Attention, New Age Freaks and Weirdos.

[Jenne]

Ok.  I was just wondering.  I think I'm too slow and unmotivated to be CotSG.  Not that that is a requirement of the Discordians, but *scratches head*  that makes sense atm.

Things could change.

And yeah, fuck hippies.  I'm tired of their bullshit whineyass'd attitude.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

i learned as much as is necessary for what i want to do in life, how does that make me a retarded hippie?

No.  A retarded hippie wouldn't have learned ANY, and would have explained why NONE was needed.

Or worse.

Some of the fuckers LEARN math, but then try to snowjob OTHERS into believing that the math says things it doesn't.  Then they fucking run off and write books like The Tao of Physics, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  And it's people like this that should be hauled though a thresher.

I haven't read the first two, but where's the bad math in Zen and Motorcycles?

Sorry, did I say it had bad math in it?  I meant to say it was full of mushy-headed bullshit and FAIL.

The other two are books on Physics that don't actually contain any physics...because why put physics in, when you can just shove in some sloppy pseudo-Eastern "philosophy".

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I think I'm too slow and unmotivated to be CotSG.

Um.

[Jenne]

I think I'm too slow and unmotivated to be CotSG.

Um.

WUT? 

No I'm srs here.  I'm sort of on ultimate auto-pilot with all of this.

[Cainad (dec.)]

Jenne, I think you just got upgraded to SubGenius Grand Arbiter of Philosophy-Related SLACK.

[Jenne]

Cool.

*really an armchair philosopher of LOLWUT*  but it's all coo

[Daruko]

Its not as pervasive as you think, its just when you see it, you cant look away and it clouds the other shit.
This forum (to me) is still about sweet beautiful soul crushingly brutal honesty, and cutting through the crap.

This is mostly about something that's happening at POEE, but it seems to be creeping into PD as well.

Fucking primitives, beating on hollow logs and hiding in caves because, well, it's easier than learning math, right?  Never mind that this is EXACTLY what the CoN wants you to do.  When you're out "casting sigils", you aren't accomplishing ANYTHING, but you THINK you are, and that makes the powers that be HAPPIER THAN SHIT.  And, goddammit, it is so stupid that it is fucking PAINFUL to even WATCH.

Jackasses.  I hope they all get terminal fucking syphilis.

Roger, it seems like your suggesting Chaos magick is about manipulation of "external reality", is that correct?  It seems to me to be more useful in application and study if it is understood as taking a more active role in psychologically altering your impressions of the world you experience.  That's what I get from Crowley, and as far as I can tell from Grant Morrison.  I'm still in fairly early stages of experimentation, so I can't get particularly controversial, but that is the way I'm approaching it.  As audacious as it might sound, familiarity with the Tarot symbology has allowed me to tap into modes of intuition that, at the very least, strike me as peculiar coincidences (or if you like, synchronicities).   If it's just my imagination, it's certainly interesting, so I continue to experiment.   Did I see you mentioned mystical experimentation of your own earlier in your life, or am I imagining things remembered?   I enjoy vivid dreams.  Lucid dreams, I relish.  Induced alter states of consciousness have been illuminating.  I love AHA!  states, which is the same reason I'm captivated by physics, and I think quantum mechanics has proven it exceedingly difficult to eliminate the observer in the equation.  Systems like Crowley's magick and sufism, qabbalah, and various other forms of reimprinting are aimed at tweaking the observer element in the software.  This of course affects the world out there, as you and it are completely interfaced.  

I mean, I guess I'm just interested why you've concluded it's shit. 

[Cain]

I've suggested this to Roger before.  And the reply was along the lines of "if it is psychological, then why not just call it self-directed psychotherapy and attempt to learn about psychology and concepts from that discipline, instead of dressing it up as bullshit?"

Which seems sensible enough to me, and is something I have tended to agree with anyway, because of my own background in Psychology.  Appropriated hard physics and mythical terms and conflating them is worse than using social science terms because it gives the false illusion of certainty and evidence, and almost any student of the social sciences will tell you evidence is hard to come by, if not impossible and half the time you're dealing with ideologues pretending to be reasonable people who are describing their own internal imagery as the actuality of the world....just like most people who talk about magic, actually.

I have no problem with sociology and psychology, as terms.  NLP has some problems, but even that I can let slide.  Memes may be more problematical, but I'm willing to give them a shot as well, because they may be a useful description of subrational sociology than few people have explored or studied yet.  But if you're going to appropriate nonsense and crap in order to buffer up a feeling of self-important mysticism, thats intellectually dishonest and misleading.

[Daruko]

But if you're going to appropriate nonsense and crap in order to buffer up a feeling of self-important mysticism, thats intellectually dishonest and misleading.

I don't think I'm doing that, but I'm a little too silly (<--edit) to write a respectable reply, considering I'm not sure I understand your post yet.

I'll be back.   

[Nast]

But if you're going to appropriate nonsense and crap in order to buffer up a feeling of self-important mysticism, thats intellectually dishonest and misleading.

I don't think I'm doing that

Well, it is generally accepted that things such as "Tarot symbology" and "altered mental states" are the on-ramp to the Highway of Bullshit.

but I'm a little too high to write a respectable reply, considering I'm not sure I understand your post yet.

DISCREDITED

[Bu🤠ns]

yeah and losing one's ego is the best ego trip out there.  but then who am i to judge a fool persisting in a folly.

[Cain]

Much of the terminology of chaos magick has been appropriated from Thomas Kuhn and A.O. Spare.  The former is a philosophical viewpoint of the sciences and the latter is mystical hogwash.  The conflation of the two is dishonest

Many people who talk about magic use terms like "power", "force" "quantumn" "indeterminate" "Uncertainy theory" and the like with absolutely no relation to anything actually posited in the sciences in question.

The clue should have been in the description of chaos magick as a postmodern belief system.  Has anyone here actually read Postmodernists of any sort trying to deal with the hard sciences?  Its bullshit, all the way down.  The Sokal Affair should have shamed everyone who bought into that philisophical hogwash in even the slightest way, but apparently not so.  Just like Social Text, chaos magickians apparently have no problem with ripping ideas from the coolest in things in the sciences without actually having a clue about them at all, and then proceeding to horribly abuse the terms beyond all meaning, while thinking "its science, so its all proven".

If you want to use science to explain what you are doing, use science.  If you want to use bullshit, prepared to be laughed at.  If you don't know why it works or how, just admit it instead of thinking you can fool everyone (this is not directed at anyone here, but in general).  It's really very simple.

[Jasper]

That's the problem I have with Bach flower remedies.  I've tried their stuff and it works they way it's supposed to, but I wish they wouldn't make up magical stores as to why they work.

[Triple Zero]

I haven't read the first two, but where's the bad math in Zen and Motorcycles?

Sorry, did I say it had bad math in it?  I meant to say it was full of mushy-headed bullshit and FAIL.

[/quote]

i liked it. i read it twice, even. there's not many books i read more than once.

though i agree i liked the story itself better than the philosophical ideas in it.

the only thing i still got and use from it is the example of the difference between the couple buying an expensive BMW motorcycle because they're afraid of fixing it and the main character having a normal motorcycle but fixing and caring for it as if it were his own baby.
the bits about the "Church of Reason" weren't too bad either, but have been done a lot better in other writings, indeed.

the "Quality" bullshit was carried on a bit too far, but that makes sense because it drove the guy crazy in the end.

[hooplala]

1.  As of now, the fact that I am a Discordian does mean I will respect any oddball beliefs you have.  Apparently, that respect has been entirely one way, so now I intend to shit my diseased and parasite-infested feces all over the next filthy hippie that tries to tell me what a KAOS MAGICKIAN he is, etc.  Fuck off, I don't want to hear it.

2.  The fact that I am a Discordian does not imply that I am a hippie who will put up with each and every hippie, freak, and new age loser that comes down the pike.  I hate you all, and I wish that you would all - as a species - die.  So don't get all butthurt when I laugh at your eccentricities.

3.  Not every viewpoint of the world and it's workings is valid.  Mine is.  Yours isn't, at least until it agrees SOMEWHAT with the actual workings of the real, physical universe.  Are we clear?

4.  If you can't tell the difference between "having an open mind" and "believing everything you are told", then you're too fucking stupid to live.  Drink Drano, please.

5.  Yeah, I just laughed at your "religion".  Deal with it, Moonbeam.

Does this discredit my love of voodoo dolls?

I do so love sticking pins in the eyes.