How to start someone on Enochian?
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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. "
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@Takamba said
"How interesting Los, I thought I was talking to chioa khan. Since you are a face changer, I have [no] trust in you at all. You and I and any other face you wear are done talking."
If the implication is that you think I have multiple screen names, this is false. I'm assuming that Jim can see the IP addresses of posters, so he can probably confirm for you that chioa khan and I post from separate places in the world.
Anyway, I don't care who you were talking to -- I respond to whatever comments on these threads I feel like.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"You're simultaneously criticizing people for stating things that are "unjustifiable" from an empirical stance, and engaging in the same behavior yourself."
No, I don't. I justified all the claims I made in this thread, for example. For example, I justified the claim we were talking about earlier by arguing that it necessarily follows from the way that Crowley defined True Will. Therefore, if a person accepts that definition -- which we all supposedly do -- then a person must accept the conclusions that follow from it (if that person wishes to be consistent).
You haven't responded sensibly to that point yet.
"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."
This is a profoundly stupid idea, for the precise reason that people can talk themselves into thinking that they've "succeeded" at this subject when they are doing nothing more than building elaborate fantasy worlds.
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@David S said
"I think your denial there is any possibility of magical efficacy is boring."
And there we have it. You're interested in things that strike you as exciting and "immensely sweet"; I'm interested in what's true, regardless of whether I like what I find.
does work -- not even "to them."]
"It seems to me that a mind determined to deny the unseen will also inevitably reject beauty and love."
Does not follow.
"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."
This is an example of the kind of self-image nonsense I'm often talking about: you're building up this image of me and yourself in your mind, and you're feeling all special thinking about how "creative" and "brave" you are, in contrast to those blasted atheists who are so "boring" and, by implication, "cowardly."
This is the sort of thing you have to learn to look beneath, if you're ever going to succeed at Thelema.
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@David S said
"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. "
That's essentially my view; though I usually phrase it differently. Based on all sorts of things (only some of which are the limitations of physical senses, the immeasurable number of data points vs. the cognitive limitations of the human brain, the multiple layers of filters people put in place, and the average rainfall rate six miles southwest of San Juan) - I am certain that nobody can perceive even a tiny percentage of what's before them. Therefore, everybody is making everything up all the time. How we make it up is our dearest message to ourselves and others about who we actually are (or, at least, which story we're living at the moment).
To be the least bit enlightened, all we can really do, then, is have a bit of humility (that is, reality on our own personal smallness) and embrace the mystery, i.e., live standing before the face of something vaster and more incomprehensible than our faculties can ever hope to conceive. Just as orgasm is nature's way of terminating pleasure when it reaches a throw-the-circuit-breaker threshold, our ideas about a thing are reflections of the point where we weaken and fall away from the experience of it all. That is, our opinions mark the spot we falter, the last obsession that hooked us before we gave up, took our marbles and opinions, and headed home.
Oh, and we can recognize that there is really no separation between us except in where we draw the perimeter. We're all part of the same chaos dance.
Given the scope of things, there isn't much I can rule out as true, except narrowness. It would be small and shameful of me not to own the full scope of possibilities.
@MWT said
"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. "
PS - It's easy to get caught in polarities, and then to polarize. One of the ironies of these recent discussions is that, historically, I've usually been the one who has responded to people stuck in occult-only explanations by grounding them. The person who writes with a physical ailment and wonders if they are under magical attack, having the great fortune to have a bad kundalini experience, crossing the Abyss, or sharing their bed and dirty underwear with elementals - these people I usually send to the doctor, tell them to physically relax, suggest a bit of objective counseling, and suggest they could banish their concern about the elementals by laundering the underwear.
Those who are in a metaphysical-only state of mind, I redirect to the physical; and those who are in a physical-only state of mind, I direct to the metaphysical. The biggest error is in the one-sidedness. And one virtue that the metaphysical-only mentality has is that it can usually be convinced to also include the physical in their perspective. Regrettably, it is harder to take the physical-only mentality and persuade it to include the metaphysical.
The sin - the error - is in the one-sidedness and consequent narrowness.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@David S said
"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. "That's essentially my view"
"Splendid" and "expansive" are also subjective judgments that arise from our limited perspective.
Obviously, we only are able to perceive a small fraction of the universe, and obviously there's still plenty more about the universe that we don't know, but that doesn't give us justification to just accept any claim, just for the hell of it.
"To be the least bit enlightened, all we can really do, then, is have a bit of humility (that is, reality on our own personal smallness) and embrace the mystery, i.e., live standing before the face of something vaster and more incomprehensible than our faculties can ever hope to conceive."
I'm all for experiencing wonder at the universe, but that's no justification to think that there are goblins or that your daydreams are goblin-communications.
"Given the scope of things, there isn't much I can rule out as true, except narrowness. It would be small and shameful of me not to own the full scope of possibilities."
Anything could be possible -- in the most theoretical sense of "possible." But that doesn't mean that any of those things is true or that we currently have reason to accept them.
It's possible -- theoretically -- that pixies live in my XBox and come out at night to party. But just because it's possible doesn't mean it's true. Certainly, I have no reason to accept that as true.
The same goes with these goblin-communication claims.
"Those who are in a metaphysical-only state of mind, I redirect to the physical; and those who are in a physical-only state of mind, I direct to the metaphysical. The biggest error is in the one-sidedness."
I've seen plenty of Thelemites advocate for a similar misunderstanding of "balance." The problem is that a "balance" between sensible, well-supported ideas and stupid, unsupported ideas isn't actually balance at all. It's one of the ways to become imbalanced.
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It's an issue of balance if both points of view are accepted as valid. For reasons stated, I accept both as valid parts of a larger truth and IIRC you do not; so I understand how your last paragraph is true within your modeling of things.
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@David S said
"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. "
Could it be that some argue because they are trying o advance new and novel ideas? If what you said right here is true, we would have never learned anything. We'd never know why weather is caused by axial tilt, and not by demons. We'd never know we revolve the sun, and that it doesn't "go away and die" every day. We'd never have learned any of the majorly important things that have contributed to our progressive advancement and evolution.
Every single time throughout history, we could have moved a lot faster if it wasn't for the people like "you guys" who are clinging on to primitive superstitions. Granted, the silly beliefs are somewhat necessary otherwise we would never have felt the need to out grow them and learn new things.
@David S said
"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. "
I wouldn't say "than we can know". I would say "than we can presently understand". A lot of atheist chemists, biologists, physicists, neurologists, etc. all agree with you. The difference between you and them is that they haven't thrown their hands up in the air and said "mystery solved, it's god!"
@Davis S said
"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."
All of those people you are talking about were limited by the amount of conventional wisdom available in their day. You may say they attained despite living amidst a very repressive and superstitious environment.
You don't live in that time. There is no reason to accept the theories and dogmas of cavemen, or even bronze age men, anymore than victorian or mediaeval men. Maybe in 1000 years from now they will know something different and our paradigms will be obsolete. I'm sure we'll be moving forwards and not backwards towards a belief that weather is caused by capricious spirits. For now try and live in the present and equip yourself with the best knowledge available. As I and Los have done. That's all we are suggesting.
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Actually, that's all we've been suggesting also. You're just using a much narrower meaning of "knowledge."
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@Jim Eshelman said
"For reasons stated, I accept both as valid parts of a larger truth"
And what reasons are there to accept them as true claims, again?
I'm sure I don't need to tell you that I think that any impartial investigation will reveal that these metaphysical claims are not supported. But I'm willing to be convinced.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Actually, that's all we've been suggesting also. You're just using a much narrower meaning of "knowledge.""
This is where we disagree then... What you are considering knowledge in your case, most would consider a delusion. A fantasy. An error in judgement.
Now since it appears that you have some free time to "waste", care to answer how you determine the difference between a delusion and truth? Or are you just popping in to promote your own point of view?
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So to return to the subject, let's say someone has read the basic texts (crowley's enochian writings, Duquette's books on the subject); what would you say is the first thing someone should do?
Alternately, what would be the simplest and fastest way to start actually doing enochian work?
93!
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@Los said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"For reasons stated, I accept both as valid parts of a larger truth"And what reasons are there to accept them as true claims, again?
I'm sure I don't need to tell you that I think that any impartial investigation will reveal that these metaphysical claims are not supported. But I'm willing to be convinced."
Experience organizes life in terms of both types of ideas. There is no basis for preferring one over the other.
The dichotomy is false from the start. All things we think we know about physical aspects of the universe are from phenomena in mind, and there is no unimpeachable basis for believing those ideas to be more true than any other idea. "Evidence of the senses" is a misleading (though useful) phrase: there are no phenomena evident to the senses except as they arise in mind.
Nobody perceives the whole of reality. Even in a physiological model, the human nervous system is incapable of registering, let alone organizing and interpreting, more than a tiny percentage of the whole. Our picture has more lacunae than letters.
We (each and all) have only the vision - the story - the conversation - the map. These distinguish us from each other. These both define and express us (each and all).
You and I completely agree that experiences have no power to explain. We differ on whether the experience or the explanation is more important. That's a decision that defines and expresses each of us. Experience - and especially how we organize and model experience - is how we disclose ourselves.
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@chioa khan said
"What you are considering knowledge in your case, most would consider a delusion. A fantasy. An error in judgement."
Bravo!! It's remarkable how well you are playing Mr. Gradgrind!
There's a difference between the knowledge a biologist has of a dog and the knowledge of someone racing the Iditarod, a difference between the knowledge of the anatomist and that of the lover. The Cartesian worldview you favor has its benefits, for sure, and has allowed some advancements, but it is in no way in and of itself complete.
Mozart, Whitman, Piccaso, Michelangelo and the like, for instance, could be called magicians in their fields. Each apprehended a truth, held a knowledge, which no logical techniques could access or convey. And as Pascal said in my favorite quote, “Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas.” As I see it, the non-rational metaphysics of the experience do not make the lover or artist delusional or her understandings unreal. Rather, the worlds she has made in mediums of paint or sound or flesh or language or feeling or awareness have power, and they can color, inform and influence my own.
"Poetry," for instance, comes from a word meaning "to make." Can't you see how magick is a kind of making too? How different, really, is a muse from a so-called goblin here? (I have witnessed neither evoked to physical manifestation, but am sure both have a certain might). How different is the operation of a poem that frames another's vision, or a song that shapes a generation, or a book that carries an epoch, from the incantation which reaches for a consciousness beyond one's own? Are you so sure you know the methods and the mindstuff from which changes in consciousness (or history) are wrought?
You guys play at being fancy scientists advancing the zeitgeist of this forum with your incredulous skepticism. But I can't say I've learned anything from you yet. No new discoveries. No interesting anecdotes. I just see you repeatedly and blithely passing judgment on others, drawing them out so you can make them wrong, and pretending the metric you prefer is the only way to measure. Your, "just the facts," arguments and deconstructions go nowhere, they just effect a reach around to to the swaggering non-belief you brought in with you from the start, and you hammer away with it, seeking acquiescence instead of a new understanding.
Look. We got it. Nothing can be true outside your own present frame of reference. Magick isn't real. You've made your point. Again and again and again for weeks now you've made the same point more times than I can count.
Can we please move on now?
Recognizing that people have different views as to its value and utility, does anyone have anything interesting to relate about the introduction of Enochian magick to a beginner?
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@Jim Eshelman said
"You and I completely agree that experiences have no power to explain. We differ on whether the experience or the explanation is more important."
You're missing the point. The point is that you explain things by claiming that there is some kind of metaphysical reality. I'm asking you for your justification for that one particular explanation of yours.
I completely agree that we experience only a tiny fraction of the universe, but that mere fact, all by itself, in no way suggests that your metaphysical claims (explanations) are true.
So I consider my question unanswered, and I will politely ask you again: what reasons are there to accept these metaphysical claims/explanations as true claims/explanations?
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@Los said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"You and I completely agree that experiences have no power to explain. We differ on whether the experience or the explanation is more important."You're missing the point. The point is that you explain things by claiming that there is some kind of metaphysical reality. I'm asking you for your justification for that one particular explanation of yours.
I completely agree that we experience only a tiny fraction of the universe, but that mere fact, all by itself, in no way suggests that your metaphysical claims (explanations) are true.
So I consider my question unanswered, and I will politely ask you again: what reasons are there to accept these metaphysical claims/explanations as true claims/explanations?"
Did you not just answer yourself? You admit there is MORE to the universe than we know. So there you have room for something else like magic to be possible. Your looking at the whole thing a particular way, such as my explanation for an influence on chance.
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@Jason R said
" You admit there is MORE to the universe than we know. So there you have room for something else like magic to be possible."
Of course it's possible that magic works. It's also possible that Bigfoot exists or that leprehcauns are stealing my socks when I seem to "lose" one.
But if you ask me what I think is true, then based on evidence, I don't think that leprechauns are actually stealing my socks, even though I admit it's technically possible, and based on evidence, I also don't believe that Bigfoot exists, even though it's technically possible that he does.
And in the same way, based on evidence, I don't think that magic works, even though I admit it's technically possible that it does.
