Secret Chiefs and attainment
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@Los said
"So what did you mean by "belief," if not "accepting as factually true"? [Note that I do not consider "factually true" to mean "absolutely, certainly true without error"][EDIT: On further reflection, I can be clearer here. What I mean is that when I say "I believe that X is factually true," I'm not saying that I'm absolutely certain that X is the case. I'm simply saying that I am convinced by the evidence that it's overwhelmingly likely that X is true, such that I would be comfortable calling it a "fact" until new evidence comes to light]"
The distinction is that you possess a belief, where a fact is accepted.
@Los said
"There are those fantasies about me again....Seriously, just try paying attention to what I say instead of paying attention to the fantasy-Los you've built in your head."
It is an observable fact, you have simply chosen not to believe in it.
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@Uni_Verse said
"The distinction is that you possess a belief, where a fact is accepted."
I'm not quite sure what you mean. The way I use "belief," I mean "accepting a claim as factually true," and -- under this particular definition -- a belief can be held based on sufficient evidence or insufficient evidence. At no point does "certainty" enter the picture: when I say that I believe a claim is true, I mean that I am convinced, by evidence, that it is very likely to be true and that I will tentatively accept it as true until new evidence surfaces. If I say that I "know" something or believe something is a "fact," then I mean that think there is so much evidence for it that it would be absurd to doubt it. I'm still not claiming any kind of absolute certainty: I'm merely expressing the degree to which the evidence supports the claim.
There's a different set of definitions, in which one might use the word "knowledge" to designate what I'm calling "belief supported by sufficient evidence," and then describe that knowledge in terms of varying levels of certainty (that is, "I'm fairly sure I know X to be true, but I'm more confident, based on evidence, that I know Y is true"). A person using this kind of definition might oppose knowledge to belief, which would be defined here as choosing to accept a claim as true without sufficient evidence.
Under the second set of definitions, all belief whatsoever is an impediment to discovering the True Will, and the goal of the magician is to rid himself of all beliefs in this second sense.
Personally, I find the first set of definitions more convenient, but the words we use don't matter as much as the point: that basing one's ideas about reality on evidence tends to greatly help one navigate that reality.
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@Los said
"The way I use "belief," I mean "accepting a claim as factually true," and -- under this particular definition -- a belief can be held based on sufficient evidence or insufficient evidence"
This is how you have chosen to define your beliefs,
That is not how you define belief -
@Uni_Verse said
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@Los said
"The way I use "belief," I mean "accepting a claim as factually true," and -- under this particular definition -- a belief can be held based on sufficient evidence or insufficient evidence"This is how you have chosen to define your beliefs,
That is not how you define belief"At least, it's not as limited to that, as Los requires it to be in order to manipulate the argument in his favor.
Words, words, words...
Los, to cover the other end of the spectrum of definition, another definition of belief is simply "an opinion," which has little to do with evidence or facts. And in that sense, if you have never performed an experiment where you were of the opinion ("belief"), at least occasionally, that your hypothesis would be supported, then you have never legitimately proposed an experiment.
But, again, it's pointless to try to get you to admit the legitimacy of another perspective. You will only say, "I disagree," and carry on in the same rhetorical manner even after all that work.
I'm just gonna bow out now.
But a final word on the original topic. If it is true that we all live in what may be characterized as an ocean of interacting Mind, both consciously and unconsciously, both psychically and psychologically, then it only makes sense that there are those who are more able than others. Call them what you will.
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@Legis said
"another definition of belief is simply "an opinion," which has little to do with evidence or facts."
Depends on what you mean. Opinions can be positions grounded in facts or they can be expressions of arbitrary value.
My "opinion" that vanilla ice cream tastes good isn't the same kind of opinion as my "opinion," rooted in textual evidence, that Paradise Lost supports a certain political position.
But sure, I guess a person can perform an experiment with the hunch -- that's how I'd characterize what you seem to be talking about -- that it will work. But after more than a century of "experiments" that produce zero evidence, I would expect that an intellectually honest person would concede that the hunch was more than likely incorrect.
And again, that's what we've got here: people have been pretending to talk to Secret Chiefs for more than a century, hunching with all of their little hearts that it's true. And the "evidence" has been zip: just a bunch of fruity poetry, number games, warm and tinglies, and the rest of it. People who believe in Jesus have far more evidence than this (they, at least, have millions of people who report personal relationships with the guy), so if you hold out the hunch that there are Secret Chiefs, I'm assuming that you also have a hunch that Jesus exists. Otherwise, you're being inconsistent.
But anyway, after more than a century of an utter lack of evidence, I would say that those "hunches" need to be reconsidered.
"I'm just gonna bow out now."
Yeah, I realized a little while ago that you're more than likely Bereshith. Jeez Louise, you occultists change your name more than Prince. If I had known it was you to begin with, I wouldn't have bothered to try to teach you anything.
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"But a final word on the original topic. If it is true that we all live in what may be characterized as an ocean of interacting Mind, both consciously and unconsciously, both psychically and psychologically, then it only makes sense that there are those who are more able than others. Call them what you will."
When I am presented with an apparent challenge in life, when I question my beliefs, when I wonder what is the truth and real......this single understanding always comes out of my heart to the front of my mind.
I don't always have the right answers. I don't always make the choice of right action. I'm not perfect, but knowing that there are living breathing people in the world whom I can model my actions and beliefs after, whom shine their light without wavering gifts me with the ability to get over myself, and remember that as I look to others as masters, others are looking at me as well.Thanks for bringing up this very important teaching, I am learning the butterfly swimming technique and feeling pretty slow and heavy about it, but while watching Michael Phelps to improve my strokes, I have little girls asking me how I can swim like that.
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@Los said
"My "opinion" that vanilla ice cream tastes good isn't the same kind of opinion as my "opinion," rooted in textual evidence, that Paradise Lost supports a certain political position. "
Is it still merely an opinion when we begin considering evidence?
What if there is a direct statement by the author disproving the theory?
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@Samantabhadra in the Avatamsaka Sutra said
"
Just as all the previous Sugatas, the Buddhas
Generated the mind of enlightenment
And accomplished all the stages
Of the Bodhisattva training,
So will I too, for the sake of all beings,
Generate the mind of enlightenment
And accomplish all the stages
Of the Bodhisattva training" -
@Frater 639 said
"It's why scientists agree to these terms and teach using them..."
What terms would those be? This might be true within specific disciplines (and even then it gets quite messy), but in science at large, the terms employed are extremely divergent.@Frater 639 said
"...I was merely trying to speak scientifically instead of using terms you dream up every time you play with semantics and definitions."
You've created a false dichotomy here. "Speaking scientifically" necessarily involves semantics. Cf., e.g., Korzybski's Science & Sanity.
@Frater 639 said
"...the scientific community."
There's an oxymoron if there ever was one. Science is an anarchy, not a community.@Frater 639 said
"You did admit that imagination is in fact real -- as subjective experience includes imagination. You admitted that the Secret Chiefs are real subjectively -- science necessarily includes these observations..."
What observations?
@Frater 639 said
"...while collecting data, and as we move forward with neuroscience...."
We who? This is quite presumptive. I suggest you all challenge yourselves by reading Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience by Sally Satel & Scott O. Lilienfeld and The Science Delusion: Asking the Big Questions in a Culture of Easy Answers by Curtis White, paying special attention to his criticisms of Damasio's Self Comes to Mind. Also cross reference this with the still virtually unchallenged critique of neuroscience by B.F. Skinner et al, Nietzsche's views on science (starting with The Gay Science; keeping in mind Crowley's praises of Nietzsche), and Crowley's comments on science in The Book of Wisdom or Folly. And, of course, Lakatos, T. Kuhn and Feyerabend (skip Popper--Feyerbend dismantles his "conjecture and refutation" efficiently) are indispensable in any discussion of science. And, as usual, you've all simply got to get your Hume (and Kant's re-workings of Hume) down, especially on causality, if your going to make any sense out of the relationship between "magic" and science. Otherwise, you're all going to just keep regurgitating each other's abuses of the distinction between "appearance" and "reality."And lest I'm misunderstood, I'm not taking Los' "side." He doesn't have enough credibility for me to attribute anything as substantial as a "side" to his "Thelemic Scepticism," which is basically just recycled logical positivism and secular humanism. I keep thinking he'll eventually say something original, but alas, he delivers only disappointment.
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@Los said
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@Uni_Verse said
"There are "Secret Chiefs," various personages of wealth and power, pulling the strings of government -
Is it so far fetched to propose there are exceptionally spiritual beings effecting the evolution of mankind?"Yes. As Kasper pointed out, the claim that there are some people with more pull than others in the government isn't in the same ballpark as the claim that there are spirits who flitter around unseen, sending "messages" to random weirdos.
"The idea of Secret Chiefs and Hidden Masters has been the foundation of various Orders [and traditions] going back thousands of years."
There have long been ideas of invisible magic men running the universe -- usually called "gods" -- but as far as I'm aware, the specific term "Secret Chiefs," especially as heads of so-called "magical orders," dates back to the eighteenth century.
If you have evidence of the term being used before then, I'd be interested to hear it."
The term Unknown Superior ( aka Secret Chief ) was certainly in use in the 1700s but you can find this idea much further back than that. This term referred to certain leaders of an Esoteric Order and did not carry the same meaning most people in the West attach to it post 1875 ( not post Crowley's birth but post Blavatsky's introduction of the revised concept into the Western Esoteric Tradition ).
Before Blavatsky brought in the concept of Ascended Masters guiding occult organizations, this term was used to refer to "Master Craftsman" that kept their identities secret even from many members of their own organization. A Master was a skilled Teacher of an esoteric craft. They were not viewed as "Ascended Masters' in the Eastern sense where everyone's guru is an Ascended Master of course
but rather as human beings that have attained Mastery of the Tradition / System they are practicing. Their identities were only revealed to very Senior members of the Order and to the rest of the members they were Unknown Superiors.We can see a continuation of this idea in the formation of the Golden Dawn where the identities of the Chiefs were kept secret from the Outer Order. Many modern groups must not be aware of this Tradition thus we see people signing their names publicly with their Chief roles they have given themselves, etc. So basically the identities of the Chiefs/Superiors of an Order were kept secret from lower grade members and the public hence the term 'Secret Chiefs'.
But these Orders always sought to connect to the Divine and have reported many examples of Spiritual Experience. But we all tend to interpret experience from a limited and culturally biased view. So a Christian may believe they were visited by the "Virgin Mary" or Christ; a Muslim, by the Archangel Gabriel; a scientist, an Alien from outer space, etc. The human mind tends to anthropomorphize Spiritual Experience effectively creating God in his or her own limited point of view. Crowley attempted to circumvent this as much as possible by calling the Experience "The Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel" but that has not seemed to stop many Thelemites from doing so
So that doesn't mean the Divine does not exist just because the modern notion of "Secret Chiefs" being Ascended Masters guiding humanity from the Inner planes may or may not be true. Bottom line is that the Divine can be Experienced, there are methods and practices designed to awaken such.
But there is an Abyss between Supernal and Human Consciousness and it makes little sense for Human Consciousness to attempt to rationalize or understand such intellectually, i.e. across the Abyss, we find only NEMO. All the reasoning in the world will never 'prove' Spiritual Experience. That doesn't mean we should not develop and insist upon reasoning where reasoning can add value and is a necessity; it simply means that the finite is incapable of grasping the infinite. And yes, just because someone believes they have been visited by Ra-Hoor-Kuit does not make it so nor is it necessarily Spiritual Experience. On the other hand, nor is it necessary to convince anyone else of your Spiritual Experience (and if you have such a desire it is better to explore your personality's motivation for doing so ).
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@Los said
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@Legis said
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@Los said
"You say that Secret Chiefs are seen through inspiration, but we know that inspiration happens through natural means and through imagination, which is rooted in the brain. Lots of people -- including people with entirely secular worldviews -- experience inspiration, all the time. Nothing about inspiration requires the existence of Secret Chiefs."No, I didn't. Perhaps you misunderstood.
I said that the experience of the phenomena of Secret Chiefs is reported by those who have written incredibly beneficial and intelligent things, and I suggested that the quality and intelligence of their work lends credibility to their reports"
Well, then the point you were trying to make was even worse than I thought.
That someone has written "incredibly beneficial and intelligent things" tells us nothing about whether their spooky tales of contact with spacemen are true.
You might as well say that William Blake wrote incredibly poetry and claimed to have visions of Jesus and various dead people all the time, so therefore the incredible nature of his poetry suggests that there really is a Jesus and that spirits really do exist.
It's a non-sequitur. That someone writes well is unconnected to the veracity of claims they make.
"But the more interesting example you don't apparently know comes from Paul Foster Case:
"Shortly after Paul Case fully achieved his spiritual linkage with all
the required levels of this Mystery Training, one day the phone rang, and
much to his surprise the same voice which had been inwardly instructing him
in his researches for many years spoke to him on the phone. It was the
Master R. who had come personally to New York for the purpose of preparing
Paul Case to begin the next incarnation of the Qabalistic Way of Return.
Dr. Case (by then having earned his degree as a Doctor of Theology)
resigned from the Golden Dawn (which was being dissolved by the Masters),
and after three weeks of personal instruction with the Master R., Builders
of the Adytum was formed. Paul Case then retired from a successful and
lucrative career in music to devote his full time to the service of
humanity.www.arcane-archive.org/tarot/paul-foster-case-1.php
""
Wow, I'm clearly in the wrong business. I should be selling swamp land in Florida or a bunch of magic beans because there's obviously no shortage of people who fall all over themselves to believe BS."
Actually there is absolutely nowhere ( private notebooks, letters, lessons, etc. ) I have found that Paul Case claims to have physically met a "Master R." He does claim in a couple of places that he met someone in N.Y. that communicated over a period of 2-3 weeks via "impactation" esoteric teachings that he has spent the rest of his life unfolding but he never alludes to this person being 'Master R.". In fact, the so-called "Advanced Communications" (1947) explicitly state that there has been no communication since the death of Michael Whitty (which occurred before the N.Y. meeting happened). I will reproduce the first communication at bottom of this post for your viewing. It is important to note that Case sincerely believed that a "Master R." was communicating to him, Ann, and Harriet on the Ouja board. Of course one could argue that "Master R." was only referring to the Oujia board communications of Whitty and Case in 1919 but the the rest of the "communication/s" do not allude to any such meeting ever occurring ( nor more importantly, does Case ever do so that I have been able to find ).
There are letters between Whitty and Case speculating who the "communicating entity" on the Ouija board was/is ( around 1919 ) but it is not until Case meets Harriet Case for the first time ( he married her twice ) when she was a secretary for Alice Baily that he begins to believe it is someone specifically. This was during the time Baily wrote 'Initiation: Human and Solar' which lists the 'Master of the Seventh Ray' as Master R. It was right around this time that Case began to associate an "Inner Voice" with the "Master R."
Unfortunately, Ann Davies and Harriet Case were a bit more drawn to the glamour side of things ( I often refer to Ann Davies' 'DSP' course as "Ann's miracle tales" ) than Paul Case and perpetuated some ideas that simply cannot be true. For example, there are copies of Atkinson's 'The Kabalion' published in 1907 with only Atkinson's name on it. It is not until 1911 or so that it appears with the authorship credited to 'The Three Initiates'. Ann and Harriet told multiple persons verbally that Michael Whitty was one of the Three Initiates that wrote this ( Case and Atkinson being the others ). This is impossible because Case actually describes when he first met Whitty and this date is around 1917 or 1918 which is almost a decade after this book was written ( Case actually worked as an editor for Atkinson around the time the book was originally authored and it is more likely Atkinson later decided to give Case unanimous credit for (extensively) editing the book. I have no idea who the 3rd Initiate might be but it could even be 'Hermes' as Case did not associate his "inner voice" with "Master R." until almost a decade after 'The Three Initiates' began to appear as the authorship ).
Unfortunately these and similar stories about the "Inner Voice" calling on a physical phone and the physical meeting in a N.Y. hotel with "Master R." cannot be trusted from these two sources. So if anyone finds a source where Case explicitly states he met "Master R." in person I would love to see it.
For the record, I do not believe (nor disbelieve) these communications were from "Master R." There only importance is to note that Paul Case sincerely believed it to be so. ( I personally find Case's lesson material to be far more inspirational and in general much more valuable than any of these "advanced communications"). Note that Gnoscente et Serviente was Whitty's motto in the A.O.
----------------------------------------------------- FIRST COMMUNICATION ---------------------------------------
Sunday, February 16, 1947
11:50 P.M.In the Name of ADONAI shall all the nations be blessed!
We have waited long, Frater, for another to take up the work interrupted by the advancement to the Third Order of our Very Honored Frater G. et S. (Gnoscente et Serviente). You should have recognized [the initials].
(P.F.C. answered that he did.)
His passing into a higher field of action deprived us for a time, as you reckon time, of a balancing force for yours, Frater Perseverantia.
(Question: Is Ann the balancing force? Answer: Yes.)
It was for this that we began this communication with a phrase that should echo in your recollection.
Not a moment has passed since he sailed for California that we have not kept in mind the unfinished work, begun in the weekly communications of twenty-five years ago. The interval has seemed long to you, and has been packed with incident, but all this, from our point-of-view, has been just a brief interlude. Even then,
this new instrument was in incarnation, and had been brought within range of your auric emanation.The Second Order work had a more important consequence than you then realized, or have even yet understood. It is tremendously potent in opening a channel for the outpouring of the astral light, and, from then on, you served as the communicating link between us and Ann. This accounts for the sense of familiarity you both felt
at your first meeting. In effect, you have been in communication all this time, although neither of you had any conscious knowledge of the other's identity.By bodily inheritance Ann is in a direct line of Knowers of the Mysteries of the Reception. You have the same basic knowledge, but you do not enjoy the advantage of the unbroken physical chain.
G. et S., like yourself, had brought over former knowledge, but this instrument, though without conscious [memory? knowledge?] - apart from what she has learned from you - has really been under our instruction, and this has been projected into her finer vehicles through you.
(The hour was very late, and P. and A. were tired, so we stopped at this point.)