Goetic "Demons"
-
why then does thing or that thing come to be what it is and as it is, rather than some other way?
If say a rock is an illusion that is really this non-physical spiritual essence or source. Them by what process, under what conditions, of for what reason, does this Rock manifest itself in the way that it does.
And if this this or that is not the case. That is all prepositions are of equal value. A is a Rock is just as true as A in not a rock.
If there is no actual state of affairs behind behind these self negating propositions, then why should it seem to me that Their is is or is not a rock, not both is and is not a rock.
Am I or some property of me that which makes a thing manifest, that is that breaks the symmetry of the negation. creating a rock that is manifest and the annihilation or opposite of a rock which is not present to connect with the rock and annihilate it from manifestation.
And if this immaterial source is a thing, that is subject to conditions, and manifests itself in this way rather than that for some reason., then that source counts as a physical thing.
any "thing" with properties that defines it by way of making it distinct from some other "thing" is a physical thing.
-
This is all explained in-depth (which is the only way I believe would satisfy you, which is perfectly understandable) in the text. Basically, there are two ways, in this limited comparison, of looking at things. The relative logic way you are approaching reality is perfectly valid in itself, but it is totally insufficient for discovering reality. The grasping of thought to sensory input is the very cause of the muddiness of awareness. By its very nature, it is the source of confusion. In this way, entities and things seem to appear along with unending suffering. This will go on indefinitely so long as one is trapped within this illusion which is the grasping of thought. There are pointing out instructions for noticing the Primordial State and methods for cultivating and remaining present in the Primordial State. Since the transmission of this knowledge is beyond language and can be communicated in the flash of a guru's smile or, in the case of the historical Buddha, the simple raising of a single flower, this is why transmission is said to be mind-to-mind and, since the physical realm of things and entities is seen to be an illusion, this is why it is referred to as ultimately "spiritual." Something happens which is not found in relative logic or physical realms, something is transferred which is not measurable or communicable except for silent mind-to-mind communication. In the gradual methods of the 8 lower vehicles, the grasping mind is slowly deconditioned, but in the highest teachings it is said that unless this Primordial State is rediscovered, all the meditation in the world will not lead to liberation since liberation of all the awakened ones is nothing other than this Primordial Experience. Crowley rejected Theravada Buddhism, the 1st and lowest vehicle called by the higher vehicles, "Hinayana."
-
This STATE of liberation then is just another mode the brain can learn to operate in. A mode that does not use categories, and is dissociated (detached) from sensory input.
However this Illuminated state is as much a mode, state, or relative arrangement of the brain matter as is any other state.
A computer can operate is many different modes, but ultimately no matter how the computer displays its data, it is still a physical device.
-
When the curies discovered radiation, they theorized that is had a strange non-physical effect on physical objects.
Physicists proposed an immaterial ether as the medium through which light propagated.
Biologists proposed vital essences or forces which endowed inorganic matter with life.
Newton proposed that Gravity was action at a distance without a material cause, a strange property kept in place by GOD.
Magnetism was once believed to be a non-physical energy or unnatural attraction between substances, a work of spirits and magick.
Before Newton the theory was that tiny angels or demons rode on projectiles and kept them aloft with supernatural powers.
Each of these supernatural explanations has been proven incorrect. Do you propose that in just this one case, you have discovered a supernatural explanation, which has no real explanation? That we have come to the limits of science, just as all others who came before you had said. They all say, we have discovered something outside of science, something humans can not understand. And each of them has been proven wrong, with time.
I see a motive behind such thought, it is not a mere expression of facts, it is not a clear headed observation of what is the case. It is a fear, an anxiety, a deep rooted notion that Man in not meant to know these things, that TRUTH is toxic to the soul.
It is something I would call a Lovecraft complex. The belief that mystery is vital to a mans psychological and spiritual well being, and thus a fear that in some dark lab or in some ancient tome, the Light of reason and rationality might be glowing, sleeping but not extinguished. Waiting to illuminate the darkness and clear up all mystery, make all things mechanical, predictable, clear away romantic nations of free Will, individual uniqueness, mystery, child hood spirit of adventure, and make life into a dry, predictable, mechanical affair.
This is the danger of progress, the danger of truth, but it is also the burden of maturity. We must leave behind Childish romances, leave our enchanted forests and but on the lab coat, the business suit, and enter a new phase. That of the practical, rational ADULT.
The NEW AEON, is the manhood of humanity. Giving up external authority, also means taking responsibility and one mark of a responsible man is that he clears his head of childhood fantasy, and faces the world as the cold, logical, indifferent reality that it is.
-
You miss the obvious point: if every experience is only real insofar as we are "aware" of it, then everything is a product of mind.
Slightly reworded for emphasis "from the ground up" using your point of view:
Everything we observe is a construct of mind gained through the sense organs and put together and interpreted in the brain. This means everything physical, including our brains and sense organs, is a creation of consciousness. -
when I close my eyes, the world is still there.
When I refuse to believe is something, it doesn't vanish.
The world was here long before I was, will be here long after.
If everything was in my mind, there is nothing to learn, I would never experience anything new.
Mind does not create reality, Reality creates the mind.
-
@Froclown said
"when I close my eyes, the world is still there.
When I refuse to believe is something, it doesn't vanish.
The world was here long before I was, will be here long after.
If everything was in my mind, there is nothing to learn, I would never experience anything new.
Mind does not create reality, Reality creates the mind."
This is quite the simplistic take on what I have said. You are refuting solipsism, which is not what I am proposing.
-
consciousness is the processing of information by single particular a brain. Thus if you propose that physical matter is the result of consciousness, then you propose solipsism.
If you propose that all reality is actually in the mind of GOD then you propose Berkleyism which is also absurd.
but if we take Berkley's view, then What I am a ware of is God's ideas, and if they are not my own ideas then they are other than me, As such they are something external to me with a particular nature of their own, and thus count as physical objects.
-
By clinging to the grasping of thought after the sense experiences, arises the appearance of things and entities. By not conditioning our experience by thought, we experience raw presence of Primordial Awareness in which experience can be described as neither internal nor external and the appearance of things and entities do not arise. Not having experienced this state, one clings to relative logic, as you are now, believing it is correct.
But, if it was correct, there would be no further quesetions. Occam's Razor says "it must be so" and so doubt is undermined by faith. However, experiencing the Primordial State, we become aware of a wholly different kind of awareness, perception and a different sort of "Occam's Razor" which is not seen prior to experience of the State and the View. IT does not disappear like a hallucination or become fuzzy and muddled like relative logic. IT is definitely experienced and completes ordinary perception and relative logic by a unique shift of perspective which now encompasses the whole spectrum of perspective.
There is awareness conditioned by space and time and awareness which is not conditioned by space and time. All awareness is the Wisdom Display, but there are different ways of experiencing IT. This is why there is ordinary view and something else called the View. This is why the Primordial State is called a STATE or "awareness" or "experience" rather than a "thing" or "essence."
So, you can go on and on reasserting these relative logic "proofs," but it doesn't prove anything to someone who has seen beyond the limits of your reasoning. Just a brief example, you propose: "When I close my eyes, the world doesn't go away." If what you experience as physical sensation is the karmic view of shared consciousness, is there any way to prove otherwise while in the perpetually-reinforced trap of the experience? Your experience of the karmic view would always "materialize" as a continuous experience and would be reaffirmed by others who share your karmic view. This is neither solipsism nor the mind of GOD. In fact, there is no place for either view in this scenerio because it is beyond the categorizations of "one" and "many." Ask yourself why this solid, sure world of yours falls apart. If things are solid, why is everything in flux? Why do we die? Why are there different points of view? If this is all there is, why don't we understand it? Why do we torture ourselves with philosophy (shouldn't we be securely satisfied with the obvious truth abounding all around us)? Why do physicists suspect there can be no end to materialist inquiry? Etc. There are so many limitations to the view you cling to as "solid" evidence of fact which are answered in the Primordial Experience.
-
your questions are simple.
We die because me are mere collections of material entities, we are made up of parts, because of entropy those parts fall apart, and thus we die.
we have perspective because we are not all the same entity, we do not share a mind, we are each a separate entity made of different sub-parts, though we inhabit the same space, we are not the same entity is that space nor do we share the same experiences of the other objects in that space, from the same spacial orientation.
Physicists do not know there can be no end to inquiry, but they propose it for reasons of job security, and because their are many perspectives on a world that is so huge that our limited perspective has allot to look at.
You keep insisting that I never had the experience you speak of, I have. The difference is you think the word conforms to the way it seemed to your primal that is not fully processes sensory state, and I am talking about the world as it is, was, will be, even if no human being ever existed.
YOU are insignificant, the world goes not by your approval, the world does not care how it seems to you, it is what it is, and nothing you do can change that.
All ritual and meditations and such can do is alter the way the brain processes information, make the world seem in different ways, and there by give us a glimpse at how the machinery of the brain works.
-
You haven't had the experience I speak of and it's quite obvious by your simplistic answers to my "simple" questions.
Your karmic view "materializes" as a continuous experience and is reaffirmed by others who share your karmic view. Your tendency for describing things as collections of other things which fall apart due to another description called entropy does not explain anything. You are still under the delusion that a temporarily satisfying label/description explains "why." Also, your explanation of the existence of different perspectives by way of describing the situation as one being experienced by multiple entities is just stating the obvious relative view and does not help your case of promoting "real things". Clinging to these sorts of limited views as the summom bonum does nothing but limit your experience.
For the sake of tidying this all up in a neat little nutshell per the original topic...
1. You don't like fairytale terms like "goetic demons," but you're okay with "archetypes," is that right?
- Archetypes are nothing more than chemical reactions in physical brains, in your opinion. Is that right?
2. So, when archetypes or what-seem-to-be-demons interact with the conscious mind in a way which the conscious mind can't comprehend, it is similar to the loss of control one experiences while in a non-lucid dream state. Is that right?
- Presumably, you feel this experience is part of some un/subconscious aspect of the physical brain being felt by the conscious mind.
3. So then, anything experienced in the presence of the "supernormal" entity which science can not explain at the moment is an hallucination and any information gleaned from the "entity" is simply the product of chemicals in the brain coming to deeper, more obscure conclusions about reality than usual, which heretofore had not been "seen" by the conscious mind. But these surprising conclusions the brain has arrived at and presented through the imaginary medium of the archetypal entity are, nevertheless, based on previously stored data and originating from physical brain matter in the general way as usual, though with different results than more generally experienced.
Is this your perspective in a nutshell?
What's your opinion regarding other common aspects of the occult, such as "casting spells," astral travel, astrology, remote viewing, telepathy, etc.? Oh wait, in a nutshell, your concept of all these ideas are expressed in your first 2 responses on page 1 of this thread.
Your experience thus far is not very extensive and your conclusions not very scientific. -
Froclown, what is your understanding of this comment?:
"The doctrine is that the Great Work should be accomplished without creating new Karma, for the letter N, the fish, the vesica, the womb, breeds, whereas the Eye of Horus does not; or, if it does so, breeds, according to Turkish tradition, a Messiah. Death implies resurrection; the illusion is reborn, as the Scythe of Death in the Tarot has a crosspiece. This is in connection with the Hindu doctrine, expressed in their injunction, 'Fry your seeds'. Act so as to balance your past Karma, and create no new, so that, as it were, the books are balanced. While you have either a credit or a debit, you are still in account with the universe."
— Book of Lies, Fool's Knot Comment -
I think you do not understand my view of the goetia at all.
I have no problem with the term demon or spirit as a jargon, I simply define these as physical effects of the brain.
The brain uses a kind of pattern recognition system, which filters out most of the sensory data the brain receives, the brain mostly uses serotonin to dampen signals and that do not conform to the patterns the brain is looking for. Some of there patterns are learned via experience, that is reinforced by the environment, others are genetically ingrained in the structure of the brain.
Anyway, the practice of the goetia, uses both ingrained archetypes that are common to mast humans as a matter of biology, and constructed pattern seeking in the brain. The practice also effects the brain such that its dampening of certain information weakens, and some normally blocked aspect of the sensory processing is opened, the mind actually receives mare information than usual from the outside world, and it uses the newly constructed or links to archetype (the concept of the spirit) as a way of expressing this new information in the mind.
Thus the spirit, is an avatar the brain creates to express a relation to some new bit of information, we enter into a feedback with this avatar, which represents this part of the world that was originally disorderly but has taken a form we can relate to is an orderly way. By relating to it, we can discover new things about the physical world, we can develop our brains capacity to understand logic, or the calls of birds, or to recover the memory of things lost, and many other things.
Astrology is a system that helps us make decisions, if we are confuzzled. There is no real power in the stars, we attribute certain qualities to them, and use their orderly yet complex relations as a vague signposts, a way of letting the stars do part of ones thinking.
A spell, in basically getting results like in goetia, but circumventing the spirit. See Sigil casting in Chaos magic.
Invocation, is simply matching ones thoughts and behavior to a mythological example of an archetype. pushing out thoughts that don't fit cultivating those that do.
Tarot, same as astrology only with cards. only it also relates to the tree of life and the wheel of time. Thus it is part of the Hermetic system, which is to build a total brain overhaul where the human tendency to accept correlations as linked in an almost causal way is exploited and mapped onto the tree of life. Thus creating a new way of precessing and perceiving information.
Yet, through this all, man is just a monkey in the world, and the world is set in stone, runs like clockwork, it is not the product of the mind, because a mind is just a clockwork device one amongst billions and billions in the cosmos.
-
@Froclown said
"I think you do not understand my view of the goetia at all.
I have no problem with the term demon or spirit as a jargon, I simply define these as physical effects of the brain. "
So, I did understand you to begin with. Everything you've said after this little intro I have expressed in statements 1-3 above. Point out anything specifically that doesn't seem to be included in these ideas and I will be glad to explain how they were included in these 3 points.
Now, if you don't mind, what is your interpretation of the Book of Lies comment I posted?
-
And, by the way, this is totally unscientific nonsense:
@Froclown said
"
Astrology is a system that helps us make decisions, if we are confuzzled. There is no real power in the stars, we attribute certain qualities to them, and use their orderly yet complex relations as a vague signposts, a way of letting the stars do part of ones thinking.A spell, in basically getting results like in goetia, but circumventing the spirit. See Sigil casting in Chaos magic.
Tarot, same as astrology only with cards. only it also relates to the tree of life and the wheel of time. Thus it is part of the Hermetic system, which is to build a total brain overhaul where the human tendency to accept correlations as linked in an almost causal way is exploited and mapped onto the tree of life. Thus creating a new way of precessing and perceiving information. "
How does the physical brain get results, scientifically speaking, through sigil casting in Chaos magic? Are you going to quote RAWilson, Phil Hine and Peter Carroll to me at great length now, pretending this is science? Your description of astrology and tarot are theoretical, not experiential. Experience blows such a theory out of the water without a larger over-arching concept behind it; yes, the cards and stars are helpful to analysis, but that certainly doesn't explain the whole of it. Pattern-finding brains can't alter physical reality unless there is a link between pattern-finding and pattern-making, which would necessarily mean that the mind has control over the physical, which leads back to the conclusion that everything physical is a construct of the mind.
Now, if you don't mind, what is your interpretation of the Book of Lies comment I posted?
-
I never made the claim that magick can cause changes in reality, it can cause changes in perception, cognition, and behavior.
Picking up on subtle clues can seem like clairvoyance, if one developed this to the degree of Shurlock Holmes, then hunches could cause changes in behavior that may be subtle, but bring about the desired result, as if the world made it happen for you.
If this possibility is ruled out, then one can start theorizing about Quantum effects such as does the mind have an active role in state vector collapse. A definite link between the brains activity and the results of measurements on quantum scale probability has not been established, but there is some evidence for this. That too is a physical science, one not yet fully understood, but certainly not left to the action of immaterial spirits. We have a long way to go before jumping to that conclusion.
Now as for all this karma business, Karma just means causality nothing more. Past actions have an effect on present and future situations. Every thought and experience we have builds up our semantic network, thus each new experience is judged by the aggregate of all previous experience. With spoken and written language, that network expands via books, culture, media to include the learnings of other people, and even those long dead.
Thus oneself is part of a greater semantic network, which shapes the shared perspective of a culture or race. But the actual physical matter, the ink, the paper, the vibrating larynx, the brains, etc. Those are physical substances are not semantic entities. Magick has no direct effect on them, its effects are on the semantics systems, the information processed.
Magick does not change lead into gold, in stretches our definition of Gold to include lead. (If we are talking about chemical transmutation, rather than spiritual alchemy).
-
Okay, great. Now I think everyone's pretty clear on where you're coming from.
...
As for this "karma business," as you call it, again, you come from a limited perspective, that of the lower tantric vehicles which Crowley rejected and surpassed. (Duly noted, by the way, that you failed to actually address what Crowley wrote. Instead, you gave your little spiel about what karma means to you.)
A little passage from Primordial Experience which you can compare to the whole Book of Lies and Fool's Knot in particular, especially in regards to this one comment about "frying your [karmic] seeds"...
@Primordial Experience by Manjusrimitra said
"
"By imagining a self, one has completely obscured one's own existence and been divorced from the lineage of the Noble Ones.
By imagining entities, a variety of frustrations arises, and so one will be reborn in the lower realms.
Since perception, moreover, seizes on different identifiable qualities out of the spectrum of conditioned events, it appears as eightfold due to these specific activities, although it is not manifold in its essential function.
Therefore, in the first moment of experience, one's body and all configurations of events and meanings are present.
On account of thinking about and becoming obsessed with something, in a later moment that thought that has arisen in accord with the earlier moment makes itself felt.
Nothing exists for ordinary people and Noble Ones apart from the continuum of their own experiencing.
This variety of experience that exists for the six types of sentient beings appears through their own habitual mode of vision.
Since this continuum of experiencing is without any boundaries, to call it "one" is also without foundation.
Since that has no boundaries, all the limitless Buddha-fields are one's own body.
In that one's own body appears as the body of living beings and as limitless Buddha-fields, it is also difficult to postulate that the potential for experiencing and the habituating tendencies are either one or diverse.
One says, "All these configurations of events and meanings come about and disappear according to dependent originations." But, like a burnt seed, since a nonexistent result does not come about from a nonexistent cause, cause and effect do not exist.
Being obsessed with entities, one's experiencing itself, which discriminates each cause and effect, appears as if it were cause and condition.
Since these two (cause and effect) do not exist, origination and cessation do not exist.
Since origination and cessation do not exist, self and other do not exist. Since there is no transformation and death, eternity and annihilation do not exist.
Therefore, it is evident that deceptive samsara as well as nirvana do not exist.
The momentary site (ie. the fundamental structuring) is never separate from the habituating tendencies. They are really the same phenomenon and if one does not exist, the other does not exist.
Since they are produced by trying to grasp experience with thought, which is completely mistaken, the habituating tendencies do not exist, and since there does not exist a sphere of operation for the fundamental structuring, the fundamental structuring of all experience as well as perceptual and cognitive activities do not exist.
Since boundaries do not exist in experience, an objective support or a site for its operation do not exist. How then can perceptual and cognitive activities arise?
Therefore, experiencing is beyond the limiting conceptions of existence and nonexistence, and is neither a unity or a plurality."
"Crowley has identified the Eye of Horus as that which "does not breed, unless a Messiah." He continues, "Death implies resurrection; the illusion is reborn, as the Scythe of Death in the Tarot has a crosspiece. This is in connection with the Hindu doctrine, expressed in their injunction, 'Fry your seeds'. Act so as to balance your past Karma, and create no new, so that, as it were, the books are balanced. While you have either a credit or a debit, you are still in account with the universe."
He is referring to "the Eye of Horus" as beyond cause and effect, obviously, since it "does not breed" unless creating a "Messiah" (ie. someone who has awakened and can liberate others, therefore, "the savior of the world" as Crowley referred to himself) and he is advising us to "fry our seeds" (making them sterile) by balancing our karma and "create no new karma" (how do you imagine you do that, mr. cause-effect? Sit very still and don't make a peep?) ...which is precisely in-line with the Vision of Primordial Experience, along with "all is joy" and "rejection causes hurt" and Samantabhadra/dri = Nuit /Hadit. The Crowned and Conquering Child = The Victorious One. ... Where does The Bornless One fit into cause/effect?
-
how do I propose to what?
This frying your seeds, means to remove thoughts and worries that manifest them self.
It means to seek not to achieve anything in the future and to remove guilt and concerns of the past.
This is a method of quieting the mind, that is a means to attain Samadhi.
And this totally quiet mind Crowley called the eye of Horus, it breeds no thoughts, except that Crowley's theory is that "christs" or "genius" is born from this total withdraw from the world into the silence of the quiet mind.
It has nothing to do with the actual physical changes in the world, and is not an escape from it into some other world, it is a change in the mind of the magician. A state of awareness, that transcends normal linguistic concepts and instinctual/cultural attitudes.
A new way of using the brain.
-
@Froclown said
"how do I propose to what?
This frying your seeds, means to remove thoughts and worries that manifest them self.
It means to seek not to achieve anything in the future and to remove guilt and concerns of the past.
This is a method of quieting the mind, that is a means to attain Samadhi.
And this totally quiet mind Crowley called the eye of Horus, it breeds no thoughts, except that Crowley's theory is that "christs" or "genius" is born from this total withdraw from the world into the silence of the quiet mind.
It has nothing to do with the actual physical changes in the world, and is not an escape from it into some other world, it is a change in the mind of the magician. A state of awareness, that transcends normal linguistic concepts and instinctual/cultural attitudes.
A new way of using the brain."
Great answer and one I would agree with very much except for the fact that you haven't integrated Samadhi with everyday experience. Don't project ideas about "escaping into some other world." Self-liberation means everything changes but nothing has changed. It is wholly different from lower vehicle concepts of liberation. "Fry your seeds" goes beyond merely "quieting the mind." The Fool's Knot overtly references emptiness via "sacrifice of the ego to the Absolute" and the "destruction of the Universe," both of which lay the groundwork for experiencing everything as "'God' dealing directly with the soul," which exactly parallels the "Vision of the total field of events of the Primordial State," once the illusion of the self and all concepts (the universe) has fallen away. And what is the illusion you imagine the Fool's Knot refers to?
"The word Naught-y suggests not only that the problem is sexual, but does not really exist." = the union of experience which is illusion. This is Hadit/Nuit or Samantabhadra/Samantabhadri. See how they get it on.
"A fool's knot is a kind of knot which, although it has the appearance of a knot, is not really a knot, but pulls out immediately." - Hmm, "pulls out"? Could this be another Crowley sex joke?
And the Bornless One?
-
I know all of these experiences, I did not take the oath of magister in ignorance.
But, I still say that all experiences are is the mind, and outside the mind is the physical reality.
God and soul, can just as easily be taken to mean the physical brain as a whole and the limited subset of information that is present in the Ego or conscious mind.
But beyond "God", is the physical word of which both God and Soul are constituents.