Finding my True Will
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@Bereshith said
"Also... I haven't worked through it yet, but.... it seems at some point, one would have to say that knowledge of one's True Will necessarily makes use of projected meaning.
"Good point. Meaning is distinctly a relationship between you and an experience, as is knowledge in general.
The strange effect in this case can be the fact that the TW is (as far as I know) the primal source of meanings that we attribute to stuff around us. -
@Simon Iff said
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@Bereshith said
"Well... first of all... a "given" is just a "given" and is only relevant to those who agree with it."So if I fall down a six metres high wall without braking the landing will only affect me adversely if I agree with that?
You are aware that you are indirectly claiming that there are no objective things, just subjective perspectives, yes?"
I'm speaking within the context of following the logic of a syllogism. The givens are only meaningful for those who agree with them. I'm not attempting to speak to the objectivity of all givens ever given.
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The meaning is its use.. Language doesnt function to a preset pattern, thinking has to to take place within the activity rather than on some intellectual platform suspended outside of life and beyond lived activity.
This where the verificationist types have to be cautious when they condemn religious language as meaningless, have they assumed too quickly what religious language is and does, and how it actually functions in the lives within those activities? -
@Bereshith said
"Food for thought"
Junk food, maybe.
"Meditation yields experiences, which have no explanatory power."
Right. The experience, all by itself, can't tell you what it was.
It's reasoning about the experience, after the fact, that stands a chance of telling you what it was.
If you look at the OP of the "Experience Has No Explanatory Power" thread, you'll see I give an example of Crowley appealing to this same principle, pointing out that the "experiences" of Mohammed and Christ, all by themselves, couldn't have told them that they "really" experienced Gabriel of Jehovah.
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No what I meant by predictive value was, that anything, be it a model or idea about something else, irrelevant if the something else is objective, subjective, astral, religious, scientific in the hard sense, etc. - if it wants to be of value - must be able to make a prediction about its topic on the plane it is on or it is worthless drivel.
Examples:
A loves me. -> Testable prediction: A will behave really nice towards me, at least given time.
B's aura looks weak in the chest department. -> Testable prediction: B might have an illness or psychosomatic problem centered on their chest area, or might soon develop one.
If I let object C (say, a vase) go on a high cliff on earth it will most likely shatter and, for sure, arrive on the foot of the cliff soon afterwards. -> Testable prediction: C will perhaps shatter and surely fall if I let go under mentioned circumstances.
My self D is of a kind that I react really angry when someone does something particularly stupid. -> Testable prediction: I will get angry if someone does something I consider stupid.
These sentences above therefore have predictive value on their level, and can be veri- or falsified.
Other example:
Aliens from Sirius, that have secretly taken over earth, are watching me on this internet forum. -> Testable prediction: None. Untestable as such - useless drivel.
All clear Bereshit & co.? This is what I meant - the predictive value of any idea - or not - is relevant even if you do not agree. And that is very useful when differentiating chaff from wheat in many endeavours - including those which Los thinks don't exist.
Clearer what I meant?
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@Simon Iff said
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@Los said
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@Bereshith said
"Food for thought"Junk food, maybe."
Los ... has someone explained the function of manners to you at any point in your life?
"Indeed.. And it illustrates my point, that its the behaviour of the individual that puts the experience.. that actual activity, into context.
Reasoning after only routinises the experience into an everyday language.
Compartmentalising the activity and removing it from its context after the fact as Los does wont tell you anything.
For instance he's either being rude, or he has no idea that he's being rude. -
@Los said
"Right. The experience, all by itself, can't tell you what it was.
It's reasoning about the experience, after the fact, that stands a chance of telling you what it was.
"Yes, precisely, and the above argument demonstrates that the same is true for both kinds of experiences.
Therefore, since the discernment process is always expected to require* "reasoning about the experience, after the fact," then either both types of experiences may legitimately be used in gaining knowledge of one's True Will, or neither type of experience may legitimately be used.
*No one here argues against this. That's one of your strawmen, along with "goblins."
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@Bereshith said
"Yes, precisely, and the above argument demonstrates that the same is true for both kinds of experiences. "
It doesn't demonstrate anything of the kind. You're just baldly asserting that the "experience" of ritual can enable a person to discover the True Will.
Someone could just as easily argue that taking out the garbage is an experience that has no explanatory power. Discovering the True Will requires experiences, which have no explanatory power. Discovering the True Will requires taking out the garbage, which has no explanatory power.
It's nonsense. You can say it, but that doesn't make it correct.
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@Los said
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@Bereshith said
"Yes, precisely, and the above argument demonstrates that the same is true for both kinds of experiences. "It doesn't demonstrate anything of the kind. You're just baldly asserting that the "experience" of ritual can enable a person to discover the True Will.
Someone could just as easily argue that taking out the garbage is an experience that has no explanatory power. Discovering the True Will requires experiences, which have no explanatory power. Discovering the True Will requires taking out the garbage, which has no explanatory power.
It's nonsense. You can say it, but that doesn't make it correct."
You are currently demonstrating an inability to follow logic.
Please review the argument.
Please state the specific Given, Premise, or Conclusion you would like to dispute.
I believe you missed a step here:
@Bereshith said
"Given: Knowledge is appropriately pursued through the means required to gain it.
Premise: Knowledge is appropriately pursued through the means required to gain it.
Premise: Gaining knowledge of one's True Will requires experiences, which have no explanatory power.
Conclusion: Gaining knowledge of one's True Will is appropriately pursued through the means of experiences, which have no explanatory power.
Premise: Gaining knowledge of one's True Will is appropriately pursued through the means of experiences, which have no explanatory power.
Premise: Meditation and ritual both yield experiences, which have no explanatory power.
Conclusion: Gaining knowledge of one's True Will is appropriately pursued through the experiences yielded by both meditation and ritual even though these experiences have no explanatory power." -
@Bereshith said
"You are currently demonstrating an inability to follow logic."
Sigh.
The problem occurs here:
" Premise: Gaining knowledge of one's True Will is appropriately pursued through the means of experiences, which have no explanatory power.
Premise: Meditation and ritual both yield experiences, which have no explanatory power.
"You correctly begin from the premise that discovering the True Will requires experience. You also tag on to that premise the point that I taught you, that experience, all by itself, has no explanatory power.
You then note that mediation and ritual both yield experiences (which, like all experiences of any kind, have no explanatory power).
But you give no reason for thinking that these particular experiences -- the ones yielded by mediation and ritual -- have anything to do with discovering the True Will.
Discovering the True Will indeed involves experience, but it involves a specific kind of experience -- not the experience yielded by yodeling or the experience yielded by watching a Breaking Bad marathon or the experience yielded by whatever. It involves the experience of the True Self, as distinguishable from one's thoughts about the Self.
You need to give a reason to think that the experiences of meditation or ritual have anything to do with discovering the True Will.
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"You need to give a reason to think that the experiences of meditation or ritual have anything to do with discovering the True Will."
The experience of the ritual means something to somebody, its how the person lives that shapes the experience, the activity reveals itself in the way the person behaves and points only in the application that a living being makes of it.
Understanding that involves empathy, its not actually your objective property like the outward forms of the ritual may be.. its duration, what funny hats they were wearing etc.
Reason by itself has no explanatory power. -
@Los said
"But you give no reason for thinking that these particular experiences -- the ones yielded by mediation and ritual -- have anything to do with discovering the True Will."
You argue for what you believe should be present in the logic instead of disputing any presented Given, Premise, or Conclusion.
As such, you have not yet correctly disputed the logic as presented.
This is what I actually said:
"Given: Gaining knowledge of one's True Will requires experiences.
Premise: Gaining knowledge of one's True Will requires experiences.
Premise: Experiences have no explanatory power.
Conclusion: Gaining knowledge of one's True Will requires experiences, which have no explanatory power.
Given: Knowledge is appropriately pursued through the means required to gain it.
Premise: Knowledge is appropriately pursued through the means required to gain it.
Premise: Gaining knowledge of one's True Will requires experiences, which have no explanatory power.
Conclusion: Gaining knowledge of one's True Will is appropriately pursued through the means of experiences, which have no explanatory power."Allow me to clarify.
According to logic that you have not yet correctly disputed, all of the experiences of one's life, including taking out the garbage, appropriately go into the process of gaining knowledge of one's True Will.
I have argued specifically for consideration of experiences yielded by both meditation and ritual in this process of discernment because of your attempt to contrast the two and to disqualify those experiences yielded by ritual.
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@The Editor said
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@Bereshith said
"No one here argues against this.{opinion}* That's one of your strawmen.{opinion}"
"Excuse me... No one here who isn't knowingly demanding to present their own dissenting perspective argues against this.
Present company excluded. I stand corrected.
heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&p=75871#p75871
Now, back on topic...
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,
Yes, I read the piece on The Will on Erwin Hessles blog today (www.erwinhessle.com/writings/thelp3.ph).
He seems to have come to the same conclusion as myself regarding Will, but he seems to have gotten there via an intellectual analysis (or maybe that's just how the way he explains it on the blog).Today I was struck by the aphorism (or zen-koan is it?): "Who is the magician that makes the grass green?" .. And I was reminded of a peculiar experience from the first time this True Self made it's appearance for me .. There was this sense of being very, very intimate with the world around me, the sensations were super-strong, and at the same time - I realized that "I" was in fact very, very far away from this world around me .. There is a long way up the nervepaths, through the brain etc. before the impression of the world reaches the "I" ..
Anyway, today - realizing, in the context of this perceived "distance" to the world, that I am the magician who makes the grass green, I instantly accepted full responsibility for the world I am creating .. (Even though some reactions on the world around me are created "automatically" by instincts etc, they are still made by this creature, and there is no reason why I should not appreciate everything equally) ..
I found that I was able to instantly transform my perception of the world from a world of struggle, worries, fear and disgust, into a world of pure beauty ..
I was eating at a restaurant when this occurred, and my meal was actually transformed into spiritual sustenance!
.. (that is - my actual experience of it, not the molecules of the food itself of course 
) ..Now I am experiencing something else I recognize from other major realizations - a sort of irritation, I feel pissed off and dismissive .. About this realization, I am thinking: "So? Is that it!? .. That's all?? .. Oh, for God's sake! - why couldn't someone just TELL me!??" ..
.. It feels sort of anti-climatic, but I think this is just the everyday-self sort of sulking .. it knows where this process is going, and so reacts like this .. At least that has been my experience from these realizations in the past ..Now, I think I've essentially got it .. but the problem I see is that the realization is not very well founded .. I tend to forget, and slip into the "lower" perspective again .. Into identification with the everyday-self I mean ..
"Ah me! but the glory of ravening storm
Enswathes thee and wraps thee in frenzy of form." (AL 1:1)
comes to mind ..As I see it - yoga is good for opening up to realizations, but maybe ritual is needed to really test out the result in practice .. That's why I was wondering about using it in this context .. As I said - for me at least - ritual compares to psychedelics in that it offers an externalization of the psyche in a controlled environment - like a microscope or looking-glass, it magnifies and amplifies the effects my attitudes, thoughts, actions etc. have on the "astral substance" .. Of course I will continue to pay close attention in day-to-day life as well, but I have a feeling I should balance my experiences with yoga with some magick .. Too much yellow-school can lead to nihilism I think .. be good to get in some white-school-hedonism-action about now
..Well, I will keep working my way up the A.'.A.'.-system in the regular fashion, and hopefully that will solidify the perspective from Thiphereth once and for all
Glad to see this thread so popular! Thanks to all for engaging so enthusiastically!
Love is the law, love under will,
Frater KatanoesePS: Oh, by the way - something else occurred to me today - what do you think of this: We are all actually already adepts, we're just pretending that we're not .. (?) ..
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@Katanoese said
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,
Yes, I read the piece on The Will on Erwin Hessles blog today (www.erwinhessle.com/writings/thelp3.ph).
He seems to have come to the same conclusion as myself regarding Will, but he seems to have gotten there via an intellectual analysis (or maybe that's just how the way he explains it on the blog)."Erwin's essay is probably the best introduction to the concept of True Will available. Along with the other essays in the series (his "Thelemic Primer," "The Fundamentals of Thelemic Practice," "The Khabs is in the Khu," and "The Nature of Love"), it comprises the best, most well-written, and crystal clear explanation of what a Thelemite is attempting to achieve and how one goes about achieving it.
Depending on what you mean, I might disagree with your suggestion that his conclusions were arrived at "via an intellectual analysis" whereas yours were presumably not. Perhaps this is just an issue of phrasing: all conclusions are produced by reason operating on evidence, as I've been explaining in the other thread. Perhaps some of those applications of reason are more critically examined than others -- and thus more of an "intellectual analysis" -- but it's not true to think that the conclusions of the essay are the product of thinking whereas some other conclusions are not the product of thinking.
"I found that I was able to instantly transform my perception of the world from a world of struggle, worries, fear and disgust, into a world of pure beauty ..
I was eating at a restaurant when this occurred, and my meal was actually transformed into spiritual sustenance!
.. (that is - my actual experience of it, not the molecules of the food itself of course ) .."The feeling you're describing sounds like what is often labeled (the experience of) Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel: all feels fresh, beautiful, and transformed.
It is only a feeling, after all, but it's one of the major milestones along the path. An alternate definition of Knowledge and Conversation is having the ability to induce this trance more or less at will.
"Now I am experiencing something else I recognize from other major realizations - a sort of irritation, I feel {******} off and dismissive .. About this realization, I am thinking: "So? Is that it!? .. That's all?? .. Oh, for God's sake! - why couldn't someone just TELL me!??" ..
.. It feels sort of anti-climatic, but I think this is just the everyday-self sort of sulking .. it knows where this process is going, and so reacts like this .. At least that has been my experience from these realizations in the past .."The goal of performing the Great Work is to recognize, ultimately, that the Great Work is unnecessary. All is ever as it was. The only kicker is that it takes a lot of effort to get to the point where you realize exactly how unnecessary all of the effort was to begin with.
If it's not anti-climactic, in some sense, then you haven't done it correctly.
"Now, I think I've essentially got it .. but the problem I see is that the realization is not very well founded .. I tend to forget, and slip into the "lower" perspective again .. Into identification with the everyday-self I mean .."
This is why I have described initiation not as a state but as a skill. Like any other skill, you have to practice it. That's the purpose of the greetings, the Resh adorations, and little personal rituals (like drawing a tarot card every day and using it to interpret the events that transpire): all these little things serve to remind the aspirant of the state of mind to which he or she aspires, to keep attainment always in the back of the mind.
There's nothing inherently good or noble in any of those practices. They're just markers and reminders that one can choose to adopt (or put off) as one sees fit. As always, I consider it vitally important to analyze one's chosen practices and their results and to determine whether they're all that useful for the goals one has in mind in the first place.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
" As I said - for me at least - ritual compares to psychedelics in that it offers an externalization of the psyche in a controlled environment - like a microscope or looking-glass, it magnifies and amplifies the effects my attitudes, thoughts, actions etc. have on the "astral substance" .. Of course I will continue to pay close attention in day-to-day life as well"
And that's perfectly respectable. You've at least analyzed what you're doing and thought about it and determined exactly how you think rituals are helping, which is the whole point (and, of course, you recognize that the real work is still in the day-to-day moments).
"Glad to see this thread so popular! Thanks to all for engaging so enthusiastically!"
You're very welcome. All the best to you.
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@kasper81 said
"Ok let me explain further. You seem to be implying that Gurdjieffian self-observation/ self-remembering is superior to pursuing rote ceremonial work and other practices prescribed by the Thelemic curriculum. Yes that's true but ironically enough I also feel that such self-awareness can be attained by those very "crowleyan" practices. I still feel that that in a nuit shell is what your point is."
This was crystal clear. Nice job explaining your point.
It is possible, certainly, to practice rituals with the intent of honing one's observational skills or with the intent of pressing certain ideas onto the mind so that one is reminded of them during the day and "lifted out" of one's usual frame of mind, as I was just discussing above.
It is, perhaps, a matter of debate exactly how much such rituals actually add to the practice of self-observation, but I'll leave that to the side for the moment.
The problem comes when people don't bother even asking themselves what they're trying to achieve with rituals or critically examine whether rituals are actually having the effects that they think. We've seen people on these very forums blithely declare that rituals put them in touch with their True Will or dig up things in their Unconscious mind that (they arbitrarily declare are) useful for discovering their True Will, without any reason for thinking this. Or worse -- people are actually actively opposed to figuring out what's actually going on, insisting that they "keep reason out of the picture" when they clearly do no such thing and instead ineptly use their reason to form vague, murky conclusions about their work. If we listen to some people, it's just a matter of dully repeating rituals -- cause hey, it was good enough for ol' AC -- and let's not think too hard about what they actually do, cause that's like, all Choronzon, yo.
It's just silly: if a person wants to achieve a goal, like discovering the True Will, that person is only helped (not hindered) by having a perfectly clear understanding of what they're trying to do and what the practices actually do.
"Yes good point. You are aware of the dogmatic tendencies of any religion and Thelema is a religion. Judging by the comments you're receiving I guesse you have instructed a few folk around here"
Thanks for that. I do think I've managed to communicate my points and gotten through to a number of people.
If I may say so, Kasper, I've been probably the most (pleasantly) surprised by your reaction to my presence on the forums. I anticipated that you would be one of the ones to react in a hostile manner, but it's been quite the opposite.
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@Katanoese said
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,
Yes, I read the piece on The Will on Erwin Hessles blog today (www.erwinhessle.com/writings/thelp3.ph)."
Just in the interest of clarity, when I first read your post, I thought you were talking about his exceptional essay "True Will" (www.erwinhessle.com/writings/truewill.php). But what you actually linked to above is the "short version" in one of the chapters of the brief "Thelemic Primer" (www.erwinhessle.com/writings/thelp.php).
All excellent (and clear) introductions to Thelema for anyone out there who's getting started.
