Religion and Insanity
Jay Michaelson
1. Mother Eagle
A friend of mine is getting into angels, and I don't know what to do.
The problem is that for the last several years, my spiritual path has been about more openness, more sensitivity, and more awareness to the subtle shifts of energy that otherwise escape our notice. Beginning on my first meditation retreat, years ago, I've learned that the reflexive doubt and cynicism of which I have been so proud – and which are such fixtures in contemporary literary culture – are often not the sophistication they pretend to be, but instead are a defense mechanism, bespeaking not cultured sophistication but shame, fear, or even ignorance. I've learned this through my own subjective experience and through conversations and interactions with other people: what seems to be analytical cleverness is often a kind of cowardice.
So a cultivated openness – not erasing doubt and judgment, but suspending them long enough for experience to really unfold – is the key. Significant shifts do sometimes occur. Only a few years ago, for example, I asked myself whether "energy" was real, or nonsense. But then, a while later, while working with Body Electric massage techniques, I experienced it myself: how, with my hands inches above my partner's body and with his eyes closed, I could cause "energetic" changes in his body. I moved, and he moved; I concentrated energy, and he shook. Weird, yes – perhaps so weird that, as one of my editors once told me, I lose credibility by talking about it. But it is also a phenomenon with no other explanation that I've been able to generate. I still don't know what energy is, but I know that there is more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in scientific-materialist philosophy.
But openness still has its limits. As my excursions into the New Age progress, I've met weirder and weirder people (many of whom post here at Reality Sandwich!). Usually, that's a good thing; the world would be a lot better off with more weird people than more normal ones, and "weird" is often a reduction of "wise." Other times, though, weird is just weird. I find myself having moments a bit like the scene in Augusten Burroughs' Running with Scissors, when Dr. Finch, the oddball psychiatric Svengali who acts as a surrogate father for Burroughs, says that the shapes of his bowel movements are messages from God. We've wondered about Finch's sanity throughout the book (and film), but in that moment, we realize that he has been nuts all along. In a narrative searching for a sane center, Finch reveals that he isn't going to be it.
So, when my friend tells me that he's communing with Mother Eagle and reading Tarot cards, I don't know what to do. On the one hand, I want to be open. On the other hand, I don't believe in the things he believes in, and don't see how a sane person – by which I do not mean someone who adheres to conventional modes of thought and behavior (since those may well be insane) but someone who is able to distinguish fantasy from reality, truth from falsehood – could believe in these things. Of course, reality may well have many planes and aspects, and it may well be that what some materialistic psychiatrists call psychosis is really just a better sensitivity to those other planes. It's also true that even the weirdest of weirdos is different from a psychotic person who doesn't get out of the way of buses, or can't put on clothes. Perhaps the fear of "insanity" is really the fear of enlightenment. But at the very least, there seems to be something important lost when reason is demoted too much.
Moreover, what's really the difference between unreflexive belief in Mother Eagle and unreflexive belief in the dogmas of fundamentalism? Of course, the major difference is that few New Age practitioners are ethnocentric or violent. On the contrary, they love all spiritual practices – darshan, deeksha, davening, whatever – because these practices are understood functionally, in terms of what they do for the self. Non-mythic religion generally avoids the problems of violence and ethnocentrism that seem an inexorable part of mythic religion. (On the other hand – those peaceful New Age meditators? Watch what happens if you move their sacred yoga mat.) But even if we set aside the dangers of myth, there's still the beliefs themselves.
2. Don't worry – it's just an archetype
Spiritual, esoteric, and religious believers often make two kinds of unusual claims: 1) those fly in the face of evidence; or 2) those that seem to trust direct experience too greatly. The first type is more typical of traditional Western religion. For example, Rev. Ted Haggard, before he stepped down as president of the National Association of Evangelicals amid accusations that he paid a man for sex (repeatedly, over a period of three years – and did crystal meth to boot), told Barbara Walters that heaven was a real, physical place, beyond the known universe, where you could eat all you want and never get fat, and where there were mansions for all the faithful. Such ideas, like the belief in a physical Devil (held by 70% of Americans, according to Pew Institute surveys) or the notion that Christ will appear on Earth in the next 50 years (held by 50%), are so tied to supernatural myth, superstition, and unquestioned traditions received from authority, and so contradict our best available evidence, that modern and postmodern people can easily raise their eyebrows at anyone who hold them.
The second type is more typical of esotericism, neo-shamanism, and entheogen-influenced spiritual paths. Here the problem is not too little evidence, but too much reliance on a certain kind of experience: subjective, empirical experience. It goes like this: there is an experience of Mother Eagle, therefore there is Mother Eagle. There is a vision of something, therefore there is that thing. There is the sense of certainty around a particular idea, therefore that idea is true.
On the other hand, some spiritual practitioners today, as well as non-reductive scholars of religion, often take a different approach. They attempt to preserve the integrity of religious belief even while dismissing the actual contents of those beliefs, or interpret mythic language in non-mythic terms that renders it scientifically okay. As Maimonides observed 850 years ago, the genius of religion is that it works on multiple levels. Yes, ordinary people really believe the myths – that there is a Mother Eagle out there, or a physical place called Heaven, and a creation of the world in seven earthly days – and that helps them to order their lives, be more ethical, and have a sense of the sacred.
Philosophers – that is, those of us with the privilege and aptitude for reflective thought – know that these myths aren't literally true, but that they still contain important truths which, when reduced to concept, are hard for most people to wrap their heads around, or care about. Thus all myth can be stripped of its dubious truth-value, and be appreciated for its deep power to inspire.
So, following Maimonideanism, or modern Reconstructionist Judaism, or Unitarianism, or countless other thinkers and movements who have sought to demythologize religion while not dismissing it either, Mother Eagle isn't really a being out there, with a consciousness and a self. She's an archetype, a representation of something deep in our unconscious. Likewise, it's not that the Tarot cards are really magic. They just give our deeply skilled intuition a structure in which to operate.
The question is simply one of interpretation. Anyone can have a religious experience. But, as Ken Wilber develops at great length, that experience will be interpreted according to one's stage of intellectual/emotional development. We just have to acknowledge that similar experiences will be interpreted in different ways – and, if we're Wilber, own up to the fact that some interpretations are indeed better than others.
Fair enough in theory, but put into practice, there are at least three problems with it, at least one of which, I think, is fatal.
First, that Mother Eagle is an archetype may be what my educated, sensitive friend believes, but not what many (maybe most) believers really believe. The difference was fine for Maimonides, who was content to let the masses have their interpretation, and the philosophers have theirs (while, to be fair, advocating education for all, so that all could become philosophers). But does it really make sense to share a common vocabulary for such different phenomena as beings floating in the ether, and archetypes in the mind? And do I really want to quiz my friend on where he is on a Wilberian spectrum of theological sophistication? Isn't that a bit arrogant – or at least alienating? Am I supposed to keep checking up on him, to make sure that he doesn't really believe what he's saying?
Second, to do so could be quite destructive as well as rude. Functionally speaking, it's possible that myth only works when you do believe in it, when you make a commitment to it and say: well, it's possible that the world operates according to wholly scientific-material principles, and it's also possible that it operates according to mysterious spiritual ones – and I commit to the latter. And not spiritual in the way I usually refer to it – not in the sense of "waking up to the miraculous truth of ordinary experience." But spiritual in the juicy, mythic way – with Mother Eagle and the rest as actual energies both "out there" and "in here." You have to really believe this stuff – even if, from my still-stuck-in-skepticism perspective, you seem totally nuts. That's when myth really gets going, and how evangelism gets out the vote.
Third, and most problematic, is that the "insanity" of religious experience – a term I am using, loosely, to refer to delusion, confusion, and loss of touch with reality – has less to do with dogma than to the weight given to subjective, generally non-rational experience, and the disconnect from reality that that seems to indicate.
This is the point of Sam Harris's observation (in Letter to a Christian Nation) that "if someone told us that God spoke to them through a toaster, we would conclude that this person is insane. I fail to see how the presence or absence of the toaster makes a difference." That is, even without ludicrous notions of a physical heaven where the saved eat cupcakes while the damned burn in hell, there is something about the religious experience itself that seems to bespeak a break from reality.
Which, given what most mystics say about the truthfulness of our concepts of reality, may be exactly what they want.
3. Are You Experienced?
What Western Buddhism, neo-Shamanism, the New Age, evangelical Christianity, and Jewish Renewal all have in common is that, unlike traditional Western religion, they are tied to subjective experiences. Whether interpreted in terms of myth or not, whether mysticism is a mindstate or an encounter with God, these forms of religion are experiential in nature. The "sense of unity," the Holy Spirit, conversations with angels – these phenomena differ in theology, but all weight the impulses of imagination and intuition over the hard data of the rational and perceptual faculties.
We may not like to acknowledge this similarity, but once one strips out the content of the myth, the experiential reality of the evangelical and the experiential reality of the Buddhist have more alike than not. Yes, one ascribes the experience to Christ, and the other purely to the mind – but both give weight to experience over apparent, conventional understandings of how the world works. For example, when I am on retreat, and observing how all the habits of the mind are thoroughly impersonal, I know, with a certainty, that the idea of a separate self is an illusion, and that this consciousness does not belong to "me" in any meaningful way. It occurs here, in this brain, but its contents are wholly borrowed from stuff outside. The sense of certainty is the kicker because it's that sense that we're told to trust.
And more than that, if I admit it, I feel a closeness to some kind of larger consciousness, access to an internal wisdom that feels as though it, too, comes from "beyond." Above all, I feel ease and an overpowering love. It scares me, in my rational, normal state, how in love with God I can become. Because that love, that "sense of closeness," all of it, no matter how I try to cleanse it of myth, is still a subjective experience that seems difficult to distinguish from madness.
So then, with whom do I have more in common – the Evangelicals who trust their inspiration, or the literate atheists with whom I like to go to dinner? Really, I and people like me are split down the middle. I am aligned with the atheists on matters of science and cosmology, but aligned with the religionists on questions of spirit and subjectivity.
Maybe that's why I feel myself increasingly distanced from my angel-channeling friend – because he's not split down the middle, but has instead gone over to the other side. Or rather, he's gone to a side, as opposed to my have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too perch, astride the fence of doubt. With my meditation practice, I can feel grounded anywhere – but perhaps that sense of grounded-ness prolongs my indecision. Whereas, if I trust my experience, then I, too, must admit that I am on the side of the Tarot cards, the evangelicals, and the New Agers – without all their myth, but necessarily open to the possibility that the myth contains deep and useful symbolism for the unconscious mind.
And why, exactly, do I not believe the myth? Because it is more accurate to interpret my mystical-shamanic-contemplative- entheogenic experience as a mindstate, and condescendingly look down on the 90% of the people in the world who mistake their mindstate for a real, live deity? Is that really wisdom?
From each side – the mythic-religious one, the non-mythic-contemplative one, and the materialist one -– everybody else looks insane. Who's more nuts: the Orthodox Jew who believes that God, the creator of Alpha Centauri and the Virgo super cluster, wrote a grammatically bizarre and narratively confusing text – or me, who thinks that Judaism is somehow important even though 90% of Jews think that I've got it deeply wrong? Who's more nuts: the guy who gets off the treadmill and gives up on conventional success – or the businessman who spends most of his waking hours chasing money and possessions? Which is more nuts: the retreat center or Wal-Mart? The ashram or Le Cirque? The church or the television? I can make pro- and con- arguments for all of them, and all of them are internally consistent, and externally nuts. Is it all just a matter of taste which insanity you choose to embrace?
The trouble with non-mythic, it's-all-an-archetype contemplative practice is that, unlike mythic religion, it postpones forever the need to make a choice. You don't have to believe in the parting of the Red Sea, or the apocalypse of 2012; you just go on meditating. And yet, what religion most teaches, ironically, is the importance of choice. As Pascal formulated it, the question is not whether belief or unbelief are coherent – both are – but is rather which world one chooses to inhabit. And in making that decision, criteria other than truthfulness are required: personal satisfaction, peace in the world, ethics, meaning, joy.
In the spiritual world, there's a cute saying that "Dancers look insane to people who can't hear the music." In the mythic religious world, that's a truth claim: that there is music, that it's not just our imaginations. There are angels, demons and forces beyond our ken. But even without those mythic claims, it is still a strong notion: that even if any interpretation of the mystical mindstate is imaginary – that is, even if God (or the gods, or goddesses) is just in my imagination – life is far richer for living a richly imaginal one. Yes, it's a bit like psychosis, but so is dancing, right? Shaking one's hips to some melody, rhythm, and tone? What's the point of that?
I hear those voices a lot, every time I get on the literal or figurative dance floor. But if I want to enjoy myself, I try to turn them off and hear the music instead. This is the call of the circle against the line, the spiritual against the secular, the sexual against the proper: it is the Presence, and She knows how to shake it.
The irony for me is that, in trying to avoid making the "insane" choice, I'm driving myself crazy. I don't know which part of myself to trust, and so I flit from side to side, occasionally admitting that I am a mystic, then backing up and making sure everything has a rational, scientific explanation. Going on retreats to have deep insights – and they are not really experiences, like drug states, as they are times when the mind is quiet enough to see clearly – but then coming back and doubting those experiences, or reducing them to phenomena of the mind. Back and forth.
There is, obviously, a time for both: a time to deconstruct, and a time to dance. But one thing I know that I'm tired of is this attempt to have it both ways, or make it just a matter of balance, or have some of each. I've grown tired of what looks like indecision, and it's a cop-out. Real spiritual growth, and real mainstream success, requires commitment and choice. Pascal was right, but he didn't say how hard it was to look behind at what is lost.
I find myself envying both my friends who've dived into the chaos of the spiritual imagination, angels and all, and those who have become householders, professors, and rich. Whereas I keep trying to have it both ways, still waiting for the thunderbolt to knock me to, or out of, my senses – once and for all.
An earlier version of this essay was published in Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought & Culture.
Images by Orly Cogan, courtesy of Zeek.
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Very good article!
I am of the opinion that each sees their own truth. I've stopped worrying about trying to stay "on the fence". A rational, analytical mind is just as susceptible to personal bias and wishful thinking as any other mind, otherwise there would be no need for peer review of scientific papers.
So as the cliche goes, "follow your heart". There is no such thing as absolute truth, at least not amongst humans.
"The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding" -- The Kybalion.
I don't have a decision or answer.
I and four others are presently holding the question: "How do we live mythic lives while maintaining naturalistic commitments?"
We're not aggressively persuing it this instant, but we will be relatively soon.
We simply do not have an answer. I suspect that it's not really a fence; That we're missing something really crucial that can open the door. See also: The Scientific Fairy.
WoooooooW
I'm amazed
Thanks for putting it into typed words.....
i don't know..... i don't know....i don't know
Chau chau
Which World to Inhabit? & Thoughts on the Approach
The question of "Which world to inhabit" is great; I think there's room for world construction here.
I'd rather not be the people who believe they are talking with angels, nor would I like to be the people who are just trying to get more money or live a mainstream life.
What I'm looking for is a new sidestream, a vision of a grander life and society. I'm committed to making it real.
Secular humanism is utterly inspiring and pays only lipservice to arts and imagination. We need transcendental vision we can work towards, like they do at the Federation of Damanhur.
Applauds
Very nice to see a balanced approach instead of the usual predigested 'ultimate truths'.
Cit: "So a cultivated openness – not erasing doubt and judgment, but suspending them long enough for experience to really unfold – is the key."
Participating observer. It functions very well on many levels.
"There is a vision of something, therefore there is that thing."
A vision of something is just that: A vision of SOMETHING. It takes a lot of experience to find your feet out in the visionary business, and premature interpretations can be problematic, as you pointed out yourself.
"But does it really make sense to share a common vocabulary for such different phenomena as beings floating in the ether, and archetypes in the mind?"
General semantics could be a startingpoint.
"I am aligned with the atheists on matters of science and cosmology, but aligned with the religionists on questions of spirit and subjectivity."
I understand your anguish about it. I felt like that for 30+ years, until I found a syncretistic answer, which satisfied myself. It's not my intention to preach still another 'ultimate answer' here, only to give you hope of finding your own 'theory of everything' eventually.
I'm impressed by the clarity of your article. A real breath of fresh air.
General semantics
General semantics could be a startingpoint.
I'm curious -- Could you elaborate on what you mean here?
One thread goes that choice of language and metaphor are highly consequential, and also arbitrary. So re-envisioning the scientific and daily worlds in non-industrial/corporate language may be fruitful.
I'll bet with a focused question and focused thought, meditation, and action, we could find a lot of things that could be tried, that haven't been tried before.
re: General semantics
General semantics was actually a kind of philosophical, epistemological effort to make language a well-honed tool. Created by a pole, count Korzybski.
As I understand it, the idea is to try to use language as a precise set of symbols, preferably describing things in a way free of vague associations. If f.ex. someone says 'God' it could mean so many things, that further communication and understanding could be zero.
We have also the growing problem in our information technology society, that language can become something by itself. We can 'invent' words, klichées, sentences, which really don't mean anything, but which can be used in a manipulative way. Ex. "Historical inevitability", "it is scientifically proved", "it is written...." etc. How can a "soul" or a "subconsciousness" be demonstrated? (I'm not saying that souls or the subconscious don't exist, I only reject them being served as ultimate truths without some examination or openness for alternative models). We shouldn't be prisoners of language; language should be our servant.
Some of the zen-riddles use a kind of general semantics for a basis. "What is the sound of a one-hand clap?"
Cit: "I'll bet with a focused question and focused thought, meditation, and action, we could find a lot of things that could be tried, that haven't been tried before."
Exactly what I mean by a syncretistic approach. It can be very rewarding.
is 'it' real?
"The irony for me is that, in trying to avoid making the "insane" choice, I'm driving myself crazy. I don't know which part of myself to trust, and so I flit from side to side, occasionally admitting that I am a mystic, then backing up and making sure everything has a rational, scientific explanation. Going on retreats to have deep insights – and they are not really experiences, like drug states, as they are times when the mind is quiet enough to see clearly – but then coming back and doubting those experiences, or reducing them to phenomena of the mind. Back and forth."
By 'drug states' do you mean psychedelic states?
Because if you do, I can tell you that for me psychedelic states help me to see very clearly INDEED.
I don't know what the answer is for you.
You sound like your own worse enemy. In between the worlds of positivist scientifism, and the 'angels'.
All I can suggest is...remember as a child you would play and excercise your imagination?
Question:
Why is it we adults shy away from this activity as we get older. Some ever when they hit quite an early age?
We should be able to play. Play is cool ;)
Sacred Medicine helps. It doesn't insist on a 'quiet mind'.
there is no fence
I'm not sure there's much value to the question, "is it real?"
William James started me on this in The Varieties of Religious Experience, which deals quite a bit with this subject. I'm grossly paraphrasing, but I think the main thrust was that we can learn more about a person and their belief if we just assume the experience is always real. Better yet, just drop the real/unreal duality from your consciousness. Everything I confront is real; if it is not real, then it will never enter my consciousness anyway. Is God real? Sure, I can experience that. I can also experience angels, aliens, fairies, gnomes, demons, whatever.
When you ask if something is real, you take a step back from the issue and essentially engage an abstract conversation--how do we even define reality? Are we talking independent existence? Such a thing may not exist, even for ourselves, if you follow quantum mechanics! Nevermind the angels, perhaps we are not real! You really can't get past this last point with any certainty, and if we can't even verify our own reality, then there's way we can verify the existence of anything else. My real point is, we gain very little by this question of real/not real. It's a lot of mental somersaults, and sure they can be fun, but it's not very fruitful.
You can skip that discussion and simply ask, What are the angels teaching you? Why am I confronted by gnomes? To say they aren't real does nothing to address whatever has brought them to your attention.
Instead of asking if something is real--and believe me, I've faced some things I would've never thought "real" a few years back--I now ask what lesson the experience holds for me. Real or unreal, I don't care--I walk away a little wiser.
the dive
well sometimes one must dive, in order to keep it alive, if i understand, that there is some choice to be rich or to live in some bohemian imagination world, i agree there is a choice, but if there is no possibility to live that rich life, the choice falls on chance and fate. its not like oh, i could have fit in that fast lane and got the house the car the credentials and eat my mushroom cake too. if that is your choice, and you have to make it depending of certain influences and life handing you the were with all, it still depends on some real things that happen or don't happen besides your reaction or lack of action.
so as far as religion, it either is not a big problem,(well if you are blessed) or it is the main problem, but it is always "if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem" from the point of view of how you deal with the dogma and mind stuff that you coming through with.Family and friends, or no family as much such and friends few and far.
on the other hand enlightenment is the realm of Buddhas, as we can really see a vast amount of communication from that point of departure, however Bible history might have fragments of communication that have some unique message, regardless for those who who sift through the sands of time looking for some real relic of GOD.
Truth stands out there like a pillar of dark cloud in the desert of our continuum.
and now we take a swan song dive at the end of history, and do a jacknife and double spins going through the hoops like dolphins.
synchronicty
Just felt a nice synchronicity through your comment here... not sure what I means totally yet but I thought I'd pass it along. Keep up with the writing on the wall as who knows how it effects us.
Peace
All bridges can be rebuilt.
well i don't know what a Miro painting
means, but i look at one everyday,
Peace & Love
are we ever alone? if our future intentions had eyes
Infinite Peace and possibilites.
Getting lost in words
Cit Michael Matejka:
"Real or unreal, I don't care--I walk away a little wiser."
If nothing is real or unreal or you don't care about it, doesn't that include wisdom also? In relationship to what non-existing 'reality' can you walk away wiser?
"....you take a step back from the issue...."
What is this issue, we've stepped back from?
"how do we even define reality?"
This is an example of semantic misuse. You want the definition BEFORE evidence/not evidence. No wonder you seem to be stuck inside your own small solipsistic bubble.
"Are we talking independent existence? Such a thing may not exist, even for ourselves, if you follow quantum mechanics!"
Quantum mechanics doesn't imply anything like that. It's talking about manifested existence and making a few guesses as to the rest, without going too far into transcendence.
But you ofcourse have a right not to believe in or search for reality, when it comes to the point.
cjmoore. Would you say, that there are still the possibilities of SMALL choices, even if chance or fate generally decides your life.
analytical style
what i'm sayin
No resolution here
that's the 69 dollar Q-estion
re: Gepeto
Your cit:
"The fact is these "higher modes of consciousness" (whether real OR imagined) are not very helpful in getting by & maneuvering through the workaday week."
Einstein's original more mechanistic cosmology seems to describe macrocosmos quite well, and quantumtheory describes microcosmos equally well, even if the two systems are in some disagreement.
Generally it can be said, that some of the human belief-systems can be correct and functional as restricted and localised 'truths'; they describe their own area well enough, even if they don't always are reconcilable at first sight. But they can get us through normal life as it is.
As I said in a former post, I have to my own satisfaction made such a belief-system reconciliation in form of a syncretistic 'map', which I, as far as maps go, trust enough to use for further exploration into the real territory, where experience awaits. It encompasses both 'higher' and more ordinary aspects of life.
To make such a syncretistic map can be difficult, and requires some personal changes on the way, but it is possible.
Finally I can only repeat the old warning: The map is not the territory.
Anyone mistaking the map for any kind of reality will never get much result. 'Reality' is too big, and maps too narrow; so maps need revision ever so often as experience grows.
Jumping off the fence
I used to have a grandfather
Grandpa Pat
From Ireland
Some say he was booted from there
because he was IRA
Some say he designed
The McDonald Arches
Married my grandmother
After my real grandfather had died
Anyway when I was child
We had this metal fence
And he'd pick me up
And put me on it
And I'd balance myself the best I could
He'd say "Jump Peter"
And I'd jump off the fence
Into his arms
And he'd laugh and laugh
And then put me on the fence again
And this would continue
Until he grew tired
And he'd walk away
With his black pipe
Sticking out the smile on his face
Then one night he died
Nobody in my family ever really talks about him
But I still do
Today is part of forever.
my grand pa Moore
gave my first beer
he had a smile that told of his tavern keeper days
he called me his little cabbage head
i only saw him two times
now both my dad and grandad are gone
and that's all i know of the Irish in my blood
cept i really like Dylan Thomas
and i remember what Guinness did to my poetry
Concerning Reality and It's Many Adherents
I am mostly critical of your use of the term "reality." This is an abstract term that can remain ambiguous until the term is defined. I detect an assumption in your reasoning that may indicate that you view reality from a strictly objectivist perspective and view spirituality from a strictly subjectivist perspective. Yet, this may be a false dilemma. You assume that subjectivism is inherently void of reason when you describe it as a "generally non-rational experience," while it may be more accurate to say that you do not agree with the reasoning of a metaphysical subjectivist perspective.
There is another related point: our definition of reality is continually changing. Even when we rely on scientific-empiricist training and mathematics we find our conception of reality disintegrate before our eyes. The very practice of science demands it. The world was once flat and yet now physicists hypothesize that we may live in an 11 dimension universe that could feasibly include aspects of reality that we are physically unable detect and yet still effect us.
The dichotomy between "the spiritual and the secular" is a false dilemma of your own creation similar to the false dilemma between "the spiritual against the proper" which you describe in the same sentence. The entire article seems to reflect this conflict. Many people have reconciled these differences and it has added to the richness of their life. It sounds like a difficult transition for you.
You also mention the role of myth in religion and how "belief in a physical Devil or the notion that Christ will Appear on Earth in the next 50 years are . . . tied to supernatural myth, supersistion, and unquestioned traditions." I don't doubt the potential contribution of myth, superstitious thought, and tradition to the phenomena you describe, but I worry that their role may be exaggerated. Europe, a bedrock of Christianity, has shown a growing trend toward atheism and agnosticism that may suggest a link between a higher standard of living and the tendency toward a critical, informed, and reflective population.
I also think there is tremendous value in giving our "deeply skilled intuition a structure in which to operate." Ideally, this would occur within the fertile ground of an inquisitive mind. Myth, insight, deity, and ritual can all be used as memetic devices that have pragmatic value and profound implications.
Point by Point
This is the point of Sam Harris's observation (in Letter to a Christian Nation) that "if someone told us that God spoke to them through a toaster, we would conclude that this person is insane. I fail to see how the presence or absence of the toaster makes a difference." That is, even without ludicrous notions of a physical heaven where the saved eat cupcakes while the damned burn in hell, there is something about the religious experience itself that seems to bespeak a break from reality.
Sam Harriss observes nothing. He creates a fabricated instance that is easy to attack to lend credit to his own argument. You may believe that the religious experience suggests a break from reality, yet this is mere opinion.
The "sense of unity," the Holy Spirit, conversations with angels – these phenomena differ in theology, but all weight the impulses of imagination and intuition over the hard data of the rational and perceptual faculties.
Are not entheogenic experiences an example of a perceptual experience?
For example, when I am on retreat, and observing how all the habits of the mind are thoroughly impersonal, I know, with a certainty, that the idea of a separate self is an illusion, and that this consciousness does not belong to "me" in any meaningful way . . . The sense of certainty is the kicker because it's that sense that we're told to trust.
The quality of certainty seems to conflict with the quality of skepticism that you use to describe yourself.
90% of the people in the world who mistake their mindstate for a real, live deity?
Cite your source.
And yet, what religion most teaches, ironically, is the importance of choice.
Can this be a moral choice instead of an ontological/cosmological choice?
Spirit in a Natural World
We need Spirit because we are drops in an ocean of love; This is true regardless of how the idea reduces, even the starkest of skeptical rationalists would say, "I have a heart," and refer to something other than cardiac muscle.
We have matter, and some matter has mind, and within the mind (psyche) there is a fountain of health, which is spirit. It is like a fountain in a garden in a world.
That spirit comes out in a lot of ways, (bringing with it health and joy,) two of the many of which ways are imagination and reason. I see reason in the nobility of the scientific quest, the longest sustained meditation into the nature of physical reality.
I think imagination is something of a lost child these days. Reality Sandwich is, I think, part of a response to that.
I was inspired by the comment that focused on play, above. I really do think that we should live imaginatively and fancifully; I know in my own life, that's exactly what I need to do, at least.
Prior I might have said, "How can you imagine, when people are suffering?", but tearing down someone's fun doesn't seem like the way of spirituality. Falco advised me, "Pain is never spiritual." I don't think that this is the worship of felicity over responsibility, and I think that (again) zezt is right: there is such a thing as making ourselves miserable.
I'd like people here to be more reasonable, but can I inspire them to be so? I want the mainstream to see the amazing spiritual possibilities that the imagination has to offer, and to live by them; But I think that the mainstream will only take it if scientific understanding is understood and honored, at the same time. The hivemind of the mainstream is just too smart, it'll see through anything otherwise.
can't make heads or tails
"I'd like people here to be more reasonable"
oh please PLEASE bistow your reason on me, while we kow tow to the science of big brother.
"the longest sustained meditation into the nature of reality"
oh really? reality? i thought it was atoms and perverted uses of science to keep destroying the planet, so it can continue its sustained sell out to the highest bidder.
but it's those renegade scientists that are shoved off to the side, and worse, that might find what reality really means.
before those big brother scientists make a boo boo, they can't un do do
A nice honest article
What I read here, is someone who loves a friend, but where the friend is going: unknown. It somehow makes me think of the Andy Griffith Show. Poor Andy. Surrounded by some very odd people, but somehow, Andy maintains the local harmony. Accepts the people, but obviously has some other principle of judgement they seem to lack.
Yet he still throws some of them into jail....sometimes without actually locking the cell door.
I think that speaks of simple lovingkindness but also a practical sense of "normalcy".
We're all trying to cope. Or should I say, we are all coping the best we know how. We are all subjects of the environs of our present world. "Environs" always includes not just the physical facts related to our physical senses, but also and maybe more importantly the actions of others stimulated by their beliefs. Or, perhaps more accurately, compelled by such beliefs. Or maybe even "belief" is not that important compared to "feelings" and reactions to feelings as products of held "thoughts".
As someone with great respect for the depth of analysis of "thought" by John Dewey, I think it ligitimate to consider that "thought" itself is a form of "dis-ease". It is an element of our conscious experience that we have to "deal with" as emblematic of a "problem" or challenge to what otherwise would be perfect silence in our mind, and a sense of peace and harmony.
In Isaiah, 30:15, he says: For thus saith the Lord I AM, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.
I, for one, am of the opinion that this rich literature of the seers was about Consciousness, and the stories of the most successful of these seers were those who held faith in that Consciousness rather than the dogmas or "received" traditions of people who tried to "interpet" the impulses of consciousness in ways amenable to their private or personal aims.
For some, consciousness itself is too common, just a form of "insanity" and rules and laws have to emanate from some other definite "authority": some person or some literature or system of rulers whether kings or "experts" or "priests" and so on. So these would simply categorize your doubts as just "invalid" or a form of "apostasy". So they are defining consciousness? They are denegrating your only known fact: your own consciousness.
It is no sin to have doubt. It emanates from our only directly known thing: our own consciousness. I think it IS a sin to denegrate our native consciousness. To respect it in all its permutations is the only possible work there is. It is what Isaiah said was the thing to "return" to. To "rest" in it, in silence or quietness, is a our "confidence" because, with time, we can assimilate the impulse of It's answers or attitudes, than enable us to either to "judge" rightly and fairly or at least be able to cope with it.
We may not come away with certainty. Just knowing there is a problem, as yet unsolved, but still a puzzle unsolved, keeps us from burying it whereby it can, so ignored, become some form of "cyst" that will grow, proliferate and destroy our sense of peace or maybe even our very lives.
The power of silence is in resolution of questions inserted into our otherwise quiet minds. We ask questions, and yet more often than not, we don't wait for answers or the output of our own consciousness. Recursiveness. Instead we are continuously using the proposed thesis inherant in the thought to produce other thoughts, and this is an exponential process proliferating "either/or" or "this and that" and "Ys" in the road, and "what is right, what is wrong, what is true, what is false?" Simple solution: just shut up and rest in "I AM", and trust your objection.
Or what? Is there something wrong with you that isn't also wrong with that other? Or do you suppose you are unique, and they aren't? Personally, I think insanity is a form of addiction to certainty about "thoughts" as opposed to the only thing we really can be certain about: consciousness. We are conscious. There must be something wrong with ourselves when we put more faith in a simple "thought" that can only exist in the field or container that we call consciousness and then completely disregard that "container" our "darling" (as David called it), our "soul". Consciousness is our soul. Some may superpose on that experience with names and forms and attempt to externalize it and so reduce it to a kind of idol. Your friend wants to be an "eagle" or an "angel". But, for me, to think of consciousness as less than the Almighty, and Only, and the Good and Truth is a form of insanity. And, of course, to believe others don't also have this very same thing, is also a form of insanity. It has no basis.
Again, I think it valid to question systems of thought. Especially when by means of such systems, behavior is unkind, unfair and ostensibly untrue or unfactual. Thought is a disease if it interferes with the peace that must come from the only thing about which we can be certain: consciousness. There are obviously different varieties of expression of this "That", but we only really know what we have, and to disrespect that: tragic. Consciousness is our real "father and mother". The source of everything else. So I say, love and honor your consciousness, don't bow down and worship outside things. Love it most of all, and regard and love others as you do yourself. Simple. Inherant and truly perfect in a truly mathematical sense. Our problems are always reducible to the ways we deal with others, otherwise, perhaps, there never would be anything but the singularity of but you yourself: I AM, and none beside you. Ego is good, but ego is also the greatest evil when all must bow to our particualr system of ideas. So the intruduction of a buffer-system, that provides punishments or constraints of behaviors that cross the line is the external resultant of personal self-restraint or permissions.
Your piece tells me you have normal and rational doubts and are protecting your own domain. Resort to "tarot" cards, the received terminologies of "belief systems" as some form of "truth" is just another form of idolatry, a form of disrespect to the language of our own consciousness, which rules everything, ultmately, and which some day will visit each of us at the last hour, and say: why didn't you listen to me? Then the collected lessons will armor us against future mistakes in what or whom we trust. Live and learn is an axiom that can't be contradicted. From this alone, I derive the concept of reincarnation, because no limited life-time can possibly result in some "infinite" and "eternal" or final "judgement". An "everlasting reward" has to devolve in treasuring something we have no need to resort to others to have: our own consciousness.
=========== Letter writing is still the most potent way to raise the consciousness of elected representatives: it's a record they cannot ignore and cannot say they were unawar
Perfect discription of hell
Tarot is not a last resort
Tarot....a fundamental divination technique
I've spent years devoted to the dedicated study of two systems of divination,tarot and astrology,for these reasons.
Taken from Israel Regardie's 'Foundations of Practical Magic':
The magical hypothesis is quite definite.It holds that divination is not ultimately concerned with mere fortune telling....though this latter is of no little importance.
On the contrary,however,the practice of divination when conducted aright has as its objective the development of the inner psychic faculty of intuition.
It is of enormous asset spiritually to have developed an exquisite sensitivity to the inner subtle world of the psyche.When carried on for a sufficiently long period of time,the practice builds slowly but efficiently a species of bridge between the conciousness of man and that deeper hidden part of his psyche of which usually he is not aware-the unconcious or higher self.
The object of divination is quite simply the construction of a psychic mechanism whereby this source of inspiration and life may be made accessible to the ordinary conciousness,to the ego.
That this mechanism is concerned at the outset with providing answers to apparently trivial questions is by itself no objection to the technique itself.Nor is the objection valid that the technique is open to frequent abuse by unscruplous charlatans.
Practised sincerely and intelligently by the real student,conciousness opens itself to a deeper level of awareness.....As the object of analytical psychology is the assimilation of the repressed unconcious to the ordinary wake-a-day conciousness,so by these other magical means the human mind becomes aware of itself as infinitely vaster,deeper and wiser than it ever realized before.
A sense of the spiritual aspect of things dawns upon the mind- a sense of one's own innate high wisdom,and a recognition of divinity working through man and the universe.'
This has been my experience working with these systems over a period of years to the extent that,at times,the tools become unnecessary.
Hi Rogerscott
some nice posts you placed. You only said one thing, I'm a bit sceptical about. Your opinion on thoughts.
I believe, that automatic, repetitive and unreflected thoughts are very destructive for our consciousness/awareness, but correctly used thoughts can be a very efficient tool for many things (though not replacing awareness), if we can learn to make them work in tandem with emotions and body.
I neither share the scientific obsession with intellect as our highest talent, nor do I have the new-age anti-intellectual attitude (making new-agers the dumbest people on this planet next to religious fanatics).
Most things work differently in or out of context. So body, mind and heart together can be an excellent combination.
Ride the wave
In the book The Spell of the Sensuous, there is an account of an Aboriginal who, after being accustomed to life-long identity with his landscape by memorized verbal queues while passing each significant landmark on foot in order to orient himself so as not to get lost, finds himself verbally racing through his inventory of landmarks at the speed of the vehicle in which he is traveling, afraid somehow that if he doesn’t complete the recitation, he and his companions will die.
The perfected habits, which one civilization had used to orient their lives, will not result in the same successful orientation when used in another.
Also, as the example above demonstrates, the acceleration, and momentum, of change at this time does not permit the perfection of a single scheme for self-orientation.
It is my contention that ALL such methods become obsolete the moment they are incorporated into practice—that thought itself instantly coagulates once it leaves its stream—that remaining in the continuous flow of thinking, choosing not to rest for long on any recommended practice, provides the only possibility of keeping up with the increased volume in the flow of change in the world today.
Don’t worry which eddy will provide the calmest water. Perfect your ability to ride the wave!
"everything means something"
obsolete
like the words, the sounds, the air, the trees, no
you had a good story, but the conclusion you draw is based on your own experience, and to that point you merely shut your self off
riding the wave, is not drawing conclusions, that make blanket statements , like ..oh better not use those I-chings or tarot cards, cuz they come from some other place else...
ohhhhhh....can you hear the twilight zone song?
sounds like a excuse...
sounds like another word for superstition to me, another excuse to shut yourself off from something you don't know about, or because you shut your self off from it you have to explain it away, your logic is obsolete, and you blame the divination, it's like blaming the sun, moon, and stars, its like blaming numbers and breath,
in the I-Ching is say ...no blame
don't bblame on others, your own lack of intrest
the only thing in this world that is obsolete is superstition, that uses clever selfserving logic to make YOU look good, and THAT look bad
its called put on some shades, and talk a line of put down on people that use Tarot or I-ching
those tools are only as good as the persons willingness to get their egos out of the way long enough for their conditioned superstitions and thier clever little logic storys that cover for another kind of stuffy clever-then-thou superstition.
in a word the obsolete thinking that calls anything it can't or wont undersatand obsolete.
and i am glad i know where people are really coming from, it saves a lot crap from showing its true hand.
yeah its like fate, no time to wait.
this obsolete line...it stinks...so much for the the book of the spell of the senuous, to bad that story became an excuse to wrap yourself in superstition.
nobody is forcing you to use Tarot or I-Ching, just don't put others down that do...that is like religion and politics.
maybe you are a politician at heart, or you never got rid of that christian conditioning way down there in the root of your being.
and if you are wondering why i take this so seriously, well
no you are not. you already made your superstition obsolete
and if change is excellerating, then why use it as a clever way to put down others that use divination tools?
"THEY ARE OBSOLTE...I AM RIDING THE WAVE!"
that is what you are saying, or
And how ......
does one do that?
Perfect the ability to ride the wave?
Perhaps all this confusion is a result of the systematic destruction of legitimate mystery traditions and schools in our civilisation.
i use the surfer metaphor
hung ten, shot the curl, sung Miserlu, and like Peter Fonda in the Treep still riding the waaaaave,
how! heap big wave...ug!
but i'm a gremmy, Hodads beware!
kowabunga dood!
Thanks! made "perfect" sense to me
(to Don Shake)
I've had many experiences and ponderings similar to the article and your reply just "works" for me. Thanks so much for posting it.
funny how people make drive-by comments
without showing any relation to their own experience to share, it is like fundi christains looking at each other and that know they have Gawd!
i guess this person HATES tarot too?
i mean after all wasn't that the purpose of the post?
to get all smug and self--rightous about putting down people who use divination tools? oh now we have two Tarot and I-ching haters.
shall we go for three? it's like a reactionary movement,
that pokes its head up, and hey i liked your little story, so now i join you on the attack divination band wagon,
that is what this person is saying, isn't it?
well ?
seems that way...
I have noticed that the circling wagons have avoided specifically mentioning the big A when having their opinions on divination.
Anyone up for having a go at that as well?
nudge nudge
Ah ha! experience
:-) No, I'm just a very busy person lately and have little time to write more than a few lines. I use tarot on occasion and a pendulum. (the pendulum works better for me actually ever since I constructed an alphabet chart).
Don's reply literally gave me an "ah ha!" experience and I wanted to acknowledge that. But I have little time for more exposition.
It is likely that you are seeing something in Don's post that I am not.(and vice-versa). As the saying goes...perception is reality.
Perception is reality
That tired old chestnut,thrown like a spear.
Thanks for taking the time to elaborate.
Taking the time to understand another persons experiences that created their perceptions is something worth doing rather than judging it out of hand, I find.
ok thankyou i really appreciate
that response, you are not bad rapping divination, where as the post you responded to seems to say that Tarot, and I-Ching are obsolete, because they come from an other place and time, which is like saying that those other places and times don't hold any relevance to us now, so we can pretend that others that use those tools are somehow to be rendered not " riding the wave" and therefore to be placed in the, "oh i don't know" bag and taken out with yesterday's garbage.
excuse me if i paint a silly picture of how ludicrous that is.
Mad hermits and that ilk
Cit Don Shake:
".....the acceleration, and momentum, of change at this time does not permit the perfection of a single scheme for self-orientation."
I kind of retired from 'modern' life 30+ years ago. It's been beneficial for me, but I'm absolutely not crusading for such a change.
"It is my contention that ALL such methods become obsolete the moment they are incorporated into practice"
If I understand you right, we are in agreement. In former posts I have stressed the secondary importance of 'maps', once you start on the territory.
oh a PERFECT SCHEME
um, like its too perfect !!!
another red herring!
Great Musings....
Thoughts are things, tools
I'm cognisant of the theory that there is no "thought" without language, about which I have serious doubt. What is imagery? I could have been more specific than I was, and realize what I wrote might have been interpeted as my saying I believe our ideal or "normal" state is one in which we are not thinking or processing the information that is our environment or milieu. That would be rather the same, would it not, to coma or perhaps autism?
Thought is as essential as it is unavoidable. I just don't have to "eat" the thoughts presented to me, since they might be poison to my soul. I take the same position that Jay does: my entertained thoughts seem to have a life of their own, and I don't by any means think it is the sole product of my own soul/self: I absorbed it from the world. So I rely on my soul to say: I hate it, or it agrees with me. I think that is a healthy form of "ego". It's discernment, it's judgement, maybe just "taste".
Johnnymoniker noted a kind of confusing sentence by Jay I'm specifically referring to here:
"I know, with a certainty, that the idea of a separate self is an illusion, and that this consciousness does not belong to "me" in any meaningful way".
I see that as a typical thing that we have in self- reference, if by what Jay said meant he knew he was "entertaining" them, did not give birth to them from within. It is as if a thought system asks us to play a role to accomodate their existence, but we really know, "but that's not ME".
I referred to the thesis of the seers that when thought is not recursive to one's own consciousness as originating from the deepest currents of our own consciousness, we are basically being double-minded in holding them. And there is a real danger, as I see it, in being "possessed" by a thesis or system of thoughts that does not admit of self-refernce as the real ultimate authority. To have to always refer to "divination" tools, flipping coins, or looking for outward "signs" or "omens", is a form of self-disrespect and ultimately a form of hypnosis, as I see it.
It may be that using cards, maybe even playing solitaire let alone something supposedly more "message-rich" that tarot is supposed to be, can aid one to become more inward and so find a state of reflection that represents peace of mind to the user. It would be my concern to ask: when a stream of images arise spontaneously in your inner vision, without resort to cards, do you pay attention to them? Why would anyone regard with higher respect the external cards and ignore the message of their own stream of consciousness? And in the case you lose your cards, and maybe are alone in a dire situation that calls upon some judgement, will you be prepared to act? Maybe the five seconds that it takes wishing those cards were around can make the difference between life and death? or something worse.
So I think the Boy Scout's motto: Be prepared has, inherant within it, a form of independence that takes recourse first and foremost of that which you have even when you are naked and alone: your own consciousness. Sounds like a broken record, I know, but so important do I see this point to be.
So, therefore, I see the tarot and all forms of divination as simply lengthing the path of decision that could have been attained in a single simple step; and the use of tarot is not much different than the materialistic method of seeing truth only the product of the laboratory or the test-tube and use of computers to do the "really hard math". If mankind had not had some better or more efficient method than recourse to these outer things, they never would have developed to a stage where such tools would have been seen as useful inventions. The danger is in becoming slaves to such inventions. I just don't see anything attractive in seeing my own consciousness talking to me as if from without. Maybe the next step is to see "I AM" as some "body" distinct and away from me, and so enter into another form of idolism such as we've seen in the i-am- movement. And for those folk, evidently "St. Germain" knows more about their own consciousness than they do, and the same might be said about Moses, too, or Jesus, even, though with the latter, only through completely ignoring his obvious iconoclastic reputation. A priest- craft usurped the message of Jesus which is otherwise completely one of self-confidence and rejection of all forms of outer worship.
And I think the message of consciousness to seers is just that very thing: you have no need that any should teach you, you have one teacher, even consciousness (read I AM). And to give some purely logical relevance to this statement, let me digress to say something about "Christ" or "Mashiach" or "Messiah". According to the language used by the Hebrew/Israelite seers, there was actually only one "anointed" to rule: I AM, who lives in the People. "I AM alone is savior, beside I AM, there is no 'god'." Then there arose a system of judges who were supposed to be cognisant of the chief aims of Consciousness, I AM: lovingkindness, fairness and truth or right-use-ness. That is the definite bottom line of all the seers in the literature of the Hebrew/Israeli/Judaic system. As I see it, this became a system of idolized thinking that completely lost sight of the inward confidence I referred to above. It is not unique to any one culture or race of people, but the language and terms in themselves talks about something completely impossible to idolize: consciousness. Amongst other literatures, only the Upanishads maintain the purety of thought I think I perceive in the origins of these idols we call "religion". A family tradition became a state-approved form of tyranny and it amazes me that today with our current state of enlightenment otherwise, we can still see people becoming enslaved to thought systmes out of fear to be critical of them. You cannot be judged for doubting. It's also fair to try things out, and if it bears fruit, follow it to a good result. Other-wise, wouldn't it be foolish to continue?
I also think it logical to consider that there is probity to the concept of a "world mind" or "psychic" collective. A mish-mash of the half-truths and mixed truth and falsity that represents a form of insanity, the idea that started this thread.
We have to have some faith in ourselves in order to be able to resist the injection of this potential vitriolic mishmash from altering our sense of peace and security or self-confidence. If it didn't occur to one spontaneously, I believe, it might be taken with a grain of serious salt. I take the position of Spock: 'I don't reject it out of hand, I take note of it without necessarily understanding it.' Maybe later it will be relevant. I just don't "buy it", and just adopt it because someone has told me it worked for them.
For me, there is a reliable criterion for judging this profusion of different thought systems: We all know it. It is love, kindness, fairness, the ability to judge with this filter or "walls of brass", spoken in the poetic language of the seers. We know what "That I AM" (Yah) of the Hebrew/Judaic literature is said to have thought of recourse to "diviners" and those taking recourse to "the dead": not to be trusted, misleading. "I AM" didn't like any such thing to stand between ITSELF and the body/thinker or "outer man" (Adam or clay self). And the first rule after insuring self-reference was: love or honor your father and mother. I think Moses was thinking very clearly when he put that first. I also think it refers more to I AM than our physical parents, but it what we might call an Interface principle (sandhi in Sanskrit). It is a crux or threshhold principle that marries the within with the without and has respect or regard for both in a special balance.
The language of consciousness is not limited to some limited number of "sign". I don't say this from "secret" understanding, or some form of initiation in the "arcane" arts or revelation as imposed from without. I have confidence in the truth of this by simply knowing that my consciousness never compelled me to any idea that "64" was special, or "seven" or "12" or what have you.
Two, now that's special. For my money, Two had to come first, then maybe one. Why do I think that? Nothing metaphysical, nothing arcane: I had two parents. And even if I was an only child with but one parent, I'd still be able to count that high: me and the one who loves me. Otherwise, the two who loved me and brought me into the world, not being able to really see "one", myself, til I became the typical ego-absorbed teenager with all knowledge. And maybe even more "sophisticated" a realization is unavoidable: two is the common number because we can see in this very thread its essence: thought and consciousness in which it takes place. Or thinking and feeling. Two is primal, good and full of ordinary meanings we might lose if we were to become obsessed with "one" or "three" and all the myriad of other numbers. But if the dogmas associated with "number" had not been attempted to be injected into my mind, I probably would never have given "number" any regard at all. Its only relevance is argumentatively oriented here. We all know these things without ever having to give them names or accentuation. It is a thing we live, not something to give our lives to or somehow enshrine. As soon as we enshrine it, it becomes an idol, and so dies.
We absorbed and counted on the reproduction of what gave us life: My mom and dad. So marriage or a mate is a logical consequence with subsequent proliferation of that love towards children and their children. Thank goodness this could occur without some "indoctrination". Imagine that!
I note that in the lore about "Krishna", the adored avatar of millions in India, it is said he (and his brother: Baalaram) "completed their education and mastered the 64 sciences and arts in 64 days at Avantipura". And this is relevant to everyone how? outside Indian culture? I don't denegrate that culture. It is simply irrelevant to me and I don't feel compelled to take it up in order to make sense out of my life and culture. And I'm sure it maybe so for Hindus because such is part and parcel of the milieu of mom and dad. Should this dogma of the tradition of Krishna were associated with the need for ritual sacrifice of parents, I'm sure it would be a short-lived tradition. Akin to the cultures of Meso-America that involved human sacrifice. Instead, because parental love and respect is tied to these lore, the lore live on, despite their obvious meaning is completely a matter of "arcane" stuff. Remnants of a former science? Maybe. Interesting, maybe useful someday in a detective-mystery kind of way, but not "essential" to daily life.
Them one of us here counts the "strands" of DNA (in man) as 64, (actually, "codons", not strands, and a codon is a triplet of DNA bases that are used to copy or transcribe into amino acids, the basis of proteins) and the "I-Ching" as possessing 64 hexograms. Fine. These observations can carry something forward that might be very important in ones self culture. For Jay's friend, the "Mother Eagle" being is also meaningful and evidently an obsessively important thing.
I think it conceivable that this represents a simple regard for "the mother principle" that has almost completely disappeared from the received traditions. A culture of "male-centric" usurpation of the language of the "I AM" that ignores the facr that the literatures' references to "I AM" has female features in balance with the male features if we include them. "El Shaddai" can be read "The Breasted Power" or the compassionate one. Maybe the symbol preserved in Shaivism, half-man, half-woman "father-mother" is a remnant of recognition of this simple "two" fact I refer to as my "native" recognition of the highest principle. But, in the bottom line, symbolism, reduction of practical action to external ideas usurps something very simple and accessible to us without reading. Our mother's love, whether organic or adopted, is as nothing deliverable by any literature or system of imperfect "thoughts" or ideas. Maybe that "mother" or "father" is found in literatures, but this potential must be in the very consciousness we have without money, or price.
=========== Letter writing is still the most potent way to raise the consciousness of elected representatives: it's a record they cannot ignore and cannot say they were unawar
boy you sure twined
a lot of desparte foatsom and jetsom, to bolster your attack on Tarot, speaking of holding a thought to the point of ridgid absurdity.To bad merely dumping a lot of disjointed theories and this that and the other and the kitchen sink, only shows your desperate need to prove that your THOUGHT exists, and there fore is THE thought.
this is not what Tarot does in the least, tarot is not static, its dynamic, it can have a thousand different faces, decks, ways of art, to infinitly learn from the language, and make it your own.Make your own deck, heck!
you and that other dood, have an agenda, and it really has nothing to do with Tarot.Why don't you guys start a Tarot haters club, and then you can start a crusade and you can flex your intellectual sphinxters, and blow paragraphs full of real proof of how much you know, and how much better your thought is from those Tarot people and maybe you can write a book that you won't make a penny on about it , yeah!
yeah, and that proves something even, and then you can put down I-Ching and Runes, and crystal balls, and while you are at it, why don't you help out the people that hate tea leaves readers and palm readers, yeah, go for it, today the Fool card tomorrow the universe, and then we can attack poets, that like tarot, and maybe attack the Voodoo Queen, come on, we are on a roll, and then we can attack loaded dice too, and that's just the beginning, we can toss an I Am in there to prove anything.The Church will salute you.Science will salute you, and all your friends that join attack a card reader club, all just to fill several paragraphs to prove you are right, even if its all a lot of jive smoshed together to make your non point.
i recomend thearpy, its called the Tarot hater anonymous group, you people can get together and drink coffee and share your stories about how Tarot cards ruined your life, and you became addicted to TAROT HATE!
OK GUYS PLAY THE TWILIGHT ZONE MUSIC!
do do do do, ne ne ne, here they come to save the day
to make sure Tarot decks go away.
In answer to your questions
'To have to always refer to divination tools.....is a form of disrespect and ultimately a form of hypnosis'
.....not to mention hopelessly neurotic.....no one I know does that.
Should I visit my mother today,will I meet my true love,win the lottery,should I have my haircut,where did I put my mala beads,do I look good in crushed purple velvet?
TELL ME,MY CARDS,TELL ME!
Lawd Roger! What image in your head do you have of someone who uses the divination tools.A pretty parlous one, I think, to read your questions
Anyway,moving on to your next question.
'It would be my concern to ask when a stream of images arise spontaneously in your inner vision,without resort to cards,do you pay attention to them?'
Hell yes! I live to have a stream of images arise spontaneously. Why would I resort to cards then? It seems in your lack of knowledge of divination you create suppositions and are passing them on as they way things are making your question come off as patronising..
Moving on.
'Why would anyone regard with higher respect the external cards and ignore the message of their own stream of conciousness?'
I dunno. 'Cos they are stupid?
Again,who does this?
Oh right,those dumb people who can't wipe their own asses without recourse to the cards.And all people who use cards are like this,right? In your mind?
Question 4:'And in the case you lose your cards,and may be alone in some dire situation that calls upon some judgement,will you be prepared to act.'
No,I'll be going,'Where the f**k are my cards?'
Really,Roger,what the hell do you think? Seriously.
You owe me a stream of conciousness description of how you see card readers,a la cj moore.
I think it would be hilarious.I'll get the crystals out
That question was so ludicrous,to me, I burst out laughing.Sorry,but it was.I'm still giggling over it.
I wanna see inside your head!
And last but not least,this.
'Maybe the 5 seconds that it takes wishing the cards were around can make the difference between life and death.'
Maybe.But if you're that silly you deserve what you get
.Again,who would be this stupid?
Maybe there are some flakes who are that neurotic.
I dont know of one and I know many psychics,cardreaders,astrologers,reiki masters,alchemists etc
yes the religion and insanity is getting so thick now
you can cut it with an Amazonian machete, and when we get done trashing Tarot cards, we can begin in on those Angel cards,don't you just get goose bumps when some friend pulls out one of those?
i mean like OH MY GOD! ANGEL CARDS!!!!
well, i admit i don't have any angel cards
and i tossed out my NEW AGE GAGA deck
it was like real dreck.And my Dali deck melted, so
and my original Morgan's Deck, that was the first self made hippie deck, before the flood of decks that came
in its wake.
but Morgan was not on the take, he just took some LSD one day and decided to make his own original deck,
he did study I-Ching, and he even wrote some poetry based on his I-Ching readings,
yeah that was a cool deck, my favorite is the cat people deck,
with real cats dressed up in star costumes,
but it was the Thoth Deck that made the magic
add up, when the World becomes the Universe
we will have to take the mystery of gypsy cards
to another plane, might even do a reading on why some people are superstitious about tarot.
but forget Angel cards, those are for kids.
but Muppet cards are ok
Flotsam and Jetsam: noted
Jetsam is stuff thrown off a ship that is in dire straights and considered not as essential as the ship itself. Maybe even useful things otherwise. Flotsam is stuff that collects on the shores or in gyres. Any old thing. So, my jetsam is your treasure you found on the shore and use with joy. Go ahead. I'm glad its of use to you. Sorry you are offended by my rejection of your chosen cargo. I still respect you and your ship. Or, should I call it your methods of navigation or means of getting your bearings? I still wish you a safe trip.
=========== Letter writing is still the most potent way to raise the consciousness of elected representatives: it's a record they cannot ignore and cannot say they were unawar
gyre
lets meditate on that word
i have a old high school friend
that wrote a book about history because he was a history teacher, its called 'The Spiritual Gyre'
and yes he got his idea from Yeats, but the main theme of the book is about the spiritual gyre , or the Zietgeist that keeps returning on a cyclic historical spiral like.
Divination is not just about frantic new age house wives types shuffling their cards for prosperity.
it is about the very secrets that built pyramids, studying the history of divination is a real way to understand the spiritual gyre, Tarot has been a part of my life, i began working with tarot right around the time i began reading a lot of literature, and philosophy, and i have seen the actual dynamics of the arcana speak their stories on many levels.But that is because for me, it served as a mirror and a reflector.IF you want to project on to the cards some conspiracy theory, it would be hard put to make a case,(if only because of the historical symbols that they dress with) but Tarot comes from the remote distant depths of hermetic knowledge, it is a system that finally made its way to the first Tarot cards, that keep these hermetic knowledges alive for those that can receive the spiritual gyre, it is like art, like the ART card, you can call it anything you want, but as long as you keep the principles intact they tell their cycle of stories, this is not some primitive hocus pocus that only Chinese understand, or Greeks, or Bohemain gypsies, its a universal dynamic, with harmonic overtones.It's a mystery and any fool that stumbles upon a Tarot book can begin to learn about systems of hermetic principle, it's like a manual for interchangable thought, idea, metaphor, and its layered with symbols that have been around since time began, it embodies the whole ball ov wax.It's an artiface, but it works because it keeps the gyre rolling, it's not a life raft, its a device that shows where the stars revolve, except now the stars are a naked woman holding two containers of water.
And also it is a companion that adjusts with how you grow with it, and how you add to its mystery.But other wise it's just a deck of funny looking characters, with devils and towers and death, and naked women, a priestess, a king, queen, and smirking hierohphant, because the original cards were from the early 1400's.
The I-Ching is completely organic, but again a lot of the symbology is based on characters that were in positions of authority, because its a mirror to the world,but the elements are eternal, like the "spiritual gyre"
nothing about numbers and symbol is useless, it is a constant reminder and points to directions we might take.That's all folks!
No,you never...
attacked anyone personally.That's true.
However what may have attracted the hermeticist's ire is the way you dismissvely slight their path to wisdom while admitting your ignorance of that path.
'Torrid cards?'....why not just cards?
Also the presumptions you made that came through in your questions.That one becomes so hopelessly addicted to their use that they unable to function without them,even in life threatening circumstances.That personal sovereignity is given over to an external object.That was insulting,even if that presumption was made in innocence\ignorance.
Hermeticism may be your jetsam but I feel to call it that is insulting to those of us who have gone beyond the hate and derision of the religious and the scientific rationalists to study and practise it.
Especially when its practictioners have undergone a SYSTEMATIC persecution for nearly two thousand years.And thats a sanitized way of saying a persecution that permits murder,theft and a persistent discrimination from organised authorities,religious and secular.And their followers.
And yet we endure and when civilisation relaxes and becomes tolerant hermeticism blooms again to the consternation of the abovementioned religious and scientific rationalists.
The human fascination with magical practices needs to be recognised as a valid interest.