Question about De Via Properia Feminis
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@Froclown said
"Atoms are the basic building blocks of EVERYTHING, in fact atoms are the only things than exist because EVERYTHING is made of atoms, there is nothing else out from which to build anything.
YOU and all humans are THINGS that exist in the universe, THUS You are Atoms and nothing else.
There is no need to postulate that anything that is not included in EVERYTHING that exists in the universe, is necessary to human life. Thus a human is a thing in the universe made out of Atoms, ie physical matter, ie the ONLY ontological substance which exists ANYWHERE.
QED"
I can show you atoms, too. A few kilos of carbon, about 8 pints of water, iron, calcium, sulphur, sodium chloride, zinc, complex hydrocarbons, and smaller piles of other stuff too.
Is it a human being?
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To be fair, I agree with Froclown, everything he has said makes perfect sense, and does not require the bending of modern science to suit personal theories about the world. It is also a healthy position, if we were to believe others without scrutinizing and weighing evidence, and checking on methods we would easily be mislead. A god of the gaps argument, like the ones made from the complexity of quantum mechanics, and loss of body weight, are essentially saying look- here is something that we currently do not understand, therefore it proves my world view. I can only imagine how many such arguments were made for rainbows before we understood refraction.
To be more fair yet again, this skeptical position, is the perfect starting point for exploring the occult, personally once I get projection down to a controllable ability, I intend to do experiments on it, to verify one way or another where it is a construct of the brain, or something more objective than that. So I respect the opinions of many people here who may have verified from experiment such things for themselves, but your personal verifications cannot ever be proof to another person.
(Ninja edit: I love this forums stance on sexism in general and in the occult, its nice to see such a healthy stance given Crowley views)
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@Andrey said
"To be fair, I agree with Froclown, everything he has said makes perfect sense, and does not require the bending of modern science to suit personal theories about the world. It is also a healthy position, if we were to believe others without scrutinizing and weighing evidence, and checking on methods we would easily be mislead. A god of the gaps argument, like the ones made from the complexity of quantum mechanics, and loss of body weight, are essentially saying look- here is something that we currently do not understand, therefore it proves my world view. I can only imagine how many such arguments were made for rainbows before we understood refraction.
To be more fair yet again, this skeptical position, is the perfect starting point for exploring the occult, personally once I get projection down to a controllable ability, I intend to do experiments on it, to verify one way or another where it is a construct of the brain, or something more objective than that. So I respect the opinions of many people here who may have verified from experiment such things for themselves, but your personal verifications cannot ever be proof to another person.
(Ninja edit: I love this forums stance on sexism in general and in the occult, its nice to see such a healthy stance given Crowley views)"
Kind of. Ish.
The point I'm making is that something animates us from mere atoms. Something makes us greater in power than an amoeba. Something within nearly all of us says it would be wrong of me to kill or rape someone's mother. All those things remain constant, regardless of our Aeon.
I would point at that thing (I care not what you wish to call it ~ it has many names), utterly undefinable and unexplainable by science, and say "This is a soul. It is important."
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@Froclown said
"Show me where a controlled experiment has proved statistically significant data to support the hypothesis that it is possible to project one's awareness such as to accurately describe events that are not disclosed to the senses of the body. "
One does not need statistical analysis to verify certain types of outcomes. Three remote viewers can be sent to a target and 2 can fail while the third is successful and as far as the NSA or CIA is concerned that is a positive outcome.
The proof is not an r-squared but the usefulness of the accuracy and detail reported back from a remote target.
If you know nothing about this whole remote viewing business a little reading on the subject might give you some perspective. Here is one site that is not real good but gives cursory notes;
ilvaremoteviewing.com/index.htmThe government's psychics
First, let's talk about Black Ops, a secret department within our Military Intelligence Department of the Army.
In 1973 Stanford Research Institute started doing classified research on Remote Viewing funded by the United States government.
The two primary psychics SRI were researching were lngo Swann and Pat Price. These guys were so good that when they went remote viewing it was as if their ghosts were actually in the building, walking through it, while their physical bodies sat in chairs and delivered a tour guide's monologue. -
Talking about atoms as the ultimate level of reality today is pretty much the same as clinging to the classical view of the Universe composed of solely 4 elements - earth, water, fire and air.
Yes, there is a value in that view in terms of certain psychical approaches to the Universe, but I doubt many scientists these days would back a scrapping of the Table of Elements as a "God of the gaps" model.Next we'll be getting told that the earth is actually flat, and resting on the back of a giant tortoise.
This is the 21st Century folks, we can do better than "atoms".
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Remote viewing is bullshit and the fact that the CIA believes in it, is no better proof that the fact that the SS believed in the power of mythical relics like the holy grail and the Spear of Odin, Or that the Beatles believed in peace vibes.
There is no such thing as truth by authority.
There is 0 evidence that remote viewing is anything other than vague guesses and intuitions.
"OH I, see I see a big red Barn.
Well there is a fire truck here, so that's close enough."
NO, That is Bullshit.
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The question here is the difference between the definition of the word "transmittance" and "transmittal."
I'll give you a minute to look those up. I'm being precise here...
Self and Object. Object and Self. I and Thou. I and It. All criss-crossed down through the planes of harmonic vibration.
In my current understanding, it is the Current itself which is Alive, the Child, and through various transformations, Self-Consciousness. Heruraha!
And through its Larger and more fully developed Nexi, the Spirit Moves and stirs as it Will, according to the laws of Equilibration and Karma, based upon the Initial Equation.
Ultimately, All is Maya, painted with the interwoven Stories of the Lives of the All-Father and his Bride. The many-colored Marriage Garment.
But there are Currents, and there are currents, and there are currents, and there are currents...
I don't know if my metaphors help you any, but they help me bridge the gap between the pattern I know myself to be, and the patterns I see below and above, both in size and in function, as well as in the patterns of change.
I think of humans as trees grown in the garden of the Union between the most High and the most Low. Trees draw air and fire from their branches and water and earth from their roots. So, I imagine, flows the Current of the Lord of the Light and of the Darkness.
Trees do not need to touch the Sun in order to draw nourishment from it. There are such higher, subtler orders of transmittance, and lower subtler orders of transmittance, that one might need instead to switch terms in one's mind to transmittal and begin thinking in terms of information instead of energy.
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@Froclown said
"NO, That is Bullshit."
No,its not. But we are allowed to have differing opinions on the matter. I don't think you really know very much about the subject. How deeply have you looked into it? Have you read any books about it?
@Froclown said
"There is no such thing as truth by authority. "
No one claimed that there was.
@Froclown said
"There is 0 evidence that remote viewing is anything other than vague guesses and intuitions. "
That is a patently false statement.
@Froclown said
"the fact that the CIA believes in it, is no better proof that the fact that the SS believed in the power of mythical relics like the holy grail and the Spear of Odin,"
No one claimed that it was "proof". Just that the results were reliable enough to re-task a satellite and successful, valuable intelligence gathering is the result. How do you know the SS believed in anything? Just because Die Fuhrer or some other High ranking officer ordered them to do something does not mean the entire org believed in anything.
There are many things in this world that have not been proven or scientifically evaluated. That does not mean they aren't real, valid, or useful.
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Yes sure They really remote view, of course. Not at all that they are using cold reading and other techniques to fool the people they are describing those hall ways too.
" Oh I am in a building, it has long halls, these halls have doors on either side, and the doors have numbers, even on the right and odd on the left."
"Oh my goodness, he really can do it, it's almost like he has been in a hallway before!"
Yeah next thing you will be telling me that John Edwards really can speak to the dead.
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Frater LA
All you are saying is a bunch of vague jargon that does not quite describe anything.
The truth is simple, All things are made of material substance, ie matter, matter is composed of Atoms. Substances have properties in how they react to other substances. For example electron carry a negative charge so they repel other electrons but they are attracted to Protons which carry a positive charge.
The way things interact, attracting and repelling each other in complex ways build systems of things which interact as complex unites. H20 because of the way it is stuck together, has a positive charged end and a negative charged end, to the molecule. which is different than the H2 and the 02 by themselves. The properties of water are the result of lots of H2O molecules interacting. Water is liquid because the ends than repel get the molecules far apart, unless it get's too cold or too high pressure that this repelling electrical property is countered. The surface tension of water is due to the attracting ends of water sticking together.
Animals cells are the same way, they are just complex arrangements of atoms, such that they system of attractions and repulsions of different types of molecules are complex. Cells attract certain molecules and allow, the membrane allows some to enter and repulses other away, depending on the properties of the electron configuration. The cell then breaks some molecules and uses the heat given off to spark other chemical reactions which build cell organelles, membranes, or proteins used to build beyond the cell itself, the parts of the body.
The cells then interact an environment where one type of cell produces what the other types use, such that cell communities form tissues. And different tissues form organs, bones, skin, heart, etc. The organs work together to keep the body functioning. Each part at each layer uses something and produces something, the only thing that makes a human more than an amoeba, is the level of structure. The Amoeba is not part of a larger community, which gives and takes, towards a common goal, A lichen on the other hand is a single cell fungus and plant (Algae) which the fungus feeds the plant what it breaks down from rocks and the plant feeds the fungus the sugar it get's from photosynthesis, this kind of mutually beneficial parasitism, is what builds up in complex ways to form larger multi-cellular and complex animals.
Some Animals continue this pattern, ants for example protect aphids and the ants drink the sugar water the aphids secrete. Also ants and bees produce different types of castes, that is they have different genetic roles, workers, drones, queens, etc. Each has it's role in the community and each supports the other's weakness with it's strength. These simple insects have been using genetic manipulation for aeons, feeding special enzyms to the young to produce the type of adults they need, in the numbers they need. It Termites there is a system where each type of caste produces a pheromone, if the overall percent of say soldiers gets too low, then the lack of this pheromone will cause worker termites to change into soldiers.
There are other social animals like wolves that have roles which are not genetic but are more or less assigned by gender and by fighting for pecking order. In wolves and some apes, the lead male develops physical features, larger teeth and the main as a few, Only so long as it holds the position as alpha, if he is defeated in a fight and reduced to a lesser status or exiled, those exaggerated sexual features will fade away. Thus we see the expression of genetic traits is a result of social status in a larger group
Now, when we look at humans, it is the same thing. It is a biological system where we have individual anatomical traits that suit us for filling a role in a larger community. As well as to seeking a sexual pair bond.
To playing a role that where strengths and weaknesses cover each other as part of something larger, just like cells in a tissue or organs in the body. It is nothing mysterious and non-physical. It is very rooted in the physical substance of matter, the atoms that make up our body. The properties of attraction and repulsion, which combine in complex ways, which form everything there is.It is all physical, there is no "LORD" and the cosmos as a whole is not alive. In fact nothing is "alive" it is all just interaction of material substances, there is no agency, no self. The Universe has no self, nor does the sun, the moon, the earth, the society, the human, the organ, the tissue, the cell, the molecule, the atom, the proton, the quark.
There is no self, all is an empty mechanical process, there is no Deus Ex Machina.
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@Froclown said
"Yes sure They really remote view, of course. Not at all that they are using cold reading and other techniques to fool the people they are describing those hall ways too.
" Oh I am in a building, it has long halls, these halls have doors on either side, and the doors have numbers, even on the right and odd on the left."
"Oh my goodness, he really can do it, it's almost like he has been in a hallway before."
In other words... you really do have no idea what remote viewing is or what the procedures and documented results are. I recommend Remote Viewing Secrets: A Handbook by Joseph McMoneagle for starters.
These guys do not just go down a hallway. They go down a hallway on the other side of the world and they describe it exactly as it is known to be by independent reports by someone who has been there (but is not present at the time of the event). Then they go into an unknown room and report on what is in there, when no one else knows what is in there. Then some time later their reports are physically confirmed to be accurate. Over and over again.
Not only does the remote viewer not even know what the "target" is... the assistant does not even know. The target is in an envelope that no one on site has opened.
Please get some clue about the subject before commenting further.
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"Remote viewing was popularized in the 1990s, following the declassification of documents related to the Stargate Project, a $20 million research program sponsored by the U.S. Federal Government to determine any potential military application of psychic phenomena. The program was terminated in 1995, citing a lack of documented evidence that the program had any value to the intelligence community.
One of the early experiments was lauded by proponents as having improved the methodology of remote viewing testing and as raising future experimental standards, but also criticized as leaking information to the participants by inadvertently leaving clues. Some later experiments had negative results when these clues were eliminated"
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@Froclown said
"Some later experiments had negative results when these clues were eliminated""
And some continue to have 'negative' results. And some will continue to do so. "Some" don't mean jack diddly. That does not change the fact that the 'positive' results are real and undeniable. That is why the program persists. 100% accuracy and flawless repeatability is not a reasonable expectation for many endeavors. Most of us do not have the car towed to the junkyard when it fails to start as expected.
Please dig a little deeper and get some familiarity with the reality of this method.
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"The process of evaluation by parapsychologists of a "hit" for remote viewing is similar to that used in the Maimonides dream telepathy experiments. If an occasional description seems apt to the target, that's a hit. If it isn't, exploit the ambiguity of the description or revert to allowing symbolic connections and that's a hit too. In other words, a hit's a hit and so is a miss. In fact, there is no precise, clear-cut definition of what will count as a hit before the test begins. Because of the leeway in interpretation that is allowed judges of hits and misses, there is no way to falsify the remote viewing hypothesis using such tests. Without a reliable method that could falsify a claim, one can let the imagination run wild and allow confirmation bias to count as scientific testing."
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@Froclown said
"Because of the leeway in interpretation that is allowed judges of hits and misses, there is no way to falsify the remote viewing hypothesis using such tests."
If the re-tasked satellite gets loads of images of a new class of Soviet Submarine on the day of its unveiling at the place of its unveiling... in that particular business the results are priceless and a few misses for every hit are more than acceptable. And the statistical odds are astronomical.
Step back a bit... take a breather... get objective for a moment.
think about it....
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Sir Froclown,
I thought you might be interested in a few of Crowley's "elementary" words on the subject.
From Book IV:
- What are "Astral" and "Spiritual" Beings?
Man is one: it is a case of any consciousness assuming a sensible form.
Microcosms and elementals. Maybe an elemental (e.g. a dog) has a cosmic conception in which he is a microcosm and man incomplete. No means of deciding same, as in case of kinds of space. Similarly, our gross matter may appear unreal to Beings clad in fine matter. Thus, science thinks vulgar perceptions "error". We cannot perceive at all except within our gamut: as, concentrated perfumes, which seem malodorous, and time-hidden facts, such as the vanes of a revolving fan which flies can distinguish. *Hence*: no *a priori* reason to deny the existence of conscious intelligences with insensible bodies. Indeed we know of other *orders* of mind (flies, etc., possibly vegetables) thinking by means of non-human brain structures. But the fundamental problem of Religion is this: **Is there any praeter-human Intelligence, of the same order as our own, which is not dependent on cerebral structures consisting of matter in the vulgar sense of the word?**...
6) Magick enables us to receive sensible impressions of worlds other than the "physical" universe (as generally understood by profane science). -
Yes, Crowley had theosophical notions.
Which are just incorrect explanations for the phenomena of astral events and magick, spiritual is best re-named psychological, because it is all firings of nerves in the brain, there is no such thing as "fine matter" or whatever. No spirits exist. Magick equates to exercises that produce brain spasms.
Which can be very useful to expand the power of the memory, to increase the intuition as in picking up on small details, it processing information in more complex ways, and in breaking the mind out of old habits of thought such as to spark inspirations and cure writers block, etc.
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@Froclown said
"Yes, Crowley had theosophical notions.
there is no such thing as "fine matter" or whatever. "
According to your model of the universe perhaps.
But I live in the 21st Century (or perhaps 50AD as Philip Dick may have us believe) and am more than comfortable with science that looks beyond the illusion that is "atoms".You might not understand Quantum levels of information yet, but that does not make them unreal.
Just as an ape throwing rocks at the moon does not prove the impossibility of space travel.However, I have to ask, if you believe in nothing but concrete things and blind processes, what appeal does Magick or Thelema have for you personally? Or is it just Fruedian analysis with fancy robes and over-expensive books?
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One needs not believe in absurd things to get use from magick.
The brain is a computer, it uses two types of languages, the conscious language of symbols like words and images etc and the direct visceral language that is the changes in the body-brain state, that is we have the visceral and the symbolic, the link between visceral body and the symbols is what we call semantics or meaning. When one says that such and such "is so meaningful and amazing or beautiful, etc" what one is really saying is than this or that symbol produces a particular type of change in the visceral system, that is it effects ones biology and one's behavior.
The effect of symbols is contextual to the environment in which they are encountered and symbols form a feed back between the environment and the organism, other organisms feed back in what we call language, but we also get feed back in the form of the environmental reaction to our behavior. If we sprinkle water on a stone and it changes color when wet, that is a feedback to our nervous system. If we kick a dog and it barks, that is a feed back, water a seed an it grows. This continuous feed back, is what we call the world and it define who we are and how we behave.
Magick is the art of designing a specific customized environment, a micro-cosm, in which symbols take on a new contextual meaning, which produce unique visceral reactions. This interaction with the ritual space then changes one's self image and one's behaviors. The specifics of the ritual space and the symbols used are designed to produce the desired effect. One such effect is to create a feed back between the mind's process of pattern recognition from perceptual noise and the focus of the conscious mind's symbol creation and interpretation system. It this case the glint from a dark mirror serves as visual noise from which the mind seeks patterns. The feed back between the pattern recognition and interpretation with the actual sensory inputs into the eyes, produces in the ritual context, a feed-back loop which simulates conversation between two organisms. Thus this feed back is interpreted as if the images in the mirror are living beings. In truth the conversation is between the part of the brain that projects patterns and the part of the brain that interprets sensory inputs. This ritual helps to synchronize parts of the brain that normally are not interacting directly, and expands the ability to intentionally operate the brain in this way. It helps to break the barriers between the normally exclusive framings of semantic contexutality. That is evocation.
Now invocation is the work of altering ones behavior to mirror that of on idealized persona as expressed in the stories of a GOD or really any archetypical person. You can invoke Alexander the great as easily as Aries the God of war, either way you method act that personality until you see yourself as that person and can intuit how that personality might react to your current real life situation. If you like you can invoke bugs bunny, in order to exercise and improve upon your powers of wit and rascaliness. If faced with a difficult math problem you might invoke Mercury via the symbols of Hod, or you might put on a brown sweater and ride a bicycle and mess up your hair to invoke Albert Einstein.
many other types of magick are effective at teaching you how easily your mind is lead into superstitions and logical fallacy, things like cognitive dissonance, gambler's fallacy, feelings of synchronicity, ideas of reference, false attribution of causation, delusions of grandeur, paranoia, obsessions, etc. These can be problematic, but ideally if they are caused by magick, then one can use deep introspection to realize these are illusions as well as develop a deeper understanding of one's own mental functions, how they work, what can deceive them and why they are deceived. (Thus a bulwark against mental disease, superstitions and insanity)
Yet another and very important aspect of magick, is the creation of group identity and collective semantic experiences, shared in a ritualized framing of contextual semantics. That is the formation of a community with a shared sense of purpose and self, derived from collective participation in rituals, and shared mythology or philosophy in which those rituals are enmeshed. This helps to create a sense of community and integration of oneself in a higher order of life. It unites the individual WILLs of the community together under a common bond of LOVE, or unity in which each individual is part of a larger semantic context, that is symbolically expressed in the ritual micro-cosm and reflected in the day to day life of the community macro-cosm.
Also Magick is a scientific approach to life and a green life at that. That each element in the whole cosmos has a purpose and function that is unique to it's natural properties. Thus rather than create general laws and rules, magick insists upon direct experience of each individual used to discern it's proper function and that the function of the whole is more effective in so much as it's efforts are directed towards securing the free and healthy function of each part. That can be applied to everything from running a farm, a bank, to operating a machine, repairing a car, caring for children, to caring for the health of the body, and to the functioning of society, politically and "spiritually", (By spiritually I mean as in keeping the people in good spirits, or high moral and happiness).
As you can see Magick offers a great many things, that have nothing to do with taking literal belief it supernatural humbug nor in psuedo-scientific and para-psychological BS, that has been debunked again and again since these notions where first concocted.
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^^
True.
But fundamental questions remain:
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Are there beings not associated with our "material" plane capable of interacting with the minds of mankind?
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Are there states of reality different from the ones experienced by the five senses?
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Are there human beings capable of interacting with these planes, and capable of transcending the five senses as such?
"Magic unites the projection of the inner with the projection of the outer. But the REAL Macro-cosm the actual objective reality is not known or knowable or experienced directly in any way, it can only be approximated by the asymptote of reason applied to scientific data, and gleaned or intuited by abduction. More data gets one closer and closer, but it can never be attained. "
You say it yourself: objective reality lies beyond the realm of the senses, capable of being intuited by abduction. It is this non-rational method that I speak of. One need not do away with the scientific method in order to deal with what is irrational.
The thing is, science is beginning to discover that perhaps the best method is the irrational method.
An example: I receive a message from an Angelic being, purporting to explain both objective and subjective events. I record the Vision, I make note of the time and conditions involved. Now, I need not concern myself with whether this Angel is an aspect of my own mind, or an objective reality in its own right. I merely apply the data to my current circumstances, and work with the results in accordance with my Will. No speculation is necessary: I receive the proof, success is either attained or not, and I proceed devoid of any set "method" as such. Successs is the only test of results.
Again: Astrology. I cannot conclusively prove that the action ofJupiter in the constellation Pisces has any effect on the human brain. I note that certain cosmic events occur in concordance with material events and proceed accordingly. I need not bother with theories and speculation: it works.
Same with Tarot divination: the results are either positive or negative; I need not concern myself with "How?" or "Why?"--the system works independent of any human interference.
And so I say: one cannot scientifically prove the existance of any "God" per se. But one cannot utterly disprove it either.
Aiwaz is an astounding case of this fact.
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