Ch. 2: The Problem of "Deep Reality"

Hannah

“1. Let each member of the group classify each of the following propositions as meaningful or meaningless.
A. I hauled the garbage out this morning.
B. God appeared to me this morning.
C. I saw a UFO this morning.
D. This table top measures two feet by four feet.
E. Space becomes curved in the vicinity of heavy masses, such as stars.
F. Space does not become curved at all; light simply bends in the vicinity of heavy masses, such as stars.
G. Defendants are innocent until the jury pronounces them guilty.
H. The umpire's decision is binding.
I. "History is the march of God through the world." (Hegel)
J. In the act of conception, the male and female each contribute 23 chromosomes.
K. The devil made me do it.
L. My unconscious made me do it.
M. Conditioned reflexes made me do it.
N. A church is the house of God.
O. Anybody who criticizes the government is a traitor.
P. Abraham Lincoln served as President between 1960 and 1968

Where disagreements arise, attempt to avoid conflict (quarrel) and seek to understand why disagreements must arise in judging some of these propositions.”

zeph

Wilson wrote:

I limit "actuality" to that which humans or their instruments can detect, decode and transmit. "Deep reality" lies in another area entirely — the area of philosophy and/or "speculation."

By this definition, “actuality” increases as the human instrument develops its latent capacities — a subject which Wilson does not discuss, at least at this point in the book. In my experience a great many things that begin in the realm of speculation move into the realm of actuality as we proceed along the path. The invisible becomes visible.

For the present, actuality in this book means something that humans can experience and "deep reality" means something that we can only make noises about.

Wilson never really defines “deep reality”, which of course is one of his points – that it cannot be defined. Where he does “define” it, he says “’deep reality’ means something that we can only make noises about.”

Here’s some noise: All is One.

Wilson goes on to say that “we cannot produce nonverbal or phenomenological data to give meaning to our noises.”

I agree. I cannot give you meaning about that noise. I can, though, help teach the methodology known and refined over at least a couple of millennia so as to equip and empower you to detect, decode, and transmit that noise, which will have become for you an actuality. In other words, I cannot prove to you the existence of a spiritual power within and beyond the human personality which is the source of life and light and is the axle of the wheel of your existence — but I can teach you the methods of proving it for yourself. I can’t prove the existence of the Galilean moons to those unwilling to learn to use a telescope.

Wilson says the “scientific method cannot, by definition, answer certain questions.” Sure. Much as we talk about using the scientific method in our magical work, it remains for the most part a subjective operation, while the scientific method is normally thought of and used to produce objective results.[^1] Still, I am bothered that the text (so far, as I read it) seems to suggest that if the scientific method cannot answer certain questions, those questions shouldn’t even be asked. Of course they should.

Our inability to find one deep reality registers a demonstrable fact about scientific method and human neurology, while the statement "there 'is' no deep reality" offers a metaphysical opinion about something we cannot test scientifically or experience existentially.

We have no regular language to discuss deep reality, which is why we employ the magical language to discuss it, knowing even then that we are working with symbols in an effort to get at something deeper. I cannot fathom why Wilson thinks (as it seems to me) that just because we can’t speak about or test an experience scientifically (by which he and most people limit themselves to mean in a way that produces material results) that we cannot experience something existentially.

I think this sentence could be improved: “…a demonstrable fact about the limits of the scientific method and the average capacity of untrained human neurology….”

———
[^1]: Untrained participants attending public magical invocations routinely profess to feeling “the impact” or “a change in the atmosphere” and other such things, but these would probably fall into Wilson’s middle-ground, like his example “I feel like shit.”