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kimberlysteeleAt any rate, after only three years of religious practices of daily discursive meditation, prayer, the Druid Sphere of Protection, and divination, I consider myself as religious as they come. What an odd state for a former atheist! Being raised in a materialist Christian household of the type that is quite common in the middle and upper-middle classes, I feel obliged to try to answer the question "Why won't God heal amputees?"
Why won't God heal amputees?
1. Because Meat World sucks. HARD. What's Meat World? Meat World, my friend, is the material plane. It is absolutely awful here. Yes, it can be a place of stunning beauty and kindness, but most of the time, it's harsh and brutal. For instance, there once was a mallard duck who was raped to death by a gang of male mallards, after which she was pulled apart by raccoons and hawks, feasted upon, and finally done away with by maggots and ants. Did she deserve it?
No. Did the amputee deserve it? I'm going to say what any rational person would say -- I have no flipping idea, and if he did, it's not my place to make that judgement!
Let's look at how a Christian would answer this question... "The Lord works in mysterious ways." To that, I say NOT GOOD ENOUGH. The problem with a Christian excusing their God's capricious cruelty is that many of them presume their dogmas contain everything one needs to know about the world. I am not making excuses for God's cruelty if that is what is really going on here. What I am saying is I don't know.
Now let's take a look at how atheists answer the Did He Deserve It? question. They are going to say absolutely not, the event was random and chaotic as goes the world we live in. With this equally thoughtstopping answer, any further curiosity as to the forces working in the amputee's life are summarily dismissed.
Instead of looking at the amputee's plight as a binary -- it's either A or B -- maybe we can try looking at a third possibility. As horrific as it is to have a limb amputated, there just might be lessons to be learned not only for the amputee who has no choice but to live without his limb/limbs but for the people around him who have the choice either to act as harmers or helpers. It's almost as if the world sucks because it is a school or testing ground.
A matrix, if you will. Speaking of matrices, remember that part of The Matrix when Neo and Agent Smith have a chat about the state of the world? Agent Smith said that a perfect Matrix where nothing bad ever happened had been tried and that the experiment utterly failed.
The reason we have amputees, guinea worms, and pedophiles is because we are all being tested at every moment of material existence. Those of us who are lucky to have no encounters with amputation, guinea worms, or pedos have a duty to help those who have been harmed by the aforementioned terrible things as well as all of the other afflictions of the material. What we are not to do is gloat about how sweet we have it in comparison or the opposite, to pretend that nobody has it worse than we do.
We humans begin to fail the tests of the material plane the moment we hoard a bunch of goodies for ourselves and refuse to share what we have, whether that is in a small way such as getting mad that a family member wants a bite of our food or a large way such as holing up in an environmentally-devastating, fully gentrified McMansion while virtue signaling to all of the rich neighbors with a shirt that claims Black Lives Matter.
Every moment of our material life represents an opportunity to make the best of what we are given, and that's true for McMansion dwellers and guinea worm victims alike. Is it fair? No, or at least's it isn't fair on any level we can possibly understand. The atheist rejects such an explanation because atheist thought always has to run one way or the other towards the ends of a binary: If God exists, and the world is a testing ground, then God is cruel and I've already failed! Might as well do whatever I want! If God doesn't exist, then it explains everything, because everything gets to be chaotic and random and I can do whatever I want because I'll never be judged by my actions by a superior being!
Yes, some gods are cruel. Some are dying out, like the Christian one (my opinion, anyway), and other gods and demons have often sprung up in their place to grasp the consciousness of would-be Christians. The unseen world is an ecosystem, just like the visible one is an ecosystem. The ecosystem self-regulates and balances in a way that we do not yet understand. Humans don't understand ecosystems. We are easily terrified by nothingburger viruses, dumb enough to use RoundUp in our lawns, and have yet to create a working biodome. Though our scientists like to think they understand how nature works, the proof is in the pudding that they don't. We know even less about the unseen world than we do about the material one. Our scientists are so arrogant and dimwitted, they can't be bothered to study occult phenomena that practically smack you in the face, such as the etheric value of food in relation to the way it is prepared. If we take the arrogant attitude of knowing it all, for instance by trying to micromanage the weather via nanotechnology, we see disastrous results. Dumb humans attempt to force an ecosystem they don't understand into a proscribed mold. The unseen ecosystem also cannot be understood by trying to force it into a proscribed mold, and one of the proscribed molds it is shoved into is the atheist's "it's all chaos and coincidence" theory. The other is the monotheist's "it all works the way God says it does in my religion's holy book."
2. Because God isn't what you think it is.
There are many atheists who are natural mages/witches of exceptional natural talent. I was that atheist. Some of them have figured out that they are naturals and have proceeded to become bad karma grenades, flinging around their bad intentions with glee and never putting two and two together when blowback hits them with a rare cancer, severe depression, or a bully-terrorized child.
I am a natural witch, and it's not just the hair or the black cat that makes me that way. When the gods took me on a few years ago, they had plenty of raw material to work with, but they also had to school me repeatedly on why it's a bad idea to do hostile magic. Every time you wish someone would suffer and/or die (including when you do it subconsciously), you are flinging around hostile magic. It is only when you wake up and say "I don't do that anymore" that you have a chance at a worthwhile deity working with you. If you enjoy flinging around hostile magic (including subconscious hostile magic) and have no plans to stop, you can still work with non-embodied entities, but you're more likely to get the attention of demons, and at that point, the joke is on you, Dr. Faust. If you fool yourself into thinking the entity granting you favors is a god, by all means, go right ahead. Some people can only learn the hard way and if you're that person, I wish for you to be blessed because you'll need it. The sad part is that if you are naturally talented as I was/am, if you go the cacomagic route, you'll miss out on forms of happiness that are deeper that anything that could be granted via material prosperity or ego gratification. If you can put your pride and your preconceived notions of what God is supposed to be aside, you are suddenly in the position to listen to what God has to say to you.
I believe in many gods. I have had the honor of talking to them. I talked to one today. It was my day off. I stole the opportunity to take a long, solitary walk down to one of my town's many forest preserves. While I was on my walk, I talked to one of the Greek gods. We had a brief conversation about the folk tunes I have written to accompany the Orphic Hymns. I also talked to three different dryads or tree spirits. It's not a big deal and I'm not special. Anyone can do this. This is my normal now. I'm far less crazy than when I was atheist, calmer, and more easygoing.
If you've ever had a close relationship with a pet, you're already aware that it is not difficult to communicate with a non-human entity. The difference is that we cannot physically see gods, goddesses, and dryads, or at least I cannot see them. I'm occasionally clairaudient, meaning I can hear birds chirping in the middle of the night that aren't technically there or a voice will make itself heard randomly -- this happened when I was fifteen when I heard a ghost exclaim "Oh my lambs!" in a retail store I was working in at the time -- but I'm no clairvoyant. I can feel the presence of non-corporeal beings though, and because of my Druid practices, I can discern the array of feelings in order to identify what is going on around me. Occultists call the unseen world the subtle planes for a reason. I don't want to freak you out, but you are surrounded by an array of ghosts, spirits, elementals, manatus, gods, and potentially demons right now. If I was in the room with you, it's likely I could communicate with one or two of the beings around you. If you're sensitive, you can sense them wherever you are, like on the train or in your apartment. Most of these creatures are harmless. Just as we tend to see more squirrels, sparrows, and raccoons out here in the suburbs and people in the city encounter rats, cockroaches, and pigeons, certain non-embodied entities go with certain territories. Some of the entities are parasitic and riding you and/or someone you know. You're more likely to have a direct experience with a fairy or an elf in the hinterlands, the more remote the better. You can absolutely attract "good" entities to your domicile. Cultivating a garden, whether outdoors or indoors, is an excellent way of doing this.
Or you can be like the atheist and the Christian, clapping your ears and screaming LA LA LA when someone mentions the inhabitants of the non-physical planes. The Christian believes in a boring universe that in my opinion does not reflect reality. This boring universe is divided into three parts: Meat World, minus the unseen ecosystem, Heaven where all the good repenters go after they die, and Hell, where the majority of the unsaved will burn, including those who lived upright and charitable lives while believing in the wrong gods. The atheist believes only in the humanity-dominated Meat World and an endless gaping void afterwards.
I reject both of these outlooks. I think the reason so many people throughout history have believed in gods and spirits is because gods and spirits are present and accounted for, we just lack the ability to see them. Atheists especially like to think humans are the smartest creatures on the planet. I used to share this belief. We're not the smartest beings on Earth and we never will be. Atheists also think that if a creature is hyper-intelligent, then it must be physical and from outer space. The atheist lacks the creativity to entertain the notion that perhaps some beings are far smarter than humans while also being body-less and from Planet Earth.
The Christian dismisses the idea of non-embodied intelligences so she can return to the comforts of her usual submission programming. God is what the Bible says. There aren't potentials beyond what the Bible describes and the condition of being saved is that you squelch any disagreement with Christian dogma. Furthermore, your job in life is to go out and recruit others to believe in your God exclusively because the Bible instructs you to do so. You are to remain unconcerned about the ethics of forcing conversion to your faith because you must convince yourself they are damned without it. I have only met a handful of Christians who didn't have these sleazy sentiments lurking within them. I would like to be proven wrong about Christians. Actions speak louder than words. By their fruits I shall know them. I hope that in the future, Christians devote more of their energy to emulating Christ than to their current routine of being confused in all things except the drive to gain more converts to their confused cause.
I don't believe in an omnipotent God, or at least if there is an omnipotent God, I highly doubt there would be a book that could inform my tiny human brain about things he said. I vastly prefer to strike up relationships with gods who never claimed omnipotence if they will have me. I believe in Jesus Christ, but I also believe in Allah, the Buddha, the entire Greek pantheon, and too many more to mention. I think people who are like my former atheist self find themselves unable to talk to gods because they are a combination of too arrogant, too preconditioned, and to blind to know what to look for.
When I was an atheist, I remember the desperation I sensed in the faithful, including that of Occidental exotic fetishists who obsessed over various gurus or fawned over the Dalai Lama. Their supposed inner peace proved only that religion truly was the opiate of the masses. To be atheist is to declare oneself an island separate from "all that nonsense" which starts looking like mumbo jumbo if you achieve the goal of lumping it all together in one steaming pile of woo. Never mind the series of odd synchronicities in the lead up to Trump's election. Never mind the kid in Dr. Ian Stevenson's patient archive who remembered every detail of being a fighter pilot in his past life to the point of knowing his old Air Force buddy's names. Nothing to see here, folks...
3. Because of Reincarnation and That Old Chestnut, "I Could Be Wrong"
The gods I believe in don't seem to be spontaneously healing amputees, though I think that many people who are amputees now will not be amputees in their future lives. I believe I was an amputee in one of my former human lives, though I'm not sure why I was an amputee in a previous life. John Michael Greer says that in his ecosystem-centric view of the Universe, one shared by many occultists like him, people who are human in this incarnation have been through billions of years of incarnations as gradually evolving animal forms on Earth. We became human at a literally glacial pace, and every human soul has spent quality time going through various animal incarnations, all the way from single-celled parameciums to fuzzy mammals. Becoming human represents a jump in intelligence along with specific challenges in order to proof us for the next phase, which is the non-embodied state Druids call Gwnfydd, "the luminous life". After that, there are more complex states we all have the possibility of achieving.
I haven't the remotest idea what they specifically entail because I am not a god. Supposedly I can also screw up and end up going through my animal lives again -- this is the karmic equivalent of having to repeat kindergarten. If I make an absolute mess of my lives, I have a shot at being stripped down to my basest non-physical elements and being swept away by a passing comet, never to return to this solar system again. For me, this seems like a decent incentive not to go down the Chairman Mao or Jeffrey Dahmer route and to attempt to continually refine my compassionate and thoughtful parts instead.
But I could be wrong. Who am I to say how the Matrix works? I know at this point you were waiting for me to take some cheap shots at Eastern religions, and here goes: Buddhism and Hinduism were both extremely wrong when they created caste systems around their beliefs in reincarnation. I've never understood how two religions that fully acknowledge karma can invent a giant civilizational bad karma generator in the form of a caste system. Just... dumb. Institutionalized snobbery does not belong to god, that's strictly the domain of the other team. I know a very smart vegan guy who once said of children who die of horrific cancers that they "probably raped a thousand women in a former life" to me while I was an atheist. This didn't sit well with me. I suppose there wasn't time for him to communicate the short novel I've gone into above, but the problem with his statement was the missing idea that he could have been wrong. I'll never know because I walked out of the conversation that day, condemning him as a fool. I don't think he is a fool anymore; I do suppose he had a point but I wasn't ready to hear any part of it.
I can only speak for myself, but I think the moral of the story is that I should strive to be the most balanced, kindest, and thoughtful person I can be every day whether I am faithful, faithless, or somewhere in between. That's not the easiest prescription when in Meat World, especially when times get tough. Nevertheless, I am going to try and I hope you will too.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-07 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-08 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-07 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-08 03:16 am (UTC)I see Old Testament God as a reflection of the times. I can see why OT God appealed to Europeans of the Middle Ages -- they were a tough folk, far tougher than the current crop. They also had healthier views about sex in the Middle Ages, so I think that's evidence they took the Bible with a grain of salt to some degree. The Victorian era is where sex and sexual roles got warped all to hell.
The exotic fetishists who run into the arms of Eastern religion and quasi-Eastern religion, such as American takes on yoga, do so out of hatred for the culture into which they were born and the need to soothe raging insecurity. There are also more noble urges in there, such as wanting to transcend one's worst flaws, but the heart of the matter is usually insecurity and the need to impress. Reincarnation from such a person's vantage doesn't get scrutinized in any meaningful way, it's just part and parcel of the adopted religion. It's a package deal and in order to seem like an impressive Buddhist or Hindu expert among regular Westerners, you must have an unexamined, straight-from-the-guru's-lips dissertation on your faith to display at any moment.
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Date: 2020-10-12 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-08 02:21 pm (UTC)I spent many years as a Christian and/or agnostic, though I've expanded my horizons in the past few years (also thanks to JMG) and now focus on my devotional efforts elsewhere.
You mention: "You can absolutely attract "good" entities to your domicile. Cultivating a garden, whether outdoors or indoors, is an excellent way of doing this." Is this the focus of your Sacred Homemaking book? Any sense of when you plan to finish? I'm very eager for it!
-lp
no subject
Date: 2020-10-08 03:25 pm (UTC)I'm working on a song project this week that I expect to wrap up within the week. Once it does, I'll be going full force on finishing the Sacred Homemaking book. Yes, it is absolutely a book about what the Japanese call kami and what Europeans know as brownies or household spirits and how to attract them. I have lots of them in my house and in my gardens. In my book, I'll be relating the weird story of how the spirits of my house returned a missing S hook for one of my bird feeders -- long story short is I dropped it under the outside stairs in deep snow and it mysteriously showed up on my car seat the next day... 😮
no subject
Date: 2020-10-08 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-08 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-11 12:02 am (UTC)Will your book be available as an e-book?
no subject
Date: 2020-10-11 03:56 am (UTC)Here's a woman who has taken indoor gardening to a whole new level!
Date: 2020-10-08 03:28 pm (UTC)Re: Here's a woman who has taken indoor gardening to a whole new level!
Date: 2020-10-08 04:45 pm (UTC)Looking forward to hearing about the S hook on your car seat. That seems like a clear message ("hey, we're here"), as opposed to finding it in the vicinity of where you lost it.
-lp
Re: Here's a woman who has taken indoor gardening to a whole new level!
Date: 2020-10-08 08:23 pm (UTC)About christians
Date: 2020-10-08 05:13 pm (UTC)First, great writing. I am starting to look back at your essays and read them after I read your comments on Ecosophia.
So, here is my nitpick - when you say christians, you must mean protestants (or even American protestants). Even from my very limited experience, I know plenty of christians that don't fit any of your stereotypes.
While I was never religious, I grew up in an Orthodox country. As far as I can tell, the Orthodox church believes in all kinds of gods, demons and other non-corporeal beings. They still do demon exorcisms sometimes. They don't worry about new conversions. One of the famous monks was asked if being a monk/nun is the most saintly thing a person can do. His answer? No, being a parent (creating life) is the most saintly thing you can do. And no, they don't reject birth control. It's not about forcing people to have children.
In general orthodoxy was very much about bringing community together - births, weddings, funerals etc. Traditionally politics was dismissed as not worthy of attention and divisive.
That being said, there are some Orthodox leaders moving to extremes - probably under pressure from American religious proselytism. So they started becoming involved in politics and turning more fundamentalist. I hope they revert to their traditional approach which successfully preserved the christian traditions even when attacked by catholic or muslim or atheist empires.
Re: About christians
Date: 2020-10-08 08:14 pm (UTC)Re: About christians
Date: 2020-10-12 05:50 am (UTC)—Lady Cutekitten
Re: About christians
Date: 2020-10-12 05:20 pm (UTC)Re: About christians
Date: 2020-10-12 05:14 pm (UTC)Re: About christians
Date: 2020-10-12 05:47 am (UTC)—Lady Cutekitten
House protection
Date: 2020-10-09 08:04 pm (UTC)I too am interested in your book! I am
glad you are writing it.
I was wondering, will there be anything like
how to protect your Home?
We have had ppl who have been trespassing
on our roof (our apt is above a store which is now closed to the public, though the owner still comes to do his own projects/take care of the place) and since
there are more ppl squatting (there is an
abandonded building next door, hence them jumping onto our roof from there) and more ppl with drugs/homelessness etc I was wondering if there was any way to protect
it.
One of the ppl actually did break in our back door and got in, robbing us while we slept. that was not a happy easter monday morning to wake up to.
So since then I have been adding the house, roof and all, to my SoP..
But I think there are other options out there.. maybe like hexafoils on the doors or
protective pentagrams or even some certain herbs to hang on the door handles..
I know they are out there, Blessings and Protectings for homes, but I am not certain myself how to do them.
So, since you are writing this book, will such things be included?
It would be a great thing (or things) to know about!
Re: House protection
Date: 2020-10-09 10:45 pm (UTC)Ideally, installing a wire fence or border around the periphery of the roof would prevent people from jumping from building and would magically guard the place with a layer of steel, but I highly doubt your landlord would go for it. Here is what I'm talking about: http://olympicfencenyc.com/commercial-chain-link-fences/black-powder-coated-chain-link-fence-on-roof-angled-45-deg-for-2/
On the etheric plane, I'm going to suggest you put objects on the roof, maybe plants or cheap objets d'art or anything to make it harder to step around up there. If the roof is a minefield of potentially shattered pottery, it could be a deterrent. Or maybe place the plants in trays full of broken glass and ceramic shards. I'd also try hotfoot powdering the area where people jump every day or every other day.
As far as magic, I would pray for the inhabitants next door to have opportunities to get into homes for those who would rather not be homeless. Say to the gods that you don't wish them any harm, but they are not welcome in your home or on your roof. I would back up that prayer by donating to the local (reputable) homeless shelter on Saturday during Saturn's hour, making 8 donations of $8 or a single donation of $64 (8x8). Adding the home's protection to your SoP is a good strategy. Hexafoils can't hurt. I would also put a heavy potted plant near the place where they broke in, and in its soil shallowly bury a dozen or so sharp nails with points facing outward to disrupt the etheric field they would be standing in when trying to break in.
Once again, you really ought to consider moving. There are some places that aren't livable no matter how you bless them. Could have something to do with the karma of that area or that city. In some cases, it's like putting a traffic cone in front of a steamroller and unfortunately this is what may be happening in the situation you describe. Be blessed.
Re: House protection
Date: 2020-10-10 03:55 pm (UTC)but as we are just renting, we can't really
put a fence up there.
We can't move right now.
I am in no position to do that.
Even if I had the income, this city is getting very full of ppl coming here, we are sort of a bedroom community for Toronto..
And even IF we could find another place, the prices are simply ridiculous. There are way too many newcomers piling in and taking all of them very quickly.
I am not sure I am comfortable with putting
harmful shards/nails for ppl.
We don't have a way up to the roof in any case.
I will consider donating as you suggested but I have very little income (I was working class. I am now welfare class with no way out of that. No one is hiring older workers here, it is all tech all the time, and we have 3 universities/colleges and so all the old factories are now converted into condos for them. So many factories gone too.
My own factory closed long ago.)
So not much option there.
I will have to do my best to keep adding it to the SoP.
I do appreciate the time and energy you put into suggestions but most of them I cannot do.
Perhaps I could ask about it on Monday in your ogham post..?
Perhaps they might have some insights as well?
Thnakyou very much for your time, I do appreciate it very much.
Re: House protection
Date: 2020-10-11 03:55 am (UTC)The majority of colleges and universities are riding the brink in the US, so I do wonder what will happen in Canada?
re house protection
Date: 2020-10-11 05:31 pm (UTC)I do appreciate that!
As far as universities here I have no idea.
We are still full of students from all over
that come to this city, so I havent noticed
anything that says it might be slowing down
or crashing.
I would not complain at all if they did, however.
Thanks for your kind offer of prayers, and for your time. :)
Expanding Meat World
Date: 2020-10-17 11:42 am (UTC)Of course I have a few objections.
First and foremost, I don't think you are lying or crazy, but I have other views into what might be going on.
There's a distinction between atheist and skeptic. The atheist say there's no way gods can exist, the skeptic will believe in gods once you offer rational proof. Let's say I am more a skeptic than atheist.
But gods have this tendency of not manifesting when you are conducting rational objective tests on them, making it really hard for skeptics to believe in them. Gravity doesn't mind how much we test on it, it shows and behaves always the same, that's a natural impersonal force. If my kid asks to play with me once, I comply, but if he keeps asking only to make sure I will bend at his will, then I won't, so I could understand why impersonated forces could resist scientific testing. But then, all this wooing could just be happening in some internal brain circuit, there's no real way to proof it right now. As skeptic I can't deny existence of gods, but can't believe in them either. Testimonies can be evidences, but can't be accepted as proofs. Evidences of what, we can't still say.
As you said, we don't fully understand ecosystems. The more I think about systems, the more I think that much of their mysteries are just natural evolutions of complexities. Lately, I'm getting the feeling that it's the increased complexity of a system what gives rise to the next level of abstraction. As a rough draft, think of sugar, one of the most simple carbon molecules. It has material but lacks any other property of the "planes", it has no desires, no mind, no feelings. Increase the complexity of the carbon molecules and you get the ADN which is able to create a structure around it, say a bacteria, with a property from the next plane, which is desires. A bacteria has desires, it wants to eat and to procreate, but little else. The desires, seen from the perspective of the molecules, don't exist. They are just interactions between molecules, as the most basic Physic principles dictate, and any well done computer simulation could replicate that. But seen from the perspective of a bacteria, desires are 'something'. This is what we call an emergent property. (Temperature is an emergent property of the movement of particles in a substance, for example).
Increase the complexity of the system, and you'll see more and more emergent properties. These properties mean nothing when observed from the level below, but they sure exist when observed from the next level of complexity. The biggest and most complex system we know, the Earth ecosystem, surely has emergent properties we cannot comprehend since we are at least two or three levels below. We might call Gaia to the manifestations of such emergencies. Yes, an ancient greek goddess for the skeptics. I would call it Life, but the other one has more adepts...
I find computers a useful metaphor. You know the difference between hardware and software. A hardware without software is pretty useless, software is what makes the 'computer magic' work. But a software requires a physical support in order to exist. Even software that is traveling between computers requires a medium, the aluminum cable or the electromagnetic wave in which it travels, thanks to energy.
Now, there are two kind of softwares: One that is hard wired into the hardware, and other that is just holding on the weak magnetic fields of the RAM modules. An integrated chip that you just connect to inputs and outputs and do the right work, is built in such a manner that it behaves as a code, changing the place of its diodes means changing the code, meaning a different hardwired software. Our genes are like that. It's a very complex hard coded software that is ingrained in the molecules that we all carry in our cellules. It's hard to modify it, it does not adapt well to sudden changes but it sure is efficient in resources. Our thoughts are like the software that runs on the RAM memory, it requires more resources but we can change a Windows system with a Linux system and be able to do things differently if we want to.
Can a piece of software exist without a physical support? Conceptually yes, but in practice you must hold that software somewhere, maybe in a written piece of paper, maybe as binary patterns in a light wave. Can pain or joy exist without someone to experience them? Conceptually yes, we can talk about pain or joy without feeling them (although they exist in our memories), but without the physical body who feels, feelings cannot exist. Even the idea of the feelings requires a mind (a brain capable of complex thoughts) in which to support it. You can temporarily hold a feeling in other support, you can move it to other parts of your mind, but this 'program' runs properly only when it touches the parts of your nerves that respond accordingly.
After all this rubbling we are getting closer to the possibility of the existence of living forces detached from the physical realm. I don't think they are completely detached of the physical realm at all, it is just that their emergent properties are able to do things we don't think possible from our level of complexity perspective (as a bacteria which cannot comprehend why a hungry human might skip meals). Detached entities exist physically at least temporarily in the neuron nets we call minds. They can travel to other supports (likely other minds, but could be other things), by verbal and nonverbal communication. And they run properly when they are hold in the right physical supports. Personification of these ideas or programs is, in my view, the way our minds create a customized User Interface with that programs. In your case, this UI is mostly executed by voice.
Now, can anything of this be proven or is it just another colourful explanation of mystic experiences, just coming from a branch of the exact sciences? Can this be science or just another religion?
Maybe it doesn't matter which explanation is right, as Greer says, just note that the practices work.
Gaian mages? XD
Re: Expanding Meat World
Date: 2020-10-17 06:31 pm (UTC)My first disagreement with your statements: actually, molecules have desires. Their desires are self evident in that they break apart and recombine all over the place. This may not be completely understandable by us, but that does not mean the force by which they act isn't "real". We humans don't know much about the sentience of bacteria and viruses either, but the first place I'd start to look is how the whole, worldwide population of viruses acts versus the way one tiny virus acts on its own. Molecules, bacteria, viruses, rocks, chunks of plastic, and people exist on all planes at once.
Planes are not awarded to beings -- they are dimensions of all beings. Let's take a water molecule. On the mental plane, it is the concept of the triad: two hydrogen and one oxygen. The concept of the triad exists whether or not humans are there to map it. The astral plane is the plane of images and meanings. The "nature" of a thing is the primitive term we have for its astral plane aspects. It is the properties of the molecule: water is wet. What is "wet", anyway? It means saturated with water molecules, but it also means so much more. To a plant after a drought, it means relief. To a person thrown overboard from a cruise ship, it means death. In the scheme of geological time, it means balance, ebb and flow. The hardest thing to get one's head around as an atheist (I speak from experience) is the idea of human consciousness as completely unimportant to the scheme of things. Brains are our gateways to the astral plane, but they're not even slightly necessary to the astral plane's existence. It's very difficult to understand that the astral plane is right here, right now, all around us and also that it's a separate place we go when we sleep and die. It might be useful to think of our perception of it as a dimensional overlap, forever out of focus (double-vision) because we lack the equipment to see the two images are actually one.
As far as the etheric plane, the last one before our Meat World, it's far easier to experiment with and I hope modern science gets a clue about that sometime soon. The etheric is a plane you can directly affect via mood or touch. Do you ever lose things, like your keys? Or maybe leave the door unlocked by accident? If you do, you might try this experiment: try thanking the keys every night when you hang them up or put them in the dish or whatever. Thank them like they're a person and seriously be grateful for the service they do in locking your house. You could do the same to the door, thanking it for protecting you even on days when you forgot to lock it. Now keep a record of how often you misplace your keys/forget to lock the door compared to before when you didn't do that. I think you'll find it is much, much less, and if you train yourself to perceive the feeling around the door, (and yes, I am suggesting you keep your mind wide open for this and also very skeptical of whatever feelings and synchronicities come your way as a result) I think you'll notice some uncanny weirdness that can only be partially explained by material action. I know your mind is exceedingly quick and you're parsing all of the psychological implications of what I'm suggesting. If you end up doing the experiment, I'd be highly interested in your observations.
Re: Expanding Meat World
Date: 2020-10-19 07:56 am (UTC)I see where we may have our disagreement, but it's a subject of degrees. Let's consider again the most simple of the emergent physical properties: temperature. It's a function of the speed of the particles in a system, not necessarily interconnected. You could say that temperature exists regardless of particles. It means nothing to the particles involved, but for us it is a vital magnitude. Temperature is a concept in itself, just awaiting the existence of gazillions of particles to be noticeable. In the same way you can say that the planes are always there, they exist regardless of the capabilities of our systems. It might be true. But if you try to measure the temperature of just a thousand particles the values are so insignificant that they would rather not exist.
So, I would argue that even though the ethereal might exist in itself, ethereal manifestations cannot happen within the most basic systems. We need more complexity (bigger and richer cosmoi) for events in this plane to be noticeable, in other words, manifested.
Let's not confound desires with natural laws. A negatively charged particle is always attracted to a positively charged particle. This is a property of its nature, and this attraction is a basic natural law, it has nothing to do with systems. The electron cannot choose whether it feels attracted to protons. There are no events where a few electrons are attracted to other electrons. Electrons cannot even choose which protons they are going to feel attraction: it's a function of the charge and the distance. Not even in huge numbers this law changes. They are called simple for a reason.
Bacterias, however, can feel desires. Sometimes they want to eat, sometimes they want to reproduce, sometimes they want to escape, but there's no law that predicts individually what a selected bacteria would choose to do. Their internal code is complex enough to not be sure of what the beings will choose to do. You can't say with absolute certainty that the bacteria is satiated enough to commit to reproduction now or if the sense of threat is overcoming the hunger. Sure, there are statistical models, but those say something about a bacteria colony, not the bacteria itself. Uncertainty is inherent to desire.
Maybe I should say that the desires of this life form is noticeable by us, while what you call the desires of the basic physical particles cannot be distinguished from the natural laws. That could be the effect of scale, perhaps, but remember how temperature means little to the particles that create it. You must belong to the level of complexity above the one that is creating the emergent property to directly notice it. So probably bacterii are not conscious of their desires, they might not even know what a desire is, they just do it. Or if they are conscious, they are in so negligible amounts that they might as well not be.
Anyways, what I wanted to highlight is that exoteric experiences don't require the existence of gods to get a rationale explanation, even one that does not prescribe you pills, it's just that we don't already know the whole story.
There are two statements of the exoteric that really disgust me.
First is the impossibility to conduct scientific tests, because of magic not working if you lack the faith. And faith is incompatible with proofs. Once you prove something, faith is no longer required. Once you have faith in something, you desire no proof. To my understanding, proofs are the way to get closer to the objective truth, while faith is the way to let others think for you and let them have power over you.
The other is the insistence of the human minds not being able to deal with what's beyond, so don't even try to make sense of it. Just accept what we told you, breath in a way that induces trance and fill your mind with the images we just provided you. Maybe our minds cannot deal with it directly, but why not indirectly with rational knowledge?
Those both statements looks like the perfect way to prevent anyone from really knowing the truth. That's why I'm eager to find an atheist approach to the unseen world, beyond the theory that this is all in the mages/religious people minds and thus that all that is a form of psychology. While some things can be directly related to psychology (like feeling 'energized' after some rituals), other things require a sort of communal connection to be explained and that's where systems kick in. I think that we have the mathematical tools to find such things, if we only knew where to look. In a sense, we are like the particles that are moving fast and temperature can be measured of them, but they don't know what a 'temperature' is so they don't even try to measure it.
Re: Expanding Meat World
Date: 2020-10-19 03:51 pm (UTC)For lack of a better set of words to describe it, I had an encounter with a demon this morning. It was absolutely awful. People call it a "night terror" when this happens and science neatly compartmentalizes it as a psychological disturbance, nothing to see here, keep moving folks. I have had these encounters from time to time from my earliest memory of having dreams at age 4. When I was 16, my night terrors became so frequent, I turned to the occult in the form of Wicca and when that didn't stop them, I went on anti-psychotic drugs after having a battery of tests: EEGs, Rorschach, IQ.
You don't know fear if you've never had a night terror. My night terrors are why I'm not afraid of anything -- nothing can compare to that fear. There was no feeling of pressure. There was no constrained breathing. There was only acute awareness of an extremely malevolent being who looked at me like I was a tasty snack. Atheism offers only pat answers for this sort of being... "It's all in your head!" My brain is fine. I have no chemical imbalances or dependencies. I have a non-addictive personality. I went off all forms of drugs, prescription and non-prescription except for the occasional Tylenol, by the age of 23.
Christianity, except for some Catholics and supposedly the Orthodox church, has no flipping clue what to do about the thing that came gunning for me this morning. Hell, most occultism has no strategies either -- the goody two shoes Occidental Eastern garbage pushed by my local Theosophical Society is a total wash. At least Druidry has a strategy: invoke some gods if shart happens. That's what I did and thank goodness. The thing took its leave immediately. I sprayed some vinegar water around the bed and burned lots of incense. That's the best I can do. So I'm going to say what I say to my atheist husband all the time: There is no proof, there is only This Stuff Works. When I was a teenager with no Sphere of Protection, no discursive meditation, and a bad habit of throwing curses at people I didn't like, I was a raw, exposed bundle of nerves always on the verge of a breakdown. Like attracts like. I was easy prey for predators in various forms, human and non-human. I will never convince anyone that This Stuff Works and I don't want to. In the words of Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon, "I'm too old for this sh**." And as I used to say to my hamsters P.P. Nibbles and Mr. Fred, you do you, Mr. Guy.
Re: Expanding Meat World
Date: 2020-10-20 07:18 am (UTC)I heard of a guy (buddhist, I was following a meditation course) who said that the better way to deal with demons is by accepting them. You sit and talk with them instead of fleeing, show them you are not scared, you don't have to become best friends forever but stop hating them, accept their nature and they'll lose power over you. For they gain their power from your fears. I interpreted this as a metaphor, something like recognizing that this s**t is part of you and the longer you deny that part of yours the more it can have unwanted influence over you. Like, I don't know, having a serial killer inside. If you are scared of being such thing it will make you do things that you dislike, maybe you'll end up killing someone for pleasure, someone you didn't really want to kill with consequences you didn't want to suffer, but if you accept what you are, recognize that you have that compulsion then you can choose not to kill anyone or you can choose to find a job where you can let your instincts arise for the better. That's how I interpreted things, I didn't expect anyone to really feel demons as impersonated beings. You know when common people speak of personal demons, we are really talking about compulsive behaviours. I don't advice anything, really, I don't know a s**t about demons.
Meditating on the Cosmic Doctrine, it stroke me that the way the Chaos Ring influences the Cosmos is by temptation and aversion. The Cosmos is attracted by some aspect of the outer world, maybe gluttony. Imagine eating all the yummy stuff you can stuff inside and more! That's a delightful thinking until you really try to do it. Filling your body with more than you can stuff inside is really not possible, it's outside the Cosmos. And it is a temptation at first because eating a little of that yummy stuff makes you feel well. But as you proceed to let yourself go at gluttony then you discover that there's a dark side to it. Your body stops feeling well, you vomit and feel painful, so aversion comes. You tell yourself not to eat that stuff ever again, and the Cosmos keeps rotating.
If that's true and demons are beings from the Chaos Ring, applying their forces at right angles, then they can't operate in the Cosmos. They can only influence it by the means of temptation and aversion, and they come at right angles of your will. Then again, I'm not advising anything, just sharing thoughts on a text that talks about things that could be demons, could be not.
Re: Expanding Meat World
Date: 2020-10-21 03:10 pm (UTC)Having dealt with demons, I have gone the route of trying to make peace with them and have a conversation. It's very difficult and it does throw them for a loop, because you're neither inviting them in nor attempting to bind them or send them to the Abyss, but you are interacting. The problem with doing that is they are always out to trick you. It's like trying to tame a shark. It can be done, but there is the risk of the shark chomping you, even if you have a good relationship, because a shark is a shark. I prefer to avoid demons (and sharks) whenever possible. I think the Buddhist was partially right -- it does no good to hate the demon. The reason for this is because demons seethe with hatred. To combat demons, the best approach seems to be to have nothing in yourself that is sympathetic to them. A Christian who is full of hatred for gays or Muslims or women who have abortions doesn't make a good exorcist because he is sympathetic to hatred and that means he "vibrates" that demonic quality. Like a tuning fork, he rings a certain pitch when his frequency is activated. If he transforms himself into stuff that doesn't ring to that frequency, the demon cannot touch him. Dion Fortune says you have to hate the hatred and use it as a thrust block. Let's say I hate the way a friend of mine has let themselves go -- they binge eat, refuse to exercise, and belch a litany of complaints about how awful they feel instead of engaging in constructive activity such as taking a walk or eating in moderation. I can nag them and become a harpy about it, or worse yet join them in their lassitude, which makes me ring in sympathy, or I can make an example of myself. If I choose the latter, whenever they orate short novels of their own complaints, I shut up. Then I go and work out and eat well, grateful at every moment for the opportunity to enjoy the food the Earth provides and the privilege of being able to walk around in a peaceful setting. I become their Ring Chaos. I become the polar opposite of what they are: they are lazy, miserable, ungrateful. I am motivated by will, happy, and thankful at every moment.
In my opinion, actual demons and personal demons are different. A personal demon isn't a demon at all, it's just a bad habit that leads towards devolution and a general dumbing down of one's character. Actual demons are the ones feeding on the energy created by seriously bad habits, such as compulsive masturbation to pornography or fixation on the hatred of a political figure.
Hope this makes sense.
Re: Expanding Meat World
Date: 2020-10-21 06:59 pm (UTC)A lion and a cat look like different categories for us, but they are really the same thing at different scale.
Well, if you have to face one of those lions, then I suppose you are better surrounded by a few big cousins. Better safe than sorry.
Is this what Fortune calls (positive) evil? I am still at chapter iii, so far I only know about (negative) evil, which is what you can't fight with opposing forces, unless you have an overwhelming amount of it.
I think that if you want to be the negative evil of your friends, then you must become an obstacle that limits their possibilities, not a force pushing them towards your will. You need first to have the power to prevent them doing some things. Then, you must know what is their underlying will, the force that starts the movement of their cosmoi, since it will do no good to oppose their vital will. I don't think that the will of their lives is to lie down on the sofa and watching TV and get fat. Then what you can do is to stand in their path at a right angle of their will (never against it!), making it hard for them to take that route. A negative force is passive, you don't have to be active and take initiative, just resist your friends initiatives in the wrong direction. Friends are there when needed. You can't force them to choose doing some physical exercise, but you might be able to force them to not choose passive activities when you are sharing time together, for example.
Trying to be a model for them I don't think that works. That only provokes envies and bad will, if ever.
Re: Expanding Meat World
Date: 2020-10-23 02:41 am (UTC)Re: Expanding Meat World
Date: 2020-10-23 06:26 am (UTC)"It is when the position is reversed and an attempt is made to work the forces of the Ring-Chaos dynamically that evil arises in the popular sense of the term".
I think that what she is saying is that it is OK to use passive opposition, but if you do active opposition then you are becoming evil in the popular sense (for that cosmos). If you do that kind of things to your friends, they will see you as evil and mean, for you are becoming an active evil for them. After they see you as evil, I don't think your friendship can stand for long. If Fortune is correct, taking this path means that you might be helping your friends but you might end up losing their friendship.
Take this as the opinion of a colleague student, we could ask someone wiser on the issue.
Re: Expanding Meat World
Date: 2020-10-23 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-17 07:03 pm (UTC)The full question is, "If God heals cancer patients (or the blind, etc.), why doesn't He heal amputees?" Theists and skeptics ask it of people who claim God does perform medical miracles, such as curing cancers and other ailments and injuries that would not have been possible to cure or recover from in any other way. Curing an amputation would seem to be no more or less miraculous, and no less within the capabilities of an omnipotent god, than curing cancer. So why the apparent inconsistency in our experience?
If your answer to that full question is "because there is no omnipotent god who performs miraculous cures," then you're most likely in agreement on that specific point with the person asking the question. That is to say, you don't believe any god is omnipotent (and perhaps also that no god performs miracle cures, because the incarnate world is supposed to suck). Of course if the original questioner is an atheist you would still disagree on most other questions, such as what gods do exist, but even a sliver of common ground can be of value.
There's nothing wrong with being skeptical of claimed divine medical miracles. (One might BE wrong about miracles, either way, but I don't think one commits any wrong by being or not being convinced by the available evidence.) Many Christians are, often holding that the era of the kinds of miracles reported in the Bible is past. Even the Catholic Church is skeptical of individual miracles, and performs investigations. They require miracles to prove candidates for sainthood, and they believe in them, but they recognize that not all reports are genuine. (And from my experience, their answer to the "why not amputations?" question is, we don't know because we cannot and should not question God's choices.)
We can enumerate three conceivable reasons why, in our experience, gods don't heal amputations: (1) they cannot because they don't exist, (2) they cannot because it's not within their capabilities, (3) they will not. The atheist chooses only answer 1; the Christian is pretty much limited to answer 3; polytheists can choose 2 or 3 or combine them, as in "it's not within the capabilities and/or the will of those gods we can reach with our prayers, at the present time."
Thanks for this post. I really enjoyed it, especially the surprise of "I know at this point you're waiting for some cheap shots... so here goes!" Very well said, overall.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-18 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-10-18 07:38 pm (UTC)I can't tell anyone else what to believe but I can explain what I understand about karma as I understand it after years of study and of self-examination. Karma is the sanskrit word for action. That's it. Action. In a causality universe there is no such thing as an action that doesn't have something else follow because manifestation is always within the bounds of Time. If Time itself is destroyed so is action. So whenever something sucky happens to you and somebody tells you, "It's your karma, dude." They're really saying, "It's your action, dude."
The English language focused more strongly on the second sense of the word karma (consequence) as opposed to the first sense (action) because of the whole moralizing baggage from all 3 Abrahamaic religions. So in English the word karma comes across more as "It's your consequence, dude."
The dharma religions used karma (action) as a means to teach that the whole universe operates on cause and effect and that there is no "final" judgement taking place anywhere. But you do know that you live in a universe of causality. You also have intelligence. You can use those to cultivate yourself in such a way that inner dimensions of wisdom and bliss beyond anything in the Meat Plane open up inside you. And they will be stable. Stable, Blissful, Peaceful and Wise. With loads of potential for all kinds of karmas of your choosing. REAL choosing because now you can see far more of all the outcomes coming down the train track from an action you're willingly taking rather than getting blindsided by surprise outcomes from it. You're making the walls of your little persona-bubble thin. Do it long enough correctly (belief isn't needed, just the right kind of karmas (that is, actions) ) and in a universe of causality the results will arrive eventually anyway. Just like focusing on soil, water, amount of sunlight, time of year, etc - eventually will make a seed you planted sprout and yield a fruit. You focus instead on all the Karmas (aka actions) that will give you the desired fruit you want.
Also, it's not entirely true according to Dharma religions that an evil, traumatic outcome from prior karmas (actions) was done by the person experiencing the consequences. Yogis know anytime you eat, drink, have sex or even do something as small as constant hugging you are setting up energy exchanges. Those kinds of activities open up the system to outside influences - especially sex which is the strongest 'consequence' exchange of all. So even though an "originating action" did not come from any of a rape victim's prior lives - if she (or he) slept with someone who WAS the actual rapist in former lives the consequence can pass through to come due to her. This is why advanced Yogis and Yoginis are VERY picky about what kind of actions they'll permit for themselves. This is one reason (of several) why celibacy is a frequent road taken by yogis/yoginis - it's part of their daily habits they're consciously choosing so as to steer their lives in a direction of their choosing.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-18 07:43 pm (UTC)