Messages

1

Principia Discussion / The New Wave

« on: Yesterday at 01:38:01 pm »

Discordians have spent generations writing and chattering about the freedom of this disorganized irreligion. In a lot of our writings we talk about how you can make it about anything you want, there is no true Discordia there is only My Discordia and Your Discordia and they don't have to connect because we're all popes.

So in comes baby 2017, the year of "fake news", "alt-right", pepe & kek, the new flowing of Nationalism, extreme polarization. Out goes old man 2017, in comes baby 2018, the year of Trump, the cats and dogs, living together, mass hysteria.

There's a new Discordian out there now. Mmmm, maybe they're not 'new'; there have always been jackasses -- but today, if you scroll through a Facebook Discordian group, or search the depths of the chans for Discordian presence, you'll find this dark type of Discordian...

We're talking about the right wing trolls. We're talking about the unrepentant racists. We're talking about bad faith arguments that stick it to the libs. We're not really about improving the world we live in so much as pissing off the enemy, breaking the foundation of their house, and then pissing on it. We're celebrating pain and suffering as long as it's hitting people on the other team.

It's true, Trump rides chaos, a defiance of the previous order -- I can't deny that. And Discordia has always had some libertarianism in its DNA. (Robert Anton Wilson identified as a libertarian, but more as a european-style libertarian because he thought the Ayn Rand-style libertarians are not nearly cautious enough about corporate power). But I still find it so weird that these anti-authoritarian/libertarian type Discordians have gotten on board with authoritarian demagogues. I don't sense any joy or playfulness in this crowd, nor curiosity and creativity - their lulz are meme warfare. To talk to them is to war.


So they may be shitheads, fine.


Are they "Bad Discordians"?


Does "Bad Discordian" have any meaning? I know we owe nothing to Eris, being a 'bad discordian' is not like being a 'bad christian' where you're violating some shared communal values or a moral code written on a stone tablet.  And it's not our style to pull out some book written a long time ago and point to a line and say "See? This book says you're doing it wrong."

does the new wave represent a change, or was this Discordia all along?


It falls on us, in 2018, to answer the question ---

Discordia can be anything you want it to be... Are there limits? Is there an edge?


"What you want" is probably tied up in egoistic shit and tribal warfare

As the increasingly old guard of Eris' treehouse, how should we relate to that? do we have any grounds to preach against it? (not that it would help, because most popes are all Send and very little Receive)



and to be clear, I'm not talking about political ideology.



I'm asking... Can Discordia be saved? Should it be saved?

2

Apple Talk / Re: PICS VIII: 10% LARGER THAN PICS VII

« on: July 06, 2018, 09:22:48 pm »

3

Principia Discussion / Re: How Discordian are you?

« on: July 06, 2018, 02:11:27 pm »

How Discordian am I???

watch this, and you tell me:

4

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Reality Safari: Gurdjieff

« on: July 05, 2018, 02:12:55 pm »

Hey Cramulus, have you explored Sufism much?

If so, what do you think of it compared to Gurdjieff's work? (as he is known to have been heavily inspired by it). I'm a Sufi Muslim (highly heretical mind you) myself, aside from being part Discordian, so this is an area of constant learning. I definitely like Gurdjieff a lot anyway.

I've only dipped my toe in it - listened to a lecture about it in college, and read a handful of little articles and perspectives - yeah, there's a lot of shared ground. I would love a reccommendation for something short length to read about it.

Those dances tho! Spiraling closer and closer to the center... so cool. I understand that there are sufi practices that steer the practitioner into an ecstatic trance. I wonder how much common ground there is with the Gurdjieff Movements. 

5

Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Free Russian Orphans with Every Purchase

« on: July 04, 2018, 03:09:13 pm »

Interesting thought:  The same gene that expresses as a love for mariachi music also is responsible for polka.

Wait....



I need to think about this.

It's true.  Both forms of music involve accordions and the implied need to rupture everyone's eardrums with the excessive volume needed to drown the accordions out.

There is nothing good about either genre, they are in fact the SAME genre, and that genre is based on an angry demon-god who aims to punish us for whatever the fuck we did to piss it off.  It's the only explanation.  Science cannot tell you WHY accordions do what they do.  If you chop one in half, there is NOTHING INSIDE that would make that HORRIBLE NOISE.  Like bag pipes, only with less spit.

If you remove the accordions from polka, I think it becomes ska
which is the comic sans of music genres, just saying

No one has made bratwurst tacos yet.

This is how Trivial made us all millionaires.

Yeah, jesus, that sounds great - taco shell with bratwurst, sauer kraut, mustard... sign me up

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Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Reality Safari: Gurdjieff

« on: July 03, 2018, 06:45:43 pm »

So I can get self-actualization by, say, stepping into that big tank of saltwater crocodiles they have in Australia?

Or is this more of a "I'm intentionally putting 1970s Pink Floyd on infinite repeat" thing?

it depends on attitude


If you have arachnophobia, most contact with spiders will cause you to panic.

If you are treating your own arachnophobia, you have to intentionally expose yourself to them.

Part of the Gurdjieff work (and part of the Discordian Jailbreak) is approaching the spider on purpose. If you are aware of how your mind is going to react, if you can observe the automatic as it's happening, you have created something that is outside of that kneejerk automatic response. That something can moderate your automatic responses - and it can be trained like a muscle. It's kind of like willpower, but also includes self-awareness.

The attitude is key. If someone doesn't want to overcome their spider phobia, then exposure to spiders is only going to cause panic. They have to want to overcome that reaction for the exposure to be therapeutic. They have to approach the spider with a certain mindset and goal.


If we accept that the self is a collective of competing impulses, competing selves,
and one of the reasons I can't change my life is that I get obssessed with "what I find pleasurable" and repelled by "what I don't find pleasurable"

-- then the course of my life is really dicated by the law of accident.

But if I can make a conscious decision, if I can escape from the two headed trap of WANT and DO NOT WANT, then I have an opportunity to arrive somewhere else.

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Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Reality Safari: Gurdjieff

« on: July 03, 2018, 06:10:55 pm »

I think it'll just be limited to Dues, and they are flexible about how much you pay--which is generally not a characteristic of predatory cults.

One of the things I'm sensitive to is that in the Work, there's the idea of "conscious labor and intentional suffering" -- as a means of provoking presence and consciousness. That the self isn't usually found during comfort or complacency, it's easier to find it by experiencing a struggle consciously, by intentionally seeking out stuff you would normally avoid.

And so sometimes there are "work days" where people are literally just doing labor - cleaning, cooking, sorting, inventory, etc. And that's seen as a meditative practice.

But I know this - Gurdjieff got an awful lot of free labor out of his followers. I don't know where exactly the line is between asceticism and extortion. And maybe I won't know it until I get there.

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Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Reality Safari: Gurdjieff

« on: July 03, 2018, 02:23:31 pm »

Good advice, cats! Just wanted to share one more line I remembered from the previous meeting.

When you're PRESENT, the outside world leaves a stronger impression on your nervous system. Your memories of that moment are clearer. You can then think more clearly because you have better data. When the outside world and inside world are well connected, you're more alive.

Gurdjieff once said the point of the whole work was


"Everything more vivid."

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Aneristic Illusions / Re: General Trump hilarity free-for-all thread

« on: June 28, 2018, 11:22:20 pm »

Here's a page on the actual-ass DHS website: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/02/15/we-must-secure-border-and-build-wall-make-america-safe-again



14-world title beginning "We Must Secure"

arbitrary use of the number 88


dog whistle: https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/1488





Is this for real?

Is this real life?

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Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Reality Safari: Gurdjieff

« on: June 28, 2018, 03:46:52 pm »

Thank you - I appreciate that people are following! Sometimes people pull on my sleeve and tell me "I like your Gurdjieff thread, I just have nothing to add" - which is cool, and I understand that a lot of my posts are a big wall of text, but feel free to jump and give your reactions too :P

The old timers in the group tell me that sometimes these "preparatory groups" have a code of secrecy. Not because our discussions are actually secret, but because stuff said in the group has a certain quality and reality - a face to face connection, a physical presence -- which is not present if you were to listen to a recording of it, or read my typed-up notes. The Gurdjieff Work is part of the oral tradition, and all I can really share with you guys is a 1-step degraded account of it.


I remembered another little note from the meeting the other day which I wanted to share -- when talking about this question "What Do I REALLY Value?"



Anyone remember Crowley's talk about the Hunchback and the Soldier?

ie ? and !

The Question Mark is called the Hunchback. This gnarly little character pops up when you want to know something.
The Exclamation Point is called the Soldier. It's the answer to the question. Every time the hunchback pops up, we call on the soldier to beat him back down.

The Questioning part of your mind is creative, thoughtful, analytical, awake.
The Answering part of your mind is like a stop sign. Once a question is answered, the question vanishes and we rest.


Maybe the hunchback is the better part of us.
Maybe we should check the soldier before he beats down the hunchback.

Try letting the gnarly hunchback stand--he can explore the landscape in a way the soldier can not.



What do I REALLY value? is a hunchback

instead of racing to answer the question, maybe let it stand there, let it explore the landscape

Instead of searching the past and present for your values, maybe the answer is in the future - maybe there are new values that can be discovered in this moment. Maybe you can be surprised by yourself.

You see, we only have two alternatives; we either take everything for sure and real, or we don't. If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with ourselves and with the world. If we follow the second and erase personal history, we create a fog around us, a very exciting and mysterious state in which nobody knows where the rabbit will pop out, not even ourselves.

      When nothing is for sure we remain alert, perennially on our toes. It is more exciting not to know which bush the rabbit is hiding behind than to behave as though we know everything.

11

Bring and Brag / Re: Quick Question!

« on: June 28, 2018, 03:04:22 pm »

That is super extremely nice Goddess Eris & Doktor Howl! VERY MUCH appreciated 

WOW!!! that's fantastic!!

everything about it, from the fractal clouds, the flaming lion, the shiva-like skin... really dense

12

Apple Talk / Re: The Spiritual Crossroads.

« on: June 28, 2018, 02:34:59 pm »

omfghhhhhhhahahaha I had totally forgotten about Snakeman. I remember getting into it with him at TCC over his racist posts. I kept blasting him with data that showed his racist opinions were flat out wrong, and he just dug in deeper.

Man, here in 2018, TCCs "tolerance" for that kind of shit tastes really bad.



btw, there is one snapshot of the spiritual crossroads on the wayback machine... without any of the images or styling, it's a little hard to read, but here it is:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120323124600/http://rampant-griffon.net/spiritualcrossroads/

13

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Reality Safari: Gurdjieff

« on: June 28, 2018, 02:19:49 pm »

The Inner Circle

Here's how I'd describe it today...

Inside of you, there's this sphere. It is the control panel to the human machine.

The different parts of you (thoughts, emotions, daydreams, ideals, vices, physical hunger etc etc) attempt to reach into that sphere to control it. This is a zero-sum game, these parts are in competition. If one part gets control, then it feels like you are that part -- until another part gets control. You cou(ld call these parts "selves".


((as an aside -- this is closer to how the Romans and Greeks thought of the Gods. When you are angry, "anger is with you". Like, there is a god of anger, and he rules you in that moment -- when you act in anger, the god of anger is acting through you. Who you are is inseparable from Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, etc.. we are all Mount Olympus))



The sphere (for the old timers on this forum, maybe think of it as the "golden sphere of possibility"  ) is only partially visible to us. When we view it, we're usually viewing it from above; the bottom half of it is occluded. That's the subconcious.

Sometimes hunger dominates the sphere, but I don't see that because there are other selves on top of it. The conversation I'm having with my girlfriend blocks me from seeing the hunger. But because the hunger is the chief of the sphere in this moment, it acts through the other selves. I get cranky or short, dismissive, and I think I'm being rational. But really, I'm just hungry. The hungry self is trying to get what it wants, and this conversation is in the way of that. I'm not even consciously aware that I'm hungry.


When you are really present, you can see the sphere. Resisting a habit is like lighting a match, a flicker of light reveals a network, a branching fractal like tree roots.

With some work and discipline, you can see the bottom half of the sphere.

This awareness is also a self, it is also reaching into the sphere to control it. But it's weak, equally weighted against the other selves. We have to champion it, we have to teach ourselves to be present, we have to crown that self and make it strong.




The Sixth Circuit - the metaprogramming circuit

In the show Westworld, sometimes there's a moment where the robots get to look at their own settings. All the different parts of their personality - aggression, compassion, lust, etc -- are sliders that are set by the writers. When the robot is handed the tablet with the control panel, they can see these things about themsleves - and have the freedom to set the sliders themselves.

But can they really adjust those sliders "freely"? The position of the sliders dictates what they want, how they think they should be.So what changes could they possibly make? If the aggression slider is high, why would you want to turn it down if that's what it seems like you are? does the aggressive part of you want to be less aggressive? no.



The goal for us humans is to see the positions of the sliders. By doing this, we create a perspective that is outside of them. We are able to see how we have been acting and make objective decisions about it. That's the self that has freedom, the one that sees the programming and can make a decision about it from outside of it.

In the Gurdjieff work, that's the ideal - to be. To develop the self that isn't just programming code, the writer who can edit the program.

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Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Reality Safari: Gurdjieff

« on: June 28, 2018, 01:29:12 pm »

We had a break all month, and then we won't meet again until mid September.

The exercise they've been having us do is a variation on the one I described where you move your awareness systematically through your body, and then spread it out to encompass your whole body. This time around, they asked us to do three cycles. In each cycle- get the physical input coming from each limb, then the whole body, and then ask yourself

What do I REALLY value?

This exercise has been very challenging for me. Mainly because that question shakes me up.  As you're doing the meditation, you're not just experiencing the sensations from each body part, you're also trying to become aware of the myriad ways you get distracted, the subconscious forces pulling your thoughts. It's said that we're knitting together the conscious and unconscious parts.

And so, for me, early in the exercise, the answer to that VALUES question was mainly ideals. I value high minded humanistic things.

Late in the exercise, as I'm expanding my awareness of this "inner circle" from whence my actions originate - the high minded humanistic things fall apart. What do I REALLY value? Well fuck, look at what I do. My inner circle is dominated by pleasure and aversion. "Beavis and butthead like things that are cool and hate things that suck."

There is a discordance between the high-minded ideals I tell myself that I value and day to day operations of my actual control center. And that means that my "values" are just a story, really. As I join my awareness with the rim of the inner circle, I can see that behind that "pleasure and aversion" there is another layer... the force behind "approach and avoid" is just wanting to settle into the most comfortable position. This inner laziness is at odds with every high-minded ideal I have.

Ugh, it's painful to even think about... the futility of idealism and the enormity of the work. It really reflected myself back at me and I became disgusted. I know that this is part of the work - that ego death is not a "fun" experience. I know that I need to lean into that discomfort and exist there, because that's where the possibility exists -- to develop something solid.

But I decided to lean away harder, and explore the "Holy Denying" principle. (Also called Antithesis)


I'm at a crossroads right now. This Autumn, my Gurdjieff "preperatory group" will graduate into being a "foundation group", and that means paying dues and potentially going to a lot more of these meetings. And learning the Sacred Movements. But it also means filling my "inner circle" with more Gurdjieff, letting that old huckster deeper into myself. And I want to take a minute to pause on this and really think about it.

I joke all the time about how I'm in a cult. And I've really tried to stay eyes-open about this, aware of the subtle pressures that exist in the group and how they draw you in. I have not seen any of the red flags of a predatory cult. But still, they're asking for money now, and this is a real 'moment of truth'. Not just because of the money, but because paying money for something causes you to value it more. I may be exactly the type of person who is really vulnerable to their approach. So is this a good idea? You can be straight with me here, fam. Let me have it.


I did a deep dive to explore the writings of people who rejected Gurdjieff. I read a lot of cult recovery forums. There is no doubt in my mind that some of the people who drank from the fountain have capitalized on it and become spiritual predators. I just watched this documentary Wild Wild Country, which is about the Osho cult in Oregon... I could honestly see myself becoming one of those poor sannyasins that became soldiers in the army of a cult of personality.

I could feel myself obsessing. I have been reading a lot of Gurdjieff, thinking about his work a lot, it is such a big part of my mental landscape -- to the point that it started to become uncomfortable. It reminds me of this young version of myself that first discovered the Tao Te Ching or the Principia Discordia, and then couldn't keep my fuckin mouth shut about it, I was always trying to jam it into conversations and signal my knowledge about it... what a wanker

Thank the Goddess for my Discordian grounding. Eris always whispers to me "....others say he is a shithead". There is so much power and freedom in that statement.


And honestly, asking myself about my values three times a day... was so uncomfortable. Unsettling.


So I took a few weeks to NOT think about Gurdjieff at all. Walk away from it, let it sit.

And yesterday... I got overwhelmed with the news, and I realized I needed it again - I'm getting blown around like a leaf in the wind, and when I'm at rest, I am just trying to settle into the most comfortable position. I'm trying to do the Exercises again and I'm rusty, distracted, challenged.


I feel "between two stools" right now

there's a saying in the work



blessed is he that has a soul
blessed is he that has none
but woe and grief to he who has it in embryo

15

Or Kill Me / Re: Lock her up

« on: June 26, 2018, 03:56:38 pm »

Watching Sanders and Miller and Nielsen getting blasted by the public has been CATHARTIC

I have this grim feeling about it though, that we're looking at the future. I can't help but visualize crowds following around Elizabeth Warren doing the Tomahawk Chop.