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Antero Ali on Chapel Perilous

Started by Telarus, January 07, 2012, 05:15:00 AM

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Bu🤠ns

Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 09:25:18 PM
Quote from: Bu☆ns on January 07, 2012, 06:30:11 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:19:21 PM
What I am trying to say is not that Chapel Perilous is a useless term, but if it isn't describing a new condition or even a newly-discovered condition, it's describing a condition there are already words for. So, when someone asks what it means and we try to describe it, why avoid the terms that already exist to describe it?


Why not? In my opinion, the more terms the better. While one metaphor might work for one mind's disposition, it might not work for another.  I personally like the imagery involved.  Calling it a Chapel is pretty apt because it evokes the image of people in church searching for a sense of meaning.  I think that's a great image for the western mind.

I think you are missing the point I was trying to  make. If someone says "what is the Chapel Perilous?" and you are trying to explain it to them, why would you avoid other common descriptive terms in the endeavor of explaining it? It's a fairly simple concept which people seem to run circles around explaining clearly, for no evident reason other than maintaining a false mystique.

This kind of thing is the very fundament of "occultism", IMO

Ohh I see what you mean.  Yeah, i share the same feeling. This is one of the things that sort of annoys me about Antero Ali which is mainly why I loved LMNO's breakdown of AA's book Angeltech in that one thread that time.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 09:34:54 PM
Thanks for the history, Telarus.

What I'm basically getting from this is that the Chapel Perilous is the internal struggle you have when you start to realize that the reality you have been perceiving is not necessarily the real reality. That what you think you are thinking and wanting is not actually what you think and want, for example under the seductive influence of a magical temptress, or the TV broadcasters, or a church, or your peer group.

Is that too simplistic a summation? Because I would like to cut the pseudomystical woo-woo bullshit and boil this down to an explanation understandable by your average 12-year-old.

Sure, I'd add its the internal struggle and the psychological experience... including hallucinations in many cases.
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Bu🤠ns

One of my own personal experiences with Chapel Perilous was when I began to understand that my concept of "I" wasn't as rigid as I had originally thought.  When I challenged my own identity I was shot into a pretty heavy state of anxiety and it took a lot of introspection to accept the new state of things.  So, based on my personal experience, I'd suggest that one's identity plays a significant role in shaping one's experience with being "in the chapel."

THIS remains one of my favorite threads for that very reason.

Telarus

#48
I really really like that, Nigel. It brings it back to the essence that RAW saw in the Le Morte d'Arthur tale, (& prob T.S. Elliot).

The only thing I think it misses is RAW's observations that:

(you) cannot be certain if they have been aided or hindered by some force outside the realm of the natural world, or if what appeared to be supernatural interference was a product of their own imagination.



RAW saw this manifestation of an Archetype as an essential part of the process. I.E. it's something we're WIRED to do when this happens.

I also think 000 made an excellent point in that the term covers a non-replicable event (actually, a series of different non-replicable events from different nervous systems + environmental factors) which fall into a category and share certain similarities (the injection of something Supernatural into the internal Narrative being the main one RAW saw). Like Zen's "Satori/Illumination", this is a spontaneous process which may re-occur, and may be "primed" (by certain practices) but cannot be predicted or exactly replicated. Ever. But we see commonalities, so we can talk about the meta-event.

Getting back to Nigel's re-frame:
Quote
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 09:34:54 PM
What I'm basically getting from this is that the Chapel Perilous is the internal struggle you have when you start to realize that the reality you have been perceiving is not necessarily the real reality. That what you think you are thinking and wanting is not actually what you think and want, for example under the seductive influence of a magical temptress, or the TV broadcasters, or a church, or your peer group.

Because so much of Chapel Perilous is internal, crafted from thought, we need to re-examine the helped/hindered by an "external supernatural force" gimmick. Part of the whole confusion comes from the quite arbitrary separation of everything into Self/Other. Don't get me wrong, the Self-model is extreeeeemely useful for certain things (like predicting that the sword coming at your head will end your experiences).

Why is it Arbitrary?

Well, as the running theme in this thread says, what we ACTUALLY experience (moment to moment) is a filtered reality simulation which tries to present the consciousness with an accurate representation of what the robot (a metaphor for our wet-ware + instincts) is receiving as sense data about the environment.

As our whole experience in a Moment is a set of filtered sense data plus any currently running Narrative-programs, the Self(when Conscious) defines the border between what parts of the experience "are itself" and which parts "are not itself". It's a fuzzy border, but useful.

Then Chapel Perilous happens, it seems that there is Something Out There that has as much editing power as the Self, and it is NOT NEUTRAL (it helps or hinders). RAW heard aliens from Sirius, etc, etc. You see this in plenty of Alien Contact stories. The Raelians for example, and the other ones which sound totally nuts.

It's never "I had an Alien Supermind take over my brain and dictate this 5-page scribble in 5 languages.... turns out it's a route & directions to a totally different galaxy from the edge of the milky way, and each transcription ends with two voices arguing over which supernova they should have turned widdershins at, then a third voice interrupts, saying 'I'm sorry, your galactic-minutes have been exceeded, please insert 5 hempcredits for additional time."

At this point it's worth noting that most traditions which have a Chapel Perilous metaphor place it at the point in Initiation where the practitioner is expected to master/re-work their 5th Circuit (our neuro-somatic feedback loops/scripts), which comes in two distinct "flavors"... Positive feedback, & Negative feedback.
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Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 05:25:47 PM
So Chapel Perilous is the mental state we go through in realizing the Horrible Truth and beginning to see the world for what it is, rather than as the consensus reality?

The realization of the horrible truth of the limitations of our constructed models of reality was what I was trying to convey. However, I wouldn't say that it is really possible to "see the world for what it is," because the only why in which we can attempt to make sense of reality is by having it filter through our perceptual apparatus, which is in turn run through our mental set for interpretation--processes which inevitably produce distortions.

Quote from: Triple Zero on January 07, 2012, 08:18:13 PM
Well what I'm getting from it, how it's described in this thread, is that it tries to be an over-arching term for all the specific things mentioned so far.

Roger called it the world of DUMBASS. You called it "comfort zone" and then "cognitive dissonance". Telarus, LCS and Ratatosk each described their own different but also similar things/experiences/states of mind.

So yes there's already words for it but they all pretty different in meaning. And "Chapel Perilous" seems to try and encompass all of them.

Another problem might be that when people speak of Chapel Perilous, they're usually speaking from personal experience. Highly personal experience. In such sense that other people (superficially) experiencing the same condition as described in the literal words that are already there, might not bat an eye.

So I guess the term is trying to be vague on purpose
, because as soon as you're being explicit about it, other people are likely to miss the point, or get distracted by the specifics.

In that sense, I suppose it's not a useless term, but has a right to be, cause while it may describe things that are already words for, but the particular words vary from person to person and case to case.


Your entire post was insightful and helped me to organize my thoughts on this, Triple Zero.

I was struck particularly by the suggestion that perhaps the phrase is purposefully vague. This interests me, because in this light, it seems that the phrase itself is redolent of several aspects of the state which it names..
perhaps in this sense the phrase isn't useless esoteric jargon?

Quote from: Telarus on January 07, 2012, 10:20:27 PM
Because so much of Chapel Perilous is internal, crafted from thought, we need to re-examine the helped/hindered by an "external supernatural force" gimmick. Part of the whole confusion comes from the quite arbitrary separation of everything into Self/Other. Don't get me wrong, the Self-model is extreeeeemely useful for certain things (like predicting that the sword coming at your head will end your experiences).

Why is it Arbitrary?

Well, as the running theme in this thread says, what we ACTUALLY experience (moment to moment) is a filtered reality simulation which tries to present the consciousness with an accurate representation of what the robot (a metaphor for our wet-ware + instincts) is receiving as sense data about the environment.

As our whole experience in a Moment is a set of filtered sense data plus any currently running Narrative-programs, the Self(when Conscious) defines the border between what parts of the experience "are itself" and which parts "are not itself". It's a fuzzy border, but useful.


Then Chapel Perilous happens, it seems that there is Something Out There that has as much editing power as the Self, and it is NOT NEUTRAL (it helps or hinders). RAW heard aliens from Sirius, etc, etc. You see this in plenty of Alien Contact stories. The Raelians for example, and the other ones which sound totally nuts.

I thought this portion of your post was particularly edifying.
the arbitrariness of the experience is one of the most significant aspects of Chapel Perilous. It is a very nebulous concept framed by some specific commonalities but ultimately defined by the one's personal experience.



Triple Zero

Quote from: LCS on January 08, 2012, 05:40:29 AM
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 07, 2012, 08:18:13 PMAnother problem might be that when people speak of Chapel Perilous, they're usually speaking from personal experience. Highly personal experience. In such sense that other people (superficially) experiencing the same condition as described in the literal words that are already there, might not bat an eye.

So I guess the term is trying to be vague on purpose
, because as soon as you're being explicit about it, other people are likely to miss the point, or get distracted by the specifics.
Your entire post was insightful and helped me to organize my thoughts on this, Triple Zero.

I was struck particularly by the suggestion that perhaps the phrase is purposefully vague.

Well, I wouldn't be a proper official SSOOKN member if I'd only walk the pattern-recognizing walk, without being able to talk the pseudo-mystical profound sounding talk, right? :lol:

See the trick is to lop it at exactly the right time at the right person, so they go all "ooooooooooooohhhh". Though I think it's a bit of a reflexive skill, because it got to myself first yesterday. To my defence, I had a beer on an empty stomach.

But "purposefully vague"? Come on! I can hardly believe myself! (It's a good one, though).

Did you actually learn anything new? Or did you just enjoy the feeling of being particularly struck by my suggestion?

Notice how nobody is actually discussing the OP? That's because it was "purposefully vague" (sorry Telarus, but honestly tell me it wasn't, maybe not deliberately, maybe not intentionally). Then people are all like "Chapel Perilous? I still don't get it", partly because it doesn't really relate to anything about the last time they encountered the term. Then a bunch of schmucks jump in--not saying they're always schmucks but they were playing the part this time, myself included btw--giving their insights and opinions, hooks and questions continue, keywords get cherry-picked, the frame of the debate takes its shape, while the OP is occasionally referenced, but never addressed because that's not what it was for.

If that's not magic, it's cold-reading!

Sorry if I'm being a cynical bastard in this post, but I'm feeling just as insightful and profound about it as the one I wrote yesterday.

Triple Zero, Head of SSOOKN Aquatic R & D
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Kai

Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 09:34:54 PM
Thanks for the history, Telarus.

What I'm basically getting from this is that the Chapel Perilous is the internal struggle you have when you start to realize that the reality you have been perceiving is not necessarily the real reality. That what you think you are thinking and wanting is not actually what you think and want, for example under the seductive influence of a magical temptress, or the TV broadcasters, or a church, or your peer group.

Is that too simplistic a summation? Because I would like to cut the pseudomystical woo-woo bullshit and boil this down to an explanation understandable by your average 12-year-old.

And then there are some people who choose to overlook this struggle, to ignore it or pretend it isn't going on, and so they stay in Chapel Perilous forever.


I agree that I never really understood Chapel Perilous, only thought I did. It's actually rather ordinary, and the language used to describe it makes it out to be extraordinary.

"The struggle that occurs when the map doesn't match the territory."
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Quote from: ZL 'Kai' Burington, M.S. on January 08, 2012, 02:24:10 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 09:34:54 PM
Thanks for the history, Telarus.

What I'm basically getting from this is that the Chapel Perilous is the internal struggle you have when you start to realize that the reality you have been perceiving is not necessarily the real reality. That what you think you are thinking and wanting is not actually what you think and want, for example under the seductive influence of a magical temptress, or the TV broadcasters, or a church, or your peer group.

Is that too simplistic a summation? Because I would like to cut the pseudomystical woo-woo bullshit and boil this down to an explanation understandable by your average 12-year-old.

And then there are some people who choose to overlook this struggle, to ignore it or pretend it isn't going on, and so they stay in Chapel Perilous forever.


I agree that I never really understood Chapel Perilous, only thought I did. It's actually rather ordinary, and the language used to describe it makes it out to be extraordinary.

"The struggle that occurs when the map doesn't match the territory."

Or

"That feeling you get when you suddenly realize that - no matter how thin you slice it - it's still baloney.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
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"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
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The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Triple Zero on January 08, 2012, 11:54:27 AM
Notice how nobody is actually discussing the OP? That's because it was "purposefully vague" (sorry Telarus, but honestly tell me it wasn't, maybe not deliberately, maybe not intentionally). Then people are all like "Chapel Perilous? I still don't get it", partly because it doesn't really relate to anything about the last time they encountered the term. Then a bunch of schmucks jump in--not saying they're always schmucks but they were playing the part this time, myself included btw--giving their insights and opinions, hooks and questions continue, keywords get cherry-picked, the frame of the debate takes its shape, while the OP is occasionally referenced, but never addressed because that's not what it was for.


Well, it's hard to discuss the OP when nobody knows what the subject of the OP means.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Triple Zero

Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Slurrealist

#55
Students of the Grail romances will remember that in many of the versions the hero--sometimes it is a heroine--meets with a strange and terrifying adventure in a mysterious Chapel, an adventure which, we are given to understand, is fraught with extreme peril to life. The details vary: sometimes there is a Dead Body laid on the altar; sometimes a Black Hand extinguishes the tapers; there are strange and threatening voices, and the general impression is that this is an adventure in which supernatural, and evil, forces are engaged.

Such an adventure befalls Gawain on his way to the Grail Castle 1. He is overtaken by a terrible storm, and coming to a Chapel, standing at a crossways in the middle of a forest, enters for shelter. The altar is bare, with no cloth, or covering, nothing is thereon but a great golden candlestick with a tall taper burning within it. Behind the altar is a window, and as Gawain looks a Hand, black and hideous, comes through the window, and extinguishes the taper, while a voice makes lamentation loud and dire, beneath which the very building rocks. Gawain's horse shies for terror, and the knight, making the sign of the Cross, rides out of the Chapel, to find the storm abated, and the great wind fallen. Thereafter the night was calm and clear.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/frr/frr16.htm

This is, as far as I understand, the original source of the Chapel Perilous meme. Later in the chapter, the author makes a conclusion that the Perilous chapel talk is some kind of cryptic reference to a level of initiation.
In my view, based on reading some literature, the Chapel perilous seems to be the state when the energies activated from a pretty powerful  form of spiritual training - such as tantrism, kundalini yoga, thelema, and others - get out absolutely of control.

Apart from RAW, I have read other examples of Chapel Perilous; Terence McKeena (Real hallucinations) and Daniel Pinchbeck (2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl) are the ones who had almost an archetypal Chapel Perilous experience. (In my view, of course)

From the info I read, I made the conclusion that the state happens not only when your tunnel reality goes off, but when the "objective" world starts to melt into your "subjective" world, when voices from external sources, synchronicities, UFO encounters, poltergeists, and other kind of psychoid ( on the border of thought/matter, subjective/objective) phenomena enter your casual everyday live.
It's absolute confusion; it's when you can't even be sure of the objects around you are real or not; it's when you can't trust even your own senses.

I think the Chapel Perilous can be paralleled to:
1) The shamanic "illness"
2) The Basic perinatal matrices 2 and 3 ( mostly 2) from Stanislav Grof's system
3) The Shadow experience from Jung's psychoanalysis theory and practice
4) The Dark Night of The Soul from Christian mysticism

I didn't find references to negative state in Oriental practices, but I think it can be explained by their philosophy, where it is clearly stated that every thing that will happen to you comes from your mind and nothing else; therefore there's no such disorientation, anxiety and confusion when someone encounters Chapel Perilous.
These are just my thoughts on the subject.
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Quote from: ZL 'Kai' Burington, M.S. on January 08, 2012, 02:24:10 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 09:34:54 PM
Thanks for the history, Telarus.

What I'm basically getting from this is that the Chapel Perilous is the internal struggle you have when you start to realize that the reality you have been perceiving is not necessarily the real reality. That what you think you are thinking and wanting is not actually what you think and want, for example under the seductive influence of a magical temptress, or the TV broadcasters, or a church, or your peer group.

Is that too simplistic a summation? Because I would like to cut the pseudomystical woo-woo bullshit and boil this down to an explanation understandable by your average 12-year-old.

And then there are some people who choose to overlook this struggle, to ignore it or pretend it isn't going on, and so they stay in Chapel Perilous forever.


I agree that I never really understood Chapel Perilous, only thought I did. It's actually rather ordinary, and the language used to describe it makes it out to be extraordinary.

"The struggle that occurs when the map doesn't match the territory."

Yes... that's exactly what I'm getting out of it, too. I am not sure what the value is in using language in a way that makes an ordinary experience out to be mystical or extraordinary. Seems like obfuscation. It also seems like a manifestation of the (completely normal) desire to be special and unique, which is what motivates many people to pursue the occult.
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Cramulus

How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself?
                                             \



That's Chapel Perilous


The Good Reverend Roger

Sounds more like "Chapel Nervous Breakdown".
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Cramulus

Quote from: ZL 'Kai' Burington, M.S. on January 08, 2012, 02:24:10 PM
I agree that I never really understood Chapel Perilous, only thought I did. It's actually rather ordinary, and the language used to describe it makes it out to be extraordinary.

I think there is nothing ordinary about the quest for the self

it is heroic and transformative in the most profound sense


Intense internal experiences always sound mundane when expressed in language. For example, I have no ability to accurately describe Taoism. If I wrote a smart book about, it would still be a distraction. I think matters of spirituality are better handled through metaphor and symbolism, they lose something when they're described in sterile material terms.

It's interesting to me that we have this vague term "chapel perilous", and we can't agree on a definition, therefore we have to come back to the question - how can you can find your individual free will if the self is a confused collective of networked agents?