Messages

Honey, I do just fine with joining science and religion, just letting you know.

I thought you did from your writings. 

I like what Albert Einstein said about Judaism.  People have described him as being more of a cultural Jew than a religious one.  He was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952 by Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.  He had been friends & working with its first president (a mostly symbolic role), Chaim Weizmann when he died.  He declined.  People say it was because of his age but no one really knows. 

There is, in my opinion, no Jewish view of life in the philosophic sense.  Judaism appears to me to be almost exclusively concerned with the moral attitude in and toward life.

. . . The essence of the Jewish concept of life seems to me to be the affirmation of life for all creatures.  For the life of the individual has meaning only in the service of enhancing and ennobling the life of every living thing.  Life is holy; it is the highest worth on which all other values depend . . .

Judaism is not a faith.  The Jewish God is but a negation of superstition and an imaginative result of its elimination.  He also represents an attempt to ground morality in fear-a deplorable, discreditable attempt.  Yet it seems to me that the powerful moral tradition in the Jewish people has, in great measure, released itself from this fear.  Moreover, it is clear that "to serve God" is equivalent to serving "every living thing."  It is for this that the best among the Jewish people, especially the Prophets including Jesus, ceaselessly battled.  Thus Judaism is not a transcendental religion.  It is concerned only with the tangible experiences of life, and with nothing else.  Therefore, it seems to me to be questionable whether it may termed a "religion" in the customary sense of the word, especially since no "creed" is demanded of Jews, but only the sanctification of life in its all-inclusive sense.

There remains, however, something more in the Jewish tradition, so gloriously revealed in certain of the psalms; namely a kind of drunken joy and surprise at the beauty and incomprehensibility of this world, of which man can attain but a faint intimation.  It is the feeling from which genuine research draws its intellectual strength, but which also seems to manifest itself in the song of birds. . . .

Is this, then, characteristic of Judaism?  And does it exist elsewhere under other names?  In pure form it exists nowhere, not even in Judaism where too much literalism obscures the pure doctrine.  But, nevertheless, I see in Judaism one of its most vital and pure realizations.  This is especially true of its fundamental principle of the sanctification of life.   

I also like the book of Ecclesiastes, its skepticism & pessimism speak to the breadth of the Jewish religious tradition, the wanderers & the wonderers.

Also, Baruch Spinoza, where all of nature is God.

I feel smite-y.

Thanks for the list!  I haven't read any of these.

oh & just to clarify:  my interchanging of the words people & peoples?

This goes back to when I got *snagged* into goin' to a Shinnecock celebration by a SNAG (= sensitive new age guy) who was tryin' (albeit feebly) to get in my pants.  Yeah well & I went with him & so what?  As soon as we got there I proceeded to mingle with the old folk & little kids (as is my way, iz more fun for me) while the SNAG proceeded to get into anthropological debates & so on.  One of the old guys saw me playing with the little kids & called me over.  We chatted for a bit & then he told me something that stuck with me.  He said, all those different tribal names?  Y'know how they are all translated?  THE PEOPLE.  We, the people.  Allows you to do whatever the fuck you want to those you don't consider people.  It stayed with me.

[change your own mind!]

Yeah, I'm not a trancendentalist by the definition above, and I'm certainly not a materialist, yet I still have aspects of both of those in my "emergence-based spirituality". I've got trouble identifying with the "magical paradigm" though -- some baggage on my part.

Hehehe. Just remember "Magic" in the sense used here has nothing to do with throwing fireballs or seeing the future or levitating

I don't think I've ever gotten a straightforward definition of magic without all the jargon.

Magic is the Art of Consciousness Change
Magic is a lockpicking set for your BiP.

Magic is a set of concepts and principles which interact with the psychology of the human mind. Magical systems are all based on similar memetic groups, a given system defines a set of specific practices, particularly how they're implemented, what dogma they use and the general aim of the practitioner.  So one magical system will use High Ritual with complex traditions and specific symbols that have been passed down for generations, while another system will use chaos rituals, or paratheatrics which is nothing like High ritual... but the underlying psychological mechanisms will likely be similar. It could be like a difference between classical art and modern art in some sense.

Magic is a set of tools that have instruction books with them, if you want to modify your BiP. Some of the tools are made in Taiwan out of pig iron and the instructions are translated by someone who learned Taiwanese by watching bad anime with the subtitles on. Some of the tools are very nice quality and have instructions that are less confusing. Some of the tools are like erector sets with instructions that read more like "General Principles of Erector Sets" and end with 'Good Luck'.  

Magic is a broad and generic word that covers a number of different ways in which people have experienced changes in their consciousness. Here is an example:

Crowley points to the similarities between Buddha, Christ and Mohammad as well as Moses and Paul. They all were leading one life, then they all went away, something happened (often they see a bright shinning Angel/Deity and speak with it. It tells them what they will do, they came back and led a religious revolution... in most cases, something that would never have seemed likely given their former life.

If we compare those experiences with the experiences Abremlin the Mage had  (Conversing with the Holy Guardian Angel), it is very similar. If we compare that to Crowley's experiences after doing these rituals (His conversations with AWISS), it is again very similar. Just different masks, different labels, different dogmas.

In this day and age, we can further compare those experiences to RAW's "Cosmic Trigger". He figured out the above bit after reading Crowley and decided to try the rituals himself. He experienced communications from aliens on the planet Sirius for a year after getting involved with the rituals as an intentional experiment, as did Phillip K Dick.

The larger problem here, is that almost anyone can get results. If a person follows the directions from 'Magic System X', it is likely that they will get some result (assuming they can chain up disbelief for a little bit). Unfortunately, they often confuse the result with reality, that makes it easy for groups like the Mystic Wicks to pop up. There are enough books available that cover the necessary mechanics for various experiences, that lots of practitioners do experience something. However, often many of them believe whatever dogmatic crap was on top of the practice. Rather than experiencing a phenomena which took the mask of the goddess Kali/Aphrodite/whoever is cool in their head/ they think they experienced Kali/Aphrodite/whoever is cool in their head.

I was very glad that I had some basis of skepticism when I had my first experiences with Magic. Even today, I can't look you in the eye and say I 100% believe that I didn't have some interaction with something amazing. I think it is far more likely that I experienced an interaction within my head, but it felt amazing.

Fortunately, my second amazing experience was with Eris herself and since she acted like the hippy hottie and showed up in a carriage that looked like a bong... I felt far more comfortable with a "Oh this is obviously a set of labels/symbols/masks from my head" explanation.  

Wow, that was a lot longer than I meant to write...

So, basically I've been doing magic all this time, just without all the mumbo-jumbo language...

?

According to Crowley, any act of Will qualifies as magic because its all you consciously impacting the world around you.

From what I've gathered from discussions about it here, it's the ability to think hard enough and change your own mind!
[cue eerie music]

Its a large group of tools which are helpful in making large changes in the way you behave/think/react/perceive. The ability is within any human, as far as I can tell... Magic just covers 'maps' and 'models' that other people have documented that make use of the ability.

According to Crowley, any act of Will qualifies as magic because its all you consciously impacting the world around you.

So all of Life is Magic?  ok I can deal with that.

& your own writing about this stuff?  Well now!  That is so much better than that other lifeless writing! 

& Kai has some of the best writings about Science both here & out there!  (Many thanks & much respect Kai!) 

What first attracted me to Discordian thought was the phrase "Think for yourself, Schmuck."  For me, that was the difference between Religion (as I understood it) & Science (as I understood it).  A Religion that encouraged one to think?  & experiment & listen to different views & observe & keep on moving?  People who weren't control freaks or OCD about their views?   

Out in the wild (& perhaps this is needless to say?) I was not overly impressed with those who appeared (to me) to want to transform Science into Religion.

The One True Path^TM & now it's Science?  If you clarify what that means – which (as I understand it) means to continue to question, experiment & observe the constantly changing world.  That also means (to me) to encourage people to question your findings, that is, not to be threatened when one is questioned – that is the part  where experiencing Science as Religion (still) ticks me off. 

Just wanna say I like these!  You have managed to "breathe life into stones"!  I like what you do!   

Alright.  I've said my bit on that.  If there are any more conclusions to be drawn, I'll let you draw them.  I spent almost an hour looking for a particular quote from Vonnegut to put here -- something about how people love to do what they're told at the worst possible time -- but I can't remember the full text and can't find it, and it's barely relevant anyway.  So it goes.

Today I will be a Bulgarian Minister of Education. Tomorrow I will be Helen of Troy.

We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodley do,
What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must;
Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do,
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.

I dunno if that's the one? but there ya go.  I also really liked your story.    

Like this part: "Bored people want to get angry."

This reminds me of what I have started to call "lazy pessimism."  Wake the Fuck Up!  If you're bored - you're not payin' attention! 

H.G. Wells wrote some pretty good stories dealing with this kinda attitude or at least he acted as a thought liberator when it comes to thinking about these things.  Country of the Blind is a good one.

Cheers & 

[The main difficulty in recognizing and describing the pure Magical Paradigm is that of insufficient vocabulary.]

That sounds very much like Pete Carroll's essay on "Paradigm Shifts and Aeonics". In one of his classes he said to keep in mind he was writing from the position of someone who believed in Magic at the time. Pete likes to believe/not believe in whatever, whenever if it suits his purposes. Overall, I like it... but I have to keep reminding myself that some of the 'madjickal' talk is a bit of a muddled model

However, with the above essay, I think there are some very complementary concepts between them. I was also reminded about Bob's discussion in Prometheus Rising where he discusses the tribal basis of religion, the weirdness of so many tribes being thrown together today (The Catholic tribe and the Methodist tribe and the Baptist tribe and the Wiccan tribe and the Hindu tribe all tossed together like a salad).

Anyway, here's the essay, the only format I found it in was flaky so I reformatted it for here:

Thanks & respect, I found this to be interesting although I wasn't attracted to the writing style or lingo.  imo he somehow managed to take a sensual subject & turn it into something dry & lifeless.  A few other thoughts? 

... The main difficulty in recognizing and describing the pure Magical Paradigm is that of insufficient vocabulary. Magical philosophy is only recently recovering from a heavy adulteration with transcendental theory. The word aether will be used to describe the fundamental reality of the magical paradigm. It is more or less equivalent to the idea of Mana used in oceanic shamanism. Aether in materialistic descriptions is information which structures matter and which all matter is capable of emitting and receiving. In transcendental terms aether is a sort of "life force" present in some degree in all things.  It carries both knowledge about events and the ability to influence similar or sympathetic vents. Events either arise sponataneously out of themselves or are encouraged to follow certain paths by influence of patterns in the aether. As all things have an aetheric part they can be considered to be alive in some sense. Thus all things happen by magic, the large scale features of the universe have a very strong aetheric pattern which makes them fairly predictable but difficult to influence by the aetheric patterns created by thought. Magicians see themselves as participating in nature. Transcendentalists like to think they are somehow above it. Materialists like to try and manipulate it.

"The main difficulty in recognizing and describing the pure Magical Paradigm is that of insufficient vocabulary."??  This is where my bullshit detector starts to buzzzzzzzz.  Insufficient vocabulary?  Sorry no dice.  Sounds like more of the same o lame o elitist buuuuuuullshit where if you can't dazzle'em with the brilliance of creative & original thought (& not to toss any apples here (who me?) but whattabout the likes of Cain & Roger & Triple Zero to name just a few?) then one is instructed to "reel 'em in" with the canned clichés of "we are the enlightened^TM few."  & why is that any different?

Please note (esp literalists):  I have no problem with the notion of creating new words (I love it even) however I remain cynical when the rationale seems to be to create distance & not shorten.

... Indeed, it is rare to find an individual or culture operating exclusively on a single one of these paradigms and none is ever entirely absent. Non dominant paradigms are always present as superstitions and fears. A subsequent section on Aeonics will attempt to untangle the influences of each of these great world views throughout history, to see how they have interacted with each other and to predict future trends. In the meantime an analysis of the radically differing concepts of time and self in each paradigm is offered to more fully distinguish the basic ideas.

... Materialist time is linear but unbounded. Ideally it can be extended arbitrarily far in either direction from the present. To the strict materialist it is self-evidently futile to speculate about a beginning or an end to time. Similarly the materialist is contemptuous of any speculations about any forms of personal existence before birth or after death. The materialist may well fear painful or premature death but can have no fears about being dead.

I like the boldened sentences.  However, it's been said before & much more simply & for me? lyrically.  Don't get me wrong here – I never think it's a mistake to re-state an idea in a different way.  Simple ideas are not always easy to understand.

Cause & effect are not closely related in time and space.  Now then!  & the world will continue to spin with me or without me. 

I've read some of Robert Anton Wilson's work (Prometheus Rising to name just one) & happen to like some of his ideas.  & he, just as Einstein, Darwin & so many others would be pleased as punch that we, as peoples, have moved on & learned new steps.  No sour grapes there! 

Thanks again for your reply!  I do appreciate & like some of it but I, again personally would "rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."  (ee)

Also, I think you would enjoy reading the parts I haven't quoted from the complete speech, the bible stuff parts in particular.  I happen to like what he says about the Agricultural Revolution, makes sense to me & is written in a more sensual way (which, to me, is attractive & is much more likely to elicit a response).

[Our Religions: Are they the Religions of Humanity Itself?]

I'd just like to point out that Einstein hated quantum physics.  He spent much of the last half of his life doing his best to refute the indeterminacy found in it.

He failed to do so.

Yup he did at that.  However at the same time (although not in the same space) I think he would be pleased with the results of people questioning his findings & evaluating his ideas.  (I'd like to add your Dad's speech here if I may?)

That guy with the crappy username?  Like those too!

If you like to think on different levels (& who doesn't?) here's another guy who (I think) has a rather interesting take on the subject of Religion & Science, or maybe more like Religion & Anthropology & Animism & ??

Our Religions: Are they the Religions of Humanity Itself?
Delivered October 18, 2000, as a Fleming Lecture in Religion, Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas

Contrary to popular opinion, Charles Darwin did not originate the idea of evolution. By the middle of the 19th century, the mere fact of evolution had been around for a long time, and most thinkers of the time were perfectly content to leave it at that. The absence of a theory to explain evolutionary change didn't trouble them, wasn't experienced as a pressure, as it was by Darwin. He knew there had to be some intelligible mechanism or dynamic that would account for it, and this is what he went looking for--with well known results. In his Origin of Species, he wasn't announcing the fact of evolution, he was trying to make sense of the fact.

... One of the virtues of tribal law is that it presupposes that people are just the way we know they are: generally wise, kind, generous, and well-intentioned but perfectly capable of being foolish, unruly, moody, cantankerous, selfish, greedy, violent, stupid, bad-tempered, sneaky, lustful, treacherous, careless, vindictive, neglectful, petty, and all sorts of other unpleasant things. Tribal law doesn't punish people for their shortcomings, as our law does. Rather, it makes the management of their shortcomings an easy and ordinary part of life.

... When you gather up a hundred tribes and expect them to work and live together, tribal law becomes inapplicable and useless. But of course the people in this amalgam are the same as they always were: capable of being foolish, moody, cantankerous, selfish, greedy, violent, stupid, bad-tempered, and all the rest. In the tribal situation, this was no problem, because tribal law was designed for people like this. But all the tribal ways of handling these ordinary human tendencies had been expunged in our burgeoning civilization. A new way of handling them had to be invented--and I stress the word invented. There was no received, tested way of handling the mischief people were capable of. Our cultural ancestors had to make something up, and what they made up were lists of prohibited behavior.

... The appearance of religions based on prophetic revelations is unique to our culture. We alone in the history of all humanity needed such religions. We still need them (and new ones are being created every day), because we still profoundly feel that we don't know how to live. Our religions are the peculiar creation of a bereft people. Yet we don't doubt for a moment that they are the religions of humanity itself.

The religion I'm talking about is, of course, animism. This name was cut to fit the general missionary impression that these childlike savages believe that things like rocks, trees, and rivers have spirits in them, and it hasn't lost this coloration since the middle of the nineteenth century.

Needless to say, I wasn't prepared to settle for this trivialization of a religion that flourished for tens of thousands of years among people exactly as smart as we are. After decades of trying to understand what these people were telling us about their lives and their vision of humanity's place in the world, I concluded that a very simple (but far from trivial) worldview was at the foundation of what they were saying: The world is a sacred place, and humanity belongs in such a world.

It's simple but also deceptively simple. This can best be seen if we contrast it with the worldview at the foundation of our own religions. In the worldview of our religions, the world is anything but a sacred place. For Christians, it's merely a place of testing and has no intrinsic value. For Buddhists it's a place where suffering is inevitable. If I oversimplify, my object is not to misrepresent but only to clarify the general difference between these two worldviews in the few minutes that are left to me.

For Christians, the world is not where humans belong; it's not our true home, it's just a sort of waiting room where we pass the time before moving on to our true home, which is heaven. For Buddhists, the world is another kind of waiting room, which we visit again and again in a repeating cycle of death and rebirth until we finally attain liberation in nirvana.

Simple ideas are not always easy to understand. The very simplest idea I've articulated in my work is probably the least understood: There is no one right way for people to live--never has been and never will be. This idea was at the foundation of tribal life everywhere. The Navajo never imagined that they had the right way to live (and that all others were [/i]iwrong)[/i]. All they had was a way that suited them. With tribal peoples on all sides of them--all living in different ways--it would have been ridiculous for them to imagine that theirs was the one right way for people to live. It would be like us imagining that there is one right way to orchestrate a Cole Porter song or one right way to make a bicycle.

In the tribal world, because there was complete agreement that no one had the right way to live, there was a staggering glory of cultural diversity, which the people of our culture have been tirelessly eradicating for 10,000 years. For us, it will be paradise when everyone on earth lives exactly the same way.

Almost no one blinks at the statement that there is no one right way for people to live. In one of his denunciations of scribes and pharisees, Jesus said, "You gag on the gnat but swallow down the camel." People find many gnats in my books to gag on, but this great hairy camel goes down as easily as a teaspoon of honey.

http://www.ishmael.org/Education/Writings/southwestern.shtml

kill you?  mais non!  I wanna ...

Hey & there you go again – hitting me where it hurts – even when you're a tad on the tipsy side?  Wo ho & how do you do that?

It's 7:00am or thereabouts & I dunno know whether I'm hungry or horny?  (it's the dreaming too y'know?)  Just woke up & I'm usually – well & whatami usually?  fukkitt & I give up – la même chose

Appréciez votre repas!

[Loving these!]

Loving these!  I imagined the first ones moving!   

[You]

Very interesting!  Thanks & respect!  It dovetails a relatively more recent obsession of mine - propaganda & critical thinking.

OF ALL THE WORDS WE USE to talk about talk, propaganda is perhaps the most mischievous.  The essential problems its use poses, and never resolves, are reflected in the following definition, given by no less a personage than the late Aldous Huxley:

There are two kinds of propaganda-rational propaganda in favor of action that is consonant with the enlightened self-interest of those who make it and those to whom it is addressed, and nonrational propaganda that is not consonant with anybody's enlightened self-interest, but is dictated by, and appeals to, passion.

This definition is, of course, filled with confusion and even nonsense, both of which are uncharacteristic of Huxley and only go to show how propaganda can bring the best of us down.
http://www.neilpostman.org/articles/etc_36-2-postman.pdf

I've been reading Portraits from Memory: And Other Essays by Bertrand Russell
http://www.questiaschool.com/read/6003292

Brought to mind especially A Plea for Clear Thinking

Cain?  You are the best!  No wait.  Triple Zero?  You are the best!  No wait.  LMNO?   You are the best!   ...  ...  ...



BAFFLED APPLE

[is]

It requires multiple encounters with reality, and an open mind, to piece together a coherent picture. The lesson of quantum theory is that we will always get an answer consistent with the picture we bring to an event. But that answer has everything to do with our preconceived notion of what to measure, and almost nothing to do with "the reality out there".
-LMNO's Dad

Those people were very lucky!  Your Dad must be a brilliant man.  I liked the whole speech but especially liked the above, it made me think of the Tao Te Ching

27
A good traveler has no fixed plans         
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is.

Thus the Master is available to all people
and doesn't reject anyone.
He is ready to use all situations
and doesn't waste anything.
This is called embodying the light.

What is a good man but a bad man's teacher?
What is a bad man but a good man's job?
If you don't understand this, you will get lost,
however intelligent you are.
It is the great secret.

Your Dad is very cool.

Great topic & great comments - thought provoking too.  Can't add too much atm - gotta go in a few.  I'm gonna take a look at some stuff.  Jenne's last comment, "Meaning" is such a complicated concept...esp in regards to language," took me back to my childhood & Humpty Dumpty.

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again.  "They've a temper, some of them - particularly verbs, they're the proudest - adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs - however, I can manage the whole lot!  Impenetrability!  That's what I say!"

"Would you tell me, please," said Alice, "what that means?"

"Now you talk like a reasonable child," said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased.  "I meant by 'impenetrability' that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you meant to do next, as I suppose you don't intend to stop here all the rest of your life."

"That's a great deal to make one word mean," Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

"When I make a word do a lot of work like that," said Humpty Dumpty, "I always pay it extra."

"Oh!" said Alice.  She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.    . . . "

The Family & the Fishing Net
-Peter Gabriel

Wo Ho ho!
Suffocated by mirrors, stained by dreams
Her honey belly pulls the seams
Curves are still upon the hinge
Pale zeros tinge the tiger skin

Moist as grass, ripe and heavy as the night
The sponge is full, well out of sight
All around the conversations
Icing on the warm flesh cake

Light creeps through her secret tunnels
Sucked into the open spaces
Burning out in sudden flashes
Draining blood from well-fed faces

Desires form in subtle whispers
Flex the muscles in denial
Up and down its pristine cage
So the music, so the trial

Vows of sacrifice, headless chickens
Dance in circles, they the blessed
Man and wife, undressed by all
Their grafted trunks in heat possessed

Even as the soft skins tingle
They mingle with the homeless mother
Who loves the day but lives another
That once was hers

The worried father, long lost lover
Brushes ashes with his broom
Rehearses jokes to fly and hover
Bursting over the bride and groom

And the talk goes on

Memories crash on tireless waves
The lifeguards whom the winter saves

Silence falls the guillotine
All the doors are shut
Nervous hands grip tight the knife
In the darkness, till the cake is cut
Passed around, in little pieces
The body and the flesh
The family and the fishing-net
And another in the mesh

The body and the flesh

Maybe I'll continue to be real in real life.  Thanks for the advice.