Antero Ali on Chapel Perilous

[Triple Zero]

For 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

[The Good Reverend Roger]

- 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 face¹, 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 want².

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.³

Third:  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.

[Triple Zero]

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.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

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.

[Scribbly]

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.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Demo, I have a rebuttal, but I ALSO have ANOTHER FUCKING MEETING TO ATTEND.

I will get to this as soon as I can.

[Scribbly]

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. 

[navkat]

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! 

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.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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.

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.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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.

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?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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.

[Cramulus]

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.

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

[Golden Applesauce]

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.

[Golden Applesauce]

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.



etc

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

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.



etc

This

so much this.