Commentary on Episode 16 (2019-11-17) Kafei (appearance 3), Max Freakout

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Episode Info & Outline

Video title:
Transcendent Knowledge Podcast Episode 16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdcASJOK8m8
Max Freakout and Jimmy (Kafei) discuss:

Outline copied from the listing section in my page that lists all episodes:
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/07/transcendent-knowledge-podcast-episodes/#Episode-16 —

Max Freakout and Jimmy (Kafei)

  1. Different attitudes towards the historicity of Jesus Christ
  2. The Ground of Being (or Philosophical Absolute)
  3. The importance of no-freewill for the egodeath theory
  4. Problems of talking about personal drug use under prohibition
  5. The writing of Paul Tilloch about the Ground of Being
  6. Attitudes towards drugs in exoteric and esoteric religion
  7. Ramesh Balsekar and Sam Harris on free-will and determinism
  8. Ordinary state vs Altered state based perspectives on free-will and determinism
  9. Alan Watts’ idea of the skin encapsulated ego
  10. Ken Wilber’s book Up From Eden
  11. Psychospiritual evolution
  12. Linear vs holistic determinism

You can copy/paste those strings and try finding them in the present page.

Coverage of the Timeless Pre-existing Block Universe; Read Aloud Too

This writing is clear, on-point, and visible. If this isn’t super clear, super relevant, and super visible, let me know where or how it’s unclear, irrelevant, or unfindable.

I’ve moved away from the term ‘determinism’ to the tech-term ‘eternalism’ and the common-language term “pre-existence”.

Article title:
The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death
Subsection title:
The Block Universe and Frozen Worldlines
http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm#_Toc177337623
Summary read aloud:
http://www.egodeath.com/mp3s/Egodeath3.mp3
Mobile simplified version of that section:
http://www.egodeath.com/mobile3.htm
That section in Dutch:
http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogeneTheorieVanReligie.htm#_Toc146854052

Need more coverage of timeless block-universe pre-set pre-existing future? Here are several garbage-bags full of writings:

Block-Universe Determinism
http://www.egodeath.com/#_Block-Universe_Determinism

New Coverage, Post-2007

Possibilism vs. Eternalism: Two Models of Time and Control
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/12/possibilism-vs-eternalism-2-models-of-time-and-control/

Minkowski’s Block Universe
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/11/05/minkowskis-block-universe-computational-framework/

Search at the present WordPress site
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/?s=%22block+universe%22

My Bodies of Writing at Sites
Audio Content Clearly Summarizing the Egodeath theory including Frozen Timeless Pre-Existing Block Universe Eternalism

Start of Podcast

Different attitudes towards the historicity of Jesus Christ

“Have you read the entire web site?”

The website ends 2004 or 2007, whereas the Yahoo group posts continue past 2004 or 2007, through 2019 — another 12-15 years of articulating the Egodeath theory.  

“Entire” would have to mean the entire Egodeath website followed by the entire post-2004 Egodeath Yahoo group posts.

The website hasn’t grown since 2007. It has weblog posts to Valentine’s 2004, no dates thought. The weblog is where all the growth is after 2004 or especially after 2007. 

No one disagrees with the Egodeath theory.  Either a person doesn’t understand the Egodeath theory and they disagree with their misconceived model of it, or, they understand the Egodeath theory and agree with it.  Disagreement indicates misunderstanding what the Egodeath theory asserts.

As Valentinian Gnostics did, I conditionally affirm exoteric literalist religion for beginners, as the lower layer of 2-layer religion. 
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/?s=pagels

I affirm the historicity of religious founder figures in a qualified way, for those who think in exoteric terms.  It is like two different races: the hylics and  psychics (exoteric literalist moral-conduct OSC-only agents), and the pneumatics (esoteric, analogy-based, ASC-experienced mystics).

OSC – Ordinary state of consciousness
ASC – Altered state of consciousness

Kafei: “The majority of religious scholars believe historicity.”

That is too elementary to discuss [I meant: that is a facile take.]; see Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty, Robert Price, etc., and the abortive excuse of a debate with literalist Bart Ehrman. 

That “debate” was awhile ago; 2005? In 2020, I can’t even remember who “debated” Ehrman — it was a complete embarrassment and disappointment; Ehrman had nothing. Of course.

The world’s most weak and vaporous foundation of thin air, is “Because the Authorities Say So”.

The only basis we have for holding to Jesus’ historicity is sheer convention.

The Egodeath theory has the privilege of standing on these building-blocks provided by those scholars.

9:16 The Ground of Being (or, the Philosophical Absolute)

He rejects too-quick assertion “Once you get the message, hang up the phone.”  

That phrase is always said by people who think they got the message, but actually failed to discover Possibilism vs. Eternalism per the Egodeath theory and per archaic Wisdom revelation as evidenced by the tree-vs.-snake contrast in world religious mythology.  

Most people have only the beginners’ experience of an initial, immature experience of nondual unity oneness, far short of the deeper more mind-transforming experience of personal non-control and profound dependence on the pre-given block universe and personal control worldline rail.

“the complete mystical experience, the sense of being completely outside of space and time, or timelessness.  I got the sense from Michael Hoffman that he’s almost referring to the trip as the realization of no-free-will, but[sic] inside the experience that I can recollect, it wasn’t that any time was unfolding, it was that in a way everything was occurring at once, there was no time to unfold.”  

He contrasts:

o  The trip as the realization of no-free-will.  Determinism.  Everything’s fixed inside of time.

o  Time was not unfolding, everything was occurring at once, there was no time to unfold.

These are the same thing, unless you bring a reading framework that forces them to be opposed. 

If you think that these inherently read as two opposed things, in what way these two same things are in contrast?  What reading are you bringing such as to make these two same things, become different and opposed things?

“Determinism kind of implies that everything’s fixed inside of time. … that’s one thing I’ve noticed that Michael Hoffman doesn’t really touch on in his website.”  

Unclear. What is it that’s not touched on at Egodeath.com? That “everything is fixed inside of time“?

That sounds like the block-universe pre-set pre-existing fixed future, which is the special focus of the website.

“Doesn’t really touch on” sounds incorrect, depending on the meaning of the assertion & phrase,
“Determinism implies that everything is fixed inside of time.”

How is my block -universe model and explanation “not covering the idea that everything is fixed inside of time”?

There’s no specificity in the critique, in terms of the Egodeath theory’s Core Concepts and specifics.

The critique sounds generic.

Citations – I might research the term “the absolute”. Where is Kafei seeing this term? He said places he’s not seeing the term. How common does he think the term is, and why?

There is some variability of assumed framework possible, around phrases such as “everything’s fixed inside of time“.  

Is Kafei mis-reading the Egodeath.com website into a framework that the website’s theory refutes and opposes?

It seems like Kafei has excessive reliance on the term “the Absolute”; he notes how few people use the term, so why continue to expect the term?

“I Searched the Website”, not “I Read the Website”

Beware, red flag whenever Kafei says “searched”, it could mean he’s not READING the writings but is merely issuing searches against the HTML pages.

“The website … when I searched ‘the Absolute’, it’s never under dialog of his own. … it’s mentioned on one page comparing terms of Determinism, block-universe no-free-will.”  

“The Absolute” is just one, rather vague term, among many that people use

I don’t use in explanation the term “the Absolute”, because it is a poor term with little explanatory or descriptive value.  I’m not surprised Kafei is finding various people don’t use the term.

The Egodeath theory is valuable and gives superior explanatory power because it gives a successful superior, more relevant wording to what Wilber et al provide.

My superior wording is like: Pre-existence, frozen timeless pre-existing block universe containing embedded worldlines of future control-thoughts.

“He’s almost [why “almost”?] referring to the trip as the realization of no-free-will, but [why “but”?] inside the experience that I can recollect, it wasn’t that any time was unfolding, it was that in a way everything was occurring at once, there was no time to unfold.”

WHY DOES KAFEI SAY “BUT”? He sets up a false opposition.  He states the Egodeath theory, he says it’s wrong, then he asserts the same thing as the Egodeath theory.

Todo: extract above & below as pull-quote for the Quotes of Mystics page.

Below, I rewrote Kafeis’ statement, without the extra conjoining words:

Rewritten:

“Tripping produces the experience and insight of no-free-will.

In the tripping state, time isn’t experienced as unfolding linearly in a causal chain, but rather, time is experienced as all occurrences pre-existing all at once, for eternity, unchanging.”

I don’t see how conjoining those two statements with “but” makes any sense. It looks like nothing but arbitrary and confusion if I conjoin the two plain, simple statements with the logic-noise-word ‘but’:

Tripping produces the experience and insight of no-free-will, but in the tripping state, time isn’t experienced as unfolding linearly in a causal chain, but rather, time is experienced as all occurrences pre-existing all at once, for eternity, unchanging.

I’m really not following the ‘but’ in Kafei’s original statement. There is too much unspoken going on there.

I have to question what Kafei assumes the phrase “no-free-will” means.

Kafei implies that the Egodeath theory’s realization of no-free-will is an *unfolding* model.  ‘Unfolding’ has multiple meanings depending on framework: “unfolding” according to the Possibilism model, vs. “unfolding” according to the Eternalism model.  

*How* does experiential unfolding occur – in a branching freewill way, or nonbranching pre-existing?  David Bohm’s hidden variables model (Eternalism) vs. Bohr (Possibilism).

The many statements at the Egodeath site all criticize the habitual, ordinary-state-based assumption, the habitual model, of domino-chain determinism in which the configuration at one point in time causes the subsequent configuration.  

Kafie is *assuming* the framework of connections in which “unfolding” occurs.

The Egodeath theory rejects the “unfolding” model taken to mean “open future”, where the egoic agent is a source that wields the autonomous power that is able to make the future one of a variety of outcomes.

How could a person have “the realization of no-free-will” while still adhering to the ordinary-state based, “unfolding time” model?  We’d need to define what we do and don’t mean by “unfolding”. 

See the hidden-variables Physicist David Bohm re: “unfolding”.

14:15 The importance of no-free-will for the Egodeath theory

“The very idea of predetermination implies time and linearity.  But that may also be an illusion, because you can’t speak of predetermination unless you have time unfolding.”

“Some gurus will talk like when people ask is this question of freewill and no-free-will; do we have it, do we don’t; they’ll say it’s a false question.  [14:55] I don’t want to jumble the semantics.  I would love to hear your thoughts on Compatibilism.” 

For Compatibilism, see also [49:00] about Ramesh Balsekar and Sam Harris’ intellectual, non-experiential approach.

“I found it strange that Josh couldn’t resonate with this idea of the Absolute, and yet he said he’s done with psychedelics, he’s learned all that he needed to learn.”

Kafei thinks it’s strange that multiple other people don’t make their thinking dependent on the particular term “the Absolute”.

Where did Kafei get the impression that the particular term “the Absolute” is common, standard, and predominant? Compared to eg “ground of being”.

I’ve never seen the term ‘the Absolute’ treated like the main word. He wonders why no one else finds the term useful.

Kafei has a strange brittleness and inflexibility around expecting the word ‘the Absolute’. He doesn’t define the word that he’s so intent on.

Kafei equates “the Absolute” with what’s revealed in the altered state. 

Do people really attach the label ‘the Absolute’ to Transcendent Knowledge? I doubt that the lack of the word ‘the Absolute’ implies a lack of the concept of timeless unity experiencing.

I hear no specifics from Kafei, just generic statements that could apply to literally any theory, connected to the under-defined word ‘the absolute‘.

a vaporous haze of universal genero-critique

Kafei is excellent and rare for rejecting the tired beginners’ canard “hang up the phone”. 

16:00 You can never stop learning from experiencing the Absolute

Kafei connects the phrase “be-all end-all” with ‘the Absolute’:

“There may be an end-all be-all, the Absolute is kind of that, but you can never stop learning out of it, even though it is all things; at least that’s the impression you get in directly experiencing that Absolute.”

16:12 Max Astutely Tries to De-Conflate Kafei’s Triumvirate of Topics: the Absolute, Atemporal, High Dose

16*60 + 12 = 972
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdcASJOK8m8&t=972s

Max identifies and differentiates 3 separate ideas:

  • The Philosophical Absolute.
  • The idea of predetermination implies linear unfolding time.
  • Watts’ “Hang up the phone” quote.

Kafei thinks these three ideas are mutually relevant & related to each other. Max wants to cover them separately.

Max: “You seem to be saying
there’s a lack of coverage of
this idea of
the Philosophical Absolute
in the Egodeath website.”

Kafei: “High dose”….

What?! I don’t see why Kafei goes rushing off headlong in this direction, letting “high dose” totally drive and dominate his thinking, and he doesn’t come back to other topics. He heads in the direction of focusing on High Dose, and he never comes back to the topical, substantial subjects.

Does the conversation come back to the above 3 points?

The only thing Kafei cares about is high-dose. The result is, his vague assertion that there’s a gap in the Egodeath theory’s coverage of “the Absolute”.

How does Kafei go from his high-dose focus, to his assertion that the Egodeath theory “lacks coverage of the Philosophical Absolute”?

What’s going on in his opaque thinking?

Which of the above 3 points = high dose? I’d say, Watts’ “Hang up the phone”.

THIS CONVERSATION DIRECTION & STRUCTURE MAKES NO SENSE.

I eventually cracked the code and deciphered Kafei’s “logic”; see top of article.

17:30

Re: the alleged lack of coverage of the idea of the Philosophical Absolute…

17*60 + 30 = 1050s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdcASJOK8m8&t=1050s
re: high dose

The above 3 ideas (I’d have to listen to Max again) have poor differentiation of distinct ideas(?) A tendency to conflate related, connected ideas. 

Per Ken Wilber, to construct complex mental structures, you must both differentiate and integrate – not fuse and conflate, nor isolate and fragment.

Re: hang up the phone, and Kafei’s rare, good rejection of that overused idea:
The period of “revolutionary science”, or completion of perfection in initiation, is of limited duration.  

Later, forever, “normal science” builds many more connections, but that is no longer a fundamental transformation.  

We aren’t done learning, but we (the telestai) are basically done transforming, after the 9 initiations levels in Ptolemaic Astral Ascent Mysticism, or the series of Eucharistic sacred meals.

22:30 Evil inside meditation?

“Does evil exist inside meditation?” Define “evil”.  

Two-level religion (exo/eso) defines two distinct senses: moral harm in daily life, and, a false mental model in which the person claims autonomous power rather than dependence on the created block universe.  

In mature meditation, mystic evil is a mental error that is perceived, and thus exorcised; there is initially that evil, then it is cast out.  

Moral harm in daily life exists, but per hyper-Calvinism or the non-existence of two powers in heaven, God is the author of evil, so evil is not evil. 

God the creator of all things and thoughts and actions, is beyond evil. 

God created the Devil, and is puppetmaster of the Devil.

23:48

See Wouter Hanegraaff’s articles about psychedelics in pop late 20th C religion, about the cover-up of that influence.

25:30

Tasers. To understand… better attitude…

Kafei: “Roland Griffiths should get experienced.”

Max: “Carhart-Harris says he’s never tripped. Can’t believe them. Censorship.”

29:00 – Returns to the 3 Points

They get back to the above 3 points and the alleged “gap”, the alleged “lack of considering the idea of the timeless Absolute”, that is evidenced not by considering the words and their meanings, that define the Egodeath theory, but as evidenced by the “lack of High Dose”, and by the failure of Kafei’s word-search such as on ‘high dose’ and ‘the absolute’ (according to Kafei’s logic).

Max: “No Philosophical Absolute = “gap”. Try searching for the term ‘ground of being’.”

Kafei: “Don’t you know that’s a synonymous term?”

Expert Kafei explains that Paul Tillich coined ‘the ground of being’.

29:15

Re: Philosophical Absolute.  Kafei interprets that as a gap in the Egodeath theory.  

Max recommends ‘ground of being’.  Kafei replies “You know that’s a synonymous term with ‘the Absolute’?”  

Now, suddenly, inconsistently, Kafei drops his previous denseness and rigidity of brittle fixation on the particular term ‘the Absolute’.  

Suddenly, Kafei is so astute, he explains that Paul Tillich coined the term ‘the Absolute’ and then Ken Wilber took up the term.  

In 1985-1988, I had been reading Ken Wilber and JTP [Journal of Transpersonal Psychology], and my altered term with somewhat greater explanatory power around 1987 was “the Crystalline Ground of Being [CGOB]”.  

Now instead I’d use the term with even better explanatory power: block universe; “the frozen-time block-universe with worldline of personal control thoughts”.  

Which goes back to Minkowski, Parmenides, Popper, and William James’ “the iron block universe”.  Early 20th C.  

See the recent book about William James’ futile struggle against block universe no-free-will, and the slightly newer book collecting Minkowski’s papers with an appreciation.  I’ve posted about all this at the Yahoo group, 2013-2019.

30:55 – The One

Max mentions Neoplatonism’s idea The One, which “also plays the same explanatory role as the term Philosophical Absolute or Ground of Being, which is to say it refers to the ultimate basis of reality or the ultimate source, the bedrock of realness.” 

31:39

Kafei is back to looking for “did they have the Experience” (presumably, high dose)

I’m not following why Kafei brings the conversation focus back to that, yet agian. Kafei doesn’t explain the structure of his train of concerns. WHY is he talking AGAIN about “experience”?

What does that (“experience”, or “high dose”) have to do with his allegation of a gap in the Egodeath theory? What is his reasoning?

Kafei: “‘henosis’ is the contemplation state where the One is realized.”

32:00

Max: “More to the point, to be clearer than ‘you can’t attain henosis experience to access the One without psychedelics‘; rather, more relevantly and to the point:
you won’t access loss of control, panic attack, seizure, with mere non-drug contemplation” (paraphrase).

Max introduces a pointed criterion that helpful for asssessing the efficacy of meditation vs. psychedelics, by assessing specifically their ability to induce control-loss panic attack, rather than the unhelpful, vague “ability to access the One, attain henosis, the Absolute”. 

Kafei doesn’t seem to hear him or register this effective strategy of assessment; he reverts to the perfectly vague pronoun “this”, [33:11], “whether this could be attained through”, rather than repeating Max’s specific “control loss” or his own “accessing the Absolute”.

33:10

Kafei “through purely natural means”

As I wrote on recent podcast, I wouldn’t use the useless term, “natural”, it only confuses.

33:20

“My own relationship with the All or the One or the Father, all these terms that we use for the Absolute has been solely through psychedelics, and so I can’t dismiss that, so I’m not necessarily disagreeing with Michael Hoffman, just because he doesn’t reference the Absolute as much as maybe I would like to — not “like to”, it’s not some preference, because I don’t recognize it, it’s not necessarily a criticism on his perspective.

“I really think that Determinism is how the world operates, but it’s very different from what I think mystics are describing as the Absolute. 

I’m skeptical that ‘the Absolute’ is such a standard, common term. Why doesn’t he mention the term ‘ground of being’, which he elsewhere says is a synonym of the term ‘the Absolute’? Why his particularism, his expectation of everyone to use the same term?

“I think they’re interrelated, I think the Determinism that he’s describing is the relativity that operates within the Absolute, but they’re kind of described in different ways, that I feel he doesn’t touch on; that’s all I’m saying.”

The Egodeath theory Uses the Term “Ground of Being”, or “Block Universe”, Not “the Absolute”, Which Is Inferior

Max: “I’m disagreeing with you about the idea that Michael Hoffman doesn’t touch on or doesn’t incorporate this term Absolute.  He does, but he just doesn’t call it that.  He refers to it as the Ground of Being.”

Kafei is hung up on the term “Determinism” without reading it as the Egodeath theory and main article *uses* the term.

Kafei is retaining and importing the conventional in-time, temporal flow reading.  This is exactly what we must not do when shifting or transforming the network of meaning from Possibilism to Eternalism.  

By default, Kafei is latching onto the Egoic, Possibilism network of word-meanings, applying that network of interpretation onto words that are re-purposed within the Egodeath theory, and then declaring the Theory to fail to present frozen-time ideas.

The 2006 Main Article Continues to Use the Term ‘Determinism’, Which Is Confusing if You Don’t Read the Article, but Merely Search the Article

This weakness of the term Determinism is why I have stopped using the word ‘Determinism’ in explanations after finding the term-pair “Possibilism vs. Eternalism”.  

The word ‘Determinism’ is freighted with OSC-based conventional in-time, causal-chain thinking.

The word Determinism too much offers an overdetailed explanatory model of how it is that future events are closed — conventional thinking says the future is closed *because* of causal chain determinism playing out through time into an otherwise open future.  

The idea of ‘Eternalism’ does an end-run around all that speculation about the mechanism.  

Eternalism says the future is closed because all times are created at once, interlocked together into the Block Universe. 

For Kafei, Max maps “Absolute” to “Ground of Being” rather than to the more concrete term “Block Universe” and “Worldline”.  

The ‘Crystalline Ground of Being’ is my 1987 concept.

The Minkowski ‘Block Universe’ and ‘worldline’ idea from a Modern Physics course goes back to 1987.

“Determinism” was my attempted shorthand in 2006.

My 2013 obscure but non-freighted term is ‘Eternalism’, particularly the contrast formula {tree vs. snake} = Possibilism vs. Eternalism.

In 2020, I also clarify as “the pre-existing block universe”.

35:13

Kafei shows awareness of these considerations of connotations. Yet around the words ‘Absolute’ and ‘Determinism’, he has a rigid and non-nuanced approach to those terms, as if they have a single set of connotations baked-in, with no malleability.  

Kafei: “Michael would really like to claim that term Heimarmene, because he feels it hasn’t been contaminated yet by modern thought, and he feels he could maybe use this as a stepping stone to describe what he is describing with his Egodeath theory.”  

Max: “Well he does use it to describe what he’s talking about with the Egodeath theory.”  

Kafei: “Michael is kind of making it into a neologism now; he’s coining; it may have been the original context of the term but he’s applying it to his thought.”

That sounds like Kafei is contradicting himself. Does he understand the word ‘neologism’? The Egodeath theory uses the standard meaning of ‘Heimarmene’.

“Michael has an issue with revisionist versions of Buddhism, people who have an understanding of religion that doesn’t involve drugs and he feels that’s a huge detriment to the dialog of trying to understanding religion. 

“I feel kind of the same way, like I’ve spoken to Atheists who try to describe themselves as Pantheists. … 

“Michael has a huge issue with the semantics and the way we use these terms and he would like to steer the direction a different way by directing people toward a better way to speak about these things, I feel is his effort, as is mine; I’m always trying to do that myself.”  

36:44

Max: “Exoteric vs. esoteric understanding of religion.”  Max defines exo/eso in the Egodeath theory:

Exo:

“If religion doesn’t involve taking drugs and experiencing the mystic altered state, that would be classed as exoteric religion.

“Exoteric religion is anti-drugs, it’s Prohibitionist; it defines religion as something which is only relevant to the ordinary state of consciousness.

Eso:

“Whereas esoteric religion comes from and is about the intense mystic altered state of consciousness, including above all, the experience of control-loss seizure, breakdown; ego death.”

37:32

I haven’t yet heard the term “Block Universe” in this podcast episode.  [I wrote, during initial listen.] This short-changes the Theory, crippling it and severely misrepresenting the Theory, limiting it to conventional ordinary-state based “determinism” a la Sam Harris and Ramesh Balsekar.  

Has Kafei even read the main article, about the Block Universe idea, and experiencing the Block Universe? [<– evidence that when I first was listening to the episode, I immediately suspected Kafei of not having read eg the main article, of 2006, at Egodeath.com.]

38:07 – Podcast Mentions ‘mystikos’ & ‘conceal’ & ‘hidden’, but not ‘veiled’

Kafei talks about etymology of ‘mystikos’, conceal. 

Max: “Hidden”.

Neither of them mentioned the key term “veiled“, which better conveys both concealing *and* revealing, a temporary concealing followed by a conditional revealing, a making-visible and perceptible of what was previously, for a time, under limited conditions, not perceptible, but rather, occluded although potentially visible.

Kafei: “These early mystics were keeping this under the wraps, this experience that they can enter into.  Even in the early languages, they made no references to the Absolute, they only spoke of the initiate.” 

Again, Kafei doesn’t state why he is intent on expecting everyone to use his particular term ‘the Absolute’, and yet again, he is baffled that no one but him is using the term.

Why does Kafei act like ‘the Absolute’ is the star for everyone to steer by? And then act surprised when no one’s with him?

Kafei never makes his reasoning clear; it just seems arbitrary.

39:06

“They don’t directly explicitly reference the Absolute, they kind of do it implicitly by referencing ‘the initiates’. … the direct experience of the absolute.” 

Max says “I’m not quite sure what you’re saying there, …”

Kafei: “they don’t directly explicitely write about “the absolute”. Why would he expect them to?

Max: “It’s misleading to lean so heavily on this idea of the Absolute.“

39:23

Max: “The Absolute isn’t the best, most clear, systematic way of describing and explaining what the ultimate mystical experience is all about and what its object is.  

The ultimate mystical experience of ego death isn’t so much an experience of the Absolute or of the Ground of Being, but rather, it’s an experience of losing control over the course of one’s thinking, and having an experience which can be modelled by the model of the 4-dimensional block universe.

And then, because of the experience, there’s a kind of mental reprogramming that takes place, so that the initiate, after the experience, is now aware of a new model of time and agency, which is to say time and personal cybernetic self-control agency, which they were not previously aware of. 

That is the way that the Egodeath theory characterizes the ultimate mystical experience, rather than characterizing it as simply the experience of the Absolute.”

Kafei: “That’s precisely how I read his website, that’s the idea I get, almost like he’s describing the full-blown psychedelic experience almost like the Tralfamadorians from Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughterhouse 5. 

“They see within the 4th dimension, so they see everything fixed in time and they can do nothing about it.  

“It seems like that’s what Michael is describing the experience. …
Almost the Ramesh Balsekareseque revelation that everything is predetermined.”

42:24

Kafei contradicts himself.  At [33:20], he described the Egodeath theory as in-time, causal-chain Determinism, lacking the concept of the Absolute, or Crystalline Ground of Being, or Eternalism, or Block Universe. 

But here, he rightly characterizes the Egodeath theory as fixed-time.

Max: “Michael Hoffman is describing the ultimate mystical experience of egodeath and rebirth in terms of a discovery of a new perspective of 4-dimensional block universe determinism, which implies non-control.
It doesn’t just imply control-loss in the present moment; it implies that control was never real in the first place.”

44:40

With the condensed Egodeath theory in hand, as the ultimate product of Western Civilization and Loose Cognitive Science, the mind can read descriptions of experience and form an almost first-hand mental model of the loose cognitive seizure and transformation experience, learning to place dependence consciously on the uncontrollable source of control thoughts. 

The deepest connections and most durable mental stability would be from combining
a series of first-hand initiation experience sessions together with
a scientific, explicit, clear and direct understanding, supplemented by
mapping the direct scientific understanding to the various analogies from world religion and culture such as high Rock lyrics and visual arts.

The strongest mental connections would require:

o  First-hand initiation experience (a series of loose cognitive association sessions). w/ an experience of intense & profound loss of control (max points out)

o  Direct scientific explanatory model of how the mind transforms when exposed to the second state of consciousness.

o  Analogies, art, and lyrics, from mystery religion, religious mythology, and Western Esotericism, mapped to that direct explanatory model.

Problems (distorting effects) of talking about personal drug use under Prohibition


The writings of Paul Tillich about the Ground of Being

Attitudes towards drugs in exoteric and esoteric religion

Ramesh Balsekar and Sam Harris on free will and “determinism”

46:00

Max and Kafei are familiar with Ramesh Balsekar. 

Kafei explains how Balsekar indirectly learned the concepts, from a guru, in the ordinary state.

According to Max and Kafei, Ramesh’ no-free-will is speculation based only in the OSC, not an observed experience from the ASC.

Max explains that the repeated temporary ASC *experience* produces a lasting intellectual *understanding*.

47:00

Ramesh was strictly OSC-based, unlike the guru. A revolution in the intellect, Ramesh exclaimed (in the ordinary state of consciousness) “enlightenment means no-free-will”.

The guru had a direct experience, which leads to an intellectual revelation (Max points out), grounded in ASC, not the ordinary state of consciousness.

49:00

Max describes OSC experience of virtual freewill.

52:00

Alan Watts’ idea of the skin-encapsulated ego

Kafei: “Nonduality”

Max: “a more important than concept “nonduality” of self/other; it’s a cybernetic unity between self & other; a loss of individual separate control, rahter than skin-encapsulation; it couches the experienece in terms of self-control, rahte rthan self & other.

54:00

Why is Kafei paying more attention to whether someone has ASC experience, than accurately reading what their worldmodel is?

Kafei is distracted by his hyper-intensive search for “the Absolute” and “high dose”, too mono-focus distracted to read and receive a writer’s ideas. He has poor reception of ideas, because of his intensive exclusive focus he brings.

That’s why Kafei doesn’t really read and understand the Egodeath theory, and massively misrepresents the Egodeath theory sometimes. He’s endlessly distracted by his narrow interests & terminology.

57:20 “I couldn’t see it”

Transcription of [57:20 to 59:30]

Formatting guide:
italics = Kafei’s focus on high dose
bold = Kafei’s focus on timelessness
underscore = logical argumentation structure

57:20

Kafei: “I’m talking about dying.

“And so when I got that from Ken Wilber, I’m like wow, that’s it, everyone is afraid to die into it, they don’t want to die into it, that’s why they’re afraid to take the high dose.

“That’s why they’re afraid of whatever it may be, to really get into their meditation, to get into the inner light that they see inside themselves.

“And so he says what do you die into, what happens when you die?

“And he starts describing what he calls the Wholeness with a capital W, the totality.

“But he’s not talking about totality as evolution unfolding in time; he’s talking about totality as all time, all together, at once.”

Max: “Right.”

Kafei: “I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that, in a psychedelic experience, but at the very height of some of my most powerful psychedelic experiences, that’s exactly what I resonate with.

“And that’s what I resonated with in Wilber’s writing.

“Not only in Wilber’s writing; but when I read the religions, when I read Plotinus describe the One, I resonate with the Absolute, where, Are you familiar with Maria Sabina?”

Max: “Oh yes absolutely, yeah.”

Kafei: “She described this as the place where everything is known.

“And for me that’s what I felt: there is nothing to do, theres no time, everything is already there, and not unfolding.

58:53 “But I would argue, how much have you taken? That’s what I couldn’t see.”

“It’s not some revelation that its unfolding in time; it’s that the ultimate thing that everyone could realize, is the godhead of everything already being there at all times, and you may disagree with that, but I would argue, man, how much psychedelics have you taken?

“You know, like … but you know, I don’t know, I,

“That’s what I couldn’t see in his writing, and listening to the, his interviews, I couldn’t see it,

“I don’t know if he’s trying to brush off his … experience, or if he’s trying to avoid the authorities, you know, but I couldn’t see it.”

/ end transcription

When Kafei says “That” and “it”, two sentences above, what is he referring to?

  • Is Kafei referring to high dose?
    • “to take the high dose“
    • “at the very height of some of my most powerful psychedelic experiences“
    • “but I would argue, man, how much psychedelics have you taken?!“
  • Or is Kafei referring to timelessness?
    • “totality as all time, all together, at once“
    • “the One, … the Absolute“
    • “the place where everything is known“
    • “there is nothing to do, theres no time, everything is already there, and not unfolding“
    • “the godhead of everything already being there at all times“

The surprising answer: Kafei means high dose. Listen to all of his words – he is explicit that “I couldn’t see it” refers to high dose, not the asserting of a metaphysical position of timelessness.

When Kafei says “That‘s what I couldn’t see in his writing, and listening to the, his interviews, I couldn’t see it“, he’s not saying he couldn’t see timelessness in my writings; he’s saying he couldn’t see high dose in my writings.

Elsewhere he leaps from that, to saying that therefore, the Egodeath theory has a gap: that the Egodeath theory is missing the topic of timelessness.

Never mind that the Egodeath theory is precisely and emphatically a theory of timelessness; given that Kafei doesn’t see High Dose, that in itself means that the Egodeath theory lacks the topic of timelessness — regardless of the words defining the theory.

Listen to [58:40 to 59:30] multiple times to actually believe, from the horses’ mouth, this is his train of reasoning. Especially at 59:00.

Early start: (Wilber)
57:20
57*60 + 20 = 3440s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdcASJOK8m8&t=3440s

Start: (Sabina)
58:40
= 58*60 + 40 = 3520s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdcASJOK8m8&t=3520s

Peak, where Kafei reasons: “and you may disagree with that, but I would argue, man, how much psychedelics have you taken?“
59:00
= 59*60 = 3540s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdcASJOK8m8&t=3540s

Max’s clarification until interrupted:
59:30
= 59*60 + 30 = 3570s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdcASJOK8m8&t=3570s

Kafei’s train of reasoning is:
I couldn’t see high dose in the theorist.
Therefore:
The theory lacks coverage of the timeless Absolute.

And therefore, “the Egodeath theory has a gap: it lacks coverage of the timeless Absolute” (regardless of the words in the theory).

Kafei’s claim that the Egodeath theory “has a gap regarding the timeless Absolute” is his proxy for asserting “You failed to take high dose like me.”

That is the weird, obscure, opaque path of his reasoning throughout this podcast.

Since when is “You didn’t high dose, therefore your theory has a gap regarding the Absolute” a logical argument?

So if he probes and doesn’t find the person “has high dose”, then he charges person’s theory with “your theory has a gap: it lacks the absolute, timelessness.”  Regardless of any wording in the theory.

That is Kafei’s opaque, unstated logic by which he misrepresents the Egodeath theory to absurdly claim that the Egodeath theory lacks coverage of timeless existence, as if he hasn’t read a single word of the Egodeath theory.

Misleading and important: when Kafei says “I looked and looked, and Hoffman doesn’t … in his theory, I just don’t see it”, everyone will think Kafei is saying he fails to see coverage of the timeless absolute in the Egodeath theory. But that’s not what he’s directly saying.

Kafei oscillates between saying “The theory lacks coverage of timeless Absolute”, with what *he* thinks is the same statement, “The theory lacks high dose”.

54:15 Ken Wilber’s book Up from Eden: A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution (1983)

Introduction – Max & Kafei found into valuable.

Max: “Wilber’s many many evolutionary levels details are uninteresting. Want broader picture of evollution, not details.”

54:30 Up from Eden by Ken Wilber — Max and Kafei both read that book.

55:00 Max’s critique of Up From Eden.

55:45 Kafei on Ken Wilber

Kafei – “I felt Wilber had been clarifying what I had been trying to say for a very long time. Maybe we can go toward that, because it clarified it for me, maybe it can clarify it for you.”

Cybermonk on Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber doesn’t write about frozen-time block-universe eternalism, and against Wilber, I — Jan 1988 for the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology — start writing an article to correct Wilber and the field, on this point. Wilber never wrote on frozen-time block-universe eternalism.

Wilber’s failure to write on frozen-time block-universe eternalism in the psychedelics-type loosecog state, as the real nature of ego transcendence, is my dispute with Wilber.

Summary of my rejection/ critiques of Up From Eden:

Wilber is concerned with Psychospiritual development from infancy to guru; I’m not. I’m only concerned with the flip from childhood egoic thinking to transcendent, initiated-thinking; the flip from mental worldmodel 1 to 2.

Wilber depicts the nature of ego transcendence as vague “nondual unity oneness awareness” through Advaita non-drug sitting meditation; I disagreed informally during 1987, and I formally disagreed with Wilber and the existing field of Transpersonal Psychology as of January 11, 1988).

In January 1988, I started writing an article for the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology to assert that instead, ego transcendence is about frozen-time block-universe eternalism, which totally kills egoic power & thinking.

frozen-time block-universe eternalism is what Wilber fails to cover & emphasize, and what I brought, instead, to supersede or fill-in and contribute the thing that’s missing from the very center of Wilber’s system, the hole in the middle of Wilber’s theory, which I’ve been providing — comparable to Ramesh’s position — since 1988.

56:00 Up from Eden – People Afraid of Enlightenment

“When you talk about evolution, you’re still talking about time unfolding. The impression I got from reading that introductory portion [Up From Eden] is one of the most profound things that I remember he said was a lot of people are afraid of this enlightenment because they’re afraid of death they’re afraid of the separate ego the idea that their identity of the ego dying they don’t want that to disappear so to realize this ultimate truth, you have to die.

“You have to let go of that separate ego and that would what’s everyone’s afraid to do. no one want to die …”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdcASJOK8m8&t=3470s
57 *60 + 50 = 3470s

56:30 People are afraid of dying

Kafei: “People are afraid of dying.”  That is boring literal death, and evidences exoteric, lower-layer religious thinking on the part of Wilber and Kafei.
Relevant to religious mysticism and revelation, people are afraid of loss-of-control and causing harm. The kind of death that matters, for higher-level, esoteric religion, is cybernetic control death.

There is also a death experience in the sense of saying “I’m dead, I no longer exist.”

In the intense, overpowering mystic altered state, the mere feeling of ceasing to exist is not the source of terror, dread, and numinous awe — cybernetic death and transformation is the kind of death and fear that drives the peak experience.

Cybernetic control death is the fearsome worldline dragon that guards the treasure of gnosis.

You have to consciously trust in the more or less occluded, hidden, uncontrollable source of thoughts on which your control has always been profoundly dependent even when feeling autonomous.

57:20 Wholeness, Totality as All Time at Once

Kafei: “I’m taking about dying , so when I got that from Ken Wilber I’m like wow, that’s it, everyone is afraid of dying so they don’t want to die into it, theat’s why they’re afraid to take a high dose, they’re afraid of whatever it might be, … to get into the inner light that they see inside of themselves, and so he says what do you die into, what happen when you die, he starts describing the Wholeness with a capital W, the totality, but he’s not talking about totality as evolution unfolding in time, he’s talking about totality as all time, all together at once.”

Max: “Right.”

Kafei: “I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that, in a psychedelic experience, but at the very height of some of my most powerful psychedelic experiences, that’s exactly what I resonate with and that’s what i resonated with in Wilber’s writing and not only in Wilber’s writing but when I read the religions, when I read Plotinus describe the One, I resonate with The Absolute, where, are you familiar w/ Maria Sabina?

Max: “Yes absolutely yeah.”

Kafei: “She described this as the place where everything is known. and for me that’s what I felt: there is nothing to do, theres no time, everything is already there, and not unfolding,”

I’VE BEEN SAYING THAT FOR 32 YEARS ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB AGAINST THE ENTIRE 1987 FIELD OF TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY.

Read the Egodeath theory, which is centered on systematically emphasizing and elaborating and summarizing this point.

Kafei continues: “It’s not some revelation that its unfolding in time; it’s that the ultimate thing that everyone could realize, is the godhead of everything already being there at all times 59:05 and you may disagree with that, “

“but I would argue, How many psychedelics have you taken, but I don’t know, that’s what I couldn’t see in Hoffman’s writing, and listening to his interviews, I couldn’t see it, I don’t know if he’s trying to … avoid authorities, but I couldn’t see it.”

Caution – when Kafei says “”that’s” and “it”, he doesn’t mean “coverage of timeless Absolute”; he means, High Dose. The lack of High Dose, combined with lack of particular term Absolute, proves — according to his “logic” — that the Egodeath theory fails to consider the idea of the pre-existing block universe.

Timeless pre-existence is the focus and emphasis of the Egodeath theory.

Kafei’s Key Conflation — He Looks for Supposed Differences of Theories, and then Tries to Attribute those Supposed Differences to “You Didn’t Take High Dose”.

And therefore, “Your Theory Has a Gap” Kafei’s (False) Claim that Theory T “Has a Gap” Is His Proxy for Asserting “You Failed to Take High Dose”.

THAT is the weird, obscure, opaque path of his reasoning throughout this podcast. 59:07 “But I would argue, how much psychedelics have you taken?“

KAFEI IS CONFLATING these two points:

  • Detecting high dose (but mystics’ writings are exempt)
  • “Does person X know block-universe eternalism?”

It seems like instead of reading and comprehending the words that define the egodeath theory, Kafei simply tried to instead look for high dose, and then not finding that, he takes that to mean that the Egodeath theory “has a gap – it neglects to consider timeless pre-existence.”

No need to read and understand the Block Universe section of the main article.

Max: “No, what he’s saying first & foremost is the psychedelic, the intense ultimate psychedelic experience of ego death can be modelled as discovering this new perspective of eternalism or block univ det’m in according to which–“

Max’s Clear Explanation

Kafei interrupts Max. He’s neither reading nor listening.

Kafei: “But when you say it’s modeled as, you’re talking about still the fruits of that realization in coming back to this reality, and so you’re not talking about being inside the Absolute, for the mystics they come back with these fruits from the Absolute, and the whole reason I found his website (Egodeath.com) is because I was trying to understand how can there be an Absolute

[Kafei doesn’t define the term ‘the Absolute’. He has a brittle fixation on the surface-phrase/ idea-label ‘the Absolute’ rather than on ideas. -cm]

“, for me that was how can there be an experience where all experience is already done, how can there be such a thing, but i thought … what if 1:00:44 the reason that’s there is bc everything in life is predetermined but that was my own spec’n on the Absolute, that wasn’t some revelation I had, and when I started speculating ok what if everything is predetermined, I actually became really depressed, … if 1:01:16 if everything’s predetermined, there’s no meaning”

Terrence McFakea covertly stopped mushrooms for this kind of reason, “meaninglessness vertigo”.

Kafei contradicts himself and waffles, regarding Ramesh’s position. Waffle, Self-Contradict; Waffle, Self-Contradict. He comes across schizophrenically, like there are two different Kafeis.

This podcast (portion) is a conversation between 3 people:

  • Max
  • Kafei 1
  • Kafei 2, who disagrees with Kafei 1.

Kafei obsesses on “how much psychedelics have other people taken”, when he should instead be READING what I WROTE and EMPHASIZED. THERE IS NO WAY KAFEI COULD POSSIBLY HAVE READ MY WRITING, GIVEN WHAT HE’S SAYING HERE.

57:50

Episode 16 with Kafei quote Kafei, then quote what I’ve written a MILLION times.

How can anyone so completely act like they’ve never read a single word of my writing?

How did this happen? This is disturbing and vexing.

How is it possible, this failure to understand anything of my writing? the very most basic idea of my writing, my whole theory.

How to prevent this?

Most of what Kafei says is not too bad, but this particular point Kafei utters stands out as baffling: how could you possibly say that, if he’s read the Egodeath theory?

Possible explanation: the next thing Kafei will say is, “Other people fail to do high-dose like I do.”

For 32 years I wrote advocating and clarifying the idea of frozen-time block-universe eternalism. Kafei seems to claim I don’t cover frozen-time block-universe eternalism, but that’s the central emphasis and point of the egodeath theory. Has he read the Egodeath theory?

57:45 Feeling all time all together at once

“Wholeness or totality, not as evolution unfolding in time, about feeling all time all together at once.  At the height of my experiences, That’s what I resonated with in Wilber’s writing and in Plotinus describing The One, I resonate with The Absolute.”

58:45 Sabina: the place where everything is known

Kafei positively cites Maria Sabina – but see Jan Irvin’s expose article series The Secret History of Magic Mushrooms.

The Secret History of Magic Mushrooms
Jan Irvin
https://logosmedia.com/SecretHistoryMagicMushroomsProject
find ‘sabina’

Kafei “Sabina described this as the place where everything is known.  That’s what I felt.  There is nothing to do, everything is already there.  And not unfolding, it’s not some revelation that it’s unfolding in time, it’s that the ultimate thing that everyone could realize is the godhead of everything already being there at all times.”

A central point of the Egodeath theory is to assert the opposite of “unfolding in time”. The Egodeath theory is all about pointedly emphasizing — as Kafei affirmed and acknowledged just a few minutes ago — a frozen-time block-universe Eternalism experience in which all future events pre-exist timelessly and are set in a frozen future, cast in rock, the Iron block universe. 

People can only frame the Egodeath theory as inadequate by misrepresenting it.

One moment, Kafei correctly presents the Egodeath theory, and agrees with it. 

The next minute, Kafei contradicts that presentation, mis-represents the Egodeath theory, and disagrees with his strawman, his misrepresentation, trying to force the Egodeath theory of Possibilism-and-Eternalism into only the Possibilism model, trying to depict the Egodeath theory as an “unfolding Determinism” model.

59:19

Kafei: “That’s what I couldn’t see in Hoffman’s writing. [see “Sabina described this as”, above.] … [1:00:15] How can there be an experience where all experience is already done, it’s already happening? … What if everything in life is pre-determined?  

“That was my own speculation on the Absolute, that wasn’t some revelation I had.  When I started speculating what if everything is predetermined, I actually became really depressed.  

“After my very first powerful trip of experiencing this, I became severely depressed.

“I thought for everything to be determined there is no meaning.  I went into this dreary thing.  

“And it was when I started studying major religions like Eastern philosophy that I lost that, that I saw how they saw it.

“If you examine Buddhism they talk about a Compatibilism.”

Max: “Michael defines himself as a Compatibilist.” 
(2nd instance of this link in the present page:)
My WordPress page about that:
Valentinian Freewill Compatibilism
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/10/29/valentinian-freewill-compatibilism/

The question to ask anyone is, “What kind of Compatibilist are you?”

Kafei: “Wow, ok, well maybe he ultimately agrees with this.  We seem to be coming from different places, but that ultimate thing can be found, the fruits of that reveal very similar views. … And I had this experience which I describe differently but I still come to this model.”

There’s no substantive difference. 

Kafei half the time, inconsistently, strives to cast the Egodeath theory as
in-time, causal-chain, unfolding Determinism, where the state of things at time t “causes” the state of things at time t+1 — per egoic thinking; where the future doesn’t exist and is only “pre-determined” in an indirect sense, of a sequence of temporal causality.

At these moments, Kafei latches onto isolated words from the Theory, out of context, to preposterously misrepresent the Egodeath theory (against every fiber of its being) as ordinary state-based, Possibilism-based.  

Kafei is correct in recognizing the concept of Determinism as freighted with in-time, open-future thinking. 

Kafei is hypersensitive to the word ‘Determinism’ and its conventional connotations, and places his attention sometimes on that word rather than frozen-time block universe with pre-existing worldlines.  

That’s why I stopped using ‘Determinism’ around 2013, 6 years ago, and replaced it by ‘Eternalism’.

Insofar as Kafei’s wording (near “Sabina described”, above) tries to describe frozen block universe Eternalism, his wording is too vague and loosely poetic, whereas the Egodeath theory provides more concrete, specific, direct wording.
It is unbelievable, for someone to claim that they are interested in:

Kafei: “There is nothing to do, everything is already there.  And not unfolding, it’s not some revelation that it’s unfolding in time, it’s that the ultimate thing that everyone could realize is the godhead of everything already being there at all times.” 

Why Couldn’t Kafei find those ideas, more clearly expressed than his wording, at the Egodeath site — if he genuinely looked for them? Such ideas are the main, most prominent emphasis at Egodeath.com.

The Egodeath.com website is centrally focused on re-casting enlightenment from vague “nondual unity oneness” into “intensely experiencing the pre-set worldline frozen in the block universe, removing control agency power”.

It is nonsense to say that these ideas aren’t centrally highlighted at the Egodeath site, or couldn’t be found there. 

Those are presented as the top, central ideas, such as in the main article.

Article title:
The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death
Subsection title:
The Block Universe and Frozen Worldlines
http://www.egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm#_Toc177337623
Do you need me to read it aloud to you?
http://www.egodeath.com/mp3s/Egodeath3.mp3

Has Kafei read the main article?  Sometimes, every few minutes, it seems like Kafei is unaware of the main article, of 2006.

Then, a few minutes later, he affirms that the Egodeath.com site has already presented a theory of exactly what Kafei describes, except more clearly. 

Kafei’s thinking or assertions are self-contradictory.  

If you can’t find frozen-time pre-existence of future actions in the Egodeath site, you’re being willfully blind and want the Theory to be inadequate.

From the point of view of the individual who passes through a series of peak experiences, as described in mystery religions and Western Esotericism, at first the person only has mundane egoic consciousness.  

After initial experiences, the person has had some experiences of nondual control and timelessness and ego death, not fully assimilated.  

After completing the series of deepening experiences, the person has completion, perfection, has been washed clean, purified and fully transformed.  That difference over time is an unfolding.  

The peak experience includes the feeling of a kind of staticness behind all the unfolding dynamics.  

The block universe contains change; it is “meta-static dynamic”, just as a slab of marble contains a vein that has various changes, relative to certain points of reference, yet doesn’t change and can be perceived as unchanging.

Sam Harris Fails to Connect His no-free-will Book’s Advocacy with His Entheogenic Spirituality Books’ Advocacy

Sam Harris in one book advocates psychedelics, and in a different book, advocates No-free-will.  But he is far from connecting these two ideas. 

The OSC gives the experience of freewill.  

The ASC gives the experience of no-free-will; frozen-time block-universe no-free-will and monopossibility and a kind of non-control.  

Sam Harris’ “determinism” or “no-free-will” seems not influenced by psychedelics experience.

1:01:46 – Valentinian Freewill Compatibilism

Max reports my recent positive label of ‘Compatibilism’, or Modal Compatibilism: as far as *experience* is concerned, the mind is designed to experience and conceptualize both freewill and then also no-free-will. 

When Max labels me as a “Compatibilist”, Kafei is impressed with that (interrupting Max), thinking that it means I don’t assert frozen-time holistic no-free-will and pre-existence of all points in time.

Kafei mis-reads the Egodeath theory as “domino-chain unfolding in-time determinism”, even though all Egodeath writings reject that type of “determinism” and clearly assert Crystalline Ground-of-Being, frozen time with all personal control-thoughts already existing in the spacetime block spread along the snake-shaped personal control worldline.

The 2006 main article uses the term ‘determinism’ rather than ‘Eternalism’. The main article doesn’t use the best term, but the article is clear that the future pre-exists in the block universe, and that the block universe and its threatening worldline vision is experienced and revealed in the loose cognitive association state.

Regarding which is the case, I’d say no-free-will is the underlying veiled truth.  But experience is so important, from an experiential point of view, we virtually, practically, on a daily basis, have freewill.  

Leighton Flowers at YouTube is most articulate, having come from Reformed theology (Calvinism), but now sees Possibilism in the Bible.  I more forcefully than Flowers, confidently assert that the scheme of the Bible is:

The Bible asserts all of the following:

o  Freewill moralism (Possibilism).

o  No-free-will (Eternalism).

o  Possibilism and Eternalism are incompatible.

The Bible is thus consistent inconsistency.
My WordPress page about that:
Valentinian Freewill Compatibilism
https://egodeaththeory.wordpress.com/2020/10/29/valentinian-freewill-compatibilism/

I often think of Elaine Pagels’ first the books, about Valentinian gnosticism in John, Paul, and the Gospels, respectively.  

Valentinians sought to relate their esoteric view to normal, exoteric Christians.  
Freewill moralism is the main, normal mental mode, on which life is built and sustained.  

Only by preserving this mode a la Ken Wilber regarding healthy retaining of lower psychological structures, does the mind have the privilege of erecting floating above that, the no-free-will revelation.  

This is the practical sense in which the mind is inherently Compatibilist.  

This does not contradict what Kafei fixates on labelling exclusively as “the Absolute”, which is more directly labelled as block-universe Eternalism.  Kafei seems blind — sometimes — to block-universe Eternalism in the Egodeath theory.  

Kafei latches unduly onto the term ‘Determinism’ in the main article and then mis-reads the Egodeath theory as an “unfolding” model of time, which the Egodeath main article and the Egodeath theory emphatically rejects.  

What theory is Kafei reading?  Kafei does, and then does not, understand what the Egodeath theory is basically asserting.  

My past year of summary postings at the weblog should make it impossible to have a weak grasp of the basic assertions of the Theory.

It needs to be established that Kafei understands the block universe and worldline idea per Physics, as debated by Popper in his discussion with Hermann “Parmenides” Minkowski.

Kafei keeps flipping between making noises as if the Egodeath theory differs with his view, and then when pinned down by Max, Kafei says the Egodeath theory agrees with Kafei’s view.  Which is it?

The loose cognitive association state from psychedelics causes the experience of frozen-time no-free-will including block universe with pre-existing worldline of control-thoughts.  The 2007 main article is crystal clear about this.  How then can Kafei half the time make noises in a tone of voice as if the Egodeath theory asserts some other view?

Ordinary-state vs. altered-state based perspectives on free-will and determinism

Kafei asserts that Max uses a time model of time unfolding. Kafei seems to underappreciate frozen-time block-universe Eternalism, which is opposed to the overfamiliar domino-chain linear in-time causal chain that’s a result of the experience in the OSC.  “evolution unfolding in time” — Kafei contrasts this to what he calls “the Absolute”, as if that’s not the same idea as Crystalline Ground of Being (my 1987 terminology).  

Kafei attached to the particular label “the Absolute” and associates the idea of Eternalism strictly with the label “the Absolute”.  Yet, he also shows awareness of flexibility regarding terms – inconsistent.

As far as Kafei is concerned, if the idea isn’t labelled as “the Absolute”, then the idea isn’t there.  

I hold that the word “the Absolute” is vague, whereas the direct, superior label for the idea is my 1987 label “Crystalline Ground of Being” or my 2013 label “Eternalism”.

Psychospiritual evolution

Linear vs. holistic “determinism”

“Do psychedelic mushrooms cure atheism?”

Everyone asserts “God exists” or “God doesn’t exist.”  No one thinks to define what they mean when they say ‘God’.  God is the hidden uncontrollable controller or giver of personal control thoughts.

End of Podcast

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Author: egodeaththeory

http://egodeath.com

3 thoughts on “Commentary on Episode 16 (2019-11-17) Kafei (appearance 3), Max Freakout”

  1. I plan to carefully bring back in selected coverage of this episode, with timestamps — now that I finally figured out Kafei’s jaw-dropping, astounding, baffling train of reasoning that enables him to claim that my theory that is expressly centered on explaining
    the peak experience of timeless pre-existence of everything including personal control thoughts,
    as the new, superior model of what ego transcendence is about,
    has a gap: that the Egodeath theory has neglected to consider the topic of …

    the peak experience of timeless pre-existence of everything —

    as if he hasn’t read a single word of the Egodeath theory! 🤯
    As if he’s saying that the Egodeath theory essentially doesn’t exist!

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  2. I absolutely disavow Kafei’s glorification of high dosage/ high frequency.

    I don’t know where Kafei is picking up this notion, but he sure isn’t picking up this value from the Egodeath theory, and I don’t approve or condone people pushing this value or trying to associate this value with the Egodeath theory.

    The Egodeath theory is pretty much the opposite; read and comprehend the Egodeath theory, rather than high dose/ high frequency.

    And no, running a couple sophisticated searches against HTML files does not count as “reading”.

    Kafei is probably picking up this dubious value from Terrence McFakea, who pushed that value onto other people, while not even taking any, at all, himself.

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