Secret Chiefs and attainment
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@Legis said
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@Los said
"You say that Secret Chiefs are seen through inspiration, but we know that inspiration happens through natural means and through imagination, which is rooted in the brain. Lots of people -- including people with entirely secular worldviews -- experience inspiration, all the time. Nothing about inspiration requires the existence of Secret Chiefs."No, I didn't. Perhaps you misunderstood.
I said that the experience of the phenomena of Secret Chiefs is reported by those who have written incredibly beneficial and intelligent things, and I suggested that the quality and intelligence of their work lends credibility to their reports"
Well, then the point you were trying to make was even worse than I thought.
That someone has written "incredibly beneficial and intelligent things" tells us nothing about whether their spooky tales of contact with spacemen are true.
You might as well say that William Blake wrote incredibly poetry and claimed to have visions of Jesus and various dead people all the time, so therefore the incredible nature of his poetry suggests that there really is a Jesus and that spirits really do exist.
It's a non-sequitur. That someone writes well is unconnected to the veracity of claims they make.
"But the more interesting example you don't apparently know comes from Paul Foster Case:
"Shortly after Paul Case fully achieved his spiritual linkage with all
the required levels of this Mystery Training, one day the phone rang, and
much to his surprise the same voice which had been inwardly instructing him
in his researches for many years spoke to him on the phone. It was the
Master R. who had come personally to New York for the purpose of preparing
Paul Case to begin the next incarnation of the Qabalistic Way of Return.
Dr. Case (by then having earned his degree as a Doctor of Theology)
resigned from the Golden Dawn (which was being dissolved by the Masters),
and after three weeks of personal instruction with the Master R., Builders
of the Adytum was formed. Paul Case then retired from a successful and
lucrative career in music to devote his full time to the service of
humanity.www.arcane-archive.org/tarot/paul-foster-case-1.php
""
Wow, I'm clearly in the wrong business. I should be selling swamp land in Florida or a bunch of magic beans because there's obviously no shortage of people who fall all over themselves to believe BS.
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I didn't say I believe.
I said I was willing to hypothesize.
As I have already stated, attempts to discredit a working hypothesis by accusations of "belief" misunderstand, either willingly or ignorantly, the process of investigating a hypothesis, where an idea must be regarded as* potentially* true for any legitimate investigation and discovery to occur.
As you will not even entertain the possibility that any report actually fitting your requirements for the real existence of Secret Chiefs could be true, you reveal discussion of these ideas with you to be entirely futile.
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@Los said
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@Frater 639 said
"What is real? Please define."That which actually exists, which is detectable in some way.
Now look, we could, if you wanted to, have a lengthy (and probably insightful and interesting) conversation about reality. But I'm not going to have it with you if you insist on intentionally misunderstanding simple points (like the difference between the thought of a goblin and an actual, honest-to-goodness goblin), if you insist on bogging down discussion with unnecessary jargon and with self-righteous fantasies about how you know oh-so-much more about science than I do, and if you insist on filling your posts with puerile emoticons in the manner that you did when you first tried talking to me, months ago, and got smacked down pretty hard.
If you want to have the discussion, declare your intention not to do any of those dumb things, and I'll consider having it with you. If you don't want to have the discussion, it's been nice talking to you."
Thanks. Always a pleasure, of course.
However, I don't agree to conversation under your censorship and sanctions.
Also, what you call "unnecessary jargon" is actually quite necessary so I can understand what you're talking about and the terms are very commonplace. It's why scientists agree to these terms and teach using them -- instead of broad terms like "truth" and "reality." You have to get down to specifics. If you're going to have a "real" conversation about these ideas, then you should know all the minute facets of ontology to communicate about them to anyone responsibly and definitively.
Interesting that you get so defensive and that you gave up so easily. Ad hominems and such, when I was merely trying to speak scientifically instead of using terms you dream up every time you play with semantics and definitions. Your terms mean nothing in the scientific community. You also admitted to not having much familiarity with the science behind ontology. I suggest you study up before you get "smacked down" again. Also, I enjoy your fantasies about my motivation and past conversations here.
Of course, it is your right to not answer the questions that were posed to you multiple times. It is also your right to not educate yourself thoroughly about how one perceives reality. But, something as been gained. You did admit that imagination is in fact real -- as subjective experience includes imagination. You admitted that the Secret Chiefs are real subjectively -- science necessarily includes these observations while collecting data, and as we move forward with neuroscience, these subjective experiences can be measured more readily. So, I suggest you brush up your education of these topics before attempting (and failing) to speak intelligently about them again. This is not only my opinion, but it seems other people here agree that your logic is faulty and needs work (an example of quantitative data!
). In short, you implied that Secret Chiefs are in fact real, just as your fantasies are about me.Good luck with your studies. Try not to get so emotional next time and you may learn something.
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@Legis said
"I didn't say I believe."
Then I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the people who do believe the claim, including the OP of this thread. However, between you and me, I strongly suspect that there are a lot of people who do believe these claims but put on airs of merely "hypothesizing" when they are questioned by skeptics, only to return immediately to believing these claims when the conversation ends. (I'm not accusing you of that -- just talking in general)
"I said I was willing to hypothesize."
And why is that? Why are "Secret Chiefs" more of a "hypothesis" worthy of taking under consideration than "Jesus Christ" or "Vishnu"? If we go by numbers, millions more people have (thought that they have) "detected" Jesus and Vishnu. What, in your mind, makes "Secret Chiefs" any more credible a "hypothesis" than any of the thousands of unsubstantiated woo-woo claims?
"the process of investigating a hypothesis, where an idea must be regarded as* potentially* true for any legitimate investigation and discovery to occur."
As I've just indicated, I don't think there's really any grounds for suspecting "Secret Chiefs" as a viable hypothesis at all, but, for the sake of argument, I'm willing to play along. Let's say it's a real hypothesis. What evidence has been gathered to support it?
"As you will not even entertain the possibility that any report actually fitting your requirements for the real existence of Secret Chiefs could be true, you reveal discussion of these ideas with you to be entirely futile."
Obviously, some dude claiming to have chatted up the Secret Chiefs isn't evidence that there are Secret Chiefs, any more than some dude claiming to have seen Jesus is evidence that Jesus is real (and that everybody on these forums had better repent to avoid hell).
If that's the only "evidence" in favor of their existence, then that isn't evidence at all, and it demonstrates that there aren't any valid grounds for accepting that Secret Chiefs are real.
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The truth is that I believe all kinds of things... before I doubt them... then again after I doubt them... which ends up just being before I doubt them again...
You seem to have no sense of a natural, healthy walk with an idea or hypothesis. Have you never had to write a proposal and perform and experiment? It seems like you would have experienced this walk back and forth with faith and doubt - with that combination of entertaining an idea to create a theory, hoping that you're correct but placing strict guidelines for testing the hypothesis in place, not knowing if you're correct - this moment believing, this moment doubting.
You seem to view all instances of belief as a human sin that should in all cases be stamped out. Perhaps this is because you also seem to view all instances of belief as equivalent to making claims of absolutely certain knowledge and making demands for submission to belief from others, which is just ....nonsense.
Your ideas about belief do not reflect normal, healthy, free belief but rather the bound belief of the fundamentalist zealots who tell themselves that they *must *believe and believes that all should be either converted to that same "must believe" or be punished. This is ironic, of course, because you are constantly seeking to convert others to your beliefs about belief without understanding that this itself is belief, not fact. It is belief in the righteousness of skepticism alone and the wickedness of belief.
Do you not see the irony of your religious fervor and zealous persecution of those who demonstrate the qualities of religion because religion has in the past resulted in precisely such evils? Sometimes, it's like watching an ironic postmodern comedy.
Los... I don't have a problem with people believing ANY of the things you listed. None of them. You have a problem with that.
What's wrong with people believing in Jesus? Nothing until they start demanding everyone else believe the same thing, which is what you do, not what I do.
Anyway... I'm not interested in this anymore. You're too entrenched in your biases to have a balanced, intelligent discussion. Over and over again, you just seek to prove your own beliefs and twist the words of others.
Sorry, it's just not a worthy discussion.
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@Legis said
"You seem to have no sense of a natural, healthy walk with an idea or hypothesis. Have you never had to write a proposal and perform and experiment?"
Sure, I have. And I don't think I've ever believed a hypothesis (in the sense of "accepting it as factually true") until I had sufficient evidence to accept it. I may have thought there might be a good chance it was true. I may have hoped it was true. I may have wanted it to be true. But I can't say that I believed it was true until I was convinced, by evidence.
Once more, in this case, the "Secret Chief hypothesis" is laughably, woefully underwhelming as a hypothesis and, even if it were a viable hypothesis worthy of consideration, more than a century of, er, "experimenting" has yielded no evidence (aside from the wackaloo stuff that believers of other faiths produce all the time, like poetry and flowery prose). On the basis of everything I just said, people are more than justified in discarding this hypothesis. Unless you have some new evidence you'd like us all to look at?
"You seem to view all instances of belief as a human sin that should in all cases be stamped out."
Belief -- in the other sense, of accepting claims on "faith," without sufficient evidence -- is indeed a massive hindrance to an individual's ability to discover and carry out the True Will. This is because it distracts the individual from reality, which is where the True Will exists.
My objection to this kind of belief has nothing to do with how "certain" people are about these beliefs, with the attitude that people "must" believe them, with the conviction that all people must be "converted" to these beliefs...all of those things are irrelevant. The "problem" with beliefs is not that they're fanatical or whatnot: the problem is that they mislead people. The most non-fanatical, fluffy-bunny "personal belief" has this negative effect for the individual.
That's my objection. Frankly, telling yourself that you have a "free belief" that's "all your own" that no one else needs to believe because the belief is part of "your own reality," or whatever, is worse (for the believer) than a fanatical religious belief because it's harder to see through the illusion of that kind of belief.
" you are constantly seeking to convert others to your beliefs about belief"
No, I'm not. I'm having conversations on a board designed for conversations.
"It is belief in the righteousness of skepticism alone and the wickedness of belief."
See? Here's a practical example of what I'm talking about: this belief of yours about me is a fantasy about my motivations. If you discarded the belief and looked at what was actually happening -- that I'm just raising some pretty reasonable points on a public messageboard, you would be able to interact better with reality and wouldn't suffer from the weird persecution fantasies that are distracting you even further.
"your [...] zealous persecution"
Oh, please. Am I throwing anyone into a dungeon and beating them? If you call a very reasonable, direct, and even (usually) friendly line of questioning "persecution," you've really got to re-evaluate your beliefs about what's going on.
"What's wrong with people believing in Jesus?"
Nothing's "wrong" with it. I was raising the point because (I assume) that you don't agree that Jesus is the One True God and that failure to believe in him results in going to hell. Yet, people give reasons for believing in Jesus that are practically identical to the reasons you've suggested for believing in "Secret Chiefs."
Follow me here: I'm arguing that the case you're making for the existence of Secret Chiefs is a poor one, and we can see how poor it is because the exact same kind of case can be used to justify beliefs in all sorts of things you don't accept (and that are mutually exclusive and can't be all true).
It's not exactly a complicated point I'm making, and you would be able to see it if you weren't getting so hysterically worked up, offended, and lost in the belief that a reasonable discussion somehow constitutes "persecution."
You're making my point for me, here: it's your beliefs that are veiling reality from you and preventing you from participating in this conversation. How are you supposed to get insight into your Self when you can't even figure out that I'm not persecuting you?
"Anyway... I'm not interested in this anymore."
Do whatever you want. The point has already been adequately made, I feel.
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@kasper81 said
"let me refer you to some ideas in Nigel Appleby's "Hall of the gods": "The puzzling appearance of homo-sapiens is statistically impossible" he claims.. He goes on to say that for millions of years our ape-like descendants made little progress, using simple stone tools then suddenly 200,000 years ago, homo sapiens , with a 50% increase in cranial capacity and the ability to speak -appeared *almost overnight. *
To increase the confusion, he apparently existed for a further 160,000 years in primitive conditions , only to expand* suddenly* across the entire globe 13,000 years ago.
Just 1000 years later he was using agricultural methods; after a mere 6000 more years he was forming great civilizations with advanced astronomical knowledge."
This is an argument from ignorance. Let's pretend, for the sake of argument, that humans are ignorant of the answer to your question. Our ignorance of the actual cause of this rapid evolution cannot be used to support any positive claims about what the cause was.
In other words, the fact that we don't know what happened doesn't lend even the slightest bit of credibility to claims about spacemen.
"What happened to the theory of evolution as a process of gradual advancement over very long time periods?"
Well, you really ought to look up "punctuated equilibrium." It's not actually correct to think of evolution as always gradual.
But anyway, rapid technological development is not mysterious at all: knowledge and technology grow exponentially because each generation can build on what the last one has done.
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@Los said
"... I don't think I've ever believed a hypothesis (in the sense of "accepting it as factually true") until I had sufficient evidence to accept it."
You had to intentionally reinterpret my words and provide your own definition contrary to my context and intended meaning in order to say, "no."
Remember where I said this? "Perhaps this is because you also seem to view all instances of belief as equivalent to making claims of absolutely certain knowledge..."
You just proved that part true.
To the extent that you do not carry on an open, legitimate discussion, your hopes of being taken seriously by anyone of higher intellect who has been educated in the philosophy of science are pure fantasy.
There's too much of the technique and agenda of political rhetoricians in your supposed science.
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@Legis said
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@Los said
"... I don't think I've ever believed a hypothesis (in the sense of "accepting it as factually true") until I had sufficient evidence to accept it."You had to intentionally reinterpret my words and provide your own definition contrary to my context and intended meaning in order to say, "no.""
So what did you mean by "belief," if not "accepting as factually true"? [Note that I do not consider "factually true" to mean "absolutely, certainly true without error"]
[EDIT: On further reflection, I can be clearer here. What I mean is that when I say "I believe that X is factually true," I'm not saying that I'm absolutely certain that X is the case. I'm simply saying that I am convinced by the evidence that it's overwhelmingly likely that X is true, such that I would be comfortable calling it a "fact" until new evidence comes to light]
I wasn't trying to "redefine" the word -- I was trying to be clear about how I'm using it. If you use a different definition, explain. We could, if you wanted to, have a productive conversation about how we're using terms.
"your hopes of being taken seriously by anyone of higher intellect who has been educated in the philosophy of science"
There are those fantasies about me again....
Seriously, just try paying attention to what I say instead of paying attention to the fantasy-Los you've built in your head.
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@Los said
"So what did you mean by "belief," if not "accepting as factually true"? [Note that I do not consider "factually true" to mean "absolutely, certainly true without error"][EDIT: On further reflection, I can be clearer here. What I mean is that when I say "I believe that X is factually true," I'm not saying that I'm absolutely certain that X is the case. I'm simply saying that I am convinced by the evidence that it's overwhelmingly likely that X is true, such that I would be comfortable calling it a "fact" until new evidence comes to light]"
The distinction is that you possess a belief, where a fact is accepted.
@Los said
"There are those fantasies about me again....Seriously, just try paying attention to what I say instead of paying attention to the fantasy-Los you've built in your head."
It is an observable fact, you have simply chosen not to believe in it.
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@Uni_Verse said
"The distinction is that you possess a belief, where a fact is accepted."
I'm not quite sure what you mean. The way I use "belief," I mean "accepting a claim as factually true," and -- under this particular definition -- a belief can be held based on sufficient evidence or insufficient evidence. At no point does "certainty" enter the picture: when I say that I believe a claim is true, I mean that I am convinced, by evidence, that it is very likely to be true and that I will tentatively accept it as true until new evidence surfaces. If I say that I "know" something or believe something is a "fact," then I mean that think there is so much evidence for it that it would be absurd to doubt it. I'm still not claiming any kind of absolute certainty: I'm merely expressing the degree to which the evidence supports the claim.
There's a different set of definitions, in which one might use the word "knowledge" to designate what I'm calling "belief supported by sufficient evidence," and then describe that knowledge in terms of varying levels of certainty (that is, "I'm fairly sure I know X to be true, but I'm more confident, based on evidence, that I know Y is true"). A person using this kind of definition might oppose knowledge to belief, which would be defined here as choosing to accept a claim as true without sufficient evidence.
Under the second set of definitions, all belief whatsoever is an impediment to discovering the True Will, and the goal of the magician is to rid himself of all beliefs in this second sense.
Personally, I find the first set of definitions more convenient, but the words we use don't matter as much as the point: that basing one's ideas about reality on evidence tends to greatly help one navigate that reality.
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@Los said
"The way I use "belief," I mean "accepting a claim as factually true," and -- under this particular definition -- a belief can be held based on sufficient evidence or insufficient evidence"
This is how you have chosen to define your beliefs,
That is not how you define belief -
@Uni_Verse said
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@Los said
"The way I use "belief," I mean "accepting a claim as factually true," and -- under this particular definition -- a belief can be held based on sufficient evidence or insufficient evidence"This is how you have chosen to define your beliefs,
That is not how you define belief"At least, it's not as limited to that, as Los requires it to be in order to manipulate the argument in his favor.
Words, words, words...
Los, to cover the other end of the spectrum of definition, another definition of belief is simply "an opinion," which has little to do with evidence or facts. And in that sense, if you have never performed an experiment where you were of the opinion ("belief"), at least occasionally, that your hypothesis would be supported, then you have never legitimately proposed an experiment.
But, again, it's pointless to try to get you to admit the legitimacy of another perspective. You will only say, "I disagree," and carry on in the same rhetorical manner even after all that work.
I'm just gonna bow out now.
But a final word on the original topic. If it is true that we all live in what may be characterized as an ocean of interacting Mind, both consciously and unconsciously, both psychically and psychologically, then it only makes sense that there are those who are more able than others. Call them what you will.
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@Legis said
"another definition of belief is simply "an opinion," which has little to do with evidence or facts."
Depends on what you mean. Opinions can be positions grounded in facts or they can be expressions of arbitrary value.
My "opinion" that vanilla ice cream tastes good isn't the same kind of opinion as my "opinion," rooted in textual evidence, that Paradise Lost supports a certain political position.
But sure, I guess a person can perform an experiment with the hunch -- that's how I'd characterize what you seem to be talking about -- that it will work. But after more than a century of "experiments" that produce zero evidence, I would expect that an intellectually honest person would concede that the hunch was more than likely incorrect.
And again, that's what we've got here: people have been pretending to talk to Secret Chiefs for more than a century, hunching with all of their little hearts that it's true. And the "evidence" has been zip: just a bunch of fruity poetry, number games, warm and tinglies, and the rest of it. People who believe in Jesus have far more evidence than this (they, at least, have millions of people who report personal relationships with the guy), so if you hold out the hunch that there are Secret Chiefs, I'm assuming that you also have a hunch that Jesus exists. Otherwise, you're being inconsistent.
But anyway, after more than a century of an utter lack of evidence, I would say that those "hunches" need to be reconsidered.
"I'm just gonna bow out now."
Yeah, I realized a little while ago that you're more than likely Bereshith. Jeez Louise, you occultists change your name more than Prince. If I had known it was you to begin with, I wouldn't have bothered to try to teach you anything.
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"But a final word on the original topic. If it is true that we all live in what may be characterized as an ocean of interacting Mind, both consciously and unconsciously, both psychically and psychologically, then it only makes sense that there are those who are more able than others. Call them what you will."
When I am presented with an apparent challenge in life, when I question my beliefs, when I wonder what is the truth and real......this single understanding always comes out of my heart to the front of my mind.
I don't always have the right answers. I don't always make the choice of right action. I'm not perfect, but knowing that there are living breathing people in the world whom I can model my actions and beliefs after, whom shine their light without wavering gifts me with the ability to get over myself, and remember that as I look to others as masters, others are looking at me as well.Thanks for bringing up this very important teaching, I am learning the butterfly swimming technique and feeling pretty slow and heavy about it, but while watching Michael Phelps to improve my strokes, I have little girls asking me how I can swim like that.
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@Los said
"My "opinion" that vanilla ice cream tastes good isn't the same kind of opinion as my "opinion," rooted in textual evidence, that Paradise Lost supports a certain political position. "
Is it still merely an opinion when we begin considering evidence?
What if there is a direct statement by the author disproving the theory?
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@Samantabhadra in the Avatamsaka Sutra said
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Just as all the previous Sugatas, the Buddhas
Generated the mind of enlightenment
And accomplished all the stages
Of the Bodhisattva training,
So will I too, for the sake of all beings,
Generate the mind of enlightenment
And accomplish all the stages
Of the Bodhisattva training"