Question about De Via Properia Feminis
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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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NO
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There are real events that are not modeled in the mind and have attributes not detected by the human nervous system, also the habitual practice of interpreting sensory inputs is limiting and can be altered or expanded, an ink blot may loot like a bunny to you, then you do a ritual meditation and see a duck in the ink, but you always read into the ink, you can't ever know the ink as it is, as ink, only as it effects your brain.
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Some people have through life times of practice developed ability to fine tune there senses and alter their brains to process sensory data in unique, interesting and even useful ways. A surgeon fine tunes the skills of his hand, a news paper editor sees typos that most people over look, a yogi can stop his heart or undergo surgery in a trance without pain. However, there are no non-physical intelligences to contact. Though it is possible to train the mind to interpret feed-back interactions between parts of itself and patterns in the world be they clouds, "lucky occurrences" strokes of insight, with a personified entity. This is one of the many ways the brain can be trained, refined and conditioned to do strange and sometimes practical things using magick. That is to say using controlled interactions that associate visceral activity with symbolic representations.
Dogs salivate at the ringing of a bell, when the bell is rung at the time of food delivery. The same process can make dogs salivate much more than normal, if the conditioning is done right. Thus it is not so odd that one might induce a vision of a God or spirit, bf meditation upon a sigil while chanting the right words and sounds, with the right smells. Nor that this vision will change in relation to the right stimulation or behavior, thus the image or spirit is a tool of re-conditioning one's behaviors, thoughts, and visceral reactions.
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Astrology has little to no effect on people who have never studied astrology and have not associated inner qualities, (visceral reactions) with the symbols of astrology.
Those who have, tend to interpret all kinds of Omens in relation to the daily horoscope, an may even psycho-somatically make themselves ill or became bumbling if it's in the stars for them that day, they more ofter retro-actively explain behaviors and events in relation to the star charts, picking and choosing those that fit even stretching the truth and their memory of it quite a bit to fit the astrology.
Visceral reactions to symbols can be quite strong, even cases where death rattles have actually killed people who believed strongly in the powers of voodoo.
"How is you friend Mr, Bombrey"
"Oh, it's a shame, he died"
"Really, what happened"
"Well his doctor decided that he could not continue to live anymore, and he died"
"It sounds as if your friend must have held his physician opinion in very high regard"
(Paraphrased from "The Importance of Being Ernest"
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So if I classify, say, a couple hundred subjects with Virgo rising, and 82% of these subjects are slight of figure, mild-mannered, and unusually clean...I suppose it's just humbug?
Again: I've done a study of some hundred or so murderers. Close to two-thirds of these indivduals have an afflicted Saturn and an exalted Mars, usually in harsh aspect.
And further: we know full well that the Moon has a specific, measurable, quantitative influence on the nature of tides. What is to make us think that humans, being 75% water, are exempt from these influences?
There are a class of beings that use Astrology like any other crutch, but let's not let our hatred of the masses prejudice us against such a noble and ancient Science, eh?
Edit: (Good quote by the way. Oscar Wilde was an avid proponent of Astrology.
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@Froclown said
"However, there are no non-physical intelligences to contact. Though it is possible to train the mind to interpret feed-back interactions between parts of itself and patterns in the world be they clouds, "lucky occurrences" strokes of insight, with a personified entity."
"feed-back interactions between parts of itself and patterns in the world ..."
This is good...
Yet earlier you said, "Some people have through life times of practice developed ability to fine tune..."
that implies a belief in reincarnation?
If so, when the disincarnate intelligence is between incarnations does it cease to have intelligence?
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No I said life times as is multiple individuals each with their own individual lifetime of experience.
The only thing that experiences multiple lives is the whole of all things, ie the atoms that make up a human are constantly cast off and new atoms accumulated, the cast off atoms become plants and animals which eat them. -
Froclown,
there's no such thing as ''influence'' of the celestial bodies in astrology, it's the symbolic connection that matters; we clasify types of experience (sometimes levels too) using these symbols (astrological factors). astrology is a divinatory system; there's nothing to believe or dont' believe there. do you believe in Yi King? or Tarot? the system either works in practice, or do not; it's an empirical question. -
@Froclown said
"
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."Thanks for the indepth response.
I'm not supporting the existence of the supernatural.
But from my understanding of the Quantum sciences and Chaos theory with the inherent fractal quality of nature, it seems to me that we can keep digging deeper and deeper into the reality behind phenomena without ever hitting the bottom - atoms being electrons protons and neutrons, those being made up of the smaller quantum particles, those being made up of energy, and energy being made of .... (as stated, my money is with the quantum information people on that one)From this viewpoint I can't dismiss any claim to supernatural forces as to me its clear we can never know fully the real nature of existence, the deeper we dig, the more complexity we find.
For instance, its becoming clear through many current theories that we need many more higher dimensions to explain phenomena such as Gravity fully. We have barely just begun exploring the possibilities those higher dimensions of timespace present. We have no way yet to say that there aren't many phenomena perceived currently as supernatural that can be simply explained through science once we build a better understanding of the interaction of those dimensions or of smaller levels of reality such as the nature of energy.Clarke's third Law : Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
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I think I have given for example a perfectly natural explanation of the phenomena of spirit evocation, without having to rely on the notion that actual spirits exist that we just don't have the tools to measure yet.
As for QM, it has some very strange things, but they are mathematical oddities, to truly understand the weirdness of QM you need to have a PhD in linear algebra. People have confused the examples used to try to dumb down what happens in QM with the reality of it, which is that the math system is strange.
Yes the math requires like 10 dimensions in string theory, but those dimensions do not actually represent real spacial dimensions in the world, they are mathematical contrivances. A mathematical dimension can represent anything, for example if you plot a rain bow, you have 3 space dimensions, time, and color.
To plot color, you can break it down into 3 dimensions itself Red, Blue and Green, thus that is 7 dimensions to plot the points of a rainbow. Latitude, longitude, hight, time, Red, Blue, Green.
Then of course you can add brightness. now we are at 8 dimensions.The fact that I can plot the rainbow on an 8 dimensional hyper-Cartesian grid and you can plot the algebraic formula with 8 variables, does not mean that there is really a spacial dimension of redness.
Chaos fractals are a different matter, and they predict allot of things, but these do not say anything about the WHOLE universe and if the universe as a whole is one repeating fractal. We can use it to see that parts of the universe sometimes fall into strange attractors and produce such patterns due to repeating a simple rule over and over.
You see the people on What the bleep do we know, are not scientists, they are delusional weirdos, who don't know their bleep from a hole in the ground.