How to start someone on Enochian?
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"A linguistic model explaining an experience cannot be "true". Whether you call something a goblin or a gravity field, it's just a metaphor."
You're wrong. It's true to say that my car is parked outside. It's not true to say that there's a space ship parked outside.
That's the discursive context in which I'm speaking. In the same context in which I can validly say "It's not true to say that there's a space ship parked outside," I can say, "It's not true to claim that real, honest-to-goodness goblins exist."
"If the goal isn't to simply jump through the hoops our intellect puts out, but to create the best system for helping students progress, then a model should be evaluated based on its success at that goal."
Well, the "goal" in many of my conversations on here has simply been to evaluate claims being made about reality, which is a worthy goal in and of itself.
With regards to applying this topic to Thelema, I've argued that this "talking to goblins" stuff ultimately hinders people's ability to discover the True Will. By definition, accepting any claims that are not true hinders one's ability to discover the True Will.
"You haven't produced a shred of evidence that your concepts help students progress any better than the concepts you criticize."
You're wrong again. Since the True Will emerges from an individual's nature in conjunction with the environment, then any individual with a skewed or flawed perception of the environment will, by definition, be hindred in discovering and/or carrying out their True Will.
"We don't need a one size fits all approach to Thelema. Barf!"
Good thing no one's proposing that, then. I've just been talking about evaluating factual claims about the world, which is very relevant to the practice of Thelema, as I demonstrated above, but not specifically tied to Thelema.
Non-thelemites can also care about whether claims are true or not, you know.
"If you spent half the effort you spend here trying to tear down other peoples work, on demonstrating the supposed superiority of your system in the real world, then people will no doubt be flocking to learn from you."
This is a highly dubious claim that also involves you leaping to the assumption that I want "students." Boy, are you wrong about that.
"After all, we need evidence to make a justifiable claim, right??"
Yes. Feel free to post again when you have some.
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Los,
Question. IF you equate spirits and "Gods" or the HGA to simply internal imaginations, if they are a part if us, AND you say the TW is part of us, or our "authentic self", how can these not have worth in discovering it? Barring of course the objective realities of them you deny, how can you deny their personal subjective power in discovering the TW? It should stand to reason with your theory, that all aspects if paid attention to should help us if utilized. It seems fir example, you practice in some way Enochian, so what is THAT doing for you?
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@Los said
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"You haven't produced a shred of evidence that your concepts help students progress any better than the concepts you criticize."You're wrong again. Since the True Will emerges from an individual's nature in conjunction with the environment, then any individual with a skewed or flawed perception of the environment will, by definition, be hindred in discovering and/or carrying out their True Will."
See. No evidence. You're just restating your hypothesis (that a student with a perception you view as flawed will be hindered) and calling it evidence.
p.s. As far as evidence for the opposite (that a student can attain in spite of 'flawed perception') the many examples of adepts and magi through the ages who attained in spite of having mistaken ideas about the physical universe.
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@Jason R said
"Los,
Question. IF you equate spirits and "Gods" or the HGA to simply internal imaginations, if they are a part if us, AND you say the TW is part of us, or our "authentic self", how can these not have worth in discovering it?"
Because pretending to talk to spirits happens on the level of the mind/imagination, which is precisely what obscures the Will in the first place.
Now, indeed, a magician could "invoke" beings with the object of distracting the mind as a prelude to concentrating on his deeper Self (this is exactly how Crowley describes Samekh, for instance), but in that case 1) pretending to talk to spirits would be nothing more than a run up to the real Work...the actual Work would still involve paying attention to the Will and course-correcting in the moment, and 2) pretending to talk to spirits actually isn't that useful for this kind of task because it can be too distracting, making it difficult to actually concentrate on the Will while doing it.
And all of that is beside the fact that most people seem to have a backwards understanding of how the process works and think that merely pretending to chat up spirits can, in and of itself, reveal their True Will, which it cannot.
"It seems fir example, you practice in some way Enochian, so what is THAT doing for you?"
Well, I don't practice Enochian any more these days (expect for the little bits in the Opening by Watchtower, which I still do occasionally when the mood strikes me).
Back in the day, I worked Enochian magick for various kinds of "results," which I now recognize was nothing more than coincidence, and to visit the aethrys, which I recognize has zip to do with "attaining" anything and everything to do with entertaining myself. And, for the sake of clarity, other ceremonial rituals I do -- like the Opening -- are largely for entertainment and enjoying the feelings they produce. They also have the effect of impressing certain ideas upon the mind, but all of those things are preambles to the real Work. The Work happens in day-to-day course-correction.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
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See. No evidence. You're just restating your hypothesis"No, I'm not "restating [my] hypothesis." I'm explaining how my conclusion necessarily follows from the definition of True Will.
I'm not sure what kind of "evidence" you're interested in because we can't gather empirical evidence -- since each of us can only ever observe one single True Will -- but we can draw necessary conclusions from definitions, which is what I did above.
"As far as evidence for the opposite (that a student can attain in spite of 'flawed perception') the many examples of adepts and magi through the ages who attained in spite of having mistaken ideas about the physical universe."
That's not evidence -- what makes you think, for example, that these people actually attained or that they wouldn't have been better able to manifest what we're calling "True Will" if they had a more accurate view of the world?
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If it's impossible to measure a persons progress, then you're just making a blind appeal to faith based fanaticism. If it can't be measured, it ain't real, right?
Proof that people have attained before exists in the many schools and systems that gave been passed down. Unless you imagine that these existed as some useless function, waiting for people to be able to actually make progress.
Heck, even if you say Crowley was the first adept ever, it's still an example of sometime attaining I'm spite of having ideas you disagree with.
As far as whether it's possible that a student could progress better or faster with a different set of ideas, why yes, I'm open to that possibility. But it's not a proven fact; it's a testable hypothesis.
Frankly, if you don't have a good method for observing and measuring another persons progress, you have no business teaching. And if you can't figure out a way to test your hypothesis, you have no business expecting the rest of us to accept it as fact.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"If it's impossible to measure a persons progress, then you're just making a blind appeal to faith based fanaticism."
It is indeed "impossible to measure [another] person[']s progress" in the sense that one person can never know another person's "level of attainment," for lack of a better term. That is to say, in terms of Thelema, one person can never know if another person is acting in accordance with his or her True Will or not.
Of course, a thelemite can know if he himself is acting in accord with his True Will. He's the only one who can ever detect or know that. No one else can.
But the mere fact that one individual's True Will isn't knowable to anyone else doesn't mean that we can never make any claims at all about what a True Will is, in general, and how we go about discovering it, in general.
It's not a "blind appeal to faith" to say, "Here's the definition of True Will, and certain things necessarily follow from that definition."
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So your claims about the effectiveness of the teaching methods here aren't evidence based.
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Los continues to sidestep Takamba's (and mine) points about the semantic nature of his argumentation - which I find a little interesting.
In that vein...
@chioa khan said
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Do you, Takamba, believe in non-corporeal spirits that exist beyond the mind, which can affect material reality and various outcomes? Do you believe in reincarnation of an eternal spirit into another body after death, or in an afterlife of some kind? Do you believe that people possess magic powers? Do you believe that the book of the law is a dictation from a spiritual source?If yes to any of these things, please give an explanation as to why Los' perspective is flawed.
Forgive me as well if I disagree and think you give people too much credit. Just read through some of the stuff on here."
Now I'm not Takamba, but there's two ways to answer these questions, the short answer and the long answer.
The short answer is "yes", but the long answer, while being a better one and more useful, needs a long preamble and a back and forth discussion about what we mean by those things. Sometimes a simple "yes" is better for the flow of discussion, so that we don't need to go through the accepted ground every single time.
For example, for the long answer I would need to know what exactly you mean by "spirit"? I would suggest that most people have only a very surface understanding of the subject matter implied by the word in this context and there is a difference between people saying spirits to refer to purely imaginative creatures from fictional stories and to those implied by the occult context. The same word being used is certainly grounds for confusion, but the correspondence is there to teach us as well. It is not entirely coincidence the same word is used after all. Confusion and illumination can come in the same package. It's what you do with it, after all.
The same applies to "gods" as well and I know well the usual atheist retort to this: that I am merely switching the meaning of words around and I don't, for example, really believe in God even when I say I do. It is certainly true that I do not believe in "god" as meant by Christian fundamentalists or - funnily enough - by atheists, for example. But I would say that I am not simply switching meanings around (any more than everyone employing a word or symbol is actually doing that), but that most people are uneducated in the matter. Education in this subject means having had the type of experience which is classified as religious (which might only be a chemical reaction in the brain, or might be that and something else that we dont' yet understand fully). Yet, while I do not subscribe to all the notions of divinity espoused by the typical Christian, I can sometimes see that they are talking about the same experiential ground. Thus, the word god works well.
Now.. a question that I can agree is worth asking is that do these archaic terms have more worth than they prove a hindrance. If their use in these systems promotes utter confusion, mental health problems, invites the wrong kind of people into the practices and the like, which I think they certainly sometimes do, I can agree it is worth considering. I can't help but think that the hurdle is there for a reason though and that the esoteric side of wisdom is not really ever (in the immediately foreseeable future) going to be commonly accepted so it takes a mind that is able to see past the confusion. We could substitute the old words for new words, but the fact would remain that the keen mind would still be required to see past them.
Also, this thread has gone on a tangent, which I apologize for my part, but the discussion is certainly interesting.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"So your claims about the effectiveness of the teaching methods here aren't evidence based."
Well, that's not entirely true -- they're supported by the evidence of my own Work, but that's obviously hearsay to anyone who's not me, so I don't rely on that specific evidence for my argument when I have these kinds of discussions.
Instead, the argument I present on here (and in other places) is a logical one, not an empirical one: it draws necessary conclusions from the definition we all (supposedly) accept.
To put it another way, if we take the definition of True Will that Crowley gave -- the one that, theoretically, all of us accept and that we can use as a starting point -- then I contend that certain conclusions logically and necessarily follow from that definition. Those conclusions are necessarily accurate if the original definition is accurate.
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@Deus Ex Machina said
"Los continues to sidestep Takamba's (and mine) points about the semantic nature of his argumentation - which I find a little interesting."
Feel free to repost anything that you think I haven't sufficiently addressed. I'm doing my best to address the substance of every post, but I admit it's possible I'll miss something that you think is important. So go ahead and draw my attention to any points you want me to talk about.
"Yet, while I do not subscribe to all the notions of divinity espoused by the typical Christian, I can sometimes see that they are talking about the same experiential ground. Thus, the word god works well."
No, it doesn't. In the example you gave, you clearly don't believe in the Christian god, but you do believe in an experience that Christians misinterpret as being their god (or sent by their god).
That's an important distinction, and it's not just "semantics" to insist on being clear on what we're talking about.
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@chioa khan said
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@Takamba said
"You aren't as smart as you perceive yourself to be, whether it is because you are misunderstanding us, or you are misrepresenting us."Maybe you could clear this up right now.
Do you, Takamba, believe in non-corporeal spirits that exist beyond the mind, which can affect material reality and various outcomes? Do you believe in reincarnation of an eternal spirit into another body after death, or in an afterlife of some kind? Do you believe that people possess magic powers? Do you believe that the book of the law is a dictation from a spiritual source?
If yes to any of these things, please give an explanation as to why Los' perspective is flawed.
Forgive me as well if I disagree and think you give people too much credit. Just read through some of the stuff on here."
I do not believe in non-corpoeal "spirits" in the sense that I am certain they aren't just parts of me projecting experience for myself or others when they believe they encounter them. In plainer words, I remain agnostic to the existence of Angels and Demons in the sense you describe, but do believe in there being something useful to the perceived experience of them.
I don't "believe" in reincarnation, I know it. My knowledge is not the style of Jim's, who claims to have a continuous memory of past lives equivalent to his memories of going to middle school, but based on natural law called the conservation of energy. Everything visible recycles. In this recycling, the core remains the same (molecular, atomic, sub-atomic - you pick and choose which you prefer). So I know this, I know that all things change and nothing is destroyed. I call that reincarnation. That's probably not the answer you expected. Also, I don't give much credence to it right now anyway - I live here now, not then there. And the laws that apply to the visible, based on something I was taught that I forget the name of, must most likely apply universally also to the invisible (mind, psychology, etc).
I believe that Crowley believed the Book of the Law was a dictation from a spiritual source. This is not by me, and I like to believe not by Crowley, defined as some may think it is defined. "Spiritual" is a contextual thing only relative to homo sapiens. We call it spiritual because any label will do. It's really a profound kind of psychology, the deep part of the right hemisphere of the human brain, the stuff that dreams are made of. I don't devalue it just because I don't understand it, I don't devalue it just because it doesn't easily fall under my conscious control, I also don't devalue it just because it is dependent on the same systems the rest of my body is dependent on. I value it and I suspect you don't. As far as Crowley's right brain creation of the book, regardless of how he intentionally or unintentionally came to it, it somehow seems to apply universally and effectively proves its own value to me in that regard. I question it constantly! It's the answers that you can't believe (and shouldn't, because they are my answers and I'm not bothering to waste my time telling you them).
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Points, lines, linear figures do not actually exist.
However, through their use we can come to certain conclusions and practical uses.
Gods, spirits, demons do not actually exist.
However, through their use we can come to certain conclusions and practical uses.All sciences, systems are based on axioms, which by definition are unprovable.
Thus all systems are false... ( ie unreal and unprovable)
Regardless some systems still have practical uses.
It is the Aspirants task to determine which systems are useful to them. -
In complete agreement here as well.
@Takamba said
"
I do not believe in non-corpoeal "spirits" in the sense that I am certain they aren't just parts of me projecting experience for myself or others when they believe they encounter them. In plainer words, I remain agnostic to the existence of Angels and Demons in the sense you describe, but do believe in there being something useful to the perceived experience of them.I don't "believe" in reincarnation, I know it. My knowledge is not the style of Jim's, who claims to have a continuous memory of past lives equivalent to his memories of going to middle school, but based on natural law called the conservation of energy. Everything visible recycles. In this recycling, the core remains the same (molecular, atomic, sub-atomic - you pick and choose which you prefer). So I know this, I know that all things change and nothing is destroyed. I call that reincarnation. That's probably not the answer you expected. Also, I don't give much credence to it right now anyway - I live here now, not then there. And the laws that apply to the visible, based on something I was taught that I forget the name of, must most likely apply universally also to the invisible (mind, psychology, etc).
I believe that Crowley believed the Book of the Law was a dictation from a spiritual source. This is not by me, and I like to believe not by Crowley, defined as some may think it is defined. "Spiritual" is a contextual thing only relative to homo sapiens. We call it spiritual because any label will do. It's really a profound kind of psychology, the deep part of the right hemisphere of the human brain, the stuff that dreams are made of. I don't devalue it just because I don't understand it, I don't devalue it just because it doesn't easily fall under my conscious control, I also don't devalue it just because it is dependent on the same systems the rest of my body is dependent on. I value it and I suspect you don't. As far as Crowley's right brain creation of the book, regardless of how he intentionally or unintentionally came to it, it somehow seems to apply universally and effectively proves its own value to me in that regard. I question it constantly! It's the answers that you can't believe (and shouldn't, because they are my answers and I'm not bothering to waste my time telling you them)."
Oddly that's pretty much my thinking. Definitely agreed on reincarnation. The physical stuff gets recycled across reality (starstuff and all that), but also mental contents get recycled. Our ideas are those of earlier generations. Reincarnation.
@Uni_Verse said
"Points, lines, linear figures do not actually exist.
However, through their use we can come to certain conclusions and practical uses.
Gods, spirits, demons do not actually exist.
However, through their use we can come to certain conclusions and practical uses.All sciences, systems are based on axioms, which by definition are unprovable.
Thus all systems are false... ( ie unreal and unprovable)
Regardless some systems still have practical uses.
It is the Aspirants task to determine which systems are useful to them."Exactly.
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@Takamba said
" I remain agnostic to the existence of Angels and Demons in the sense you describe, but do believe in there being something useful to the perceived experience of them."
In my experience, a lot of people say that they are "agnostic" about supernatural claims as a kind of public position to satisfy any skeptics so that they can privately accept these claims and act as if they are true.
I'm happy to take you at your word, however, that you are "agnostic," which means that you do not accept the claims as true (it also means you don't accept them to be false, but on the question of whether you are a "believer," the answer would be "no," apparently. Which makes you a non-believer)
"I don't "believe" in reincarnation, I know it. My knowledge is not the style of Jim's, who claims to have a continuous memory of past lives equivalent to his memories of going to middle school, but based on natural law called the conservation of energy. Everything visible recycles. In this recycling, the core remains the same (molecular, atomic, sub-atomic - you pick and choose which you prefer). So I know this, I know that all things change and nothing is destroyed. I call that reincarnation. That's probably not the answer you expected."
Of course it's not what I expected because you disingenuously changed the topic of discussion. We're talking about reincarnation in the commonly-accepted sense of the term, the transmigration of souls, metempsychosis ("met him pike horses," for you fellow Joyceans out there). Instead of addressing that question, you redefined the word "reincarnation" to mean something else entirely and talked about that instead.
"And the laws that apply to the visible, based on something I was taught that I forget the name of, must most likely apply universally also to the invisible (mind, psychology, etc)."
This is highly dubious. The mere fact that matter transforms into other matter does not in any way suggest that mind must necessarily transform into other mind (especially since mind appears to be an emergent property of matter when it's in some particular states).
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@Uni_Verse said
"Gods, spirits, demons do not actually exist."
A lot of people around these parts would disagree with you. To give two examples from this very thread, David S. believes in these goblins, as does Jim (who claims to have received "communications" from some of them, apparently).
"All sciences, systems are based on axioms, which by definition are unprovable.
Thus all systems are false..."Depends on what you mean. What "axioms" do you have in mind? For example, I start from the axiom that there's a real world outside of my head that my senses really do connect me to. That I can't strictly "prove" that axiom doesn't therefore make everything I conclude "false."
Within the discursive system set up by that axiom, there are definitely positions that are confirmaby true (like the claim that my car is parked outside) and positions for which there is no good evidence at all (like the claim that goblins are sending me messages through tea leaves and daydreams).
"It is the Aspirants task to determine which systems are useful to them."
I would suggest that deciding "usefulness" by subjective appeals to what seems "invigorating" or "cool" is an exceedingly poor way to go about doing it, despite what the lucrative New Age movement would want you to think.
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How interesting Los, I thought I was talking to chioa khan. Since you are a face changer, I have trust in you at all. You and I and any other face you wear are done talking. Also, you demonstrated that no matter what agreement we may have, you only want to argue. Civil as you pretend to be, you've duped Jim into believing you are to be valued at all. You can reply to this, but for me my ears are deaf to you.
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Los, I think you have two conflicting goals.
Your stated goal is to help people progress in their discovery of True Will.
But your actions (repeatedly beating this dead straw horse about whether people may or may not believe in goblins) are clearly just a ploy to disparage someone else's efforts as often as possible.
You're simultaneously criticizing people for stating things that are "unjustifiable" from an empirical stance, and engaging in the same behavior yourself.
And for the record, we can measure your hypothesis. If, as you suggest, a person is only capable of knowing their own True Will, then we can just survey people for the success rates of their endeavors.
Please tell me, what are the numbers (percentage and raw) of people that believe that you have has assisted them in discovering their True Wills using your system? That way, we can evaluate the data for ourselves, instead of just relying on your unfounded claims.
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This incessant arguing strikes me as egotistical and immature. It is like atheists through the aeons reasoning that God can't exist and materialists denying the supernatural. Some argue just for the gratification of being right and making others wrong. And, between the two sides here, these arguments will go around and around and around incessantly without ever moving forward, because the dialogue is ultimately chasing a priori starting points as if they were necessary conclusions of reason.
Regarding the unknown, all beliefs are hypothetical, willed and as independent of necessary cause as the subatomic is free of being either a particle or a wave. I, for one, presume that the real is more splendid and expansive than we can know. That's where I start from. Apparently, you don't.
Given my premise of the ultraviolet and infrared, so to speak, I have found it best to maintain some humility regarding the ability of my mind to grasp every hue and shade. I have found this flexibility to be an important part of knowing, of appreciating the analogue, continuous, silent nature of things. From my vantage of an immensely sweet yet transcendentally approachable universe, I find the acceptance of spirits and higher intelligences to be useful, but not necessary. It reflects a poetic and aesthetic appreciation of the how and why, which brings me greater joy and a deeper integration with my experience than the narrowly fact-based worldview that you (and Mr. Gradgrind) so enthusiastically espouse.
Time will tell how magick will work for me. But I've already found that the various qabalistic, archetypical, alchemical, Enochian and mystical correspondences that go into it--the stuff of 777 and 776 1/2--resonate deeply for me. They awaken a kind of awareness I've not had before. To delve deeper into these things, I accept, admittedly on faith, the possibility that the thousands of mystics and magicians who have walked these paths before me, who have perceived these potentialities and powers, and who have shared their gnosis over time *might *have been onto something, and *might not *just be a bunch of charlatans and nuts, as you presume.
I think your denial there is any possibility of magical efficacy is boring. It seems to me that a mind determined to deny the unseen will also inevitably reject beauty and love. In a word, I think I am willing to give it a go and you are not. And I see that as a difference in courage and creativity, not smarts.
Anyway, this quote from Magick Without Tears, Chapter XVII, seems a fitting place to end.
"The human apparatus is the best instrument of which we are, at present, aware in our normal consciousness; but when you come to experience the Conversation of the higher intelligences, you will understand how imperfect are your faculties. It is true that you can project these intelligences as parts of yourself, or you can suppose that certain human vehicles may be temporally employed by them for various purposes; but these speculations tend to be idle. The important thing is to make contact with beings, whatever their nature, who are superior to yourself, not merely in degree but it kind. That is to say, not merely different as a Great Dane differs from a Chihuahua, but as a buffalo differs from either. "
