Goetic "Demons"
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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'nOr
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. -
@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.
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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.
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@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?
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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.
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"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..
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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.
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"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)
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@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.
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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.
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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?