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Methinks you kneejerked at the word "religion".

Absolutely! I kneejerked at the whole notion of religion. As I expect many people will be inclined. By all means plagiarise the mainstream but give not one iota of credit to their camp. It's too much of a mental quagmire to be pointing at and saying "look over there". I'd rather say "dont look there" but if I had the choice I wouldn't even mention it.

Think of the way LBRP works- You visualise the symbols and in this way they are impressed on your psyche. Now imagine you never found out about LBRP until years after you had been required to construct your own ad-hoc system, under impetus of, to all intents and purposes, life or death. Nowadays I'll come across an existing godform or demon and I'll pick it up, like choosing suits from a catalogue, and slot it in where it fits.

Most adept practitioners of the occult arts would be, probably quite rightly, fucking disgusted at the bastardised tokenology that resides in my head but I make no apologies. Sometimes just hearing a name or seeing roughly where it fits in a cosmology will be enough study of its description for me.

Change "religion" to "religion/philosophy/way of getting through this life without killing yourself".

I'll change it 'Crutch/Shackles' if that helps

Are you saying you have no belief systems, or that yours is as much of a crutch as everyone else's?

My belief system is a scaffold. I can and actually make a point of, constantly adjusting it in light of new insight or just to try it out. I am aware that my beliefs are merely best working hypothesis at a given moment. It's really more like science than religion.

So Silly, what techniques do you use to stabilize?

More or less constant visualisation of elements of my psyche personified. Depression has a 'character' which I probably couldn't communicate effectively here. I imagine egregores for these things and this lends me the ability to better manage my brain zoo day to day. After years of practice I can feel things like sorrow, regret, fatalistic and various other thought spirals, trying to sneak up on me. I also have techniques for fighting or neutralising these before they take root. Nowadays they hardly even get a chance to appear. Get's easier with practice but, honestly it's almost totally accomplished via creative imagination.

Change "religion" to "religion/philosophy/way of getting through this life without killing yourself".

I'll change it 'Crutch/Shackles' if that helps

so basically it should contain a whole bunch of both good points and bad points of all the religions and ideas we (and anybody) can come up with.
christianity in all its virtues and flaws, same for buddhism, islam, discordianism, flying spaghetti-ism, paganism, cthulhu worship etc.

Religion is bullshit. Religion is stagnant concrete beliefs. Religion IS a BIP. Assume that pointing out any good points of religion, regardless of whether they exist on not, is potentially dangerous by inference. Any religion is an example of closed paradigm and I'd only be comfortable discussing it in that context.

My brother's the same way, but he considers it to be Thetan Bodies these days.

To be honest as long as he has some accessible way to deal with/avoid thetans I'd say pretty much any system of visualisation would work. Choose your own placebo. I suspect with your brother tho he hasn't consciously choosen to adopt this belief system. Then there's the risk of someone shouting "The thetans are here"

You were/are bipolar, right?

LOL 'are' is the 64kilobuck question. Lets say I choose not to use the paradigm.

My brother's the same way, but he considers it to be Thetan Bodies these days.

Anyway, I was with him when he started sliding into the depressive part.  I didn't see a "chicken/egg" thing, and I'm pretty sure force of will wouldn't have gotten him back to an even keel.

Then again, he seems ok now.  At the same time, my cousin has it too, and all she did was medicate until she "stabilized".

So, I have no direct experience with it, but I have seen it up close.  Do you think the "cycle" can really be broken by means not involving the intake of neuralchemistry?

Absolutely. I kicked the lithium as soon as the law stopped demanding I take it and never looked back. I can guarantee this method works but, conversely I would be reluctant to recommend it to anyone. Maybe I got lucky, maybe my will was where it needed to be, I'd imagine that doing it this way would have a very low success rate. I was extreme bipolar. Went from suicide watch to full blown total sensory hallucinations at the up end. Somewhere in the maelstrom I managed to gain access to bits of me that I wouldn't imagine many bipolar sufferers would.

The real bitch for me is avoiding the temptation to upswing. There's so much creativity and energy that I will occasionally push the limits just a tad, when working on an art project or something similar, knowing full well that I'll have to pay the piper on the flip flop by spending a couple of "Can't be fucking arsed" days before I balance out. As long as I don't get greedy It's really no big deal.

Jailbreak is more the theme than BIP

I loved that bit in BIP - "You're invited to a Jailbreak" (paraphrased) but then it all got a bit "You're in Jail", "Jail is bad"... there were positive ideas but they tended to get drowned out in all the doom and gloom.

Could just call the sequel 'Jailbreak'

[brainfart]
What it looks like out there - a guide to recognising your escape vector
Black Iron Blueprints - some of the metaphysical diagrams that have been posted lately and probably before I even got here
Picking the locks on your own mind - psychological reverse engineering and paradigm shifting from beginner to advanced (mantras, koans, self hypnosis, deconditioning.. etc)
[/brainfart]

You were/are bipolar, right?

LOL 'are' is the 64kilobuck question. Lets say I choose not to use the paradigm.

this place is like 'build-your-own-belief-system', and then launch it to see how far it goes

I think you're on to something with 'build-your-own-belief-system' Many criticisms, including mine, of BIP in general is negative connotation, reactive vs proactive. 'Prison' is threat, 'build your own' is opportunity.

Suggest instruction manual for DIY belief.

Paradigm Schematics, Metaphysical Knitting Patterns, Black Iron Blueprints...

BIP exposed a problem. Sequel should be solution.

Let's also not forget that depression can also be attributed to a specific mixture of chemicals in the brain, and sometimes we have no direct control over it. 

Chicken and egg I always thought. Kinda like fat people and metabolism. Diet, lifestyle and (probably) a degree of positive thinking is recommended to break the cycle, neurochemistry gradually follows suit. Professional sources also will proscribe chemical modulation, at least initially.

The sphere is a metaphor I've used from time to time to explain 3-4 dimensional perceptual limitations. When extending the famous 'flatland' metaphor from 3d- 4(+)d space. You kinda touched on it with the confusion over being inside and outside the sphere.

My angle is this: If you've only ever been inside the sphere you have absolutely no frame of reference to visualise a sphere from the outside. Therefore it's impossible to make the perceptual leap without actually leaving it. I'm sure I posted one of my short essays a while back but if memory serves you said you hadn't had time to look at it... hang on ...

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=11074.15 couple of lines down

prolly got forgotten about as threads steamrollered on. I'm mentioning this because I think there's some stuff in there that could be useful with BIP Jailbreak stage.

  I wub you! (in a "kill the bastard" - sorta way)

This is the bestest sub-forum in all of existence:

Quantum physics
Astrophysics
Crowley
Kaballah
Universe as cosmic snake barf

All on one page.  And semi-coherent, no less.



Me lurves youse guys. Cept Cybin He's a cunt!

Fix - It's no fun being pariah when you have to do all the hatin yourself