Joining the A.'.A.'.
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@Froclown said
"I never claimed to be anything special, I only claimed I had the experience, and that it gave me access to the layers of my own mind and to how the mind takes raw sensory data that is pre-conscious and divides its into categories to create reality as we perceive it consciously with wordls, including that the sense of meaning or importance in a thing is actually more akin to an emotion, not a property of the thing we believe to be meaningful.
Also than mastery over these aspects of the mind, constitutes magick, that many of the claims people push off as hokey in occult science is because they claims seem to express a literal miracle, when really its more psychological, or a better term is transcendent, it is a effect in the astral or pre-conscious to conscious translation
My interest is to teach this in such a way that academic science, hard science like neuro-chemistry will accept it. "
Here are some key articles in my own research. I was going to put something together for my thesis using seminary students and their experiences with kataphatic prayer, but alas, the mountain is high, and appropriate and willing subjects are so difficult to come by...
Hill, P.C., & Hood, R.W. (1999). Affect, Religion, and Unconscious Processes. Journal of Personality, 67, 1015-1046. ----(A Lit Review of the common ground between liberal theologians and personality theorists, based in "affect.")
Thalbourne, M.A., & Maltby, J. (2008). Transliminality, thin boundaries, Unusual Experiences, and temporal lobe lability. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1617-1623. ----(Examines the "ease" of flow of information back and forth from consciousness to subconsciousness in the brain from a neuropsych perspective).
Epstein, S. (2003). Cognitive-experiential self-theory of personality. In Millon, T., & Lerner, M. J. (Eds), Comprehensive Handbook of Psychology, Volume 5: Personality and Social Psychology ( pp. 159-184). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons. ----(CEST is a newer personality theory that seeks to put some operational definitions on the "subconscious." It sounds like it would mesh nicely with your own directions. Ties together the other two articles.)
"My hope is that I could teach this science to those no specifically open to hocus-pocus rituals and ancient alchemical codes. But it seems people who have not had the experience have no idea what I'm even talking about, It's like trying to talk colors with the blind. "
According the Thalbourne's research on Transliminality, some people have a lower threshold for information to cross from unconsciousness to consciousness. They generally experience more dreams, "sensed presences," and mystical experiences, and they tend to be more interested and open to exploring things of a mystical and "hocus pocus-y" nature. Those with high thresholds, do not have the experiences and therefore consider it all an aberration and foolishness. Those with completely ungated thresholds are insane and cannot distinguish reality from fantasy.
The knowledge that this threshold can be lowered and this flow of information can be safely and sanely increased to Higher-Genius level functioning is beyond the range of empirical science at the moment and entirely still in the "unprovable" realm of the ancient mysteries. That will probably take a while. But it's not out of sight. The groundwork is pretty much being slowly tested and proven in our generation.
I've found that trying to present this information to the mind that doesn't have some sort of direct experience of it is like trying to convince a man burning in the desert sun that he really needs to think about coats. Talking to this same person after they have bent their mind around ANY experience of truly altered perception becomes easier. I think that may just be the nature of the beast. But I'd like the empirical evidence to be there as well for when they DO have those experiences...
"I know its not just a drug trip, because others who do more drugs than myself, seem to have no clue any more than those who are totally clean.
I assumed is NO ONE understands what I'm talking about I must be very advanced indeed."
I hear ya. When I do talk about it, people give me those looks. When I don't talk, they think I'm secretive and witholding. I'm not sure what to make of that. I think that maybe if we'd been "in the program," so to speak, then the experience would have been much more controlled and prepared for. It's easier for people to process afterward if they know about where you were "on the map" in the first place and the specific "symbol sets" you're dealing with. If not, then there are all kinds of unknowns that people seem hesitant to comment upon. Don't want to affirm someone who is just plain crazy, you know...?
That's the best I got for that part.
**
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yes, the specific program I was using was not orderly, I was a early philosophy student, and in my own time trying to understand traditional Hermeticism, Chaos magic of Carrol, Lovecraftian, and RAW style Discordianism, all of which I was attempting to organize with the tree of life.
So no particular method was used, I had no knowledge of what order to do any practices in, but had been doing daily LBRP, and had some effects from Simon's Necronomicon, and the with chaos sigils, to assure be that their was something to this after all.
But I did expect what ever result I had would match the grade structure, which I assumed was straight up, one tree each sepheroth a grade, the 4 worlds I assumed only applied at Malkuth / Yesod-Netzach-Hod / Tiphereth-Gevurah-Chesed / Kether-binna-Chokmah
I assumed that any attainment of Tiphereth was HGA.I re-read Liber O, that sounds like what I experienced actually, but I always assumed that Crowley was just exaggerating and just trying to make these things seem more intense than they actual are, to make students weary.
I thought this warning ("In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths; of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and many other things which may or may not exist. It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing certain things certain results will follow; students are most earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophic validity to any of them") was just general advice to apply towards all visions or supposed supernatural events a sort of call to find a naturalistic explanation.
However I seems so clear to me now that this is an instruction meant to be particular to tho VI the part of this exersize. That only by denying with all your might, can one cast off the images and demons than assail one and rise on further and further. (I used nothing in true) as my motto to achieve this.
Maybe I should work on evoking at this point, I never was very good at it.
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You are not an 8=3, and any claim to that is ridiculous.
Your last sentence alone speaks volumes.
The whole Second Life thing is bloody hysterical!Seriously, you should count yourself lucky that people here are actually giving this absurd topic the time of day.
Im not convinced that Froclown isn't playing a big joke on the forum.
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Well, as one who has spent some time sparring with him verbally, I'm pretty sure he's quite serious.
I don't know... You touch something vast and mind-boggling... You answer deep questions within yourself that you have carried for years... You realize that if you can put that answer you found into the proper words, that it could potentially be wildly revolutionary and wildly beneficial not only to yourself but to humanity in general...
And then you have to come back to everyday life and figure out how in the world to do the work of communicating it meaningfully to others. When I came back down out of - what I guess was something of a similar experience - I became a bit of a "mad prophet" for a while. I spoke to my close friends and loved ones, trying to help them understand that I understood "HaShem" as the "Eye of the Storm...! -- The Eye of the furious and raging Storm of Love that We Are...!"
And that still means something very definite and incredibly, heart-wrenchingly beautiful to me, but it sounds like madness to anyone who was not struggling with the questions I was struggling with when the ordeal was triggered and I entered the experience.
I see Froclown as a brother.
"7 O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived;
you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;
everyone mocks me.
8 Whenever I speak, I cry out
proclaiming violence and destruction.
So the word of the LORD has brought me
insult and reproach all day long.
9 But if I say, "I will not mention him
or speak any more in his name,"
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot."---- Jeremiah 20:7-9
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A good point to remember is that the grades demarcate the stabilization of the gnosis, not the peak experience. This threw me off at first. One of my postulates was that anyone who attained a Samadhi upon the Ain should technically be an 8 = 3, as they transcended all and united with it. However while those experiences are very healthy and demarcate a minor progress, they never demarcate a permanent leap on the Tree. It is like an electron shooting off to the next orbital, it comes back when the energy dissipates. In speaking of initation, the electron doesn't come back to exactly the same place, but is a little more developed. It is where one is stabilized at that is the current grade of one. This doesn't imply in the high grades one is teeming with energy per the electron model, but that everything has been internalized and subtilized to a very high degree. This is admittedly hard to ascertain and also generally useful to know (heeding the pitfalls of being "hung up" about one's grade), but since the Way is in the Work the importance is rather offset.
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@Wizardiaoan said
"A good point to remember is that the grades demarcate the stabilization of the gnosis, not the peak experience. This threw me off at first. One of my postulates was that anyone who attained a Samadhi upon the Ain should technically be an 8 = 3, as they transcended all and united with it. However while those experiences are very healthy and demarcate a minor progress, they never demarcate a permanent leap on the Tree."
This just might be the best point anyone has made on this entire thread! Very well stated.
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what I really don't get is how is what I described different than say Buddha's fight with Mara under the Bodhi tree, and how is Mara different that Choronzon. If Mara is identified with Choronzon how then is crossing the abyss different from the path of ayin, the Devil.
When I look to Crowley's account of the abyss he says this "The name of the Dweller in the Abyss is Choronzon, but he is not really an individual. The Abyss is empty of being; it is filled with all possible forms, each equally inane, each therefore evil in the only true sense of the word --- that is, meaningless but malignant, in so far as it craves to become real. These forms swirl senselessly into haphazard heaps like dust devils, and each such chance aggregation asserts itself to be an individual and shrieks, "I am I!" though aware all the time that its elements have no true bond; so that the slightest disturbance dissipates the delusion just as a horseman, meeting a dust devil, brings it in showers of sand to the earth."
Now how do these dust devils, differ from the various demons and entities I experienced that all wanted to posses me, to take the place of my seat of ego, To proclaim "the king is dead, long live the king" only in this case the king is EGO. and how does that differ from mara.
and how does any of this differ from what RAW alluded to as the Chapel Perilous, which only the divine fool can pass by not being caught up in the illusions than present themselves.
and lastly how can I distinguish any of that from what the DSM IV, classifies as dissociative psychosis.
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The best answer I've heard for that last bit at least is that...
what is disorganized and meaningless in the mind of the madman is organized and meaningful in the mind of a mystic. The same synapses are firing, for sure, and similar dissociative states produced. But ideally the experience ultimately becomes integrative for the mystic/magus instead of disintegrative, as in the case of the madman. At least as far as I understand it...
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schizophrenic paranoid psychosis is marked by the individual finding deep meaning and ideas of reference in patterns were others probably don't even see a pattern or if they do just coincidence or meaningless noise, The psychotic, is worried about his safety because his ego function is compromised, this is reflected in his awareness as hallucination and belief that strange forces or secret agents are out to get him, the proof is in these self-referenced patters of deep meaning that support his sense that his identity is some how under attack.
Mystics certainly work to Deconstruct the ego, by ritual, ordeal, and drug as methods.
The only real difference is that the scientific mystic, seeks to keep this objectivity, and realize the issue is a biological one on a fundamental level, and the transcendent, spiritual etc is merely the way the brain changes manifest subjectively.I feel all the different thing I spoke of are the same things happening on the REAL, Objective, or scientific level, but if its Mara, the abyss, the results of Liber O, or the path of AYIN, its all the same event in truth, just different stories we tell ourselves to interpret and explain events that happen in the biology of the brain and we have to direct awareness to, other than in our subjective symbols and beliefs.
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If people can be members of the A.'.A.'. over the phone or through the mail, why is it absurd to use second life? (yes I am aware that occasionally initiations must be done in person) these probably can't be done in virtual space, not yet anyway.
But how hard is it to post your records online or hand them via note cards in SL, and then say ok you qualify for initiation, you need to come to this Address at this time, where you will be tested?
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Yeah...
I think you're stuck. I think you think you're DONE with your process, and you're not. When Native Americans went on their big shamanic vision quests, afterward, they were not allowed to act on what they had seen or go anywhere else until they could laugh at themselves again.
You're saying, "Hey! I went that same place in my head!" I get that! What I'm saying is that I'm not catching that healthy, reintegrated vibe from you. Coming back from that place in your head and living a balanced and mentally stable life is a whole other part of that journey if it is to be more than a psychologically disintegrative and disturbing seizure in the temporal lobes.
You ever seen the movie The Incredibles...? Remember the little kid that wanted to help so bad, whose ego couldn't take that Mr. Incredible thought he wasn't ready? Then he turns into the villain Syndrome"? And, well, you recognize that the kid's got talent, but there is just something a little off about how he is approaching the whole sitation...?
There is this "need" for something else that Buddy is trying to fulfill by wanting to be a Super Hero ---RIGHT NOW...! Like it has to be the thing to provide some kind of immediate compensation for the stress of some other deficits in his life. Whatever psycho-emotional deficits Buddy was trying to compensate for were exactly the reasons he wasn't ready to be a Super yet.
That's exactly the vibe you give. Whatever that thing is for you... I think you should be careful because it just might lead to a really big fall for you. I think you have more work to do.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
"If people can be members of the A.'.A.'. over the phone or through the mail, why is it absurd to use second life? (yes I am aware that occasionally initiations must be done in person) these probably can't be done in virtual space, not yet anyway.
But how hard is it to post your records online or hand them via note cards in SL, and then say ok you qualify for initiation, you need to come to this Address at this time, where you will be tested?"
Sigh. In addition to what Frater AVV so eloquently posted, I see it as absurd for a few reasons:
a) You are not a member of A.'.A.'.;
b) As a direct correlation to a) you are in no wise in a position to admit anyone into A.'.A.'.;
c) Second Life is, for all intents and purposes, a game!
Before you can lead anyone for any reason, you need to first temper your ego with a healthy dose of self-doubt. Allow me to demonstrate with a foray into the autobiographical.
I'm the Head of my own Order, as well as the President of a local community organization and the Praemonstrator of my Order's Outer College. I'm also an Assistant Manager in a research firm in my mundane life. In bed with the girlfriend (WARNING! PERSONAL INFORMATION!!), I take control. All of these are command positions, which led me to question why it is I seek out areas where I'm the boss, the one who people inevitably must answer to, the guy at the top of the food chain (or close enough to the top that I can see the top rung). I don't like being told what to do by anyone for any reason soever. Turns out I'm compensating for a few things here and there, leftover fiddly bits from my childhood, yada yada yada. I'm perfectly aware of this, and I've come to terms with it. This allows me to lead with purpose, without hindrance or restriction from my own personal demons. It allows me to forge a path that others are drawn to. I'm able to integrate the mystical into the mundane, or in other words, to not look like some kind of crazy person by screaming the truths that I've uncovered to anyone who happens to be within earshot. The point is, after examining myself, by "polishing the veils", I was able to let my Self shine through, and people are often caught up in the orbit of my Star.
But I need to remember to keep myself in check against falling victim to a self-aggrandizingly large ego. I recognize that the only power I really have in all of the positions I listed is that granted me by those whom I lead, and they have their own reasons for following me. It just so happens that their reasons coincide with mine. For now, anyway. When that time is over, I'll have earned some amount of rest before someone else gets swept up in the current, but I'll never allow this fact to pollute my purpose by putting myself up on a pedestal.
And I'm not done yet. Far from it! I have a long and arduous journey ahead of me still, but I will continue to forge my path, always remembering not to let the guideposts along the way cloud my vision with ideas of needless superiority.
Come thou forth and follow Me! ...if, ya know, you feel like it.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours in LVX,
V.H. Frater VM,
With Many A Title Associated to His Name (But Who's Counting?) -
@Maleficia said
"
I'm the Head of my own Order, as well as the President of a local community organization and the Praemonstrator of my Order's Outer College. I'm also an Assistant Manager in a research firm in my mundane life. In bed with the girlfriend (WARNING! PERSONAL INFORMATION!!), I take control. All of these are command positions, which led me to question why it is I seek out areas where I'm the boss, the one who people inevitably must answer to, the guy at the top of the food chain (or close enough to the top that I can see the top rung). I don't like being told what to do by anyone for any reason soever. Turns out I'm compensating for a few things here and there, leftover fiddly bits from my childhood, yada yada yada. I'm perfectly aware of this, and I've come to terms with it. This allows me to lead with purpose, without hindrance or restriction from my own personal demons. It allows me to forge a path that others are drawn to. I'm able to integrate the mystical into the mundane, or in other words, to not look like some kind of crazy person by screaming the truths that I've uncovered to anyone who happens to be within earshot. The point is, after examining myself, by "polishing the veils", I was able to let my Self shine through, and people are often caught up in the orbit of my Star.
"I have to say, your game does sound better than Froclowns.
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" LIBER LXI VEL CAUSAE
A.·.A.·.. . .
- Every man must overcome his own obstacles, expose his own illusions. Yet others may assist him to do both, and they may enable him altogether to avoid many of the false paths, leading no whither, which tempt the weary feet of the uninitiated pilgrim. They can further insure that he is duly tried and tested, for there are many who think themselves to be Masters who have not even begun to tread the Way of Service that leads thereto..."
Somewhere along the way, you're going to have to decide whether you want and/or need the abovementioned kind of aid on this Journey or not.
But if you yourself refuse it from these people, you don't get to offer it in their name.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
"I have to say, your game does sound better than Froclowns."
Thank you... I think?
"PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 8:08 am Post subject:
Quote:
LIBER LXI VEL CAUSAE
A.·.A.·.. . .
"4. Every man must overcome his own obstacles, expose his own illusions. Yet others may assist him to do both, and they may enable him altogether to avoid many of the false paths, leading no whither, which tempt the weary feet of the uninitiated pilgrim. They can further insure that he is duly tried and tested, for there are many who think themselves to be Masters who have not even begun to tread the Way of Service that leads thereto..."
Somewhere along the way, you're going to have to decide whether you want and/or need that kind of aid on this Journey or not.
But if you yourself refuse it from these people, you don't get to offer it in their name."
I'm not sure if this was directed toward me or not [...]
EDIT: Turns out not.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours in LVX,
-M -
Nope. That was kinda the last thing I can think to say to Froclown before saying the following:
Good luck with your new Second Life A.'.A.'. Order in the online Community of Gor...! May many Gorians come to know the health, joy, beauty, patience, endurance, determination, and balance that you embody...!
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
@Frater_AVV said
"Nope. That was kinda the last thing I can think to say to Froclown before saying the following:
Good luck with your new Second Life A.'.A.'. Order in the online Community of Gor...! May many Gorians come to know the health, joy, beauty, patience, endurance, determination, and balance that you embody...!"
Gotcha.
In addition to the above, I'll throw in the following:
Godspeed.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours in LVX,
-M -
what when it comes down to it is the magister a master of, it is mysticism, and mysitcism is dissociation and disintigration of the ego, deconstruction of the mind.
Is it not the magus who is active in the world, who imposes actively, who evokes outwardly,and is master of Magick.
I wake no claim to that ability.
A debt myself quite well, and I very well know my motives and drives.
but all the mystical rhetoric of occultism must be cut through and the simple direct physical reality of it, discerned.
And the various versions of basically the quest story, including the slaying of the dragon, can not as far as I can tell be distinguished between. Be it Liber O as a neophyte, the piercing of paroketh, crossing the outer abyss, or any such thing.
I also fail to see what integrating oneself to live what you think is a healthy life has anything to do with it. What matters is having the experience and proving that the occult and esoteric are not bull shit, bit actually just people explaining REAL PHYSICAL reality than the most hardboiled materialist would accept, that if he merely understood the language their is nothing that Denette and Dawkins would find incompatible with their hard nosed atheism.
Thus the production of the experience, (the ritual cases a temporal lobe seizure that results in imagery that match the pre-described result). If one does the ritual and gets that result it proves that maybe those crazy old wizards in the middle ages, did actually know what they were talking about.
That is the point of doing magick, to prove that it is real to the world, and to find a place in the world to use it. (Not to help guide people through integrating their emotions and such ends psychologists worry about. They are very much wind chine hanging, soft speaking, vegan, don't harsh anyone's mellow, liberal hippie sorts) That in not my WILL, I prefer force and fire. I prefer fascism to democracy, Traditionalism to modernism.
I never sought out such experiences to take charge nor to learn to be passive and control my emotions, I sought one thing, to discern Truth and fact from confusion and lies. And to re-interpret the TRUTH in the terms of science.
The same as to prove bigfoot exists, does not mean I have to get in close and play cards with him. In fact I should hunt him down and kill him, for all to see, so no one can deny anymore.
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@Froclown said
"what when it comes down to it is the magister a master of, it is mysticism, and mysitcism is dissociation and disintigration of the ego, deconstruction of the mind. "
One general expects that the Master of the Temple is the master of himself or herself.
In practice, the grade represents one who, already being solidly established in the Knowledge & Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel (and the Magister's oath includes the commitment to continue in that K&C as an essential characteristic of the magistry), and whose ego center, thereafter, has lost itself in the universal. A consequence of this is that the routine workaday consciousness is Neshamah except where the Magister elects to use Ruach, Nephesh, and Guph (or any other magical tool crafted and consecrated over time). There are a number of psychological consequences of this shift, but the stable nature is characterized by "service without ego," by an essentially unthinking response to and execution of whatever streams from Chiah (the old school "perfect wife" fiction is an active reality with this mode of thought), etc.
"Is it not the magus who is active in the world, who imposes actively, who evokes outwardly,and is master of Magick."
One generally has this idea, at least for the eight classic Magi who are best known. And yes, the grade is more extroverted by nature. But it's essential characteristic is its identification with Chiah in its universal sense. "Remember the river" is the phrase that likely will bring one closest to understanding the approach to and fulfillment of that grade. The Magus is a particular distinguished from the universal of the Magister - a distinctive choice isolated from the prior acceptance of all choices indifferently.
I think one of the most fruitful ways for students to understand the actuality of the Magus is that He or She is positioned "further upstream" than the rest of humanity, such that what flows through the Magus is the larger stream that eventually branches into the distinguished life-streams of individuals. Therefore, what is rooted in the Magus is what is common to the lifestream of all others.
"but all the mystical rhetoric of occultism must be cut through and the simple direct physical reality of it, discerned. "
I agree concerning the clarify of language. But not all of what is important here is physical at all. In fact, the greater part of it isn't.
"And the various versions of basically the quest story, including the slaying of the dragon, can not as far as I can tell be distinguished between."
Basically true IMHO. But the Quest story is the tale of attaining Adepthood, not Mastery.
"I also fail to see what integrating oneself to live what you think is a healthy life has anything to do with it."
It's a practical matter. The body has to be sufficiently healthy to endure both the labors and the successes - which sometimes are strenuous. The energies moving through a body at different junctures are stronger than most human nervous systems (and their nonphysical counterparts) can endure.
"What matters is having the experience and proving that the occult and esoteric are not bull shit"
That's a political agenda. Some of us don't really give a shit about such matters, though some others of us do.
"bit actually just people explaining REAL PHYSICAL reality than the most hardboiled materialist would accept"
On this we differ. The most hardboiled materialist isn't open to the most important areas of the work, and frankly doesn't have a mind that is at all ready to undertake it. They'd just create a great number of lies and distortions that would slow, rather than speed, the spread of attainment.
Now, that's not necessarily true of the most hardboiled empiricist! But if one adamantly holds that the physical universe is the controlling (and possibly exclusive) aspect of reality, then one simply won't be able to seriously do this work until that pair of blinders is blown off its hinges.
And that's OK, because this work isn't for everyone. The Law is for all, but the intentional hyper-evolution of oneself (so-called) is still only going to be for a certain percentage who are ready. (Or, rather, those that we call "not ready" are actually in earlier stages of the work.)
"That is the point of doing magick, to prove that it is real to the world"
Possibly that's your point in doing it. It certainly isn't mine.
"That in not my WILL, I prefer force and fire. I prefer fascism to democracy, Traditionalism to modernism. "
Some pitch, some catch, some play the field. Whatever.
"I never sought out such experiences to take charge nor to learn to be passive and control my emotions, I sought one thing, to discern Truth and fact from confusion and lies. And to re-interpret the TRUTH in the terms of science. "
Very Ruach-based. If that's still your goal, then there is no longer any confusion about your alleged Magistry.
"The same as to prove bigfoot exists, does not mean I have to get in close and play cards with him. In fact I should hunt him down and kill him, for all to see, so no one can deny anymore."
At which point, of course, Bigfoot no longer will live and the whole thing is moot.
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Let us know when you finally decide to stop talking and actually do it..
Would be very interested in hearing how all of this works out
