Egodeath Yahoo Group – Digest 60: 2004-01-20

Hello Jas,

In attempt to stay ‘on-topic’ I shall clasify this reply post as
possibly having to do with

“mental construct processing, mental models
Nonreductionistic”

Jas said,> All of them ARE true , cuz you can’t tell me whats
false… but I can tell you what is false and that is something that
isn’t true

Tell me, Jas, in your humble opinion,…might what you’re saying
have anything to do with the sound of the railroad down the block
turning into music, really good music?




— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, Jas Pierce <jas_pierce@y…> wrote

>
>
> Merker wrote (paraphrased):
>
>
> >>There’s no clear distinction which can be made on a single-word

basis. As

> you increase the string being analyzed to include the adjacent

words in a

> sentence, the meaning progressively becomes more focused, with

many possible

> meanings falling away, ideally converging and crystallizing to a

single

> specific meaning. More realistically, whole sentences are often

still

> ambiguous.
>
>
> OK MISTER SMARTY PANTS and Know it ALL
>
> Why does : SeptemberEleventh=194 and TwoThousandOne=194
>
> You think way to deep and it is simple….
> But if you want me to complecate it I will
>
> Everything ADDS up… and of course I havent show you the real

good ones that I have found out….

>
> The whole purpose is to find what is linked to you….

mathematically when you see that you can begin to understand… I
have an ADVANTAGE… i have a Database and ETC….. but as time
passes I will give a blank database on the internet so that ANYONE
CAN DO IT and i will show you the true connections of the SUPER-
STRING fact embedded in the MYSTIC ALTERED STATE…..

>
> AND 2 answer
>
> >>Which of these statements is true?
> >>Physical life is imaginary.
> >>Imaginary is imaginary, and physical is physical.
> >>Physical is imaginary, and imaginary is physical.
> >>Life is Reality.
> >>Imagination is Theory.
>
>
> All of them ARE true , cuz you can’t tell me whats false… but I

can tell you what is false and that is something that isn’t true

>
>
>
>
>
> ==========================================
> The farther you dig for the truth,
> The deeper the hole to bury you in… – Jas
> ==========================================
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ———————————
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the “Signing Bonus” Sweepstakes
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>sweet miracle -> miracle of (pseudo) freewill will

The miracle is also the mind’s ability to discover no-free-will but then
transcendently re-postulate the impossible — free will, personal power — in
order to bring practical controllership stability back again. This is divine
thinking: neither naive freewill, nor denying determinism, but now, the
freewill illusion deliberately utilized; delusion now gone, illusion is
transcendently embraced and utilized. Virtual freewill has consciously become
my possession.

Arne wrote:

>>If early Christianity is so closely linked to Judaism and the Old Testament,

how come the gospels in general and John in particular are so extremely
anti-Jewish?


The goal of those bishops who were intent on hierarchy-building in the first
centuries CE was to glorify the ancient legacy of the Jewish religion and
co-opt that legacy, through tearing that legacy out of the hands of the Jews
of the first centuries CE. By assigning all negative value to the recent
Jews, those bishops were able to commandeer the ancient Jewish legacy and
effectively claim themselves as the real Jews moving forward; that is, the
real owners of the Jewish legacy moving forward.

Gnostics generally portrayed the ancient Jewish legacy negatively, but
probably merely in a mystic metaphoric sense, applying all negative value to
the ancient Jewish god and religion. The key is to separately discuss
official attitudes toward the ancient Jewish religion up to before Jesus,
versus toward the Jews at the time of Jesus and later — toward pre-Jesus Jews
and post-Jesus Jews.


— Michael Hoffman

One source of negativity that was already directed against some Jews
in some era was the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls community, who likely
used a combination of literal criticism of the Jewish theocracy
together with mystic metaphorical assignment of all negative value to
the Jewish theocracy.

The mystic, Gnostic, or esoteric Jewish community and its poetic-
religious writers criticized the official Jewish theocracy because it
was politically oppressive and these writers used that group as a
foil, assigning all metaphysical delusion to it: “Those official
priests are politically oppressive and are metaphysically deluded and
don’t provide actual primary religious experiencing.”

Generally, Gnostics used metaphorical meaning while Roman theocrats
used literalism. A more detailed analysis takes into consideration
the ways Gnostics used one combination of literalist and metaphorical
meaning, while Roman theocrats used a different combination.

Extreme negative metaphor was used by the mystic Jews, interwoven
with strong socio-political condemnation, against the official Jewish
theocracy.

That combined repudiation and condemnation of the official Jewish
theocracy by the Qumran Jewish mystics may have been a useful source
for the hierarchy-intent Roman-centered Catholic bishops in their
effort to glorify and commandeer the Jewish legacy, to prop up their
authoritarian hierarchy, while assigning all negative value to the
post-Jesus Jews and denying their legitimate ownership of the Jewish
legacy and authority.

Pagels’ book Origins of Satan discusses such value-assignment
reversals.

The Origin of Satan
Elaine Pagels
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0679731180

Once one group puts together negative screeds against another group,
someone else can simply modify the writings — standard practice in
Hellenistic writing — and alter which groups the positive and
negative qualities are assigned to. These qualities can include a
metaphysical mystical mythic meaning and a distinct but interwoven
literalist meaning.

The standard religious contrast between ‘divine wrath’ and ‘divine
compassion/mercy’ plays into this assignment of negative and positive
values.

Gnostics assigned ‘divine wrath’ to the Jehovah cosmos-creator
figure, and assigned ‘divine compassion/mercy’ to the radically
cosmos-transcendent God figure; whereas the Roman hierarchy-builders
had reason to assign both ‘divine wrath’ and ‘divine
compassion/mercy’ to the single combined Jehovah/God figure, and
assign any fully negative attributes (such as evil and delusion) to
the Satan figure.

Groups involved in value-assignment reversals included Jewish
mystics, Gnostics, Jewish theocrats, and Roman theocrats. The same
patterns may be present in the Reformation era with respect to
wrestling over which group owns Paul, and who he writes against.

Extreme negative metaphorical mystical constructs included the Qumran
conceptual play along the general lines of “We are the elect true
Jews, true Israel, beloved of God, predestined for inheriting the
promised land. You official theocratic priests are of the devil,
deluded, accursed, false Israel, blocking the way, neither going in
yourselves nor letting others enter.”

Such mystical metaphorical play, blended with literal condemnation
for socio-political oppression, was a potent tool anyone could take
and us against their own opponents, such as the Roman hierarchy-
building bishops wielded against the egalitarian, loosely networked
Gnostic version of eucharistic gatherings and against all types of
post-Jesus Jews, and against the Gnostic “heretics” who worshipped
Jesus as mystical redeemer but rejected the hierarchical ecclesiastic
structure.


Books about the essence of the early ‘churches’ being literally and
first of all, ‘eucharistic meal gatherings’:

Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity of the Church in the Divine
Eucharist and the Bishop During the First Three Centuries
John Zizioulas
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1885652518

>From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World

Dennis Smith
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0800634896

The Lord’s Supper
William Barclay
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0664223826


What was to be gained by demonizing the various post-Jesus Jews and
the many Gnostic “heretic” groups was control of versions of the
canon and control of versions of the Christian religion, bringing
together more like a single controllable system, even coercing the
semi-independent loosely networked eucharistic assemblies together,
resulting in a financially profitable, profitably governable
corporate universal franchisement of eucharistic assemblies, just as
a chain-store corporation takes over independent stores and small
chains of stores.

Direct religious experiencing was divisive and thus was moderated and
downplayed — even while given some lip service and controlled,
regulated spin as best they could — by the Roman-based bishops, who
were, first and foremost, intent on building their fiefdoms within a
hierarchical theocracy.


— Michael Hoffman



JesusMysteries Home Page:
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Michael wrote:

>>>>Before his resurrection, Jesus stormed the gates of hell and raised up the

Old Testament saints, including Noah, Adam, and Abraham.


Merker wrote:

>>>Why should these saints be in hell in the first place ?

Michael wrote:

>>It’s an official doctrine of the Middle Ages. I can explain it

esoterically/mystically (that is, in terms of intense mystic-state
experiencing and experiential insight), but first must find more about the
doctrine — should be easy, because it’s an official doctrine.


Ephesians 4:1-16:

>>>But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s

gift. Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he led a host of
captives, and he gave gifts to men.”


Java Fusion wrote:

>>In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended

into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is he who also ascended
far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.


In Neoplatonism and Hermeticism, the minimum number of levels is 3: naive
freewill, consciousness of determinism, and transcendence of the deterministic
cosmos. Map any “down/up” movement along that ladder; Jesus’ descent to the
saints in Hell best maps between levels 2 and 3: fatally problematic
consciousness of one’s helpless embeddedness in cosmic determinism
(self-control seizure), moving up to divine transcendent thinking (“being
given the mind of Christ which descends to rescue you and redeem you,
purchasing you back up to your metaphysical true home”).

This view maps ‘Hell’ to “deterministic self-control seizure discovery”, and
Jesus descends from the trans-deterministic realm fully outside the
deterministic cosmos, to come down to the high level where people are
undergoing self-control seizure due to stumbling onto the discovery of the
embeddedness of their thoughts in the deterministic cosmos (Metallica’s Heavy
Metal Acid Rock song “Trapped Under Ice”), lifting and fishing them up out of
that Hell-realm.


Ephesians 4:1-16 continues:

>>>And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some

evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of
ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; so that we may no longer be
children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by
the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles. Rather, speaking
the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head,
into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint
with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily
growth and upbuilds itself in love.


Where is the canonical reference to a series of visionary-plant initiations
for esoteric Protestants, comparable to Purgatory for esoteric Catholics?
There are levels of angels, possibly levels of church members in the
Protestant Bible. Paul differentiates hylics, psychics, and pneumatics, and
mentions his own ascent to the 3rd or 4th heaven, meeting Jesus who came down
to that level. There is a head vs. body distinction among the Christian
community members.

There is also the system of stations of the Cross, but that seems like a
Catholic scheme laid onto the gospels, actively picking out selected elements
of the passion story.

Test for uploading the archives. Ignore.

Test for uploading the archives. Ignore.

Hello,

I’ve spent the last two and a half months teaching myself how to create a web
site and assembling BIGDREAMPACKAGE.com. I left my job and totally
committed myself to this project. This site has music videos, mp3’s, poetry,
artwork, stories and a great links page. I needed an outlet to express that
there is an alternative to living in this existence beyond what we have become
accustomed to. Please feel free to email me with your comments, anything
you see that needs improvement or employment suggestions
Enjoy!
http://bigdreampackage.com/

LOVE and LIGHT,
Brian.

Michael.

Can you, please, respond to this passage? Point me to a post/refrence
that disputes it? It came from a discussion group
called “divisiontheory” that discusses “Afterlife Phenomena and our
Binary Soul”.

” While I remain surprised that a drug could facilitate the soul-
searching and life-review DT prescribes for soul-spirit integration
and spiritual health, it seems an unnecessarily dangerous road
towards that destination. Surely the history of the last 40 years has
impressed us all with the dangers inherent in psychoactive drugs. I
am inclined to seek hints about our proper path in the history and
practices of the earliest Christians, and I can confidently say I’ve
not heard anything about them including any sort of psychoactives in
their practices. “

Thank you.
Slava

My general proposal is that in general, all these hand-wringing queries about
searching for spirituality should quit beating around the bush and turn their
attention toward where it is already constantly being pulled anyway. What
more clear “sign from God” are they looking for, than the reappearance of
entheogens again and again throughout pop spirituality? They keep acting like
it’s uncear, yet nothing could be more obvious. So all these serious,
in-depth searches are just so much smoke and noise based on pretending that
the answer or key is difficult and unknown.

At some point it is obstinate irrationality to keep looking when you’ve
already found the solution to a search and puzzle. Entheogens fit as the
solution to the mysterious puzzle. It’s like someone reading the stack of
books about No-Historical-Jesus and then still coming back with that same old,
in-denial canard, “But this is all speculation and we can never know for
sure.”

Past a point, the claim to not know become obstinate irrationality, because
rationality was never based on knowing anything absolutely for sure; we can be
relatively sure and confident about all things we know, though *none* of them
are known “absolutely for sure”.

In the case of this seminar, the rational thing to do would be to focus
heavily on entheogens, a focus which is clearly warranted. But more likely,
the seminar will try to play the old card of putting it both ways: entheogens
are extremely interesting, but entheogens are not to get more than a bit of
emphasis — one book that is relatively innocent of this mistake, however, is
the book Rational Mysticism, which gives entheogens the fully central place
they clearly deserve.


The first paragraph in the seminar announcement lists the following:
Alan Watts
Aldous Huxley
Starhawk
Carlos Castaneda
mystical nature poet Robinson Jeffers (?)
mystical nature poet Gary Snyder (?)
Jim Jones
Heaven’s Gate
Church of Satan
Church of Scientology
The first Zen monastery and first Hindu temple in the western hemisphere
UFO cults
Esalen
The Grateful Dead
Burning Man
soul surfers (?)
Sierra club

The following, at least, are related to entheogens:
Alan Watts
Aldous Huxley
Carlos Castaneda
Church of Satan
Esalen
The Grateful Dead
Burning Man


That’s at least 7 out of 17 forms of “alternative spirituality” that are
related to entheogens — making entheogens by far the leading so-called
“eccentric alternative spirituality”.

>>the idea that California’s alternative spirituality stands as a distinct

religious tradition on its own

>>sects, cultures, and spiritual techniques

>>our core predicament: how to rediscover spirituality in a modern world

defined by technology, consumer culture, and a scientific cosmology

>>California’s maverick tradition of spiritual innovation.

>>an overview of California spirituality

>>reasons why this peculiar sensibility set down roots here on the west coast

>>the “California Tao”: nature, the body, and the evolution of consciousness

… is inseparable from California’s unique technological experience.
California … has led the way towards a postmodern culture of media,
subcultures, computer technology, aero-space, and rootless consumerism. Its
alternative spiritual movements both mirror this process and attempt to
compensate for its considerable problems.

>>He has given lectures at conferences all over the world on topics ranging

from psychedelic culture to cyberspace to postmodern spirituality


— Michael Hoffman


____________

—–Original Message—–
From: Erik Davis [mailto:erik@…]
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 1:00 PM
To: erik@…
Subject: [Erik Davis] Upcoming Bay Area seminar


People living in the Bay Area might be interested in the following seminar
that I will be leading at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San
Francisco later this winter. It is the first time I will be publicly
presenting some of the strange and marvelous fruits of my research into the
history of alternative spirituality in California, and I’m very excited about
it.


Please contact me with any questions you might have.


Erik




“The Altered State: California’s Spiritual Frontiers”
a four-week seminar by Erik Davis

Tuesday nights 7 to 9:30 pm
Feb 17, 24 March 2, March 16.
California Institute of Integral Studies
695 Minna Street
San Francisco

Alongside its body obsessions and media dreams, California is perhaps best
known for its spiritual eccentricity. For well over a century, the state has
been host to a dizzying number of exotic religions, ad-hoc cults, and all
manner of mind-and-body-altering fads and fantasies. California has been home
to spiritual mavericks like Alan Watts and Aldous Huxley, to popular
visionaries like Starhawk and Carlos Castaneda, to mystical nature poets like
Robinson Jeffers and Gary Snyder, and to living nightmares like Jim Jones and
Heaven’s Gate. It cradles the Church of Satan and the Church of Scientology;
looking east, it built the first Zen monastery and first Hindu temple in the
western hemisphere. California is responsible for UFO cults and Esalen, for
the Grateful Dead and Burning Man, for soul surfers and the Sierra club. If
consciousness is truly evolving, than California has served as its American
Petri dish.


This four-week seminar, which will include slideshows, film clips, and music,
is devoted to the idea that California’s alternative spirituality stands as a
distinct religious tradition on its own-a kind of improvised and hedonistic
Hinduism, full of contradictory sects, cultures, and spiritual techniques, but
all speaking to our core predicament: how to rediscover spirituality in a
modern world defined by technology, consumer culture, and a scientific
cosmology. In the class, we will encounter unknown ancestors, sacred spots,
and secret histories buried in the cultural landscape. Such discoveries may
provide a regional sense of “rootless roots” at a time when so many of us are
feeling unmoored. Indeed, many of our contemporary concerns with deep ecology,
human transformation, body-positive spirituality, and the techno-science of
mind are rooted in California’s maverick tradition of spiritual innovation.


The first class will provide an overview of California spirituality, and
suggest some reasons why this peculiar sensibility set down roots here on the
west coast. The remaining three classes will focus on major dimensions of the
“California Tao”: nature, the body, and the evolution of consciousness-a
notion that, I will argue, is inseparable from California’s unique
technological experience. California, after all, has led the way towards a
postmodern culture of media, subcultures, computer technology, aero-space, and
rootless consumerism. Its alternative spiritual movements both mirror this
process and attempt to compensate for its considerable problems. By
understanding these dynamics, we can better approach the transformations and
disruptions that lay ahead for all of us.


About the lecturer: Erik Davis wrote the cult classic Techgnosis: Myth, Magic,
and Mysticism in the Age of Information, which has been translated into five
languages. He has given lectures at conferences all over the world on topics
ranging from psychedelic culture to cyberspace to postmodern spirituality,
including programs at Stanford, Swarthmore, Esalen, and London’s ICA. He has
given workshops on the I Ching and Technological Future. He is currently
collaborating with Michael Rauner on a photo essay book about the history of
California spirituality.

For non-CIIIS students, the fee for the four-week program is $225 per person.
Folks may
register online at http://www.ciis.edu/lifelong, or call 415-575-6175. People may
also pre-register up to the day before the first class meeting, or if space
available, at the door.

My standards for clear, effective postings:


Every posting must include *explicit* indication of how it is related to the
group’s charter. During the posting, every few short paragraphs should prove
that the post is *directly* on-topic. Meta-discussion is permissible if one
states every few paragraphs why such an analysis is important for the group’s
stated goals.

General points are on topic only *if* the writer explicitly connects them to
the central topics in the group’s charter. Analogies are helpful only if the
point is also made directly, explaining how the analogy illustrates the direct
point.

My postings in discussion groups try to adhere to being so driven to be
on-topic and contribute useful, easy-to-apply points.

I think that some critical moderators in the Christ Conspiracy no-Jesus group
don’t actually have trouble with my communication clarity, but rather, with my
position that religion is a more or less distorted expression of something
legitimate. The moderator wants postings to either be *for* Christianity, in
which case he can fire at them and block them, or *against* Christianity;
anything else — anything above such kindergarten black-and-white thinking, is
labeled “unclear, confusing”.

“Keep it simple”, the author of the book told me in the group. Translation:
adhere to our two-party politics of black-and-white, us-versus-them, “rational
scientific atheists” versus “idiot junk Christians”.


— Michael Hoffman

I am in the middle of reformatting my 2001-2004 postings onto standard Web
pages. Then I will be able to point you to an easy-to-use collection of my
writings on the subject.
For now:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/messagesearch?query=maximal
Click the Next link.


Someone wrote:

>>>While I remain surprised that a drug could facilitate the soul- searching

and life-review DT prescribes for soul-spirit integration and spiritual
health, it seems an unnecessarily dangerous road towards that destination.
Surely the history of the last 40 years has impressed us all with the dangers
inherent in psychoactive drugs. I am inclined to seek hints about our proper
path in the history and practices of the earliest Christians, and I can
confidently say I’ve not heard anything about them including any sort of
psychoactives in their practices.


Slava wrote:

>>Can you point me to a posting or reference that disputes it? It came from a

discussion group called “divisiontheory” that discusses “Afterlife Phenomena
and our Binary Soul”.


By far the main meaning of ‘afterlife’ in higher, esoteric religion is the
remainder of one’s life after a series of entheogenic mystic state sessions
resulting in deterministic egodeath and transcendent rebirth where freewill
and separate self are fully understood as illusions, rather than remaining as
returning delusions. Permanent ego death, resulting in the full conversion
from delusion to mere conscious illusion, occurs typically after a series of
some 9 visionary-plant initiations, in Traditional and esoteric
religion/initiation systems.

That former, deluded self is metaphorized as one’s “mortal life”. After full
lasting ego death, one has burned away one’s mortality and gained everlasting
imperishability, metaphorized as “immortality”, an idea which also alludes to
the mystic-state experience of timelessness, or frozen block-universe
determinism in which egoic personal control agency is seen to be essentially
illusory, frozen helplessly and impotently into spacetime.

There are warnings of danger all throughout religion and esotericism —
various wrathful deities, imprisonment, traps, dangers. Authentic
spirituality is inherently dangerous, leading to one’s Golem and Centaur
running out of control, building up to weilding such power of personal egoic
control, the egoic agent can no longer control its own runaway power. The
result is self-control seizure and enlightenment when one’s power is
reconceived as empty — depending on how the mind conceives of this mysterious
“oneself” who is held to wield the runaway power.

According to the maximal entheogen theory of religion, visionary plants don’t
*simulate* the traditional religious methods, they *are* the main traditional
methods, by far. Safe methods are safe because they are relatively
ineffective; they become ways of effectively *avoiding* direct primary
religious experiencing, typically excused by redefinining spirituality to
denude it of all intense mystic altered-state experiencing and relabelling the
resulting ordinary state of consicousness as “spiritual”, in a sense which is
a recent post-1960s invention in reaction to the completely and embarrassingly
impressive efficacy of entheogens at reliably and ergonomically producing
intense primary mystic experiences.

Those who haven’t heard about early Christians using entheogens are always
those who haven’t tried to look for and recognize the references that are
available in reasonable abundance. Theirs is a paradigm-based blindness. The
concept of “church” originally meant “a eucharistic meal gathering”. The
heart of the Death Star that blows it all up as having an entheogen-shaped
core is the question, what exactly was the eucharistic meal — it was “mixed
wine”. Then the entire question becomes, “What exactly and speicifically was
in the ‘mixed wine’?”

What’s needed today is a bulleted list of all the indications — actually,
indications-with-interpretations — that support the maximal entheogen theory
of religion. Only now are there enough books and websites, a handful, that
cover the evidence and provide the interpretations. Today’s entheogenists
think small and assume the minimal entheogen theory of religion, supposing
that enthoegen use in religion was rare and suppressed.

It is easy to provide a list of books about entheogens in religious history.
Using online resources, one can glean much of the worldview that enables
recognizing the evidence that is ample for even the maximal entheogen theory
of Christian history all before the modern era; that not only early
Christians, but the Christian tradition overall during the ancient and
medeival/Renaissance eras was based on the use of visionary plants, and not
rarely or by a deviant few, but throughout popular and eccelesiastical
culture.

It is easy to construct an interpretive framework or paradigm in which
religious themes in general are recognized as perennially emanating from the
visinoary-plant based altered state of cognition. Such a paradigm, today’s
“minimalist entheogen paradigm”, then argues against the “minimalist”
assumption still used by today’s tepid and self-defeating entheogen scholars,
who inadvertantly end up giving more of an impression that entheogens were
just the deviant and minor method that the probhitionists and
enthoegen-diminishing meditation advocates claim they were.


Book lists:
http://www.egodeath.com/#BookLists
Original, experiential, mystical Christianity
Mystery Religion, Myth, and the Mystical State
Religious Experiencing
Holy Spirit and Christian Spirituality
Word and Power (doctrine and spiritual experience)
Gnosticism
Western Esotericism
Ecstatic Alchemy
Hermeticism and Ancient Mystic Astrology
Jewish Mysticism
Entheogen theory of religion —
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/KDBM4IID0J82
The active eucharist that reveals the kingdom of God —
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/1WMWVXJ8FZPJD
Eucharist (Catholic authors)
Eucharist (Catholic authors II)
Lord’s Supper (Prot., E. Orth, Ecum.)
Ancient wine as visionary plant beverage —
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/286BVZYFN78Z9
Mythic-only Christ theory
Religious myth: allegorical metaphor of mystic experiencing
The kingdom of God is at hand
Christianity as political rebellion against “divine” Caesar
Earliest Christianity
Ancient Near Eastern religion
Philosophy of Mother of God
Mary “John” Magdalene, The Beloved Disciple
Sophia, religious comprehension
Theology of Religious Pluralism


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience. The essence, paradigm, origin, and fountainhead of religion is
the use of visionary plants to routinely trigger the intense mystic altered
state, producing loose cognitive association binding, which then produces an
experience of frozen block-universe determinism with a single, pre-existing,
ever-existing future. The return of the ordinary state of consciousness is
allegorized as a transcendence of Necessity or cosmic determinism. Myth
describes this mystic-state experience. Initiation is classically a series of
some 8 visionary-plant sessions, interspersed with study of perennial
philosophy. Most religion is a distortion, corruption, literalization, and
cooptation of this standard initiation system.

[Re-posting with typos fixed and 1 error corrected]


I am in the middle of reformatting my 2001-2004 postings onto standard Web
pages. Then I will be able to point you to an easy-to-use collection of my
writings on the subject.
For now:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/messagesearch?query=maximal
Click the Next link.


Someone wrote:

>>>While I remain surprised that a drug could facilitate the soul- searching

and life-review DT prescribes for soul-spirit integration and spiritual
health, it seems an unnecessarily dangerous road towards that destination.
Surely the history of the last 40 years has impressed us all with the dangers
inherent in psychoactive drugs. I am inclined to seek hints about our proper
path in the history and practices of the earliest Christians, and I can
confidently say I’ve not heard anything about them including any sort of
psychoactives in their practices.


Slava wrote:

>>Can you point me to a posting or reference that disputes it? It came from a

discussion group called “divisiontheory” that discusses “Afterlife Phenomena
and our Binary Soul”.


By far the main meaning of ‘afterlife’ in higher, esoteric religion is the
remainder of one’s life after a series of entheogenic mystic state sessions
resulting in deterministic egodeath and transcendent rebirth where freewill
and separate self are fully understood as illusions, rather than remaining as
returning delusions. Permanent ego death, resulting in the full conversion
from delusion to mere conscious illusion, occurs typically after a series of
some 9 visionary-plant initiations, in Traditional and esoteric
religion/initiation systems.

That former, deluded self is metaphorized as one’s “mortal life”. After full
lasting ego death, one has burned away one’s mortality and gained everlasting
imperishability, metaphorized as “immortality”, an idea which also alludes to
the mystic-state experience of timelessness, or frozen block-universe
determinism in which egoic personal control agency is seen to be essentially
illusory, frozen helplessly and impotently into spacetime.

There are warnings of danger all throughout religion and esotericism —
various wrathful deities, imprisonment, traps, dangers. Authentic
spirituality is inherently dangerous, leading to one’s Golem and Centaur
running out of control, building up to wielding such power of personal egoic
control, the egoic agent can no longer control its own runaway power. The
result is self-control seizure and enlightenment when one’s power is
reconceived as empty — depending on how the mind conceives of this mysterious
“oneself” who is held to wield the runaway power.

According to the maximal entheogen theory of religion, visionary plants don’t
*simulate* the traditional religious methods, they *are* the main traditional
methods, by far. Safe methods are safe because they are relatively
ineffective; they become ways of effectively *avoiding* direct primary
religious experiencing, typically excused by redefining spirituality to denude
it of all intense mystic altered-state experiencing and relabelling the
resulting ordinary state of consciousness as “spiritual”, in a sense which is
a recent post-1960s invention in reaction to the completely and embarrassingly
impressive efficacy of entheogens at reliably and ergonomically producing
intense primary mystic experiences.

Those who haven’t heard about early Christians using entheogens are always
those who haven’t tried to look for and recognize the references that are
available in reasonable abundance. Theirs is a paradigm-based blindness. The
concept of “church” originally meant “a eucharistic meal gathering”. The
heart of the Death Star that blows it all up as having an entheogen-shaped
core is the question, what exactly was the eucharistic meal — it was “mixed
wine”. Then the entire question becomes, “What exactly and specifically was
in the ‘mixed wine’?”

What’s needed today is a bulleted list of all the indications — actually,
indications-with-interpretations — that support the maximal entheogen theory
of religion. Only now are there enough books and websites, a handful, that
cover the evidence and provide the interpretations. Today’s entheogenists
think small and assume the minimal entheogen theory of religion, supposing
that entheogen use in religion was rare and suppressed.

It is easy to provide a list of books about entheogens in religious history.
Using online resources, one can glean much of the worldview that enables
recognizing the evidence that is ample for even the maximal entheogen theory
of Christian history all before the modern era; that not only early
Christians, but the Christian tradition overall during the ancient and
medieval/Renaissance eras was based on the use of visionary plants, and not
rarely or by a deviant few, but throughout popular and ecclesiastical culture.

It is easy to construct an interpretive framework or paradigm in which
religious themes in general are recognized as perennially emanating from the
visionary-plant based altered state of cognition. Such a paradigm, the
just-now-forming “maximal entheogen paradigm”, argues against the “minimalist”
assumption still used by today’s tepid and self-defeating entheogen scholars,
who inadvertently end up giving more of an impression that entheogens were
just the deviant and minor method that the prohibitionists and
entheogen-diminishing meditation advocates claim they were.


Book lists:
http://www.egodeath.com/#BookLists
Original, experiential, mystical Christianity
Mystery Religion, Myth, and the Mystical State
Religious Experiencing
Holy Spirit and Christian Spirituality
Word and Power (doctrine and spiritual experience)
Gnosticism
Western Esotericism
Ecstatic Alchemy
Hermeticism and Ancient Mystic Astrology
Jewish Mysticism
Entheogen theory of religion —
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/KDBM4IID0J82
The active eucharist that reveals the kingdom of God —
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/1WMWVXJ8FZPJD
Eucharist (Catholic authors)
Eucharist (Catholic authors II)
Lord’s Supper (Prot., E. Orth, Ecum.)
Ancient wine as visionary plant beverage —
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/286BVZYFN78Z9
Mythic-only Christ theory
Religious myth: allegorical metaphor of mystic experiencing
The kingdom of God is at hand
Christianity as political rebellion against “divine” Caesar
Earliest Christianity
Ancient Near Eastern religion
Philosophy of Mother of God
Mary “John” Magdalene, The Beloved Disciple
Sophia, religious comprehension
Theology of Religious Pluralism


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience. The essence, paradigm, origin, and fountainhead of religion is
the use of visionary plants to routinely trigger the intense mystic altered
state, producing loose cognitive association binding, which then produces an
experience of frozen block-universe determinism with a single, pre-existing,
ever-existing future. The return of the ordinary state of consciousness is
allegorized as a transcendence of Necessity or cosmic determinism. Myth
describes this mystic-state experience. Initiation is classically a series of
some 8 visionary-plant sessions, interspersed with study of perennial
philosophy. Most religion is a distortion, corruption, literalization, and
cooptation of this standard initiation system.

>>>Is there a popular hypothesis according to which Flavius Josephus is just a

pseudonym or at least an agent of the Roman politician Arius Calpurnius Piso
who plotted the Jewish war?

>>There is an hypothesis on Piso and the Jesus myth, but in my humble view it

is the most extreme of conspiracy theories. I’ve never seen much reason to
give it credibility.


There is good reason to selectively draw upon the Flavius/Piso theory, because
Christianity was largely a rewriting and rebuttal to Ruler Cult themes. We
cannot be all-or-nothing in evaluating radical theories. A useful attitude is
that all radical or alternative theories are correct and insightful in some
way, the challenge being to specifically identify that way.

I am still waiting for the books on the subject to become widely available. I
don’t know the details of the theories, such as whether anyone proposes that
‘Flavius’ is a pseudonym for Piso.

The books on this subject suffer from mono-explanation, trying to derive all
Christianity — which was nothing if not radically thematically
syncretistic — from a single thematic source.

An easy and rewardingly insight-providing approach now in studying the origins
of Christianity is the study of Christian themes as a rebuttal and
modification of the themes of Ruler Cult.


— Michael Hoffman

Wendy wrote:

>>G.A. Wells has changed his mind and now believes that Jesus DID exist?

>>In the JesusMysteries discussion group, I mostly see arguments for the

mythicist point of view. Do we often see it argued that Jesus DID exist, with
backup info?


The arguments for Jesus’ historicity are already well-defined based on
standard published arguments; the dominant paradigm is usefully seen as
including and integrating one large set of arguments for Jesus’ historicity.
Such reasoning, such a type of interpretive framework, is the familiar
established received view, the given. That was Phase I.

In the Internet era, the argument for nonhistoricity of Jesus is easier to
publish and develop. That is Phase II, which is still struggling to formulate
a typical and standardized scenario and interpretive framework that is as
focused and standardized as the familiar received story of Christian origins.

It will take awhile longer for the no-Historical-Jesus model of Christian
origins to become comparably distinct, stable, and standardized, and
positively expressed. Most books, exemplified by comparing Doherty, Freke &
Gandy, and Acharya, emphasize disproof of the received paradigm, and do so
consistently, without having a consistent, distinct, positively specific,
uniform, and consensus proposed paradigm as a compelling alternative to the
received view.

The no-Historical-Jesus researchers need to reach some comparable degree of
consensus on how Christianity actually did form if not by the currently
predominant “big-bang historical Jesus” story of Christian origins. After
that, Phase III will be the response to that specific proposed alternative
story of origins from the adherents of the currently predominant
historical-Jesus paradigm.

It is unlikely that the purely negative disproof that currently predominates
in the no-Jesus books will compel a response from the comfortably established
Historicist camp. Only when a highly compelling and uniform and coherent
positive alternative story of Christian origins is formulated by the no-Jesus
community of researchers will there be a sufficient challenge and threat to
the dominant paradigm to elicit a response.

Lacking such a consensus alternative story of Christian origins, today’s
exchange between Phase I and Phase II adherents is bound to be limited to a
paradigm status-quo standoff of “The official historical writings are
basically reliable.” “No they’re not!” “Yes they are!” The Phase II
paradigm is still too weak, too scattered; it can be ignored safely and
comfortably: “Never mind those kooks over there who doubt everything ever
written, seeing forgery everywhere throughout the entire canon of early
Christian writings.”


Also challenging the effort to formulate a no-Jesus paradigm is the “endless
fence-sitting” attitude, which effectively amounts to accepting the familiar
received Historicist way of thinking by default, with the excuse “Because we
can’t know Jesus’ historicity absolutely for certain, the only rational thing
to do is assign his historicity a plausibility of 50%.” I disagree with the
common and too-easily-made assertion or defense strategy of “We can’t know
Jesus’ historicity absolutely for certain.”

Such an assertion overemphasizes the role of certainty in epistemology, and
underemphasizes the importance of interpretive frameworks which facts,
knowledge, and certainty are importantly relative to.

Within a mature, fully-developed ahistoricist interpretive framework, we *can*
be effectively reasonably certain that the Jesus figure is essentially a
composite figure, such that the facticity of Jesus’ existence becomes entirely
a matter of definition: if ‘Jesus’ is defined as a single historical man
serving as necessary kernel for the eventual composite mythic-accretion
figure, we know things didn’t work that way; all evidence indicates Jesus was
a radically composite figure incorporating *multiple, not single* historical
individuals as input sources.

Based on paradigm-aware analysis, we *can* say we can know there was no
historical Jesus, about as much as anything is certain in history. I reject
as simplistic and paradigm-naive the too-easy assertion that “We can’t know
for certain whether Jesus existed”, an assertion that ends up being biased in
favor of the Historicist story of Christian origins.


— Michael Hoffman

Question: Is the intense mystic state also a seeming metaphore when
viewed from the mystic state?

Would you consider the following words to portray a type of answer
to the above question, and in what way?

“The loosened mind can feel remotely monitored and controlled by a
dominant observer-and-controller entity who is in a position of
power; one becomes a cybernetic puppet, and the perceived locus of
control shifts up to a separate control agent who resides on a
higher level in the control hierarchy.” -Hoffman

Also,

— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Michael Hoffman” <mhoffman@e…>
wrote:

> >sweet miracle -> miracle of (pseudo) freewill will

> The miracle is also the mind’s ability to discover no-free-will

but then

> transcendently re-postulate the impossible — free will, personal

power — in

> order to bring practical controllership stability back again. “

Another question: In constructing a mental model of egodeath and
determinism do you conceptualize “practical controlership stability”
as seeming to portray a hierarchy of “(psuedo) freewill will”? Do
you choose to portray the hierarchy as theoretically (mental egoic
logic here)infinite?

— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Cheryl” <tcherril@y…> wrote:
> — In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Cheryl” <tcherril@y…> wrote:
> >
>
> >
> > The essence, origin, fountainhead and paradigm of religion
> > …in this order the paradigm of religion follows the essence…
>
>
> Religion itself is only metaphorical in nature. Life is a
metaphore,
> in that the surface contructs are completely metaphorical. This
is
> because the surface contructs can be seen as contructs of the ego,
> illusory and metaphorical in nature.
>
> Question: Is the intense mystic state also a metaphore when
viewed
> from the mystical state? Or when viewed from the model of solid
> block deteminism? Or when understood from a mystical metaphoric
> model?
>
> When viewed from the metaphorical freewillist contruct it is
> contructed as another metaphore of an even deeper unexperienced
> essence.

http://www.well.com/user/davidu/eighthgate.html

I point out that the fire altars outside the cosmic deterministic sphere of
the fixed stars, in Mithraism and Hellenistic thinking, represent the standard
mystic-state experience of bright white light.


— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com

History questions:

What kind of historical accounts exist
to help describe the transtion from general widespread
cheap as dirt mystic enlightenment
to loss of enlightenment to literalism?

Since metaphysical enlightenment is distinct from
ethical application of mystical enlightenment,
could it be that “trickster-gamesters-of-the-race”
played the game for the games’ sake,
choosing to allow literalists to play a literilist game,
with no consideration of ethical implications?

As a meta-discussion related to the topic of
the formulation of an effective ergonomic egodeath model,
may I ask if you are *choosing*
to apply your metaphysical enlightenment
to the realm of social and ethical issues?
Or is this a trickster action for the sake of the game itself,
and only for the game?

Cheryl wrote:

>>>Is the intense mystic state also a seeming metaphor when viewed from the

mystic state?


The mystic state is not a metaphor. It is a directly self-existing mode of
cognition, largely characterized by loose cognitive-association binding
between and within mental-contruct matrixes, something commonly and typically
described by metaphor, in pre-modern culture. I keep referents separate from
metaphor; a metaphor describes a non-metaphorical referent. The mystic state
is a given that is later described by using metaphors.

>>>Would you consider the following words to portray a type of answer to the

above question, and in what way?


Michael wrote:

>>The loosened mind can feel remotely monitored and controlled by a dominant

observer-and-controller entity who is in a position of power; one becomes a
cybernetic puppet, and the perceived locus of control shifts up to a separate
control agent who resides on a higher level in the control hierarchy.


Metaphors do inform and give substance — they provide ways of thinking about
and concretizing more abstract experiential phenomena. The mystic state
includes a “closing-in labyrinth” experience; it is important to have a large
set of conceptual metaphors and less-metaphorical idea constructs, to most
fully experience and latch onto and amplify the potential phenomena of the
mystic state.

I’m generally against Steven Katz’ theory that mysticism is nothing but
language, a linguistic construct; I keep the layers separate: there exists a
universal thing, “the mystic state” — characterized by loose cognitive
association binding — that is comprehended and richly experienced by using a
separate, distinct overlay of metaphor and language to engage with it. This
layered model is more powerful than munging the two together — the mystic
state and the metaphor used to intellectually interface with it and explore
it.

Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis
Steven Katz
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/019520011X

Language is inherently metaphor-drenched, but it is most productive to
differentiate between layers or aspects of mystic thinking: the mystic state
of loose cognition, metaphor to describe experiential insights potentially
encountered in that state, and relatively non-metaphorical language to
theoretically and systematically model the mystic state. Though distinct,
there is rich interaction between the mystic state, non-metaphorical theory,
and metaphor — that’s why it is absurd to praise experiencing while
disparaging theory or myth.

You could say that there are 3 required components for maximizing gnosis:
mastery of the mystic state, mastery of theory, and mastery of myth.
Neoplatonism is somewhat like mastery of theory, but it was theory so much in
an ancient mode. The ancients get high marks for mastering the mystic state
and myth, but low marks for theory.

Modernity is potentially better than antiquity at all three, through an
Integral Theory approach of both differentiating and integrating the three
components; do mysticism separately through myth, mystic-state (loose
cognition), and theory, and also integrate and interpenetrate these 3
components. Ancient thinking fully integrated — that is, fused without
differentiation — the mystic state and myth, leaving out the theory in any
sense modern thinking would recognize.

>>>In constructing a mental model of egodeath and determinism, do you

conceptualize “practical controllership stability” as seeming to portray a
hierarchy of “(pseudo) freewill will”? Do you choose to portray the hierarchy
as theoretically infinite?


Against the spiritualists who never find the classic mystic climax experience
but talk of an endless path, I follow the ancient perennial initiation-series
model, which is also a hierarchy, which is also an inward or outward vector.
With ergonomic study of perennial philosophy, and entheogens ready-to-hand,
only around 9 visionary-plant initiation sessions are required for full basic
enlightenment, salvation, redemption, and satori.

This movement centers around the central issue of no-free-will, immediately
forming 3 main levels, but these aren’t usually matched to 3 initiation
sessions. The first few sessions are done within the naive freewill
assumption. The later are dominated by comprehending and experiencing
determinism, and the final sessions break through to transcendent need for
something beyond determinism and the practical self-control limitations and
drawbacks of ordinary rationality.

First there is naive freewill-styled thinking and general feeling of control
power; then there is determinism-consciousness leading to self-control
seizure; then there is leaping out of the system in order to regain practical
control power even though freewill has switched from delusion to consciously
seen-through illusion. I am glad to at last have a place for magic and for
transrationality as Ken Wilber has had (and some sort of transcendent form of
a kind of freewill), but without his clumsy literalism about it.


— Michael Hoffman

Cheryl wrote:

>>What kind of historical accounts exist to help describe the transition from

general widespread cheap as dirt mystic enlightenment to loss of enlightenment
to literalism?


What percentage of Hellenistic-era, Medieval/Renaissance era, and Modern era
thinking was metaphysically enlightened, and what percentage literalist
instead, missing what the pre-moderns comprehended, grasped, and understood?
It’s early for that question, since modern researchers have been too clueless
and literalist to ask until recently.

When we stop being clueless and recognize 2-layer meaning-flipping in myth,
with myth as metaphor for mystic-state phenomena, it is clear that pre-modern
thinking was characteristically based in the entheogenic mystic state, whereas
modernity is characteristically restricted to the non-entheogenic, ordinary
state of consciousness, mystified by the former availability of the Holy
Spirit routinely on tap. One hypothesis is that women were the plant experts
but became oppressed.

Another speculation is that in modernity, people moved away from the land and
cows, losing their entheogenic keys. Dan Russell, like most entheogenists,
doesn’t understand myth, but has written about the suppression and loss of
knowledge about entheogens (_Drug War_, _Shamanism & Propaganda_); same with
Jonathan Ott (_The Entheogenic Reformation_). From the loss of entheogen
knowledge directly results the loss of understanding myth as mystic-state
metaphor.

>>Since metaphysical enlightenment is distinct from ethical application of

mystical enlightenment, could it be that “trickster-gamesters-of-the-race”
played the game for the games’ sake, choosing to allow literalists to play a
literalist game, with no consideration of ethical implications?


I don’t know why pre-moderns and assorted tricksters were secretive about
entheogens and about the actual meaning encoded by myth. There is some merit
to feeding the literalists their own literalist thinking in such a way as to
convey two opposed specific systems of meaning at once to divide thinking
asunder into two.

The hallmark of a truly modern scientific approach to theorizing mystic gnosis
is to explain myth without limiting oneself to the mythic mode: make instead
the nonmythic mode of analysis primary, doing a better more explicit job than
the writings we have of the Neoplatonists. A common mistake today is to try
to use the nonmythic mode of analysis while remaining weak and clueless on the
two other key legs: utilizing the mystic state, and comprehending the
“flippable 2-layered meaning” nature of mythic metaphor.

>>In the effort to formulate an effective ergonomic egodeath model, are you

*choosing* to apply your metaphysical enlightenment to the realm of social and
ethical issues? Or is this a trickster action for the sake of the game
itself, and only for the game?


I am all focused on formulating an effective ergonomic egodeath model;
applying this metaphysical enlightenment model to the realm of social and
ethical issues is specifically a non-goal of this project in its initial phase
I’m dedicated to. This is a point of contention against the stance of popular
spirituality, which insists on conceptualizing egodeath theory construction as
simultaneously theoretical and socio-politically practical.

All recent books on spirituality begin by saying “We should become mystically
enlightened in order to improve the practical world.” I reject that strategy,
which has delivered neither on the promise of improving the world nor of
metaphysical enlightenment. I’ve always adhered to a one-at-a-time approach,
or compartmentalizing and strongly differentiating metaphysical enlightenment
from improving the world.

This is partly just a practical necessity for me as a leading-edge theorist;
Einstein *first* thought of his Physics systems, and *then* set out to improve
the world: today’s spiritualists would condemn him for not doing both in one,
at the same time — but that is idealistic and impractical for the individual
involved; it’s easy and simplistic for the critiques to idealistically demand
the world of each theorist.

My motive was originally personal increase of self-management and self-control
power; nirvana through increased mental and cognitive integrity as a
self-controller agent. Inherent frustrations with that project led to
discovering ego death and enlightenment, as the Paul figure in the New
Testament describes in recounting his former struggle to adhere to “the law”
(an egoic semi-formalized system of conduct one gives to oneself prior to
maturity of initiation) and do what he ought to do.

The main activism I promote to improve the world, an area of activism that is
interrelated with improving higher knowledge, is drug policy reform.
http://www.reformnav.org


— Michael Hoffman

Michael wrote:

>>The loosened mind can feel remotely monitored and controlled by a

dominant observer-and-controller entity who is in a position of
power; one becomes a cybernetic puppet, and the perceived locus of
control shifts up to a separate control agent who resides on a
higher level in the control hierarchy.<<

Hi Michael,

This is often the exact scenario inherent in a person’s first
psychotic episode. Unfortunately today someone undergoing this ego
control crisis gets drugged right out of it, instead of receiving a
a much-needed form of shamanistic initiation.

Melody

— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Michael Hoffman” <mhoffman@e…>
wrote:

With ergonomic study of perennial philosophy, and entheogens ready-
to-hand, only around 9 visionary-plant initiation sessions are
required for full basic enlightenment, salvation, redemption, and
satori.

Does one need someone to lead/oversee the initiation? Where can one
find specific information on how-to?

Thanks,
Melody

Assuming
that the mystical experience is

experienced
or
understood

to have a core,

what can be said about the reason some trips are

experienced as

seemingly

different one from the other and among different persons

(….as in “bad” or “good” or “different” ….)

(to include differences in personified experiences)?

Was your experience “influenced” by your egoic knowledge?

“You might say I discovered the key to secular metaphysical
philosophy in 1988,
but didn’t discover the essence of transcendent religion until
around 1995.
Around 1995 I still assumed much of the New Testament should be read
literally; that there was a historical Jesus and crew, even though I
had
experienced rising up to meet the *heavenly*, spiritual Jesus as
personified
principle halfway up in the air, as in the “third or fourth heaven”
in a
system where the sphere of deterministic fixed stars to penetrate is
level 8.”

In what way would you compare your experience of mystic state now
that you’ve “climbed further up the ladder” as it were with earlier
mystic state experiences. In what way does the theory of cybernetic
ego death, or any theory, or lack of theory , or varieties of
cultural mental contructs affect the experience of mystic state.

Do you concieve the core of mystic state as universal in a brain
chemical way (analogous to eyesight is universal in a biological
way), and then the mystic state “influences” egoic constructs or
worldview or perceptual sense of world when also combined with
various worldviews or theories?



concerning cultural difference…
“after we have normalized for cultural differences, “

“my modern whole-system of transcendence works by combining
unprecedentedly *direct* and effective explanation, with any amount
of
tripping. My systematization (the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Death) is
clearer
not just to today’s audience, but to any audience; it is clearer in
absolute
terms, not just relative to its contemporary audience.


One way it is better is that it has much higher *for its intended
audience*
than the old attempted systematizations had *for their intended
audiences*.
Thus

after we have normalized for cultural differences,

my theory still comes
out far ahead. Previous systems were confused and hazy *to their own
audiences*; they were *not* clear and direct and ergonomic to the
audience of
their day.”

Would this include a cultural acknowledging the value of critical
thinking? Would this groundwork be helpful?

Do you think cultural differences account for the seeming resistance
to positively embracing this theory? Such as in the cultural
negativity toward embracing herbs? Or as in an educational system
that promotes a worldview antagonistic toward “book knowledge”?

The theme of the ‘Messianic Secret’, like all religious themes, needs to be
considered from the interpretive framework of “myth is metaphorical
description of mystic experiencing”.

Scholars reconstructing Christian origins need to focus on texts and need a
conscious, explicit methodology for approaching texts, rather than defaulting
to some familiar modern literalist methodology. A crucial factor is the issue
of how one processes and interprets the texts; what kind of texts are these?
They are Hellenistic double-meaning texts, with one layer of systematic
network-meaning for the uninitiated, and another, different layer of
systematic network-meaning for the initiated.

The question then becomes: What are the two systematic layers of meaning of
the theme of ‘Messianic Secret’? If we attempt to be serious textual scholars
without looking for these two layers — one for the uninitiated and another
for the initiated — then we’re adopting a theory and method of interpretation
that is counterindicated by what we know about Hellenistic literature and
culture.

The ‘Messianic Secret’ theme represents the hidden nature of
Heimarmene/Necessity/Fate, revealed after partaking of the Eucharistic meal at
the Last Supper. During that meal, the disciples go from cluelessness to
comprehension of Jesus’ mystic kingship, and become apostles. On the road
afterward, Jesus walked with two followers who didn’t recognize him until he
gave them something to eat. Only after he gave them something to eat did they
perceive what was formerly hidden to them, Jesus the lord.

Prior to the last supper, the disciples are puzzled and clueless about the one
they follow. What is puzzling, illogical, irrational, and inconsistent to the
literalist analysis — the reasons for the ‘Messianic Secret’ — comes
naturally to the analysis based on the interpretive framework of “myth is
metaphorical description of mystic experiencing”.


May be relevant:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Messianic+Secret%22


— Michael Hoffman

Language of man and God

The languages of men are many.
There is the language of music, the language of art, the language
of ritual, the language of celebrations, the language of word spoken
and written, the language of culture, the language of facial
_expression, the language of touch , the language of taste and
smell, etc etc etc. These and many many many many more are the
languages of man in societal communication and communion.. There is
no end to these languages, for they continue to be many and
endless in their expressions of man’s multitude of relationships
not just with other people, with himself, but with nature in all its
endless ways, as well. Overlap upon overlap and endless overlap.
But man’s infinity is circumscribed.

The language of God circumscribes the language of man.
When God speaks, it is man that comes out of his mouth. From the
mouth of God come the plants and all the creation, And from the
mouth of God comes the mind of men, in all the potential
constructs, these are all words in the language of God.

In this way, the mystical state is a symbol in the language of God.
And does the symbol know what meaning is assigned it in the language
of God?

In this way, the mystical state is a foriegn idea, from a foriegn
tongue, from the language of God.

In this context, the mystical state is a metaphor describing a non-
metaphorical referent. The words ‘metaphor’ and ‘non-metaphorical’
reference being used in a relational way (meaning network) in a
broader context.


This was the line of thinking behind the question “is the mystic
state a seeming metaphor when viewed from the mystic state.

— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Cheryl” <tcherril@y…> wrote:

> Language of man and God
>

This is the subject line to the previous post.

I think i have discovered (recovered?) the true, most divine way of
reading the symbol of The Cross.

The horizontal bar represents the lifeline of a human being which is
destined to experience enlightenment.
This enlightenment (which is the revelation that all things and
actions originate from the ground of being) is represented in the
vertical bar which is joined to the ground [of being].
Also note how the *whole* of the horizontal bar (lifeline) is
sustained by the vertical bar (originating from the ground): This
represents the knowledge that *all* of ones actions originate from the
ground *not* only those after enlightenment has happened (or for the
completeness of argument, not only those prior to enlightenment; even
after enlightenment one is still subject to fate)



merkur

This seems to be an insightful way to interpret the symbol of the
cross. Your interpretation includes the concepts of enlightenment
and also ground of being.

The cross is such an archetypal symbol used an interpreted in a lot
of ways. Perhaps you have indeed discoverd (recovered) something
here.

I’d like to offer an interpretation which should still incorporate
your key concepts. This involves a symbol to be found in the cross,
a kind of hidden symbol. In this interpretation, the ground of
being is the point where the horizontal and vertical lines meet.
The point is the metaphysical void, the ground of all being. The
vortex of the never ending spiral. The vertical and horizontal
lines find their origin in the point. The 4 directional lines are
meant to symbolize unity of all things, emanating from the point.

— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “merker2002” <stemmer02@g…> wrote:
> I think i have discovered (recovered?) the true, most divine way of
> reading the symbol of The Cross.
>
> The horizontal bar represents the lifeline of a human being which
is
> destined to experience enlightenment.
> This enlightenment (which is the revelation that all things and
> actions originate from the ground of being) is represented in the
> vertical bar which is joined to the ground [of being].
> Also note how the *whole* of the horizontal bar (lifeline) is
> sustained by the vertical bar (originating from the ground): This
> represents the knowledge that *all* of ones actions originate from
the
> ground *not* only those after enlightenment has happened (or for
the
> completeness of argument, not only those prior to enlightenment;
even
> after enlightenment one is still subject to fate)
>
>
>
> merkur

One can experience being fastened to spacetime. Actual crucifixion was
deliberately a perverse allusion to that mystic experience, so that even
corporal punishment was integrated into pre-modern
myth-religion-philosophy-politics-etc. The cross was also interpreted later
in abstract, theoretical-mystical ways.


— Michael Hoffman

In Mithraism, the lion-ruler’s body is wrapped by the cosmic snake, while his
head is sometimes shown outside the cosmic determinism experiential-ascent
boundary of the zodiac or fixed stars. Similarly with the well-known woodcut
showing the spiritual pilgrim with head (and hand) outside the sphere of the
fixed stars. The body is in the deterministic spacetime prison, but the
spirit — experientially and trans-rationally — is conceptualized as outside
of determinism.

This way, deterministic mystics can affirm cosmic determinism, repudiating
naive freewill, while including our divine ability to transcendently
postulate, for practical reasons of self-control stability, and to describe
higher experiencing, a level of existence outside of the deterministic
universe.


— Michael Hoffman
http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience

>—–Original Message—–
>From: Michael Hoffman [mailto:mhoffman@…]
>Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 10:07 PM
>To: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: [egodeath] White-like perceptual feedback: fire-altars beyond
>fixed stars
>
>
>
>
>http://www.well.com/user/davidu/eighthgate.html
>
>I point out that the fire altars outside the cosmic deterministic sphere of
>the fixed stars, in Mithraism and Hellenistic thinking, represent
>the standard
>mystic-state experience of bright white light.
>
>
>– Michael Hoffman
>Egodeath.com

When the cross was interpreted in abstract, theoretical-mystical
ways, the underlay of sacred geometry was employed. This sacred
geometry can be seen as another model to explain another referent .

The mathematical cognition is one more model. No doubt those in
antiquity drawn to use these constructs had also the experience of
plant communication mystical states. Intersting thing about plants,
the golden ratio vibrates out strongly.

— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Michael Hoffman” <mhoffman@e…>
wrote:

>
> One can experience being fastened to spacetime. Actual

crucifixion was

> deliberately a perverse allusion to that mystic experience, so

that even

> corporal punishment was integrated into pre-modern
> myth-religion-philosophy-politics-etc. The cross was also

interpreted later

> in abstract, theoretical-mystical ways.
>
>
> — Michael Hoffman

Someone wrote:

>>>While I remain surprised that a drug could facilitate the soul- searching

and life-review DT prescribes for soul-spirit integration and spiritual
health, it seems an unnecessarily dangerous road towards that destination.
Surely the history of the last 40 years has impressed us all with the dangers
inherent in psychoactive drugs. …


A child’s lightweight plastic toy hammer is safe: it can neither be used for
real work, nor is it dangerous. There is a correlation between the danger and
potency, or power, of many items. Meditation is safe, and, concomitantly, it
is ineffective. Entheogens are potentially dangerous, and are potentially
powerful. Alternative methods of inducing the mystic altered state, such as
meditation, lack the potential to be dangerous and lack the potential to be
effective.

Furthermore, it is an error of extremism and propaganda to overgeneralize
about the danger of entheogens. If you go to the point of extreme overkill
with most anything, that is dangerous. Entheogens are safe if used in
moderation. The anti-entheogen mentality always makes the most extreme and
unreasonable assumptions, silently, covertly, and unconsciously, such that all
drug use is amplified to use maximum quantities: that mindset never pictures
doing a single 100-mic tab of acid; no, it’s always envisioned as 5 to 10
tabs.

The possibility of measured doses taken in moderation is eliminated from
consideration, resulting in a uselessly biased conception of entheogen use and
intensity, so that moderate meditation is compared to extreme dosing. The
truth of the matter is that meditation ranges typically from ineffective to
only slightly effective and negligibly intense, whereas entheogens can be
taken in a controlled quantity anywhere one wants, from a tenth of a 100-mic
hit of acid, for example, up to 10 hits.

The larger the dose — assuming no tolerance is in effect; assuming at least
half a week since the last session — the more dangerous; and likewise, the
smaller the dose, the safer. Meditation is uselessly limited to a typical
range that’s low-intensity and ineffective, as though you were to brag about
your car’s safety after restricting it to going 1 mile per hour: it’s safe,
but you’ll never get anywhere. Entheogens are potentially effective as well
as safe; meditation is limited to being safe but ineffective.


— Michael Hoffman

—–Original Message—–
From: Chris Bennett [mailto:info@…]
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 4:57 PM


Now that ticket sales are getting close to being finished, it is OK to alert
anybody and everybody that you want to, that Entheogenesis
http://www.entheogenesis.ca will be broadcast live over the Internet at
http://www.pot-tv.net where it will be enjoyed by a global audience.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, then the pc is mightier than the
atomic bomb.
Cheers,
CB

>—–Original Message—–
>From: Michael Hoffman [mailto:mhoffman@…]
>Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2003 5:33 PM
>To: Egodeath Group
>Subject: [egodeath] Entheogenesis conference in Vancouver
>
>
>
>—–Original Message—–
>From: owner-freerenee drugsense.org
>Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2003 1:45 PM
>Subject: RB: Cannabis/Sacred medicine Conference in Vancouver
>
>
>Hello friends…
>
>Spiraling warm winter solstice wishes to everyone!
>
>I just wanted to let you all know about the Entheogen Conference coming up
>in January in Vancouver, because I think it is something many of my friends
>and acquaintances would enjoy attending and the tickets are limited & going
>fast!!! One of my personal heros in the cannabis movement, Dr. Ethan Russo,
>will be speaking as well as many other heros & heroines in the cannabis &
>entheobotanical community. It will be another magikal gathering of like
>minded activists joining together to share with one another & to co-create
>positive changes on this planet for the freedom of Gaia’s sacred plant
>medicines & sacraments!
>
>Here is the info:
>
>Entheogenesis: Exploring Humanity’s Relationship with Entheogens, Past,
>Present and Future
>
>Saturday & Sunday, Jan 31st to Feb 1st, 2004
>
>Featuring 2 days of lectures & slide presentations, Psychedelic art on
>display, and one evening gathering with Guest DJ’s, A live acid jazz band, a
>chill room with special film screenings, treats, prizes & more!
>
>Featured Speakers, thus far:
>
>* Prof. Carl Ruck & Prof. Blaise Staples;
>Lecture 1: The Entheogenic Eucharist of Mithras
>
>Lecture 2: Survivals of Pagan Shamanism
>a) European Fairy Tales
>b) Heretical Visionary Sacraments
>http://www.entheomedia.com/
>
>* Prof. Benny Shanon;
>Entheogens in the Hebrew Bible – Some speculations.
>
>* Mike Crowley:
>Secret Drugs Of Buddhism.
>
>* Prof. Thomas Roberts:
>The New Gutenberg Reformation – Entheogenic Experience as the Basis of
>Religion
>
>* Jean Millay
>PSI and Psychedelics: stories from the Underground
>
>* Dr. Ethan Russo;
>Lecture 1: Bhang, Ganja and Charas. Ancient Cannabis Claims and their
>Scientific
>Rationale
>
>Lecture 2: The Myth of Schedule I: Medical Uses of Forbidden Plants and
>Compounds
>http://www.maps.org/media/potpioneer.html
>
>* Rick Doblin, Ph.D
>Founder Of MAPS.org
>”Psychedelics: Return of The Repressed.”
>
>* Marc Emery & Sandra Karpetas
>Iboga Therapy House
>http://www.ibogatherapyhouse.org/
>
>
>* Chris Bennett
>Kaneh Bosem: The Hidden Story of Cannabis in the Bible
>http://www.forbiddenfruitpublishing.com
>
>* Jon Hanna
>Psychedelics, Altered Consciousness, and Visionary Art
>
>* David Aaron
>Liberating the Plants of Consciousness: The Law is on Our Side
>http://www.goadave.org
>
>* Phil Lucas
>Science, Spirituality, and Compassion: the Modern Cultivation and
>Distribution of an Ancient Healing Plant
>
>* Renee Boje
>Trials of the Ancient and Modern Witch
>http://www.reneeboje.com
>http://www.urbanshaman.net
>
>* Aurora Catamo
>Introducing her new entheobotanical forum
>http://www.psychoaction.org
>
>* Luke Brown
>Art Show: Entheogen inspired Creations.
>
>DJ’s Include: Nils, Androgynoid
>Acid Jazz Band: Charley Higgins Quartet
>
>Tickets: Canadian $125.oo, American $95.oo
>
>Make Check or money order Payable to: Pot TV
>
>Mail to: 307 West Hastings St., Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6B 1H6
>
>For more information, Visit: http://www.entheogenesis.ca
>Phone: 604-682-0039
>email: info@…
>
>Sponsored By: http://www.pot-tv.net, http://www.theibogatherapyhouse.org,
>http://www.urbanshaman.net
>
>Accomadation: http://www.expedia.ca
>
>Please visit the website for more detailed information, at:
>http://www.entheogenesis.ca
>
>In unity & love,
>Renee Boje


>—–Original Message—–
>From: Michael Hoffman [mailto:mhoffman@…]
>Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 8:15 PM
>To: Egodeath Group
>Subject: [egodeath] Entheogenesis Conference, Ruck & Staples
>publications
>
>
>
>Entheogenesis: Exploring Humanity’s Relationship with Sacred Plants, Past,
>Present and Future
>Jan 31st to Feb 1st
>
>http://www.entheogenesis.ca/index2.html
>
>Featured Speakers
>Prof. Carl Ruck, Prof. Blaise Staples;
>Lecture 1: The entheogenic Eucharist of Mithras
>Lecture 2: Survivals of Pagan Shamanism
>a) European Fairy Tales
>b) Heretical Visionary Sacraments
>
>Dr. Ethan Russo;
>Day 1: Bhang, Ganja and Charas. Ancient Cannabis Claims and their Scientific
>Rationale
>Day 2: The Myth of Schedule I: Medical Uses of Forbidden Plants and Compounds
>
>Marc Emery
>Iboga Therapy House
>
>Chris Bennett
>Kaneh Bosem: The Hidden Story of Cannabis in the Bible
>www.forbiddenfruitpublishing.com
>
>David Aaron
>Liberating the Plants of Consciousness: The Law is on Our Side
>
>Renee Boje
>Trials of the Ancient and Modern Witch
>www.urbanshaman.net
>
>Luke Brown
>Art Show: Entheogen inspired Creations.
>
>Sponsors:
>www.pot-tv.net
>www.theibogatherapyhouse.org
>www.urbanshaman.net
>
>_________________________
>
>Author, Lecturer and Proffessor of Classical Mythology at Boston University,
>Carl P. Ruck,was instrumental in coining the term “entheogens”, (‘becoming
>divine within’) that designates the use of psycho-active sacraments in the
>context of spiritual practice..
>
>CARL ANTON PAUL RUCK
>
>Carl Ruck
>Born: December 8, 1935, Bridgeport, CT, USA
>
>Clark University, psychology 1953
>Yale University, pre-medical, psychology, Classical philology: BA
>University of Michigan, Classical philology: MA 1959
>Harvard University, Classical philology: PhD 1965
>
>New since last report: Entries on “Diana” “Castor and Pollux” Encyclopedia of
>Myth, Brown Publishing Group, London Entries on “entheogens (Psychedelic
>Drugs) and Shamanism” (with Mark Hoffman) “Shamanism in the Classical World”
>“European Shamanism” (introductory overview) Encyclopedia of Shamanism,
>ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara, CA “Snow White, Odysseus, and the Mushroom: Soma’s
>Fairytale Ending in the West,” (with José Alfredo González Celdrán, Mark
>Hoffman, & Blaise Daniel Staples), Entheos: Journal of Psychedelic
>Spirituality, vol. 2, no. 2, (Winter), 2002.
>
>IG II2 2323 The List of Victors in Comedy at the Dionysia, Leiden, Brill,
>1967.
>
>Pindar: Selected Odes (with W. Matheson) (Ann Arbor, University of Michigan
>Press, 1967.
>
>Ancient Greek: A New Approach, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press 1968, 1972.
>
>Ancient Greek: A New Approach, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 19792, new
>completely
>revised edition.
>
>The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries (R. Gordon Wasson,
>Albert Hofmann, & B.D. Staples) (New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
>1978: Los
>Angeles, Hermes 1998.
>
>Translations of The Road to Eleusis:
>El camino a Eleusis: Una solution al enigma de los misterios, Fondo
>de Cultura
>Economico, Mexico, DF, 1980.
>O Dromos yia ten Eleusina, Synergatikes Ekdoseis Koinoteta, Athens, 1982.
>Der Weg nach Eleusis: Das Geheimnis der Mysterien, Insel Verlag, 1984,
>Suhrkamp, 1990.
>Alla Scoperta dei Misteri Eleusini, Apogeo, Milan, 1996.
>
>The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries, (20th year
>commemorative augmented reissue, Los Angeles, Hermes Press, 1998.
>
>Strategies in Teaching Greek and Latin: Two Decades of
>Experimentation, (Floyd
>L. Moreland, ed.), ‘Reading Greek,’ Scholars Press, 1981.
>
>On Nature (L:. Rouner, ed.) “The Wild and the Cultivated in Greek Religion,”
>Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame, 1984.
>
>Persephone’s Quest: entheogens and the Origins of Religion (with R. Gordon
>Wasson et al.) New Haven, CT, Yale 1986.
>
>Translation of Persephone’s Quest:
>La busqueda de Persefone. Los enteogenos y los origenes de la religio, Fondo
>de Cultura Economico, Mexico, DF, 1996.
>
>Latin: A Concise Structural Course, University Press of America, 1987.
>
>The Sacred Mushroom Seeker (T. Riedlinger, ed.) ‘Mr. Wasson and the Greeks,’
>(Portland, OR, Dioscorides Press, 1990)
>
>The World of Classical Myth: Gods and Goddesses, Heroines and Heroes (with
>B.D. Staples), (Carolina Academic Press 1994)
>
>Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline (Richard Evans Schultes & Siri von
>Reis, eds.) “Gods and Plants in the Classical World,” Portland, OR,
>Dioscorides Press, 1995.
>
>Decisions, Decisions: Ancient Empires (academic advisor for computer tutorial
>Program) (Watertown, MA, Tom Snyder Productions, 1996).
>
>Mushroom (consultant for video program):”a 26 minute journey into Americans’
>passions for an extraordinary product of the earth” Premiered March
>30th, 1996
>at Boston Museum of Fine Arts: Tied to the Tracks Films, Inc (by Angelica
>Allende Brisk & Rachel Libert).
>
>Consultant for video program on R. Gordon Wasson, prepared for German Public
>Television, Third Program (broadcast November, 1996).
>
>The Blackwell Dictionary of Anthropology (Thomas J. Bayfield, ed.) entry on
>“Myth.”
>
>Intensive Latin: First year and Review (with computer tutorial Vade Mecum)
>Durham, NC, Carolina Academic Press, 1997.
>
>The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist (with
>Clark Heinrich and B.D. Staples), Durham, NC, Carolina Academic Press, 2000.
>
>Ancient Greek: Intensive Review and Reference, Durham, NC, Carolina Academic
>Press, 2001.
>
>Essays published in scholarly journals:
>
>“Marginalia Pindarica I-VI,” Hermes, 1968-1972.
>
>“Euripides’ Mother: Vegetables and the Phallos in Aristophanes,” Arion 1975.
>
>“On the Sacred Names of Iamos and Ion: Ethnobotanical Referents in the Hero’s
>Parentage,” Classical Journal, 1976.
>
>“Duality and the Madness of Herakles,” Arethusa, 1976.
>
>“A Mythic Search for Identity in a Male to Female Transsexual,” (with M.
>Fleming), Journal of Analytical Psychology, 1979.
>
>“Mushrooms and Mysteries: On Aristophanes and the Necromancy of Socrates,”
>Helios, 1981.
>
>“Mushrooms and Philosophers,” Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 1981
>
>“The Wild and the Cultivated: Wine in Euripides’ Bacchae,” Journal of
>Ethnopharmacology 1982
>
>“The Offerings from the Hyperboreans,” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 1983
>
>“Mistletoe, Centaurs, and Datura,” (with B.D. Staples) Eleusis n.s. 1.2 1999,
>3-23.
>
>“Perseus, the Mushroom Picker,” (with Clark Heinrich & B.D. Staples), Eleusis
>n.s. 1.2 1999, 25-55.
>
>“Jason, the Drug Man,” (with Clark Heinrich & B.D. Staples) Eleusis n.s. 1.3,
>1999, 27-68.
>
>“Mixing the Kykeon,” (with Peter Webster & Daniel M. Perrine), Eleusis n.s.
>1.4 2000, 55-86
>
>“Conjuring Eden: Art and the entheogenic Vision of Paradise,” (with Mark
>Hoffman & Blaise Staples, Entheos: Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality, vol.
>1, no. 1, Summer 2001, 13-50. Website gallery of additional images
>cued to the
>text at <http://www.entheomedia.com/eden1.htm&gt;
>
>“entheogens,” (with Bigwood, Ott, Staples, & Wasson), reprint of 1979,
>Entheos: Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality, vol. 1, no. 1, Summer
>2001, 4-5.
>
>“Daturas and the Virgin,” (with José Alfredo González Celdrán), Entheos:
>Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality, vol. 1, no. 2, 2001 (Winter), 49-74.
>
>“The Miskwedo of the Ahnisinaubeg,” (CAPR editor, unpublished
>manuscript of R.
>Gordon Wasson, Harvard Botanical Archives), Entheos: Journal of Psychedelic
>Spirituality, vol. 1, no. 2, (Winter) 2001, 3-12.
>
>“The entheogenic Eucharist of Mithras,” (with Mark Hoffman and B.D. Staples),
>Entheos: Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality, vol. 2, no. 1, (Summer), 2002.
>
>“De rebus Mithraicis POSTSCRIPTM,” (translated by CAPR from the Spanish of
>José Alfredo González), Entheos: Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality, vol. 2,
>no. 1, (Summer), 2002.
>
>“An Entheobotanical Interpretation of Two Paintings by J.M. Turner,”
>(translated by CAPR from the French of Vincent Wattiaux), Entheos: Journal of
>Psychedelic Spirituality, vol. 2, no. 1, (Summer), 2002.
>
>_________________________
>
>Prof. Blaise Staples:
>
>Classical scholar, Blaise Staples, of Boston University worked along side R.
>Gordon Wasson, Johnathan Ott, and Carl Ruck to coin the term entheogen. He is
>the co-author of such entheo-botanical classics as Persephone’s Quest and
>Apples of Apollo.
>
>Blaise Daniel Staples
>Date of birth: July 13, 1948
>Place of birth: Massachusetts, U.S.A.
>
>Education:
>
>Boston University, B.A., Comparative Religion, Greek Language and Literature,
>1972
>Brown University, post-graduate studies, Classics
>Boston University, Ph.D, Classical Studies, 1978
>
>Dissertation: (unpublished)
>
>PEA PTEROENTA: Plot and Metaphor in Aristophanes
>
>
>Publications: books
>
>The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist
>(with C.A.P. Ruck and Clark Heinrich) Carolina Academic Press, Durham, NC,
>U.S.A., 2000
>ISBN 0-89089-924-X
>
>The World of Classical Myth: Gods and Goddesses, Heroines and Heroes
>(with C.A.P. Ruck) Carolina Academic Press, 1994 ISBN 0-89089-575-9
>
>The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries
>(with R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann & C.A.P. Ruck)
>translation of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter
>Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York, 1978; reissued commemorative edition,
>1998 ISBN 0-915148-20-x
>
>Publications: articles
>
>Entheogens (with R. Gordon Wasson, J. Bigwood, J. Ott, C.A.P. Ruck)
>Journal of
>Psychedelic Drugs, 11 (1-2), 1979
>
>Mistletoe, Centaurs, and Datura (with C.A.P. Ruck) Eleusis n.s. 1.2, 1999
>
>Perseus the Mushroom Picker (with C.A.P. Ruck and Clark Heinrich) Eleusis
>n.s., 1.2, 1999
>
>Jason the Drug Man (with C.A.P. Ruck and Clark Heinrich) Eleusis n.s., 1.3.,
>1999

>Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 1:09 PM

Michael wrote:

>Check out the very distinct white dots against red background on this Amanita
>halo edge in this iconographic painting on the cover of this book. I think
>the Lion is Mark’s symbol. This is the first time I’ve seen a lion with an
>Amanita halo.
>
>Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World
>by Peter Brown
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521595576
>
>Click the cover picture to zoom it, which displays:
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0521595576

/reader/1
/


In the book

Medieval Panorama
Robert Bartlett
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0892366427
2001

page 53 shows that picture and says it is from the “Gospel Books of Godescalc”
in Aachen, northern Italy, 781 CE.


— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com

>>Michael Hoffman used to speak in the JesusMysteries discussion group a lot

about multiple Historical Jesuses, mystery religion connections, etc. Was
there a methodology being used?


My methodology of reading myth-religion texts is to assume that they are
designed to be read from two states of consciousness (ordinary vs. intense
mystic-state) with two distinct meaning-networks: one for the uninitiated, and
one for the initiated. Myth is metaphorical description and reporting of
intense mystic-state experiences. Myth is not grounded and based in the
ordinary state of consciousness, but in the intense mystic altered state of
consciousness.


— Michael Hoffman

Dave H. wrote:

>>Some of the Jewish merkabah mystical writings also suggest that a

psychoactive substance was used, but these writings describe a method of
inducing an ascent in which passages of scripture are repeated in various
combinations until they sort of unlock a gateway into a trance state.
However, look at 4 Ezra 14:37-43 (a.k.a. the Latin Apocalypse of Ezra) for a
description Ezra going into a trance to receive the lost books of scripture
by revelation, after being handed a bowl of a liquid like water but with the
color of fire.


From 4 Ezra, chapter 14:
http://wyllie.lib.virginia.edu:8086/perl/toccer-new?id=Rsv4Ezr.sgm&images=imag
es/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=14&division=div2


37: So I took the five men, as he commanded me, and we proceeded to the field,
and remained there.
38: And on the next day, behold, a voice called me, saying, “Ezra, open your
mouth and drink what I give you to drink.”
39: Then I opened my mouth, and behold, a full cup was offered to me; it was
full of something like water, but its color was like fire.
40: And I took it and drank; and when I had drunk it, my heart poured forth
understanding, and wisdom increased in my breast, for my spirit retained its
memory;
41: and my mouth was opened, and was no longer closed.
42: And the Most High gave understanding to the five men, and by turns they
wrote what was dictated, in characters which they did not know. They sat forty
days, and wrote during the daytime, and ate their bread at night.
43: As for me, I spoke in the daytime and was not silent at night.
44: So during the forty days ninety-four books were written.
45: And when the forty days were ended, the Most High spoke to me, saying,
“Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first and let the worthy and
the unworthy read them;
46: but keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the
wise among your people.
47: For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and
the river of knowledge.”
48: And I did so.


— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com

Michael wrote:

>>>Within a mature, fully-developed ahistoricist interpretive framework, we

*can* be effectively reasonably certain that the Jesus figure is essentially a
composite figure, such that the facticity of Jesus’ existence becomes entirely
a matter of definition: if ‘Jesus’ is defined as a single historical man
serving as necessary kernel for the eventual composite mythic- accretion
figure, we know things didn’t work that way; all evidence indicates Jesus was
a radically composite figure incorporating *multiple, not single* historical
individuals as input sources.


Kelly wrote:

>>_How_ do we _know_ that these source figures were _historical_ individuals?

Could they not be ahistorical figures, mythic figures? Could not some of them
have been historical and others not?

>>I’m not sure I agree with your assertion.

In the interpretive framework and research paradigm I advocate, the Jesus
figure is conceived as essentially a composite drawn from as many actual
people, legends, mythic figures, personified principles, etc. as possible,
driven by competition and by the quest to create a single universal religion.
For example, one source for the Jesus figure and for the themes involved was
the historical individual Julius Caesar. Any given saying attributed to the
Jesus figure may have been held by multiple actual partially Jesus-like
individuals.



Michael wrote:

>>>Based on paradigm-aware analysis, we *can* say we can know there was no

historical Jesus, about as much as anything is certain in history. I reject
as simplistic and paradigm-naive the too-easy assertion that “We can’t know
for certain whether Jesus existed”, an assertion that ends up being biased in
favor of the Historicist story of Christian origins.


Kelly wrote:

>>>… I disagree. I think that the “agnostic” position on the historicity is

just that, agnostic. As an assertion, it is no more biased in favor of the
historicist position than it is the ahistoricist position. Indeed, I’d say
it’s a slap in the face of the historicist position, because it is explicitly
stating that his historicity is unsupportable with the historical evidence
available… directly contrary to most historicists’ positions on Jesus.


To merely claim that the evidence does not support historicity does little to
change one’s overall conceptual framework and mental mindset about the
original nature of Christianity in its cultural context. It’s a negation of
certain aspects of one way of thinking about the origins of the Jesus figure,
without a sufficiently compelling, clear and distinct replacement conception
of the origins of the Jesus figure.

The result in practice is that one accepts the overall worldview of the
official history, while subtracting, in a manner like modern demythologizing,
individual elements of that official history.

The liberal demythologizing historicist and the eternally fence-sitting
agnostics about Jesus’ historicity share the same general style of conceiving
of both the Jesus figure and the cultural context; the fence-sitting agnostics
just put a ‘not’ in front of the historical-individual aspect of the eventual
composite Jesus figure, and make a few statements of Jesus being thematically
like the other mystery saviors — that’s not as much of a difference as people
play it up to be.

So the familiar effortless conversation-terminating assertion that, “Well, in
the end, we can’t know for sure” causes the much-needed mental investigation
to halt in a state in which researchers’ thinking has just slightly moved away
from the whole ancient worldmodel that is put forth by the received,
historicist type of thinking. Thus agnosticism about Jesus’ historicity
usually is found together with a model of antiquity that is close to the
pedestrian, familiar liberal demythologizing picture.


— Michael Hoffman

This makes perfect sense. The mythical meaning networks in the
mythic mapping of the experience can only be mapped directly to the
experience by one familiar with the experience.

Now anyone could coopt these mythical structures and overlay their
own interpretation. But this overlay would not be born of the
mythic state experience.

It would be wise for the non-initiated to use a mythical meaning
construct of their own making to map whatever experiences are being
mapped.

— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Michael Hoffman” <mhoffman@e…>
wrote:

>
> >>Michael Hoffman used to speak in the JesusMysteries discussion

group a lot

> about multiple Historical Jesuses, mystery religion connections,

etc. Was

> there a methodology being used?
>
>
> My methodology of reading myth-religion texts is to assume that

they are

> designed to be read from two states of consciousness (ordinary vs.

intense

> mystic-state) with two distinct meaning-networks: one for the

uninitiated, and

> one for the initiated. Myth is metaphorical description and

reporting of

> intense mystic-state experiences. Myth is not grounded and based

in the

> ordinary state of consciousness, but in the intense mystic altered

state of

> consciousness.
>
>
> — Michael Hoffman

The movie series The Matrix is much more mystic and gnostic than the movie
series Lord of the Rings. I like Matrix and dislike Rings. Are there any
Matrix philosophy books yet that include coverage of the final part of the
trilogy?


— Michael Hoffman

I’m making my Egodeath discussion group postings available as articles. As a
preliminary format, here is a 2.8 MB zipped .doc file that I’m currently
working in.

http://www.egodeath.com/HoffEgodeathGroupPosts.zip

I’m doing various cleanup and outline rearranging.

This document provides a clear view and fast navigation.

I recommend it and would like to know if it opens up my theory writings to
you.


— Michael Hoffman

Despite some sort of historical John the Baptist coming into view, I maintain
the interpretive framework that “All characters in the Bible are essentially
fictional composites very loosely based on multiple types of source figures,
historical and mythical.”

If you want baptizers in animal skins, there may well have been many of
them — but I advocate approaching John the Baptist as essentially and first
of all, a mythic composite, even if the attribute of “real existence” is
assigned to him by some allegorists who liked to create their conceptual art
in the quasi-historical mode of religious allegory.

>>Robert Price has a nice piece on John the Baptist on the Internet.
>>http://www.courses.drew.edu/sp2000/BIBST189.001/pricejj.html

Price wrote:

>>”Finally, if the case set forth here is judged plausible, it would provide

the answer to a thorny question aimed at the Christ Myth theory nowadays
dismissed out of hand by apologists and even some skeptics but still beloved
by many freethinkers. It is easy to show that, at least in its most famous
form, the testimony of Josephus to Jesus is a Christian interpolation. But no
such case can be made in respect of Josephus’ reference to John’s baptism and
his fate at the hands of Antipas. So apologists have asked, is it really
likely that Jesus was not a historical figure but John the Baptist was? That
is exactly the implication if John the Baptist was the original “Jesus,” and
if the gospel Jesus is a figment of faith in the resurrected John. Only now it
makes sense. That John should be a historical figure and Jesus a myth makes
plenty of sense once you understand the relationship between the two figures
as I have sketched it here.”


Lynn Picknett shows through art analysis that Da Vinci advocated some church
of John, associated somehow with Mary Magdalene, against the church of Jesus.
There seems to have been some sort of John-oriented church through the
pre-modern eras, but it’s not yet clear what it amounted to, such as its views
on Jesus’ historicity. Anyone interested in learning all the radical theories
and alternate histories about the gospel Maries and Johns will find such
hypotheses in Picknett’s books.

Mary Magdalene: Christianity’s Hidden Goddess
Lynn Picknett
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0786713119
2003
17 hits for “Da Vinci”.

The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ
Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0684848910
1997
25 hits for “Da Vinci”

Lynn Picknett may have some connection with:
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
Richard Leigh, Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0440136482
1983
8 hits for “Da Vinci”


A subtle distinction that historical-Jesus doubters should be attuned to is
whether people in the past were arguing about Jesus’ actual historicity or
about how to properly tell edifying mystic tall tales: “No, the storyline goes
this way! John was real, and Jesus was mystic-metaphor!” “No, the mystic
tall-tale storyline is that they were both real in their respective ways!”

It’s like a debate over which is the most moral way to tell a morality tale,
or the right way to write a Star Trek episode with accurate, correct
characterizations. An unrealistic portrayal of Kirk, Spock, or McCoy would be
unacceptable.

Suppose I start a church of Mary “John” Magdalene, against that of Jesus —
this would not necessarily mean that I hold any of them to have existed as
literal historical individuals. Now imagine that my church doctrine holds
John to have been the pre-initiation, earthly or “mortal” early phase of the
founder-figure, with Jesus as the new name given to the post-initiation,
divine heavenly “imperishable” phase of the founder-figure.

In neither figure would I be asserting and claiming literal existence as a
historical individual. Rather, I could hold that the figure of John stands
for the principle of the initiate’s old, perishable self before spiritual
regeneration, while the figure of Jesus stands for the initiate’s new,
spiritual, transcendent self.

I could then position this reading of the edifying mystic tall-tale
story-cycle against that of the competing doctrinal story-cycle of the
competing church which I could disparagingly call the “church of Peter” or
even the “church of Jesus”, which (in contrast) holds that it’s better to use
the figure of Jesus as the pre-initiation self and the figure of Christ to
represent the post-initiation self. Even that disparagement wouldn’t
necessarily involve attributing the modern literalist idea of Jesus’ or John’s
existence to the competing church.

This would be like arguing over whether the exploits of Hercules, Zeus,
Osiris, or Dionysus are more lofty or edifying. Even if the notion of an
earthly mortal is involved, this may have put all accent on the
mystic-metaphorical aspects of the religio-philosophical or mythic-religious
tall-tales, without implying such mundane, profane, literal historicity as
modern thinking is inclined to assume.

The ancients may have believed in a historical John in some sense, such as
that the idea made sense within an edifying mystic tall-tale, but did they
believe that John literally existed as a historical individual in our familiar
modern sense? Veyne’s book makes it hard to have any confidence about this
matter.

Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? An Essay on the Constitutive
Imagination
Paul Veyne
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0226854345


Charles Crittenden – The Metaphysics of Fictional Objects – p. 1 wrote:
“In this book I consider the ancient problem of nonbeing, the problem whether
there are non-existent objects. Holding that there are seems to imply the
contradiction that there exist things that do not exist. On the other hand, in
common parlance we very often speak of things that do not exist. Sherlock
Holmes does not exist, he is a fictional character. Pegasus is mythical and
hence non-existent. Phlogiston has turned out not to exist. Extinct species no
longer exist, future items do not exist yet, there are all sorts of possible
things that do not exist. Atheists certainly believe that God does not exist.
So we employ the notion of nonexistence widely and quite comfortably.
Furthermore, non-existent things seem to have properties: Sherlock Holmes is a
detective who plays the violin, he is not a banker; Pegasus is a winged horse,
not a flying fish. The appearance is that ordinary discourse is committed to
items that are some- how there and have properties, and yet are said not to
exist. Does common language then assume contradictory entities? Surely there
cannot be such things. But if not, what are we talking about in these cases?
This is a tangle indeed; my purpose in this book is to sort through the
strands wound together here and to use the resulting clarifications to deal
with various philosophical issues.”


Research page:
A contribution to the history of the theories on non-existent objects
http://www.formalontology.it/meontology.htm


There are modes of Jesus’ possibly historicity other than simple existence or
nonexistence, as Eysinga wrote in his 1930 article “Leeft Jezus – of Heeft Hij
Alleen Maar Geleefd? Een Studie over Het Dogma der Historiciteit” (Does Jesus
Live, or Has He Only Lived? A Study of the Doctrine of Historicity).
http://www.egodeath.com/eysingadoesjesuslive.htm

Eysinga wrote (translated/summarized):

>>Many other figures of legend and literature are seen in a similar light,

such as Pallas Athena, Don Quixote, Romulus, Yahveh, and Osiris. They “lived”
in those real people who contributed to the tales, and are to be understood
within their historical context. So these mythic figures have a life, but not
in the direct sense held by modern historians.

>>Goguel noted that many details in the gospels appear in order to

specifically imply the fleshliness of Jesus. This shows that at the time when
the gospels were written, doubts abounded about Jesus’ carnality. Goguel
wants to put this forward as a proof of Jesus’ historicity. But, just as the
post-resurrection hints of carnality are added polemically against the docetic
school, also the pre-crucifixion part is painted anti-docetically. And this
does not make Jesus a historical person.

>>Unlike the Gnostic tale of the redeemer descending straight from heaven (for

example, in the Naasseni hymn), the Roman Catholic reformer needed a
“realistic” tale of a son of God in the shape of an itinerant healer and
preacher. Originally, the “realistic” life of Jesus just consisted of birth,
passion, and resurrection, but the Jesus lifestory was gradually extended.

>>The celestial Christ of Paul was morphed into a quasi-historical individual,

as Couchoud put it. This gradually increasing reification went hand in hand
with the polemic refutation of the Gnostic heresies. The faith in a “living
Jesus” was a necessary forerunner for the belief in a “Jesus that had lived”.
The gospel is a parable about the Christ mystery. Raschke’s famous formula
concerning the evolution of Jesus from the Pauline metaphysical force of the
Gnosis to the quasi-historical Jesus of the gospels is mentioned again.

>>According to Goguel, docetism was not an assertion about Jesus’ historicity,

but was merely a theological position, so docetism does not entail a denial of
the Historical Jesus. But one would have to admit the same for early
anti-docetism as well. Doctrine just stands against doctrine, and neither of
them centers on asserting historical facts. The ancient type of
historification of the Christ mystery does not turn Jesus into a historical
fact.


— Michael Hoffman

What does “No Rest For The Wicked” (ozzy osbourne) refer to?

Wicked means “wicked way of thinking” (blieve in freewill) in contrast
to the “pure /holy/ sanctified way of thinking” (believe in Fate,
ground of being Mother of AllThatIs)

Living purified still uses egoic-logic but has transcended it and does
not believe in it. Only the Wicked believe that they can be even
metaphysically (ie. truly) a rebel. Also> They believe they do what
they do for *themselves* rather than out of *devine/holy necessity*.

So , what does NO REST for the wicked mean?
Well, by conceiving of the world as utterly fated, ie. as being like a
rock (cmp. to shifting sands) one gains a kind of metaphysical peace
because nothing can go wrong (because everything went all wrong
already -> insight into being a prisoner of Spacetime)

So while the doves enjoy *metaphysical* PEACE,
the wicked are damned to shifting sands perception:
they only focus on all that which ist unstable (sensory perception,
including stream of thought, which is in some sense *just another
sensory perception stream*) rather than on the fact that the world
seen from “outside” can be grasped as being perfectly complete, ie.
like all times have already happend.
(note : time description “PRESENT PERFECT”: who coined this term? who
were the first to read and write? MYSTIC MONKS high on Psilocybin!)

I just watched the movie Freaky Friday with my daughter and I’m sure you’ll agree that this, also, is a modern thematic depiction of the mystic state experience and enlightenment. It was entertaining to watch it from that perspective.

Michael Hoffman <mhoffman@…> wrote:
The movie series The Matrix is much more mystic and gnostic than the movie
series Lord of the Rings. I like Matrix and dislike Rings. Are there any
Matrix philosophy books yet that include coverage of the final part of the
trilogy?


— Michael Hoffman




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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

It is so obvious surveying the Gnosis magazine issues — visionary plants keep
reappearing regularly throughout articles and reviews, yet the special issue
on psychedelics works to diminish and restrain and restrict the perpetual
historical credit that plants deserve. It is child’s play to spot entheogen
references throughout the articles.

Those on the outside, not recognizing the interpretive keys they’ve been
holding the whole time like Dorothy’s shoes in Wizard of Oz, talk about
“mystic gardens”, “fasting” followed by “wine”, and suchlike with zero
conscious recognition of visionary plants that serve as tree-ladders into the
heavens.

_________________


Perennial philosophy is simply the observation that we’re made of color.

This is not an occult science. This is not one of those crazy systems of
divination and astrology. That stuff is hooey and you’ve got to have a screw
loose to go in for that. Humankind is simply materialized color operating on
the 49th vibration. You’d make that conclusion walking down the street or
going to the store.


— Michael Hoffman

Moses magically turned a staff into a snake. To do this, use entheogens which
cause visual distortion.

— Michael Hoffman

Translation/summary now available:

The Old Testament as Christian Scripture
van den Bergh van Eysinga
http://www.egodeath.com/eysingaotaschristianscripture.htm


— Michael Hoffman

Translation/summary now available:

On the Mythological Background of the New Testament Miracles
van den Bergh van Eysinga
http://www.egodeath.com/eysingamythbgndntmiracles.htm


— Michael Hoffman

Many scholars lack an accurate whole ancient worldmodel, but there is enough
evidence so that alternative researchers are reconstructing a clear, viable
alternative, involving the gradual composite back-projected Jesus figure.

The composite Jesus model has only recently taken shape among current
researchers, but there is enough evidence and enough support for an
interpretive framework to make it the strongest candidate we have. What are
the alternative, competing models: that Jesus *was* a single historical
individual, without whom the eventual mythic figure couldn’t have formed?
That Jesus recovered from crucifixion and legends grew into myth?

The fully composite mythic model of the formation of the Jesus figure is
clear, strong, and viable. I see no reason to hang onto the historicity
assumption — it only enables more complicated, implauible, anachronistic
reconstructions or scenarios for Christian origins. I don’t agree that we
have little evidence. We have a great deal of evidence about the nature of
Hellenistic-era religion.

If we can’t see the greater merits of the composite-Jesus scenario *now*, when
will we *ever*? If this amount of evidence isn’t enough to pull people off
the fence, what more evidence are the agnostics about Jesus’ historicity
waiting for? What would be the ideal kind of evidence that would pull the
agnostics off the fence? We have a pile of evidence — literally a bookshelf
full of books.

Book list:
Mythic-only Christ theory
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/3W44V7JX4UH9I

If reading these books isn’t enough to provide a much stronger theory of
Christian origins based on the composite formation of the Jesus figure, then
what further books, evidence, and interpretation would be ideal? What would a
smoking gun, persuasive to the agnostics, amount to, if not this very set of
books, evidence, and interpretation we’ve recently had access to?

I don’t think we need more texts discovered, but rather, more time to
profitably and insightfully interpret the wealth of texts we already have. A
better understanding of esotericism, the mystic state of consciousness, and
mythic metaphor are needed as well. An interesting way of looking at the
problem amounts to asking, “What would it take to bring the discussion group
to some further conclusions, and even an ultimate conclusion about Jesus’
historicity?” I see progress of insight but not a direction toward the goal
of a conclusion.

How does one know when one has “enough information”? Does one keep pushing
bits of texts here and there forever, gaining a little insight here and a
little there? How does one side, or one model of Christian origins, ever
achieve a clear win or victory? I suppose this is the age of questioning and
investigating and raising the question of historicity, more than the age of of
concluding and answering the question.

Will we all become better and better fence-sitters, perched ever more
steadily, so that we are bound to stay affixed there until the end of time,
holding out forever for ever more texts and more reliable texts? Or is there
some specific game plan to bring the conclusion down to one side or the other?


— Michael Hoffman

Updated (minor).

>I’m making my Egodeath discussion group postings available as articles. As a
>preliminary format, here is a 2.8 MB zipped .doc file that I’m currently
>working in.
>
>http://www.egodeath.com/HoffEgodeathGroupPosts.zip
>
>I’m doing various cleanup and outline rearranging.
>
>This document provides a clear view and fast navigation.
>
>I recommend it and would like to know if it opens up my theory writings to
>you.

Wowie wow zowie! No more need to download posts, reformat, and store
away in bulky binders. And here I was, thinking of using my boss’s
photocopier to double-side the pages to save space! Now I’ve got a
2400 page file I suppose I could put on a cd for safety, with
printing and search capabilities!

On the other hand, my copies have the date of posing, which might
faciliate reference. They are of course chronological, which is good
for following the development of your thought. For example, I’ve
broken the binders not by year but by “key insight” alerts you post
from time to time (“I thought xyz from June 1987 to today, but
now….” I can’t see the nature of the arrangement you’ve made. Is
there an outline of topics? For example, for this “update”, is
material added within the main text, or will more just be appended as
it comes online?

Again, woo hoo!


— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Michael Hoffman” <mhoffman@e…>
wrote:

>
> Updated (minor).
>
>
> >I’m making my Egodeath discussion group postings available as

articles. As a

> >preliminary format, here is a 2.8 MB zipped .doc file that I’m

currently

> >working in.
> >
> >http://www.egodeath.com/HoffEgodeathGroupPosts.zip
> >
> >I’m doing various cleanup and outline rearranging.
> >
> >This document provides a clear view and fast navigation.
> >
> >I recommend it and would like to know if it opens up my theory

writings to

> >you.