To finish up this series, I just want to make a bit of a list of real scenarios I've come across that illustrate some common pitfalls. The reason for doing this is to illustrate how easy it is for the "mystic" to lose sight of her/his rational faculties, thus falling into the realm of simple fantasy. Superseding reason may be a worthwhile endeavor, but we should remember that losing sight of reason entirely can lead to trouble.
True Case #1: Someone I know states that while "channeling" one day he spontaneously wrote in ancient Chinese. According to the story, this was verified by someone nearby who just happened to be familiar with ancient Chinese writing. This person believes that this series of events is proof of reincarnation: If he writes in ancient Chinese, he must once have been a Chinese person.
One thing that makes cases like this tough is that it's all second-hand information. One must first ask whether he was telling the truth or simply lying in order to be perceived a certain way. This is a matter of personal assessment. In this case, I think there's a reasonable chance of some level of fabrication. But for the sake of argument, let's assume that this account is completely true. Can it be taken as evidence of reincarnation?
The case in favor of such a conclusion would seem to hinge on the assumption that reincarnation is the only possible explanation for what occurred. Even if we can completely rule out the possibility that somewhere sometime this person saw ancient Chinese writing and was able to draw on that memory in his trance state, it seems like a bit of a stretch to suppose that there can be only one explanation. For example, is it possible that the Chinese text was read directly from the mind of that nearby person who happened to understand it? Could there have been some other kind of intermediary? In other words, the mechanism by which something like this might happen is not understood in any objective way. We cannot really say how this information would have entered his mind, but it is easy enough to imagine at least a few scenarios, none of which can be tested, given this set of information.
True Case #2: Someone else claims that at the age of six, he began to sing a song whose sole lyrics were "The electrons are better than the waves." This person claims to have had no interest or knowledge of wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics at that time. He believes that he had not been exposed to anything mentioning this topic before. He is curious about what this might mean, but has been unable to draw any specific conclusions on the matter.
As for reliability, I've assessed this person as being very likely to have told the truth about this event. Still, memory of events before the age of six is not generally the most reliable, even less so when trying to claim that one would never have been exposed to certain words, for example. The word "electronics" would certainly have been heard by that stage at the very least, and the word "wave" would have been a part of this person's everyday vocabulary. One is inclined to write this off as coincidence.
Then again, one definition of synchronicity is "meaningful coincidence." To draw a definitive conclusion on the matter based on the fact that there may be a more mundane explanation seems perhaps a bit hasty. In the absence of further evidence, the "who knows?" attitude seems like a healthy one.
True Story #3: Another person claims to have found evidence of ghosts or spirits in an area she frequently visits. The evidence consists of temperature differences at different times of the day. These temperature differences are not necessarily inconsistent with what one might naturally expect. For example: On hot days, it is not inexplicably cold.
...and even if it were... Well, I'll leave that to you. One thing I want to stress here, though, is that it's easy to condemn, but trying to understand may actually be more instructive. What do you think this person's thought process is/was? In other words, what do you think caused this error, and why do you think you are immune to it? If you think this person is simply "stupid" or "irrational" or "superstitious", and that is the whole of your thought process, you are not looking deeply enough.
True Story #4: Someone else I know once claimed to have seen a "vision" of a peculiar shape on the ceiling. This person attached meaning and importance to the shape as a consequence. It was later discovered by this person that the "vision" was simply a pattern of shadows created by clutter near a light source. For some time afterward, the person tried to cling to the notion that the shape was important, though it never was clear how or why.
Ahh, this old trap: "I want to feel that something important and mysterious is happening to me." It may have seemed important when it was thought to be coming from a non-physical source, but afterward information was discovered that showed that it was not even remotely supernatural in origin (unless...). At that stage, however, it was apparently hard for this person to make the psychological adjustment to critical thought. Eventually, this person admitted that the whole episode was useless silliness. Someone less capable of "coming down" might have been chasing rainbows with this one for years -- perhaps a lifetime.
I think that's it for this one. To reiterate my position as clearly as I can:
If you cannot think from a rational materialist viewpoint, you are lost.
If you can only think from a rational materialist viewpoint, you are imprisoned.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The Rationalist and the Mystic, Part 2
The scenario is simple and well-known: Person 1 has a revelation and is spoken to by Jesus. Person 1 believes that this is confirmation of Christian doctrine. Person 2 has a revelation and is spoken to by Krishna. Person 2 believes that this is confirmation of Hindu doctrine. As the two are not in agreement on all points, it is clear to the outside observer that both cannot be true. What conclusions can be drawn from this?
Some people may dismiss both "revelations" as false, on the grounds that people from a wide variety of cultures might have comparable experiences which agree with neither of the above when it comes to details. In other words, it is clear that one's belief system entering into such an event has a lot to do with what the person experiences and perceives, and thus it is clear that the person is experiencing something other than objective reality. This would be a typical skeptical viewpoint.
The mystic might interpret the above scenario a little differently. The fact that neither person is likely to have experienced objective reality should be taken as a warning against the assumption that one's own experiences (and interpretations) are necessarily objective facts. In other words, the discrepancies between Person 1 and Person 2 cannot be taken as serious disproof of the extraordinary (for lack of a better term). Similarly, the fact that two people on opposite sides of the world might look into the sky and see extremely different depictions of the sun does not disprove the existence of the sun.
Robert Anton Wilson illustrates a healthy attitude about such matters when he talks about the time he believed he was receiving transmissions from Sirius. After a while, he decided to test whether other views of the matter would interpret his experiences equally well. For example, could those transmissions have been from a 6'3" white rabbit, like in the movie Harvey? He thought so. He also thought that the transmissions could just as easily be interpreted as coming from the right side of his brain. In the end, he decided to stick with the white rabbit explanation because he was unlikely to take it too seriously.
This approach seems like a good way to ward against fanaticism. But in any case, I hope that by now the idea that our little scenario "disproves" the mystical experience is looking a little shallow. Those things that Persons 1 & 2 perceived were occurring in the brain, of course, but that has nothing to do with how powerfully the experiences may have affected their lives.
On the other hand, if Person 3 (Sufi Muslim) and Person 4 (atheist) both pray to Allah hoping for a personal revelation, I would bet good money that Person 3 will get results well before Person 4. The reason is because Person 4 would probably not be able to break free of the "this is bullshit" mentality. We might say that Person 3 wants to prove that the idea of God is false, and Person 4 wants to prove the opposite. Interestingly, and importantly, if they both apply themselves with equal fervor and single-mindedness, both will obtain the proofs they desire.
It is not too much of a leap, then, to suppose that Person 5, who ain't no slouch, might be able to obtain both proofs by willingly entering the mindsets which are most likely to produce them. From Person 5's lofty viewpoint, both contradictory claims appear perfectly true from within their own encompassing mindsets. My, what a flexible mind Person 5 has!
Next post: You can't prove nothin', ya superstitious wishy-washy new-age flake!
Some people may dismiss both "revelations" as false, on the grounds that people from a wide variety of cultures might have comparable experiences which agree with neither of the above when it comes to details. In other words, it is clear that one's belief system entering into such an event has a lot to do with what the person experiences and perceives, and thus it is clear that the person is experiencing something other than objective reality. This would be a typical skeptical viewpoint.
The mystic might interpret the above scenario a little differently. The fact that neither person is likely to have experienced objective reality should be taken as a warning against the assumption that one's own experiences (and interpretations) are necessarily objective facts. In other words, the discrepancies between Person 1 and Person 2 cannot be taken as serious disproof of the extraordinary (for lack of a better term). Similarly, the fact that two people on opposite sides of the world might look into the sky and see extremely different depictions of the sun does not disprove the existence of the sun.
Robert Anton Wilson illustrates a healthy attitude about such matters when he talks about the time he believed he was receiving transmissions from Sirius. After a while, he decided to test whether other views of the matter would interpret his experiences equally well. For example, could those transmissions have been from a 6'3" white rabbit, like in the movie Harvey? He thought so. He also thought that the transmissions could just as easily be interpreted as coming from the right side of his brain. In the end, he decided to stick with the white rabbit explanation because he was unlikely to take it too seriously.
This approach seems like a good way to ward against fanaticism. But in any case, I hope that by now the idea that our little scenario "disproves" the mystical experience is looking a little shallow. Those things that Persons 1 & 2 perceived were occurring in the brain, of course, but that has nothing to do with how powerfully the experiences may have affected their lives.
On the other hand, if Person 3 (Sufi Muslim) and Person 4 (atheist) both pray to Allah hoping for a personal revelation, I would bet good money that Person 3 will get results well before Person 4. The reason is because Person 4 would probably not be able to break free of the "this is bullshit" mentality. We might say that Person 3 wants to prove that the idea of God is false, and Person 4 wants to prove the opposite. Interestingly, and importantly, if they both apply themselves with equal fervor and single-mindedness, both will obtain the proofs they desire.
It is not too much of a leap, then, to suppose that Person 5, who ain't no slouch, might be able to obtain both proofs by willingly entering the mindsets which are most likely to produce them. From Person 5's lofty viewpoint, both contradictory claims appear perfectly true from within their own encompassing mindsets. My, what a flexible mind Person 5 has!
Next post: You can't prove nothin', ya superstitious wishy-washy new-age flake!
Friday, March 26, 2010
The Rationalist and the Mystic, Part 1
I've been meaning to write this post for a while. I put it off partly because I felt like it was a bit too obvious to bother writing about, but an exchange I had today reminded me that it's still something that should be put out there.
One pretty large rift that I'm sure hasn't escaped anyone's attention these days is the one between so-called skeptics and so-called believers. This is related to any sort of claim about "spiritual" or "paranormal" phenomena, as well as metaphysical models of the way the universe works and religious dogma. The "believer" claims that there is something extraordinary going on (psychic phenomena, spiritual entities, survival of consciousness beyond death, etc), and the "skeptic" (for the sake of this post, "skeptic" will refer to someone coming from a hard-line rational materialist viewpoint generally, and not a skeptic in the original sense) claims that it is not so.
The skeptic in this scenario generally has good reason to doubt: Scams are everywhere. People from all sorts of religious or spiritual viewpoints have been caught red-handed blatantly faking miracles by a wide variety of clever means. Scientific findings which disagree with an official religious dogma have in the past been ignored or suppressed. In short, there is every reason to treat psychics, faith healers, religious leaders, astrologers, palm-readers, etc. as people who are probably full of shit.
What's also clear is that new-agers, religious and spiritual types, seem at times to be ridiculously gullible. After all, they're willing to accept wild absurdities about miracles of all sorts, often without a shred of hard evidence. Those who think they have personal proofs often seem to be deluding themselves, setting aside the rational mind entirely in favor of what they would prefer to believe.
For these reasons at the very least, the skeptic is quite justified in starting any investigation of these matters with a very high degree of doubt. It is unfortunate, but perhaps understandable, that such people couple this doubt with a certain degree of contempt for all such extraordinary claims. The skeptic believes that the "truth" of this matter will be settled by science, in which the overwhelming burden of proof must fall on those who make extraordinary claims.
What, then, does the mystic have to say about all this (and why in the hell should anyone take such a person seriously)? The mystic, much like the modern scientist, is one who seeks proofs. But the proof of the mystic is not the same kind of proof as that of the scientist. The main difference is that the scientific viewpoint holds that proof is to be found external to the experimenter, whereas the mystic holds that proof can only be found by individual direct experience.
The mystic then seeks that experience for him/her self, with the understanding that it is the only thing can settle the matter. If I experience X, and you believe there is no evidence of X and it is in fact impossible, your opinion is completely irrelevant to me. It has already happened. Even if your reasons are completely correct by all rational measures, I have acquired proof to the contrary. It's not the kind of proof that should convince anyone else, but that's another matter.
On the other hand, this gets us into some tricky territory. Naturally, if this occurs for two people from radically different cultural or religious backgrounds which conflict with one another, we can recognize that they cannot both be completely right. As for what conclusions can be rightly drawn from this, though, well, that's a topic for the next post!
One pretty large rift that I'm sure hasn't escaped anyone's attention these days is the one between so-called skeptics and so-called believers. This is related to any sort of claim about "spiritual" or "paranormal" phenomena, as well as metaphysical models of the way the universe works and religious dogma. The "believer" claims that there is something extraordinary going on (psychic phenomena, spiritual entities, survival of consciousness beyond death, etc), and the "skeptic" (for the sake of this post, "skeptic" will refer to someone coming from a hard-line rational materialist viewpoint generally, and not a skeptic in the original sense) claims that it is not so.
The skeptic in this scenario generally has good reason to doubt: Scams are everywhere. People from all sorts of religious or spiritual viewpoints have been caught red-handed blatantly faking miracles by a wide variety of clever means. Scientific findings which disagree with an official religious dogma have in the past been ignored or suppressed. In short, there is every reason to treat psychics, faith healers, religious leaders, astrologers, palm-readers, etc. as people who are probably full of shit.
What's also clear is that new-agers, religious and spiritual types, seem at times to be ridiculously gullible. After all, they're willing to accept wild absurdities about miracles of all sorts, often without a shred of hard evidence. Those who think they have personal proofs often seem to be deluding themselves, setting aside the rational mind entirely in favor of what they would prefer to believe.
For these reasons at the very least, the skeptic is quite justified in starting any investigation of these matters with a very high degree of doubt. It is unfortunate, but perhaps understandable, that such people couple this doubt with a certain degree of contempt for all such extraordinary claims. The skeptic believes that the "truth" of this matter will be settled by science, in which the overwhelming burden of proof must fall on those who make extraordinary claims.
What, then, does the mystic have to say about all this (and why in the hell should anyone take such a person seriously)? The mystic, much like the modern scientist, is one who seeks proofs. But the proof of the mystic is not the same kind of proof as that of the scientist. The main difference is that the scientific viewpoint holds that proof is to be found external to the experimenter, whereas the mystic holds that proof can only be found by individual direct experience.
The mystic then seeks that experience for him/her self, with the understanding that it is the only thing can settle the matter. If I experience X, and you believe there is no evidence of X and it is in fact impossible, your opinion is completely irrelevant to me. It has already happened. Even if your reasons are completely correct by all rational measures, I have acquired proof to the contrary. It's not the kind of proof that should convince anyone else, but that's another matter.
On the other hand, this gets us into some tricky territory. Naturally, if this occurs for two people from radically different cultural or religious backgrounds which conflict with one another, we can recognize that they cannot both be completely right. As for what conclusions can be rightly drawn from this, though, well, that's a topic for the next post!
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Free Will
I've not been posting much because, well, I guess I'm not quite sure what I want this blog to be about. Recently I've been really struck by how much material there is on esoteric topics of all kinds, and I've become uncomfortable adding to the information overload -- which has its upside, to be sure, but I also think it's a problem that I'm uncomfortable contributing to. But for now, I guess I'm going to set that aside and see how it feels.
My next series here is about the concept of free will. By free will, I am referring to the idea that we each have the ability to choose for ourselves what we do. Philosophically, this idea is often taken for granted, especially in the Western world. It should go without saying that not all worldviews share this particular idea.
The most extreme views on this matter generally seem to come from spiritual outlooks, which probably shouldn't be a surprise. On one side, we have the New Age idea that we are all responsible for everything in our lives. I've heard this idea a lot, I'm not even sure who its most prominent exponent is. Esther Hicks comes to mind. The underlying principle is that we are all far more powerful than we realize, and in fact we are co-creating our realities and the universe itself. Thus, whatever occurs to a person is his/her creation. Consequently, the victim is also the perpetrator in all cases. More on this later.
The other extreme seems to be the belief that we are controlled by our surroundings in all respects, living out essentially mechanical lives from start to finish. To them, nothing we do can break away from our destinies, subjective appearances notwithstanding. We are small parts of the larger cosmic machine and free will is illusory. U.G. Krishnamurti was a particularly interesting character who seemed to hold this view.
With respect to the first extreme, as I said, its most rabid followers in the West seem to be coming from the New Agers. A friend's partner once wrote a story in which the protagonist killed a New Age guru who held this view -- which was sarcastically served as "proof" that the guru wanted to be killed. A similar outlook seems to form part of the basis of Western society's punitive institutions. The criminal chooses crime, thus proving that he/she has decided in favor of evil... I'm sure we can guess what follows.
The second extreme has its own problems. It can lead to pitfalls of non-involvement or justification for any course of action. For example: "I can harm others in whatever way I see fit because my actions are a result of forces beyond my control. I have no true freedom, therefore whatever I do is inevitable and not my responsibility."
And this brings me to why I decided to write on this topic. It's not that I'm inherently interested in whether or not free will exists. I am not. I think the question is ultimately unanswerable, and I'd rather not waste too much of my time chasing after rainbows.
Why then does it remain an important topic to me? Because we have all made some assessments, whether consciously or not, about whether people are ultimately responsible for their actions, and when. This means that we posses internal models for dealing with this matter which affect how we interact with others in the outside world.
Anecdotally, a relative of mine (a fundamentalist Christian) has long held the view that our emotions and actions are all choices we make. At the time I was interacting with him most, I regularly had insomnia. If I complained about poor sleep, he would tell me (sarcastically), "Good choice." This was not in the least bit helpful and subjectively it also didn't seem to be true. My suspicion is that in this circumstance, his model of the functioning of "free will" had overridden his natural better sense.
What I'd like to do is present a slightly more flexible model of how this works, and I guess with any luck someone will find it useful.
I'll start with another anecdote. A few years ago, I started to develop hay fever at certain times of the year. It is still not entirely clear to me what exactly I had become allergic to (wattle?), but it became so severe that on certain days I was put pretty much entirely out of commission. Going outside was very stressful if not impossible because my nose was constantly streaming and sneezing fits were so extreme that it became hard to walk or even stand. The whole experience was really quite miserable. Even strong allergy medications only helped up to a certain point.
After a certain time, I had begun doing a lot of careful self-observation combined with a few techniques for calming down tensions. When I started to become a bit more skilled in these areas, I suddenly realized one day that I had become capable of catching a sneeze before it happened and calming it down, so that my allergic reaction didn't kick in. With a bit of practice, I became better at this, and partly for this reason, I haven't had comparable allergies since, though my control over the matter is far from perfect.
Now, if someone had come up to me when my allergies were bad and had told me that I was making a choice to be so allergic, I would have told that person to fuck off. But on a certain level, one could argue that the "free choice" model was correct, since later on I demonstrated the ability to make it stop. The problem with this idea should be obvious. To give me a hard time about that would have been akin to yelling at a healthy newborn for not being able to walk. That capacity develops later, and with effort. The newborn does not somehow "choose" to be incapable of the normal functioning of an adult. Likewise, I don't think I should expect anyone else to be able to just stop sneezing.
The "newborn" analogy is not perfect, though, since the ability to walk will certainly develop in a normal human being whereas the ability to catch a sneeze and stop it before it happens will not. This brings up another common problem: The tendency to expect that others should be capable of everything we are ourselves capable of. This tendency is maybe a bit of a tangent to the main "free will" idea, but it's related in that often the unspoken model for how we judge ourselves and others is something like, "Whatever I can do could be done by you if only you really wanted to. Whatever I cannot do is forgivable because I just can't do it." That is, your inabilities are related to your failure to exercise free will as I have. My inabilities are related to the hand that fate dealt me. This double-standard seems to be a pretty common trap and should be guarded against vigorously.
Back to my sneezing anecdote, it should be noted that my ability to stop sneezing did not develop out of any sort of prayer or blind application of some hazy notion of "will power", as though it were an arm-wrestling contest. It did not develop out of any dogmatic notions regarding the capacity of free will or choice. In fact, it did not even develop out of a desire to stop sneezing. The primary practices that led to its development were the practice of extending my self-awareness and the practice of alleviating my natural tensions. I emphasize this point both because I think it generalizes for control over many other aspects of the mind and body, and because some people seem to adhere to the "arm-wrestling match" model of free will at times when other models are probably more appropriate to the development of greater freedom.
And speaking of "greater freedom" -- now we're touching on what I think is the heart of the matter. Gaining a greater control and understanding of some function of one's being -- emotional, physical, mental, whatever -- does not necessarily imply total control over that function. Likewise, it does not necessarily imply anything about one's degree of control over other functions.
This is another common pitfall. Using my sneezing anecdote as an example, it does not mean necessarily that I can be expected to never sneeze. It also does not mean that I am any good at controlling my flinch response.
In terms of "free will", however, it might be clearest to say that I have been able to extend a greater degree of free will into one particular aspect of my physical being. Some people might have seen me write elsewhere that "free will is not a boolean value." This is what I'm trying to get at. Whether there is any true free will in the absolute sense is not my concern. However, I now appear to have a choice where previously I appeared to have none.
One related thing I want to note: Robert Anton Wilson, when talking about Timothy Leary's Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness, has made the point that from the point of view of each successive circuit, those who only function on the previous ones appear to be unthinking robots. That is to say, each one on some level represents a certain degree of relative deautomatization. The overall view is not "once you're here, you're free," but rather, "from this point of view, you appear more free than you previously were." This distinction does not always occur to the experiencer of a new state of consciousness without some external source pointing it out.
What do I hope the reader will take away from all this this? I guess a few things, but these three in particular:
1. Free will is not a boolean value.
2. Judgment of others is a tricky matter. What functions does the other person have real control over, and to what degree? You do not know. Know yourself first.
3. You (yes, YOU!) (YES! YOU!) do not have control over the mechanisms of your being. You function largely as a reactive biological machine (just like how you think all those other stupid people work). This is true regardless of your education. By increasing your awareness and calming yourself down, some aspects of this condition may be partially alleviated.
The methods for doing so are laid out in a variety of esoteric traditions. If you're looking for somewhere to start, personally I think Crowley's Liber E is an excellent resource.
My next series here is about the concept of free will. By free will, I am referring to the idea that we each have the ability to choose for ourselves what we do. Philosophically, this idea is often taken for granted, especially in the Western world. It should go without saying that not all worldviews share this particular idea.
The most extreme views on this matter generally seem to come from spiritual outlooks, which probably shouldn't be a surprise. On one side, we have the New Age idea that we are all responsible for everything in our lives. I've heard this idea a lot, I'm not even sure who its most prominent exponent is. Esther Hicks comes to mind. The underlying principle is that we are all far more powerful than we realize, and in fact we are co-creating our realities and the universe itself. Thus, whatever occurs to a person is his/her creation. Consequently, the victim is also the perpetrator in all cases. More on this later.
The other extreme seems to be the belief that we are controlled by our surroundings in all respects, living out essentially mechanical lives from start to finish. To them, nothing we do can break away from our destinies, subjective appearances notwithstanding. We are small parts of the larger cosmic machine and free will is illusory. U.G. Krishnamurti was a particularly interesting character who seemed to hold this view.
With respect to the first extreme, as I said, its most rabid followers in the West seem to be coming from the New Agers. A friend's partner once wrote a story in which the protagonist killed a New Age guru who held this view -- which was sarcastically served as "proof" that the guru wanted to be killed. A similar outlook seems to form part of the basis of Western society's punitive institutions. The criminal chooses crime, thus proving that he/she has decided in favor of evil... I'm sure we can guess what follows.
The second extreme has its own problems. It can lead to pitfalls of non-involvement or justification for any course of action. For example: "I can harm others in whatever way I see fit because my actions are a result of forces beyond my control. I have no true freedom, therefore whatever I do is inevitable and not my responsibility."
And this brings me to why I decided to write on this topic. It's not that I'm inherently interested in whether or not free will exists. I am not. I think the question is ultimately unanswerable, and I'd rather not waste too much of my time chasing after rainbows.
Why then does it remain an important topic to me? Because we have all made some assessments, whether consciously or not, about whether people are ultimately responsible for their actions, and when. This means that we posses internal models for dealing with this matter which affect how we interact with others in the outside world.
Anecdotally, a relative of mine (a fundamentalist Christian) has long held the view that our emotions and actions are all choices we make. At the time I was interacting with him most, I regularly had insomnia. If I complained about poor sleep, he would tell me (sarcastically), "Good choice." This was not in the least bit helpful and subjectively it also didn't seem to be true. My suspicion is that in this circumstance, his model of the functioning of "free will" had overridden his natural better sense.
What I'd like to do is present a slightly more flexible model of how this works, and I guess with any luck someone will find it useful.
I'll start with another anecdote. A few years ago, I started to develop hay fever at certain times of the year. It is still not entirely clear to me what exactly I had become allergic to (wattle?), but it became so severe that on certain days I was put pretty much entirely out of commission. Going outside was very stressful if not impossible because my nose was constantly streaming and sneezing fits were so extreme that it became hard to walk or even stand. The whole experience was really quite miserable. Even strong allergy medications only helped up to a certain point.
After a certain time, I had begun doing a lot of careful self-observation combined with a few techniques for calming down tensions. When I started to become a bit more skilled in these areas, I suddenly realized one day that I had become capable of catching a sneeze before it happened and calming it down, so that my allergic reaction didn't kick in. With a bit of practice, I became better at this, and partly for this reason, I haven't had comparable allergies since, though my control over the matter is far from perfect.
Now, if someone had come up to me when my allergies were bad and had told me that I was making a choice to be so allergic, I would have told that person to fuck off. But on a certain level, one could argue that the "free choice" model was correct, since later on I demonstrated the ability to make it stop. The problem with this idea should be obvious. To give me a hard time about that would have been akin to yelling at a healthy newborn for not being able to walk. That capacity develops later, and with effort. The newborn does not somehow "choose" to be incapable of the normal functioning of an adult. Likewise, I don't think I should expect anyone else to be able to just stop sneezing.
The "newborn" analogy is not perfect, though, since the ability to walk will certainly develop in a normal human being whereas the ability to catch a sneeze and stop it before it happens will not. This brings up another common problem: The tendency to expect that others should be capable of everything we are ourselves capable of. This tendency is maybe a bit of a tangent to the main "free will" idea, but it's related in that often the unspoken model for how we judge ourselves and others is something like, "Whatever I can do could be done by you if only you really wanted to. Whatever I cannot do is forgivable because I just can't do it." That is, your inabilities are related to your failure to exercise free will as I have. My inabilities are related to the hand that fate dealt me. This double-standard seems to be a pretty common trap and should be guarded against vigorously.
Back to my sneezing anecdote, it should be noted that my ability to stop sneezing did not develop out of any sort of prayer or blind application of some hazy notion of "will power", as though it were an arm-wrestling contest. It did not develop out of any dogmatic notions regarding the capacity of free will or choice. In fact, it did not even develop out of a desire to stop sneezing. The primary practices that led to its development were the practice of extending my self-awareness and the practice of alleviating my natural tensions. I emphasize this point both because I think it generalizes for control over many other aspects of the mind and body, and because some people seem to adhere to the "arm-wrestling match" model of free will at times when other models are probably more appropriate to the development of greater freedom.
And speaking of "greater freedom" -- now we're touching on what I think is the heart of the matter. Gaining a greater control and understanding of some function of one's being -- emotional, physical, mental, whatever -- does not necessarily imply total control over that function. Likewise, it does not necessarily imply anything about one's degree of control over other functions.
This is another common pitfall. Using my sneezing anecdote as an example, it does not mean necessarily that I can be expected to never sneeze. It also does not mean that I am any good at controlling my flinch response.
In terms of "free will", however, it might be clearest to say that I have been able to extend a greater degree of free will into one particular aspect of my physical being. Some people might have seen me write elsewhere that "free will is not a boolean value." This is what I'm trying to get at. Whether there is any true free will in the absolute sense is not my concern. However, I now appear to have a choice where previously I appeared to have none.
One related thing I want to note: Robert Anton Wilson, when talking about Timothy Leary's Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness, has made the point that from the point of view of each successive circuit, those who only function on the previous ones appear to be unthinking robots. That is to say, each one on some level represents a certain degree of relative deautomatization. The overall view is not "once you're here, you're free," but rather, "from this point of view, you appear more free than you previously were." This distinction does not always occur to the experiencer of a new state of consciousness without some external source pointing it out.
What do I hope the reader will take away from all this this? I guess a few things, but these three in particular:
1. Free will is not a boolean value.
2. Judgment of others is a tricky matter. What functions does the other person have real control over, and to what degree? You do not know. Know yourself first.
3. You (yes, YOU!) (YES! YOU!) do not have control over the mechanisms of your being. You function largely as a reactive biological machine (just like how you think all those other stupid people work). This is true regardless of your education. By increasing your awareness and calming yourself down, some aspects of this condition may be partially alleviated.
The methods for doing so are laid out in a variety of esoteric traditions. If you're looking for somewhere to start, personally I think Crowley's Liber E is an excellent resource.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
John Dee -- Genius and Douchebag
I recently sunk my teeth into John Dee's Five Books of Mystery (Joseph H. Peterson, Editor). For those who don't know, John Dee was a pretty influential figure in a few fields. One of those fields was Western magic.
So I decided to read this stuff because it was theoretically the source material for the Golden Dawn's Enochian practices and their derivatives. The basic story is that Dee had someone (he got the best results with Edward Kelley, supposedly) as a medium for his occult experiments and recorded some remarkable results; including extensive conversations with "Angels" who gave various kinds of advice, answered questions, and provided at least one new language.
The downside? Well, the "Angels" seem to have really had a tendency to tell Dee what he wanted to hear when asked about external-world issues, and Dee seemed to have taken some of their answers as as a sign that the people of the New World needed Christianity shoved down their throats. I suppose it would be unfair to judge him by modern standards here, but it nevertheless sticks out in my mind as some kind of dismal failure.
Anyway, apparently there's some debate about whether Edward Kelley was an outright con artist, and comparing the claims of the "Angels" to real-world happenings doesn't look very favorable. That is, at the very least, the idea that they were all-seeing beings there to give honest answers doesn't seem supported by fact.
Despite these things, his material remains influential, so whatever his own apparent failings and however questionable the origins of the practices he lays out, it must yield worthwhile results for a lot of people. For now, I mostly take it as a lesson about what results from wanting something to be true a little too much.
So I decided to read this stuff because it was theoretically the source material for the Golden Dawn's Enochian practices and their derivatives. The basic story is that Dee had someone (he got the best results with Edward Kelley, supposedly) as a medium for his occult experiments and recorded some remarkable results; including extensive conversations with "Angels" who gave various kinds of advice, answered questions, and provided at least one new language.
The downside? Well, the "Angels" seem to have really had a tendency to tell Dee what he wanted to hear when asked about external-world issues, and Dee seemed to have taken some of their answers as as a sign that the people of the New World needed Christianity shoved down their throats. I suppose it would be unfair to judge him by modern standards here, but it nevertheless sticks out in my mind as some kind of dismal failure.
Anyway, apparently there's some debate about whether Edward Kelley was an outright con artist, and comparing the claims of the "Angels" to real-world happenings doesn't look very favorable. That is, at the very least, the idea that they were all-seeing beings there to give honest answers doesn't seem supported by fact.
Despite these things, his material remains influential, so whatever his own apparent failings and however questionable the origins of the practices he lays out, it must yield worthwhile results for a lot of people. For now, I mostly take it as a lesson about what results from wanting something to be true a little too much.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Banishing Rituals -- The Lab
In "Undoing Yourself (With Enegized Meditation)", Christopher Hyatt presents the idea of the Lab:
He goes on to suggest the LBRP as one way of achieving this. The point I want to make here is that a Banishing Ritual like the LBRP will, if successful, create (at least psychologically) a space which is completely protected and safe (the Lab). Even if you don't go on to perform experiments in your Lab, into the safety and cleanliness of its psychological environment will tend to calm down one's "fears, anxieties, uncertainties, doubts, and prejudices".
Also, practice makes perfect. With practice, it can become one way of really calming these kinds of tensions down, both in the mind and body. Furthermore, as a practical matter, in terms of concentration, the less one part of you is fighting against another, the more single-pointed your mind can become.
In the LBRP, I think that this is partly achieved by flipping the universe inside-out, as described in my previous post. Within your circle (your Lab), you have asserted that your internal universe is projected outward. You are now the sovereign of this space. If the implications are properly understood, you have nothing to fear from anyone or anything while in this mindset.
Once that is grasped, you can tell it to your entire body and mind. You can be like an old-time town crier, knocking at all your internal doors and saying, "Hey! Buddy! You heard the news? There are no enemies anywhere. Yeah, it's totally safe now. You can come out and put down that knife!"
The Banishing Ritual, having banished the entire external universe for a time (or at least placed it inside oneself, again asserting personal sovereignty, not to mention giving an instance of infinite recursion to think about), suddenly becomes a calming and even healing and integrative process.
SO YOU WANT TO MAKE A BANISHING RITUAL
I don't particularly think the LBRP is for everyone. The internet is around these days with a lot of resources for research, I don't know how worthwhile it is for me to give specific recommendations, but I'll try to at least provide a few leads or key-words.
Interested readers may look for further inspiration from chaos magic (sometimes spelled "kaos majik", amongst other variants), if only because it attempts to build itself up without an elaborate underlying system of symbols, though the annoying terminology factor may be a put-off for some. Aleister Crowley gives some commentary on the LBRP and purports to offer an alternative in The Book of Lies. Israel Regardie gives clear-headed advice like nobody's business, and often provides a psychological interpretation to consider.
If you're interested in developing a Banishing Ritual with the characteristics described in my recent posts but don't care to read much more on the LBRP or chaos magic (or find some other existing practice that suits you better), I'll give a small recommendation list for what it's worth:
THE LAB
A lab is a place where scientists gather to test out their favorite theories. The reason they have a lab is they realize they have more theories than facts.
[...]
Unlike most of us who know everything, (If you don't think so just ask anyone about anything and see what happens!—) the real scientist knows that You are the Lab, the Subject, and the Experimenter.
[...]
As your own scientist it is important to leave all your preconceived ideas, thoughts and beliefs at the portal of your LAB. This includes your fears, anxieties, uncertainties, doubts and prejudices which have prevented you from experiencing the joy and freedom of your highest aspirations.
He goes on to suggest the LBRP as one way of achieving this. The point I want to make here is that a Banishing Ritual like the LBRP will, if successful, create (at least psychologically) a space which is completely protected and safe (the Lab). Even if you don't go on to perform experiments in your Lab, into the safety and cleanliness of its psychological environment will tend to calm down one's "fears, anxieties, uncertainties, doubts, and prejudices".
Also, practice makes perfect. With practice, it can become one way of really calming these kinds of tensions down, both in the mind and body. Furthermore, as a practical matter, in terms of concentration, the less one part of you is fighting against another, the more single-pointed your mind can become.
In the LBRP, I think that this is partly achieved by flipping the universe inside-out, as described in my previous post. Within your circle (your Lab), you have asserted that your internal universe is projected outward. You are now the sovereign of this space. If the implications are properly understood, you have nothing to fear from anyone or anything while in this mindset.
Once that is grasped, you can tell it to your entire body and mind. You can be like an old-time town crier, knocking at all your internal doors and saying, "Hey! Buddy! You heard the news? There are no enemies anywhere. Yeah, it's totally safe now. You can come out and put down that knife!"
The Banishing Ritual, having banished the entire external universe for a time (or at least placed it inside oneself, again asserting personal sovereignty, not to mention giving an instance of infinite recursion to think about), suddenly becomes a calming and even healing and integrative process.
SO YOU WANT TO MAKE A BANISHING RITUAL
I don't particularly think the LBRP is for everyone. The internet is around these days with a lot of resources for research, I don't know how worthwhile it is for me to give specific recommendations, but I'll try to at least provide a few leads or key-words.
Interested readers may look for further inspiration from chaos magic (sometimes spelled "kaos majik", amongst other variants), if only because it attempts to build itself up without an elaborate underlying system of symbols, though the annoying terminology factor may be a put-off for some. Aleister Crowley gives some commentary on the LBRP and purports to offer an alternative in The Book of Lies. Israel Regardie gives clear-headed advice like nobody's business, and often provides a psychological interpretation to consider.
If you're interested in developing a Banishing Ritual with the characteristics described in my recent posts but don't care to read much more on the LBRP or chaos magic (or find some other existing practice that suits you better), I'll give a small recommendation list for what it's worth:
- Invoke "higher functioning". Make your idea of higher functioning and its symbols as clear in your head as possible.
- Formulate clear visualizations. Whatever you do, take the time to ensure that it engages the visual imagination, and that you form the relevant imagery in your mind as clearly as possible. This comes down to practice.
- Auditory components are excellent too. Saying something, singing something, imagining sounds, these things have their own effects that may be worth investigating.
- Experimentation is good, getting lost and failing to pin anything down is not.
- Barriers serve to let you deeply know that you are safe. "Fear is failure, and the forerunner of failure..."
- I've tried to describe one formula that reinforces control, concentration, and understanding: The internal universe is projected, the external universe is condensed inside.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Banishing Rituals -- LBRP
In the previous post, I mentioned the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram. It seems that use of this ritual was recommended quite a lot in the GD as a general solution for opening and closing rituals. Also, apart from Crowley's hyperbole, it was highly regarded by Israel Regardie, who recommended it as an entry point of sorts into the Golden Dawn system.
Before addressing the ritual itself, I'd like to quote Peter Carroll again (Liber Kaos this time):
I am not going to attempt to describe every Qabalistic correspondence implied in the above ritual, in no small part because I don't feel fully qualified. Suffice to say that the ritual assumes a complex system of symbols, associations, and correspondences which serve as a sort of basis for its construction. For now, we'll gloss over this and just tackle some basics.
Steps (i) to (v) above constitute the Qabalistic Cross. You may remember hearing very similar things in church, depending on your background. You'll notice, though, that step (i) sort of designates the subject of a sentence and the rest is a statement about what is being designated to that subject. This is an entry point for a basic understanding of what's happening symbolically.
Just taking it as a general statement, "Unto thee" is very vague, isn't it? Making a cross on the body and saying Hebrew words that parallel Christian church phrases at first will probably lead the reader to suppose that the entity being addressed is "God", that old white guy in the sky. Not necessarily. Israel Regardie states that the entity being addressed is the practitioner's higher genius of sorts. Also, "Unto thee" is said while touching the forehead, which could be related to the brain or the third eye chakra depending on taste. Actually, the forehead is at the front of the brain, so one could even say the frontal lobe. The point here is that it begins and ends with a way of dedicating certain things to "higher functioning", whatever the practitioner may conceive that to be. If one's idea of "higher functioning" is clear, this can be a quick aid to concentration and keeping thoughts from going to less important things.
The practitioner then draws a circle of fire around him/herself in his/her imagination, with a pentagram of fire located at each of the four cardinal directions. The directions, the archangels, the god-names... these things I'll set aside for now. I think this part of the process is in many ways more along the lines of what one might naturally think of when thinking of "banishing". Notably, the circle is intended to be a line which external influences cannot cross.
I want to talk next about steps (xv) and (xvi). This is actually the heart of what I want to point out about this ritual. What the hell are those pentagrams about anyway? The upright pentagram is a symbol with a number of associations, and I won't go over all of them. The main thing I want to point out is that one name given to the pentagram is the "Star of the Microcosm". Having drawn the pentagrams, the practitioner makes a statement about the "Six-rayed star": the hexagram. The hexagram is also known as the "Star of the Macrocosm", and it is being placed (in one's imagination) in "the column", which is essentially an imaginary line going through the center of the body.
I'd like to suggest a plausible interpretation of this moment in the ritual: The microcosm (we might say the internal universe) is identified as occupying a space outside of oneself and the macrocosm (we'll say the external universe) is identified as being condensed into a space inside of oneself. Viewed this way, the entire universe has been turned inside-out!
So in the above, I've given a couple more ideas that seem to have been integrated into a very popular Banishing Ritual. Next post I'll try to talk about why this kind of ritual seems to be considered useful even on its own, regardless of whether it begins/ends another activity or not, and also regardless of whether there is some specific influence being banished or not. Stay tuned!
Before addressing the ritual itself, I'd like to quote Peter Carroll again (Liber Kaos this time):
The traditional lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram devised by Golden Dawn adepts is becoming progressively less useful as time advances. Nowadays, fewI mention this because personally I don't know how wise the "just do it" attitude is with this kind of material. If the symbols aren't understood well enough for the practitioner to have some degree of clarity, this kind of ritual might be a waste of time or have undesirable side-effects. Nevertheless, the ritual is a useful (and influential) example of a banishing procedure. This is it (quoted from an online version of Crowley's Liber O):
people are sufficiently committed to Hebraic mysticism or kabbalistic studies to derive much power from the god names and angelic images. The persistency of the increasingly inappropriate lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram and imItative
variants of it in other traditions is evidence of a continuing requirement for a ritual of this type.
(i) Touching the forehead say Ateh (Unto Thee).
(ii) Touching the breast say Malkuth (The Kingdom).
(iii) Touching the right shoulder, say ve-Geburah (and the Power).
(iv) Touching the left shoulder, say ve-Gedulah (and the Glory).
(v) Clasping the hands upon the breast, say le-Olahm, Amen (To the Ages, Amen).
(vi) Turning to the East make a pentagram (that of Earth) with the proper weapon (usually the Wand). Say ("i.e." vibrate) I H V H.
(vii) Turning to the South, the same, but say A D N I.
(viii) Turning to the West, the same, but say A H I H.
(ix) Turning to the North, the same, but say A G L A.
Pronounce: Ye-ho-wau, Adonai, Eheieh, Agla.
(x) Extending the arms in the form of a Cross say:
(xi) Before me Raphael;
(xii) Behind me Gabriel;
(xiii) On my right hand Michael.
(xiv) On my left hand Auriel;
(xv) For about me flames the Pentagram,
(xvi) And in the Column stands the six-rayed Star.
(xvii-xxi) Repeat (i) to (v), the Qabalistic Cross.
I am not going to attempt to describe every Qabalistic correspondence implied in the above ritual, in no small part because I don't feel fully qualified. Suffice to say that the ritual assumes a complex system of symbols, associations, and correspondences which serve as a sort of basis for its construction. For now, we'll gloss over this and just tackle some basics.
Steps (i) to (v) above constitute the Qabalistic Cross. You may remember hearing very similar things in church, depending on your background. You'll notice, though, that step (i) sort of designates the subject of a sentence and the rest is a statement about what is being designated to that subject. This is an entry point for a basic understanding of what's happening symbolically.
Just taking it as a general statement, "Unto thee" is very vague, isn't it? Making a cross on the body and saying Hebrew words that parallel Christian church phrases at first will probably lead the reader to suppose that the entity being addressed is "God", that old white guy in the sky. Not necessarily. Israel Regardie states that the entity being addressed is the practitioner's higher genius of sorts. Also, "Unto thee" is said while touching the forehead, which could be related to the brain or the third eye chakra depending on taste. Actually, the forehead is at the front of the brain, so one could even say the frontal lobe. The point here is that it begins and ends with a way of dedicating certain things to "higher functioning", whatever the practitioner may conceive that to be. If one's idea of "higher functioning" is clear, this can be a quick aid to concentration and keeping thoughts from going to less important things.
The practitioner then draws a circle of fire around him/herself in his/her imagination, with a pentagram of fire located at each of the four cardinal directions. The directions, the archangels, the god-names... these things I'll set aside for now. I think this part of the process is in many ways more along the lines of what one might naturally think of when thinking of "banishing". Notably, the circle is intended to be a line which external influences cannot cross.
I want to talk next about steps (xv) and (xvi). This is actually the heart of what I want to point out about this ritual. What the hell are those pentagrams about anyway? The upright pentagram is a symbol with a number of associations, and I won't go over all of them. The main thing I want to point out is that one name given to the pentagram is the "Star of the Microcosm". Having drawn the pentagrams, the practitioner makes a statement about the "Six-rayed star": the hexagram. The hexagram is also known as the "Star of the Macrocosm", and it is being placed (in one's imagination) in "the column", which is essentially an imaginary line going through the center of the body.
I'd like to suggest a plausible interpretation of this moment in the ritual: The microcosm (we might say the internal universe) is identified as occupying a space outside of oneself and the macrocosm (we'll say the external universe) is identified as being condensed into a space inside of oneself. Viewed this way, the entire universe has been turned inside-out!
So in the above, I've given a couple more ideas that seem to have been integrated into a very popular Banishing Ritual. Next post I'll try to talk about why this kind of ritual seems to be considered useful even on its own, regardless of whether it begins/ends another activity or not, and also regardless of whether there is some specific influence being banished or not. Stay tuned!
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