I found this piece pretty illuminating, considering how we were trying to come up with a good verbal description of "Chapel Perilous" last month. I actually like the view here better than anything we sketched out (tho it does resonate with some of the things we said).
A shout out to those residing in or visiting Chapel Perilous
by Antero Alli on Friday, January 6, 2012
"Chapel Perilous, like the mysterious entity called "I", cannot be located in the time-space continuum: it is weightless, odorless, tasteless, and undetectable by ordinary instruments. Indeed like the Ego, once you're inside it there doesn't seem to be any way to ever get out, again, until you suddenly discover that it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside of thought." -- Robert Anton Wilson
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s720x720/376042_2999426753094_1485058326_3024899_1667358407_n.jpg)
We know who we are. We are the dispossessed, the outcasts, and the outsiders, rebels with a cause who have upturned the mulch of our dead lives and seeded those fertile fields with incendiary visions of our future selves. Having already subverted the norm, we renunciate dominator culture's status quo of everything and drift happy disconnected -- babes in the abyss -- wavering in the ambiguity fog of dislocation. Free-floating between old worlds and the new, guided only by the shining paths of mother evolution. We have passed over, we have passed the point of no-return and since there is no turning back, we celebrate the momentum lifting us on the wings of perception, grace, and whatever skills we have earned from surviving the inevitable catastrophe of self. Only when we are over, does our real life begin.
Throughout my adult life, almost everyone I've met or have gotten to know has frequented, or currently resides in Chapel Perilous. All of them fall into any one or all of the following four categories of Chapel residency (in order from the greatest percentage to the smallest):
LIFERS (THE FLOCK); who remain in Chapel Perilous completely unaware of their displacement
CLERGY; who are aware of being there but choose to remain and serve the flock
HERETICS; who have awakened and managed to escape as either agnostic or paranoid
TOURISTS; who have awakened, escaped with soul intact and who return for reasons of their own
Though I have known all four personally, I now count myself chiefly as a Tourist. I periodically return there whenever the Muses decide I need a good shaking up. I can never predict when that will be but it usually happens when the Muses are ready to use me. I am a love slave to the Muses and consider myself lucky to be a Chapel Tourist. I have known Lifers, Clergy, and Heretics who have not been so fortunate. Some of what I've seen and heard would make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and shout. There's a reason why it's called Chapel Perilous and not Chapel Happy. If there was one word that might save you some grief as a Lifer, Priest, Heretic, or Tourist, that word would be: nonchalance. Learn to treat the archetypes and their realms with the same indifference with which they treat you. Don't take "them" personally; Chapel Perilous is not personal. Chapel Perilous is a great place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.
-A. Alli
I STILL don't get it. I've had LMNO and lots of other people try to explain this shit to me, but it makes no sense at all (at least to me).
Not trying to be a smartass, here. I honestly don't get it.
...or not. Never mind, I guess.
I don't get Chapel Perilous either. I feel like maybe I'm supposed to, but I don't.
I really like that grotto, though, it's totally cool.
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:39:23 AM
I don't get Chapel Perilous either. I feel like maybe I'm supposed to, but I don't.
I gather - but I'm not sure - that it's similar to the 1960s "finding yourself" thing. Or else it's people freaking out because they realized they aren't made out of plastic or something. Or navel-gazing. Dunno.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 06:41:25 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:39:23 AM
I don't get Chapel Perilous either. I feel like maybe I'm supposed to, but I don't.
I gather - but I'm not sure - that it's similar to the 1960s "finding yourself" thing. Or else it's people freaking out because they realized they aren't made out of plastic or something. Or navel-gazing. Dunno.
Navel gazing?
I don't get Chapel Perilous either, I think. It doesn't click with me.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 06:41:25 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:39:23 AM
I don't get Chapel Perilous either. I feel like maybe I'm supposed to, but I don't.
I gather - but I'm not sure - that it's similar to the 1960s "finding yourself" thing. Or else it's people freaking out because they realized they aren't made out of plastic or something. Or navel-gazing. Dunno.
I've never gotten the "finding yourself" thing. I'M RIGHT HERE.
I might be a mess, but at least I know exactly where I am.
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:46:10 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 06:41:25 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:39:23 AM
I don't get Chapel Perilous either. I feel like maybe I'm supposed to, but I don't.
I gather - but I'm not sure - that it's similar to the 1960s "finding yourself" thing. Or else it's people freaking out because they realized they aren't made out of plastic or something. Or navel-gazing. Dunno.
I've never gotten the "finding yourself" thing. I'M RIGHT HERE.
I might be a mess, but at least I know exactly where I am.
SEE THAT PILE OF BROKEN STUFF? THAT'S ME! :lol:
Nigel and Freeky, I am glad to hear that I'm not the only one who has no fucking idea what this is all about. I'm beginning to suspect that nobody does, that it's a piece of jargon that everyone PRETENDS to understand, because they're embarrassed that they don't, and they think everyone else does.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 06:49:38 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:46:10 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 06:41:25 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:39:23 AM
I don't get Chapel Perilous either. I feel like maybe I'm supposed to, but I don't.
I gather - but I'm not sure - that it's similar to the 1960s "finding yourself" thing. Or else it's people freaking out because they realized they aren't made out of plastic or something. Or navel-gazing. Dunno.
I've never gotten the "finding yourself" thing. I'M RIGHT HERE.
I might be a mess, but at least I know exactly where I am.
SEE THAT PILE OF BROKEN STUFF? THAT'S ME! :lol:
Nigel and Freeky, I am glad to hear that I'm not the only one who has no fucking idea what this is all about. I'm beginning to suspect that nobody does, that it's a piece of jargon that everyone PRETENDS to understand, because they're embarrassed that they don't, and they think everyone else does.
That is totally why I never reply to Chapel Perilous threads. For real. :oops: :lol:
I think it's just a different kind of metaphor, though, and in the same vein as mindhacking (or at least that's how it looks, because we got a bunch of people here who are into both.)
Quote from: The Freeky of SCIENCE! on January 07, 2012, 06:54:08 AM
I think it's just a different kind of metaphor, though, and in the same vein as mindhacking (or at least that's how it looks, because we got a bunch of people here who are into both.)
Well, if that's what it is, I wish someone would say so, so I could move on to something else. I keep seeing this shit, so I read RAW's stuff again, and it still didn't make any sense. If it turns out to be some nonsense like sigils or something, I can walk away without feeling I've missed something.
Naw Rog. You totally get it. It's the world where words are more real than barstools, and can frighten monkeys into believing and doing stopid shit.
"...it is weightless, odorless, tasteless, and undetectable by ordinary instruments. ...it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside of thought."
It's the world your assistant lives in, the reality tunnel built from manipulated misinformation (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,31295.msg1001638.html), the world where what "What Gingrich/Santorum/Perry/Obama says makes sense, so let's let them handle it," the world where (if we chant it loudly enough) Anarchism, Libertarianism, or any other -ism will totally save all our problems so get on the wagon before we run you over, comrade....
That's it really. I think you haven't been there in a long, long time...
Quote from: Telarus on January 07, 2012, 07:00:16 AM
Naw Rog. You totally get it. It's the world where words are more real than barstools, and can frighten monkeys into believing and doing stopid shit.
"...it is weightless, odorless, tasteless, and undetectable by ordinary instruments. ...it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside of thought."
It's the world your assistant lives in, the reality tunnel built from manipulated misinformation (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,31295.msg1001638.html), the world where what "What Gingrich/Santorum/Perry/Obama says makes sense, so let's let them handle it," the world where (if we chant it loudly enough) Anarchism, Libertarianism, or any other -ism will totally save all our problems so get on the wagon before we run you over, comrade....
That's it really. I think you haven't been there in a long, long time...
Oh, the world of DUMBASS. I go there all the time, just in a different way than the Obamabush fans. I don't buy much EXTERNAL hype - I do believe lots of incorrect things, but I don't believe IN them - but I can fool myself as well as the next guy. I can pull the wool over my own eyes and relax in the safety of my own delusions like HELL.
I have a paranoid streak a mile fucking wide...And while that's safer (usually) than being a gullible Party Line Man, it is still bad signal. At least
distorted signal. It's still not how things ACTUALLY are...On a personal level, anyway. On a political/cultural level, it isn't POSSIBLE to be paranoid (It ain't paranoia if they're really out to get you, right?). But anyway, like I say, fooling yourself isn't much better than being fooled by others.
In fact, it can be worse, because you're much less likely to question your own motives.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 06:49:38 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:46:10 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 06:41:25 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:39:23 AM
I don't get Chapel Perilous either. I feel like maybe I'm supposed to, but I don't.
I gather - but I'm not sure - that it's similar to the 1960s "finding yourself" thing. Or else it's people freaking out because they realized they aren't made out of plastic or something. Or navel-gazing. Dunno.
I've never gotten the "finding yourself" thing. I'M RIGHT HERE.
I might be a mess, but at least I know exactly where I am.
SEE THAT PILE OF BROKEN STUFF? THAT'S ME! :lol:
Nigel and Freeky, I am glad to hear that I'm not the only one who has no fucking idea what this is all about. I'm beginning to suspect that nobody does, that it's a piece of jargon that everyone PRETENDS to understand, because they're embarrassed that they don't, and they think everyone else does.
I've been wondering about that for a while. Everyone smiles and nods and agrees, and I am just peering from face to face, trying to figure out if they mean it.
Quote from: Telarus on January 07, 2012, 07:00:16 AM
Naw Rog. You totally get it. It's the world where words are more real than barstools, and can frighten monkeys into believing and doing stopid shit.
"...it is weightless, odorless, tasteless, and undetectable by ordinary instruments. ...it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside of thought."
It's the world your assistant lives in, the reality tunnel built from manipulated misinformation (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,31295.msg1001638.html), the world where what "What Gingrich/Santorum/Perry/Obama says makes sense, so let's let them handle it," the world where (if we chant it loudly enough) Anarchism, Libertarianism, or any other -ism will totally save all our problems so get on the wagon before we run you over, comrade....
That's it really. I think you haven't been there in a long, long time...
Oh, so the Chapel Perilous is the Machine? And the Spiders?
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 07:14:40 AM
Quote from: Telarus on January 07, 2012, 07:00:16 AM
Naw Rog. You totally get it. It's the world where words are more real than barstools, and can frighten monkeys into believing and doing stopid shit.
"...it is weightless, odorless, tasteless, and undetectable by ordinary instruments. ...it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside of thought."
It's the world your assistant lives in, the reality tunnel built from manipulated misinformation (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,31295.msg1001638.html), the world where what "What Gingrich/Santorum/Perry/Obama says makes sense, so let's let them handle it," the world where (if we chant it loudly enough) Anarchism, Libertarianism, or any other -ism will totally save all our problems so get on the wagon before we run you over, comrade....
That's it really. I think you haven't been there in a long, long time...
Oh, so the Chapel Perilous is the Machine? And the Spiders?
Actually, I think it's the part of the monkey that causes it to obey The Machine and the spiders. Because it's easier than thinking.
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 07:14:40 AM
Oh, so the Chapel Perilous is the Machine? And the Spiders?
And mistaking "the Cell" in the BIP for "the View from the Window"...
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 07:16:24 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 07:14:40 AM
Quote from: Telarus on January 07, 2012, 07:00:16 AM
Naw Rog. You totally get it. It's the world where words are more real than barstools, and can frighten monkeys into believing and doing stopid shit.
"...it is weightless, odorless, tasteless, and undetectable by ordinary instruments. ...it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside of thought."
It's the world your assistant lives in, the reality tunnel built from manipulated misinformation (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,31295.msg1001638.html), the world where what "What Gingrich/Santorum/Perry/Obama says makes sense, so let's let them handle it," the world where (if we chant it loudly enough) Anarchism, Libertarianism, or any other -ism will totally save all our problems so get on the wagon before we run you over, comrade....
That's it really. I think you haven't been there in a long, long time...
Oh, so the Chapel Perilous is the Machine? And the Spiders?
Actually, I think it's the part of the monkey that causes it to obey The Machine and the spiders. Because it's easier than thinking.
Ohhhh... so it's the Comfort Zone?
All these are the Masks that the Chapel presents to us, even (as Rog said) pulling the wool over your own eyes, and we can all get lost in the realm where thoughts are more real than reality.
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 07:18:26 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 07:16:24 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 07:14:40 AM
Quote from: Telarus on January 07, 2012, 07:00:16 AM
Naw Rog. You totally get it. It's the world where words are more real than barstools, and can frighten monkeys into believing and doing stopid shit.
"...it is weightless, odorless, tasteless, and undetectable by ordinary instruments. ...it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside of thought."
It's the world your assistant lives in, the reality tunnel built from manipulated misinformation (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,31295.msg1001638.html), the world where what "What Gingrich/Santorum/Perry/Obama says makes sense, so let's let them handle it," the world where (if we chant it loudly enough) Anarchism, Libertarianism, or any other -ism will totally save all our problems so get on the wagon before we run you over, comrade....
That's it really. I think you haven't been there in a long, long time...
Oh, so the Chapel Perilous is the Machine? And the Spiders?
Actually, I think it's the part of the monkey that causes it to obey The Machine and the spiders. Because it's easier than thinking.
Ohhhh... so it's the Comfort Zone?
I think you can be in a Comfort Zone and still be awake & aware (though it ain't easy).
Like I said last page, I THINK it's the world of DUMBASS. The world of "I HAVE TO VOTE DEMOCRAT BECAUSE THE GOP IS WORSE", the world of "I DON'T
WANT TO GET FELT UP AT THE AIRPORT, BUT WE HAVE TO BE SAFE", the world of "THIS IS ALL TOO COMPLICATED AND BORING. I'LL JUST VOTE FOR THE ONE THAT PROMISES ME SOME EASY ANSWERS FOR ONCE".
MATH IS HARD!
I BETTER SETTLE FOR 2nd BEST BEFORE I GET STUCK WITH 3rd BEST.
I'M NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
I CAN'T DO IT.
I WOULD BE ABLE TO DO IT, BUT THE <white man/those damn Blacks/muzzies/wetbacks> ARE KEEPING ME DOWN.
I'D BE RICH, IF THE GOVERNMENT WOULD GET OUT OF THE WAY.
PEOPLE ALWAYS ACT IN THEIR OWN SELF INTEREST.
I NEED AN ISM.
Quote from: Telarus on January 07, 2012, 07:23:25 AM
All these are the Masks that the Chapel presents to us, even (as Rog said) pulling the wool over your own eyes, and we can all get lost in the realm where thoughts are more real than reality.
FOR EXAMPLE: We've been laughing at the monkeys here for YEARS, and all that time the monkeys have been sodomizing the living shit out of us. And we call THEM the dumb ones.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 07:23:46 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 07:18:26 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 07:16:24 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 07:14:40 AM
Quote from: Telarus on January 07, 2012, 07:00:16 AM
Naw Rog. You totally get it. It's the world where words are more real than barstools, and can frighten monkeys into believing and doing stopid shit.
"...it is weightless, odorless, tasteless, and undetectable by ordinary instruments. ...it has been brought into existence by thought and does not exist outside of thought."
It's the world your assistant lives in, the reality tunnel built from manipulated misinformation (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,31295.msg1001638.html), the world where what "What Gingrich/Santorum/Perry/Obama says makes sense, so let's let them handle it," the world where (if we chant it loudly enough) Anarchism, Libertarianism, or any other -ism will totally save all our problems so get on the wagon before we run you over, comrade....
That's it really. I think you haven't been there in a long, long time...
Oh, so the Chapel Perilous is the Machine? And the Spiders?
Actually, I think it's the part of the monkey that causes it to obey The Machine and the spiders. Because it's easier than thinking.
Ohhhh... so it's the Comfort Zone?
I think you can be in a Comfort Zone and still be awake & aware (though it ain't easy).
Like I said last page, I THINK it's the world of DUMBASS. The world of "I HAVE TO VOTE DEMOCRAT BECAUSE THE GOP IS WORSE", the world of "I DON'T WANT TO GET FELT UP AT THE AIRPORT, BUT WE HAVE TO BE SAFE", the world of "THIS IS ALL TOO COMPLICATED AND BORING. I'LL JUST VOTE FOR THE ONE THAT PROMISES ME SOME EASY ANSWERS FOR ONCE".
MATH IS HARD!
I BETTER SETTLE FOR 2nd BEST BEFORE I GET STUCK WITH 3rd BEST.
I'M NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
I CAN'T DO IT.
I WOULD BE ABLE TO DO IT, BUT THE <white man/those damn Blacks/muzzies/wetbacks> ARE KEEPING ME DOWN.
I'D BE RICH, IF THE GOVERNMENT WOULD GET OUT OF THE WAY.
PEOPLE ALWAYS ACT IN THEIR OWN SELF INTEREST.
I NEED AN ISM.
But isn't all of this action in pursuit of a comfort zone?
Yes, but a person could be all, "Oh, what? That sounds like bullshit. That is some really horrible bullshit you have just poured in my ear. -do a little reasearch- That horrible bullshit is true. :horrormirth: <--minus mirth
I will not deny that this is a true thing, nor pretend it isn't out there, but I'm not going to think about it."
That last bit is remaining alert while staying in a comfort zone.
perhaps I was too high while reading Cosmic Trigger, but my understanding of RAWs concept of Chapel Perilous is quite different from that which is described in Ali's quote in the OP (so perhaps this isn't all that relevent)...
It was my understanding that Chapel Perilous was essentially the various states of upheaval that one enters when confronted by the inherent distortions of their model of reality. To enter Chapel Perilous is to be stripped of one's buffering framework through which reality is experienced/interpreted. I always thought that Chapel Perilous was analogous to horror, as described in the good Doktor's studies of Horrorlogy
I could be wrong.
Quote from: LCS on January 07, 2012, 08:59:35 AM
It was my understanding that Chapel Perilous was essentially the various states of upheaval that one enters when confronted by the inherent distortions of their model of reality. To enter Chapel Perilous is to be stripped of one's buffering framework through which reality is experienced/interpreted. I always thought that Chapel Perilous was analogous to horror, as described in the good Doktor's studies of Horrorlogy
I could be wrong.
From my understanding, "Believing your perceptions(filtered)/thoughts ARE reality," is pretty much what you are describing. From RAW's author point-of-view, it seems that characters
become aware that they dwell in Chapel Perilous when confronted by the gap between their model and reality in an unmistakable way. The normal reaction is Horror, which is why shamans/priests served a very useful role in tribal societies (to make sure the Horror isn't the only thing imprinted by the experience and to reintegrate this "new" personality who has seen the Void back into tribal consciousness).
Chapel Perilous is the point where you are confronted with the fact that your BiP cell:
A) exists
B) Isn't "objective" reality
I spent the first half of my life, believing (really really for real believing) that Jehovah was god, that JW's knew "the Truth". That man was 6000 years old, that evolution was a lie spread by demonic influence and that very very soon, Jehvah's angels would come and destroy all of the churches, governments, religions and bad people, leaving only good people to exist forever happily on Paradise Earth.
I could quote scriptures, discuss the theological basis for these beliefs and even gave 45 min Sunday morning sermons to hundreds of people on these topics.
That was my reality tunnel, my cell in the BiP. I believed it was objective truth.
Then a series of events happened that shook all of that loose. I lost my trust in the Governing Body, my trust in the Elders and my faith in Jehovah. I went from a sure, secure world view to nothing, I was completely lost. My whole life had been centered around Truth, that was now, not Truth.
The most horrifying thing that happened to me during this experience was the night I dreamed that I was old, alone and dying. Seems stupid now, but I'd never considered that I might grow old and die before that moment.
That was my first entrance into Chapel Perilous.
Once there, things got weird. I had an experience where I became the deity Therion, I had experiences where things that I couldn't see talked to me. Then I was given a copy of the PD and the humor, the complete absurdity, the telegram to Jehova, the beauty of the messages hidden in silly prose... gave me something to hang on to. After all, if what I KNEW to be true for 24 years was false, then why not accept a crazy woman as Goddess and roaches as messengers?
I think, Chapel Perilous isn't simply monkey mind antics, or comfort zones. Its when your whole understanding of existence gets tossed on its ear. If we use Joseph Campbell's ideas about mythology being a metaphor for human experience/growth. Chapel Perilous is the popular mythological spot where we go from the 'safe' world that the hero knows to the 'unsafe' world that the hero knows nothing of. In Star Wars, Luke's 'Chapel Perilous' is the Mos Eisley Cantina. He has left behind his farm and family... his 'reality' and is suddenly plunged into the world of light sabers, stormtroopers, weird aliens, strange music, dangers that he can't even begin to comprehend.
Luke could have run back home, like some people run from Chapel Perilous. Luke could have refused to go further out of fear... and stayed there, stuck as a bar back... never going further, never going back. Instead Luke braved Chapel Perilous and launched himself into a whole new concept of reality... a world where he he becomes a hero, where he risks his life for others, where he kisses a princess (ewww), where he comes to terms with this 'Force' that allows him to control his reality to some extent.
Chapel Perilous is just a literary device... a term for the point in time when you have to leave behind old ideas and accept new ones... or be stuck. Sure, theres a lot of other stuff we can throw in there (Holy Guardian Angels etc) but at its core, this is Chapel Perilous.
Hell, even Einstein got stuck in Chapel Perilous when he refused to budge on the topic and claimed "God does not play dice with the universe". His BiP cell was an ordered universe where some mathematical formula could finally explain EVERYTHING. When faced with evidence to the contrary, he ran from the Chapel, instead of plunging through the foyer.
Its not simply refusing to accept new information... its when that information would impact your entire view of reality. If you accept it, you go through the Chapel, if you refuse it, you run from the Chapel... if you let it destroy you, you're trapped in the Chapel.
Tosk, I think the only difference between your metaphor, and Antero's is that Antero is saying that you were in Chapel Perilous the whole time.. you just didn't realize it until the moment your reality tunnel cracked.
Well I think it depends... I can see that from this quote... but in reading through Angel Tech (and through Bob's stuff), I think the people who 'live there', the Lifers... aren't just the ones who have some belief system, but the ones whose belief system has been shattered and they can't get anywhere from there. They can't acknowledge that their reality was wrong. They can't accept the new reality. AND they can't really go back to their old one, because, deep down they know its wrong.
I think, if I were to map it out, I would say I was at the door of the Chapel for about a year. I started questioning behaviors of Elders, I started feeling weird about some of the things the religion claimed.
For decades JW's said that the people who were alive in 1914 were "this generation" that Jesus spoke of when he said "This generation will by no means pass away until all things are fulfilled". That is, Armageddon would come before they all died. Then a Watchtower article was published which said "Well, generation doesn't mean literal generation... it just means the attitudes of people". Within a few months it had become "Some people claimed that people alive in 1914 would live to see the end." (They don't even discuss it anymore now). That event was when I fell through the door. (IMO)
So using your metaphor for 'lifers,' Rat, how does Zen relate? The idea of "Above, not a tile to cover the head; Below, not an inch of ground for the foot." It looks like the Zen masters somehow find a home within Chapel Perilous? Or is that the basic idea? Is living in pure spontaneity no difference than being a 'cool lifer,' so to speak?
Quote from: LCS on January 07, 2012, 08:59:35 AM
perhaps I was too high while reading Cosmic Trigger, but my understanding of RAWs concept of Chapel Perilous is quite different from that which is described in Ali's quote in the OP (so perhaps this isn't all that relevent)...
It was my understanding that Chapel Perilous was essentially the various states of upheaval that one enters when confronted by the inherent distortions of their model of reality. To enter Chapel Perilous is to be stripped of one's buffering framework through which reality is experienced/interpreted. I always thought that Chapel Perilous was analogous to horror, as described in the good Doktor's studies of Horrorlogy
I could be wrong.
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?
It's fine as a literary device, but I feel like using it outside of that context it's just another woo-woo pseudo-occult obfuscating terms meant to draw in the very people whose cells the literary work was intended to crack open. In other words, if I am understanding it right, once you have been through your own personal Chapel Perilous the term is best discarded and the process is better described as what it is, without the pseudomystical obfuscating metaphors.
In other words, it appears to be jargon meant primarily to appeal to people who have not jet been jailbroken.
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 05:31:03 PM
In other words, it appears to be jargon meant primarily to appeal to people who have not jet been jailbroken.
I think that's probably mostly true with the possible exception that being 'jailbroken' is really relative and not necessarily a permanent state. But then all upaya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya)'s are inevitably traps.
To put it another way, it's like using a thorn to remove a thorn and, once good, you throw both thorns away.
To me a good lifer example is; if you become aware your spouse is cheating on you, and can't handle it, so you refuse to believe it. Any conscious or unconscious effort to avoid resolving a conflict between the real and the perceived.
I would believe done examples of CP would be
I am an atheist and have a spiritual experience.
I am in a Apocolypse cult, and the end of the world doesn't turn up.
I am keeping myself healthy with fresh vegetables, exercise and positive energy and then get cancer.
Film/tv examples (spoilers)
Javert in les miserables has one hell of a CP moment when Val Jean saves him.
And the Joker in Dark Knight gets his when the inmates fail to blow eachother away.
American history x has Edward Norton in CP when the black inmate befriends him.
Candide is essentially a troop of lifers addicted to Just World Theory
Harry Potter probably enters a few times but i remember him confronted with his dad being a jackass.
The atheist gnome in prince Caspian when he meets Aslan.
Rude Mrs X in The Nanny Diaries is gripping onto her CP about her husband for most of the film.
Starks near death experience at the start of Iron Man puts him in the CP. He escapes and blows shit up.
I stopped watching Billy Elliot but something something father something gender roles CP something.
The baddie in Serenity is pretty clearly trying to deal with his entrance into the CP at the end if the film.
In the 'I Lucifer' retelling of the temptation of Jesus, Christ is definitely in the chapel perilous.
In Oliver Stones 'W' Colin Powell is pretty clearly leaving his post to escape the CP.
Episode one of Firefly, Shepard is in the CP over the fact that he doesn't mind the guy he swore to protect got deadified.
Probably that's enough. I was going to only do a few but started having fun.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 06:41:25 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:39:23 AM
I don't get Chapel Perilous either. I feel like maybe I'm supposed to, but I don't.
I gather - but I'm not sure - that it's similar to the 1960s "finding yourself" thing. Or else it's people freaking out because they realized they aren't made out of plastic or something. Or navel-gazing. Dunno.
Isn't the opposite to that, a crisis of conscience or identity or morality, where no clear outcome is available, but all options negate what you believed previously.
Quote from: Bu☆ns on January 07, 2012, 05:11:59 PM
So using your metaphor for 'lifers,' Rat, how does Zen relate? The idea of "Above, not a tile to cover the head; Below, not an inch of ground for the foot." It looks like the Zen masters somehow find a home within Chapel Perilous? Or is that the basic idea? Is living in pure spontaneity no difference than being a 'cool lifer,' so to speak?
In Antero-speak I think they would be priests in the chapel.
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 05:31:03 PM
In other words, it appears to be jargon meant primarily to appeal to people who have not jet been jailbroken.
I have to agree with Burns, you may end up in the Chapel many times... you may recognize it the first time, but will you the second? Einstein broke a lot of jails in terms of thoughts about physics... but he still got trapped in his jail when it came to quantum physics. He my have broken through again and again, but in the end he still got stuck on a belief.
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 05:30:11 PM
It's fine as a literary device, but I feel like using it outside of that context it's just another woo-woo pseudo-occult obfuscating terms meant to draw in the very people whose cells the literary work was intended to crack open. In other words, if I am understanding it right, once you have been through your own personal Chapel Perilous the term is best discarded and the process is better described as what it is, without the pseudomystical obfuscating metaphors.
If we break out of our jail cell, should we quit discussing the BiP?
Also, nice list PD.
You could add the TARDIS as a CP literary device, with the Doctor as a Priest (there to guide people through the CP).
"Its bigger on the inside!"
\
(http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/11/23/tardis_wooden_control_room.jpg)
Quote from: Placid Dingo on January 07, 2012, 05:53:08 PM
To me a good lifer example is; if you become aware your spouse is cheating on you, and can't handle it, so you refuse to believe it. Any conscious or unconscious effort to avoid resolving a conflict between the real and the perceived.
I would believe done examples of CP would be
I am an atheist and have a spiritual experience.
I am in a Apocolypse cult, and the end of the world doesn't turn up.
I am keeping myself healthy with fresh vegetables, exercise and positive energy and then get cancer.
Film/tv examples (spoilers)
Javert in les miserables has one hell of a CP moment when Val Jean saves him.
And the Joker in Dark Knight gets his when the inmates fail to blow eachother away.
American history x has Edward Norton in CP when the black inmate befriends him.
Candide is essentially a troop of lifers addicted to Just World Theory
Harry Potter probably enters a few times but i remember him confronted with his dad being a jackass.
The atheist gnome in prince Caspian when he meets Aslan.
Rude Mrs X in The Nanny Diaries is gripping onto her CP about her husband for most of the film.
Starks near death experience at the start of Iron Man puts him in the CP. He escapes and blows shit up.
I stopped watching Billy Elliot but something something father something gender roles CP something.
The baddie in Serenity is pretty clearly trying to deal with his entrance into the CP at the end if the film.
In the 'I Lucifer' retelling of the temptation of Jesus, Christ is definitely in the chapel perilous.
In Oliver Stones 'W' Colin Powell is pretty clearly leaving his post to escape the CP.
Episode one of Firefly, Shepard is in the CP over the fact that he doesn't mind the guy he swore to protect got deadified.
Probably that's enough. I was going to only do a few but started having fun.
So it's cognitive dissonance?
Quote from: Bu☆ns on January 07, 2012, 05:44:07 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 05:31:03 PM
In other words, it appears to be jargon meant primarily to appeal to people who have not jet been jailbroken.
I think that's probably mostly true with the possible exception that being 'jailbroken' is really relative and not necessarily a permanent state. But then all upaya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya)'s are inevitably traps.
To put it another way, it's like using a thorn to remove a thorn and, once good, you throw both thorns away.
A jailbroken phone is still a phone. ;)
Addressing Rat; all I am saying is that when new jargon is introduced to replace the old jargon, it often becomes obfuscating rather than illuminating.
More words used to describe something don't always result in a clearer description, know what I mean?
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?
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.
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:17:08 PM
Quote from: Bu☆ns on January 07, 2012, 05:44:07 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 05:31:03 PM
In other words, it appears to be jargon meant primarily to appeal to people who have not jet been jailbroken.
I think that's probably mostly true with the possible exception that being 'jailbroken' is really relative and not necessarily a permanent state. But then all upaya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya)'s are inevitably traps.
To put it another way, it's like using a thorn to remove a thorn and, once good, you throw both thorns away.
A jailbroken phone is still a phone. ;)
Addressing Rat; all I am saying is that when new jargon is introduced to replace the old jargon, it often becomes obfuscating rather than illuminating.
More words used to describe something don't always result in a clearer description, know what I mean?
Well honestly Chapel Perilous is a newish term, encompassing a new set of ideas. Previously there were mystic terms for the experience, mythological stories about the experience but RAW took a look at the psychological experience described in these systems or stories and distilled it into CP. Talking about the Chapel is IMO easier to discuss that Communing with the Holy Guardian Angel. :)
Cognitive Dissonance, for example talks about the psychological state of holding two opposing ideas/beliefs etc. It describes part of CP, but not the whole experience. The Holy Guardian Angel ritual is a jail in and of itself, since its presented as a True Belief. It describes part of the CP experience, but not the whole thing.
The BiP expresses a related concept, but not the exact same concept.
Campbell's Hero's journey seems to come closest, specifically the "jumping off point" where the hero leaves the known world and enters the unknown. This sort of device shows again and again throughout the history of myth, but not presented in a dissected form the way that the CP is.
I think CP has limited value. I have friends that have never really experienced a reality altering event. They often don't seem to get it. I have friends that have had experiences like mine and they seem far more likely to grab the idea easily.
Like all metaphors, it seems to make sense to some people and not make sense to others... depending on each person's BiP I guess :)
Building on Nigel and Tosks posts, I wen't and looked up the origin of the term (thanks wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapel_perilous)):
The term Chapel Perilous first appeared in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur[1] as the setting for an adventure in which sorceress Hellawes unsuccessfully attempts to seduce Sir Lancelot. T. S. Eliot used it symbolically in The Waste Land (1922). Dorothy Hewett took "The Chapel Perilous" as the title for her autobiographical play, in which she uses "the framework of the Arthurian legend, Sir Lancelot, to create a theatrical quest of romantic and epic proportions".[2]
In literature
The term as used in literature is explicated in detail by Jessie L. Weston in her book From Ritual to Romance (1920).[3] It is also defined by Thomas C. Foster (in a discussion of the five elements of a quest) as "the dangerous enclosure that is known in the study of traditional quest romances."[4] He cites the plot of the book "Crying of Lot 49" as an example.
In psychology
"Chapel Perilous" is also an occult term referring to a psychological state in which an individual 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. It was first used as an occult term by the late writer and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) in his book Cosmic Trigger. According to Wilson, being in this state leads the subject to become either stone paranoid or an agnostic. In his opinion there is no third way.
---------------------------------------
So it seems to be grounded in Arthurian Legend (and thus, the mysticism built up around the Arthurian Quest archetype).... which is a deep part of western culture...
First, the way "Chapel Perilous" is described in the OP is kinda different than what I always assumed it probably was. Which is more kind like what Ratatosk described. But that's more because that's the way I heard it first, I'm not really sure what it is, it's not really a term I use a lot, or at all.
Anyway, those two descriptions seem not to differ so much on what it "is", but whether it describes the state or treshold of being on your way out of "there" (Ratatosk), or whether it includes being "there" as well (Telarus).
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 06:49:38 AMI'm beginning to suspect that nobody does, that it's a piece of jargon that everyone PRETENDS to understand, because they're embarrassed that they don't, and they think everyone else does.
I dunno. I see what you're thinking, but I don't peg Telarus to be that kind of person. If anything, it has a very specific personal significance and meaning to him. But probably it's a bit more general than that, even.
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 05:30:11 PMIt's fine as a literary device, but I feel like using it outside of that context it's just another woo-woo pseudo-occult obfuscating terms meant to draw in the very people whose cells the literary work was intended to crack open. In other words, if I am understanding it right, once you have been through your own personal Chapel Perilous the term is best discarded and the process is better described as what it is, without the pseudomystical obfuscating metaphors.
(..)
In other words, it appears to be jargon meant primarily to appeal to people who have not jet been jailbroken.
(..)
Addressing Rat; all I am saying is that when new jargon is introduced to replace the old jargon, it often becomes obfuscating rather than illuminating.
More words used to describe something don't always result in a clearer description, know what I mean?
(..)
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?
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.
Doesn't mean it's a term I'm likely to use myself, though. I'd either muddle it, mis-apply it or end up taking it out again cause I'd rather be specific to my personal experience.
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 07:14:40 AMOh, so the Chapel Perilous is the Machine? And the Spiders?
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 07:16:24 AMActually, I think it's the part of the monkey that causes it to obey The Machine and the spiders. Because it's easier than thinking.
In my interpretation of the "Machine" metaphor, it is actually made up entirely of monkey-parts, exactly those parts you describe.
Spiders I don't know, are they the same thing? I never played with that metaphor too much.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 (http://www.blackironprison.com/index.php?title=Ego_Sickness) remains one of my favorite threads for that very reason.
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:
QuoteQuote 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.
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.
Quote from: LCS on January 08, 2012, 05:40:29 AMQuote 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
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."
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.
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.
I wasn't blaming anyone btw.
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 (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.
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.
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?
\
(http://www.thefancarpet.com/uploaded_assets/images/gallery/1467/I_Heart_Huckabees_17843_Medium.jpg)
That's Chapel Perilous
Sounds more like "Chapel Nervous Breakdown".
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?
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 05:22:01 PM
Sounds more like "Chapel Nervous Breakdown".
He does have something like a nervous breakdown.
Jude Law's character gets disgusted with his own servile obedience to status. He's put up an attractive front, and over time, a rift grows between his attention to status and the Nice Guy mask he wears. Because it's not a mask, right? It's just another aspect of the self... So deep down, does he actually love the marshlands, or is he protecting them in order to advance his status? By the climax of the movie, he's not sure anymore, and we watch him go through a spectacular jailbreak.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 05:33:43 PM
- how can you can find your individual free will if the self is a confused collective of networked agents?
Personally, I never lost my individual free will.
So I cannot answer your question.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 05:39:13 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 05:22:01 PM
Sounds more like "Chapel Nervous Breakdown".
He does have something like a nervous breakdown.
Jude Law's character gets disgusted with his own servile obedience to status. He's put up an attractive front, and over time, a rift grows between his attention to status and the Nice Guy mask he wears. Because it's not a mask, right? It's just another aspect of the self... So deep down, does he actually love the marshlands, or is he protecting them in order to advance his status? By the climax of the movie, he's not sure anymore, and we watch him go through a spectacular jailbreak.
This is one of those times when "Dinosaur Bob's" (From Dilbert) advice comes in handy.
"We dinosaurs resolve complex issues by stomping them flat and then not caring."
Does it fucking MATTER why he's protecting the Marshlands? And can't it be BOTH reasons? I realize I am indulging in the picking of nits, here, but I don't see any "heroism" here. I see people going through the everyday exercise of dividing their personalities from their activities. Sure, not everyone does that
at all, but I don't think of it as "heroic". I think of it as self-maintenance.
Let me just simply that a bit:
When all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like the Corning, NY museum of glass working.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 05:45:15 PMThis is one of those times when "Dinosaur Bob's" (From Dilbert) advice comes in handy.
"We dinosaurs resolve complex issues by stomping them flat and then not caring."
Does it fucking MATTER why he's protecting the Marshlands? And can't it be BOTH reasons? I realize I am indulging in the picking of nits, here, but I don't see any "heroism" here. I see people going through the everyday exercise of dividing their personalities from their activities. Sure, not everyone does that at all, but I don't think of it as "heroic". I think of it as self-maintenance.
It matters to him!
A lot of people don't give any thought to the bars of their jail cell. Once you've seen the bars, you can't just go back to acting normally, you have to examine this stuff. The jailbreak involves choosing the meaning of those things, rather than letting the meaning get dictated by your past and your environment (drifting on an inner tube, as opposed to choosing where to swim). "Just smash it flat and don't give a shit" makes it sound really easy. It's only easy on the surface, or if you're making an easy choice.
Self discovery is no small task. And it's not for the feint of heart. It's dangerous too - you can get lost in the chapel perilous and come out more scared, confused, and uneasy than you were before. It took me years to stop getting led around by the selfish, vain parts of myself (which, if I'm being honest with myself, were built to insulate the timid, passive parts of myself). It took me a long time to quiet the rebellious teenager inside that's still taking swings at his father. It's hard to be comfortable with the trials of modern living. And it was hard to address that stuff honestly. I think there's a kind of "everyday heroism" in the personal spiritual journey.
That's what Joseph Campbell talks about in the Hero with a Thousand Faces... there's only one story, and it's your story. Your quest for meaning is no different than Odysseus' or Hercules'. We all have to face temptation and uncertainty. We all try to change our worlds. And because we do this every day, we think there's nothing special about it, it seems mundane. But it is the hero's journey, the source of all myths.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 06:03:37 PM
A lot of people don't give any thought to the bars of their jail cell. Once you've seen the bars, you can't just go back to acting normally, you have to examine this stuff.
I've learned to deal with this by charging into the bars until they break.
And then doing the same thing on the next set of bars, etc, ad infinitum, ad broken head.
What do you all think about RAW's observation that "the involvement of a (seemingly) mystic force from outside the Self helping or hindering" is an essential component of the experience?
Yes, some people live in a banal little world where every good or bad thing that happens to them is "God's Will" and they read messages from God (or the Devil) into everything. And I mean everything ("Hurricanes are because God hates Gay people!!!").
I think that this is the archetypical "(Christian) Lifer" (to use Antero's categories).
But the experience is one where YOU CANNOT BE SURE that what just happened was an internal projection ("Hallucination") or an actual involvement from something that seems to break how reality "is supposed to work".
I'd point to examples like the MUFON hypnosis experiments (http://whofortedblog.com/2012/01/01/learn-hypnosis-imaginary-abductees-1977/), where they hypnotized people who didn't believe in aliens, and then afterwards, some of the subjects could not say for sure if their experiences were hallucinated or real (they also induced a religious experience via hypnosis and tracked parallels with alien abduction narratives, and again the girl could not decide if her experience was "real" or "not real").
I also find RAW's observation that those who manage to find an exit to the Chapel either come out as Agnostic or Paranoid to be very telling. This doesn't have to involve Aliens, or God-forms or anything. The classic "there a huge shadowy secret society constantly trying to shut me up" Paranoid has probably gone through the Chapel (& been shattered by it). But while a "huge shadowy conspiracy" is more probable than Gods or Aliens, it's involvement in your very Day-to-Day existence breaks the previously held conception of "how reality is supposed to work".
Then, trapped in Paranoia, your whole Narrative becomes about how you relate to this Other.
The Agnostic escape hatch seems a much better choice.
I think this also goes back to "Consensus Trance" or the idea that most of our waking time is spent in a trance enforced by our culture. I'm reading mire Charles Tart to get a better grasp on that idea.
Quote from: Telarus on January 09, 2012, 06:36:23 PM
I also find RAW's observation that those who manage to find an exit to the Chapel either come out as Agnostic or Paranoid to be very telling.
Look, you make it out, you're not like everyone else. Since sanity is in one way defined as "not fitting into the norms of society", then you are by one definition insane. And if you are aware of dangers to yourself (physically or mentally or to your ego or whatever) that others aren't, then you appear to be paranoid. But you aren't, because if there IS a danger, you're being rational.
If we're all on the Titanic, and it's sinking, and we point this out to other people, and suggest that maybe they get in the lifeboats (most left the Titanic less than half full, at least at first), they're going to call you fucking crazy. "This is the ATLANTIC OCEAN, you don't get in a little boat! And besides, this ship won't sink. They said so, and besides, I paid money."
So who the fuck is crazy, here?
Quote from: Telarus on January 09, 2012, 06:36:23 PM
I think this also goes back to "Consensus Trance" or the idea that most of our waking time is spent in a trance enforced by our culture. I'm reading mire Charles Tart to get a better grasp on that idea.
hook us up with choice links!
His piece on Consensus Trance was in the top 3 things I read last year.
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on January 07, 2012, 10:04:57 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.
Sure, I'd add its the internal struggle and the psychological experience... including hallucinations in many cases.
Pretty sure that's called a "fugue state", and it isn't good.
Other than that, all this shit about the Holy Guardian Angel, etc, etc, hork spit puke, is beginning to sound like Mahdgjickque.
so is "The Black Iron Prison", "Jail Break", "The MachineTM", "Spiders"... all those metaphors get stretched pretty thin the more literally you interpret them.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 07:15:10 PM
so is "The Black Iron Prison", "Jail Break", "The MachineTM", "Spiders"... all those metaphors get stretched pretty thin the more literally you interpret them.
Yeah, well then, I guess we've all been wasting our time. All this shit is already recorded in TEH BOOK OF SHAHDOWS on MysticWicks.
I'm gonna have to elaborate on that a bit.
Spiders, etc, has some sort of meaning for people here, as many participated in the design of the mental model. Same with BIP, same with The Machine™. The HGA and all that other shit was someone else's mental model, someone in fact known for being quite the hoaxer. Good on him, but I make a distinction here.
I mean, it's no different than if we used the Subgenius term "The Conspiracy" rather than "The Machine™". It's borrowing from sources that have already had time to gel into dogma.
And if we tell a story to illustrate a point, to get people to think, that's a little different than performing hokey rituals to get OURSELVES to think. I don't need rituals, that's what I have other Discordians for.
I am still confused by all of this.
Quote from: Don Coyote on January 09, 2012, 07:43:20 PM
I am still confused by all of this.
I don't think I'm confused anymore.
I think the idea is to fill your head with bullshit to counter the bullshit society put there.
But what that really means is, your head now has twice as much bullshit in it.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 05:33:43 PM
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?
Yes, yes; you are a unique and special snowflake, just like everyone else.
One of the things I like about Taoism as I understand it is that it doesn't rely on occultism; it points out that there is value in the mundane. Not only that, but that there is profundity in simpleness. Part of that is breaking complex concepts down to simple sentences.
If you cannot summarize something, do you really understand it?
One of the things I am starting to suspect from this conversation is that nobody here actually understands the Chapel Perilous, and that in fact it may be a rather incomplete and poorly thought-out navelgazing concept. It appears to be an attempt at making complex a simple and not-uncommon experience for the purposes of making people feel like magical unicorns.
Can anyone seriously believe that the quest for self is a rarity? That only a few brave souls seek self-knowledge? I beg to differ with you on that one. I think that almost everyone seeks self-knowledge at some point in their lives. The only difference is that most people, once they believe they have found it, stop looking unless something shakes them up real badly, like a death or a divorce or a close call. This is why almost everyone who gets a divorce has a crisis and often completely changes their lifestyle.
Attempting to reinvent it as something rare and unique that only a precious few experience seems self-indulgent. Sort of the same line of malarkey as "Native Americans used to treat mental illness as a sacred gift".
Quote from: Nigel on January 09, 2012, 07:45:57 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 05:33:43 PM
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?
Yes, yes; you are a unique and special snowflake, just like everyone else.
One of the things I like about Taoism as I understand it is that it doesn't rely on occultism; it points out that there is value in the mundane. Not only that, but that there is profundity in simpleness. Part of that is breaking complex concepts down to simple sentences.
If you cannot summarize something, do you really understand it?
One of the things I am starting to suspect from this conversation is that nobody here actually understands the Chapel Perilous, and that in fact it may be a rather incomplete and poorly thought-out navelgazing concept. It appears to be an attempt at making complex a simple and not-uncommon experience for the purposes of making people feel like magical unicorns.
Can anyone seriously believe that the quest for self is a rarity? That only a few brave souls seek self-knowledge? I beg to differ with you on that one. I think that almost everyone seeks self-knowledge at some point in their lives. The only difference is that most people, once they believe they have found it, stop looking unless something shakes them up real badly, like a death or a divorce or a close call. This is why almost everyone who gets a divorce has a crisis and often completely changes their lifestyle.
Attempting to reinvent it as something rare and unique that only a precious few experience seems self-indulgent. Sort of the same line of malarkey as "Native Americans used to treat mental illness as a sacred gift".
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php/topic,31297.15/msg,1134963.html
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 07:45:03 PM
Quote from: Don Coyote on January 09, 2012, 07:43:20 PM
I am still confused by all of this.
I don't think I'm confused anymore.
I think the idea is to fill your head with bullshit to counter the bullshit society put there.
But what that really means is, your head now has twice as much bullshit in it.
It's the same kind of stuff that got into the occult, only to because I wanted to understand the underlying principles, which lead me to understanding that it is all mostly....wait, I think I've been here before.
Quote from: Don Coyote on January 09, 2012, 07:48:24 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 07:45:03 PM
Quote from: Don Coyote on January 09, 2012, 07:43:20 PM
I am still confused by all of this.
I don't think I'm confused anymore.
I think the idea is to fill your head with bullshit to counter the bullshit society put there.
But what that really means is, your head now has twice as much bullshit in it.
It's the same kind of stuff that got into the occult, only to because I wanted to understand the underlying principles, which lead me to understanding that it is all mostly....wait, I think I've been here before.
It is my belief - let me stress that, my belief - that you don't see reality by cluttering your brain up with mumbo jumbo. You see reality by looking at the world around you and saying "What if I'm completely wrong about what this shit means? What else could it mean?", and then running scenarios in your head, discarding the ones that don't fit the available data.
The fun part about that is that little details of connected events that don't seem to mean anything can mean a great deal, indeed. Alan Moore wrote about that, called it "Anomaly Theory". So if you're paying attention, and really making an effort to look at shit the way it really is, rather than the way Coyote would like it to be, you find some really neat, sometimes funny or horrible, details that connect similar events.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 07:24:43 PM
I'm gonna have to elaborate on that a bit.
Spiders, etc, has some sort of meaning for people here, as many participated in the design of the mental model. Same with BIP, same with The Machine™. The HGA and all that other shit was someone else's mental model, someone in fact known for being quite the hoaxer. Good on him, but I make a distinction here.
I mean, it's no different than if we used the Subgenius term "The Conspiracy" rather than "The Machine™". It's borrowing from sources that have already had time to gel into dogma.
And if we tell a story to illustrate a point, to get people to think, that's a little different than performing hokey rituals to get OURSELVES to think. I don't need rituals, that's what I have other Discordians for.
This.
By dressing up commonplace experiences in new terms and refusing to use the pre-existing terms, we're basically pretending that we have identified a new human experience, which is indulging in self-deception.
It's fine to use the Chapel Perilous metaphor; it's the insistence on pretending it (as a common human experience) hasn't already been described, named, and defined in other words that is pure straight-up occultist wankery.
Quote from: Don Coyote on January 09, 2012, 07:48:24 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 07:45:03 PM
Quote from: Don Coyote on January 09, 2012, 07:43:20 PM
I am still confused by all of this.
I don't think I'm confused anymore.
I think the idea is to fill your head with bullshit to counter the bullshit society put there.
But what that really means is, your head now has twice as much bullshit in it.
It's the same kind of stuff that got into the occult, only to because I wanted to understand the underlying principles, which lead me to understanding that it is all mostly....wait, I think I've been here before.
Yes.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 07:24:43 PMAnd if we tell a story to illustrate a point, to get people to think, that's a little different than performing hokey rituals to get OURSELVES to think. I don't need rituals, that's what I have other Discordians for.
eh, different strokes for different folks
Once upon a time, I was a young christian flirting with atheism
then I was a young atheist flirting with paganism
then I was a bad taoist who met Eris on the Internet, then later in a dream...
at each of those stages, I needed different language to make sense of the experiences I was having.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 08:02:43 PM
eh, different strokes for different folks
Well, yeah. This isn't
communism, after all. :lulz:
But I personally prefer the regular way of saying shit.
1. To err is to be a primate.
2. To ADMIT error is to be a human.
3. To admit error in the back of a squadcar, with weird lumps all over you and no pance is to be TGRR.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 08:02:43 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 07:24:43 PMAnd if we tell a story to illustrate a point, to get people to think, that's a little different than performing hokey rituals to get OURSELVES to think. I don't need rituals, that's what I have other Discordians for.
eh, different strokes for different folks
Once upon a time, I was a young christian flirting with atheism
then I was a young atheist flirting with paganism
then I was a bad taoist who met Eris on the Internet, then later in a dream...
at each of those stages, I needed different language to make sense of the experiences I was having.
I think that's cool, but it does make having discussions on certain topics hard, if not impossible, due (artificial) language barriers.
I think a good parallel would holist's thread on homeopathy.
By using new, or different, terminology, you get people discussing the map instead of the territory.
Quote from: Don Coyote on January 09, 2012, 08:06:38 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 08:02:43 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 07:24:43 PMAnd if we tell a story to illustrate a point, to get people to think, that's a little different than performing hokey rituals to get OURSELVES to think. I don't need rituals, that's what I have other Discordians for.
eh, different strokes for different folks
Once upon a time, I was a young christian flirting with atheism
then I was a young atheist flirting with paganism
then I was a bad taoist who met Eris on the Internet, then later in a dream...
at each of those stages, I needed different language to make sense of the experiences I was having.
I think that's cool, but it does make having discussions on certain topics hard, if not impossible, due (artificial) language barriers.
I think a good parallel would holist's thread on homeopathy.
By using new, or different, terminology, you get people discussing the map instead of the territory.
And you start thinking of the map as the territory.
I knew we were in for a raft of shit the moment Rat mentioned the HGA.
I THINK
Chapel Perilous and similar expressions/metaphors started out from the experience of WEIRD SHIT™ going on, so much so that you start to wonder if everything you've ever believed is completely and utterly WRONG.
Emotionally, you're lost, and terrified -- there is no foundation, you don't know what you know, or how you know it.
WEIRD SHIT™ you can't explain keeps happening. You can't help starting to make connections which are batshit crazy, but you can't think of any other way to explain it.
Reality as you perceive it has turned upside down. You have the wrong map, and you realize that the map is just that, a MAP, and it isn't actually reality.
And then the WERID SHIT™ stops for a while, and you either have a better understanding of how your brain works, or you suffer long-lasting emotional trauma.
I THINK
We have better language for what's happening than we used to, so we don't have to use vague metaphors anymore -- we can use more precise metaphors. But that's not to say that Chapel Perilous was always bullshit. It was a start, and it represented something that has happened with enough regularity that someone decided to try to label it.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on January 09, 2012, 08:10:29 PM
I THINK
Chapel Perilous and similar expressions/metaphors started out from the experience of WEIRD SHIT™ going on, so much so that you start to wonder if everything you've ever believed is completely and utterly WRONG.
Emotionally, you're lost, and terrified -- there is no foundation, you don't know what you know, or how you know it.
WEIRD SHIT™ you can't explain keeps happening. You can't help starting to make connections which are batshit crazy, but you can't think of any other way to explain it.
Reality as you perceive it has turned upside down. You have the wrong map, and you realize that the map is just that, a MAP, and it isn't actually reality.
And then the WERID SHIT™ stops for a while, and you either have a better understanding of how your brain works, or you suffer long-lasting emotional trauma.
I THINK
We have better language for what's happening than we used to, so we don't have to use vague metaphors anymore -- we can use more precise metaphors. But that's not to say that Chapel Perilous was always bullshit. It was a start, and it represented something that has happened with enough regularity that someone decided to try to label it.
What's wrong with "identity crisis"?
I mean, I realize that I'm totally wrong about shit all the fucking time. Sometimes it's pretty major shit, usually it's fairly mundane.
Even when it's horrendous...Like, say, when you visit a doll factory, and you learn what the REAL world is REALLY like, that the universe is NOT as advertized, then there's no need for mumbo jumbo. Just a big injection of something that makes you not care until the shock passes, and then maybe a decade or two to process it a bit at a time.
It really seems to me that in fact dressing it up in mumbo jumbo would be HARMFUL, because when your worldview is completely blown to pieces, the last thing you want floating around in your head is some weird pseudo-religious crap. No, you need coffee and cigarettes and poor behavior.
Anyway, that's one of the only two times in my life that my worldview was seriously altered, so it's the only experience I have on the matter.
Quote from: Nigel on January 09, 2012, 07:59:43 PM
By dressing up commonplace experiences in new terms and refusing to use the pre-existing terms, we're basically pretending that we have identified a new human experience, which is indulging in self-deception.
It's fine to use the Chapel Perilous metaphor; it's the insistence on pretending it (as a common human experience) hasn't already been described, named, and defined in other words that is pure straight-up occultist wankery.
I'm missing how using an established metaphor is a claim that nobody's had that experience before.
I mean, when the BIP stuff was being hashed out, I don't think anybody thought they were
original thoughts, they were just a way of describing this concept to a Discordian audience. Maybe that was wankery of us for not using somebody else's established terms, or sufficiently tipping our hat to Phillip K Dick, but I honestly don't think it matters.
Quote from: Don Coyote on January 09, 2012, 08:06:38 PM
I think that's cool, but it does make having discussions on certain topics hard, if not impossible, due (artificial) language barriers.
I think a good parallel would holist's thread on homeopathy.
By using new, or different, terminology, you get people discussing the map instead of the territory.
There's no accurate "map" of internal or spiritual experiences, no "correct" way to describe how to discover the self, so we have to use different metaphors. Every religion is an effort towards this end.
If we are discussing something material, (like whether or not homeopathy works) it's really useful for everybody to be on the same linguistic page. I feel that spiritual matters shouldn't be held up to the same standard. There's no objective "right" and "wrong" when you're deciding which myth is most meaningful to you.
I think it's like any other metaphor or phraseology or symbology that has come and gone around here. Some of it clicks with some people, some of it clicks with a lot of people, some of it clicks with very few people.
Which is little different from the world writ large.
I think it is interesting at probing around this existence using different tools every now and again. Sometimes it can open up new possibilities that perhaps still may have come around eventually, but sooner rather than later is nice.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 05:33:43 PMFor example, I have no ability to accurately describe Taoism. If I wrote a smart book about, it would still be a distraction.
And the coolest thing is, you actually (sorta/kinda)
did!! ;-)
Getting back to the topic at hand, I'm observing two things:
- I think it might have saved some trouble, not stroke some of us the wrong way, if this thread would have started out with "this is Antero Ali on what he calls the Chapel Perilous, it's a metaphor that is somewhat related to the jailbreaking of the BIP" instead of putting it out there, as a "thing", a mysterious thing that nobody seems to really want to define, even. Which is okay because it's somebody else's metaphor for something personally specific. Then we can discuss how it overlaps with our "jailbreak" meme and perhaps see if he's got some additional insights in that respect, how well they fit, and whether we can augment ours.
- The other thing is for Roger. If I'm not mistaken, you did the major parts of your jailbreaking a long, long time ago. And you did it with (among other things I'm sure) the "dinosaur method" you described. But it is a very personal thing to do, to experience, everyone goes through it in their own way. Take P3NT4, for example, he killed his ego (or something not quite like that--ask him), literally fought it, but not by stomping on it like a dinosaur, it was way too clever for that.
Regardless, while the stomping method might not be for everyone as-it-is, your explanations and many descriptions (and sometimes even the repeatedly shoving in our faces :) ) because (for one thing) it shows us not to sit and navelgaze and think about it too much, because charging in head-first is also a workable option, as you are the living example--believe it or not some of us might have never
considered that if it weren't for you.
Oh and I really liked your two-coloured-bullshit parable. I didn't understand it in the other thread at first, but with the context here, now I do :)
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 09, 2012, 08:47:57 PM
- The other thing is for Roger. If I'm not mistaken, you did the major parts of your jailbreaking a long, long time ago. And you did it with (among other things I'm sure) the "dinosaur method" you described. But it is a very personal thing to do, to experience, everyone goes through it in their own way. Take P3NT4, for example, he killed his ego (or something not quite like that--ask him), literally fought it, but not by stomping on it like a dinosaur, it was way too clever for that.
Regardless, while the stomping method might not be for everyone as-it-is, your explanations and many descriptions (and sometimes even the repeatedly shoving in our faces :) ) because (for one thing) it shows us not to sit and navelgaze and think about it too much, because charging in head-first is also a workable option, as you are the living example--believe it or not some of us might have never considered that if it weren't for you.
Oh and I really liked your two-coloured-bullshit parable. I didn't understand it in the other thread at first, but with the context here, now I do :)
First: Actually, I was fortunate enough to be given an education in what's real and what's not, a couple of decades ago. It was more or less handed to me - at least on a mental level - on a platter, in a way that is not likely to leave me susceptable to relapse.
Now, the dinosaur method is a very valid way of dealing with the universe taking off all its clothes and doing the hoochie dance in your face
1, but it DOES require 10-20 years of post-grad work involving alcohol and irresponsible behavior to process properly.
One downside is that everyone else thinks you're some kind of PTSD asshole. You, on the other hand, know that the people saying that are usually a pack of delusional EARTHLING FOOLS who still think they live in a world fit for intelligent beings. They don't realize that not only does something have to die every time you eat (what kind of future does a world like THAT have?), but that someone usually has to be a slave or die for you to get damn near anything you want
2.
Second: Adding bullshit - to my mind - doesn't work, for the same reason that throwing mud on your windshield to get rid of the frost doesn't work. You're adding needless garbage, not clearing up the situation. I can't speak for anyone else, but staring into my navel while mumbling shit about a "Holy Guardian Angel" isn't going to clear my head at all. It's just going to make me look really silly.
3Third: I don't know if my method works for everyone - or even anyone - else. But I do know it works for me. And I don't have to put on a silly hat or draw squiggly pictures to do it. It DOES carry the significant risk of alienating people, though...Especially if you're dumb enough - as I am - to point shit out to other people.
1 Which would be okay if the universe was hot. But it's 20 billion years old, and really fat & wrinkly.
2 It's the old biblical view of slavery: "Someone has to do the shit work." You want a pair of jeans? Little 9 year old Wu Tzen will get right on it. You want to get all fucked up on recreational drugs? Someone probably got killed in connection with them, one way or another (please let's not let this turn into a legalization discussion, right now that's the way it is.).
3 It may also gain me a small cult-like following of dumbasses, which is in itself the worst curse I can think of inflicting on anyone, smelly trustafarian sex notwithstanding. It's a sort of HELL ON EARTH that poor old Aliester Crowley thought was better than working. He was wrong.
Right on! See and that's what I like about your position on this sort of thing, when you tell it you say exactly what you mean without beating around the bush.
And I suppose the lack of that is what's bugging you ITT.
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 09, 2012, 09:18:09 PM
Right on! See and that's what I like about your position on this sort of thing, when you tell it you say exactly what you mean without beating around the bush.
And I suppose the lack of that is what's bugging you ITT.
Well, no, not really.
What's bugging me is that
to me the whole CP/HGA thing looks like needless complication. While I am not a mathematician, I was one once upon a time, long, long ago...I have forgotten damn near all of it, but the one thing I still have is the need to simplify things, to have an elegant solution.
Stuffing your brain with nonsense to deal with an identity crisis sounds too much like drinking every night because you're depressed. Sure, it has its appeal, but it doesn't help, it just makes you feel better temporarily
while it fucks you up even worse.Also, I just can't keep a straight face when someone starts talking about that sort of shit. I have an aversion to it, because it
isn't real. It's indulging in fantasy, not looking at the world through clear eyes. If I want to indulge in fantasy, I'll read a book or play D&D.
I think part of what makes it tempting to talk about these experiences as though they are rare is that the type of people who come out and talk about them are the sort of people who look at the world as it is and think it shouldn't be this way.
I mean, Roger talks a lot about how this isn't the future we were promised and it isn't the future any sane reality would endorse. I think we can all get behind that.
But it doesn't jive very well with the idea that everyone has similar experiences to those in the 'Chapel Perilous', or that everyone seriously stops and tries to look at the bars of the BIP, or if you like, that everyone stops, pauses, and has some self reflection which makes them realize they are living in a way that is not in accordance with reality.
Surely if these were common feelings, more people would be screaming and shouting to try and point out the absurdity of modern living, wouldn't they?
But they don't. I feel very disconnected from a lot of people in my life precisely because they don't seem to ever consider that they might not be operating with all the facts. My family, the people I work with, some of my friends.
That's why I think this sort of terminology is a good thing. It means that when someone does find themselves challenged, they are less likely to immediately brush it off. The more ways there are of saying 'your brain does not always have your best interests at heart', the more likely it is that someone will find a way of comprehending that message which makes sense to them.
Like people have said, it is a very personal experience, and it hits everybody differently. I sometimes fear, genuinely fear, that I'm missing something; that I'm not in on the whole joke and something very important is passing me by.
To me, the value of Discordianism is that it tells us... you're right. You aren't getting it.
I think that if everyone went through the Chapel Perilous (which seems to be a particular kind of self reflection which ends with a realization which stays with the individual, rather than generic self reflection), then the world would look very different to the way it does.
So yeah. Maybe it is woo-woo bullshit to some people. We're not talking something where absolutes and concrete evidence are possible, let alone desirable. We're talking about what it means to be a human being. If you try and cut out the woo-woo personal part of it, I think you cut out a lot of the human experience.
Demo, I have a rebuttal, but I ALSO have ANOTHER FUCKING MEETING TO ATTEND.
I will get to this as soon as I can.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 10:05:21 PM
Demo, I have a rebuttal, but I ALSO have ANOTHER FUCKING MEETING TO ATTEND.
I will get to this as soon as I can.
S'cool, I need to go to bed - got to be up and putting on my human guise in way too short a time. Then I need to endure the trip into London without murdering anyone on the tube (you'll never get the stains out). Then I get to sit in a room with six other people all silently staring at their screens. The only noise we're allowed is the hammering of fingers on keys.
It becomes almost hypnotic you know. The hammering, I mean. You're pounding out words into the ether. You're probably shouting about how something you
know is shit is worth all the investment capital in the world, because those people pay us the low low price of £1999.99, and that entitles them to define the truth as whatever suits them best. That article will net easily two or three hundred views in the first week, maybe a thousand over the course of the year.
Then sometimes you get to break that monotony, the lying and the bullshit, and you hammer out a few hundred words on something you actually believe in. You manage to tear everyone else away from the hammering long enough to sell this idea; something that will Enrich the Site. We're all trying to Enrich the Site you see; if it isn't Enriched, how will it grow?
Maybe there's a project coming up that really does seem promising, or a sector which seems like a real opportunity. Maybe there's a group of people in a backwater village really trying to sell themselves to buck the economic downturn, and you do your best. You give the world the truth. Maybe you even give it the Truth(tm), because if anyone deserves a break it is the little guys, right? So you try.
And that article will net 12 views in the first week, six of which were you and your colleagues checking that it was all uploaded properly, and it will sink, and die. And your boss will laugh and say, 'hey, it was a good shot, lets just be glad we don't have to
justify any costs on that.
And then you'll sit back down, and someone will pass you another job. Hey, it turns out semicolons are bad for the site. Readers don't like them; it confuses them. They'd much rather people stuck to commas, or colons. Semicolons are out. Go back and replace them. It shouldn't take too long. There's only five hundred million words on the site. Get those fingers clacking.
But hey, at least I'm
aware. I'm the main character in the story of my life. I'm living an epic drama in the modern age. :lulz:
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 06:49:38 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:46:10 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 07, 2012, 06:41:25 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 07, 2012, 06:39:23 AM
I don't get Chapel Perilous either. I feel like maybe I'm supposed to, but I don't.
I gather - but I'm not sure - that it's similar to the 1960s "finding yourself" thing. Or else it's people freaking out because they realized they aren't made out of plastic or something. Or navel-gazing. Dunno.
I've never gotten the "finding yourself" thing. I'M RIGHT HERE.
I might be a mess, but at least I know exactly where I am.
SEE THAT PILE OF BROKEN STUFF? THAT'S ME! :lol:
Nigel and Freeky, I am glad to hear that I'm not the only one who has no fucking idea what this is all about. I'm beginning to suspect that nobody does, that it's a piece of jargon that everyone PRETENDS to understand, because they're embarrassed that they don't, and they think everyone else does.
I came here to say the emperor is but-ass nekkit...and yuor chapel looks like a giant vagina.
Ha ha.
Quote from: Don Coyote on January 09, 2012, 08:06:38 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 08:02:43 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 09, 2012, 07:24:43 PMAnd if we tell a story to illustrate a point, to get people to think, that's a little different than performing hokey rituals to get OURSELVES to think. I don't need rituals, that's what I have other Discordians for.
eh, different strokes for different folks
Once upon a time, I was a young christian flirting with atheism
then I was a young atheist flirting with paganism
then I was a bad taoist who met Eris on the Internet, then later in a dream...
at each of those stages, I needed different language to make sense of the experiences I was having.
I think that's cool, but it does make having discussions on certain topics hard, if not impossible, due (artificial) language barriers.
I think a good parallel would holist's thread on homeopathy.
By using new, or different, terminology, you get people discussing the map instead of the territory.
That's actually an excellent analogy.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 08:17:29 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 09, 2012, 07:59:43 PM
By dressing up commonplace experiences in new terms and refusing to use the pre-existing terms, we're basically pretending that we have identified a new human experience, which is indulging in self-deception.
It's fine to use the Chapel Perilous metaphor; it's the insistence on pretending it (as a common human experience) hasn't already been described, named, and defined in other words that is pure straight-up occultist wankery.
I'm missing how using an established metaphor is a claim that nobody's had that experience before.
I mean, when the BIP stuff was being hashed out, I don't think anybody thought they were original thoughts, they were just a way of describing this concept to a Discordian audience. Maybe that was wankery of us for not using somebody else's established terms, or sufficiently tipping our hat to Phillip K Dick, but I honestly don't think it matters.
Quote from: Don Coyote on January 09, 2012, 08:06:38 PM
I think that's cool, but it does make having discussions on certain topics hard, if not impossible, due (artificial) language barriers.
I think a good parallel would holist's thread on homeopathy.
By using new, or different, terminology, you get people discussing the map instead of the territory.
There's no accurate "map" of internal or spiritual experiences, no "correct" way to describe how to discover the self, so we have to use different metaphors. Every religion is an effort towards this end.
If we are discussing something material, (like whether or not homeopathy works) it's really useful for everybody to be on the same linguistic page. I feel that spiritual matters shouldn't be held up to the same standard. There's no objective "right" and "wrong" when you're deciding which myth is most meaningful to you.
As I think I said in plain terms in the post you quoted, the wankery isn't in using a different metaphor. The wankery is in refusing to use common terms for the same experience in explaining the metaphor, in order to make it clear to people who are not familiar with the term and want to know what you're talking about.
For instance, if someone asks "what is the Black Iron Prison?" are you going to pussyfoot around as if it's some kind of esoteric knowledge, or are you going to explain it as clearly as possible using terms that are already in use for the same phenomenon?
Quote from: Demolition_Squid on January 09, 2012, 09:58:54 PM
I think part of what makes it tempting to talk about these experiences as though they are rare is that the type of people who come out and talk about them are the sort of people who look at the world as it is and think it shouldn't be this way.
I mean, Roger talks a lot about how this isn't the future we were promised and it isn't the future any sane reality would endorse. I think we can all get behind that.
But it doesn't jive very well with the idea that everyone has similar experiences to those in the 'Chapel Perilous', or that everyone seriously stops and tries to look at the bars of the BIP, or if you like, that everyone stops, pauses, and has some self reflection which makes them realize they are living in a way that is not in accordance with reality.
Surely if these were common feelings, more people would be screaming and shouting to try and point out the absurdity of modern living, wouldn't they?
But they don't. I feel very disconnected from a lot of people in my life precisely because they don't seem to ever consider that they might not be operating with all the facts. My family, the people I work with, some of my friends.
That's why I think this sort of terminology is a good thing. It means that when someone does find themselves challenged, they are less likely to immediately brush it off. The more ways there are of saying 'your brain does not always have your best interests at heart', the more likely it is that someone will find a way of comprehending that message which makes sense to them.
Like people have said, it is a very personal experience, and it hits everybody differently. I sometimes fear, genuinely fear, that I'm missing something; that I'm not in on the whole joke and something very important is passing me by.
To me, the value of Discordianism is that it tells us... you're right. You aren't getting it.
I think that if everyone went through the Chapel Perilous (which seems to be a particular kind of self reflection which ends with a realization which stays with the individual, rather than generic self reflection), then the world would look very different to the way it does.
So yeah. Maybe it is woo-woo bullshit to some people. We're not talking something where absolutes and concrete evidence are possible, let alone desirable. We're talking about what it means to be a human being. If you try and cut out the woo-woo personal part of it, I think you cut out a lot of the human experience.
Almost everyone has a reality crisis at some point in their life, usually for the first time in their teens/early 20's. The difference, as I've mentioned before, is whether they decide to stop trying to figure whit out once they think they have it right the first time. Remember making sense of the world that first time?
I (and others) have said over and over again that the objection I have to the Chapel Perilous metaphor is not the fact that it's being used, it's the way in which it is usually presented, with poor or obfuscating explanation that implies that it's something different from other metaphors for the same thing. So please, if you could stop misrepresenting my objection that would be GREAT.
Also, the argument that Chapel Perilous can't really be defined or explained because it's different for everyone just like spirituality, well... that's exactly what I mean.
Quote from: Nigel on January 10, 2012, 12:46:27 AM
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 08:17:29 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 09, 2012, 07:59:43 PM
By dressing up commonplace experiences in new terms and refusing to use the pre-existing terms, we're basically pretending that we have identified a new human experience, which is indulging in self-deception.
It's fine to use the Chapel Perilous metaphor; it's the insistence on pretending it (as a common human experience) hasn't already been described, named, and defined in other words that is pure straight-up occultist wankery.
I'm missing how using an established metaphor is a claim that nobody's had that experience before.
I mean, when the BIP stuff was being hashed out, I don't think anybody thought they were original thoughts, they were just a way of describing this concept to a Discordian audience. Maybe that was wankery of us for not using somebody else's established terms, or sufficiently tipping our hat to Phillip K Dick, but I honestly don't think it matters.
Quote from: Don Coyote on January 09, 2012, 08:06:38 PM
I think that's cool, but it does make having discussions on certain topics hard, if not impossible, due (artificial) language barriers.
I think a good parallel would holist's thread on homeopathy.
By using new, or different, terminology, you get people discussing the map instead of the territory.
There's no accurate "map" of internal or spiritual experiences, no "correct" way to describe how to discover the self, so we have to use different metaphors. Every religion is an effort towards this end.
If we are discussing something material, (like whether or not homeopathy works) it's really useful for everybody to be on the same linguistic page. I feel that spiritual matters shouldn't be held up to the same standard. There's no objective "right" and "wrong" when you're deciding which myth is most meaningful to you.
As I think I said in plain terms in the post you quoted, the wankery isn't in using a different metaphor. The wankery is in refusing to use common terms for the same experience in explaining the metaphor, in order to make it clear to people who are not familiar with the term and want to know what you're talking about.
For instance, if someone asks "what is the Black Iron Prison?" are you going to pussyfoot around as if it's some kind of esoteric knowledge, or are you going to explain it as clearly as possible using terms that are already in use for the same phenomenon?
word, that makes sense
I strongly suspect that the experience of being jailbroken / chapel perilous'd / absurdified isn't that uncommon. That everyone will experience it if they manage to live long enough, although not necessarily with the level of disintegration of personality and/or potentially occult elements that Ratatosk describes.
But most people don't come out paranoid or agnostic or crawls into some insulated fundamentalist fantasy world. They come out confused, yes, but eventually start acting 'normal' again. Because after you realize that you don't believe in anything, you have to do something - and other people look normal from the outside. So they have to know something you don't, right? So I'll just do what they do for now, because not rocking too many boats keeps me and mine fed and clothed... and then you keep doing it, and doing, and doing it - and you never quite become it, but you know that something is wrong because you know you've had this experience and nobody fucking else is acting like it, except the people who are obviously crazy, and that can't be the correct response, right? And what you end up with is a collection of behaviors and beliefs which you know aren't right, because you just don't see any viable alternative. Maybe you forget that you can't believe anything after a while. Maybe you never lose that sense of alienation from everyone else who seems able to happily believe stuff that you know can't be true.
It's not about waking people up, because people wake up all the time - and then roll right back over because all the lights are off and it clearly isn't time to get out of bed yet. Which is why you need crazy people like Diogenes with that obnoxious lantern, not because it illuminates anything in particular, but because people need to see that signal that the lights are on and it's okay to get out of bed. That's the reason we need the "Clown Prophet" archetype like TGRR and the zanier OT prophets - they create "space" to go crazy in, prove that there is somewhere to land when you make that Leap Of Faith. It's scary to go crazy on your own - you could end up anywhere, and 'nailed to a tree' is one of the better possibilities.
I also disagree with making that state all mystified, because it helps with impression that nobody you've met has ever experienced anything like it.
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sheeple.png)
etc
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on January 10, 2012, 06:03:53 AM
I also disagree with making that state all mystified, because it helps with impression that nobody you've met has ever experienced anything like it.
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sheeple.png)
etc
This
so much this.
A long time ago, when I was a wee young whippernsnapper, drinking alcohol irresponsibly, chasing girls and staying up late all night (no, not last week), part of my course in Religious Philosophy (a class taken exclusively by atheists) was about varieties of religious experiences.
What struck me, even back then, was how a number of religious experiences were similar to a nervous breakdown, and how these were similar to other certain events (like PKD's VALIS episode). Later on, when I came across Discordianism and RAW, and the occult, Chapel Perilous and certain occultists seemed to be describing a very similar thing.
I have a few ideas of what that experience may be, and why it differs in its particulars, but, not having gone through it myself, I'm hesistant to speculate too much. However, I also suspect it is the kind of thing the Scottish psychotherapist R.D. Laing was sometimes going on about, when he talked about ontological insecurity and similar topics.
Interesting conversation so far.
CP isn't any more 'occult' than the BiP. Its a metaphor, its presented as metaphor and its discussed as a metaphor. For people that haven't read Cosmic Trigger, and instead just read some posts on PD about the subject, I'm not surprised that its seen as a simple mundane thing that everyone probably experiences.
Cram mentioned the Hero's Journey which Campbell says everyone experiences.. the process of going from the Fool (the child) to something more. Just because everyone takes that journey, it doesn't mean they all visit CP. In fact, even if they do enter CP, there's no guarantee that they will come out of it. Some people get stuck there, some people never enter. Its not a requirement for the Hero's Journey, but its a part of the Hero's journey that some people experience. In my experience, its generally when someone held a very strong belief system and that belief system collapsed... leaving them unsure of what they believe. Once the internal psychological effects begin to manifest in a physical way, it can leave them unsure of what they know, let alone what they believe.
It is 'occult' only in the sense that its metaphor and the individual experience can vary wildly because its subjective.
To me, the occult "Holy Guardian Angel" is a problem, because it entails a specific belief system and the bizarre subjective experience could throw a person from Belief System A to Belief System B... they might be changing cell blocks, but they still don't see the cell. Guys like Antero, RAW, Carroll, Hine etc. demystify quite a bit in their writings. For example, Bob equates the HGA with Alien visits, the Virgin Mary, AWISS etc etc etc... all as part of the Chapel Perilous experience. Instead of saying "I know the truth, believe this" it tears apart different experiences and says "Hey look, all these people experienced some weird things... there are some striking similarities, almost as if it was the same kind of experience wearing different masks based on the subjective beliefs of the individual".
In the occult (and I've read a lot of it), they present a map and lead you to believe that it must be the territory. If someone reads Cosmic Trigger and comes to that kind of conclusion, they should read it again.
I personally, enjoy examining the occult under a microscope, not to find the really real magical spells or anything... but to see the subjective experiences, the different reality tunnels that individuals experience. Antero's more recent book "On the Archeology of the Soul", for example, studies the historical subjective 'ecstatic experience'. He finds the commonalities across different cultures and different belief systems then strips away all of the 'occult', looking for a clear way to have the experience minus the belief system. To me, this sort of stuff is a dissection of the occult in an attempt to get rid of the bullshit.
Sure metaphors still get used, but they're obvious metaphors, they're discussed as metaphors. In the 'occult' books, you don't find that. They're more than happy to try to convince you that the "energy" you're visualizing is really real for real... or that the "out of body experience" you had REALLY WAS your spirit leaving your body. RAW's stuff, for me, was illuminating and clarifying... not only about all the BS I had been reading, but it helped me immensely to understand my own subjective experience when my reality went to hell.
As I said to start with... Its no more or less 'occult' than the BiP.
Quote from: Nigel on January 10, 2012, 06:50:23 AM
Quote from: Golden Applesauce on January 10, 2012, 06:03:53 AM
I also disagree with making that state all mystified, because it helps with impression that nobody you've met has ever experienced anything like it.
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sheeple.png)
etc
This
so much this.
I KNOW WHO THE FUCK I AM! WHO ARE ALL OF
YOU ZOMBIES?
Quote from: Bebek Sincap Ratatosk on January 10, 2012, 12:18:47 PM
Interesting conversation so far.
CP isn't any more 'occult' than the BiP. Its a metaphor, its presented as metaphor and its discussed as a metaphor. For people that haven't read Cosmic Trigger, and instead just read some posts on PD about the subject, I'm not surprised that its seen as a simple mundane thing that everyone probably experiences.
Cram mentioned the Hero's Journey which Campbell says everyone experiences.. the process of going from the Fool (the child) to something more. Just because everyone takes that journey, it doesn't mean they all visit CP. In fact, even if they do enter CP, there's no guarantee that they will come out of it.
Sure metaphors still get used, but they're obvious metaphors, they're discussed as metaphors. In the 'occult' books, you don't find that. They're more than happy to try to convince you that the "energy" you're visualizing is really real for real... or that the "out of body experience" you had REALLY WAS your spirit leaving your body. RAW's stuff, for me, was illuminating and clarifying... not only about all the BS I had been reading, but it helped me immensely to understand my own subjective experience when my reality went to hell.
I'm with this. I also like LMNO's "Weird Shit
(tm)" take. It's kind of simple and to the point.
Hit me with some special snowflake horse-shit, but CP is definitely not a trip everyone takes. It's not an identity crisis, it's not a mundane reality crisis, it's something else entirely. Unfortunately it truly does defy a simple explanation, at least insofar as I am able to offer one.
I'd personally take LMNO's and add a mania aspect. I call it "Evil Emperor Fractal Fuck". Weird Shit
(tm) happens, bat-shit connections ensue, with the kicker that, of course, these bat-shit connections don't really form a cohesive reality so Evil Emperor Fractal Fuck recursive's the bat-shit through some means I don't want to ever know, and then you find yourself with more and more Weird Shit
(tm) for the Emperor to write "reality" around.
Finding your way out of CP is not a simple process of trading one map for another, because no map is ever adequate. Instead, without some kind of outside nudge, or HGA or whatever the fuck you want to call it, you just get stuck in a process of trading map for map for map, each one progressively more and more bat-shit, more and more lost. The rapidity of blowing and re-blowing your mind becomes pretty difficult to take. The paranoia, at least for me, was completely overwhelming. There was no, as suggested, observing other people and just imitating their "normal", simply because "other people" was a construct that could easily change 5 times in a day, countless times over the years it took me to find my way out.
None of this "feels better". None of this is dressing shit up, indulging in fantasy or screwing around with sigils and shit. Although all of that may play a part, the trip through CP is not a step by step walk where at any given point one can just say "okay, that was neat...think I'll go play Nintendo." Beyond a certain point it's just a fucking ride that simply doesn't stop until it's over. Letting EEFF re-write your whole reality isn't a habit, it's a mania. And yeah, I would imagine one of the worst case scenarios would be a full nervous breakdown.
The HGA part, I have to stand behind. Not because it gives it some hokey occult significance, but because it kind of "is" the way out. Okay, so maybe my precognition is off the hook, but that can be explained in terms of the following bat-shit map. And maybe that thing that just happened looked an awful lot like telekinesis, but again, there's a perfectly reasonable bat-shit map to account for that. And maybe, maybe, in an effort to find something recognizably real you had some dude swing a bar-stool at you, but when he reeled back to take a swing all of a sudden you both realized he wasn't holding a bar-stool, and both of you distinctly remember there being a bar stool, but neither of you can be sure that memory wasn't false...again...Evil Emperor Fractal Fuck can cover that shit.
But the HGA is so very undeniably there that either the completely fucking over the top thing that it is is "real"--in which case welcome to the Matrix, inhabitants-YOU, or you can't believe anything at all about it. It's not the guidance of the HGA that leads you out of CP, it's the uncertainty of it's nature that offers exit. It simply cannot be patched into the picture by EEFF, no matter how bat-shit a map you're willing to embrace, so it's either a raw fucking sensory overloading map=reality (stone paranoia) or the map is a thought and reality is the territory (agnosticism).
I think that's about as clear as I can explain how I see it.
(Me, I chose agnosticism, and have been nodding in agreement with anyone who calls all of the above "bullshit shoveled into bullshit" ever since)
^^^mittens to you.
Also, I've had my mind blown and reblown so many times by so many fine bitches, I can't get it up anymore when people start screaming their porno in my fayce.
Quote from: navkat on January 11, 2012, 08:19:57 AM
^^^mittens to you.
Also, I've had my mind blown and reblown so many times by so many fine bitches, I can't get it up anymore when people start screaming their porno in my fayce.
Can't relate. I can have my mind blow and re-blown by fine bitches, alright, but not without the 45 second reload period in between.
NoLeDeMiel, that was an excellent summation!
NoLeDeMiel also touches on an interesting aspect, and one not to be taken lightly. When this shit starts happening, you start losing all sense of objectivity. You can't see it from the outside and compare what's happening to your headmeats with the outside world. it is the world. It's Total Reality.
I know a lot of us here are fairly proficeint with "meta" mindstates (mind thinking about mind (thinking about mind)), and a lot of this thread is "how it looks from the outside", with an assumption that if it ever happened to me, well, I'd just snap out of it and use my Rationality-Fu to get over myself, already.
But it's not like that. There is no meta. If you try to self-analyze, you come to the same conclusions, because to you it really is happening. That's one reason some people are so quick to equate it with a kind of insanity (although I should point out, I've seen true insanity in person, and this ain't nothing like that).
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on January 11, 2012, 01:12:45 PM
NoLeDeMiel also touches on an interesting aspect, and one not to be taken lightly. When this shit starts happening, you start losing all sense of objectivity. You can't see it from the outside and compare what's happening to your headmeats with the outside world. it is the world. It's Total Reality.
Me, in early 2005. :lulz:
Hey, you had some help on that one. Namely, a nest of brain flukes partying in your skull.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on January 11, 2012, 02:16:41 PM
Hey, you had some help on that one. Namely, a nest of brain flukes partying in your skull.
That was 2010.
It's a multiple of five, so it's the same damn thing.
Bitches don't know about my numerology.
Quote from: Nigel on January 09, 2012, 07:45:57 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 05:33:43 PM
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?
Yes, yes; you are a unique and special snowflake, just like everyone else.
One of the things I like about Taoism as I understand it is that it doesn't rely on occultism; it points out that there is value in the mundane. Not only that, but that there is profundity in simpleness. Part of that is breaking complex concepts down to simple sentences.
If you cannot summarize something, do you really understand it?
One of the things I am starting to suspect from this conversation is that nobody here actually understands the Chapel Perilous, and that in fact it may be a rather incomplete and poorly thought-out navelgazing concept. It appears to be an attempt at making complex a simple and not-uncommon experience for the purposes of making people feel like magical unicorns.
Can anyone seriously believe that the quest for self is a rarity? That only a few brave souls seek self-knowledge? I beg to differ with you on that one. I think that almost everyone seeks self-knowledge at some point in their lives. The only difference is that most people, once they believe they have found it, stop looking unless something shakes them up real badly, like a death or a divorce or a close call. This is why almost everyone who gets a divorce has a crisis and often completely changes their lifestyle.
Attempting to reinvent it as something rare and unique that only a precious few experience seems self-indulgent. Sort of the same line of malarkey as "Native Americans used to treat mental illness as a sacred gift".
Thank you, this is what I meant by "ordinary".
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 05:33:43 PM
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?
It's /ordinary/. Don't confuse me with saying it's mundane, which has the connotation of boring, among others. This reminds me of the Yudowsky Quote "If we cannot take joy in the merely real, our lives will be empty indeed".
Those of you who have known me for more than a couple years know that I had a very intense series of Chapel Perilous internal situations. There was nothing mundane about it, it was sometimes terrifying, sometimes explosive, and always a mess, but it WAS ordinary, in terms of the majority of people have had some sort of Chapel Perilous experience. Not my specific experience, but A experience. Do we really need to always add a disclaimer that variation exists?
Quote from: ZL 'Kai' Burington, M.S. on January 11, 2012, 10:49:16 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 09, 2012, 07:45:57 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on January 09, 2012, 05:33:43 PM
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?
Yes, yes; you are a unique and special snowflake, just like everyone else.
One of the things I like about Taoism as I understand it is that it doesn't rely on occultism; it points out that there is value in the mundane. Not only that, but that there is profundity in simpleness. Part of that is breaking complex concepts down to simple sentences.
If you cannot summarize something, do you really understand it?
One of the things I am starting to suspect from this conversation is that nobody here actually understands the Chapel Perilous, and that in fact it may be a rather incomplete and poorly thought-out navelgazing concept. It appears to be an attempt at making complex a simple and not-uncommon experience for the purposes of making people feel like magical unicorns.
Can anyone seriously believe that the quest for self is a rarity? That only a few brave souls seek self-knowledge? I beg to differ with you on that one. I think that almost everyone seeks self-knowledge at some point in their lives. The only difference is that most people, once they believe they have found it, stop looking unless something shakes them up real badly, like a death or a divorce or a close call. This is why almost everyone who gets a divorce has a crisis and often completely changes their lifestyle.
Attempting to reinvent it as something rare and unique that only a precious few experience seems self-indulgent. Sort of the same line of malarkey as "Native Americans used to treat mental illness as a sacred gift".
Thank you, this is what I meant by "ordinary".
That's what I thought you meant... just because something is common, ordinary, or even mundane (in the dictionary sense of the word, which Piers Anthony ruined for everyone forever) doesn't mean it's tedious, banal, or mediocre.
Is the chapel perilous like the oath to the abyss?
Consciousness flows, ever-changing, from one moment to the next. However minutely or broadly, each nanosecond of experience differs in some way from the preceding one.
When we talk about a "state of consciousness," we make a generalization about a collection of such moments, that some aspects of consciousness remain constant, or at least similar, for a period of time. Even so, sensory experience continues its kaleidoscopic change. When we meditate, we ease into a session, first getting comfortable in our posture, then getting into the flow of meditation, then easing back out, aware of comfort or discomfort in our bodies, and turning our attention back outward. Rather than a singular state called "meditation," we may find a continually shifting experience, a process rather than a thing. A hypnotic trance induction has a beginning, middle and end. A psychedelic experience rises and falls as blood levels of chemicals peak and diminish. Sleep is characterized by several stages through the night.
Knowledge of how we get into and out of different states of consciousness can be incredibly useful in the practice of magick. Some rituals require that the magician be in a particular state prior to beginning. Some rituals – particularly rituals of invocation – are all about inducing powerful altered states of various kinds. It can be very important for a magician to be able to know when he or she is in a state, when the state is reaching its peak, and when it might be fading. In general, we usually are not aware of the process by which we change and enter states. Think about the last time you were happy – you may remember the content of the experience, the stimuli that pushed you in that direction but, unless you've played with these kinds of calibration techniques before, the actual feeling of the state coming on and building was likely to have occurred on an unconscious level. That is, you might remember the wonderful present that someone gave you and how happy that made you, but perhaps not the actual process of exactly how it changed you. Similarly, in magical practices we may work hard to remember the words and symbols of a ritual while the process of the experience slips past our awareness. It's okay. It's a normal experience. Now, let's find out how much we can bring state changes into conscious awareness.
The nature of a state may best be understood by paying attention to the differences between one state and the next and the differences from one moment to the next. To notice a difference, we first have to calibrate, to notice where and what we are now.
(From Brain Magick: Exercises in Meta-Magick and Invocation (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2011) © copyright 2011 Philip H. Farber)
Isn't that grotto the urinal at the Madonna Inn in Kalifornia? Anyway, I was too lazy to read all the posts here, but Chapel Perilous is just as mysterious as the Siege Perilous in the Grail mythology. No one here (or there) gets out alive.