Enigmas, Phenomena, Wierdities, and Repeating Images
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I've been pondering the bit about all meaning being projected.
So there's this basic theory above about brain functioning, which I basically agree with, but there's this observation along the lines of, to use your example...
Okay, I'm driving along thinking about Batman and synchronicity, and then thoughts about some key piece of Batman symbolism unlocks some insight that really feels significant to my own myth. And then i get home and my wife has bought me some Batman cup because she thought i'd like it, without knowing about the Batman thing I have. Just because.
Now if that happened only once or twice in your life, you might call it chance. But for periods of weeks at a time, all day, mind-bendingly?
At that point, you have to consider something of what Jung said about the psyche "being able to see around corners," being at least able to know those events which are inevitable, even if there has not yet been any means of knowing that inevitability through the five senses.
In the scenario above, the cup was bought before the thought was had, but from where did the insight come? The unconscious mind. I would say through the unconscious mind making connections and presenting conclusions before the perceptions and logic of the conscious mind could get there, which is just to say what the unconscious mind does. So, this line of thought would say that there is a real connection between the events that logically requires the unconscious mind to both know that the cup had been purchased and, perhaps also, that the timing of the presented insight would be available and near enough to feel/be meaningful.
I say feel/be meaningful because while I agree that, ultimately, all meaning is projected meaning, there is a certain inevitability about what that meaning will be to a particular psyche in a particular environment under particular stars. That psyche is communicating to that self-consciousness in their own language, with their own history and degree of communion.
That input from the psyche is, I believe, very important for that very reason. Yet, at the same time, I can also see the Hermit saying, "All meaning is projected meaning."
But "...the strong, brown reaper swept his swathe and rejoiced!"
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There has been much debate here about whether the input of the psyche is of value beyond poetic, creative, emotive inspiration.
I have found that life becomes an ongoing conversation with it, whether it be nightmare, fool's errand, or the discovery of one's True Will.
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You might also theorize that certain, let's say, "subliminal" indicators influenced the Batman presence (by subliminal I'm not trying to encourage conspiracy theory). Let's just say that maybe the Batman was in the air and you both caught wind of it. It wasn't you projecting the Batman to your wife's consciousness, it wasn't your wife's consciousness projecting the Batman into yours - it was possibly a global event, and you weren't making yourself fully conscious of it.
To me the point isn't in answering these questions (If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops & does nought), the point is to decide what to do with the willed meaning of these events. Elsewhere someone said "belief" is not in Thelema, on the same day in another thread I said something to the effect that willed and chosen belief is what Thelema really is. I've often liked to misquote the Guns & Roses album and say "choose your illusion." You see, that's what it is. Life can be flat and unmeaningful to the existentialist atheist if he wants it to be, or it can be a grand adventure scripted and directed, and even subliminally cast by the magician. The magician knows that the plot is a myth (you chose a good word there), and that the people are acting in their own free will, but a good magician knows that he is the one making it all have meaning, and creating the circumstances which only limited responses could even possibly be imagined, all so his magick will work as he sees fit.
I think I read something similar in these threads (was it that link above? I didn't check it). Someone was encountering the so-called one-eleven phenomenon and the response when asking why he or she received was "you're mind is coming awake to its power to create." Or something like that.
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@sethsethseth said
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Who else has been or is seeing repeating images etc?
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I think it happens to most people at some point or another.
I'd say try to integrate all truths, especially if contradictory. Then see what is useful and not.
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I've grown frustrated over time with the pursuit of explaining ritual entirely in terms of behaviorism and brain function.
That is, of course, the way to gain respect for magic in the current scientific paradigm. The problem is that as we then begin to describe the states of mind that may be generated, the only terms that this paradigm has for these states of mind are "disorder," "temporal lobe seizure," and "misfiring neurons."
In short, the required submission to the current scientific paradigm that serves as the gateway for the respect of magic is the same gateway for the formal definition of mystical experience as the experience of a malfunctioning brain.
But... Eh, what can you do about it? It's all the current rage. En vogue.
I got this bit of instruction from my psyche once. My dad was asking for help with this stereo they got at a flea market. If you played the tape deck, only the left speaker would play. If you played the radio, only the right speaker would play. The meaning that got overlaid on that experience was basically...
Okay, so your brain learns this new combination, this new pathway of thought, but sometimes you're really receiving something significant while other times you're not receiving anything, but are in playback mode, projecting your own personal psychology on events through that same new way of thinking. One generates those moments of clear insight, true "gnosis," while the other generates moments of mood, fear, and fantasy-reflection, true "para-gnosis," "along-side gnosis," or paranoia (Yeah, I took some artistic liberty with the Greek to make a point). Either way, the brain is functioning the same way from the perspective of a brain scan.
Anyway, it made sense to me.
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The question that comes again and again: Is there such a thing as true "gnosis," or is it all "pseudo-gnosis," also known as the phenomena of paranoid schizophrenia?
As we have seen, under submission to the current scientific paradigm, anyone who says, "Yes, there is true gnosis," is automatically considered insane, having submitted intellectually to the phenomena of a malfunctioning brain.
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Your defensive feelings are at play at the moment. No one here is calling it "misfired" at all, and not all scientists of the current "paradigm" (as you put it) disagree with the mystic or the magician. I suspect you're talking from outside and think you're looking in. All that has been stated here so far, so far as I can tell, is that this "phenomenon" you're recording is actually you becoming aware of your own mind's workings and that you should learn how to use it, mayhaps even learn how to will it into happening, because we as Thelemites are not victims of the circumstances surrounding us or the matter of our times, we are the creators. Are we not?
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On second thought, I'm not really interested in defending that aspect of what I said. The main concept is the relative importance of the most prominent meaning projected onto an event in spite of the understanding that it is ultimately "merely" a projection. The rest will wait for another day.
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@Aion said
"On second thought, I'm not really interested in defending that aspect of what I said. The main concept is the relative importance of the most prominent meaning projected onto an event in spite of the understanding that it is ultimately "merely" a projection. The rest will wait for another day."
Yes. Good! That's the main thing itself, but even further. In Jugorum, with the Ox (a minor example of the exercise by the way), Crowley discusses the notion of having more than one persona that we play out. He uses a ring on a particular finger to help demonstrate which persona is being projected. I wouldn't limit it to just personality A and personality B, in fact I'm encouraged to try it over and over with numerous variant personas. The end result of the exercise is not just learning to have the control, but witnessing how reality changes from Personality A's understanding and Personality B's understanding. How in actuality reality turns into a plastic fantastic lover of whatever personality you will to project. (Of course, sometimes, as we should know, love can be tough on us as well.) When one wears Persona A2 long enough, forgetting in fact the reality of Persona C3, or Persona B1, one finds that the whole world has changed personality to suit Persona A2. It's quite a phenomenon. It teaches a lot, the more one practices it, about how all this magick and mysticism really works. One actually for a time becomes convinced he is Persona A2 and that the world really is 2A as it appears. Then the exercise (on a schedule) requires the change of personality to some other and that's when the realization sets in - gee, that was (intellect speaking here) merely a projection sequence; a movie I was in. Gee. And then on to the next personality and the next forgetting and being convinced.
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Yeah, I ping-pinged around in that flexibility a time or two.
I found the ring technique was the trick to ...to learn to make intentional distinctions in the role I was playing/relationship with reality I was creating.
My point, though, is that the immediate projections in everyday occurrences of synchronistic phenomena are important as they relate to our current psychological/spiritual development.
Returning to the idea that all meaning is projected meaning is a great tool for gaining distance from a powerful projection and analyzing it. But I'm just also trying to stress the importance of analyzing it instead of just considering it a sort of fart of unsubstantiated belief-in-meaning and putting it out of one's mind. Not that anyone was suggesting that - I'm just turning over thoughts I've had about the idea.
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Repetition is an important aspect of any Path.
An over-simplification of the LBRP is projecting the idea "I am the center of the Universe"
Performing the ritual, day after day :
"I am the center of the Universe"
"I am the center of the Universe"
"I am the center of the Universe"A key aspect is that the Magician is choosing, through an act of Will, to project this.
To repeat this particular image until it becomes and integral part of the unconscious.