Goetic "Demons"

Malaclypse

That doesn't contradict what I've said, because there's no proof directed to the ego from this. Though the theory is one I would agree with, I still not think it negates what I'm saying. In fact, I gave an example of this way back in the thread, almost when I first became involved in the discussion. I said something like the ego being the product of control made from completely disconnected locations from it, and the ego could very well be a coincidence as seen from that, for all we know, whereby I meant that what you just quoted was negated as a fact as well.

Froclown

I) DEFINITION.

Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.

II) POSTULATE.

ANY required change may be effected by the application of the proper kind and degree of Force in the proper manner, through the proper medium to the proper object.

In the present state of our knowledge and power some changes are not possible in practice; we cannot cause eclipses, for instance, or transform lead into tin, or create men from mushrooms. But it is theoretically possible to cause in any object any change of which that object is capable by nature; and the conditions are covered by the above postulate.)

Froclown note (Ie may be possible, if only if, the object is capable)

III) THEOREMS.

Every intentional act is a Magickal act.
Every successful act has conformed to the postulate.
Every failure proves that one or more requirements of the postulate have not been fulfilled.

Illustration
(The force may be applied to an unsuitable object, as when one tries to crack a stone, thinking it a nut.)

Froclown note (A stone is not a nut, its not that I forgot to think of a nut, it is not a nut. Thus stones are different from nuts, both not creations of fancy.)

The first requisite for causing any change is thorough qualitative and quantitative understanding of the conditions.

(What it is, not what kind of imaginary thing will I dream into reality today)

The second requisite of causing any change is the practical ability to set in right motion the necessary forces.

Froclown note (Ie Physics)

"Every man and every woman is a star". That is to say, every human being is intrinsically an independent individual with his own proper character and proper motion.

Froclown note (Or put another way, each has a unique way of being, or physical make up, that is the foundation of its relation to other beings)

Every man and every woman has a course, depending partly on the self, and partly on the environment which is natural and necessary for each. Anyone who is forced from his own course, either through not understanding himself, or through external opposition, comes into conflict with the order of the Universe, and suffers accordingly.

Froclown note (As you see both the self and the environment are solid existing things with set ways of being and ways of interacting, to deny this invites failure)

A Man whose conscious will is at odds with his True Will is wasting his strength. He cannot hope to influence his environment efficiently.

Froclown note (True WILL means the physical WILL of the physical self in the physical environment, rather that the abstract wanting and wishingof the mind. unrealistic desires can not be obtained via magick any more that by prayer. Wish in one hand shit in the other as they say)

A Man who is doing his True Will has the inertia of the Universe to assist him.

(Illustration: The first principle of success in evolution is that the individual should be true to his own nature, and at the same time adapt himself to his environment.)

Froclown note (the environment exists on its awn not as a manifestation of the mind, the mind when in harmony with the WILL works to adapt ones behavior to the environment, not to change the world by wishing)

Nature is a continuous phenomenon, though we may not know in all cases how things are connected.

(Illustration: Human consciousness depends on the properties of protoplasm, the existence of which depends on innumerable physical conditions peculiar to this planet; and this planet is determined by the mechanical balance of the whole universe of matter. We may then say that our consciousness is causally connected with the remotest galaxies; yet we do not even know how it arises from--or with--the molecular changes in the brain.)

Froclown note (Observe that Crowley says galaxies effect the way consciousness manifests in the universe, not that the galaxies are manifest examples of conscious thought)

Science enables us to take advantage of the continuity of Nature by the empirical application of certain principles whose interplay involves different orders of idea connected with each other in a way beyond our present comprehension.
Man is ignorant of the nature of his own being and powers. Even his idea of his limitations is based on experience of the past, and every step in his progress extends his empire. There is therefore no reason to assign theoretical limits to what he may be, or what he may do.

Froclown note:(But limits on the conditions by which he can achieve results are stated especially in T1 -T5)

Every man is more or less aware that his individuality comprises several orders of existence, even when he maintains that his subtler principles are merely symptomatic of the changes in his gross vehicle. A similar order may be assumed to extend throughout nature.
Man is capable of being, and using, anything which he perceives, for everything which he perceives is in a certain sense a part of his being. He may thus subjugate the whole of the Universe of which he is conscious to his individual Will.
Every force in the Universe is capable of being transformed into any other kind of force by using suitable means. There is thus an inexhaustible supply of any particular kind of force that we may need.
The application of any given force affects all the orders of being which exist in the object in the object to which it is applied, whichever of of those orders is directly affected.

Here begins possible developed skills.

A man may learn to use any force so as to serve any purpose, by taking advantage of the above theorems.
He may attract to himself any force of the Universe by making himself a fit receptacle for it, and arranging conditions so that its nature compels it to flow toward him.
Man's sense of himself as seperate from, and opposed to, the Universe is a bar to his conducting its currents. It insulates him.
Man can only attract and employ the forces for which he is really fitted.

(Illustration: You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. A true man of science learns from every phenomeneon. But Nature is dumb to the hypocrite; for in her there is nothing false.)

There is no limit to the extent of the relations of any man with the Universe in essence; for as soon as man makes himself one with any idea the means of measurement cease to exist. But his power to utilize that force is limited by his mental power and capacity, and by the circumstances of his human environment.
Every individual is essentially sufficient to himself. But he is unsatisfactory to himself until he has established himself in his right relation with the universe.
Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one's conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.

Here begins Ethical considerations of using tho above skills

Every man has an indefeasible right to be what he is.
Every man must do Magick each time he acts or even thinks, since a thought is an internal act whose influence ultimately affects action, though it may not do so at the time.
Every man has a right, the right of self preservation, to fulfill himself to the utmost.
Every man should make Magick the keystone of his life. He should learn its laws and live by them.
Every man has a right to fulfill his own will without being afraid that it may interfere with that of others; for if he is in his proper place, it is the fault of others if they interfere with him.

Malaclypse

@Froclown said

"3) Every failure proves that one or more requirements of the postulate have not been fulfilled."

What we call Magick only occurs when two concepts are correlating with each other, such as mind and matter in conformity with will. Will - the connecting medium - in being the definition of the change that occurs, is continuously transcendental in nature and therefore not fixed as anything physical. It is a definition of something physical (in being a definition known as 'phenomenon') only as a means for the bridge to occur between subject and object, which, taken by themselves, are also nonexistent as fixed phenomena. The seemingly finite contents of the communication that makes change to occur must in the end be infinite if it is to continue, or otherwise it would hit a wall somewhere; thusly, we can't know for sure, we can only play and have fun - the Aeon of the Child! Wohoo!

The way past the threshold is only a fixed statement to the entity believing itself to be fixed and thusly integrating itself with certainties by synchronizing in certain ways with certain concepts. There is a limitation in stating that willful expressions exist just as there is a limitation to say that I exist because I can think. If something is true, it must surpass everything, and if it can be defined as a physical concept, then it would exclude the definition of other possible concepts, because the simple definition that "perhaps something will some day render present truth falsity" is enough to falsify such statements as truth in themselves.

Illustrative example: For someone to know anything at all with certainty, SHe has to know everything, since, as long as there is still some unknown information, that information can potentially render faulty the information thus far gathered, and so, none of that information is valid as a statement of knowledge in the sense of truth.
That given, when a person learns the ultimate truth - the last bit of possible quantifiable information - something automatically changes in hir perspective, since the new information, in order to be conceptualized by the individual, must fit into correlation with the rest of the gathered knowledge, and thusly a new bit of information comes into existence, making the process of truth-gathering an endless cycle.
If these are the circumstances we have to face, the only thing we can do is gather information in a constant state of change. Since everything changes, not even the seeming connection between two particles can be called a fixed statement of physical truth, and all these words are merely a model for elucidating this information. Ergo: no thing exists.

This, however, says nothing about what present temporary connections we have to play with, but the only thing we can really do is play with them. There is no one reality before another. It is absurd to state that we can never know more than we do now. Even the Book of the Law implicitly states that it won't exist forever, but will also change someday, so TRUE WILL is not necessarily an absolute Law either.

@Froclown said

"Froclown note (the environment exists on its awn not as a manifestation of the mind, the mind when in harmony with the WILL works to adapt ones behavior to the environment, not to change the world by wishing)"

The above statement is excellent to comment. Since, first of all, you treat things physically and non-physically inside the confinement of definitions, such as the differing between 'wish' and 'WILL', why this discussion does not seem to go beyond reason, which the definition of the Supernal Triad does, so we're still stuck in Kansas. That's okay; we differ there too, it seems, or otherwise, our discussion of it would not be about it, but about our limited understanding of it.

@Froclown said

"Froclown note (Observe that Crowley says galaxies effect the way consciousness manifests in the universe, not that the galaxies are manifest examples of conscious thought)"

Agreed, so it seems. Though a fool sees not the same tree a wise man does, so even with this, we're unable to state anything about the galaxies in themselves, or us either for that matter, until we're at that point where we are in our True Selfs.
Take e.g. the literal translation of the myth that Lao Tze vanished when he became one with the Tao.

@Froclown said

"21) There is no limit to the extent of the relations of any man with the Universe in essence; for as soon as man makes himself one with any idea the means of measurement cease to exist. But his power to utilize that force is limited by his mental power and capacity, and by the circumstances of his human environment."

I think you just shot yourself in the foot here, because this theorem implies the limitation it describes; vicelidet, by defining the mental power and capacity. For that's what you must do if you are to state something as truthful, and if you do that in any way, you limit the ability to grasp the limitlessness of Man's potential.

@Froclown said

"28) Every man has a right to fulfill his own will without being afraid that it may interfere with that of others; for if he is in his proper place, it is the fault of others if they interfere with him."

Let's take this one as an example of what my line of thought leads up to. The only thing that with certainty can ever be an expression of the True Will seems to be to do nothing and everything simultaneously, and thus stepping out of the Wheel. God, in that case, must do this non-doing-doing, BUT! Since you insist on determining the factors, such as calling the person doing its Will a Man and setting him up to certain limitations, that could never happen, because in being defined and circumvented by your definitions, he would not be eternal. So again, we can't finitely define reality.

Froclown

first of all "that I exist because I can think" is just stupid.

Thinking is a physical process of existing matter. Thus, thinking is a result of existing not its cause. Even were there to be no thought, things still exist. That is the fatal flaw in your position, You say thought creates not only beings, or even all being, you claim that thought is the origin of BEING itself. it is the case, however, that thought is a product of existing beings.

Things exist first in and of themselves and in their own right. It is only the interplay of existing things from which all thought, ideals, emotions, WILL, reason, and the irrational mind come to be.

There is nothing that IS without being something that exists first. Existence has mother or father, the mind does not give birth to existing things, it only gives rise to ideas, impressions, symbolic models of other things that exist.

MIND is not some kind of immaterial something, it is a mechanism made of parts that existed before it did.

We take loose gears and parts and make a car, We do not think about a car and it appears. There is a limited world with a limited amount of existing material in it, and we can not do anything unless we use that material. We can never make more of it, we can not create without using mechanical means to augment existing material.

Magick is no escape, magick is the art of efficiently using the material of the world to achieve a pre-determined goal. It offers us no means to create without effort, of to perform feats not potentially inherent in the substance we are using.

One can not use a herring to chop down a tree, Magick is the art of designing a better ax for the purpose.

Magick is not a means where by through chanting esoteric babble, one can make the tree turn into a stack of lumber without chopping at it. That is pure fantasy, which TRUE MAGICK is exactly the opposite of!

Anchorite

Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law

Froclown have you read any Korzybski (I'm sure Malaclypse has anyway).

Your constant use of the word 'is' as if you really do think you have it all figured out(or indeed there is really something to figure out) suggests a singular reality tunnel.

I'm sure you've heard this said before but 'Whatever one says a thing is - it isn't'.
and
“Let us repeat the two crucial negative premises as established firmly by all human experience: (1) Words are not the things we are speaking about; and (2) There is no such thing as an object in absolute isolation.”

Have you done many consciousness change experiments or total identification with an object of meditation?

Also (edit) - You claimed on the bottom of page 5-
"The NEW AEON, is the manhood of humanity. Giving up external authority, also means taking responsibility and one mark of a responsible man is that he clears his head of childhood fantasy, and faces the world as the cold, logical, indifferent reality that it is."

The who did what now?
I think I heard it mentioned that this was the Aeon of the C&C Child somewhere.
And the concepts of the Love of Nuit, the Universe as our playground.
Also somewhere about Reason being a lie...

Love is the Law
Love under Will.

Froclown

yes what you refer to is that perceptions are models, that the ghosts in our heads are not the things that exist in the world.

This is true, but there are two kinds of ghosts, those our heads conjure up out of pieces held in memory, but with no actual thing in the world which relates to it, and those ghosts which are directly related to actual things that exist.

When I imagine a unicorn vs when I see a horse.

The horse exists even if I am not looking at it, even if I do not think about it. The Unicorn however only exists in my mind when I am thinking about it.

Now there are a list of physical properties that trigger perceptual clues in my nervous system, such that the ghost idea of a horse in conjured up and related to those actually existing physical cues. (really I any see blurs of brown, shapes, movement patterns, etc each as its own separate thing, but my mind has the idea of a horse that joins these cues into the notion of a single animal, the horse).

When I think about a unicorn, I am just playing with the concept of a horse, with no actual physical cues present. I combine different bits of ideas into one composite idea, the parts I got from precious sensory cues of physically present objects.

now, when I conjure up a spirit, I combine both of these practices, I have a medium of physically present cues or events in the world, and I play with concepts and ideas in my mind. The changes in the physical cue act to shape the concepts in my mind. And the concept of the spirit, is projected back into the physical medium.

This process creates a feed back loop, which is to say a communication. When A changes B and then the change in B changes A, in a loop, that is called communication.

A says Hello to B,
B says Hi
A says What's up
B says go'n fish'n

Or

Key is pressed sending code to screen
Change is screen effects me to press next key.

Or
the communication between 2 devices with no minds.

But no matter what there is a reality and there are things in it.
Communication between nothing and nothing does not happen.

Malaclypse

@Froclown said

"first of all "that I exist because I can think" is just stupid.

Thinking is a physical process of existing matter. Thus, thinking is a result of existing not its cause. Even were there to be no thought, things still exist. That is the fatal flaw in your position, You say thought creates not only beings, or even all being, you claim that thought is the origin of BEING itself. it is the case, however, that thought is a product of existing beings."

First and foremost, I might be misinterpreting here, but you didn't mean that I was of Decartes' opinion, right? I'm not in any case. I used his argument as an example of the same fault I think you're making. Just to make that clear.

My argument goes along with the Tree of Life formation: first there is Chokmah (activity) and then there is Binah (form), so something is rotten in the state of Denmark at this very juncture, sir. Like Anchorite says, whatever one says a thing is, it isn't. Our minds have first and foremost created a system of interpretation with what we call things around us, so there can be communication. We wouldn't be aware of things around us if it hadn't been for that thing happening first. Then we have the axiom of "as above, so below", or in other words, if this is how it works inside our minds, then our minds are reflections of what goes on around them.

But your p o v seems to have fooled you into thinking I am of the opinion that thoughts are what the world is made of. That's too one-sided for my mind. The above reasoning is only to show you that we can argue both ways. Like I've stated from the beginning of this discussion, I take the middle road and go with that it is the communication alone; that neither the thoughts nor the things need to exist at all, in the end. And that this mindscape we're in right now is a playfield preparing us for the next step.

@Froclown said

"Things exist first in and of themselves and in their own right. It is only the interplay of existing things from which all thought, ideals, emotions, WILL, reason, and the irrational mind come to be.

There is nothing that IS without being something that exists first. Existence has mother or father, the mind does not give birth to existing things, it only gives rise to ideas, impressions, symbolic models of other things that exist.

MIND is not some kind of immaterial something, it is a mechanism made of parts that existed before it did."

I don't know how many times this has to be repeated before you answer it with something that actually answers this criticism of your arguments: those are models made by your mind. You can make models for how those models are made in turn, which seem to close the circle, but you can't do anything other than putting one turtle on another turtle's back IMO.

@Froclown said

"We take loose gears and parts and make a car, We do not think about a car and it appears. There is a limited world with a limited amount of existing material in it, and we can not do anything unless we use that material. We can never make more of it, we can not create without using mechanical means to augment existing material.

Magick is no escape, magick is the art of efficiently using the material of the world to achieve a pre-determined goal. It offers us no means to create without effort, of to perform feats not potentially inherent in the substance we are using."

You keep repeating this line of reasoning as well, as if you were of the mind that I contradict you and say that I'm in the possession of some absolute truth, because it seems you believe you are. Try stepping out of that tunnel, like Anchorite suggests. And before you suggest it, yes, I've tried stepping into the tunnel you seem to be in. I came from there about a decade ago.

Froclown

I take the entire tree of life to be a model of our minds, even Kether is subjective, the objective world of things I refer to exists beyond the tree of life, across the triple abyss of the ayn sof.

Kether is the point where an object comes to effect the subjective mind. The Ayn Sof, the barrier of the flesh the sense organs.

Bina the calm membrane of the mind, Chokmah the vibrations in that membrane.

Taken together these are all possible mental phenomena, which one encounters in the abyss.

These are categorized on down the tree and manifest in awareness as Malkuth.

But each point at Kether is a unique entity with its unique vibrations, that uniquely effects the tranquility of Bina.

Malaclypse

@Froclown said

"I take the entire tree of life to be a model of our minds, even Kether is subjective, the objective world of things I refer to exists beyond the tree of life, across the triple abyss of the ayn sof."

Ait. I on the other hand take it to be a model of existence-as-a-whole along with the above stated Hermetic axiom, which concludes that the mind's model of the world can only work if it's modeled by the blueprint, so naturally we should be able to make internal models for how our minds work from it, or it wouldn't be the model of how existence works, right? So, this system given, how does that make us know that we're not the butterfly dreaming about a man dreaming about a butterfly? How do you figure you're going external on yourself in order to judge this with authority?

photogasm

laughs

Everyone stop a moment and think about what you're actually arguing about.

Froclown

If there is no world outside the mind, then what is it the mind makes models of?

If the mind can make up whatever it wants, with no external model to compare with, then their is no distinction between True and False.

If you do not distinguish between truth and error, then in what way can you judge what I say to be incorrect?

On what grounds am I mistaken, what correct state of affairs do I fall short of, being that you do not believe their is a "just the way things actually are out there" as opposed to what we happen to dream up.

If there is no external reality, of which all we think and know when TRUE is a reflection of that reality, when false a distortion of it. Then on what grounds can you judge Truth from falsehood or err in perception or judgment?

Are illusions and hallucinations just as true as solid objects, only the illusions exist on other planes, are not quite as formed as rocks and trees?

Illusions are errors in perceptions.
Hallucinations are images without actual objects.

Both are false, truth is correct perception of reality.

Goetic spirits, are induced illusions of a certain kinds, that can provide practice for certain parts of the mind.

If I ask a spirit to make an object levitate, the object remains on the table, as there is no spirit, and the evokation ritual can not defy physics.

Even if there was a spirit and it could move wrenches through the air. The spirit is a something, and it moved the wrench via some process. Therefore it is some kind of hitherto unknown or unexplained but undeniably physical process.

Anchorite

@Froclown said

"

Both are false, truth is correct perception of reality.

"

If I may -
'Truth' is a unintelligible epithet which has proved refractory to the analysis of our ablest Philosophers'

Frater SI

"Even if there was a spirit and it could move wrenches through the air. The spirit is a something, and it moved the wrench via some process. Therefore it is some kind of hitherto unknown or unexplained but undeniably physical process."

Froclown Have you ever worked with the Goetia? or the Invocation or evocation of any spirits? I have had far stranger things happen than that what you mention .. There are some brilliant analogies on this thread but its mostly arm chair talk..

Froclown

can you provide evidence for your claims?

Could you repeat these events, on video, with sensors.

I would like to get ambient temperature readings, EMF, background radiation, also some vital signs, heart rate and brain waves would be useful.

Without such evidence it might be that you threw the object yourself while under a strange mental state.

Frater SI

Froclown I think the Richard Dawkins Forum is more suited to your outlook on Magick and psychology.

Froclown

I see no reason why thelema is incompatible with a "bright" perspective

If only I could get the Dakinites and Thelemites to agree with me.

Froclown

"Your teachers, the mystics of both schools, have reversed causality in their consciousness, then strive to reverse it in existence. They take their emotions as a cause, and their mind as a passive effect. They make their emotions their tool for perceiving reality. They hold their desires as an irreducible primary, as a fact superseding all facts. An honest man does not desire until he has identified the object of his desire. He says: "It is, therefore I want it." They say: "I want it, therefore it is."

They want to cheat the axiom of existence and consciousness, they want their consciousness to be an instrument not of perceiving but of creating existence, and existence to be not the object but the subject of their consciousness—they want to be that God they created in their image and likeness, who creates a universe out of a void by means of an arbitrary whim. But reality is not to be cheated. What they achieve is the opposite of their desire. They want an omnipotent power over existence; instead, they lose the power of their consciousness. By refusing to know, they condemn themselves to the horror of a perpetual unknown." (John Galt)

Malaclypse

@Froclown said

"If there is no world outside the mind, then what is it the mind makes models of?

If the mind can make up whatever it wants, with no external model to compare with, then their is no distinction between True and False."

You don't only necessitate the existence of models, but also that of a mind to reflect it. The most objective standpoint is the one with least necessary conditions to support it (again, Occham's Razor). Objectivity is the observation point of truth. By your objectivist perspective, you claim more than I do in mine. By that simple reasoning it's more likely that I and not you tell the truth. I've won because I include your arguments in mine, but you don't include mine in your's.

You speak of truth, while I speak of efficiency and we generally mean the same thing. When I speak of truth I am silent or utter a meaningless 'Mu!' to encapsulate only the inexpressibility of "it".

This is where I levitate out of this discussion, because we've now repeated the cycle of reasoning in it 23 times and I want to go to a holier place.

Froclown

If there is X that is efficient and Y which is not efficient, that means that there is some reason why X is not like Y.

X and Y are different, thus reality does not stem from an undifferentiated spirit stuff.

If it did then doing X or doing Y would have the exact same result. You cauld obtain any result, without doing anything.

Since only doing the right thing in the right way at the right time to the right object obtains the result you want, that means their is a reality in which things have attributes.

redd fezz

Jesus Christ! I just clicked on my profile out of curiosity and then clicked on my most active topic, which was this particular thread and... holy shit... I can't believe I had the words to say all this 3 years ago. Today, I am basically stunted when it comes to talking about this kind of stuff. I didn't just reread the whole thread, but I got through about half of it.

I would have to say there's something to be said for doing a couple disciplines at the same time. I really haven't been doing any WMT/Qabalistic work for the last 3 years. Rereading this thread was like relearning or remembering a past incarnation or something. Wild stuff. Is Froclown still around?