easy to convey. Mayhaps it is beyond your grade to grok at this time?
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Has Jim ever responded to a single thing you've written? I haven't seen it yet. I also haven't seen anything beyond my capacity to comprehend. In fact, your ideas are simplistic and where I was about 4 or 5 years ago when I was trying to wrap my brain around Nothing. I was very persistent and annoying to every occultist online, so I understand where you're coming from.
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You think I do not understand where you are coming from. I know all those notions of immaterial things. I am tryings to show that there is a material basis for those things, that the REAL reality that is beyond our ability to know is material, there are actual things with definitions, limits, and properties that interact.
Its not some propertyless void on ghostly light or void, even though that is the limit of the mind there is something beyond that, the REAL world, that is mind independent.
That is the Kether of the mind is the Malkuth of the REAL world. Beyond the limit of Ain sof, which is limitless for us looking out, in the real world. We can't access it, but the impressions, the solid forms we encounter as well as the imaginary images, are caused to appear in us by their actual existing things in the actual world.
The entire Tree of life is within Hadit, and Kether is the point at which Hadit touches NUIT. In the sea of NUIT are infinite Hadits.
When one Hadit (be it a man or an object) cames close to or bumps another, it creates a vibration in the Kether of the Hadit, which vibrates the void you speak of, this vibration in the void becomes a physical object in Malkuth.
Thus the object in Malkuth represents the Hadit that bumped into your own Hadit.
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Void is not nothing. That's your problem. The example given is the mirror: it's limpid clarity, energy of reflection and actual surface are all what make it a mirror. Without any of these qualities, it would not be a mirror. This is the Nature of Mind with it's inherent clarity, energy and form. It is not a physical thing. That is only 1/3 of what IT is.