In the first address you will find one of my early books – The
Tractate on
Transcendence. Therein you will find five chapters under the
headings EXEGESIS,
therein you will find the answer to your above question. And feel
free to
compare it all (all twenty years of it) with drug induced
experiences. And then
tell me that these things do not come about other than by
invocation – I did not
even want the stuff – I was just stuck with it. So, there you go,
and such is
life and the nature of reality.
Dick.<<<<<
I will look at this and I will get back to you. I am well aware
that some people have unusual brain chemistry.
What i think you need to understand is that for a teaching to have
any effect, it has to apply to a broad range of people.
As to whether the experiences you have hd are as the high end as you
claim, I will give you my opinion after I read them.
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 2496
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Khem writes…. [Interesting and creative use of the word fraud ]
Not my word Mr – try reading the book about him written by a member of his own family, the book is called – The Genuine Fraud. So once again assumption is on the rampage here as I have already pointed out. Do some reading friend. Watt’s NEVER KNEW the things he was preaching about – and he died trying to find them by way of drugs. Moreover, what Watts led people to believe that he knew was not even a fraction of what exists to be known and experienced. Ipso Facto.
Dick.
—– Original Message —–
From: Khem Caigan
To: Egodeath Group
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 3:07 PM
Subject: Re: [egodeath] Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysticism
Dick doth schriebble:
<SNIPS>
> Even the hippie movement was originally founded by such frauds as
> Alan Watts (an English misfit), and Co, who were popping pills
> until it killed him/them. And look at the legacy that movement
> left; it is still with society today – about five percent zapped
> out junkies.
> Some ideal, some movement, some inspiration – some legacy.
Interesting and creative use of the word fraud –
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2497
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Okay Dick I have read carefully your experiences.
Naturally you search for others to validate your experience and
naturally you have taken criticism from other quarters then this
Yahoo group about them. It is also natural to want to find others
that have had these kind of experiences.
Before i go into anything further would you please answer some
questions?
1. Prior to your experience at age 24, had you ever used any
Entheogens at all…even Marijuana?
2. On the day of your first experience, when you put the music on
what had you ben eating?
3. You mention coffe quite a bit, How much coffee were you
drinking? Were you using any other stimulants? What were your
drinking habits?
4. What was your main “religious,” influence at the time of that
experience?
5. Are you aware of endogenous DMT?
6. Since those main experiences, how often if ever did you have
experiences of that kind later in your life?
7. Did you ever have any impairment in your level of functioning in
daily life, that for instance plagues people with mental illness?
(simply a question, not an assumption or insult)
Pleae answers these questions for me.
Reading your experience it is clear that it is on the level of
common, decent dose, Entheogenic experience. Had you said at the
beginning “I had eaten some moldy rye bread that day” or “I had
eaten a toadstool,” then pointing to the biochemical trigger would
be easy.
I have done intake on many a Acute Psych admission, and in some of
those cases I would discover excessive coffee drinking and an
apparent sensitively to caffeine. One young man had decided to
roll a cigarette out of sage. Also accidental ingestion of Ergot,
historically has led to religious experience where the person was
unaware of the initial trigger and just sumed it was divine
intervention.
One thing that is great about entheogen use, is that one can easily
replicate and test the validity of one’s experience and learn more
quite easily…and actually learn to be wholly objective about it,
to test what is a function of the inherent mental imagery, what is
really awareness of inner physical structure (Psychedelic
Structuralism theory) and what is actually showing you principles
of reality, stripped of the clothing of belief sysytem imprints.
As far as the content you depict in these experiences, it all sounds
like initial, decent dose, entheogenic experience and you reacted to
it in a similar way as most people initially using entheogens in a
serious way do.
As one can step back fron there experience and integrate it further
one can gradually become aware of the mechanistic way in which the
experience unfolded and then become more scientific about their
experience.
I believe you need to study, entheogens further. But until knowing
more about you i wouldn’t advise you to start experimenting. Some
small percentage of people are overly sensitive to entheogenic
triggers and if not prepared properly, can run into issues.
In general, when a Entheogen user fails to maintain objectivity,
they can get swayed quickly into developing a belif in their
specialness. For instance they do not realize that the experience
that showed them “god” may be a ubiquitous thing and they begin to
devlop the idea they are in the Messiah category, when in fact all
people share this innate ability to see thing as they really are.
It is also a common tendancy for people to fixate on a particular
experience and lose objectivity.
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 2498
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
[ I will give you my opinion after I read them. ]
And by what criteria will you judge Sir ? Judgement can only be made from having walked further down a road than the reference point from where the assertion being stated has its point of reference. You cannot judge what lies at the end of a road until such time that one has been to end of that road. Maybe you have, maybe you have not. But I would welcome some idea of your perspective upon which your opinion will be based – – from hindsight or speculation?
Having done various aspects of both teaching and instruction over the last forty years one soon learns the lesson (whilst teaching) that one has to know ones stuff better than the pupil. As a driving school proprietor for many years I occasional had a pupil whom I had to tell them that they did not need lessons for they were already driving well above the standard required – but not often. When it came to teaching sales representatives then there were times when no amount of instruction could teach them to sell.
Dick.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2499
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
[This is not true. There have never been “millions of folks,”
claiming substantail religious experience. ]
How do you know; have you counted them? I have found that in most cases one has to drag it out of them – for they are too frightened to say anything in this crazy world. Moreover, as I said before, people have being having them since we lived in caves; and ‘millions’ does not necessarily means a large percentage of all human beings that have existed. But although mystic experiences are quite rare (especially the deeper kinds) there are a lot of people out there – and a small percentage of a hell of lot is quite a few.
[You have gotten angry ]
You are very astute Sir – yes I have indeed. I came on this list in good faith; and very polite, and got dealt shit – I too can dish it out if one has too, I prefer not to; but we live in a world of needs must eh. If this lot can dish it out then this lot can learn to take it – or you can pull the plug on me – pity you missed the nice guy whilst he was here.
[attacking using the “drug” word.]
Oh no Sir, I am not attacking; I am defending. I have not gone on to the attack yet. And the drug word IS the operative word on this forum it seems.
[What you really should understand is… ] Blaa blaa blaa, all I get on this list is people telling me what I should understand – what about you lot then – have you no more understanding to do? Oh, well of course not, for you know it all.
Oh, by the way son, anyone who has already had their awakening (as you put it) would never get involved in man made religions – don’t you know. Well, there is something which you ought to understand then eh !
[In thirty five years of being involved with Buddhists I find that the vasdt majority of people are just as inexperienced as before. ]
Well you would do son, for Buddhism is both crap and wrong. Did you not know that Buddhism was set up as a psychological ploy to try and rid that part of the world of all its religions at that time. The ‘philosophy’ which states that there is no real self in the machine – and yet that self reincarnates. They want to get their act together. Moreover, you cannot destroy a lie with yet another lie.
Is that it for now; yup, seems so? Right, time for a quiet pint of ale then.
Dick.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2500
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 12/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
[Okay Dick I have read carefully your experiences. ]
Try reading the whole book. Ok, I will answer your questions as you went to that trouble. But once again I have to reiterate that you are making many false assumptions in your mail.
First, I am not seeking confirmation of my or any experiences – one does not need one for the experience itself does not need confirmation – IT happened. I do not give a damn of fifty million have had the same experiences as me or none of them have – it is irrelevant. Experience is for the observer.
[Naturally you search for others to validate your experience ] Wrong; I do not. Do not judge by what YOU may do or others may do – I AM ME.
[naturally you have taken criticism from other quarters then this
Yahoo group about them ] Wrong. I have made thousands of friends and good acquaintances all over the world and on five continents (and many in the USA – all over the USA – some of my best friends; and I much prefer yank academics to British ones).
[It is also natural to want to find others that have had these kind of experiences.] What were you guys saying to me the other day about what is natural? I do not give a damn either way son.
[1. Prior to your experience at age 24, had you ever used any Entheogens at all…even Marijuana? ] Most certainly not; I have never taken drugs other than the occasion smoke of golden Virginia home rolled fags. I have never been ill; never had a headache or hangover in my life and so I can even count the number of aspirins I have had on one had. Had a nasty toothache once for which I took some aspirins, but that is all.
[2. On the day of your first experience, when you put the music on what had you ben eating? ] The usual crap which I have been eating all my life – sausage egg and chips and other such fast food. I eat to stay alive – I do not live to eat. Food does not interest me other than a wee bit to stay alive.
[3. You mention coffe quite a bit, How much coffee were you drinking? Were you using any other stimulants? What were your drinking habits? ] I did not drink coffee until I was 36 years of age. But at that time vary rarely. I used to drink milk, water or tea. I drink gallons of coffee now – my second wife started me on it.
[4. What was your main “religious,” influence at the time of that experience? ]
I was born hating religions – I am here to destroy them. I was taken into a church for the first time when I was seven. When I heard what they were saying I physically threw up in disgust – they rushed me out quick.
[5. Are you aware of endogenous DMT? ] I have read a lot of things in my time but cannot remember them all now. I may have done and I may not; remind me.
[6. Since those main experiences, how often if ever did you have experiences of that kind later in your life? ]
One does not need to see the same thing twice. But after that first one I had regular psychic experiences for twenty years and they all taught me something different. But the last event was another big mystical event twenty years after the first – the consummatum incarnate – as it had been in transcendence then so too did it become on earth. I never need the same experience twice.
[7. Did you ever have any impairment in your level of functioning in
daily life, that for instance plagues people with mental illness?
(simply a question, not an assumption or insult) ]
No insult taken – thick skinned you know. I have never been either physically ill or mentally ill in my life. I am of about average intelligence; I learn very quick. I am exceptionally strong (just born that way) much to the dismay of bullies. I have never passed out or fainted in my life – and my constitution is that of an ox. All my sensory inputs (and other antenna) are working fine and I can still chase sixteen your-old’s around the block. I have a very good sense of humour (far better than the Germans you know :- ))) and most folk think I am good fun to be with. So no problems in my life. All is just fine – and five healthy bright kids.
I have never held beliefs in my life – knowledge of some things and ignorance of other is good enough for me. I was asked to become a Bishop in a church once – thank you ma’am but no thanks. I have been offered money for helping people ($6000 once) same again, thank you ma’am but no thanks. Nobody can buy me and I am not for sale.
Hope this answers your questions Sir.
Dick.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2501
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: What seekest thou and why?
Given that at least the active members of this list are seemingly seeking something by way of deliberately taking in substances to their system (I will not use the word drugs if it is a sore point here) then could I ask a few questions maybe?
(1) If a person is seeking something then presumably they do not have it; for one does not go looking for something which is not missing. So, could I ask as to what it is they assume or believe that they are looking for? Please do not say something like ‘enlightenment’ without defining your terms in a little more detail.
(2) One would not go to the trouble of looking for something without a reason of some kind. So, why do they want whatever it is they are seeking for?
(3) What will they (you) do with it if ever they find it?
(4) What do they think or believing that the acquisition of it will do for them?
(5) One of course can only know something (in the true sense of to KNOW) from hindsight. Inference and deduction are not knowledge in the strict sense. Hence anything one reads or hears is simply hearsay – one does not know the experience of a tree simply by hearing or reading the word ‘tree’. So, if one is seeking something on the say-so of hearsay then what makes them assume that it is really there at al l- given that human beings can and do at times tell lies? If that which they were seeking from hearsay did not actually exist then they are wasting a whole lifetime not only by seeking it but also possibly damaging their system by the over use of stimulants of one kind or another – or simply wasting so much time in meditative practices?
(6) How many seekers on this list have found what they were looking for?
Many thanks for your anticipated co-operation.
Dick.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2502
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Fw: Quotes and responses
—– Original Message —–
From: Dick Richardson
To: gnosis284
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 8:26 AM
Subject: Quotes and responses
A few quotes from the Christians book along with comments from a modern day mystic. (according to academic Neurology mystics are people who are suffering from Rapid Brain Deterioration – so come to your own conclusions).
” I tell you this: a rich man will find it hard to enter the kingdom of heaven”.
Why? Easy, because they have too much of the wrong kind of stuff to think about. A person wealthy in worldly goodies will invariably find that all their time is taken up with administrating their wealth; thinking about putting it to work, keeping it, adding to it, and thinking about what to do with it. When is their mind ever free to think about life itself? Let alone relaxing sufficiently to feel its naked essential quality. That is why. When do they get time to simply grab the day and go with the flow? A camel would indeed float through the eye of a needle sooner. The irony is that a wealthy person who does not have to worry about feeding their kids and cleaning out toilets every day truly is in the best position to relax and go with the flow. But they do not. So tough luck. I do not envy them.
“You are the light of the world”!
Well, I think I have said enough about that already in this book. I would just add – ‘know your self’.
“The lamp of your body is the eye”!
The real you is that part which sees and knows – the observer of the observed.
“Put away anxious thought about food and drink”!
You will probably get enough food to eat and drink, and the things which you need here anyway. So do not spend all your time thinking about them and storing it all away. Think of other things and observe life. If you do happen to starve, which is unlikely in a half way decent society, then you will no longer be anxious about food and drink anyway. There are more important things than simply staying alive for a long time.
“Always treat others as you would like them to treat you” !
Not the best way of putting it sunshine – Always treat others the way in which you would like them to treat your children. For you love and care for your children more than you do yourself.
“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” !
Mystics are here to hack down the weeds of destruction and ego’s.
“You will hear and hear, but never understand; you will look and look, but never see”!
You cannot live life by proxy; and you cannot give experience, knowledge and understanding away. You have to know and understand for your self. The physical ears and eyes will never reveal it.
“The harvest is the end of time – the reapers are angels”!
You cannot know the eternal realm and reap that fruit until time stops moving; and when you are there you will not be a physical entity – but pure primordial mind.
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure buried in a field”!
Yeah, sure is; buried deep below all other fields of emanation which are brought forth from the point of no duration. Do not go looking in your cabbage patch however.
“Can you not see that that which goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is discharged into the drain: but that which comes out of the mouth has its origins in the heart”!
Yup, sure does – and it reveals the colour of it too.
“If anyone wants to follow me then he must leave self behind”!
Well, you cannot say it any clearer than that can you. And I have been saying the same thing for forty years and throughout this book.
“If any man will let himself be lost he will find his true Self” !
And so it is. Why could they not understand it then; tis plain enough – get lost to get found. Annihilation does a proper job of it. Mind you, you cannot do it by choice so do not try it. But you can put yourself in the way of it happening if you relax at times, and go with the flow; and put the little ego to bed.
“What an unbelieving and perverse generation, how much longer must I endure you”!
I know the feeling chum; but do not break into a sweat about it; for they have not seen what you have seen, and they do not know what you know – be patient lad. And anyway, you cannot stay here for ever as you well know. So, go and cool off in the pond mate.
“In very truth I tell you, we (mystics) speak of what we know, and testify to what we have seen, and yet you all (including neurologists mate) reject our testimony. If you disbelieve me when I talk about things on earth, how are you to believe when I tell you things about heaven”!
Don’t expect too much of them chum; keep your powder dry son.
“You Samaritans (Don’t forget the JW’s mate) worship without knowing what you worship, while we (mystics) worship what we know” !
So what do you expect them to do then mate? They cannot digest that which they have not eaten old son – so damn well explain it to them better. If they do not understand then it is YOUR fault, not theirs.
“As the father raises the dead (resurrection from annihilation) and gives them life, so the son (your true self in paradise) gives life to men”!
Well, you do not give them life old mate, but a little inspiration to live if you are lucky and can get through to them eh; but don’t play at the sodding job, get real mate!
” I will not leave you bereft: I am coming back to you” !
Yup, that is right. These words are what I termed ‘Synetic Dialogue’, which means speaking whilst in this world on behalf of that part of our self which exist in eternity. And your Self will come back to you when time ends. Ipso Facto.
“They will ban you from the synagogue” !
Obviously mate, for they cannot have both priestcraft and truth can they; but do not get your knickers in a twist about that son; for there are better places to be thrown out of are there not; and don’t we know it eh. Anyway, what the hell do you want to go in there for anyway? Go and chat with them down at the Rose and Crown instead – they are more sensible too.
“I came from the father and have come into this world. Now I am leaving the world again and going to the father” !
Yeah, don’t we all eh mate; tis like the magic roundabout innit! I wonder why they used to call home, the father – chauvinist gits eh.
“Although the world does not know thee, I know thee,” !
Yeah, but you ain’t alone mate, so do not get a persecution mania eh.
Well, all this gets boring and tedious. If I was of a mind I could take that book apart and put it back together with what should be in it and deleting all that nonsense which was put there and should not be in it. But even then it would not be saying much about one mere half of it all. The other half is not even there at all – distorted or otherwise.
And to think, that this is probably the most read book in the world. No wonder the world is nuts and feels alienated from truth – and each other. Vile damn book; and the worst virus ever to plague the human mind. The Roman emperor (murdering butcher that he was) slung all this nonsense together in 325 ad. Clever eh. Well, not quite clever enough, for there were just sufficient facts in it for all genuine mystics to recognise what they were stealing it from.
Why do mystics exist in this world? Well, you work it out.
Regards, Dick Richardson.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2503
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dick writes:
>>>>>[3. You mention coffe quite a bit, How much coffee were you
drinking? Were you
using any other stimulants? What were your drinking habits? ] I did
not drink
coffee until I was 36 years of age. But at that time vary rarely. I
used to
drink milk, water or tea. I drink gallons of coffee now – my second
wife started
me on it.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Very interesting. Did you meet your second wife when you were still
married to the first?
(I am still reading your material but I didn’t want to forget asking
you this question.)
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 2504
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
dick writes:
>>>>[5. Are you aware of endogenous DMT? ] I have read a lot of
things in my time
but cannot remember them all now. I may have done and I may not;
remind me.>>>>>>
DMT (One of the most potent entheogens, contained in various
visionary plants and combinations of plants, and other related
molecules are naturally found in the brain, that are involved in the
entheogenic process.
Your experiences are related to this.
Study of Entheogens is essential in understanding the way to best
maximize the enlightenment of human beings and to solve real
problems. The more reseach, the more answers.
There is a famous Buddhist story called “the gem in the robe” from
the Saddharma Pundarika, that tells a story of a man’s friend who
secretly sews a rare and valuable gemstone into the sleeve of his
drunken and sleepy freind’s robe. Years later after much toil doing
manual labor, the man was ready to give up life. He happened to see
his old friend who asked him why he was so dirty and unkempt and
obviously poor, but wearing the same robe he had many years before.
The man told him his story of a lifetime of suffering and then the
friend told him, “Didn’t you know about the Gem I sewed into your
sleeve? You could have lived like a king”. He tore open the sleeve
and gave the Gem to the man.”
Entheogenic molecule are like this.
Well you have DMT and other things within you and outide of you,
that is the precious Gem. We all already possess it. Entheogen
research is nothing other then learning about these things inside
our brain on many levels.
Entheogenic experience is the fundamental “mystic” experiences which
is like the hidden gem of enlightenment.
It was always there it usually isn’t recognized. Its like a man who
accidentally injects moldy Rye bread and has a sequence of
experiences such as you describe and begins to try to teach others,
but never realizes that his state was a matter of better living
through chemistry. The chemicals in the brain and entheogenic
substances are closely related or identical to the active
ingredients of major visionary plants. Understanding of this
scientifically, is probably the most important thing people have to
do in the world at this time. Talk therapy and guru chatter lead
nowhere. Pure experience lead everywhere. Without entheogens,
people would not have any idea what thee experiences are. They
would not be able to study them with science. Useful applications
for people would go undiscovered. Mental illnesses would never be
cured.
To deny that the use of Visionary Plants and altered Brain
Chemistry, are in some way different, is foolish I believe.
The Schizophrenic or Manic condition and their many halluncinatory
states, are also a matter of brain chemistry,and on many levels,
but their functional level is very different from people who have
enlightening experiences. It is easy to tell the difference. The
best way to understand these states is through experiencing them.
There are people on all different levels.
Entheogens have already proved themselves to be able to turn average
people on—people with virtually no receptivity—and show them
inner experience, which eventually become the classic religious
experience which then develops further into the understanding of
reality as it is. From there people, become motivated and
receptive. First you have to make them receptive. Entheogens have
already proven that they can trigger profound enough experiences to
make people wake up and take notice of things. Entheogen research
is no different then Dentists researching how to fix imperfect and
infected teeth. It is a practical matter.
People aren’t physically perfect and they are all subject to the
standard problems of old age, illnes and death and the harsh reality
of the world as it is today. People need augmenting. Brain
chemistry needs a boost in the right direction. Who knows what
future mirales will be dicovered in the entheogenic molecule family?
Entheogens are the cure for human boredom and stupidity. Talk
gurutherapy doesn’t cut it. Flowery words mean very little and
prayer, (without the ability of focusing the brain chemistry) and
meditation is weak. Entheogens is the appropriate way for people in
general. The world just doesn’t realize that yet.
So your endogenous DMT hiccuped and you were in space, googling over
the vibes.
lol
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 2505
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
>>>>>Dick Writes:
[6. Since those main experiences, how often if ever did you have
experiences of
that kind later in your life? ]
One does not need to see the same thing twice. <<<<
Are you sure about that? I agree thi to be the case with most
things, but a person can glance up and think they see a moose and
then look again and it is a tree.
>>>>>But after that first one I had regular psychic experiences for
twenty years and they all taught me something different. But the
last event was another big mystical event twenty years after the
first – the consummatum incarnate – as it had been in transcendence
then so too did it become on earth. I never need the same experience
twice.<<<<<<<<<<<<
Okay this is similar to what people say about Entheogen use. But,
if you consider it, don’t you always feel you had already
experienced those thing before, while they are happening to you?
[7. Did you ever have any impairment in your level of functioning in
daily life, that for instance plagues people with mental illness?
(simply a question, not an assumption or insult) ]
No insult taken – thick skinned you know. I have never been either
physically
ill or mentally ill in my life. I am of about average intelligence;
I learn very
quick. I am exceptionally strong (just born that way) much to the
dismay of
bullies. I have never passed out or fainted in my life – and my
constitution is
that of an ox. All my sensory inputs (and other antenna) are working
fine and I
can still chase sixteen your-old’s around the block. I have a very
good sense
of humour (far better than the Germans you know :- ))) and most folk
think I am
good fun to be with. So no problems in my life. All is just fine –
and five
healthy bright kids.<<<<<<<<<<<
OKAY. So then we can rule out insanity ok? LOL
>>>>>>>>>>I have never held beliefs in my life – knowledge of some
things and ignorance of
other is good enough for me. I was asked to become a Bishop in a
church once –
thank you ma’am but no thanks. I have been offered money for helping
people
($6000 once) same again, thank you ma’am but no thanks. Nobody can
buy me and I
am not for sale.
Hope this answers your questions Sir.
Dick.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
May I ask what you do for a living?
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 2506
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: What seekest thou and why?
>>>>1) If a person is seeking something then presumably they do not
have it; for one does not go looking for something which is not
missing. So, could I ask as to what it is they assume or believe
that they are looking for? Please do not say something
like ‘enlightenment’ without defining your terms in a little more
detail.<<<<<<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>>>(2) One would not go to the trouble of looking for
something without a reason
of some kind. So, why do they want whatever it is they are seeking
for?
I think that is the same question you just asked butit is the same
answer above.
(3) What will they (you) do with it if ever they find it?
(4) What do they think or believing that the acquisition of it will
do for them?
(5) One of course can only know something (in the true sense of to
KNOW) from
hindsight. Inference and deduction are not knowledge in the strict
sense. Hence
anything one reads or hears is simply hearsay – one does not know
the experience
of a tree simply by hearing or reading the word ‘tree’. So, if one
is seeking
something on the say-so of hearsay then what makes them assume that
it is really
there at al l- given that human beings can and do at times tell
lies? If that
which they were seeking from hearsay did not actually exist then
they are
wasting a whole lifetime not only by seeking it but also possibly
damaging their
system by the over use of stimulants of one kind or another – or
simply wasting
so much time in meditative practices?
(6) How many seekers on this list have found what they were looking
for?
Many thanks for your anticipated co-operation.
Dick.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
All people want freedom from strife and suffering, illusory or not
is a moot point.
Words are conventions. “Enlightement” is a word based in experience
that both redefines reality and shapes reality. More wordplay
really doesn’t acomplish much. Theory is simply a convention as
well. Hard science is different. They build TVs and Computers and
discover ways to extend life and make life safer from pollution.
That is the tip of the iceberg. That is the real world.
In the olden days they did a lot of talking. Many books, many
theorie and prayers, but still no end to suffering in sight.
religions, teacher etc., all come and go. But millimeter by
millimeter there is something changing and growing in human
knowledge. Time to extend that study into the inner realm as well.
In the realm of words, old, primitive terms like “enlightenment,”
are way too vague.
Those are my short answers.
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 2507
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Fw: Quotes and responses
The mystic, is plagued by the thought they are special. They
actually take offense if it is suggested that these experiences they
talk about are really commonplace amonst entheogen users and they
cringe at the thought all people could experience them simply by
eating a plant. hey also react negatively to the idea that other
people could experience so easily, what they thought was really
unique to them.
Take a while and think on it that okay?
dc
— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Dick Richardson” <dick@p…> wrote:
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: Dick Richardson
> To: gnosis284
> Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 8:26 AM
> Subject: Quotes and responses
>
>
>
> A few quotes from the Christians book along with comments from a
modern day mystic. (according to academic Neurology mystics are
people who are suffering from Rapid Brain Deterioration – so come to
your own conclusions).
>
>
> ” I tell you this: a rich man will find it hard to enter the
kingdom of heaven”.
>
>
> Why? Easy, because they have too much of the wrong kind of stuff
to think about. A person wealthy in worldly goodies will invariably
find that all their time is taken up with administrating their
wealth; thinking about putting it to work, keeping it, adding to it,
and thinking about what to do with it. When is their mind ever free
to think about life itself? Let alone relaxing sufficiently to feel
its naked essential quality. That is why. When do they get time to
simply grab the day and go with the flow? A camel would indeed float
through the eye of a needle sooner. The irony is that a wealthy
person who does not have to worry about feeding their kids and
cleaning out toilets every day truly is in the best position to
relax and go with the flow. But they do not. So tough luck. I do not
envy them.
>
>
> “You are the light of the world”!
>
>
> Well, I think I have said enough about that already in this book.
I would just add – ‘know your self’.
>
>
> “The lamp of your body is the eye”!
>
>
> The real you is that part which sees and knows – the observer of
the observed.
>
>
> “Put away anxious thought about food and drink”!
>
>
> You will probably get enough food to eat and drink, and the things
which you need here anyway. So do not spend all your time thinking
about them and storing it all away. Think of other things and
observe life. If you do happen to starve, which is unlikely in a
half way decent society, then you will no longer be anxious about
food and drink anyway. There are more important things than simply
staying alive for a long time.
>
>
> “Always treat others as you would like them to treat you” !
>
>
> Not the best way of putting it sunshine – Always treat others the
way in which you would like them to treat your children. For you
love and care for your children more than you do yourself.
>
>
> “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” !
>
>
> Mystics are here to hack down the weeds of destruction and ego’s.
>
>
> “You will hear and hear, but never understand; you will look and
look, but never see”!
>
>
> You cannot live life by proxy; and you cannot give experience,
knowledge and understanding away. You have to know and understand
for your self. The physical ears and eyes will never reveal it.
>
>
> “The harvest is the end of time – the reapers are angels”!
>
>
> You cannot know the eternal realm and reap that fruit until time
stops moving; and when you are there you will not be a physical
entity – but pure primordial mind.
>
>
> “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure buried in a field”!
>
>
> Yeah, sure is; buried deep below all other fields of emanation
which are brought forth from the point of no duration. Do not go
looking in your cabbage patch however.
>
>
> “Can you not see that that which goes into the mouth passes into
the stomach and is discharged into the drain: but that which comes
out of the mouth has its origins in the heart”!
>
>
> Yup, sure does – and it reveals the colour of it too.
>
>
> “If anyone wants to follow me then he must leave self behind”!
>
>
> Well, you cannot say it any clearer than that can you. And I have
been saying the same thing for forty years and throughout this book.
>
>
> “If any man will let himself be lost he will find his true Self” !
>
>
> And so it is. Why could they not understand it then; tis plain
enough – get lost to get found. Annihilation does a proper job of
it. Mind you, you cannot do it by choice so do not try it. But you
can put yourself in the way of it happening if you relax at times,
and go with the flow; and put the little ego to bed.
>
>
> “What an unbelieving and perverse generation, how much longer must
I endure you”!
>
>
> I know the feeling chum; but do not break into a sweat about it;
for they have not seen what you have seen, and they do not know what
you know – be patient lad. And anyway, you cannot stay here for ever
as you well know. So, go and cool off in the pond mate.
>
>
> “In very truth I tell you, we (mystics) speak of what we know, and
testify to what we have seen, and yet you all (including
neurologists mate) reject our testimony. If you disbelieve me when I
talk about things on earth, how are you to believe when I tell you
things about heaven”!
>
>
> Don’t expect too much of them chum; keep your powder dry son.
>
>
> “You Samaritans (Don’t forget the JW’s mate) worship without
knowing what you worship, while we (mystics) worship what we know” !
>
>
> So what do you expect them to do then mate? They cannot digest
that which they have not eaten old son – so damn well explain it to
them better. If they do not understand then it is YOUR fault, not
theirs.
>
>
> “As the father raises the dead (resurrection from annihilation)
and gives them life, so the son (your true self in paradise) gives
life to men”!
>
>
> Well, you do not give them life old mate, but a little inspiration
to live if you are lucky and can get through to them eh; but don’t
play at the sodding job, get real mate!
>
>
> ” I will not leave you bereft: I am coming back to you” !
>
>
> Yup, that is right. These words are what I termed ‘Synetic
Dialogue’, which means speaking whilst in this world on behalf of
that part of our self which exist in eternity. And your Self will
come back to you when time ends. Ipso Facto.
>
>
> “They will ban you from the synagogue” !
>
>
> Obviously mate, for they cannot have both priestcraft and truth
can they; but do not get your knickers in a twist about that son;
for there are better places to be thrown out of are there not; and
don’t we know it eh. Anyway, what the hell do you want to go in
there for anyway? Go and chat with them down at the Rose and Crown
instead – they are more sensible too.
>
>
> “I came from the father and have come into this world. Now I am
leaving the world again and going to the father” !
>
>
> Yeah, don’t we all eh mate; tis like the magic roundabout innit! I
wonder why they used to call home, the father – chauvinist gits eh.
>
>
> “Although the world does not know thee, I know thee,” !
>
>
> Yeah, but you ain’t alone mate, so do not get a persecution mania
eh.
>
>
> Well, all this gets boring and tedious. If I was of a mind I could
take that book apart and put it back together with what should be in
it and deleting all that nonsense which was put there and should not
be in it. But even then it would not be saying much about one mere
half of it all. The other half is not even there at all – distorted
or otherwise.
>
> And to think, that this is probably the most read book in the
world. No wonder the world is nuts and feels alienated from truth –
and each other. Vile damn book; and the worst virus ever to plague
the human mind. The Roman emperor (murdering butcher that he was)
slung all this nonsense together in 325 ad. Clever eh. Well, not
quite clever enough, for there were just sufficient facts in it for
all genuine mystics to recognise what they were stealing it from.
>
> Why do mystics exist in this world? Well, you work it out.
>
> Regards, Dick Richardson.
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2508
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Equivalence of different mystic camps and allegories
Even so wise as Gnosis magazine misses that point when striving to make
absurdly fine divisions between camps of Jewish mysticism, thus tending back
toward literalism; whether you frame the mystic-state allegory in terms of
“union with God” or “ascending to a vision of God”, that totally amounts to
the same equivalent thing; either way, we have the same essential thing:
allegorical description of the intense mystic altered state.
Without recognizing that essence, scholars instead make themselves look busy
and perceptive by introducing *irrelevant* artificial boundaries and groupings
within e.g. Jewish mysticism — all premised on the incorrect fundamental
assumption that mystic experiencing was rare and difficult to induce. Yes
there may be degrees of mysticism, but mystic allegory is mystic allegory,
whether “seeing God’s throne” or “merging with God”; whether “going to heaven”
or “avoiding rebirth” — the basic meaning is the same.
All the various camps and allegory systems were involved in psychoactive
sacraments providing full and rich abundance of mystic experiencing, so it is
a complete misunderstanding to think of the camps as being significantly or
substantially different. They all had the same mystic altered state available
on tap, in spades, and these allegory systems are just different ways of
expressing the same basic type of experiential insights and the same kind of
spiritual adventures.
— Michael Hoffman http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath
Message: 2509
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Unlocking the Bible Codes – Found Codes
The only “codes” of prophecy in the scriptures are humorous allegory mixtures
allusing to the domains of the intense mystic altered state and the domain of
socio-political domain, using kingdoms and kingships as allegory for ego death
and rebirth experiences. *That* is the *true* “hidden code” in the Bible.
Astrology and healing and magic are other included domains of allegory,
involved the same way.
— Michael Hoffman http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath
Message: 2510
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Another tool to help destroy / is egodeath beneficial to societ
Thought-provoking. Coherent; I have to consider whether Peart actually had or
should have had that in mind when writing the lyrics.
Merkur wrote:
>”Another toy will help destroy
>The elder race of man
>Forget about your silly whim
>It doesn’t fit the plan.” (Rush, 2112)
>
>
>Usually in the beginning of experimenting one holds the view
>that wide-spread use [of LSD]can only but be very helpful to society.
>As one becomes experienced it’s quite clear what egodath-experiencing
>is about: the shift to no control/cosmic-determinism-revealation.
>
>So, “another toy” is the tripper which gets turned on and is going
>to turn on others, thereby destroying the “elder race of man” (which
>belives in free will). The “silly whim” of the tripper is his plan of
>being able to make the world better (by using LSD).
>”It does’nt fit the plan” confirms the mistake of the tripper to think
>like he does (in the beginning).
The reason the cross was not used is because Christianity wasn’t dreamed up
until well after the end of antiquity in 476. All “early” writings are much
later forgeries, back-projected by many centuries. All evidence we have is
literary, and that is forged and back-dated. The origins of Christianity lie
in the Medieval or Renaissance era, which happened only shortly after the fall
of Rome. The center of gravity and origin of Christianity as a canonical
formal institution is the Medieval and Renaissance era, *not* late antiquity
(50 BC–476 CE).
The canon was established around the year we call 1525, not 180. All the
battle between gnostics and orthodoxy actually occurred prior to and during
the Reformation, and was falsely back-projected into Jewish and Roman
antiquity, which was then illusorily pushed even further back into the
venerable Past by inserting some number of invented centuries.
The New Chronology: The Dark Ages Didn’t Exist — time falsification, Edwin
Johnson, Heribert Illig, Uwe Topper, Hans-Ulrich Niemitz, Christoph Marx, Jean
Hardouin, Wilhelm Kammeier http://www.egodeath.com/newchronology.htm
Study Version of Edwin Johnson’s “The Pauline Epistles – Re-Studied and
Explained”, 1894 — Reformatted copy for increased comprehensibility by
Michael Hoffman Oct. 8, 2003. Proposes that the years 700-1400 didn’t exist,
and that Christianity, the “early” Christian texts, Paul, the Gospels, the
Church Fathers, the Dark Ages, and the Middle Ages were literary inventions
fabricated in competing monasteries around 1500. http://www.egodeath.com/edwinjohnsonpaulineepistles.htm
— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath
Message: 2512
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Cosmic escape: read mysticism allegorically/descriptively, not lite
“Cosmic escape” is nothing but a humorous mystic-state allegory or
description, alluding to the desire to escape from the control-loss
instability entailed in perceiving frozen block-universe determinism.
Literalism is most rampant in interpreting mystic allegory and taking it
literally, then dividing up mystics into camps based on what they “believe”,
when in actuality, they don’t believe any of the allegory *literally*; it’s
all just equivalent reportive description of the same class and mode of
experiencing.
— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath
Message: 2513
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: On-topic debate on ego death
I can’t reply now, so must just confirm for others’ posting:
>So, OK then, let us talk about ego death – in so far as this list
>allows one to talk of it then. Is ego death which is not drug
>induced allowed on this list?
Yes. Serious on-topic contributions are much valued, regardless of position.
I am very pro-debate, unlike common spiritual discussion groups. I get more
out of postings I disagree with than most simple agreement.
>Mystics should keep their mouth shut for at least twenty years after
>their first big experience – for there is more dear Horatio; and a
>little learning can be a dangerous thing if one assumes that it is
>all the learning there exists to be done.
That’s terrible needless prohibition. People must choose between that view
and mine: I say, study and have mystic experiencing immediately and
ergonomically in full, and speak richly of it immediately without hindrance.
Choose whose paradigm you listen to — that which is premised on difficulty
and long waiting, or ease and immediacy on tap. There is no substantial
reason to wait, delay, and silence oneself.
If you like the paradigm of difficulty, waiting, and long silence, you will
get your wish for a version of mysticism that pushes away mysticism into a
hard-to-attain realm. I define and choose the theory of immediate
lightning-path mysticism without delay. The slow path is actually just an
excuse for no path; that is, for poor effectiveness.
— Michael Hoffman
Group: egodeath
Message: 2514
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
>Try reading the book about him written by a member of his own family, the
The only thing unbalanced with Watts was that he merely put in a footnote his
point that mystics commonly reject “personal free will”. My work largely
corrects and realigns Watts’.
— 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.
Group: egodeath
Message: 2515
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dear DC,
It would be nice of course if you were to tell me your name, you know mine, but I do of course realise that some folk are a little shy of becoming identified – I often wonder why; I have nothing to hide, but there you go. First I should thank you for going to all the trouble of writing all those emails, that of course is appreciated irrespective as to whether I give credence to many of the things which you claim therein.
To some extent of course you have me over a barrel in the sense that I cannot talk from the experience of hindsight when it comes to drugs or even trying or wanting to induce metaphysical experiences – I did not even know they existed to be found when I found them; and I was looking for nothing other than the answers to questions (the perennial questions) which thinking people have always asked themselves – and that was the result of it – not what I had eaten but the thought process life-style and questioning things – ‘ask and you will receive’. (read the whole book and albeit that it is an old one) – the new one is called ‘Psychognosis and the Dignity of Man’. It will be on-line shortly at a website called Psychognosis.net
You go on to ask many more questions. I have no objections to answering all your question – for I have been doing that for forty years all over the world. But before I do so I would like to ask you just a few more.
The first one is this.. (1). What makes you assume that I feel that I am special when everything which I write in my book says otherwise? I am no different from anybody else – nicer than some and not as nice as others: brighter than some and not as bright as others, so on and so forth. If what one says is going to be ignored then there is no point in human communication. But I have found over the last forty years that there is much point and effectiveness in human communication. Many people (some well known in the world) have even stopped trying to kill themselves after reading my books and poems – and yes, I too was gobsmacked when they told me that at first. So the question is this.. Given that kind of experience is so common (as you claim) then why are they not all writing about it. Genuine mystics try to put themselves out of business by trying to give it all away, and albeit only by words; for I cannot give them the experience and the effects. But it seems that YOU can – so go ahead and give it to them – and starting with all the criminals and undesirables.
(2). Given that it is the current paradigm that all mystics are suffering from a mental problem and rapid brain deterioration then why would people want to induce it anyway?
(3) For what effect would they want to induce it? It has not changed me or my lifestyle one jot – nor even my personality. True, it has revealed things which I did not know existed, and hence my thinking about the nature of reality; but it has not changed me – I am still the same simple cockney kid that I was during the war; I loved life then and I do now. I loved science and the physical world then, and I still do. I did not fear death then and I still do not. I never worried about myself then and I still don’t. I could go on like this for a long time – but you get my gist eh. It has not changed me or improved my life style at all. True, I seemed to have been able to help others with it – but I always tried to help people anyway if I could. So, what is the point of it and why go in search of it? I did not ask for it; I did not want it; I did not search for it – it just happened along; just like a cold or a toothache does. Where is the big deal that they all rave about? Why are they all in search of it?
(4) All governments want a better society, better people, smarter people, more peaceful people. So why is your movement not telling governments to put this stuff in the drinking reservoirs? Would it perhaps be due to governments being in the pocket of business organisations? If so then pop it in the reservoirs yourself.
(5) Personally finding oneself knowing these things whilst living in this world such as it is, is not fun at all. Much of the time I wished that I had never known these things; and life then would be much easier, no heart aches; nothing seen as waste, etc. Mystics weep for humanity – do you people do that too?
(6) Henceforth I have seen the reasons for the questions which you have asked; but not so with some of the new ones. What difference does it make when I met my second wife, for example. Or is this just a friendly chat maybe? Given that this particular experience (the ground of our being – and then the consummatum incarnate event) are so common then why are all you guys not writing about it; and also why bother to question somebody about such a common experience? I miss the point here DC. I never bother to ask people as to what effect seeing the postman delivering mail has done for them; so why are you asking these other questions?
(7) I recall you saying that you worked in some kind of clinic, please tell me more; what exactly is your job and rank within that field? What books have you written and where can they be found? How old are you and where are you from?
(8) How many members of this chat group are there, and how many of them are active participants on it – and do they all agree with everything you say?
I have of course over the years met the type of people (often the meditative types) who say “Oh yes I have experienced all those things”, but when questioning them subtly and in ways which I developed of questioning people who made claims, I discovered that they had not experienced such things at all – false guru’s you see; and I know how to take them apart quite easily. I got called ‘Dick the Guru Buster’ many years ago and the name kind of stuck. I have had them in tears would you believe. I am a nice guy they claim, but I can also be a regular bastard when it comes to folk who mess with peoples minds don’t you know.
But anyway, one more question if may.. (9). What is your life philosophy and what do you want from and for people – and why?
Regards, Dick the Guru Buster – otherwise also know as Merlin of Exmoor, or Sir Richard de Growl Tiger. (and many more :- ))) Oh I have also had a lot of fun over the years due to this.
—– Original Message —–
From: rialcnis2000
To: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 11:09 AM
Subject: [egodeath] Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dick writes:
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2516
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
How come you keep using the term ‘of the intense mystic altered state’. as though it were some kind of big deal when one of your colleagues here keeps telling me that it is a common event and not an advanced state at all? Are you people who advocate deliberate sensory enhancement not in some kind of uniform agreement with each other?
Dick.
—– Original Message —–
From: Michael Hoffman
To: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 3:18 PM
Subject: RE: [egodeath] Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysticism
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2517
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Evolving Psychic Archetypes
I quite liked the well documented and recent story of the woman who was lost in a ‘white-out’ (blinding thick snow drifts) during a mountain climb. She survived conditions which the human body does not usually survive. Apart from well below zero temperature and surviving, (I think it was two nights), she had no food or shelter. She knew that she had to walk to a place which offered more chance of being found. During this walking she encountered ‘road blocks’, barriers, in her path. These road blocks were not real, they were visions which looked solid. But when she tried to touch them she realised that they were not really there at all. She had the sense however to realise that something was trying to guide her path (knowledge without the knowing or understanding of how or why). She put these visions down to an objective entity which she called a ‘Guardian Angel’. (by virtue of brain washing; just like the Ferry-Man myth, and which many people do just that; by virtue of their mental conditioning and conventional thinking). Well, it certainly worked however, for she lived to tell the story when in fact she should most certainly not have done according to accepted physics and psychology.
‘Guardian Angeles’ have been well documented and spoken of since the year dot in human terms on earth. The consensus belief however is that they are some kind of objective ‘Christian type god-creature’ or its ‘subordinate’ out there in physical space and time. Not so. Before they make assumptions as to what these things really are then it would be better to come to learn a little more about the deeper nature of oneself and our various connected inner parts and the very mysterious fields of inner energy. Not only can these fields of energy be directly known and experienced by being IN them; but it would seem that some, albeit a very few, do have some kind of potential to tap into these energy fields at times by their own effort and will. An interesting point in this case is the ‘road barrier’ – for that is a modern day implement. Cave men did not see road barriers did they; hence archetypes are still being formed within the psyche; ones that you and I will understand today in a modern world. Hence the Soul evolves. As the human mind evolves and we become conscious of more things and more connections of things, then so too do the psychic experiences evolve, in order that the topside mind can understand their meaning in some way. But our essential nature (or spirit) does not evolve. It is what it is, and always so.
rwr
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2518
From: Khem Caigan
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dick Richardson wrote:
<SNIPS>
> I have a very good sense of humour (far better than the Germans you
> know :- ))) and most folk think I am good fun to be with. So no
> problems in my life. All is just fine – and five healthy bright kids.
Sie sind ein voreingenommener Haufen von Schlange Fäkalien 😉
Group: egodeath
Message: 2519
From: Khem Caigan
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: (no subject)
Dick doth schriebble:
<SNIPS>
> Ker-Riced, talk about human communication – it has not lifted
> itself above the mire of mere babble as yet. And some of them
> learn two languages to talk double-babble.
So molte lingue, e Dick è un tumore nato da un mucchio
di feci di topo 😉
Group: egodeath
Message: 2520
From: Khem Caigan
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Dick doth schriebble:
>
> Try reading the book about him [Watts] written by a
> member of his own family, the book is called – The Genuine Fraud.
> So once again assumption is on the rampage here as I have already
> pointed out. Do some reading friend. Watt’s NEVER KNEW the things
> he was preaching about – and he died trying to find them by way of
> drugs. Moreover, what Watts led people to believe that he knew was
> not even a fraction of what exists to be known and experienced.
> Ipso Facto.
And why would we be interested in a hack-job cobbled together by some
disgruntled nitwit family member capitalizing on the notoriety of Watts
in order to grab a few seconds of the limelight they couldn’t possibly
achieve except by whinging about him? Typical low-class bigot roundhead
gambit, spreading gossip about their betters in a feeble attempt to make
themselves seem more substantial than the straw dogs they’re waving
around.
But, as it happens, there is no book called _The Genuine Fraud_ penned
by some disgruntled nitwit family relation of Alan Watts.
It’s just more of Dick’s crack-brain illiterate ad hominem having a
spot of fun with a biography written by one of Alan’s dearest friends
and supporters, Monica Furlong:
“Through his widely popular books and lectures, Alan Watts (1915-1973)
did more to introduce Eastern philosophy and religion to Western minds
than any figure before or since. Watts touched the lives of many. He was
a renegade Zen teacher, an Anglican priest, a lecturer, an academic, an
entertainer, a leader of the San Francisco renaissance, and the author
of more than thirty books, including The Way of Zen, Psychotherapy East
and West and The Spirit of Zen.
Monica Furlong followed Watts’s travels from his birthplace in England
to the San Francisco Bay Area where he ultimately settled, conducting
in-depth interviews with his family, colleagues, and intimate friends,
to provide an analysis of the intellectual, cultural, and deeply
personal influences behind this truly extraordinary life.”
Monica Furlong is an author and journalist living in London. She is the
author of many books, including Merton: A Biography; Therese of Lisieux;
Visions and Longings: Medieval Women Mystics; and Women Pray: Voices
through the Ages, from Many Faiths, Cultures, and Traditions
——====oo0oo====——
Dick often admonishes others to read [hypocritical twit that he is],
but it is clear that Dick has never read Furlong’s _Genuine Fake_.
If he had, he would know that it was Alan himself who originally
coined the phrase “Genuine Fake”, in reference to folks who believe they
are ‘spiritually enlightened’ in some sense, and then for self-serving
purposes deem themselves guides or teachers. Such individuals are very
sincere about what they do, but they are, in effect, delusional, and
they spend their lives going about enlisting other people in that
delusion.
Folks like you, Dick.
——====oo0oo====——
“In classical drama the persona was the megaphone-mouth mask worn for
the open-air theater. And by a curious degradation of words, the word
“person” has come to mean the real individual and when Harry Emerson
Fosdick wrote “How to be a Real Person”, the real title of his book
should have been “How to be a Genuine Fake.”
It is also clear that Dick has absolutely no compunction about
shamelessly misrepresenting Furlong’s work. All in a good cause,
eh, Dick?
In fact, Monica Furlong was herself an advocate of psychedelics,
as we can see by referring to her obituary in The Guardian:
——====oo0oo====——
Monica Furlong (d.2003 at 72),
Christian writer and feminist,
authored her autobiography:
“Bird of Paradise.”
born January 17 1930;
died January 14 2003
A dedicated writer, feminist and Christian, she threw her considerable
moral authority behind the campaign for women priests
Michael De-la-Noy
Friday January 17, 2003
The Guardian
Monica Furlong, who has died of cancer aged 72, would have achieved
distinction through her writings alone. But she was always on the
lookout for good causes to espouse, and once she had thrown in her lot
with the Movement for the Ordination of Women, and with the aims of
secular feminism in general, she became to many women – and to many men
as well, especially homosexuals – not just a beacon of light, more a
flaming torch.
Like many intellectuals, her life was, in some ways, a protracted
search for truth, accompanied by frequent disillusionment, most notably
with the organized structures of society. In her book With Love To The
Church (1965), she wrote, more in sorrow than in anger, of her
disillusion with the apparent inability of the established Church to
touch the hearts and minds of men and women of goodwill.
Very much a child of her time, she experimented with LSD in her late
30s, and had the distinction of seeing her book Travelling In (1971),
describing the experience, banned from Church of Scotland bookshops.
Aware in later life of the dangers of drugs, she nevertheless always
regarded the drug-taking, together with a Freudian psychoanalysis in her
early 50s, as a vital part of her psychological and spiritual growth.
No one is going to formulate anything like an educated opinion
about Watts by way of mere hearsay, regardless.
I at least knew the man as a friend, face-to-face, *and* I have
read his work, and doubt that you can say the same.
Be that as it may, you said that “the hippie movement was originally
founded by such *frauds*”, which is a plural construction, and it will
be rather amusing to see you attempt to dispatch Huxley & Heard & Wilson
using the same chop-logic ( ‘ipso facto’? ) and ad hominem slurs you
employed on Alan. If you dare.
You’ve made your bed, Dick, and you ought at least to show enough
courage and integrity to lie in it. But I doubt very much that you will,
because, hypocritical cowardly yobbo swine that you are, you *have* no
courage or integrity.
A double-bind game is a game with self-contradictory rules, a game
doomed to perpetual self-frustration – like trying to invent a
perpetual-motion machine in terms of Newtonian mechanics, or trying to
trisect any given angle with a straight-edge and compass. The social
double-bind game can be phrased in several ways:
The first rule of this game is that it is not a game.
Everybody must play.
You must love us.
You must go on living.
Be yourself, but play a consistent and acceptable role.
Control yourself and be natural.
Try to be sincere.
Essentially, this game is a demand for spontaneous behaviour of certain
kinds.
Living, loving, being natural or sincere – all these are spontaneous
forms of behaviour: they happen “of themselves” like digesting food or
growing hair. As soon as they are forced they acquire that unnatural,
contrived, and phony atmosphere which everyone deplores – weak and
scent-less like forced flowers and tasteless like forced fruit. Life and
love generate effort, but effort will not generate them.
Faith – in life, in other people, and in oneself – is the attitude of
allowing the spontaneous to BE spontaneous, in its own way and in its
own time. This is, of course, risky because life and other people do not
always respond to faith as we might wish. Faith is always a gamble
because life itself is a gambling game with what must appear, in the
hiding aspect of the game, to be colossal stakes. But to take the gamble
out of the game, to try to make winning a dead certainty, is to achieve
a certainty which is indeed dead.
The alternative to a community based on mutual trust is a totalitarian
police-state, a community in which spontaneity is virtually forbidden.
from
The Book: On the taboo against knowing who you are,
by Alan Watts.
—– Original Message —–
From: Dick Richardson
To: gnosis284
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 6:05 PM
Subject: Advocates of Mind altering drugs.
DC claims.. [All people want freedom from strife and suffering, illusory or not
is a moot point. ] (Whilst elsewhere asserting that mind altering drugs effect this end result)
It is of course (I imagine anyway, for I cannot know) such that it would be nice to have food fall off tree’s into our mouth; to never have to go to the toilet or to waste time washing; or doing the washing up and changing nappies (dypers) or having to go to work to earn cash to eat and pay the rent etc. It would be nice not to have to see ones friends and family suffering from colds, flue, and things much worse even such as wars an earthquakes etc. But, given that the physical world is not a complete free ride for us then these things are not insurmountable problems – and it does not last for ever after all; so a little graft and a little worry at times is no big deal in the vast complex scheme of things.
Now, when one reads anything which beings ‘All People’ one instantly thinks – Oh Ker-Riced, here we go again. It is blatantly obvious from reading history that a number of philosophies and religions, psychological practices and rituals etc, have been set up in the claim of relieving human pain and suffering. None of them has ever worked – look at the world around you. Some knew this enterprise was useless so they promised better things in the next world – providing you behaved yourself in this one and drop your coins in their collection box.
The latest of these crazes they say is enlightenment by way of drugs ‘The god within’ drugs. Moreover, they claim that they are far more effective for inducing the profound transcendent mystic experience than is that of spontaneous mystical experiences. However, and irrespective of any possible legitimacy of the claim or otherwise – so what if it did? Mystical experience (even the deepest and most profound kind) do not alleviate human pain and suffering, and social discontent and arguments. So, why even chance zapping your mind out and damaging your health for an effect which is not going to eliminate the problem for which they assume they are seeking it that way?
It is indeed true that some human beings have been taking drugs for spiritual experience since time out of mind. But what major social effect has it had for the better? We still go to war; they still want what the other bloke has got; they still rape and kill, pillage and plunder. Just assuming that either by way of taking drugs, or by whatever other unsolicited triggers cause this shift of conscious existence, that everybody had the same experience tonight. Would it prevent human suffering and pain? Of course not.
True, it may well change some of their ideas and feelings about life; but it would not take away the struggle of human existence, pain, natural daily fears and worries, responsibilities, heartaches, and illness and death. So, why the big deal with regard to the assertion that drugs are the way to illumination and a spiritual life on earth (whatever that is supposed to mean in their terms)? Altered states of conscious will not stop the physical world being what the physical word is and as to how it works. There is no value in substituting one bum religion with another one. Why are not all the drug scene folk making a better world for us in their new found enlightenment – or are they simply enjoying it in private – spirituality did they say????
Dick Richardson
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2522
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Irrespective as to who wrote the book and why (and fraud/fake it is all the same – and a long time ago since I read it) one also knows from the hindsight of listening to him (and all his tapes which I have also listened to; as well as reading three or four of his books years ago – The Wisdom of Insecurity – one which if recall the title was about Happiness or the search for; and a few others) that the things he was making believe to know (from Zen Buddhism – and presumably from life experience itself) did not correlate with what is learned in the transcendent mystical experience which he was advocating finding. He was a false guru.
If you or I talk about something which we know from experience then fine, talk about it. But if you or I talk about something which we have not known (and yet leading people to believe that we have known) then that is a false guru chum. And he died looking for it with drugs; as many of them have done and are still doing on a daily basis. Were not the Lake district poets (among many others) all familiar with all these problems years ago.
All your childish insults by the way roll off like water off a ducks back son – at least a couple of people here are presenting an argument (worth listening to and arguing with) without the childish gibbering which comes from your emails. Try growing up a little eh – especially from one who, we can only presume, has found enlightenment (or whatever you want to call it) by dabbling in drugs. Don’t change me son, go change the world eh. Start with yourself. And if you think writing in German to a guy that does not speak it is funny then that proves my point eh. Are you trying to make the others laugh? Are they laughing chum? Tis pathetic my dear Sir. Try doing something useful and telling me about the positive social effect of taking drugs as you see it; which presumably you also advocate. I listen to people, but not rude sods like you who think they are better than anyone else because they speak two or ten languages; and or who does not agree with them from evidence of past experience. But, no, I am not the person to convince – the world is. Are they listening to you – and with that attitude of yours? Quit the literary and academic scene and tell me about transcendence Mr.
Dick.
—– Original Message —–
From: Khem Caigan
To: Egodeath Group
Sent: Thursday, November 13, 2003 5:34 PM
Subject: Re: [egodeath] Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysticism
Dick doth schriebble:
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2523
From: wrmspirit
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: (no subject)
When I, you and/or me, become made into something and/or someone that must
fight something else in an attempt to destroy it, then I, you and/or me, become
nothing more than the continuation of the structure of religion, which taught
discrimination, fear, and destruction.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2524
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
How come you keep using the term ‘of the intense mystic altered
state’. as
though it were some kind of big deal when one of your colleagues
here keeps
telling me that it is a common event and not an advanced state at
all? Are you
people who advocate deliberate sensory enhancement not in some kind
of uniform
agreement with each other?
Dick.<<<<<<<<<<<
The thing is you are trying to nail words down into a fixed context.
Intense Mytic states are ‘rare’ compared to the masses state of day
to day life.
Take a handful of serious entheogenically-minded young people for
instance and intense mystic states become commonplace. Even among
entheogens user who are not properly prepared, they tend to try to
block out their intense mystic states out of fear or ego resistence.
The descriptions you posted of your intense mystic states are very
much the same as early Entheogen use. You do not know what
triggered it, while a Entheogen user will usually know that it arose
from changes in chemistry, that opened those door to a different
perception.
Let me say again, when I read your experiences, it sounds virtually
identical to a mild to decent dose of a entheogen taken by a person
who was not yet aware of what was going to be happening.
This should ring a bell for you. YOUR brain contains the endogenous
DMT and science doesn’t yet know what all else or all the mechnisms
involved. Something triggered that experience in you, that are
identical in style and report, to common entheogenic
experience……again this should make that idea lightbulb, light up
above your head.
Old Zen Proverb. If you see the horns of a bull behind the fence
you know there is a bull behind the fence. (no one is holding up
horns to trick you.)
It is not fully understood scientifically, YET, by any means, but
experientially, it is understood by people who were able to pursue
personal research.
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 2525
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 13/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dick writes:
>>>>>The first one is this.. (1). What makes you assume that I feel
that I am special when everything which I write in my book says
otherwise? <<<<<<<<<<<<<
You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last person,
preaching “spiritual equality” of people, while at the same time poo
pooing entheogens. You are also not the first or last person to try
to get other people to share your experience. You are not the first
or the last person to imagine that you are able to impart knowledge
to people. The fact is, “people.” can only learn by actual
experience, otherwise all there is left is dogma and the people’s
interpretation of that dogma.
Put a hundred, non-experienced people in an environment and teach
them all the basics of meditation and gnosis. To one half of the
people tell them anything you want. Teach the other half of them
the most impotant pointers about entheogenic experience then give
that half of them a good dose of a strong enthegen once every two
weeks. Wait a month. Then interview the people about the
experiences they had. The experiences will differ by such a great
magnitude, that the 50 person control group will be hardly effected
at all, while the entheogenic group will be reporting incredible
revelations about life and generally be in joyful awe.
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 2526
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
It would be nice of course if you were to tell me your name, you
know mine>>>>>>
My name is David Cole. I always just sign “dc.” My entheogen
usage was in the mid to late 60’s. I no longer work in the psych
field, I got out of that 5 years ago, after 18 years of being in the
trenches. I have a master degree in psych and did experimental
work, years ago with holography and laser optics, when that was a
brand new thing. I liked the paradigm. Today I do many things
including 3D animation art. I run a computer business. I am 56 years
old. For a few decades I was an involved buddhist, until I decided
it was futile to expect the masses of people to make any great
gains, without having had the entheogenic experience. Now I am
still a Buddhsit but most Buddhist would think I am a loose cannon
preaching “drug use.”
I raised kids etc.
During my experiences I recapitulated the past present and future
and saw the nature of things using entheogens and Buddhist-style
meditation. I have spent a great deal of time, in the study of
behavior and people, for the sake of making correlations between
religious experience and entheogenic experience and High-Buddhism,
Life-State theory. I am an expert in Buddhist mandala imagery and
Indian, Chinese and Japanese mythology and it’s far off origins in
entheogenic experience and the forces that imprint people or
deprogram them. I study receptivity and brain washing and cosmic
experience and try to keep it objective. I know that people tend to
literalize things and miss the underlying meaning of the ancient
documentation as well as there own imature experiences. I see how
religions grow, fail and decay. I see how stupid people are. I’ve
seen the depths of human misery and worked with most every
imaginable population—grotesque pinheads in hell to drooling
Savior of the world.
Blah blah blah…..
As a Kid I dreamed of putting LSD in the water supply. Too bad I was
raised too good a boy, so easy swayed by sentimentality and human
foibles to do such a brash thing.
We’d need a regular army of fanatics to pull that one off and I
don’t have the fanatic sensibilites (nor the lab equiptment) but I
wouldn’t just dismiss the idea as a movie script.
lol
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 2527
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
This seems appropriate to post in this conversation:
“Those who practice merely with mouth,
Talk much, seem to know more teachings,
When times come for passing away,
To the space are thrown their preaching’s.
When the clear light naturally shines,
It is cloaked by blindness of sin.
The chance to see the Dharmakaya,
At death is lost through one’s confusion.
Even though one spends his life
In learning holy scripture,
It helps not at the moment
When mind takes its departure.
And those yogis have not sufficient meditation
Mistake psychic light as sacred illumination,
Cannot unify the light of mother and of son,
They’re still in danger of rebirth in lower station.
When your body is rightly posed,
Mind absorbed in meditation,
You feel that here is no more mind,
Yet it’s only concentration.
Like starling fly unto the vast, empty sky,
Awareness as pure flower, bright lamp shining,
Though, it is void, transparent and vivid,
Yet it’s only a Dhyana feeling.
He who is with these good foundations
Penetrates Truth with contemplation,
And prays earnestly to the Three Gems
The non-ego wisdom he will win.
With the life rope of deep concentration
With the power of kindness and compassion,
With altruistic vow of Bodhi-heart,
He can directly get the clear vision,
The Truth of the Great Enlightened Path.
Nothing can be seen yet seen all things,
He sees how wrong were the fears and hopes,
All were in his own mind yet nothing.
He reaches the pure land without arrival,
Sees the Dharmakaya without seeing.
Without effort naturally sees all things,
Dear son, in your mind keep all my sayings.”
Milerepa 1052 – 1135 ad.
Group: egodeath
Message: 2528
From: toosirius666
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Jack Herer and James Arthur Cannabis Cup Nov. 20th 2003
Jack Herer and James Arthur Cannabis Cup Nov. 20th 2003
LIVE From Amsterdam Cannabis Cup (This year it is themed as the
Conspiracy Cup). Jack Herer is being inducted into the Counter
Culture Hall of Fame (He also received earlier this year the “NORML
lifetime achievement award”) he was awarded “Man of The Century” from
High Times Magazine for uncovering the greatest conspiracy of all
time (The Conspiracy against Hemp/Marijuana) in Dec 1999. Jack herer
has been working with James Arthur on a new beek entitled ” “The Most
High, Plants of The Gods, an Exploration into The End Of The World ,
As You Know It.” Check out the links below.
Subject: Re: Michael Hoffman, advocate of cosmic escape through nature mysti
Dick doth schriebble:
>
> Irrespective as to who wrote the book and why…
<SNIPS>
Not so fast, idiot ~
*You* were the one who jumped in here with guns blazing, spewing
your self-serving lies, innuendo, groundless assertions and filth
about Alan and Monica and matters you know nothing of.
On the other hand, I have supplied the list with the facts of the
matter, and make no apologies for my unconcealed disdain of your
cowardice in attacking friends of mine who are not here to answer
for themselves. Their service to the world is well known, however,
and safely beyond the impeachment of stunted cretins like yourself.
And of course you are completely unable to address any of the
points I raised, indulging instead in more of your delusional
waffling spew.
On a lighter note, here’s a link to one of the seminal works of
psychedelic literature, written by one of Dick’s “frauds”(sic):
Thank you for the information and fill in. Two last questions if I may before leaving.
(1) Given that you claim to have encountered (by drugs) the things of which I talk, viz. the realisation of Self beyond the event of Annihilation, and into the Resurrection of the Eternal mode of Being – and also the event which I call the Consummatum Incarnate, then how do you square this with Buddhism (to which you belong) in which most of its sects seem to preach that there is no real Self in the system – No real observer of the observed ?
1.. Having heard what you have to say I would now like to move on to read at least one hundred documented accounts of experiences which have been induced which at least equal that event. So, could you tell me where these reports can be found please. I have given you addresses which contain at least 10,000 accounts of modern day spontaneous experiences for analysis – and there are of course far more in print; but for one place to contain over 6000 is a good starting point – the AHRC as mentioned elsewhere. Many thanks.
Dick.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2532
From: mindexpand2001
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: why all the arguing?
i cant believe all this arguing.what’s going on?anyway,i agree with
dick that drug-free mystical experiences are preferable-though not
necessarily better-but i myself have had a drug-induced mystical
experience-or at least i think that it was.but guess what?i am really
going to rock the boat here,i am a christian!i was obsessed by
hallucinogens for years,but then i had a realization-and a
few “devilish” trips,where i actually sincerely prayed,because at
that time i KNEW that there is a God(because of the “godlessness”
quality of the trip-,a realization that maybe,just maybe that the
authors of the bible were just telling the TRUTH.i mean,dick,is your
name really dick?-michael,is your name really micheal?etc.etc.etc.get
my point?and anyway,i only have to ask myself if what i am reading in
the bible is true,and i have to say YES,eg.thou shalt not steal-i
KNOW it is wrong to steal(that is just a simple example.)btw dick,are
you in somerset?i am in wrexham,n.wales-in case you were
wondering.you never know ,we might meet some day!
bye now,and come on people,let’s stick to the subject,eh?i was
hoping to find a site where i could share/compare experiences,and
maybe explain them,from different
perspectives,eg.jung,leary,spirtually,cognitively,etc.
Group: egodeath
Message: 2533
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: why all the arguing?
Dear Mindexpand,
Having read your experience I can vouchsafe that it is a genuine experience in so far as one can only measure such things with ones own experience and having read many thousands of others over the last forty years. You have to ask yourself if the experience was meaningful to you and if it revealed some kind of insight to you which makes your life more meaningful and your place in the scheme of things – the dance between the inner you and the whole of creation. It read and sounded a very genuine experience to me – and the first part of it was virtually identical to my own. The object, as we discovered some time ago was to now potentiate the experience and let it continue to work on you. The opposite is to depotentiate it and let it stagnate. Acccept it for what it was and what it revealed and let it work on you – albeit subconsciously.
Yes, I know Wrexham and had quite a few good Taffy friends. I live near the village of Crowcombe (near Taunton) West Somerset; which is situated in the valley between the Quantock Hills and Exmoor.
A list which you can try is ‘eheshare’ (pump it into google search) where they share experiences. I originally set that forum up some years ago for the owner of the Exceptional Human Experience Network. I have not been on it for a long time but funnily enough I did pop back a few days ago to see what was going on. You could also join the Alister Hardy Research Centre, who although based in Oxford have now sent their archives to Wales. You can find them on the web. I used to run live discussion meetings for them – and they are a bit Christian oriented (well some of them anyway); but they have all sorts – the main thing is Mystical experiences; and there are also many academics there as well as house-wives; and a couple of rank moronic idiots like me.
If ever you come down to Somerset then make mine a Pint of Real Ale. OK :- )
As for the arguing then; until such time that I have reams of proof that messing with drugs is safe and beneficial on a large social scale for human evolution then I only have the thousands of reports which we get every day of drug abuse, social disorder, crime, and quite a few suicides or death by virtue of it. I will want a lot of convincing that it is both safe and beneficial to humanity – as of yet I do not have that proof. I want to read of many of their experiences and the long term outcome of its effects. At least I am open to that. Unlike some of the comments which I have seen here saying that natural experiences are virtually junk in comparison. Natural mystical experience does work and has beneficial effects on the recipients – prove to me that drugs do the same – I am all ears for learning true facts based on much data of many people.
Best wishes, Dick Richardson.
—– Original Message —–
From: mindexpand2001
To: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 10:52 AM
Subject: [egodeath] why all the arguing?
i cant believe all this arguing.what’s going on?anyway,i agree with
dick that drug-free mystical experiences are preferable-though not
necessarily better-but i myself have had a drug-induced mystical
experience-or at least i think that it was.but guess what?i am really
going to rock the boat here,i am a christian!i was obsessed by
hallucinogens for years,but then i had a realization-and a
few “devilish” trips,where i actually sincerely prayed,because at
that time i KNEW that there is a God(because of the “godlessness”
quality of the trip-,a realization that maybe,just maybe that the
authors of the bible were just telling the TRUTH.i mean,dick,is your
name really dick?-michael,is your name really micheal?etc.etc.etc.get
my point?and anyway,i only have to ask myself if what i am reading in
the bible is true,and i have to say YES,eg.thou shalt not steal-i
KNOW it is wrong to steal(that is just a simple example.)btw dick,are
you in somerset?i am in wrexham,n.wales-in case you were
wondering.you never know ,we might meet some day!
bye now,and come on people,let’s stick to the subject,eh?i was
hoping to find a site where i could share/compare experiences,and
maybe explain them,from different
perspectives,eg.jung,leary,spirtually,cognitively,etc.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2534
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Fw: [gnosis284] science today
—– Original Message —–
From: Dick Richardson
To: gnosis284
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 1:09 PM
Subject: Re: [gnosis284] science today
Hi mac,
The things which you mention there are of course true, there is no denying that. But do you not think that it is a little one sided and biased viewpoint?
Tell me this…. Would you have preferred your children to have been born into this world at any past time or place on this world? Medicine, transportation, communication, education, media potential, hobbies and interests pursuits are more advanced than they have ever been on earth. True, all of it could be a lot better, and will get better in due course; and true there is a lot of commercial and political strife – but there always has been mate. If you and I want a better world then there is only one way to get it – role your selves up and make it that way. No amount of wishing or praying or hoping is going to make it better – only the love and commitment to life on earth and social harmony will effect it when we role our sleeves up and get the job done. The human mind is evolving and opening up to a wider spectrum of creation all the time. But you and I right now can but make the world just a little better tomorrow than it is today. One small step at a time. Time and again my friend – it goes on and the implicate order of being unfolds in the mind of man. Don’t let poor old Pete make you feel depressed eh – where there is life then hope springs eternal; and where there is love and commitment then progress is made. If you do not like it then work to make it better mate – as do millions of us. Will we ever succeed? I do not know, but I would die trying; for what else is the point of existing? Therein is the Dignity of Man.
Regards Dick
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2535
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: The big Picture
The Big Picture.
I do not know why but I have had a batch of rather depressing and miserable emails this week. They tell me that this is wrong, and that is wrong, and every damn thing is wrong, and the world and life is not only rotten but getting worse on daily basis. I would imagine that a percentage of human beings at any point in history, and possibly the future, would claim this – especially when they are feeling fed-up for some reason – yeah we all do it at times eh; and nobody loves a good moan more than I do.
But let us look at the bigger picture; and without one-sided and pessimistic bias. As I said in a recent email ‘ Would you want your children to have been born at any prior time or place in the past’? It is so easy to observe the past through nostalgia and rose colour specks is it not. But who makes the world such as it is? Some of the job is done for us; and we have an incredibly beautiful world where things just seem to work reasonable enough for the job. From that point on it is we that fashion the world and build human civilisations; and that becomes our existing existential existence and life on earth experience.
Is not the mind of man (humanity) aware of far more things now then even a mere hundred years ago; let along fifty thousand years ago? Does not this growing awareness of things not make us just a little smarter in consensus terms than the consensus was ten thousand years ago? Does not this knowledge and acquired understanding give us more potential right now than humanity has ever had in the past? The rest is just a simple choice – how to use it best for the benefit of both the planet itself and all life forms upon it. That is both a choice and a cosmological challenge. Shall we weep into our beer and pray that it all might become a little better? Nothing will happen if we do; indeed it would probably get even worse. The only way to make a better world, as I said before, is to role your sleeves up and go make it that way. Nothing else is going to make it better here. True, a bloody great rock might smash into the world tomorrow and destroy the lot of it – but so what? We have to work on the basis that it will not happen, and continue to strive to make the world (mans part in it) a better place for children to come to.
Every action which you do today will be the foundation of the world tomorrow. And nothing which you do today can ever be undone; for that deed will always have been done. No amount of tears, remorse, pain and suffering, can go back to undo a jot of it; what is done is done for ever. However, that which was not done yesterday can be done today, for tomorrow. Society is only the sum of the individuals within that society. But when people work together in harmony and accord toward a goal or inspiration then the accumulative effect of working together is greater than the sum of the individual parts working alone.
Tell the world, the governments (which you elect by the way) what kind of a world you want for the next generation – and then insist that it be done. The insistence of the consensus can never ever be over-ruled by dictate of a few (unless you let them of course – then more fool you if you do). On our own you and I have no more power over anything than did any individual cave dweller a million years ago. But combined we can build a world fit for children to come into. Man, that is power. Do not wish it; do not pray for it; do not hope for it – go and make it so. Is the will there? Is the passion there? Is the commitment there? Search within yourself; ask yourself – do you care? Most human beings do care; and that power is in your hands and minds. Civilisations do not grow on trees; they come from the mind of Man. If we do not use it then we are a ship without a rudder and tossed hither and thither by the winds of chance. If we use our minds and the collective power which humanity has on earth – we can make a world fitting for the Dignity of Man – a phenomenon of the deepest mystery and profundity in all known existence.
We can moan and cringe, complain and opt out of the struggle; or we can face the challenge and using all the powers and potentials invested in humanity. We have to make that choice – assuming that one can even see it as a choice. But the alternative to not going for it and grabbing hold of it all in both hope and optimism is a choice which is no choice. I have not seen it written that this world of humanity has to succeed. Neither have I seen it written that it cannot succeed. Why miss out on a possible success by doing nothing other than moaning, complaining and weeping into ones beer? If you want a decent world then go make it. Nothing is stopping you, and the equipment for the job is already there within you.
Some hope and pray for a better life in the next world. Well, right at this point we are here on this world NOW. So do not waste the opportunity which exists here and now. We might collectively fail in this earth project. But so what if we did? To fail due to not trying is not very dignified; but to fail after trying one’s best contains no problem and says much for the dignity of man. But, who knows, we might not fail. Is that not simple pragmatism? And why look a gift horse in the mouth? Every human being alive on earth today can each help just a little in making this world a little better for tomorrow. Ask yourself. is the world a little better place to be because you existed in it and did your bit? That is the one and only judgement which stands head and shoulders above all the others which you have to make on a daily basis. If you do not help to make a better world then why should the others? But you can try, even if they don’t eh. And you will sleep well, live well, and die well.
And how could man die better,
than facing fearful odds,
for the future of his children,
and all the other sods?
Dick Richardson. West Somerset. UK.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2536
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dick writes:
>>>>>>>>OK David,
Thank you for the information and fill in. Two last questions if I
may before
leaving.
(1) Given that you claim to have encountered (by drugs) the things of
which I talk, viz. the realisation of Self beyond the event of
Annihilation,
and into the Resurrection of the Eternal mode of Being – and also
the event
which I call the Consummatum Incarnate, then how do you square this
with
Buddhism (to which you belong) in which most of its sects seem to
preach that
there is no real Self in the system – No real observer of the
observed ?<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Keep in mind thee are words developed many years ago to describe
various aspects of enthegenic experience and the resulting
awareness. But it is still just words—very old words.
Physics the science will say similar things but this does not negate
reality of day to day life, nor does real Buddhism consider
everything meaningless and void. Voidness in real Buddhism is
potentiality. Although the independent self is in fact empty, this
emptiness is still potential and latent cause and effect.
Buddhism has the term “three aspects” it was explained using the
analogy of a seed that has the tree latent within it. The three
aspects are voidness, manifestation and the union of those two which
is like the seed itself–the Middle path and all three are
inseparable. All phenomena according to real Buddhism can be shown
to have these three aspects. A seed has within it the latent tree
which can manifest and produce more seeds etc.
As far as self goes, real Buddhism breaks it down the individual
into the “5 components” which are ever-shifting and arise from
voidness. Death is the dissolution of these 5 components. So in
this sense there is no “self.” On the other hand, real Buddhism
will clarify that ultimatly opposites such as “self an no-self” are
inseparable as the Middle Way.
Again it is all words in a specific context. When people take
Buddhism literally it will be according to their particular
perception and interprwtation which will be influenced by the
momentary life state. Real buddhism teaches the fusion of subject
and object and inseparability of mind and matter. Furthermore real
Buddhism teaches of what is called “Mutual Possession,” or
interdependance of the life states, which is akin to the holographic
reality model.
Buddhism also teaches that variou expedients have been used to
instruct people and in Mahayana, refutes various expedients and
updates them.
Ultimately it is just words and people who are into theoretical
structures, devoid of true experiential undrstanding can easily can
lost in the hall of mirrors until they realize that the Middle Way
is fundamental to all these conceptions. The Middle Way is
expressed in the Mahayana Sutra, called “The Sutra of Infinite
meaning”:
“His body is neither existing nor non-existing;
Without cause or condition,
Without self or others;
Neither square nor round,
Neither long nor short;
Without appearance or disappearance,
Without birth or death;
Neither created nor emanating,
Neither made nor produced;
Neither sitting nor lying,
Neither walking nor stopping;
Neither moving nor rolling,
Neither calm nor quiet;
Without advance or retreat,
Without safety or danger;
Without right or wrong,
Without merit or demerit;
Neither that nor this,
Neither going nor coming;
Neither blue nor yellow,
Neither red nor white;
Neither crimson nor purple,
Without a variety of color.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>1.. Having heard what you have to say I would now
like to move on to read at least one hundred documented accounts of
experiences which have been induced which at least equal that event.
So, could you tell me where these reports can be found please. I
have given you addresses which contain at least 10,000 accounts of
modern day spontaneous experiences for analysis – and there are of
course far more in print; but for one place to contain over 6000 is
a good starting point – the AHRC as mentioned elsewhere. Many thanks.
Dick.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Perhaps others would like to comment on this.
The web is full of experiential testimony and many sites dedicated
to entheogens. There are endless books on the subject–much of it
imperfect. For realtime stuff you can go to yahoo groups full of
young people describing there experience with Salvia divinourum,
Ayuahasca, Mushrooms, and derivatives. No one place is going to
give you a compete picture. A good place to start is http://www.erowid.org
> (MINDEXPAND SAYS GO TO BOTTOM OF PAGE,PLEASE!!)
> Dick writes:
>
> >>>>>>>>OK David,
>
> Thank you for the information and fill in. Two last questions if I
> may before
> leaving.
>
> (1) Given that you claim to have encountered (by drugs) the things
of
> which I talk, viz. the realisation of Self beyond the event of
> Annihilation,
> and into the Resurrection of the Eternal mode of Being – and also
> the event
> which I call the Consummatum Incarnate, then how do you square this
> with
> Buddhism (to which you belong) in which most of its sects seem to
> preach that
> there is no real Self in the system – No real observer of the
> observed ?<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
> Keep in mind thee are words developed many years ago to describe
> various aspects of enthegenic experience and the resulting
> awareness. But it is still just words—very old words.
>
> Physics the science will say similar things but this does not
negate
> reality of day to day life, nor does real Buddhism consider
> everything meaningless and void. Voidness in real Buddhism is
> potentiality. Although the independent self is in fact empty, this
> emptiness is still potential and latent cause and effect.
>
> Buddhism has the term “three aspects” it was explained using the
> analogy of a seed that has the tree latent within it. The three
> aspects are voidness, manifestation and the union of those two
which
> is like the seed itself–the Middle path and all three are
> inseparable. All phenomena according to real Buddhism can be shown
> to have these three aspects. A seed has within it the latent tree
> which can manifest and produce more seeds etc.
>
> As far as self goes, real Buddhism breaks it down the individual
> into the “5 components” which are ever-shifting and arise from
> voidness. Death is the dissolution of these 5 components. So in
> this sense there is no “self.” On the other hand, real Buddhism
> will clarify that ultimatly opposites such as “self an no-self” are
> inseparable as the Middle Way.
>
> Again it is all words in a specific context. When people take
> Buddhism literally it will be according to their particular
> perception and interprwtation which will be influenced by the
> momentary life state. Real buddhism teaches the fusion of subject
> and object and inseparability of mind and matter. Furthermore real
> Buddhism teaches of what is called “Mutual Possession,” or
> interdependance of the life states, which is akin to the
holographic
> reality model.
>
> Buddhism also teaches that variou expedients have been used to
> instruct people and in Mahayana, refutes various expedients and
> updates them.
>
> Ultimately it is just words and people who are into theoretical
> structures, devoid of true experiential undrstanding can easily can
> lost in the hall of mirrors until they realize that the Middle Way
> is fundamental to all these conceptions. The Middle Way is
> expressed in the Mahayana Sutra, called “The Sutra of Infinite
> meaning”:
>
> “His body is neither existing nor non-existing;
> Without cause or condition,
> Without self or others;
> Neither square nor round,
> Neither long nor short;
> Without appearance or disappearance,
> Without birth or death;
> Neither created nor emanating,
> Neither made nor produced;
> Neither sitting nor lying,
> Neither walking nor stopping;
> Neither moving nor rolling,
> Neither calm nor quiet;
> Without advance or retreat,
> Without safety or danger;
> Without right or wrong,
> Without merit or demerit;
> Neither that nor this,
> Neither going nor coming;
> Neither blue nor yellow,
> Neither red nor white;
> Neither crimson nor purple,
> Without a variety of color.”
>
>
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>1.. Having heard what you have to say I would now
> like to move on to read at least one hundred documented accounts of
> experiences which have been induced which at least equal that
event.
> So, could you tell me where these reports can be found please. I
> have given you addresses which contain at least 10,000 accounts of
> modern day spontaneous experiences for analysis – and there are of
> course far more in print; but for one place to contain over 6000 is
> a good starting point – the AHRC as mentioned elsewhere. Many
thanks.
> Dick.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
>
>
> Perhaps others would like to comment on this.
>
> The web is full of experiential testimony and many sites dedicated
> to entheogens. There are endless books on the subject–much of it
> imperfect. For realtime stuff you can go to yahoo groups full of
> young people describing there experience with Salvia divinourum,
> Ayuahasca, Mushrooms, and derivatives. No one place is going to
> give you a compete picture. A good place to start is http://www.erowid.org
>
> go to the erowid bibliography/library.
>
>
>
> dc
hello nialcis.you mentioned that you had a weird experience 18 yrs
ago and had no-one to share your story with.well,same here-about 13
yrs,so i’d love to hear from you.mindexpand.bye
Group: egodeath
Message: 2538
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
hello nialcis.you mentioned that you had a weird experience 18 yrs
ago and had no-one to share your story with.well,same here-about 13
yrs,so i’d love to hear from you.mindexpand.bye,,,
You must have picked up the number “18” where I mentioned I worked
in Psychiatric wards for 18 years. My primary entheogenic
experiences were in 1965-1969.
> wrote:
> > (MINDEXPAND SAYS GO TO BOTTOM OF PAGE,PLEASE!!)
> > Dick writes:
> >
> > >>>>>>>>OK David,
> >
> > Thank you for the information and fill in. Two last questions if
I
> > may before
> > leaving.
> >
> > (1) Given that you claim to have encountered (by drugs) the
things
> of
> > which I talk, viz. the realisation of Self beyond the event of
> > Annihilation,
> > and into the Resurrection of the Eternal mode of Being – and
also
> > the event
> > which I call the Consummatum Incarnate, then how do you square
this
> > with
> > Buddhism (to which you belong) in which most of its sects seem
to
> > preach that
> > there is no real Self in the system – No real observer of the
> > observed ?<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> >
> > Keep in mind thee are words developed many years ago to describe
> > various aspects of enthegenic experience and the resulting
> > awareness. But it is still just words—very old words.
> >
> > Physics the science will say similar things but this does not
> negate
> > reality of day to day life, nor does real Buddhism consider
> > everything meaningless and void. Voidness in real Buddhism is
> > potentiality. Although the independent self is in fact empty,
this
> > emptiness is still potential and latent cause and effect.
> >
> > Buddhism has the term “three aspects” it was explained using the
> > analogy of a seed that has the tree latent within it. The three
> > aspects are voidness, manifestation and the union of those two
> which
> > is like the seed itself–the Middle path and all three are
> > inseparable. All phenomena according to real Buddhism can be
shown
> > to have these three aspects. A seed has within it the latent
tree
> > which can manifest and produce more seeds etc.
> >
> > As far as self goes, real Buddhism breaks it down the
individual
> > into the “5 components” which are ever-shifting and arise from
> > voidness. Death is the dissolution of these 5 components. So
in
> > this sense there is no “self.” On the other hand, real Buddhism
> > will clarify that ultimatly opposites such as “self an no-self”
are
> > inseparable as the Middle Way.
> >
> > Again it is all words in a specific context. When people take
> > Buddhism literally it will be according to their particular
> > perception and interprwtation which will be influenced by the
> > momentary life state. Real buddhism teaches the fusion of
subject
> > and object and inseparability of mind and matter. Furthermore
real
> > Buddhism teaches of what is called “Mutual Possession,” or
> > interdependance of the life states, which is akin to the
> holographic
> > reality model.
> >
> > Buddhism also teaches that variou expedients have been used to
> > instruct people and in Mahayana, refutes various expedients and
> > updates them.
> >
> > Ultimately it is just words and people who are into theoretical
> > structures, devoid of true experiential undrstanding can easily
can
> > lost in the hall of mirrors until they realize that the Middle
Way
> > is fundamental to all these conceptions. The Middle Way is
> > expressed in the Mahayana Sutra, called “The Sutra of Infinite
> > meaning”:
> >
> > “His body is neither existing nor non-existing;
> > Without cause or condition,
> > Without self or others;
> > Neither square nor round,
> > Neither long nor short;
> > Without appearance or disappearance,
> > Without birth or death;
> > Neither created nor emanating,
> > Neither made nor produced;
> > Neither sitting nor lying,
> > Neither walking nor stopping;
> > Neither moving nor rolling,
> > Neither calm nor quiet;
> > Without advance or retreat,
> > Without safety or danger;
> > Without right or wrong,
> > Without merit or demerit;
> > Neither that nor this,
> > Neither going nor coming;
> > Neither blue nor yellow,
> > Neither red nor white;
> > Neither crimson nor purple,
> > Without a variety of color.”
> >
> >
> >
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>1.. Having heard what you have to say I would
now
> > like to move on to read at least one hundred documented accounts
of
> > experiences which have been induced which at least equal that
> event.
> > So, could you tell me where these reports can be found please. I
> > have given you addresses which contain at least 10,000 accounts
of
> > modern day spontaneous experiences for analysis – and there are
of
> > course far more in print; but for one place to contain over 6000
is
> > a good starting point – the AHRC as mentioned elsewhere. Many
> thanks.
> > Dick.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> >
> >
> > Perhaps others would like to comment on this.
> >
> > The web is full of experiential testimony and many sites
dedicated
> > to entheogens. There are endless books on the subject–much of
it
> > imperfect. For realtime stuff you can go to yahoo groups full
of
> > young people describing there experience with Salvia divinourum,
> > Ayuahasca, Mushrooms, and derivatives. No one place is going to
> > give you a compete picture. A good place to start is
> >
> > go to the erowid bibliography/library.
> >
> >
> >
> > dc
> hello nialcis.you mentioned that you had a weird experience 18 yrs
> ago and had no-one to share your story with.well,same here-about
13
> yrs,so i’d love to hear from you.mindexpand.bye
Group: egodeath
Message: 2539
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Well David,
Thank you for the information, the time and the trouble. I have never met another drug advocate who presented their case so well – and far more help than some of the idiotic discharge and tirade on this list.
Yes indeed language (as yet anyway) is a pain in the arse and causes more problems and division than the present good it can do. So, we simply have to keep working at it. Perhaps we all ought to learn Pure German eh. But English seems to have a little more humour in it and which rubs off on the speakers of that language – we can sure have a lot of fun with it eh.
I would recommend however that if your ‘organisation’ does contain the truth which you claim for it then they should work together and get their act together. You know as well as I do that in general terms the drug scene does not go down well with the consensus of humanity simply by what they see around them on a daily bases and the social problems it causes.
You also know as well as I do that the average human beings concentration span is rather short (perhaps they should all learn to play chess in schools eh) so such things as the so called truth of general Buddhism are taken at face value of the words contained therein. This is not a problem for the mob it is a problem for those who have something to say in order to get their concentration wanting to hear more. Simple psychology and salesmanship mate – as you probably well know. ( I was a good Salesman once :- ))
Anyway, thanks for your time, and I will look further into your claims – albeit not by experimentation; for as I truly stated – they happen anyway, and without any help from me. I have always advocated however that people should put themselves in the path of it happening; by feeling life deeply, going with the flow, and relaxing a little more often. I also advocate that people should share their experiences with others – alas we can only do it by way of words – but words do have a power you know – the power of the word.
Regards, Dick Richardson.
—– Original Message —–
From: rialcnis2000
To: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 4:48 PM
Subject: [egodeath] Re: Ego death then, so be it.
Dick writes:
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2540
From: Dick Richardson
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Fw: [gnosis284] RE: Buddhism
—– Original Message —–
From: andrew smith
To: gnosis284 ; Yahoo! Groups Notification
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 5:25 PM
Subject: [gnosis284] RE: Buddhism
Buddhist basics
The Three Characteristics of life.
Dukkha = suffering or “unsatisfactoriness”
‘Birth is suffering, ageing is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and tribulation are suffering; association with what one dislikes is suffering; separation from what one likes is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering.’
Samyutta Nikaya 5: 421-3
Anicca
All created, compounded and conditioned things are not permanent and are subject to change.
Anatta
There is no permanent soul, self, ego or Atman to be found that is unchanging or continues after death.
CREDO: “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”
Andrew W. Smith
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2541
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: The big Picture
>>>>>>>True, a bloody great rock might smash into the world tomorrow
and destroy the lot of it – but so what? We have to work on the
basis that it will not happen, and continue to strive to make the
world (mans part in it) a better place for children to come
to.<<<<<<<<
I don’t know if it is wise to go on the assumption terrible things
won’t happen. Of course people shuldn;t become obsessed with
catastrophic expectations, and paranoid, but is is intellegent
and “smarter,” to deal with the possibility of asteroid impact etc,
and have a solution already provided. I simple mechancal solution.
You wear a seat beat in a car because it is possible you might get
in a crash. If you do not wear it that is silly. At the same time,
don’t you want to see better antibiotics and cures for diseases? I
would asume you do. You can’t sit there and think, “I won’t ever
get sick.” That is just as silly as being excessively worried over
it. I had to comment because it tends to annoy me when people have
a laissez faire attitude about asteroids and other such basic
realities they could deal with using the tools we have available,
where they not o busy arguing with each other or oil and religious
dogma.
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 2542
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Ego death then, so be it.
>>>>>>>I would recommend however that if your ‘organisation’ does
contain the truth which you claim for it<<<<<<
There is no “organization” to speak of that I am a part of at this
time. Although I support a few of the Entheogenic website/org efforts
>>>>>>then they should work together and get their act together.
<<<<
I agree with this wholeheartedly. Ther has never been any cohesion
in this areas, because people, myaself included do not care for
oraganizations per se. But I believe strongly that the best
appraoch for enthegenic advocates is in COURT in the US and other
countries were “freedom of relgion” is said to exist–fighting laws
prohibiting relgious use and research. I think that is a case of
relgious freedom that can be proven in court and won. The basis of
this case would be that Entheogenic Experience, is in fact the
origin of “religion.”
>>>>>You also know as well as I do that the average human beings
concentration span is rather short >
no argument from me there.
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 2543
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: Fw: [gnosis284] RE: Buddhism
You might be interested in reading this which is Mahayana that
teaches that these early teachings were Chapter 2, 3, 7 AND 16
explains the use of expedient means where Buddhism seems to reverese
itself. At any rate all old stuff is just that …old and alwasy
need updating according to time and place.
Dukkha = suffering or “unsatisfactoriness”
âBirth is suffering, ageing is suffering, death is suffering;
sorrow,
lamentation, pain, grief and tribulation are suffering; association
with what
one dislikes is suffering; separation from what one likes is
suffering; not to
get what one wants is suffering.â
Samyutta Nikaya 5: 421-3
Anicca
All created, compounded and conditioned things are not permanent and
are subject
to change.
Anatta
There is no permanent soul, self, ego or Atman to be found that is
unchanging or
continues after death.
Oh David, do not take everything so literal and simple; yeah yeah yeah of course we have to cater for all that, and we do. However, it does not detract from what I said – we cannot live our lives here in the expectation that we will not be here tomorrow – society would bloody collapse mate.
By the way I try to avoid seat belts even though it is the law of the land – ah shit, it is more comfortable mate. I have been driving every day since I was fifteen and never scratched the paint yet – yes we have to watch out for the others, but we can anticipate the sods eh. And if you do happen to die in a big crash – then so be it. Here today, gone tomorrow – but not all at the same time eh :- )))
Keep smiling petal. I must be off now – that will cheer them all up here eh mate :- )) Bloody ignorant cockney mystic that I am :- (((( Here here they all say – first words of truth he has spoken yet !!!! Like hell eh. Have a good life David.
Dick.
—– Original Message —–
From: rialcnis2000
To: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2003 6:23 PM
Subject: [egodeath] Re: The big Picture
>>>>>>>True, a bloody great rock might smash into the world tomorrow
and destroy the lot of it – but so what? We have to work on the
basis that it will not happen, and continue to strive to make the
world (mans part in it) a better place for children to come
to.<<<<<<<<
I don’t know if it is wise to go on the assumption terrible things
won’t happen. Of course people shuldn;t become obsessed with
catastrophic expectations, and paranoid, but is is intellegent
and “smarter,” to deal with the possibility of asteroid impact etc,
and have a solution already provided. I simple mechancal solution
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 2545
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 14/11/2003
Subject: Re: The big Picture
Adios, but you really should wear that seatbeat. The ride might be
bumpy.
lol
dc
>>>Oh David, do not take everything so literal and simple; yeah yeah
yeah of course
we have to cater for all that, and we do. However, it does not
detract from what
I said – we cannot live our lives here in the expectation that we
will not be
here tomorrow – society would bloody collapse mate.
By the way I try to avoid seat belts even though it is the law of
the land – ah
shit, it is more comfortable mate. I have been driving every day
since I was
fifteen and never scratched the paint yet – yes we have to watch out
for the
others, but we can anticipate the sods eh. And if you do happen to
die in a big
crash – then so be it. Here today, gone tomorrow – but not all at
the same time
eh :- )))
Keep smiling petal. I must be off now – that will cheer them all up
here eh
mate :- )) Bloody ignorant cockney mystic that I am :- (((( Here
here they all
say – first words of truth he has spoken yet !!!! Like hell eh. Have
a good
life David.
It truely is something that haunts, excites, bewilders and astonishes
me everytime i think back to that fateful day i was ‘cursed’ with a
DMT encounter.
I often wonder if it will ever find me with the same impact again.
I am really divided intellectually on what I experienced, reading
into shamanism and sorcery, then into Tibetan Buddhism, there is a
slight confliction in my views. Maybe in the end the Dzogchen
Buddhists are closest to understanding what happens, essentially
saying that all projections are from the ground luminosity, and
represent the power of it. if noticed as your own projection,
realisation is attained. I feel bewildered currently, although not
disturbed from it. It’s just that certain knowing that there was an
energy in front of me, independent from me, yet only appearing to me
when I closed my eyes and sought to go deeper.
So many questions, how many Dzogchen Buddists throughout history have
experienced first hand smoked DMT crystals, what would they say then?
The seemingly logical yet not often thought or talked about view that
life forces are everywhere, even in non-material realms that overlap
this one seem closer to the truth than ever now. Dzogchen Buddhism
views all experience but the ground luminosity as Samsara, from my
knowledge of it so far…. this view on the illusionary nature of
reality for me is so damn harder for me to accept at the moment than
the thought and feeling that there are independant, intelligent life
forces out there feeding off emotional energies that humans produce.
Subject: Book “Historical Mary”: “Mary” means sacred prostitute
>>why the Parisee called Magdalene is a sinner? She was thief or burglar? …
Yes, she maybe was a harlot for some reasons. Anyway, I think she was a harlot
before meeting Christ as did another Sophia’s reincarnations at every age,
Helen, Cleopatra, etc.
A major theme in the Jewish bible is the popularity of cultic prostitution.
Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary should be considered as a cultic
prostitute, or considered in light of cultic prostitution. The book _The
Historical Mary_ proposes that the name “Mary” connotes cultic prostitution.
Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus includes five women who weren’t monotheistic but
who instead acted like cultic prostitutes, which were used to engender divine
kings.
I’m especially interested in understanding what the veneration of Mary during
the Middle Ages was really all about. This book covers that, and first
establishes a base of cultic prostitution in the ancient Near Eastern
religions and the Jewish religion. Apparently there are three intermingled
ways of reading “virgin”:
1. In ancient and later times, themes around the “virgin” idea had
mystic/mythic meaning, in which religious mythic figures represent aspects of
the psyche, particularly reflecting the experiences and the insights of the
intense mystic altered state. I haven’t determined yet whether the book
discusses mythic figures as personifications of the phenomena of the psyche
encountered during intense mystic altered-state experiencing.
2. By the principle of “as above, so below” — as in the mythic/mystic realm,
so shall we literally act out — actual sex was integrated into cultic
practice, both in ancient Near East religions and in medieval esoteric
practice (that is, European religion other than that of the official Church).
3. In opposition to the mystic altered state meaning, and in opposition to the
cultic sex practice that largely reflected the mystic altered state meaning,
the official Church sought to create a competing, different reading of the
“virgin mother of God” concept, one that was suitable for strategically
co-opting and obscuring the mystic and cultic systems’ reading of “virgin” and
“Mary” themes.
This book doesn’t integrate the cultic sex practices with a developed theory
of entheogen use, but does mention possible “drug” use, and mentions the trial
by drinking “dust and water”, which Dan Merkur in “Mystery of Manna” has shown
probably meant trial by ergot. Entheogen theory holds that “under the tree”,
a main theme of fertility cults, means, first of all, the Amanita mushroom,
which grows under the exactly the species of trees used in the fertility
cults.
John Allegro was severely punished for writing a book that combined several
radical proposals together: Jesus didn’t exist, some early Christians were
into cultic sex, and some early Christians used entheogens. It is fully
understandable that few authors are eager to cover more than one controversial
aspect of Christian origins, with Allegro swinging by the neck in the
background. The inquisition doesn’t kill authors literally these days, but it
effectively kills authors as far as their viability as respected scholars.
People should expect that if the actual history of Christianity is profoundly
different than the professional Church historians claim, it is likely to be
different in more than just one or two ways: radically different in many ways,
ways that all come back together to form a system of religion that is wholly
alien from the picture painted by the official Church.
Single-issue would-be “radical” historical revisionism is titilating but
single issue revisionism, by itself, is no threat to the official picture.
Only when all ten, say, of the radical revisions are reassembled, does the
seriously threatening coherent alternative telling of history fall into place.
The book essentially confirms my still unformed hypothesis that the Virgin
Mary somehow “is” Mary Magdalene. It proposes that the intended number of
Marys is seven. I hold that all the Marys, all the Jesus/Joshuas, and all the
Simons/Peters are *essentially* myth, and are functionally entirely
independent of any historical figures that may have been similar.
Like nearly all published books, this book is absurd in assuming the Bible
characters existed — “we know that Peter was in Rome…”. However, it is
redeemed in that it mentions “evidence that Jesus existed”, thus admitting
that we can’t simply take it for granted that Jesus existed.
Related:
The sacred mushroom and the cross; a study of the nature and origins of
Christianity within the fertility cults of the ancient Near East
John Allegro http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340128755
>>does Gnostic Christianity believe that one must be a Gnostic Christian to
survive the Final Judgement?
Some Gnostic groups did. Mystically, by definition, survivors of the Final
Judgement are Gnostic elect. Surviving the wrath of God and knowing and
experiencing God’s omnipotence against the lower self amount to two metaphors
for the same thing.
— Michael Hoffman http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath
Message: 1483
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 23/03/2003
Subject: Fungus-growing ants and myth
Fascinating thread on a Mycology Usenet Group:
“From The Oregonian, Jan. 22, 2003, p A16 (SCIENCE)
Ants engage in evolutionary war
An OSU scientist studies the “Fungal Tree of life” as part of a
larger
project looking at the relationships of all life-forms
By RICHARD L. HILL, The Oregonian
An extraordinary three-way arms race is being waged down on the ant
farm.
Researchers, including an Oregon State University scientist, have
discovered that fungus-growing ants have co-evolved with the fungi
they cultivate for food and with a parasite that can infect the
fungi.
The scientists found that the ants and fungi are perpetually evolving
new ways to control parasitic fungal “weeds,” which in turn are
continually developing new ways to infect the ants’ fungus gardens.
The ants have been successfully fungus farming for the past 50
million years, according to the scientists, who report their findings
in the current issue of the journal Science.
“These ants have a very organized social system,” said Joseph W.
Spatafora, an OSU associate professor of botany and plant pathology
who participated in the study.
Attine ants, which include leaf-cutter ants, haul plant material to
their nest to feed and grow the fungus Lepiotaceae, a family of
mushrooms. When the hungry fungi are nourished, they produce
nutrient-rich structures that are eaten by the ants.
But like all farmers, the ants face a “weed” that attacks their
crops. In this case, the culprit is the microfungal parasite
Escovopis, which can reduce or destroy a fungal garden or ant colony.
The ants defend the fungus garden, weeding out infected fungi and
taking out the parasite’s spores. The ants also have in their defense
arsenal a bacterium that they cultivate on the outside of their
bodies. The bacteria produce an antibiotic that suppresses the growth
of the parasite. “We suspect that it’s going to turn out that this
antibiotic use also goes back to the beginning of ant agriculture,”
said Ted B. Schultz, a study participant who is an entomologist with
the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History.
Other researchers involved in the project, led by Cameron R. Currie
at the University of Kansas, are from the University of Toronto, the
University of Texas at Austin and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
They studied DNA sequences from the ants, garden fungi and the
parasitic fungal weeds to see how the co-evolutionary system evolved.
The collaboration is the result of a new series of research
initiatives by the National Science Foundation called “Assembling the
Tree of Life.” The project is aimed at producing a better
understanding of the evolutionary relationships by all the major
groups of life on Earth.
Spatafora, who has a $2.64 million grant from the foundation, is
leading a team of five laboratories at four institutions on
assembling
the “Fungal Tree of Life.” Scientists will study 1,500 species and
analyze DNA in one of the most comprehensive studies of fungi ever
conducted.
COMMENT BY POSTER: Many ant species cultivate Lepiotaceae, which
includes such common fungi as Macrolepiota rachoides. It’s
fascinating
to find an abandoned thatcher ant colony under Douglas-fir here in
the
PNW with large 8-12 inch diameter M. rachoides fruiting in abundance
from the pile of Douglas fir needles and twigs. Thatcher ants are so
industrious in this endeavor that they largely denude large areas of
ground from any spend needles, which can reduce the danger of fire
rapidly spreading in these areas. Unfortunately, the piles of needles
sometimes reaches over 4 feet, and in non-thinned tree stands can act
as a stepping stone for fire to enter the tree canopy.
Termites in Africa have a similar relationship to fungi called
Termitomyces.
anf all this time I had no idea that it was Lepiota It sorta makes
sence now that I look at the evidence of what the ants harvest and
wat
lepiota eats .
****
An excellent post, which makes me think that the Myrmidons (“Ants”)
under
Axilles in the Iliad were mushroom cultivators, particularly since
Axilles
was the son of Peleus (pileus).
> From The Oregonian, Jan. 22, 2003, p A16 (SCIENCE)
>
> Ants engage in evolutionary war
> An OSU scientist studies the “Fungal Tree of life” as part of a
larger
> project looking at the relationships of all life-forms
>
> By RICHARD L. HILL, The Oregonian
> An extraordinary three-way arms race is being waged down on the ant
> farm.
> Researchers, including an Oregon State University scientist, have
> discovered that fungus-growing ants have co-evolved with the fungi
> they cultivate for food and with a parasite that can infect the
fungi.
> The scientists found that the ants and fungi are perpetually
evolving
> new ways to control parasitic fungal “weeds,” which in turn are
> continually developing new ways to infect the ants’ fungus gardens.
> The ants have been successfully fungus farming for the past 50
> million years, according to the scientists, who report their
findings
> in the current issue of the journal Science.
> “These ants have a very organized social system,” said Joseph W.
> Spatafora, an OSU associate professor of botany and plant pathology
> who participated in the study.
> Attine ants, which include leaf-cutter ants, haul plant material to
> their nest to feed and grow the fungus Lepiotaceae, a family of
> mushrooms. When the hungry fungi are nourished, they produce
> An excellent post, which makes me think that the Myrmidons
(“Ants”) under
> Axilles in the Iliad were mushroom cultivators, particularly since
Axilles
> was the son of Peleus (pileus).
Hmm. That does sound like more than just coincidence.
>
> Would you have any links to the said researchers.
No. But Joey Spatafora, one of the principals in the investigation,
is
at Oregon State University who has spoken at a few North American
Truffling Society meetings that I’ve attended.
I’m sure he has a webpage associated with the university, and you
should be able to email him directly.
> > An excellent post, which makes me think that the Myrmidons
(“Ants”)
under
> > Axilles in the Iliad were mushroom cultivators, particularly
since
Axilles
> > was the son of Peleus (pileus).
>
> Hmm. That does sound like more than just coincidence.
> >
It gets less coincidental when one considers that Pavsanias reported
Mukenai, the home of Agamemnon in the Iliad, to have been named
after a
mushroom, while Ovid in his Metamorphoses tells of an ancient myth
from
nearby Corinth (Ephyra) that “mortals were created from fungi,
nourished by
the rain”.
Also the thunderbolt of Zeus was called “keraunion” by the Greeks,
which was
also the name they gave to a particular kind of truffle.
> > Would you have any links to the said researchers.
>
> No. But Joey Spatafora, one of the principals in the
investigation, is
> at Oregon State University who has spoken at a few North American
> Truffling Society meetings that I’ve attended.
>
> I’m sure he has a webpage associated with the university, and you
> should be able to email him directly.
>
> Daniel B. Wheeler
Group: egodeath
Message: 1484
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 23/03/2003
Subject: Reframing “HJ/no-HJ” as hi/lo degree of dependent focus
There is a bad theory of religion implicit in the typical historical-founder
assumption.
When someone affirms that “the historical Buddha existed” or “the historical
Jesus existed”, what is actually being asserted? An entire questionable
theory is implicitly asserted about where religions come from, how religions
work, what religions are about, how religions propagate, how they are
concentrated in certain influential individuals who then transform and focus
and re-propagate the religion.
It is true that select, particular individuals do serve to focus and define
religions. Consider the theorist Ken Wilber, for example. He is an actual
person who has worked hard to clarify and make viable the perennial
philosophy. The perennial philosophy is an essentially religious
philosophy — a theory about what occurs as the psyche develops to a fully
developed state and what the ultimate relationship is between the individual
and world or transcendent cosmos.
Does Christianity “come from” a single man, Jesus? What role does the
“historical Jesus” scenario assign to the postulated single man, Jesus?
Conversely, what role do the historical-Jesus deniers assign to, say, the
twenty most Jesus-like actual individuals? It is more subtle than even I
thought to distinguish between the historical Jesus theory and the
no-historical-Jesus theory.
It turns out that both scenarios are actually quite intricate and potentially
are highly qualified, to the point of actually overlapping. The historical
Jesus theory potentially has a surprisingly wide range of different scenarios,
and the no-historical-Jesus theory also potentially has a surprisingly wide
range, not a narrow range, of different scenarios.
I am coming to respect more fully the conclusion of some researchers in the
Jesus Mysteries discussion group, that the theory-categories of “historical
Jesus” and “no historical Jesus” are totally useless and contribute nothing
but harmful confusion. Everything hinges on what a researcher *means* by
“historical Jesus” or “no historical Jesus”.
We can only debate these scenarios if we establish an absolutely clear
definition of what we mean by those two labels, and I am finding that there is
a disarmingly wide range of discussion and debate involved in defining those
two labels. It is very difficult to form a good definition of what the
“historical Jesus” scenario essentially amounts to. It is very difficult to
form a good definition of what the “no-historical-Jesus” scenario essentially
amounts to.
Both scenarios potentially cover a vast range of different scenarios. There
is certainly not a single definitive historical Jesus scenario, nor a single
definitive no-historical-Jesus scenario. Both labels are totally meaningless
without an extended, subtle, and debatable definition. Yes, it is possible to
define an Exhibit A and an Exhibit B, to represent a reference point for the
prototypical historical-Jesus and no-historical-Jesus scenario.
The prototypical historical-Jesus scenario holds that there was only one man
who fit most of the important parts of the New Testament version of history.
Christianity is importantly dependent on that man, and unthinkable without
him; Christianity doesn’t make sense as religion or history without him.
The prototypical no-historical-Jesus scenario holds that there was only one
man who fit most of the important parts of the New Testament version of
history. Christianity is not dependent on any one man, and makes more sense
(as religion and history) without the complicating postulate of such a man.
According to “no-historical-founder” theories of the development of religions,
certain individuals do play an important role in some important but limited
sense. Here is where it immediately becomes very complicated, subtle, and
intractible. The development, origin, and spread of a religion does
importantly depend on the actions of some select, distinctive individuals.
Conventional thinking assumes Paul to have existed as such an individual; on
more solid ground, we should use Constantine as an example. The development
of Christianity is largely focused in the actual man, Constantine, as well as
Luther, for example. Is the development of Christianity largely focused in a
single man, who we may label “Jesus”, or in five or twenty more or less
Jesus-like men, such as rebel leaders (would-be military messiahs) or
spiritual teachers or hierophants?
We need a new theoretic construct such as “degree of dependent focus”. The
prototypical historical Jesus or historical Buddha theory implicitly asserts a
very high degree of dependent focus: the development and spread of the
religion is very importantly and significantly focused in just a single man
whose life and role was like that portrayed for the central founder-figure in
the scriptures.
In contrast, the prototypical no-historical-founder theory implicitly asserts
a very *low* degree of dependent focus: the development and spread of the
religion is *not* very importantly and significantly focused in just a single
man whose life and role was like that portrayed for the central founder-figure
in the scriptures. A problem I have found in surveying all possible
permutations of historical-founder and no-historical-founder scenarios is the
possibility of gradual degrees of shading from one scenario to its opposite.
The origin of Christianity could involve anywhere from one to an innumerable
number of actual Jesus-like men, with the role of a Jesus-like man ranging
anywhere from fitting all of the traditional story elements to only a single
story element, with any number of Jesus-like men fitting any number of the
Jesus story elements. We have an n-dimensional potential space of scenarios.
How helpful is it, really, to frame the search for true history in the
simplistic and inarticulate terms of “historical Jesus” versus
“no-historical-Jesus”? Many scholars now have unearthed some pathetic actual
man who fits a fraction of the Jesus story requirements, and absurdly, have
proudly pronounced that they have found at last “the genuine historical
Jesus”.
Readers then read the work and have to choose whether or not they feel this
scenario’s man qualifies as “the genuine historical Jesus”. When ten other
such books are considered, we see how utterly useless and purely confusing the
whole concept of “the historical Jesus” is.
It is profitable to discuss the merits of particular scenarios, but framing
the range of scenarios in terms of “historical Jesus” has proven problematic
and vague beyond redemption — however, it has led to finding that there is an
embarrassing overabundance of partially Jesus-like men, with no one single
Jesus-like man towering over the rest. Thus I see no alternative to
ultimately ending up with the construct, “degree of dependent focus”.
The problem with the prototypical historical Jesus theory is that it asserts a
very high degree of dependent focus that starkly contradicts the available
evidence, which indicates actually a *low* degree of dependent focus. Instead
of debating in terms of “historical Jesus” vs. “no historical Jesus”, it would
be far more useful and relevant to debate “high degree of dependent focus” vs.
“low degree of dependent focus”.
We can thus usefully and precisely characterize scholars who assert a
“historical Jesus” even though each scholar picks a different man, with a
different combination of classic Jesus attributes: those scholars really do
have something definite and distinctive in common: they all are characterized
by asserting a very high degree of dependent focus on a single central
Jesus-like man for the development and formation of the Christian religion.
Similarly, you can usefully and precisely characterize scholars who assert “no
historical Jesus” — what they actually all have in common, across their
highly divergent scenarios, is that they all are characterized by asserting a
very *low* degree of dependent focus on a single central Jesus-like man for
the development and formation of the Christian religion.
This construct of “high vs. low degree of dependent focus” concisely and
elegantly encapsulates, expresses, and implies everything that I have written
about the problem of the plethora of genuine historical Jesuses and about the
Jesus figure being “essentially and really” a *composite* drawn from a
deliberately extreme and all-encompassing *multitude* of actual men and
mythical figures.
That construct really hits the essence of the difference in thinking style
between the typical historical-Jesus asserters and the typical no-HJ
asserters, overcoming the difficult blurring fact that both camps admit the
existence of multiple (more or less numerous) actual Jesus-like men who were
more or less important. We need a sliding scale and a relevant polar axis.
The most powerful, relevant, useful, and general way of sorting out the
scholars is in terms of what degree they propose Christianity was dependent on
and focused in a single Jesus-like man. Thus in the end the most useful way
to define what we mean by “HJ vs. no-HJ”, or “historical Buddha vs.
no-historical-Buddha”, is in terms of degree of dependent focus.
What is the most essential implication someone makes when they say “there was
a historical Jesus” or “there was no historical Jesus”? How can we usefully
get to the essence of what kind of history that person is asserting? By
understanding the alternatives to be a high versus low degree of dependent
focus.
This reframing of the debate is highly useful even though it still leaves us
with a subtle debate about what it means for the formation of Christianity to
have been highly dependent on and focused in a single Jesus-like man.
I consider myth, correctly understood, to be the same thing as the highest
aspect of religion — this is what I mean by “myth-religion”: it is really,
most meaningfully and profoundly, allegory/metaphor for the intense mystic
altered state such as is triggered by sacred consumption of entheogens. The
elements of this view can all be wrapped up into the construct
“myth-religion-mysticism”.
The official, dominant, low theory of religion holds that religions have a
very high degree of dependent focus on a single historical central founder
figure to whom is attributed the origin of the religion; the religion is based
on the figure and comes from the figure; he is “the central founder figure”
upon whom the religion focuses and to whom the start of the religion is
attributed.
The religion is focused on him as founder; he is a personification of all that
the religion stands for. I here mean to shut out the Paul figure, who is
portrayed as a pillar of the Church, who propagated the religion, but Paul is
not the central figure upon whom the Christian religion is mainly focused.
The Christian is supposed to be somewhat Paul-like, but more importantly
Jesus-like.
The conventional view of Buddhism fits this definition too: while allowing for
previous and later Buddha-type historical men, Buddha is held to be a single
outstanding man upon whom Buddhism is highly dependent and on whom Buddhism is
highly focused. The theory of religious origins I dub “low” is that a
religion proceeds from its central founder figure.
The Christian religion came from Jesus; it is based on the life, teachings,
and actions of the man Jesus. Such a theory of where religion comes from and
what it’s about applies to the theory that the Isis and Osiris religion is
“based on” an actual historical Osiris; according to this way of thinking, for
the origin of the ancient Egyptian religion, there is a high degree of
dependent focus on the life and actions of the man Osiris.
The historical Jesus theory or historical Buddhism theory is not just
incorrect about facts of history; it is a bad theory of where myth-religion
comes from and what myth-religion is really about. Myth-religion in essence
has nothing to do with historical founding-figures, even when it is styled as
emphatically literal. Buddhism and Christianity have often been
hyper-literalized.
Religion really does have some literal elements; for example, the ancients
deliberately modelled actual politics and religion on myth-religion-mysticism,
and they deliberately formed mythic allegory in terms of actual politics and
religion. So yes, actual politics and religion *do* “match” the mythic
histories, but what is the nature of this “match”?
For example, I propose that not only was Christian myth-religion allegorically
based on actual crucifixion, but, in the spirit of ancient thinking,
crucifixion as a form of punishment was also deliberately based on mythic
allegory. The ancient mind deliberately strove to make myth and reality
closely match and comment upon each other, but this is not to be confused with
a “match” in the sense of the mythic history being historically factual.
Their myth and history were *mystically* the same, but not *literally* the
same. This is true for many near eastern religions, or religio-political
regimes, but particularly true in Jewish religion, which took the deliberate
conflation of national history and mythic allegory to as far an extreme as in
any religion. It is not a one-way arrow — that would be against the ancient
way of thinking.
It was a two-way arrow between mythic-mystic allegory and literal politics and
history: as above, so below. How should we think politically and
historically? Look to mystic-myth (archetypes encountered in the entheogenic
intense mystic altered state) for the answer. How should we think mythically,
mystically, and allegorically, in religion? Look to the realm of politics and
history for the answer.
The domains of mystic myth and actual history and politics were used to inform
and guide and justify each other. This interaction of two domains is the only
possible way to fully account for both the literal historical style and
elements in, say, Revelation, as well as the mystic-mythic allegory-domain.
Literalism, or perhaps quasi-literalism, is essential and basic in the Jewish
scriptures, but so is mystic-mythic thinking.
Certainly both domains are present, but we take literalism much too literally
and need a better understanding of how these two domains work together and
interpenetrate even while remaining distinct. Yes, the Jewish scriptures are
full of literalism, in several senses, but they are not simply literalism —
more like a quasi-literalistic way of writing, reporting on quasi-literalistic
practices — a subtle but all-important difference from plain and simple
literalist writing about literalist practice.
The Jewish writings are an integrated historical-styled and mystical-styled
mode of writing about a integrated historical-styled and mystical-styled
religion — full of literalism, and yet, not literalist, just
literalist-styled. Same with Christianity: it was largely created as a
literalist styled religion; that was perhaps the main contribution from the
Jewish religion, that hyper-literalist yet still just ironically *quasi-*
literalist mode of writing and practice.
Christianity was the offspring formed by fusing many god-man Hellenistic
elements with the quasi-literalist styling of Jewish religion. Yes, many Jews
and Christians were literalists, but many of the most important were not.
Even our category of “literalism versus mythic allegory” may be a poor fit
with that character of ancient thinking, which operated more in the mythic
realm because it was highly informed by the entheogenic intense mystic altered
state.
Literalism was used as a style of religion, and surely most people were sober
and rational and could hardly deny the concrete reality they had to constantly
deal with, but compared to moderns with our various combinations of modern
mundane reality and absurd supernaturalism, the ancients instead drew from the
realms of a mundane world that was considered in light of mystic-state
allegory, and from mystic-state allegory that was based on the mundane world.
The ancients saw the world in terms of two mirrors that reflected each other:
the sociopolitical world and the mystic-state allegory realm. Moderns instead
view the world by an unrelated pair of frames: the mundane, lacking any input
from the mystic allegory realm, and the free-floating magical-supernatural
realm, without a feel for mystic-experiencing allegory.
When modern supernaturalists say that Jesus existed, they are combining
non-mystical supernaturalist thinking which the ancient mystic mythmakers
didn’t use, together with an isolated mundane view of the world which the
ancients didn’t use. Our modern categories of thought don’t fit with the
ancient categories of thought, because our mundane world isn’t informed by
mythic mystic-state allegory understood as such.
For those who assert a low degree of dependent focus of a religion on the
historical existence of its central founder figure, there can be in principle
no evidence that is simple evidence for the existence of the founding figure,
because evidence for the existence of a man who is like the founder figure is
not evidence for a high degree of dependence on that particular man.
Thus people who assert a low or high degree of dependent focus hold two
different models of how religions rise and spread, and these two models handle
historical evidence in two different ways.
To assert a low degree of dependence of a religion on a historical central
founder is to assert that religions rise and spread based on the lives and
actions of many people whose lives are somewhat like the idealized central
founder figure, with no one man being exclusively important as the central,
towering person — and therefore, any evidence that may be found, literary or
archaological, for a man who is like the founder figure, will be interpreted
as merely evidence for one among many men whose lives are like that of the
idealized central founder figure.
A key question for debaters to consider is, what sort of evidence can cause a
scholar to change their adherence from one framework of interpretation to the
other? In this case, we must ask what sort of evidence can cause a scholar
who asserts a low degree of dependence of Christianity on a single historical
man to change their mind and assert a high degree of dependence?
What would compel me to say “I change my mind: this new discovery is strong
evidence that Christianity was, it turns out, highly dependent on a single,
central, Jesus-like man”? It would have to be evidence not only that a man
existed who fit the Jesus life story elements, but that *only a single* man
fit the story so well; evidence that one man fit the story much better than
anyone else and that the formation of Christianity is importantly dependent on
this single man and only on this single man.
What would compel a historical-Jesus asserter to say “I change my mind: this
new discovery is strong evidence that Christianity wasn’t, it turns out,
highly dependent on a single, central, Jesus-like man”? It would have to be
evidence that no one man existed who fit the Jesus life story elements far
more than any other man. It would have to be evidence that the formation of
Christianity was *not* importantly dependent on any single man.
The evidence from the no-HJ books, and even from the conventional HJ-asserting
scholars, adds up to just such a demonstration: it is clear by now that the
formation of Christianity was not importantly dependent on a single man who
was Jesus-like and who was far more Jesus-like than any other man. Scholars
now have found a hundred good reasons why Christianity started, but many of
the reasons and scenarios don’t depend on the existence of just one lone man
with a uniquely Jesus-like life.
The current evidence supports the hypothesis of a *low* degreee of dependent
focus of Christian origins on a single man, not a *high* degree of focal
dependence. Yes, the *claim* of originating from a single man has often been
a powerful advantage for some Christian officials, and we could say that the
success of Christianity sometimes depended on the *claim* of originating from
a single historical central founder-figure.
But an important dependence on the *claim* of literal historicity is quite
different than important dependence on the *actuality* of literal historicity.
Some weak thinkers have said that “Christianity wasn’t a Hellenistic
mystery-religion, because Hellenistic mystery-religions don’t literalize their
mythic founder-figures.”
That’s true, but considering the Jewish religion as being an unusually
literalist-styled, historical/political-styled myth-religion, we can now
recognize Christianity as a powerful fusion of the Hellenistic godman
mystery-religion with the Jewish literalist-styled,
historical/political-styled myth-religion. Christianity took the godman and
initiation themes and techniques of Hellenistic religion and added the
quasi-literalist, historical/political-styled techniques and themes from
Jewish religion.
Christianity was a new Hellenistic mystery-religion that *did* literalize its
mythic founder-figures — that literalization, that breaking the rule against
literalization, was precisely what gave this Jewish-Hellenistic hybrid a
competitive advantage over the purely mythic-styled Hellenistic religions.
According to the Church officials, Christianity was superior to Hellenistic
religion because Christianity had *literally as well as*
mythically/mystically, what the Hellenistic religions had *only*
mythically/mystically. Christianity won because it was based on a literal
godman — but to clarify, it won because it was based on the *claim of* being
founded by and founded on a literal godman.
In actuality, Jewish religion provided various combinations of literal and
allegorical messiahs; in this sense, there really was a historical
God-ordained Jesus or twenty of them. We must also remember the similarity of
the emperor cult, divine kings, apotheosis of heroes, and the battle between
King Pentheus and the godman Dionysus — all providing various combinations of
themes about kings, godmen, saviors, historical individuals, and mythic
figures.
The figure of Jesus was designed to strategically fuse all of these into a
single figure who wrapped up into one all the value of historical men such as
Alexander and Caesars, with all the value of the dying-and-rising mythic
godmen, with all the value of the quasi-historical Jewish priest and prophets
and the actual Jewish would-be messiahs. The problem was how to fabricate a
figure even more potent than Caesar, even more potent and universal than the
calculated and synthetic figure of Sarapis.
It was a no-holds-barred utimate battle of extreme competitive
hyper-apotheosis, practically an arms race to create the ultimate nuclear
weapon of cosmic hyper-transcendent divinity combined with all the most
venerated attributes of all historical figures — *many* historical figures
and Jesus-like men and Alexander-like men and heroic warriors, wrapped up into
one figure, who was later only threatened, I surmise, by the counter-venerated
eternal cosmic goddess figure of Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Heaven.
— Michael Hoffman http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath
Message: 1485
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 23/03/2003
Subject: Trajectories of bands that discover LSD
>Another AMG album review that might hit you closer to home would be the
[insultingly low] 2 [of 5]
>stars allotted to Rush’s Fly By Night, Caress of Steel and Grace
>Under Pressure. I’m currently working on an album review site that
>has some sort of perspective related to the music itself,
>disregarding everything but that, the music. It’s hard work,
>though, dismissing all experiences and approaching each review with
>just the single album in mind.
>
>-greg
When I wrote the previous posting, I was thinking of Caress of Steel, which
certainly deserves 5 stars and is one of the most important, profound, and
inspired albums by this mystic-state philosophy band. The highly acclaimed
follow-up album 2112 rests directly on the foundation of Caress of Steel. The
album ratings I’ve seen have given me a hypothesis that the actual best album
is usually the one prior to the highest-rated album.
I tend to like a band best before the critics do — before the band becomes
popular and hits it big. I imagine this trajectory: a band puts out a
mediocre, uninspired album or two. Then the band discovers LSD, and there are
a couple uninspired allusions to LSD phenomena. Then the band experiences ego
death and discovers the tradition of double-entendre allusion in High Classic
Rock lyrics, and puts out an album that is far more informed by the full range
of entheogenic phenomena.
On the next album, the technique of double-entendre is becoming routine, and
the thematic material of mystic-state phenomena alluded to is no longer really
growing; it’s not an area of major discovery — like pattern-finding in
myth-religion after cracking the code and “all knowledge has been revealed”,
the rate of noveltry drops off after a year and a half.
The classic Acid Rock lyrical techniques decline over the next few albums, and
finally remain in further albums purely out of respect. This is why I have
smelled the most intense, fresh, worthwhile studies being in the first few
albums a band puts out after discovering LSD — such as Rush during the late
1970s and early 1980s, but not the late 1980s and 1990s, which has the
material but as a routinized echo of the original inspirational explosion.
— Michael Hoffman http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath
Message: 1486
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Mapping this theory to high-level Buddhism
>Secondly, Buddhism avoid making statements such as “this exists” or
>this “doesn’t exist.” as in the 34 negations above. This is the
>Middle Way. In generaL, high Buddhism, would then say, “there is
>neither “free will,” nor is there “no-free-will,” a understanding
>that needs to be bridged first before one can apply your thoery in a
>technically correct way. Ths Middle Way principle is not a
>compromise. In this sense, adapting various theories to this
>principle becomes techncially difficult and one must understand the
>high Buddhsit understanding of general and specific.”
>
>To further clarify this, here is a short passage of Chih-I (tien-
>t’ai the Great) from the Moho Chi Kuan (contemplation and and
>observation):
>
>states:
>
>”It is easy for a sticky hand to adhere, and hard to awaken from deep
>dreaming. Some people seal up a text and restrict its sense,
>declaring their own personal understanding of it to be right. They
>vie with others to seize tiles and pebbles, thinking they are
>baubles of lapis luzuli. Even the most familiar things and explicit
>statements they fail to understand; how could they not but err when
>it comes to the abstruse principle and hidden teaching? This is why
>it is necessary to discuss “the returning to the purport.”
>
>dc
This sounds like my strong focus on “networks of word meanings” and the phrase
“in what sense does X exist?” More useful than asking whether the historical
Jesus existed or not, it’s better to ask “in what exact sense did Jesus
historically exist?” Instead of vaguely asking “Our our choices free, or not
free?”, we must ask “In what exact sense are our choices free?” Instead of
asking “Does ego exist, or not?”, the only way to make progress in
understanding is to ask rather, “In what sense does ego exist, and it what
sense does ego not exist? That is, what exactly is the nature of ego?”
— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath
Message: 1487
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Early in this discussion group I posted an analysis of Bohemian Rhapsody —
very heavy ego-death/acid mysticism allusions. I consider Queen one of the
groups that has a full grasp of the entheogen rock religion, but prefers to
write isolated songs focusing on that subject.
Rush, as a philosophy group ought, chooses to allude to the subject more
consistently or relentlessly throughout their albums, particularly their
classic-era albums Caress of Steel through Grace Under Pressure (mid-1970s to
mid-1980s).
Black Sabbath treated LSD religion as a substantial but not emphasized portion
of their drug-alluding Heavy Rock scope — Ozzy’s first two solo albums,
however, emphasized LSD, according to my interpretation. I have heard that
LSD was used routinely by many bands as part of lyric writing; I suspect that
was a trick of the trade, used for albums such as one by the Cars.
There is a distribution of acid-mysticism allusions at the level of a band, an
album, a song, or a verse — at any level there may be a high density of
allusions. One technique is to insert a verse dense with allusions into a
song that otherwise is innocent of such allusions. Metallica’s For Whom the
Bell Tolls, Cheap Trick’s Way of the World. This verse is a key suggesting
reading the remaining lyrics in their mystical sense, though the other lyrics
are not themselves filled with dense allusions.
That is like a mundane-state, ordinary song about flying in airplanes, with
the middle verse switching to overtly double-coded meaning such as “a trip so
high, visions before my eye”, which would then switch the meaning of the other
lyrics too. This is the theory or principle of remote cueing. Suppose only
half of the verses in Caress of Steel are, considered in isolation, clearly
entheogenic, and the other verses are no more entheogenic than any straight
lyrics would randomly happen to be.
Yet considered as a whole, the entire album and all its lyrics would demand to
be interpreted entheogenically, even the average verses, due to the presence
in the package of the strongly entheogenic verses. This formula makes great
sense, more so than proposing, say, an entire album with just one verse meant
to be heard in its entheogenic sense, because if the listener is in a 12-hour
altered-state session, the mind will be in the encoding/decoding state for all
of the verses, not just for one song.
Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-oriented acid
rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours, while a pop-sike single
lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.
Group: egodeath
Message: 1488
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Nirvana, metaphor, kingdom of heaven
>Nirvana=This has a number of meanings, depending on how it is meant
>in either low or high Buddhism. The literal term, actually
>means “death,” or “extinction,” and referred to a goal of early
>buddhism, to free oneself from the cycle of birth and death, which
>was already the goal of the hindus……but in high mahayana
>(Saddharma Pundarika) it was revealed that the teaching
>of “Nirvana,” was actually a “Secret and Skillful Means of the
>Buddha.” I already quoted the applicable passages in previous posts
>and I told the story of the “Transient Castle,” where the analogy of
>a leader of travelers conjures up a Castle to inspire the travelers
>to keep going to the goal and later it is discovered that the Castle
>was an illusion and then the real goal is revealed. This is a
>fundamental principle of high Mahayana. Another Buddhist term
>is “The Expedient means of Nirvana” means the “Expedient means of
>Death,” wherein not only are expedients used by wise buddhas to
>teach the law, but even nature itself, provides an “secret”
>expedient means.
This reminds me of an animated ad showing a man floating back and forth in
sitting meditation 9 inches above the ground. It that how I picture
enlightenment? Not at all, but perhaps it is comparable to how I felt when I
made sense of the construct of “kingdom of God” in terms of no-free-will, Nov.
14, 2001, enabling me to finally form a systematic interpretation of
Christianity that fit with my since-1988 core model of block-universe
determinism.
I had episodically experienced the return of the messiah and entering the
kingdom of God before, even connecting it with the no-free-will concept (this
was part of the “grand forking path” insight), but didn’t yet secure a
complete, systematic interpretation.
Upon finally attaining a complete, systematic interpretation, for a few days I
was in heaven, in nirvana, not in the sense of being in a mystic altered state
while comprehending the metaphors, but rather, just being in the normal state
of consciousness but having a scientific/theoretic breakthrough experience by
reflecting on the experiences and insights of the mystic altered state and
reflecting upon how mystic-state metaphor works as a clever systematic
meaning-puzzle.
In this sense, my full ascension into heaven didn’t occur in the mystic
altered state, but was heavily informed by the insights of the mystic altered
state, including insights about networks of word-meanings.
The promise of entering a castle-like heaven, as in the book of Revelation,
can be an expedient means. Attaining a transformed, higher-coherence
worldmodel is like attaining a castle, entering a kind of blissful nirvana,
ascending to heaven in the company of the saints. The castle could be
considered real, as a certain kind of castle.
Alan Watts is too much of a poet without explaining himself explicitly: in the
book The Way of Zen, he likes saying enlightenment is nothing to be gained,
but while true in a certain sense, I maintain that enlightenment is something
to be gained by the mind: a higher, more coherent worldmodel in addition to
the mind’s previous worldmodel.
I completely reject the notion that expedient means is an option that works
better than explicit explanation of the principles of enlightenment. The most
expedient means are entheogens, combined with teaching rational explicit
systematic principles, combined with teaching how mystic/mythic/religious
metaphor works as a poetic encoding/decoding system.
Demons are drawn so as to emphasize their animal aspects. A demon is
essentially portrayed as an intelligent being that is like an animal in
essence and is like a degraded mode of a human. A demon is a lower,
animalized person. Animals, like humans under the ego delusion, take free
will and self-moving agency for granted – it’s how things appear in nature.
Children learn the egoic worldmodel first, naturally — this makes sense. It
is a simple and useful way of thinking and mode of perceiving and experiencing
the world and oneself. However, what makes humans greater than animals is
intelligence, and intelligence contains divine potential in that it can
blossom into the transcendent worldmodel. Humans, unlike animals, have
religion.
The human during their childish, animalistic period before initiation has a
degraded form of religion, but this too transforms into transcendent religion
when intelligence blossoms into transcendent knowledge, in which the animal
way of viewing the world is transcended both in experience and in systematic
conceptual thinking.
The altered-state experience is shared by animals and occurs before
intellectual enlightenment or “regeneration”; the altered state raises
questions and tensions and cognitive dissonances that are eventually reasoned
through, during the transformation from the egoic to the transcendent
worldmodel.
The egoic mode of thinking is a child-animal mode. Both the child and the
animal as symbols are variable. A child can represent foolish ignorant ego,
or the next generation of the mind after ego has been transcended. The goat
is a symbol of egoic freewill assumption, while the sheep is a symbol of
transcendent no-free-will thinking. To portray the egoic way of thinking,
animalesque demons work better than showing children.
Of the commonly known animals, the best animal to portray egoic delusion is
the willful goat, which is why the leader of the deluded people is a goat-man,
the devil, the Prince of Pride. The donkey is usually a more respectful
mockery of egoic thinking, because it faithfully carries the higher mind to
the point of enlightenment, like Balaam’s faithful ass who successfully brings
the seer Balaam to the angel of death (ego-death enlightenment) and then
halts, rebuking Balaam’s criticism. “The Balaam’s eyes were opened… I will
speak only the words that God puts in my mouth.”
— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath
Message: 1490
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Further Buddhist terms
I recall there are 3 turnings of the wheel of the law, like 3 ways of
conceiving merit, such as the egoic conception of merit and system of merit,
the intermediate scheme of merit, and the transcendent conception of merit.
>Other most important factors and terms of high Mahayana Buddhism,
>which is applicable to a entheogenic theory, for later explanation:
>
>1. Three Bodies of the Buddha
>2. Ichinen Sanzen
>3. General and Specific Transmission
>4. Three Great Secret Laws
>
>But this will have to wait for another day.
>
>dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 1491
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Bible record is true
>Of course the Bible record is true and trustworthy. Therefore anything else
must be considered rebellious speculation and highly disrespectful at that.
>Regards, J. S.
> (God’s eternal Love)
> Matthew 11:6
The Bible record is true and trustworthy when read in a certain way, with
certain meanings taken literally and other meanings interpreted allegorically.
Holding to anything other than the Bible’s correct meaning is rebellious and
disrespectful speculation. It is sinful to wrongly divide the scriptures,
misreading the Bible according to one’s own interpretation rather than that
given by the Holy Spirit and the tradition of the true Church.
— In Christ,
Michael
Group: egodeath
Message: 1492
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Idolatrous, self-fabric. relig. of lit’ist “Christians”
The idolatrous, arbitrary, and self-fabricated religion that is invented by
literalist, self-labelled “Christians”
>Of course the Bible record is true and trustworthy. Therefore anything else
must be considered rebellious speculation and highly disrespectful at that.
The Bible record is true and trustworthy when read in a certain way, with
certain meanings taken literally and other meanings interpreted allegorically.
Holding to anything other than the Bible’s correct meaning is rebellious and
disrespectful speculation. It is sinful to wrongly divide the scriptures,
misreading the Bible according to one’s own interpretation rather than that
given by the Holy Spirit and the tradition of the true Church.
Christians who make an idolatrous religion of literalism don’t even believe
their own, hypocritical words, their declarations of pure literalist belief.
They *pretend* to be a believer in the Bible, and claim to read all the
historical aspects in a pure and faithfully literal way. This illusion can
only be sustained by avoiding engaging with the text and by staying in the
realm of vagueness — such a religion is a religion of fearful vagueness and
fog, despite its effort at committing to concretistic thinking.
It is a way of approaching scripture that is accepts some vague imagined “pure
literalist” reading and attributes that reading to the surrounding crowds and
imagined authority figures, but the fact that such a stance is incapable of
debating specific points regarding the historical versus metaphorical aspects
of scripture indicates such religionists are full of self-doubt and unable to
debate rationally.
Self-labelled “Christians” who preach the gospel of
salvation-through-pure-literalism are only capable of making empty, vague
faith statements, which amount to nothing and communicate nothing.
The supposedly pure literalists preach a Gospel of meaningless adherence to
some supposedly concrete, but actually wispy and unspecified literalism — do
they even *know* what they believe, and why? They claim to believe in a
gospel of literalism, but are they able to be more specific than that, or
would that strain the content of their weak-on-content “faith” past the
breaking point? “I believe… in blind acceptance of literalist orthodoxy.”
It would be better to believe in the truth about the savior, whatever that
truth actually is, without building one’s house of faith on a sandy foundation
of vague, unspecified “pure, faithful” literalism.
Christianity based on a refusal to consider the possible anti-literalist
meaning of the history aspects of scripture is a religion of
responsibility-evading literalist assumption, a hastily fabricated
preconception pulled out of one’s own mind, that is no Christian faith at all,
but just an arbitrary fabrication of one’s own version of what one labels
“Christian faith”.
Contentless, unspecified, committed literalism is idolatry, worshipping a
savior made with one’s own hands. That false, man-made Gospel is filled with
groundless a-priori assumptions about what the right way is to read the holy
scriptures. These false and content-averse Christians pull the assumption out
of thin air that literalism is the righteous way to read the history aspects
of the scriptures.
They think they are safely with the crowd they can trust in. On the contrary,
many claim to follow Jesus but are not recognized by him as his elect sheep.
How can they be sure that a literalist reading of the history aspects of the
scriptures is wise instead of foolish? Their blind, arbitrary, overly
self-trusting assumption of literalism, pulled out of thin air by their own
sinful preconception about what the scriptures ought to be about, is a
rebellious speculation.
Christians who place their salvation on a foundation of supposedly pure
literalism should call into question their prideful assumptions and consider
that they may be completely mistaken. Who are these investigation-fearing
beginner Christians, that they presume to judge what is a respectful reading
of holy writ, and what is not? The humble followers of Christ should worship
the truth however it is found in the canonical scriptures.
Those who are quick to worship the idol of a historical literalist
interpretation of the scriptures fancy that they “respect” the scriptures by
reducing them down to their own sinful, idolatrous, hazy and unspecified
literalist revision of them, and then shy away from admitting that they are
sitting in judgement over the scriptures, picking and choosing which passages
to read as literal history and which to read as allegorical.
Those self-labelled “Christians” who imagine and assume that they can be pure
by uncritical adoption of a consistent literalist reading of the history
aspects of scripture ought to come clean and admit that we are all burdened
with the responsibility for interpreting the historical aspects of the
scriptures; there is no escape, not even by trying to deceive oneself and
pretending not to interpret.
The unspecified “purely literal” interpretation of the history aspects of
scripture is still one’s own personal interpretation; there is no escape. You
will be cast into the fire or admitted into heaven based on whether you read
the scriptures with your eyes opened by the Holy Spirit or with your eyes
clouded by the animal thinking of the deceiving demons. Salvation depends on
our stance toward the scriptures.
Is a “pure, literalist, respectful” stance toward the scriptures righteous, or
is it an incoherent abomination — how can we know, without the regeneration
provided by the Holy Spirit? Is a pure, literalist stance toward the
scriptures even possible at all, or a monstrous self-contradiction that is
the worst insult possible toward the divine Word? Is it actually good to
erect a religion of commitment to a pure literalist interpretation of the
scriptures?
If so, how can we do so, when the literalist readings contradict each other,
and when scripture so often warns us to carefully interpret it? On what
grounds can we base our religion on the *assumption* that a literalist reading
is the surest foundation?
How can anyone know that the most “respectful” reading of scripture is some
“pure”, extreme literalism — when such “purity” remains vague and
unspecified, through an evasive cop-out? Do the self-proclaimed “purely
faithful literalist” interpreters of scripture really believe their invented
fantasy that the crowd of authorities around them confidently asserts a
literalist reading of the history aspects of the canonical scriptures?
They cannot fool themselves convincingly, and so project their doubt onto
other people around them, harboring pride in the “purity” of their “faith”,
while seeing doubt all around them — their own secret doubt about their own
arbitrary, idolatrous assumption that a “pure” literalist interpretation is
possible and holy.
The self-proclaimed “pure” worshippers of literalism enjoy the righteous mood
of their own invented religion of “pure, faithful” literalism, even though it
feels shallow and spiritually unfulfilling and ultimately disappointing. But
pure and perfect literalism is impossible as well as unsatisfying, and is only
viable as long as one refrains from serious engagement with the text, seeking
to rightly divide the scriptures.
“Pure” historical literalist reading of the scriptures an imaginary position
imagined by the shallow lifestyle-only Christians. When one actually
investigates the scriptures and critically thinks about the history aspect in
them, “pure” historical literalism disintegrates into a meaningless position
that isn’t held by any theologians or Christian scholars.
It’s a shallow, willful delusion to think that one can rest confidently in a
religion of “principled faithful literalism”, a religion not of Jesus Christ
and the Holy Spirit but instead a religion of historical literalism which
insults the word of God by reducing it to a mundane history book.
“I doubt my faith. How can I know I’m among God’s elect? I know — instead
of being faithful about God, instead I will be faithful to a perfect and pure
literalist reading of the history aspects of the holy scriptures.” Is
Christianity essentially a religion of reporting literal history? On what
grounds can one assume such an interpretation? And what does religion really
have to do with history reporting?
Can Christian faith and a righteous stance toward scripture be conceived as
belief in a purely literalist reading of Christian scripture as history? Can
one even coherently read Christian scripture as literalist history, or does an
attempt at this form of faith immediately collapse when prodded and examined
critically? Isn’t the historical literalism reading of the scriptures exactly
what Paul disparages as childish things that the adult needs to put away, mere
beginner’s Christianity?
Christianity today has been degraded to imbecilic historical literalism
combined with irrational emotionalism and magical superstition — there is no
salvation in that way of reading the scriptures, or perhaps refusing to read
the scriptures. In that stance is no regeneration, no wisdom, just the
religion of fools, founded on sand. Many say they follow Jesus, but he does
not know them; they are of the devil, the prince of pride, the self-willed
goat-man.
Literalists try to let other people tell them what the righteous way is of
reading the Bible. They are apprehensive of what they call “speculation”, yet
they speculate and arbitrarily assume that their soul is saved by following
the *interpretation* given to them by the crowds who are walking through the
wide and apparently easy gate. They deny that they are speculating and
pulling assumptions about the scriptures out of thin air.
What do *they* know about reading and interpreting the Bible? Have they ever
even *heard* of mysticism? Do they know what allegory is? Does their
Christian bookstore sell Christian-styled self-help books for devils in Sunday
dress, or books that contain the wisdom of the saints and the saved, the true
sheep of Jesus?
Did it occur to the worshippers of dogmatic literalism that there are many
ways of reading “the Bible record” and that how one reads scripture is a
choice that the sinner must make in fear and trembling?
The literalist strive to commit their souls to a literalist faith and demonize
the critical mind. They must work hard to avoid allowing into consciousness
the realization that few or no Christian scholars and theologians assert that
every historical aspect in the “Bible record” is true. It takes a will of
iron to avoid admitting to oneself that the entire problem is a matter of
*which* Bible records are true.
How do the vague and evasive, supposedly “pure and consistent” literalists
propose that we determine which Bible records are literally historically true,
and which aren’t? On what foundation do they assert that we have to choose
one or the other: that one must accept some vague “the Bible record is true”
belief (whatever that is supposed to mean) or else, as the only other possible
option, be “disrespectful”?
Is their invented form of religion so delicate, their faith so weak and
phantasmal, that they insist that the scriptures must not be interpreted, but
only literally believed as vulgar and mundane historical records — despite
what the scriptures themselves say about requiring interpretation?
Why should one assume that critical reading of the “Bible record” is
inherently disrespectful? The mystics have greater respect for the Bible than
anyone. To not read critically and interpretively is truly disrespecting the
scriptures, and dishonoring them by reading them in accordance to how the
mind-averse crowds decide, in mob-like fashion.
The true gospel is a metaphorical expression of the following core philosophy,
which accords with much of Reformed dogmatics.
The most common-sense plausible model of the world and of transcendent
knowledge is that all religion is essentially mythic, not literalist, and that
the main purpose, origin, and nature of myth is to allegorically and
metaphorically express the transcendent insights and experiences of the
intense mystic altered state. The mystic state is the state of loose
cognition enabling revising mental-construct matrixes.
The main, ultimate experience and insight of the loose-cognition state is the
experience (sense, feeling) of no-free-will and no-separate-self, combined
with an easy and natural mental perception of a worldmodel that is plainly
coherent, involving re-conceiving time as frozen, with all of the mind’s
future thoughts already preexisting in a single fixed track.
This mental perception of this worldmodel is natural, coherent, plausible, and
plain to see; once constructed by the exploring mind, that mental worldmodel
would require more mental work to doubt than to accept.
The transcendent move of the mind also involves not only seeing that
worldmodel, but also requires an unfamiliar act of *deliberately* choosing to
believe or pretend to believe, what the mind no longer can easily believe,
that the ego is in control of its future thoughts and wields the power of free
will, as a sovereign, prime-mover control-agent.
The irony of transcendent rationality is that after overthrowing the delusion
of individual free will and separate self, for purely practical reasons, the
mind must now, God-like, deliberately pretend and retain and embrace what you
use to uncritically take for granted but can no longer rationally accept:
conceiving of a worldmodel built around the notion of self-controlling,
free-willing egoic agency.
The mind must learn to do consciously and insincerely what it previously did
naturally in its former animal/child state: engage a worldmodel based around
the separate-self, open-future assumption.
A hundred aspects of this model intensely contradict today’s accustomed ways
of thinking and regarding models as “plausible”. But this model and
explanation is remarkably unassailable, and when researched, turns out to have
massive evidential and traditional support from many philosophers,
theologians, and mystics, and scholars. The very *heart* of myth and religion
is the mystic altered state and no-free-will, and emphatically *not*
literalist religion.
By far the most sober and common-sense plausible model of transcendent mystic
insight is that religion is firmly centered around intense mystic
altered-state experiencing, firmly centered around no-free-will as experience
and irresistibly coherent and natural worldmodel, and not at all centered
around literalist thinking, hazy spiritualism, and mundane ethics.
This theory is dirt-simple, easy to express, easy to experience and mentally
perceive in the state of loose cognition, and we ought to have very good
reason before rejecting its plausibility in favor of the alternative, which is
no religion at all (mundane ethics), or complete haze and fog (New Age-style
vague spirituality and tranquil meditationism), or vulgar magic-thinking and
supernatural superstition (literalist religion).
— In Christ,
Michael
Group: egodeath
Message: 1493
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Defining “high-level” theory of myth, archetypes, astrotheology
>This system of concepts extends beyond concepts very effectively by
>proposing an experiential method that is extremely potent and
>reliable: using entheogens to produce a state of loose cognition, so
>that the mind can consider the concepts at the same time as
>experiencing the mystic state of sensing and perception. Only in
>that sense do I agree that rationality is somehow insufficient to
>the task of “communicating” religious insight.
>
>I can agree that the fullest religious insight requires both
>experiencing *and* intellectually comprehending phenomena such as
>the sense of no-free-will or no-separate-self.
>
>Let the plant teacher teach experientially at the same time as the
>human teacher teaches the intellectual principles and concepts. What
>we have to date is only half a teaching team: some people are taught
>by the plant teacher but have no good human teacher; others are
>taught by a human teacher but have no plant teacher. Both teachers
>are needed, in conjunction
_________
dc wrote:
>The percentage of people who could be convinced by theory, is a very
>tiny percentage. The primary problem is the illegality of
>entheogens. Thus I believe that the primary focus should be using
>all information available from all sources, to prove the basic truth
>that enthogen use is religious in nature and the laws prohibiting
>their religious use violates the constitutional principle
>of “Freedom of Religion.” This needs to be the primary focus of any
>attempt to enlighten others to the amazing function of entheogens.
My primary focus is to combine selected parts of today’s leading-edge theories
about philosophy, religion, and entheogenis into a coherent and ergonomic
theory of transcendent knowledge. I won’t waste any time reinventing the
wheel trying to convince the skeptics that entheogens are effective, or
proving that they are present in classic religion.
My entire effort is focused on effectively designing a framework that enables
combining what the other theorists have already argued regarding ideas such as
no-free-will, entheogens in classic religion, and the non-literalist nature of
religion. Whenever possible, I try to do only the work of combining other
theorists’ work, not reinventing it or convincing skeptics.
My strategy is to convince by making available a framework that enables the
ideas to cohere on their own. Other researchers have already shown the
viability of tenseless time, classic religious use of entheogens, and other
uncommon knowledge. My work is entirely a matter of taking these leading-edge
fields for granted and instead, just showing how it is possible to fit them
together by selecting an appropriate framework.
Never focus on convincing and persuading; only quietly demonstrate the
possibility of a coherent framework. Forget people and affecting their
thinking; instead, focus on the framework itself. That’s the spirit that
leads pure theory. I only want to let people know that it is possible to
easily fit these ideas together coherently by using this framework.
As a wholly distinct concern, I advocate or at least support drug policy
reform. This distinction is like theology versus mission-work, or private
faith versus good social works. This is the darkest hour for drug policy
reform, and the new day may well be upon us at any time. There are reasons to
hope. It is understandable, the thought of giving up hope.
The world is beyond hope, deluged by evil on all sides. But somehow, there is
still hope; things could get worse but things could get better. There must be
some viable game plan toward a better, truer world. Even David Icke has the
audacity and gumption to hope, and he reminds people that despite “the
system”, when you add up the potential of each individual person to shape the
world and work together, that adds up to a great deal of potential that should
be able to improve things.
Theoretically, it is possible for people to change the way things are, and
people should keep that individual and collective responsbility and potential
in mind.
The task is certainly not to inform the committed prohibitionist leaders that
entheogens are benign or constitutionally legit — how can we teach them what
they already know? The misguided reformers spend their ammunition fighting on
that false battlefront. Reformers ought to follow the money instead —
prohibition is entirely a matter of paychecks for the professional predatory
prohibitionists.
No one who matters actually believes that entheogens are bad and warrant
prohibition — instead, it’s all nothing but ploy and paycheck strategy,
prohibition purely for profit on the part of the false saviors. The flaw of
the reformers is playing the game straight, when it’s actually a completely
fake game, total extreme propaganda, taxpayer-supported.
Now the game is largely a television PR game, with the prohibitionists putting
forth distorted views that they know amount to self-serving lies upon lies,
and the reformers putting forth slightly less distorted views, when all the
while, a deadly house-of-mirrors battle and system of evil is going on
involving predatory prohibitionists and the profitable illegal markets that
they cooperate with — it’s very twisted, which you wouldn’t know from viewing
the reformers’ feeble ads that portray the prohibitionists as merely
misinformed fellas that really mean well.
The prohibitionists are the most evil, lying, self-serving criminals
imaginable — real monsters, yet the reformers pretend that they are just
mistaken. It’s hard to admit how evil this world is. If entheogens were
decriminalized, would the ego delusion collapse overnight? Prohibition serves
to protect the ego delusion.
You are a theorist, and NOT an initiate. I’ve read enough of your Christian
bull shit, and am fed up with it. If you knew anything about the goat man,
the formula of shin ayin peh, I O PAN ! , You would not have spouted such
ignorance as that in this post.
Panoptes
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 1495
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Further Buddhist terms
In Mahayana the 3 turnings became known as the Three Time Periods
which according to various traditions, using literal thinking, were
the first 500 or 1000 years the second 500 or 1000 years and the
third 500 or 1000 years, interpreted as years after the death of the
Historical Buddha. Here is a complex passage written by Sun Lotus:
“Question: You have mentioned above that the teaching, practice and
proof are not all present in each of the three periods of the
Former, Middle and Latter Days of the Law. If so, how do you explain
the Great Teacher Miao-lo’s statement, “The beginning of the Latter
Day of the Law will not be without inconspicuous benefit, for it is
the time when the great teaching will be propagated”?
Answer: The essence of this passage is that those who obtained
benefit during the Former and Middle Days of the Law
received “conspicuous” benefit, because the relationship they formed
with the Lotus Sutra during the lifetime of the Buddha had finally
matured. On the other hand, those born today in the Latter Day of
the Law receive the seed of Buddhahood for the first time, and their
benefit is therefore inconspicuous. The teaching, practice and proof
of this age differ greatly from those of Hinayana, provisional
Mahayana, the pre-Lotus Sutra teachings or the theoretical teaching
of the Lotus Sutra. There is no one now who can gain benefits like
those of the Former and Middle Days of the Law. According to Miao-
lo’s interpretation, the benefits in the Latter Day are
inconspicuous, and people can therefore neither perceive nor
understand them.
Question: Is there any sutra passage which says that inconspicuous
benefits are limited to the Latter Day of the Law?
Answer: A passage from the Yakuo chapter in the seventh volume of
the Lotus Sutra reads: “This sutra is beneficial medicine for the
illnesses of all mankind. If one is ill and can hear of this sutra,
his illness will vanish immediately, and he will find perpetual
youth and eternal life.” The Great Teacher Miao-lo says: “To regard
the last five-hundred-year period after the Buddha’s passing as the
time when no one can attain benefit is a superficial viewpoint. The
beginning of the Latter Day of the Law will not be without
inconspicuous benefit, for it is the time when the great teaching
will be propagated. The last five-hundred-year period corresponds to
that time.”
Question: The passages you have quoted indicate that the propagation
of the Lotus Sutra is limited to the first five hundred years of the
Latter Day of the Law. Yet the provisional Mahayana sutras say that
their practices will still be appropriate throughout the ten
thousand years of the Latter Day of the Law. How do you reply to
this?
Answer: Miao-lo states in the above-mentioned commentary that such
an interpretation of the last five-hundred-year period
is “superficial.” From a more profound viewpoint, the Lotus Sutra
will spread throughout the ten thousand years of the Latter Day. The
Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai comments on the previously quoted passage
from the Yakuo chapter, stating: “It is not only the people who live
during the lifetime of the Buddha who obtain great benefits. In the
fifth five hundred years, the Mystic Way shall spread and benefit
mankind far into the future.” Does this annotation suggest anything
other than the ten thousand years of the Latter Day of the Law? The
Fumbetsu Kudoku chapter in the sixth volume of the Lotus Sutra
refers to “one who is able to uphold this sutra in the evil age of
the Latter Day of the Law.” Also the Anrakugyo chapter reads, “In
the Latter Day of the Law, one who desires to teach this sutra…”
These quotations refer to the ten thousand years of the Latter Day
of Law. All the Buddha’s teachings other than the Lotus Sutra are
covered by his declaration: “In these more than forty years, I have
not yet revealed the truth.” Moreover, there are some cases where
the sutras have been revised according to the understanding of those
who compiled them and therefore cannot be trusted.
The scholars of the various sects remain oblivious to the fact that
the Buddha sowed the seed of enlightenment when he expounded the
Lotus Sutra in the past. How foolish they are! Quite unaware of the
distant past of sanzen-jintengo and of gohyaku-jintengo, they
abandon the mystic teaching which is pure and perfect, and sink
again into the sea of the sufferings of birth and death. It is
pitiful beyond description that, though born in a land where the
people’s capacity to receive the perfect teaching is fully mature,
they vainly fall back into the great citadel of the hell of
incessant suffering. They are no different from a person who arrives
at the bejeweled K’un-lun Mountains only to return to his
impoverished country without a single gem, or one who enters a
forest of sandalwood trees, yet goes back to the barren rubble of
his own land without ever plucking the champaka’s blossom. The third
volume of the Lotus Sutra reads, “It is as if one came from a
famished land and suddenly encountered a great king’s feast.” And
the sixth volume reads, “This, my land, remains safe and
unharmed,… My pure land is indestructible.”
In your letter you mentioned a difficult question put to you, as to
the assertion that people are able to achieve enlightenment through
their practice of the pre-Lotus Sutra teachings. In reply, you
should quote the third volume of the Nirvana Sutra which reads, “Men
of devout faith! Study and practice [until you learn that the three
treasures are one and eternal].” Further, quote the third volume of
the Guketsu which comments on this passage where it states, “Only
those who have heard the Mahayana teachings in the remote past [are
able to attain enlightenment through the practice of the Hinayana
teachings],” and, “Those who achieved Buddhahood through the
practice of the pre-Lotus Sutra teachings were able to do so only
because of their initial practice in the remote past.” You should
make clear that the pre-Lotus Sutra teachings provide no benefit of
enlightenment whatsoever. Then explain that the same principle holds
true in the time of propagation following the Buddha’s death. All
who obtained the proof of enlightenment in the Former and Middle
Days of the Law were able to do so solely because of the
relationship they had formed with the Lotus Sutra during the
Buddha’s lifetime.
Should your opponents repeatedly insist that the pre-Lotus Sutra
teachings provide a path to enlightenment, cite to them the Buddha’s
own declaration in the Muryogi Sutra: “In these more than forty
years, I have not yet revealed the truth.” Common mortals like
ourselves at the initial stage of practice can expect to attain
Buddhahood by relying on the teachings of the Buddha. The words of
the various teachers are in themselves of no use at all. The Buddha
gave strict counsel against following them with his statement in the
Nirvana Sutra, “Rely on the Law and not upon persons.” Remind your
opponents of this and repeatedly cite the passage, “I have not yet
revealed the truth,” to refute their arguments. However, do not
carelessly cite such passages [of the Lotus Sutra] as “Honestly
discarding the provisional teachings, [I will expound only the
supreme Way]” or “The World-Honored One has long expounded his
doctrines [and now must reveal the truth].” Rather, keep these
teachings deep in your heart.”
Above the mention of two vast periods of time “Sanzen Jintengo” (the
amount of time passed if you turned to dust 3000 major world systems
each grain of dust represents a “Kalpa.” and Gohyaku Jintengo, is
much longer. They are both periods of time that transcend
historical time and I will go over these when I deal with Ichinen
Sanzen, as well as “time without beginning,” called Kuon Ganjo.
These three periods are referred to within the Saddharma Pundarika
Sutra. These times are far vaster then the age if the universe as
science knows it.
dc
I recall there are 3 turnings of the wheel of the law, like 3 ways of
conceiving merit, such as the egoic conception of merit and system
of merit,
the intermediate scheme of merit, and the transcendent conception of
merit.
>Other most important factors and terms of high Mahayana Buddhism,
>which is applicable to a entheogenic theory, for later explanation:
>
>1. Three Bodies of the Buddha
>2. Ichinen Sanzen
>3. General and Specific Transmission
>4. Three Great Secret Laws
>
>But this will have to wait for another day.
>
>dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 1496
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Mapping this theory to high-level Buddhism
>>>>>>>”In what sense does ego exist, and it what
sense does ego not exist? That is, what exactly is the nature of
ego?”<<<<<<<<<
Yes that is close to the meaning of neither-nor….But I think it is
important to understand that this also speciically refers to a
entheogenic state of the middle way.
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 1497
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Defining “high-level” theory of myth, archetypes, astrotheology
>>>>>>No one who matters actually believes that entheogens are bad
and warrant
prohibition — instead, it’s all nothing but ploy and paycheck
strategy,
prohibition purely for profit on the part of the false saviors. The
flaw of
the reformers is playing the game straight, when it’s actually a
completely
fake game, total extreme propaganda, taxpayer-supported.
Now the game is largely a television PR game, with the
prohibitionists putting
forth distorted views that they know amount to self-serving lies
upon lies,
and the reformers putting forth slightly less distorted views, when
all the
while, a deadly house-of-mirrors battle and system of evil is going
on
involving predatory prohibitionists and the profitable illegal
markets that
they cooperate with — it’s very twisted, which you wouldn’t know
from viewing
the reformers’ feeble ads that portray the prohibitionists as merely
misinformed fellas that really mean well.
The prohibitionists are the most evil, lying, self-serving criminals
imaginable — real monsters, yet the reformers pretend that they are
just
mistaken. It’s hard to admit how evil this world is. If entheogens
were
decriminalized, would the ego delusion collapse overnight?
Prohibition serves
to protect the ego delusion.>>>>>>>
Of course I agree that what you say is true, I also believe that in
this primitive world, the very nature of the constitution of the
United States—(although not yet living up to itself yet) provides
a way to make all of this legal and just as other issues in this
society have challenged the status quo on consitutional grounds, on
made headway. Although the history of the drug wars go back to the
beginning of history, this does not mean it is always doomed to
repeat itself.
No the errors in the mind would not collapse over night, but legal
religious use and scientific study, would certainly be a major steop
in the right direction…
One thing about the ideal of the law, is that it can mutate, if a
good enough proof is presented, then the law, which by its own
nature, is supposed to be objective and beyond preconceived bias.
>>>>>>You are a theorist, and NOT an initiate. I’ve read enough of
your Christian bull shit, and am fed up with it. If you knew
anything about the goat man, the formula of shin ayin peh, I O
PAN ! , You would not have spouted such
ignorance as that in this post.
Panoptes>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is interesting the choice of words here. “Bullshit,” and “fed up
with it.” Refers to the Horney Goatman who will eat anything until
he is full. His mad passion to rape the nymph lead to his blowing
his pipes when she turned into a group of reeds.
And of course learning ones Ayins, Pehs, and Shins, is helpful.
Actually the vedic, egyptian, greek and roman stories of the gods
became hopelessly mixed up and deranged by Crowley and the origins
of these myths as celestial objects inthe sky and how they were
imprinted as myths in the non-conscious became lost.
The Constellation of Makara the Goat-headed-dragon is ridden by
Vishnu and of course this really refers to the movements of Venus or
Kama Deva, the god of love, in the constellation of Capricorn and
then the appearance of Pluto as the Shapeshifting Kama meeting the
Sea nymph or….Typhon the reptilian monster, causing Pan to turn
into a goat.
This is the muddy thinking of ancient stargazers, getting really
wasted and being severely repulsed and attracted in the extremes of
of god-devil intercourse.
dc
— In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, panoptes69@a… wrote:
> You are a theorist, and NOT an initiate. I’ve read enough of your
Christian
> bull shit, and am fed up with it. If you knew anything about the
goat man,
> the formula of shin ayin peh, I O PAN ! , You would not have
spouted such
> ignorance as that in this post.
>
> Panoptes
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 1499
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
>>>>>>>Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-
oriented acid rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours,
while a pop-sike single lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.>>>>>>>>>>>
Ever listen to “Le Voyage,” by Pierre Henry? Or Mayazumi’s “Nirvana
Symphony.” Never have I heard better ego loss soundtracks then
these.
If you are unfamiliar with these, I recommend them highly. In Le
Voyage , (1962-Musique Concrete) there is a distinct moment when the
ego is destroyed, but listening to it in normal consciousness it
sounds like at that moment, a bowling ball being flushed down a
toilet, into a really deep sewer. Nirvana Symphony has to be the
most transcendent piece ever written is takes one through the
scariest trials of DNA cybernetics and then brings one into a state
of oceanic consciousness.
Both of these are on LP and CD and are hard to find…unless one
knows someone who has them, or one is really determined to find them
on ebay.
it is interesting how lyrics and pure sound/music, serve a related
but different function during the entheogenic experience.
> Early in this discussion group I posted an analysis of Bohemian
Rhapsody —
> very heavy ego-death/acid mysticism allusions. I consider Queen
one of the
> groups that has a full grasp of the entheogen rock religion, but
prefers to
> write isolated songs focusing on that subject.
>
> Rush, as a philosophy group ought, chooses to allude to the
subject more
> consistently or relentlessly throughout their albums, particularly
their
> classic-era albums Caress of Steel through Grace Under Pressure
(mid-1970s to
> mid-1980s).
>
> Black Sabbath treated LSD religion as a substantial but not
emphasized portion
> of their drug-alluding Heavy Rock scope — Ozzy’s first two solo
albums,
> however, emphasized LSD, according to my interpretation. I have
heard that
> LSD was used routinely by many bands as part of lyric writing; I
suspect that
> was a trick of the trade, used for albums such as one by the Cars.
>
> There is a distribution of acid-mysticism allusions at the level
of a band, an
> album, a song, or a verse — at any level there may be a high
density of
> allusions. One technique is to insert a verse dense with
allusions into a
> song that otherwise is innocent of such allusions. Metallica’s
For Whom the
> Bell Tolls, Cheap Trick’s Way of the World. This verse is a key
suggesting
> reading the remaining lyrics in their mystical sense, though the
other lyrics
> are not themselves filled with dense allusions.
>
> That is like a mundane-state, ordinary song about flying in
airplanes, with
> the middle verse switching to overtly double-coded meaning such
as “a trip so
> high, visions before my eye”, which would then switch the meaning
of the other
> lyrics too. This is the theory or principle of remote cueing.
Suppose only
> half of the verses in Caress of Steel are, considered in
isolation, clearly
> entheogenic, and the other verses are no more entheogenic than any
straight
> lyrics would randomly happen to be.
>
> Yet considered as a whole, the entire album and all its lyrics
would demand to
> be interpreted entheogenically, even the average verses, due to
the presence
> in the package of the strongly entheogenic verses. This formula
makes great
> sense, more so than proposing, say, an entire album with just one
verse meant
> to be heard in its entheogenic sense, because if the listener is
in a 12-hour
> altered-state session, the mind will be in the encoding/decoding
state for all
> of the verses, not just for one song.
>
> Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-
oriented acid
> rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours, while a pop-sike
single
> lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.
Group: egodeath
Message: 1500
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Nirvana, metaphor, kingdom of heaven
>>>>> I completely reject the notion that expedient means is an
option that works
better than explicit explanation of the principles of enlightenment.
The most
expedient means are entheogens, combined with teaching rational
explicit
systematic principles, combined with teaching how
mystic/mythic/religious
metaphor works as a poetic encoding/decoding system.>>>>>
The Saddharma Pundarika is very explicit that the use of expedients
is used when peop;e lose their seeking mind. recptivity is
important. If a person isn;t receptive, then they need a severe
disruptive force, befoe they become receptive, otherwise an
expedient is used to inspire or motivate them. Without receptivity
no one will listen, no matter how great the discourse. At the same
time, the Sutra also refutes the use of expedient means at a time
when the times are such that it is too late to use an expedient…at
that time the teaching is taught directly.
If being direct doesn;t work, then the person is still subject to
Nature’s expedient—-DEATH itself. The Expedient of Death (Upaya
Nirvana) (Jap. Himyo Hobemn gen Nehan) occurs anturally. At the
moments approaching death, of in the case of a entheogenic
experience, suddenly a person aspires “to see the Buddha.” There
formerly unreceptive mind sufdenly becomes receptive. At that time,
when they are told the law directly, they at first, may hate it and
slander it—yet that same hate and slander forms the connection to
it. (called the Poison Drum effect)….this was told in analogy in
a story that a person kicked the Buddha and the person fell
into “hell,” except for the foot.
An excellent passage by Sun Lotus about refuting the expedient
means, which will really help you understand the high Mahayana
meaning:
“However, the Buddha’s teachings are various, perhaps because
people’s minds also differ greatly. In any event, Shakyamuni taught
for no more than fifty years. Among the teachings he expounded
during the first forty years and more, we find the Kegon Sutra,
which says, “The mind, the Buddha and all living beings – these
three things are without distinction”; the Agon sutras, which set
forth the principles of suffering, emptiness, impermanence and
egolessness; the Daijuku Sutra, which asserts the interpenetration
of the defiled aspect and the pure aspect; the Daibon Hannya Sutra,
which teaches mutual identification and non-duality; and the
Muryoju, Kammuryoju and Amida sutras, which emphasize rebirth in the
Land of Perfect Bliss. All these teachings were doubtless expounded
in order to save all living beings in the Former, Middle and Latter
Days of the Law.
Nevertheless, for some reason of his own, the Buddha declared in the
Muryogi Sutra, “[Expounding the Law in various ways,] I made use of
the power of expedient means. But in these more than forty years, I
have not yet revealed the truth.” Like a parent who has second
thoughts about the transfer deed he has written out earlier, he
looked back with regret upon all the sutras he had expounded during
the past forty years and more, including those which taught rebirth
in the Land of Perfect Bliss, and declared [that no matter how
earnestly one may practice them,] “…in the end one will never
attain supreme enlightenment, even after the lapse of countless,
limitless, inconceivable asogi kalpas.” He reiterated this in the
Hoben chapter of the Lotus Sutra, saying, “Honestly discarding the
provisional teachings, I will expound only the supreme Way.”
By “discarding the provisional teachings,” he meant that one should
discard the Nembutsu and other teachings preached during the period
of those forty-some years.”
> >Nirvana=This has a number of meanings, depending on how it is
meant
> >in either low or high Buddhism. The literal term, actually
> >means “death,” or “extinction,” and referred to a goal of early
> >buddhism, to free oneself from the cycle of birth and death, which
> >was already the goal of the hindus……but in high mahayana
> >(Saddharma Pundarika) it was revealed that the teaching
> >of “Nirvana,” was actually a “Secret and Skillful Means of the
> >Buddha.” I already quoted the applicable passages in previous
posts
> >and I told the story of the “Transient Castle,” where the analogy
of
> >a leader of travelers conjures up a Castle to inspire the
travelers
> >to keep going to the goal and later it is discovered that the
Castle
> >was an illusion and then the real goal is revealed. This is a
> >fundamental principle of high Mahayana. Another Buddhist term
> >is “The Expedient means of Nirvana” means the “Expedient means of
> >Death,” wherein not only are expedients used by wise buddhas to
> >teach the law, but even nature itself, provides an “secret”
> >expedient means.
>
>
> This reminds me of an animated ad showing a man floating back and
forth in
> sitting meditation 9 inches above the ground. It that how I
picture
> enlightenment? Not at all, but perhaps it is comparable to how I
felt when I
> made sense of the construct of “kingdom of God” in terms of no-
free-will, Nov.
> 14, 2001, enabling me to finally form a systematic interpretation
of
> Christianity that fit with my since-1988 core model of block-
universe
> determinism.
>
> I had episodically experienced the return of the messiah and
entering the
> kingdom of God before, even connecting it with the no-free-will
concept (this
> was part of the “grand forking path” insight), but didn’t yet
secure a
> complete, systematic interpretation.
>
> Upon finally attaining a complete, systematic interpretation, for
a few days I
> was in heaven, in nirvana, not in the sense of being in a mystic
altered state
> while comprehending the metaphors, but rather, just being in the
normal state
> of consciousness but having a scientific/theoretic breakthrough
experience by
> reflecting on the experiences and insights of the mystic altered
state and
> reflecting upon how mystic-state metaphor works as a clever
systematic
> meaning-puzzle.
>
> In this sense, my full ascension into heaven didn’t occur in the
mystic
> altered state, but was heavily informed by the insights of the
mystic altered
> state, including insights about networks of word-meanings.
>
> The promise of entering a castle-like heaven, as in the book of
Revelation,
> can be an expedient means. Attaining a transformed, higher-
coherence
> worldmodel is like attaining a castle, entering a kind of blissful
nirvana,
> ascending to heaven in the company of the saints. The castle
could be
> considered real, as a certain kind of castle.
>
> Alan Watts is too much of a poet without explaining himself
explicitly: in the
> book The Way of Zen, he likes saying enlightenment is nothing to
be gained,
> but while true in a certain sense, I maintain that enlightenment
is something
> to be gained by the mind: a higher, more coherent worldmodel in
addition to
> the mind’s previous worldmodel.
>
> I completely reject the notion that expedient means is an option
that works
> better than explicit explanation of the principles of
enlightenment. The most
> expedient means are entheogens, combined with teaching rational
explicit
> systematic principles, combined with teaching how
mystic/mythic/religious
> metaphor works as a poetic encoding/decoding system.
>
> — Michael Hoffman
> Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath
Message: 1501
From: spastic_prune
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Since I’m mainly interested in the musical side of things, I’ve done
quite a bit of listening into the psychedelic genre. Personally, I
really like Tangerine Dream’s “Phaedra” and other albums by them.
The later stuff is less engaging and easily forgettable (such as the
soundtracks like “Oasis”), but earlier Tangerine Dream stuff (the 3
keyboard assault w/o percussion) is the most aural and psychedelic of
their eras.
> >>>>>>>Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-
> oriented acid rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours,
> while a pop-sike single lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> Ever listen to “Le Voyage,” by Pierre Henry? Or Mayazumi’s “Nirvana
> Symphony.” Never have I heard better ego loss soundtracks then
> these.
>
> If you are unfamiliar with these, I recommend them highly. In Le
> Voyage , (1962-Musique Concrete) there is a distinct moment when
the
> ego is destroyed, but listening to it in normal consciousness it
> sounds like at that moment, a bowling ball being flushed down a
> toilet, into a really deep sewer. Nirvana Symphony has to be the
> most transcendent piece ever written is takes one through the
> scariest trials of DNA cybernetics and then brings one into a state
> of oceanic consciousness.
>
> Both of these are on LP and CD and are hard to find…unless one
> knows someone who has them, or one is really determined to find
them
> on ebay.
>
> it is interesting how lyrics and pure sound/music, serve a related
> but different function during the entheogenic experience.
>
> dc
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> — In egodeath@yahoogroups.com, “Michael Hoffman” <mhoffman@e…>
> wrote:
> > Early in this discussion group I posted an analysis of Bohemian
> Rhapsody —
> > very heavy ego-death/acid mysticism allusions. I consider Queen
> one of the
> > groups that has a full grasp of the entheogen rock religion, but
> prefers to
> > write isolated songs focusing on that subject.
> >
> > Rush, as a philosophy group ought, chooses to allude to the
> subject more
> > consistently or relentlessly throughout their albums,
particularly
> their
> > classic-era albums Caress of Steel through Grace Under Pressure
> (mid-1970s to
> > mid-1980s).
> >
> > Black Sabbath treated LSD religion as a substantial but not
> emphasized portion
> > of their drug-alluding Heavy Rock scope — Ozzy’s first two solo
> albums,
> > however, emphasized LSD, according to my interpretation. I have
> heard that
> > LSD was used routinely by many bands as part of lyric writing; I
> suspect that
> > was a trick of the trade, used for albums such as one by the Cars.
> >
> > There is a distribution of acid-mysticism allusions at the level
> of a band, an
> > album, a song, or a verse — at any level there may be a high
> density of
> > allusions. One technique is to insert a verse dense with
> allusions into a
> > song that otherwise is innocent of such allusions. Metallica’s
> For Whom the
> > Bell Tolls, Cheap Trick’s Way of the World. This verse is a key
> suggesting
> > reading the remaining lyrics in their mystical sense, though the
> other lyrics
> > are not themselves filled with dense allusions.
> >
> > That is like a mundane-state, ordinary song about flying in
> airplanes, with
> > the middle verse switching to overtly double-coded meaning such
> as “a trip so
> > high, visions before my eye”, which would then switch the meaning
> of the other
> > lyrics too. This is the theory or principle of remote cueing.
> Suppose only
> > half of the verses in Caress of Steel are, considered in
> isolation, clearly
> > entheogenic, and the other verses are no more entheogenic than
any
> straight
> > lyrics would randomly happen to be.
> >
> > Yet considered as a whole, the entire album and all its lyrics
> would demand to
> > be interpreted entheogenically, even the average verses, due to
> the presence
> > in the package of the strongly entheogenic verses. This formula
> makes great
> > sense, more so than proposing, say, an entire album with just one
> verse meant
> > to be heard in its entheogenic sense, because if the listener is
> in a 12-hour
> > altered-state session, the mind will be in the encoding/decoding
> state for all
> > of the verses, not just for one song.
> >
> > Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-
> oriented acid
> > rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours, while a pop-
sike
> single
> > lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.
Group: egodeath
Message: 1502
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 24/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
Since I’m mainly interested in the musical side of things, I’ve done
quite a bit of listening into the psychedelic genre. Personally, I
really like Tangerine Dream’s “Phaedra” and other albums by them.
The later stuff is less engaging and easily forgettable (such as the
soundtracks like “Oasis”), but earlier Tangerine Dream stuff (the 3
keyboard assault w/o percussion) is the most aural and psychedelic
of
their eras.
-greg<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
The beginnings of modern “Space music,” and it’s roots in older
music is a pretty obscure and interesting. Tangarine dream was one
of the first to be doing this consistently in the pop genre.
Michael Stearns first album, “Ancient Leaves” was a breakthrough
album, a favorite of mine.
In 1969 after the Yardbirds broke up in 1968, Keith Relf and Jim
McCarty founded the “classical-rock” “Renaissance,” and only did 2
albums before they allowed others to take over for them. At the end
of the firast album is a short segment of organic, ethereal sounds
that was a true Breakthrough, harkening back to the ancient sounds
of bells and Shakuhachi, like wind blowing through a hollowed tree
stump, a ghostly effect that conjured up the feeling of death (death
of ego). Later Electronic space music tended to lack the organic
sounds. The gutiar bowing done by Jimmy Page with the Yardbird’s
original “Dazed and Confused” and then Led Zeppelin’s version, also
had that organic, analog sound, “Ancient Leaves,” also, although
electronic, also had an organic sound. The organic quality seems to
triggers certain feelings of unconscious natural processes, that tap
into primordial events. Tangerine dream, in the early albums also
tapped into this at times.
The Musique Concrete of Pierre Henry, especially Le Voyage, using
only analog sounds seems to be the sound of sentient and insentient
processes, gasping for the last breath, until everything is
dissolved in the void. Much of this work was done using balloons
being deflated like shreiking whoopie cushions, in mutiple tracks.
Producing the effect of irrevocable dissolution of body and
consciousness, giving way to electronic, but still organic sounds,
with a random quality of the touchdown into the state of limbo and
then into a rebirth into a womb. Le Voyage, was intended as a aural
version of the Tibetan book of the Dead. Other works work by Henry
was Le Livre des Morts Egyptien, based on the Egyptian Book of the
Dead, and L’Apocalypse de Jean are among my favorites. His work is
very different from that of Stockhausen and Cage, which seems to
come from an entirely different place steering away from the organic
quality, into a more normal consciousness mode of thought.
Wendy Carlos in 1972, did a very organic piece called “Sonic
Seasonings,” and also has done a number of other things with a very
organic sound.
In the entheogenic experience the sound of death and the sound of
angelic choirs, have a distinct effect on the listener. The former
is of ego death the latter a rebirth.
Lyrics in psychedelic rock seem to key into the hypersuggestible
state and the meaning of the words tends to work by association and
in that state, where words have power to open various doors.
Latter “avante garde” music, Tangerine dream, Jean Michel-Jarre,
Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, Philip Glass and others in latter works
seemed to focus on movie soundtracks, melodies and more commercial
uses of electronic music. Heavy Metal descended from the austere
Yardbirds, who built their true reputation, not around their few
albums, but around their profound, very organic, live performances,
based in what Jeff Beck had called “perversions of sound.” Heavy
Metal/Psychedelic rock then went into many directions, some
commercial and some not, but with encoded psychedelic lyrics,
written on LSD. What I saw was that people tended to imprint the
music they heard in their first experiences with entheogens and
often they were unable to see the sequences of musical history in
the psychedelic genre.
Every so often I delve into the biographies of Stravinski, convinced
he must have expanded his consciousness….I have always wondered
how Stravinsky, composed the Rite of Spring in 1913…….it changed
everything in music. Later he became friends with Aldous Huxley,
but I have not found any connection to entheogenic use in
Stravinsky’s life in that early period, alhtough I find it hard to
believe he was naturally that brilliant.
dc
*******
Here is a good little essay from the web on Musique concrete and
Pierre Henry:
Pierre Henry: Beyond Schaeffer
John Donohue SP ’99
When musique concrete is mentioned the first name that comes to mind
is Pierre Schaeffer. He coined this term to describe a new form of
music which he developed that was based on the acoustical
manipulation of recorded sounds. Schaeffer was not a musician,
though, he was a telecommunications engineer1 who lived through Nazi
occupation of France. His revolt from the German atonal contemporary
music led him to this new territory. Unfortunately, most of his
music was not of a caliber to convince classical snobs of the
validity of using found sounds instead of instruments.
Much of Schaeffer’s successful work was in collaboration with
another French composer, who unlike Schaeffer was a classically
trained musician. This artist was Pierre Henry. The two worked
together on one of Schaeffer’s most successful works Symphonie pour
un Homme Seul. Pierre Henry became one of the leading figures in
music concrete after this and soon surpassed Schaeffer. Instead of
confining himself to a narrow field of development and
experimentation Henry expanded his musical endeavors in many
directions.
Pierre Henry was born in 1927 in Paris. He was unhealthy as a child
and did not attend school but instead had private tutors. Of his
musical beginning Henry says, “I had started my career as a
percussionist quite early, beating on anything around me; furniture,
the tables, the drums. I arrived at the moment of creating a noise,
and went on to create something entirely new.2″ By 1944 he was
studying at the Paris Conservatory and taking lessons from very
important musical figures in the twentieth century. His piano and
percussion teacher was Passeronne, and his theory and composition
lessons were with Olivier Messiaen and Nadia Boulanger.
In 1949 Pierre Henry won a commission to compose the music for a
television documentary “Seeing the Invisible.”His earlier work had
been traditional instrumental music. Later that year he began work
with Schaeffer on the Symphonie pour un Homme Seul. This consists of
ten movements which are meant to invoke the sounds a man hears
walking alone at night.3 All of the sounds are created by the human
body. Most or all of Henry’s music is programmatic and his titles
are the key to understanding the theme of each piece. In 1951 he
joined the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrete which was based
in Schaeffer’s state funded studio Radiodiffusion Francaise. This
year Henry and Schaeffer collaborated on another major piece,
Orpheus. This was an opera for voices and musique concrete. This
piece wasn’t performed in its entirety until 1953 in the
Donaueschingen Festival in Germany.4 In good tradition this debut
was met with public outrage.
By 1952 Henry was the director of the Groupe de Recherche de Musique
Concrete and he remained in that position until 1958. Pierre Henry
was also a film afficionado and in 1952 he wrote the score to
Astrologie which was the first commercial film in France to have an
electro- acoustic score. This was a first move towards later
audio/visual compositions that Henry wrote. In 1952 he also wrote
Antiphonie which was a contrast between two sound groups.
Pierre Henry became more interested in techniques outside of the
strict musique concrete that Schaeffer theorized, and in 1958 he
broke away from the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrete and
established his own studio, the Studio Apsome. This was the first
private electronic music studio in France.5 He wanted to incorporate
synthesized sounds with other musical techniques that had been
developed. One key aspect of the career of Pierre Henry is
hybridization of ideas and technology. His compositions of 1959,
Entity, Coexistence, and Investigations used elements of synthesized
sounds along with the found sounds of musique concrete.6
The early 1960’s were an interesting time in Henry’s career. He did
a project with a rock group, Spooky Tooth, although he didn’t like
the heavy bass and reverb laden vocals.7 In 1962 he wrote a major
piece, Le Voyage, which was entirely synthesized. In 1963 Variations
for a Door and a Sigh were composed using found sounds in variation
to create a seventeenth century French suite. The next year Henry
made some popular success with his recording Jerks Electronique
which sold over 150,000 copies.8
In the later sixties Henry wrote some religious works including the
Messe de Liverpool in 1967-68. He also composed a piece based on the
book of revelations L’Apocalypse de Jean. Both of these recordings
have narration which remains intelligible over the intricacies of
his electroacoustic composition. In 1971 he wrote a large scale
audio/visual work which depicted brain waves as electronic sounds
and images. This was Mise en Musiaue du Corticolart. He has also
written other audio/visual works like L’Homme a la Camera which is
based on a film of the same name. In 1973 Henry wrote La Dixome (the
tenth) which is based on excerpts from Beethoven’s nine symphonies
which are manipulated into a tenth.
Many of Pierre Henry’s compositions have been choreographed for
ballet by Maurice Bejart. These include Astrologie, Variations for a
Door and a Sigh, Le Voyage, Mass for Today, and Symphonie pour un
Homme Seul. Henry actually toured globally with Bejart’s dancers as
their sound technician.9
One common theme of Henry’s work is death in a literary sense. Le
Voyage is based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, while Le Livre des
Morts Egyptien is based on the Egyptian book of the dead. He also
wrote L’Apocalypse de Jean which describes the apocalypse. Formally
his pieces are not anarchistic although their electronic nature may
make it seem that way. Several pieces are based on classical forms
like Symphonie pour un Homme Seul and Variations for a Door and a
Sigh. Henry says, “one of course has to compose with a direction, a
lucid idea. One has to have in mind a certain construction, a
form.10″ Since traditional devices like harmony and melody are
obscured one thing that is left is rhythm. “There is always a beat
in my music. The beat is what I find more interesting than something
asymmetrical. Everything has to be natural for me.11″
Henry has very distinct views on technology. When he began work on
electronic music the only medium was disque souple, or soft disk.
This was very difficult to work with and precarious because it was
easily damaged and couldn’t overcome generational loss. Next came
magnetic tape which was the most important medium for musique
concrete. Now with the widespread use of digital technology things
have changed again. Of digital Henry says:
“There are many things we can do with digital sound such as
uncovering the original sound. All sounds become original sounds,
the sound of the beginning. That’s interesting but there is a
betrayal in the sense that digital sound is not as good as
analogical sound. It has less strength, less impact, less presence.
Therefore it’s necessary to mix analog, that is, old equipment with
new equipment. We can’t get rid of old equipment. We still need to
have the future connected to the past.12″
Again Henry is talking of the need for a hybrid between two schools
of thought. Henry adds,
“I have always struggled to have the sounds retain their
transparency. Now I have conquered these problems, thanks to digital
techniques. It is possible to make a perfect copy, but I am worried
about the machines doing the work that I should be doing. . . The
computer works instead of you . . . I think that we now live in a
dangerous age because the composer should certainly not work with a
tap, that he can open or close.13″
The dedicated work of electronic music composers has led to more
widespread use of electronic techniques in everyday life. However
this mass commercialization has done nothing to elevate the art form
or endeavors of its predecessors. Henry sees this music
as, “absolutely disgraceful on the radio, at the cinema, in adverts.
And I see that at the moment there is one sound. Not sounds. One
single sound, everywhere, It’s a sound that has been
standardized.14″
The career of Pierre Henry has gone from humourous pieces to
contemplative works on ponderous subjects. He went from being a
frail child to an avant garde composer to a rock star and back
again. It was his musical sensibility, intricacy, and openness to
new techniques that made him a much greater composer than his
predecessor Schaeffer. And it was his ability to write for film, or
recording, or live performance, or opera, or ballet which truly set
him apart from other composers for electroacoustic music.
———————————————————————
———–
Bibliography:
Ernst, David. Musique Concrete. Boston, Massachusetts, Crescendo
Publishing Company, 1972.
> >>>>>>>Album-oriented rock started as trip soundtrack rock. Single-
> oriented acid rock was impractical, because LSD lasts 12 hours,
> while a pop-sike single lasts only 3-1/2 minutes.>>>>>>>>>>>
>
> Ever listen to “Le Voyage,” by Pierre Henry? Or
Mayazumi’s “Nirvana
> Symphony.” Never have I heard better ego loss soundtracks then
> these.
>
> If you are unfamiliar with these, I recommend them highly. In Le
> Voyage , (1962-Musique Concrete) there is a distinct moment when
the
> ego is destroyed, but listening to it in normal consciousness it
> sounds like at that moment, a bowling ball being flushed down a
> toilet, into a really deep sewer. Nirvana Symphony has to be the
> most transcendent piece ever written is takes one through the
> scariest trials of DNA cybernetics and then brings one into a
state
> of oceanic consciousness.
>
> Both of these are on LP and CD and are hard to find…unless one
> knows someone who has them, or one is really determined to find
them
> on ebay.
>
> it is interesting how lyrics and pure sound/music, serve a related
> but different function during the entheogenic experience.
>
> dc
>
>
Group: egodeath
Message: 1503
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 25/03/2003
Subject: Re: Nirvana, metaphor, kingdom of heaven
>Nevertheless, for some reason of his own, the Buddha declared in the
>Muryogi Sutra, “[Expounding the Law in various ways,] I made use of
>the power of expedient means. But in these more than forty years, I
>have not yet revealed the truth.” Like a parent who has second
>thoughts about the transfer deed he has written out earlier, he
>looked back with regret upon all the sutras he had expounded during
>the past forty years and more, including those which taught rebirth
>in the Land of Perfect Bliss, and declared [that no matter how
>earnestly one may practice them,] “…in the end one will never
>attain supreme enlightenment, even after the lapse of countless,
>limitless, inconceivable asogi kalpas.” He reiterated this in the
>Hoben chapter of the Lotus Sutra, saying, “Honestly discarding the
>provisional teachings, I will expound only the supreme Way.”
>By “discarding the provisional teachings,” he meant that one should
>discard the Nembutsu and other teachings preached during the period
>of those forty-some years.”
Honestly discarding the provisional teachings, I expound only the supreme Way,
which includes teaching the ultimate meaning of the provisional teachings.
>The goat also figures in the formula of shin ayin peh, I O PAN, somewhat
differently from the way the goat-man is used as an anthropomorphization of
the freewill assumption in Christian metaphor.
One should be cautious about too literally carrying over metaphor-matrixes
from one metaphor-system to another. It violates the rules of play in
mythic-mystic-metaphor. Each system of metaphor needs to be considered on its
own terms. All high myth is ultimately equivalent, but any one symbol, such
as the goat, is joined to other symbols in a unique matrix of connections
within each system.
In official Christian myth-religion, there is one God, who transcends the
cosmos and created the cosmos. In Gnostic religion, there are two gods — the
perfectly good god, who transcends the cosmos, and the evil or deluded god,
creator of the cosmos. So, is the “God” mytheme positive or negative? It
depends on the context, on which system of metaphor.
We can say “in mythic mystic-state metaphor, the goat symbol represents
individual will”, but that’s just a fair first-order assessment. When
considering the goat in different religions, the statement must be qualified
and there can be exceptions.
Sometimes functionally equivalent mythemes in two different systems are
essentially the same, but look, at first glance, quite different: for example,
Catholic “purgatory” is functionally equivalent to Buddhist “rebirth”: both of
these symbols represent the gradual nature of the transformation from the
egoic mental worldmodel to the transcendent worldmodel during a series of
intense mystic altered-state sessions.
It’s natural to contrast and compare goats and sheep — they are very similar
as domesticated livestock. There is a certain equivalence in sacrificing a
sheep or goat; they both represent “something about the nature of the human
‘organ’ of will”. In Satanism, the goat-oriented pentagram is an affirmation
of free will or the potency of will.
Goats love mushrooms and will fight for them — see the recent book:
Greek Tragedy is “goat-song”. Tragedy and comedy were combined, altogether
commenting on the pathos of the freewill delusion. Tragedy lamented the
non-sovereignty of the ego; comedy mocked and laughed at it. Part of the
festivities was to try to balance on a goatskin filled with wine (possibly
mixed wine, that is, psychoactive wine).
Studying what the goat meant to the ancient Greeks would surely reveal a great
deal about Hellenistic myth-religion. Dionysus and goats are found each
other. I posted before my reading of the series of mythic initiation frescoes
in an Italian villa. Pan, panic, and ego-death are closely related.
Mythic elements always are variable, because mythic-mode cognition
transcendently operates on mythic-mystic symbols. However, the mode or
ultimately implied framework; the logical mechanics, remain the same.
There is no direct correlation of all aspects of the Pan and Devil figures,
but both figures, in their respective mythic systems, are closely keyed into
transcendent insight into the illusory and conventional nature of the
freewill/separate-self delusion — keyed in, one way or another, just as the
serpent is an extremely variable figure, highly liable to invert. The most
highly charged symbols are the most liable to invert from representing truth
and error.
The serpent is a highly flexible figure because it can be low — underground,
as a cthonic, netherword symbol standing for death and ego-death, and can also
be high, like the serpent raised up.
Poison and healing medicine, associated with venom, were held to be related.
The term “potion” and the mytheme of “poisoned mixed wine” follow this logic,
as do the dangerous scopalimine entheogens or deliriants, which are almost as
likely to cause bodily death as mystic death and rebirth — it can make you
“youthful again” (reborn after mystic death”, or can kill you (see the Greek
myth of Hekate tricking the king’s daughter into boiling to death instead of
rejuvenating the king).
— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath
Message: 1505
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 25/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
In addition to double-entendres in lyrical words, and altered-state musical
sounds, there are hybrids, such as double-speak mumbling or double-tracked
vocals singing two different but similar sounding words together.
One of the most inventive and brilliant sonic allusions to LSD ever is the
uneven heartbeat (heart palpitations) at the end of the space-trip song Cygnus
X-1. This sound is a total givaway communicating the presence of LSD, but
only to those who are real veterans who have made a serious and sustained
study of the subject.
What about this — would you call it lyric, or music? In the song “Flying
High Again”, Ozzy sings “Never heard a thing I said”, then ping-ponged is the
pseudo-delayed “said” echoed twice, but it’s actually the word “dead”: “Never
heard a thing I said (dead, dead).” The song “Chemistry” by Rush uses
strategic mumbled words often.
Probably the deservedly most famous sonic allusion to LSD-triggered ego death
is the orchestral build-up, twice, at the end of the Beatles’ album Sgt.
Pepper, in the song A Day in the Life, which perfectly captures the
orgasm-like timing of the ego-death realization buildup.
The end of Cygnus X-1 is Rush’s exact equivalent to the build-up in Day in the
Life, so that we could say Cygnus X-1 is Rush’s “A Day in the Life”.
— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath
Message: 1506
From: spastic_prune
Date: 25/03/2003
Subject: Re: Acid Rock lyrics: remote cueing across verses
I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard “Cygnus X-1” compared
to “A Day In the Life”. Fabulous. Much thanks.
> In addition to double-entendres in lyrical words, and altered-
state musical
> sounds, there are hybrids, such as double-speak mumbling or double-
tracked
> vocals singing two different but similar sounding words together.
>
> One of the most inventive and brilliant sonic allusions to LSD
ever is the
> uneven heartbeat (heart palpitations) at the end of the space-trip
song Cygnus
> X-1. This sound is a total givaway communicating the presence of
LSD, but
> only to those who are real veterans who have made a serious and
sustained
> study of the subject.
>
> What about this — would you call it lyric, or music? In the
song “Flying
> High Again”, Ozzy sings “Never heard a thing I said”, then ping-
ponged is the
> pseudo-delayed “said” echoed twice, but it’s actually the
word “dead”: “Never
> heard a thing I said (dead, dead).” The song “Chemistry” by Rush
uses
> strategic mumbled words often.
>
> Probably the deservedly most famous sonic allusion to LSD-
triggered ego death
> is the orchestral build-up, twice, at the end of the Beatles’
album Sgt.
> Pepper, in the song A Day in the Life, which perfectly captures the
> orgasm-like timing of the ego-death realization buildup.
>
> The end of Cygnus X-1 is Rush’s exact equivalent to the build-up
in Day in the
> Life, so that we could say Cygnus X-1 is Rush’s “A Day in the
Life”.
>
>
> — Michael Hoffman
> Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath
Message: 1507
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 26/03/2003
Subject: Re: Day of wrath, narrow aversion of control-loss disaster
>>Seminar with Dale Allison, author of _Jesus: Millennial Prophet_ begins
Subject: Jesus, king of the puppets in God’s arrived kingdom
Jesus, king of the puppets in God’s secretly arrived millenarian kingdom,
which is in fact as near as tonight’s sacred meal
I’m trying to formulate this as a question for Dale Allison, though I as yet
have no question, merely a more successful explanation of the apocalyptic mode
of conceptualization. I don’t assume I have anything to learn from Allison,
but any engagement has already proven helpful for clarifying. What should I
ask him: “Why, specifically and in detail, don’t you abandon your view and
adopt my superior view instead?”
In Ideology and Apocalyptic, Allison quotes his passage from the book
Apocalyptic Jesus:
“… a Jesus who proclaimed the nearness of the end in the first century must
have been a real human being. This is no small point. Docetism may have been
condemned long ago as a heresy, but it has never gone away. Much of the
popular Christianity I have known seems to think that Jesus was at least three
fourths divinity, no more than one quarter human being. If we go back to the
ancient church, it wasnt much better. The theologians who confessed Jesus
true humanity balked at the implications. . . . Here is one point at which the
Fathers failed us.”
In Ideology and Apocalyptic, Allison writes:
“… Jesus’ eschatological convictions belong to mythology, even though such a
thought is foreign to the way in which own mind looked at the last things. He
surely construed his eschatological expectations pretty much as most
pre-moderns have construed Genesis 1-3, that is, more or less literally.108
[108: See Allison, Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 152-69.] But just as the
mythological character of Genesis does not bar us from interpreting and even
appropriating the text, so too is it with the old eschatological expectations.
In fact, I take much of biblical eschatology to be akin to Platonism; both are
mythological ways of directing us beyond this world, a larger reality about
which we cannot speak literally because it transcends our mundane minds, which
have after all evolved in order to interact with the material world around
us.109 [109: See further George Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross-roads
(London/New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1913). I find myself in essential
agreement. This in turn means that, in the end, I am close to where Dodd was,
the big difference being that I regard my interpretation as my interpretation,
not that of Jesus.] I would also assert that “the idea embodied in the
Eschatology of Jesus–the embodiment belonging to its own day–is that of the
ultimate triumph of God.”110 [110: Jackson, Eschatology, p. 350.]
In saying “I regard my interpretation as my interpretation, not that of
Jesus”, Allison asserts that the Historical Jesus was a mistaken and deluded
man who foolishly interpreted the apocalypse idea literally and taught that he
was the messiah of that literal apocalypse, while Allison himself holds a
sane, wise, and sober interpretation of the apocalypse idea as having its real
meaning in the realm of Platonism.
For Allison, what the apocalypse idea is really all about is a Platonism-type
philosophical concept that God will ultimately triumph, not that the
apocalypse will occur soon and is near in time.
I contrast, I present this truly sane, wise, and sober interpretation: Jesus
is an entirely mythic representation of the specific metaphysical experience
and conceptual realization which Hellenistic mystery-religion initiates and
Jewish mystics underwent subsequent to ingesting the sacred food and mixed
wine of the ritual meals that were standard and ubiquitous in the Hellenistic
world.
All the ideas swirling around the notion of “apocalyptic change of cosmic
rulership” make perfect sense and do not involve any confusion and
mistakenness on the part of Jesus, or rather, on the part of the skilled and
crafty mystic mythmakers who constructed the symbolic two-state,
meaning-flipping figure of Jesus so cleverly. The confusion is entirely on
the part of the uninitiated scholars. Dale Allison is the teacher who has a
mistaken interpretation of the idea of apocalypse.
Mr. Historical Jesus was completely correct: the end of time is as near as an
uninitiated, unregenerated follower’s last supper before taking up the cross
and thereby entering tonight into the secret kingdom of God, of which Jesus is
king — king of the metaphysical puppets, king of the enlightened, king of
“the Jews”, the elect who were predestined to realize in the mystic altered
state that there is no free will and no egoic moral agent to be the impure
carrier of moral sin and guilt.
All myth-religion of the Hellenistic era is ultimately and essentially
variations on these same themes. These type of ideas were standard in that
era; Christianity in its best form is a two-state play of signifiers that may
be more sophisticated and brilliant than even ancient Greek
tragedy/myth/religion and Jewish myth-religion.
This same tragi-comic two-state meaning-shifting was present in Greek and
Jewish religion, and from what I have seen, Christianity brought together the
cleverest of the Jewish and Hellenistic systems of meaning-flipping.
There was a certain boring similarity among the various Hellenistic
mystery-religions; they were too obviously equivalent, while the Jews were
admired for contributing a distinctive version that was mechanically
equivalent but stood apart in that it utterly reveled in the two-state
flipping, which required hyper-literalizing the surface, lower level of the
mythic symbol-system as pseudo-history.
Jewish religion was essentially a form of Hellenistic mystery-religion that
was entirely and determinedly translated into quasi-literal history while
retaining the consciousness that it was essentially an equivalent two-phase
meaning-flipping system pivoting around the ritual consumption of special food
and drink.
It’s as though there were 15 new mystery-religions including the most
synthetic of all, Sarapis, and bored heirophantic mystics sat around dreaming
up a new twist on the core engine, and translated the system into
pseudo-history. Instead of “the uninitiated and the initiated”, this would
become two nations, such as “the Jews and the Israelites”, “the Jews and the
Gentiles”, “the Jews and the Greeks”, and so on.
Of course the symbolic integrity of using contrasting nations to represent the
uninitatied and the initiated is challenged by the proposal that some Gentiles
may be saved — but these kind of “flaws” in the system were cleverly
integrated into the system. Dale Allison fails to recognize the humor present
when the scriptures pretend to “struggle” with these “problems” such as the
“problem” that Jesus’ prophecy of the end — taken literally — was obviously
false.
To the mystic-myth craftsmen, there are no serious problems, since the whole
system is just an artificial meaning-puzzle.
Similarly, there is a comical parody of intellectual struggle when the Paul
character “struggles” to nail down the specifics about when the living will
ascend into the kingdom of God, versus when the already bodily dead will
ascend — these subtle problems are intended to be ludicrous and comical,
mocking and making light of the absurdity that results when this synthetic
hyper-historicized version of the core mystery-religion is taken at its word
by the uninitiated.
Dale Allison holds that:
o Jesus and the other New Testament figures existed.
o Jesus believed and taught that there would be a literal apocalyptic
transformation of the world and its rulership, and it would happen soon.
o Jesus was mistaken that an apocalyptic transformation would happen soon; he
thought that a certain kind of intense and sudden political transformation of
the world would happen, but that kind of transformation didn’t happen.
o The OT and NT were written as serious history mixed with serious
supernatural religion.
I hold that:
o All the figures in the New Testament are purely and essentially mythic,
metaphorical, allegorical figures, with incidental exceptions such as the
Roman rulers.
o The Jesus figure was crafted as a focal point representing various aspects
of what the mystic-state initiate experiences in the standard Jewish mystic
initiation-feasts and Hellenistic mystery-religions centered around eating
sacred food and drinking mixed wine.
o The OT and NT were written as ironic tragi-comedy phrased as a clever
puzzle designed to flip between two matrixes of meaning, based on systematic
double-entendre as was used in Greek Attic tragedy.
o The Jesus figure was successfully crafted to support both meaning-matrixes,
so that the words attributed to him could be taken two ways: a literal
political apocalypse, or a mystic-experiencing apocalypse based on a
thoroughgoing specific transformation of the initiate’s mental worldmodel from
the specific egoic mental worldmodel to the specific transcendent mental
worldmodel regarding space, time, self, and control.
The designers of this apocalyptic Jesus figure were in full command of their
craft, and meant to craft and succeeded at crafting a figure that preached
literal apocalypse in an ambiguous way designed to flip between a distinct
coherent literalist meaning and a distinct coherent allegorical meaning.
The allegorical meaning was not vague or ethereal or subtle, but rather,
totally specific, consistent, and conceptually tangible: all the concepts or
elements such as “judgement”, “kingdom of God”, “evil”, “good”, “perdition”,
“death”, and “life” form a metaphor-system coherently describing the
transformation during the intense mystic altered state from the ego-delusion
centered mental worldmodel, based on the goat-like freewill assumption, to the
transcendent-centered mental worldmodel, based on the sheep-like experience
and realization of no-free-will.
For example, in the lower, pre-initiation meaning-matrix, freewill moral
agency is assumed, so “sin”, “good”, and “evil” are taken to mean a certain
axis that throughout assumes the freewill worldmodel. In the higher
meaning-matrix which the initiates have, no-free-will is taken as axiomatic,
so “sin”, “good”, and “evil” are redefined in concert. Being free of sin
means being free from the freewill moral agency delusion, good means believing
there is no free will, and evil means the worldmodel based on the freewill
assumption.
In the kingdom of God, we’re slaves or puppets of God, controlled by some
invisible “father” who/that is utterly hidden and transcendent. Because the
initiated mind considers everyone to be a puppet, all egoic guilt assumption
is taken away. In a particular, specifiable sense, deluded people are guilty
of assuming guilt-culpability, guilty of assuming they have free-will primary
sovereign control.
The crucifixion is purely a metaphor for how the mind during initiation puts
an end to the delusion of personal sovereign control over the mind’s own
thoughts. The expression represented in Jesus’ face is the expression of the
knowledge that there is no free will.
King Pentheus wrongly assumes he is a greater sovereign than Dionysus, but he
ends up suspended from the world-tree like a puppet dangling at the mercy of
the puppeteer. So is Jesus, as symbol of transcendent knowledge about
no-free-will, allegorized as the king of the puppets of God — king of the
ego-transcendent minds — the king of the Jews, where “Jew” here means
“initiate” or “mind that has experienced the sense of no-free-will and
conceptually grasped the principle of no-free-will”.
Peter cries out to Mary Magdalene: surely Jesus didn’t assert no-free-will; no
moral system could be based on that! Jesus did teach a still-workable ethics
for the “Jews”, who have renounced and crucified their freewill worldmodel:
how hard can it be? Love God, love your neighbor.
The “death/life” polarity is designed by the writers to flip from meaning
literal bodily death versus literal continuation of life, to meaning the
uniniated person’s liability to undergo mystic death and rebirth when
eventually initiated. The mind that has undergone mystic death has
permanently died that type of death and won’t die that death any more; their
life (transcendent mental model) is no longer subject to that death.
A classic effect in the intense mystic altered state is the sense of time
stoppage, the loss of the sense of free will, the loss of the sense of
separate-self, and the loss of the sense of self-control. The end of time
*is* near, as soon as the nearest meal of sacred food and mixed wine. The
last supper is the last meal the initiation candidates will ever eat while
living within the egoic mental worldmodel.
Their next meal, as Jesus’ next cup of mixed wine, will be in the kingdom of
God. The sacred meal shifts the center of control-attribution in the mind
from the ego to the transcendent, from the Ground of Being that is the cosmos,
or a compassionate transcendent controller thereof.
This is a plain, specific, sane, meaningful explanation, in contrast to the
vague “mythical misunderstanding” Dale Allison attributes to the Jesus who he
totally misreads as a literal, serious-thinking historical figure.
I am particularly interested in more detail about Allison’s belief that his
seminary students’ very popular “Docetism” is “a lie” and “misinformed”. His
insight-hungry seminary students, dead-serious inquirers, are reading Earl
Doherty’s book The Jesus Puzzle hidden underneath their course textbooks, and
he misunderstands this as “Docetism”, which would have an appearance of Jesus
literally moving about and making utterances just like the holographic doctor
in the Star Trek television series.
Conventional thinking might be startled by the view I’ve pulled together, but
what’s really crazy and incoherent is the historical Jesus scholars.
The entire “historical Jesus” mode of thinking inherently locks one into a
stance toward the scriptures that falls right into the trap that the
scriptures were designed to be, as a clever meaning-flipping system like Greek
tragedy, where the meaning pivots on reconnecting all the elements during the
intense mystic altered state precipitated by the world-shattering oral
teaching that occurred during the sacred meals of the Jews, the mystery
religions, the symposium philosophy parties, and the agape meals of the
earliest Christians.
To understand the Hellenistic religions, you have to think like the
Hellenists. How did the Hellenists think? Hellenists thought in terms of
2-stage meaning flipping, no-free-will, cosmic determinism, and the
distinction between the initiates, who have understanding, and the
uninitiated, who don’t have understanding.
The key to successful interpretation is the spirit of tragicomic irony; to
read the seriousness of the scriptures seriously is to fall into the trap
which the scriptures were designed to set. Without comic irony, the
scriptures remain read in the low mode of the uninitiated: serious
supernaturalism.
However, equally necessary is understanding that eating the divine flesh
causes the experience of no-free-will and loosens the mind’s cognitive
associations to enable the mental worldmodel to transform from a system based
on the animalistic freewill assumption to a system based on the no-free-will
axiom.
This is why the Eucharist is the absolute center of the liturgy and the
central pivot-point leading to Jesus’ crucifixion, when while eating and
drinking at the last supper, Jesus commissions Judas to betray him. That this
perfectly coherent and elegant explanation seems crazy exactly indicates how
truly crazy the scholarly world has become under the darkness of uninspired
literalist interpretation.
Contra Allison, Mr. Historical Jesus was not confused, or crazy, or incorrect,
and despite his nonexistence, could teach Allison a thing or three about the
Platonistic experience of apocalyptic. Repent, for the day of judgment is
indeed very near, and could even happen on this very night.
So what do you think — is my question ready to post to the Allison Seminar?
University lecture course about Historical Jesus as apocalyptic prophet by
Bart Ehman http://www.teach12.com/ttc/assets/coursedescriptions/643.asp – “Why do the
earliest sources at our disposal, including the Gospel of Mark, portray Jesus
as a Jewish apocalypticist, one who anticipated that God was soon going to
intervene in the course of history to overthrow the forces of evil and
establish his good Kingdom here on earth? How close is this portrayal to life?
Did Jesus proclaim a coming Kingdom? How are his references to the coming of
the “Son of Man” to be understood in light of the best historical analysis and
evidence we can muster? … how do Jesus ethical teachings, his own
activities, and the events of his final days fit into this analysis? Why did
Jesus go to Jerusalem at Passover, and what did he plan to do once he got
there? What was the situation he found? What were the intentions of those he
met there, including the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, the Temple
hierarchy, and the other Jewish authorities?” Lectures include Jesus and
Roman Rule, Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet, The Apocalyptic Teachings of Jesus,
Other Teachings of Jesus in their Apocalyptic Context, The Deeds of Jesus in
their Apocalyptic Context, The Prophet of the New Millennium.
Group: egodeath
Message: 1509
From: merker2002
Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Re: Jesus, king of the puppets in God’s arrived kingdom
>This is why the Eucharist is the absolute center of the liturgy and
the
>central pivot-point leading to Jesus’ crucifixion, when while eating
and
>drinking at the last supper, Jesus commissions Judas to betray him.
So what is the higher meaning of this? Jesus as the Cosmic Ruler
(master of puppets) commands Judas to betray him?
Also, the lower meaning does not make sense. Why should
Jesus elect someone to be betrayed??? Why does he want to be betrayed
at all? This is strange because
usually both interpretations should make sense. Here,
the lower just doesn’t make sense.
regs,
merker
Group: egodeath
Message: 1510
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: High and low meaning of Judas; degrees of coherence
>>This is why the Eucharist is the absolute center of the liturgy and the
central pivot-point leading to Jesus’ crucifixion, when while eating and
drinking at the last supper, Jesus commissions Judas to betray him.
>So what is the higher meaning of this? Jesus as the Cosmic Ruler (master of
puppets) commands Judas to betray him?
>
>Also, the lower meaning does not make sense. Why should Jesus elect someone
to be betrayed??? Why does he want to be betrayed at all? This is strange
because usually both interpretations should make sense. Here, the lower just
doesn’t make sense.
>
>regs,
>merker
There is a certain sort of coherence to low-level Christian thinking, though
it is fraught with problems — more problems than the relatively consistent
high-level interpretation. The lower mind is accustomed to fudging the gaps,
and there is always recourse to “It’s a mystery that is beyond the
comprehension of the sin-clouded mind.”
In high myth-religion, all the characters are aspects of the initiate’s
psyche. Judas, Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Virgin Mary, King Saul, King David,
Absolom, Balaam, Beloved Disciple, Lazarus, the Rich Man, the leper, the blind
man, the devil, the demons, Peter, the woman at the well, Jesse, Jacob, Adam,
Eve, the serpent — all are aspects of the initiate’s psyche.
So the question is, what aspect of the psyche does Judas represent? Judas
represents the egoic mind’s interesting, innate and ultimately divine
potential for self-betrayal. Judas is the self-betraying potential of egoic,
personal self-control. The mind in the experienced mystic state learns how to
pit self-control system against itself catastrophically, so that the mind
discovers how it can make its self-control contradict and cancel-out its own
logic and power.
Here the mind splits into a transcendent aspect, in some sense a “higher
controller”, and a lower aspect, which is mundane, ordinary self-control. The
latter is “Judas”, the former is “Jesus”. Each initiate must commission their
own inner Judas-nature to betray the actual logical flaws of personal
self-control, for the mind to kill the delusion of the egoic personal center
of control.
Mystic-state dynamics are very logical, but the allegory layer over them is
always a leaky abstraction. Egoic thinking is also a leaky abstraction: it
normally works well enough, but it works imperfectly, and when the mind
carefully studies why the egoic self-control logic works imperfectly, this can
lead to enlightenment.
Higher rationality is perfect in some way, but the mythic allegorization
layer, at least in the Christian system, is imperfect even when fully
understood as a model of transcendent insight and initiation dynamics. The
Christian system is designed as a two-layer meaning-flipping system, so it is
that much more interesting and tricky to make both the higher interpretation
and the lower interpretation watertight.
What does the Judas character mean in the lower meaning-mode? It’s clear,
everyone knows, that when Peter has the Beloved Disciple ask Jesus “who will
betray you?”, Jesus answers, “The one to whom I give bread.” Jesus gives
bread to Judas and actively tells Judas, “Go do what you are going to do; do
your thing; do what you exist to do; carry out your designed role; be what you
are; manifest your nature.”
This is not misunderstood; it’s clear that Jesus tells Judas to betray him.
There is no debate about that among the low-level Christians. The only
question for them is, *why* would Jesus do that? The low answer is that Jesus
accepted the will of God, no matter what, and knew that this betrayal is part
of God’s plan because God had determined since forever that this crucifixion
would happen as God’s way of saving sinners.
It was God’s will that Judas do his thing, and God’s will that Jesus indicate
full acceptance of Judas’ action and its consequence by actively commanding
Judas to do what God had willed to happen, what God had willed Judas to do as
part of the plan. Even when bad things happen to the Jews, everything is part
of God’s plan. Low-level Christian thinking is used to this way of thinking
and accepts what coherence it has.
Low religion isn’t totally incoherent; it’s coherent overall, in practice, as
a practical mode of mental operation. Egoic thinking is inherently based on
sand, a weak foundation of confusion. It is a house that holds together under
mundane conditions, but not under the storm of loose cognition.
The child’s thinking is workable and useful for the conditions encountered by
the child, but fails when encountering broader conditions such as the
loose-cognition state. The standard religious death and rebirth metaphor is
based on this inherent failure-potential. The mental worldmodel jumps from a
less-coherent version to a more-coherent version.
— Michael Hoffman http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath
Message: 1511
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Scope of Christian mythic system to be explained
My overall interpretive framework is settled, the period of revolutionary
science in this field is over, and now I’m in the period of normal science,
which amounts to filling in the holes within this framework. I can describe
the sorts of interpretations that have a large degree of fit. Some puzzle
pieces have to be shaken around for a couple years to fine-tune the fit.
There’s a certain point where the puzzle starts coming together routinely and
I’m into that phase, with much work remaining, including turning the puzzle
pieces several ways to find the best fit. Some ideas, I’m certain of — such
as goat = freewill, sheep = no-free-will. Others, like “vicarious atonement”
(God had such compassion on sinners that he gave his son as a sacrifice), I
have the right kind of interpretation but am still evaluating what is the most
cogent way of putting it.
The Christian 2-state meaning-system really is an assorted collection of
separate metaphor domains:
o “Redeem” is a metaphor based on wartime exchange of prisoner-slaves and
slave-trade conventions.
o The millennial messiah idea is based on revolutionary war leader figures.
o Sheep vs. goat is based on domesticated livestock.
o Astrotheology is also a transcendent symbolic system integrated into the
Christian system as the 12 disciples.
o Son of man, reborn, sacrifice of one’s firstborn son, hating your family,
becoming God’s son, this generation — all are metaphors from the “family” and
“generational” metaphor-space.
A given Christian mythic element can participate in several ways in each of
these allegory domains, so it really comes down to artistic, literary, or high
poetic judgment to decide which points to highlight, just as the three
synoptic Gospels all choose substantially different metaphors to emphasize.
In the end, the Christian mythic symbol-system is gluttonous, a catholic and
universal black hole of meaning into which everyone attempted to connect every
possible transcendent metaphor system.
No wonder it ends up being such a confusing, but also such a delightfully
crackable, meaning-puzzle. It’s got the skilled mystic-state allegorists
working as hard to unravel the many threads of meaning, as were required to
weave together all those threads borrowed from all the metaphor systems
everyone could think of, like a huge collective project that took place over
some centuries. Thus it is inherently debatable what the “main
metaphor-system” of Christianity is.
Luther Martin characterizes all mystery religion ultimately being about an
attempt to account for and relate to cosmic determinism — that’s like my
non-metaphorical, non-poetic core theory of transcendent knowledge.
When we understand the Christian coagulation of hundreds of disparate
transcendent symbol systems, combining many systems from Jewish religion,
Hellenistic religion, and philosophy, Christian symbolism is like a grab-bag
of all Hellenistic thinking and metaphor-systems all jumbled together. There
was much debate and contention in which alignment of allegory-domains would
win out.
The result in the canon was a viable compromise. Even then, there are
multiple canons even among the top sects: the Protestant canon excludes the
Apocrypha, which is perhaps why the Protestants are so innocent of thinking
spiritually.
The best example of how it’s hard to say exactly what the “Christian”
metaphor-system comprises, as a set of allegory-elements, is the Mary
Magdalene as Beloved Disciple and the one who Jesus pairs up with the Virgin
Mary from the cross: is this Mary Magdalene tradition “important”, is it
really a part of the Christian symbol-system, or not? It depends on which
sect you talk to, which group of religionists you talk to.
I would treat Mary Magdalene the same as the Apocrypha are treated:
semi-canonical; not absolutely essential. There are positively essential
meanings, optional meanings, and anti-essential meanings, such as the
crucified and resurrected king theme (essential), the Mary “John” Magdalene
theme (partly In, partly Out with respect to the canon), and the
beyond-the-pale two-gods theme which isn’t in the canon.
In addition, there are secret themes such as the entheogenic nature of all the
meals in the canon. The Christian system is completely unidentifiable if we
consider the cross and resurrection optional — you have no theory of
Christian mythic meaning if your theory omits the “crucified and resurrected
king” theme. In contrast, a theory of Christian myth can be quite complete
without accounting for the largely heretical Mary Magdalene theme which is
only half-reflected in the canon.
In contrast to the book “Jesus and the Goddess”, my strategy is the principle
that the best theory should focus first of all on the narrowest canon: making
full rational sense out of the Protestant canonical system of myth as it is
scoped in the conservative Protestant churches and books.
Then, if you can succeed at turning Protestant myth into a profound system of
initiation and enlightenment, expand the theory to cover the broader Christian
myth-system, including the Apocrypha, the full Mary “John” Magdalene
tradition, and Gnostic systems — or, “the Gnostic system”, again arriving at
the problem of narrow vs. broad, and single vs. multiple, varieties of a
myth-system.
These considerations apply to interpreting “the Islamic myth-system” and “the
Buddhist myth-system” as well: given the tremendous variations within each
religion, with multiple competing systems of lower-level and higher-level
symbol-systems, it’s questionable whether one can talk about “determining the
meaning of the Buddhist system of allegory”, since there is no single,
determinately bounded system.
We can’t solve the problem of what a myth-system means if we can’t even agree
what mythic elements are to be included in the scope of the meaning-system to
decode. If we agree that Mr. Historical Buddha taught demons, karma, rebirth,
deities, nirvana, and so on, then we think these mythic items must be covered
by a rational decoding in terms of the core theory of transcendent knowledge.
If we fancy that Mr. Buddha only taught clear, rational, direct things — only
including karma, for example — then we only expect a rational decoding of
“Buddhism” to talk about that set of mythic elements.
If I simply say that I have cracked the puzzle of “the Christian mythic
system”, what mythic elements will people assume I have explained? A great
example is, will they assume that I have a decoding of veneration of the
saints, or purgatory? Or would those be considered peripheral to “the
Christian mythic system”?
The best, most practical approach seems to be some sort of multi-layered
approach, distinguishing between explaining “the core Christian mythic system”
vs. “the overall, broad Christian mythic system” which would include the Mary
“John” Magdalene system (partly canonical) and the Apocryphal (canonical for
some leading sects but not others), and purgatory (not canonical for any sect,
but a major, established part of the leading sect’s tradition).
A theory explaining “the Christian mythic system” is poor if it can’t explain
the narrowest system — the Protestant mythic system, which knows nothing of
the Mary “John” Magdalene mythic theme — or the most popular though
extra-canonical system: the Catholic traditional mythic system, including
purgatory.
If you tell a Protestant that you have an explanation of the Christian mythic
system, they will assume you are strictly talking about the crucified and
resurrected king, but it won’t occur to them that you would explain purgatory
or Mary “John” Magdalene. Similarly, if you tell a Catholic that you have an
explanation of the Catholic or Christian mythic system, they will assume that
you are prepared to explain the mystic-state metaphysical meaning of
purgatory, and possibly the Apocrypha.
In the book “Jesus and the Goddess”, Freke and Gandy make a strategic mistake
of implying that the only way to make profound rational sense of Christianity
is by completely violating the scope of the canon, as though only by dragging
in the full Mary “Beloved Disciple” Magdalene tradition and the entire
“two-gods” tradition can Christianity serve as a profound, fully enlightening
system.
In fact, the Protestant tradition and canon, in which Mary Magdalene is not an
essential or active component, has been proven to be a complete, sufficient
system of conveying a 2-state meaning-flipping dynamic, expressing the switch
from egoic to transcendent thinking. When I first made the connection between
helplessness, no-free-will, danger, and the meaning of the Cross as a
willingly self-cancelled pseudo-sovereign, this revelation had nothing to do
with Mary “Beloved Disciple” Magdalene.
The Christian mythic system was always designed to be a universal, catholic
collection of the elements of all the religions known to the Roman empire —
this necessarily means that in practice, some of the areas of this giant
myth-combination ended up being more central, and other areas non-central, and
other areas ended up being considered important only for some sects (purgatory
in the Catholic version, two-gods in the Gnostic version).
The Protestant version of the Christian mythic system considers itself to be
uniquely founded on the core idea of salvation through faith alone, a faith
completely given as a gift to the utter sinner by God’s action alone.
We also ideally would need variations of the “explanation of the Christian
mythic system” for different varieties of Protestantism, such as Protestant
scholasticism (such as Reformed dogmatics theology) vs. late 20th-Century
evangelical Christianity: they technically have the same scope of mythic
elements, but there is a very different emphasis and character of approach to
those elements.
So the one who would explain “Christian” myth has some work to do just to
define *which varieties* of the *family* of Christian mythic versions will be
covered.
My inclination and poetic judgment as a theorist is that the first order of
business should be explaining what is common to all the leading sects — this
must mean explaining the Protestant system according not only to the
Protestant canon but also as heavily filtered through the Protestant
*tradition* which has surely entrenched itself despite all the efforts to
apply the principle of “scripture only, *not* adding extra-canonical Church
tradition”.
It’s debatable whether this means the ultra-purified Reformed dogmatics
theology, which may or may not be representative of de-facto, actual, lived
Protestantism. In short, the theorist of Christianity should define “typical,
common-core Christianity” which would surely include the crucified and
resurrected king, but not purgatory or Mary “Beloved Disciple” Magdalene.
There may be some good reason why I have addressed solving this scope of
common-core Christianity and was somewhat shaped by the denomination Church of
Christ. That denomination is an ideal reference point; it is definitive of
common-core Christianity in so many ways. It strives very hard to strictly
adhere to the elements of liturgy and practice as recorded in the New
Testament.
Their effort is highly distorted by not reading Greek and not understanding
the cultural context and not understanding the initiation aspects of mystery
religion, but that is standard for modern common-core Christianity. This
denomination was created to try to be as non-divisive as possible —
eliminating swearing to “man-made confessional statements” such as the
Westminster Confession — while trying to strip down the liturgy until it has
nothing but (their version of) what’s in the New Testament.
In that sense, this denomination is as ideal as can be found to represent the
minimum common core of the Christian mythic system. It’s a “conservative”
denomination in that it’s literalist, retaining a generally literalist belief
in heaven, hell, sin, judgement, and vicarious atonement.
Now you might say that “typical Christianity” is fuzzed-out, foggy and hazy,
mere mundane ethics that has essentially cast aside the Christian mythic
system, lacking a supernaturalist conception of the myth as well as an intense
mystic-state conception of the myth.
Is washed-out liberal Christianity a participant in the “common core”
Christian myth? To the degree that washed-out liberal Christianity (rejecting
low myth, ignorant of truly high myth) retains the Christian myth-system at
all, that brand of Christianity continues to participate in what I propose to
call the “common core Christian mythic system”. Even if such Christianity
foolishly rejects the idea of Jesus’ resurrection, it still is fully aware
that the resurrection was always considered to be the most essential thing.
Same with sects that so misunderstand the Eucharist that they have more or
less abandoned even going through the empty motions — I believe the Salvation
Army omits the Eucharist.
If a theory of Christian myth needs to be most widely relevant across all
Christian sects by a strategy of first decoding the “common core” Christian
myth, a perfect quick way of defining the scope of “common core” Christian
myth is to point to the myth-system that is held by the Church of Christ
denomination, which can be characterized by the keywords “minimalist”,
“conservative”, “literalist”, “scripture focused”, and “not hyperdogmatic like
pure Calvinism/confessional creeds”.
They are dogmatic and literalist, but don’t press the theological points to
the max; they are not “Protestant scholastics” and don’t make purity of
theology their foundation of salvation — the latter is not “common core
Christian myth”, but an eccentricity that is pretty much unique to one
denomination.
I’m not concerned here with defining the most true or coherent Christianity,
but rather, the most universally representative version of Christianity in
practice, with the greatest number of mythic elements that are shared by the
greatest number of sects. Imagine transparent sheets showing the spread of
mythic elements held by each sect, then overlay them — what is the
overlapping area? The crucified and resurrected king, and a narrow set of
other elements.
Sects like Church of Christ would fall entirely into that common overlapping
area. The Church of Christ sect, which claims to reject denominationalism
entirely, is extremely representative of what mythemes all Christian sects
share in common, probably because this sect tries as hard as possible to stay
within the worship style that is recorded in the scriptures, trying not to add
anything from Church tradition.
For example, icons are not mentioned in the New Testament, nor instrumental
music, not baptism of infants, so these aren’t present. But the Eucharist is
mentioned, and singing is mentioned, so these are prominently figured.
Actually this sect does even less – just a subset of things mentioned in the
New Testament.
Since the range of liturgical practice in this sect is so restricted to a
conservative subset of what’s in the New Testament, this sect’s restricted set
of Christian mythic motifs is an excellent definition of the scope of the
“common core Christian mythic system” and thus defines one extreme that the
theory of Christian myth must successfully decode.
At the other extreme would be the Catholic system, and beyond that, the most
complete theory would need to explain heretical and Gnostic Christian systems
as Freke and Gandy have begun to cover so well.
My criticism of Freke and Gandy is just like of Ken Wilber: because they scale
their explanation of “the Christian myth” only to the broadest and most
encompassing scale, their core theory falls short of breaking through in a way
that would explain the real meaning of Jesus that sweeps across all versions
of Christianity. They’ve done a fair job of explaining Gnostic Christianity,
but not an effective job of explaining the meaning of Jesus as he sits within
the common core Christian myth.
They have explained some religion, but not the Christian myth-religion as it
actually exists in all the mainstream sects. What I seek to do is to explain
the Christian myth-religion as it actually exists in all the mainstream sects,
which means, excluding a focus of Mary “Beloved Disciple” Magdalene.
*After* that common-core mythic system is decoded, then all variants such as
the Catholic and Gnostic variants, which are supersets of the common core, can
be much better and more profoundly explained. If a theory of the Christian
myth-religion covers the mythic system as held by the Church of Christ, which
is a certain minimalist variant, then the theory covers the core of all major
versions of the Christian mythic system.
— Michael Hoffman http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath
Message: 1512
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Bennett/Ruck’s cannabis Christ in Door Xn magazine
The Door, a religious satire magazine, March/April 2003, p. 40 has a half-page
article about Chris Bennett’s theory published in High Times magazine about
early Christian use of cannabis products, with a favorable quote from Carl
Ruck. The entheogen theory has been communicated by being publically
satirized.
I have asked the scholars to emphasize the use of multiple psychoactive plant
products — that point is too often hidden in footnotes. Bennett tends to
portray the Old and New Testaments as being informed *only* by cannabis, but
we should think in terms of “mixed wine” which could contain all known plants
in combination, including datura, ergot, Amanita, psilocybin, mandrake, opium,
alcohol, cannabis, and various other inebriants.
Instead of showing that one religion used one entheogen at one point in time
(the start), it’s time to show that all religions used all known entheogens at
all points in time. It’s only modern-era blindness and denseness that makes
us so grossly underestimate the extent of use of entheogens. Entheogen
scholars ended up selling themselves short, inadvertently ending up
communicating the assertion that entheogens generally were *not* used in
religion — the opposite of the intended message.
— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath
Message: 1513
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 27/03/2003
Subject: Fundamental Object Of Veneration For Contemplating The Mind
The following, is a writing by Sun Lotus (1273) It contains the
essense of High Mahayana Buddhism, as presented in 13th century
Japan. (Translated into literal english by Martin Bradley.
Enjoy.
dc
Title:
“The Thesis On The Instigator’s Fundamental Object Of Veneration For
Contemplating The Mind For The Fifth Five Hundred Year Period After
The Tathagata’s Passing Over To Nirvana
In the fifth fascicle of Universal Desistance from Troublesome
Worrying in Order to See Clearly, Whether you have three thousand
existential spaces or three thousand such qualities, the result is
the same, even if the way of going about it is different, it
says, `The one mind is endowed with ten dharma realms and since each
dharma realm is again endowed with the other ten, it becomes a
hundred dharma realms. Each realm is provided with thirty kinds of
existential space so we then have a hundred dharma realms furnished
with three thousand kinds of existential spaces. These three
thousand are contained in a single instant of thought. If there is
no mind then that is the end of it. But if there is even the tiniest
scrap of mind it is endowed with the three thousand.’ The text
continues until, `Because it becomes what is called the objective
realm of utterness and it is here where the meaning lies.’ Another
text says that each realm is endowed with the three kinds of
existential space.
A question is asked: does Profound Significance specify the
term `the one instant of thought containing three thousand
existential spaces’? The answer given is that Myoraku says, “It is
not specified.” The question is asked: does Textual Explanations
mention the term `the one instant of thought containing three
thousand existential spaces’? The answer is given: Myoraku says, “It
is not mentioned.” The question is asked: how does Myoraku explain
this? The answer is given: “Neither of the two texts have yet
mentioned the one instant of thought containing three thousand
existential spaces.” The question is asked: do the first, second,
third and fourth fascicles of Stopping in order to Contemplate
mention the term `the one instant of thought containing three
thousand existential spaces’? The answer is given: “Not at all”. The
question is asked: how can you prove this? The answer is given:
Myoraku states, “On coming to the exposition on how to correctly
contemplate the Dharmas in Stopping in order to Contemplate, he
particularly uses the three thousand as a guide.” Then there is a
query: in the second fascicle of Profound Significance it
says, `Again, each dharma realm contains the nine other dharma
realms; in those hundred dharma realms there are a thousand of the
such qualities.’ In the first fascicle of Textual Explanations it
says, `As each one of the senses and its object is endowed with the
ten dharma realms of which, again, each one is equipped with its own
ten respective realms; then in each one of these ten realms there
are ten such qualities, which makes it come to one thousand.’ In
Profound Significance of Kannon it says, `If the ten dharma realms
are mutually endowed, which makes them come to a hundred dharma
realms and then there are a thousand kinds of the such qualities of
nature and appearance darkly hidden in the mind, they may not be
before our eyes but the mind is fully endowed with them.’ The
question is asked: is the term `the one instant of thought
containing three thousand existential spaces’ mentioned in the first
four volumes of Stopping in order to Contemplate? The reply is:
Myoraku says, “It is not.” The question is asked: how does he
explain this? Answer: in the fifth fascicle of Broad Elucidation it
says, `If you aspire to correct contemplation the complete practice
has not yet been fully discussed, moreover there are twenty five
dharmas to work through which in practice give rise to
understanding. In all conscience they are to be endured as an
expedient means for correct observance. For this reason the first
six fascicles all may be counted as bringing about understanding.’
Also in the same book it says it is for this reason that when
Stopping in order to Contemplate comes to explain how one should
contemplate the dharmas correctly, the three thousand was
particularly used as a compass. This therefore is the final
superlative of the ultimate discourse. This is why Shoan, in the
middle of his introduction, affirms that it is Tendai’s discourse on
the gateway to the Dharma, which he himself practised in his
innermost, being. Indeed he had a reason for this and entreats those
who seek to read this work not to seek affinities elsewhere.
That wise person Tendai widely spread abroad the Dharma for thirty
years. In twenty-nine years he expounded all the implications of
Profound Significance and Textual Explanations, he also made clear
the five periods and eight teachings as well as the hundred realms
and the thousand such qualities. Not only did he refute the
fallacies of the previous five hundred years but also brought to
light that which had not yet been expounded by the Indian teachers
of dogma. The Universal Teacher Shoan said, “Even the Indian
Universal Discourse is not of his calibre so why should we go as far
as to trouble ourselves talking about the scholars of China? This is
not boastful arrogance, the nature of his Dharma is just as it is.”
What hopelessness it was that the latter scholars of Tendai let
those thieves, the founders of the Flower Garland [Kegon] and True
Word [Shingon] schools, steal and spirit away the weighty treasure
of the one instant of thought containing three thousand existential
spaces and then, ironically, they became fellow disciples of those
schools. The Universal Teacher Shoan already knew this when he
commented with grief, “Should this principle fall away the future
will be bleak indeed.”
The question is asked: what is the difference between the hundred
realms, the thousand such qualities and the one instant of thought
containing three thousand existential spaces? The given reply is
that the hundred realms and the thousand such qualities are limited
to the realm of sentient beings, whereas the one instant of thought
containing three thousand existential spaces comprises both the
sentient and the non-sentient. Not quite understanding, it is asked
if the ten such qualities extend to the non-sentient, then do you
mean to say that plants and trees are endowed with mind and are able
to become Buddhas like sentient beings? The given reply is that this
is a matter that is difficult to believe and difficult to
understand. With Tendai there are two things that are difficult to
believe and difficult to understand: one is the difficulty of
believing and understanding with regards to the gateway of the
teaching; the other is the difficulty of believing and understanding
with regard to the gateway to contemplation. The difficulty of
believing and understanding with regard to the gateway of the
teaching is that the Buddha preached in all the sutras of the former
teachings that people of the two vehicles and people of incorrigible
disbelief will not ever become Buddhas in the future and that the
Lord of the Teaching, Shakyamuni, became correctly awakened for the
first time during his historical lifetime, but when we come to both
the temporary and original gateways of the Dharma Flower Sutra both
these arguments are demolished. One Buddha with two contradictory
arguments like fire and water, can anyone believe him? This is what
is difficult to believe and difficult to understand as regards the
gateway of the teaching. What is difficult to believe and difficult
to understand concerning the gateway to contemplation is the hundred
realms, the thousand such qualities and the one instant of thought
containing three thousand existential spaces, as well as the two
dharmas of mind and materiality of the ten such qualities, in that
which is insentient. Nevertheless, the two kinds of image, both
those that are painted and those made of wood, have been permitted
in the canons within and outside the Buddha teaching as fundamental
objects of veneration. But what lies behind the significance of this
comes solely from the school of Tendai. If the cause and fruition of
mind and materiality were not placed upon plants and trees, it would
be of no advantage to reverently depend on wooden and painted images
as fundamental objects of veneration. Mistrustfully, it is asked in
which texts are the two dharmas of the cause and fruition of the ten
such qualities being in plants, trees, abode and terrain, to be
found? The answer is given that in the fifth fascicle of Stopping in
order to Contemplate it says, `The existential space of abode and
terrain is again endowed with the ten kinds of dharma [such
qualities]. Therefore an evil abode and terrain has its appearance,
nature, substance and strength.’ In the sixth fascicle of
Explanatory Notes it says, `Appearance only exits as materiality;
substance, strength, action and affinity take on the combined
significance of materiality and mind; cause and fruition only exist
as mind and requital only as materiality.’ In Discourse of the Vajra
Scapel it says, `Accordingly a blade of grass, a tree, a pebble or a
speck of dust, each one has the Buddha nature, the cause to bring
about its fruition as well as being endowed with the affinities and
consequential causes for becoming a Buddha.’
The question is asked: now having heard where these teachings come
from, what is the meaning of contemplating the mind? The given
answer is: contemplating the mind is the contemplation of our own
minds so that we may see the ten dharma realms, this is what is
called contemplating the mind. It is, for instance, as though we may
see the six organs of sense of other people but because we do not
see these six sense organs on our own faces we do not know they are
there, but, on being confronted with a clear mirror, we then see for
the first time that we too have these six organs. For instance, even
though all the sutras in various places refer to the six paths of
the unenlightened and the four holy tendencies, but by not looking
into the clear mirrors of either the Dharma Flower Sutra or
Universal Desistance from Troublesome Worrying in Order to See
Clearly, which was expounded by the Universal Teacher Tendai, we
cannot know about our being endowed with the ten realms, the
thousand such qualities and the one instant of thought containing
three thousand existential spaces.
The question is asked, in what text of the Dharma Flower Sutra is
the `one instant of thought containing three thousand existential
spaces’ to be found and how does Tendai explain this? The answer is
given in the first fascicle of the Dharma Flower Sutra in the
Chapter on Expedient Means it says, `By being a sentient being I
wish to open their Buddha knowing and perception.’ This is the nine
realms being endowed with the realm of the Buddha. In Chapter on the
Life Span it says, `It is a universally primordial distance since I
became a Buddha, my allotted life span comprises incalculable asogi
kalpas and dwells in eternity without coming to an end. All you good
men, even now the allotted life span of when I originally attained
to the practice of the bodhisattva path has yet to be exhausted, it
will be again twice that number.’ This sutric text is the Buddha
being endowed with the nine realms. In the Sutra it
says, `Daibadatta’ and the text continues until, ` the Tathagata
Tenno.’ This is the realm of hell being endowed with the realm of
the Buddha. In the Sutra it says, `The first was named Ramba’, the
text continues until, `Only those of you who ably hold onto and
protect the name of the Dharma Flower will have immeasurable
happiness.’ This is the realm of the hungry demons being endowed
with the ten realms. In the Sutra it says, `The Dragon King’s
daughter’, the text continues until, ` became universally and
correctly awakened.’ This is the realm of animality being endowed
with the ten realms. In the Sutra it says, `Baji the Ashura King’,
the text continues until, ` on hearing the one metrical hymn or the
one phrase they will attain to anuttara samyak sambodhi’ [the
universal and correct awakening]. This is the realm of the Ashuras
being endowed with the ten realms. In the Sutra it says, `Supposing
that people for the sake of the Buddha’, the text continues
until, `All of them have already attained to the Buddha Path.’ This
is the realm of humanity being endowed with the ten realms. In the
Sutra it says, `Daibon the Deva King’, the text continues
until, `Just like us will certainly attain to the Buddha harvest.’
This is the deva realm endowed with the ten realms. In the Sutra it
says, `Sharihotsu’, the text continues until, `Keko Tathagata.’
This is the realm of the hearers of the voice being endowed with the
ten realms. In the Sutra it says, `Those who seek to be awakened by
affinities, monks and nuns’, the text continues until, `by putting
your palms together with a mind of reverence and wishing to hear the
Path to complete fulfilment.’ This is the realm of those awakened by
affinities being endowed with the ten realms. In the Sutra it
says, `The countless numbers of Bodhisattvas who surge up from the
earth’ the text continues until, `the truly pure universal Dharma.’
This is the bodhisattva realm being endowed with the ten realms. In
the Sutra it says, `Sometimes I speak of my own person and sometimes
I talk about others’, which is to say that the Buddha realm is
endowed with the ten realms.
The question is asked: if on looking at the six organs of sense on
my own face or on somebody else, I cannot yet see the ten realms in
myself or in others, how can I believe in them? The answer is given:
it says in Chapter on the Teacher of the Dharma in the Dharma Flower
Sutra, `It is difficult to believe and difficult to understand.’ In
the Chapter on the Precious Stupa it says, `The six difficult and
nine easy acts.’ The Universal Teacher Tendai says, “Because both
the temporary and original gateways contradict the past sutras they
are difficult to believe and difficult to understand.” The Universal
Teacher Shoan says, “In view of this fact the Buddha makes it his
overriding concern; how could you take this to be easy to
understand?” The Universal Teacher Dengyo says, “The Dharma Flower
Sutra is by far the most difficult to believe and difficult to
understand because it is according to his own awakened mind. Those
who had the correct disposition of being in the world during the
Buddha’s lifetime, in addition to their deeply entrenched karmic
relationship with him, had the Lord of the Teaching Shakyamuni, the
Buddha Taho, all the Buddha emanations of the ten directions, the
countless numbers of Bodhisattvas who surged up from the earth as
well as Monju and Miroku to help goad them into understanding, yet
even then there were people who failed to believe. Five thousand
left their seats, devas and men were moved elsewhere. If it was like
this during the correct and formal phases of the Dharma, how is it
going to be at the beginning of its final phase? Were you to glibly
believe then it would not be the Correct Dharma.”
The question is asked: as regards the sutric texts and the
explanations of Tendai and Shoan there are no ensnaring doubts, only
what is being said is that fire is water and black is white,
supposing that even these are things that were said by the Buddha,
it is difficult to believe and accept them. Every now and then I
take a look at other people’s faces but they are only limited to the
realm of humanity and I cannot see any of the other realms, again it
is the same with my own face. How can I bring about a mind of faith?
Answer: if you look at other people’s faces from time to time,
sometimes there is joy, sometimes there is anger and sometimes
equanimity, other times there appears greed, at others they reveal
stupidity or even flattering deceit. Anger is hell, greed is the
hungry demon, stupidity is animality, flattering deceit is the
ashura, joy is the deva and equanimity the quality of mankind. In
the physical aspect of the faces of others the six paths of the
unenlightened are altogether present, whereas the four holy
tendencies by not being manifest and latent you do not see; but then
if you look carefully for details they become apparent.
The question is asked: even though my understanding about the six
paths of the unenlightened is not entirely clear, on the whole I
must agree that it seems to be that we are furnished with them; but
how is it that the four holy tendencies are not apparent at all? The
answer is given: previously you doubted the six paths of the
unenlightened within the realm of humanity, nevertheless you agreed
with me through my emphasising this point by putting forward
analogies; should it not be the same with the four holy tendencies?
In an endeavour to add some justification I will recapitulate a ten
thousandth part. The transitory nature of what we call our
existential space is right before our eyes, so how can you say that
the realm of the two vehicles does not exist in the realm of
humanity? A wicked man with no regrets can have love and affection
for his own wife and children; this is an aspect of the bodhisattva
realm. Only the Buddha realm is difficult to discern but by the fact
that we are endowed with the nine other realms you must emphatically
believe it and have no doubts or perplexities about it. In the text
of the Dharma Flower Sutra where it explains the realm of humanity
it says, `By being a sentient being I wish to open their own Buddha
knowing and perception.’ In the Nirvana Sutra it says, `Even though
the people who study the universal vehicle only have eyes of flesh,
when you put it into words they become the eyes of the Buddha.’ What
the Common Mortal, who is born in the final era, believes in the
Dharma Flower Sutra is that the realm of humanity is fully endowed
with that of the Buddha.
The question is asked: what the Buddha says about each of the ten
realms being mutually furnished with the same ten realms is
understandably clear, although naturally it is difficult for our
inferior minds to believe and accept that we are endowed with the
Dharma realm of the Buddha. Now, this time if I do not acquire faith
I shall become a person of incorrigible disbelief. I beg you to show
your universal loving kindness and make me believe so that I may be
saved from the hell of incessant suffering. The answer is given: if
you do not already believe after having seen and heard the sutric
text of the single universal matter of cause and affinity, then how
can anyone from Shakyamuni to the bodhisattvas of the four
dependences as well as we from the final era, whose reasoning is not
separate from the Buddha nature, save and protect you from
disbelief? By all means I will try to tell you; there were people
who could not be awakened through meeting the Buddha but on the part
of Anan and others they were able to attain to the Path. There exist
two opportunities: one is by seeing the Buddha and attaining to the
Path through the Dharma Flower, the second is without seeing the
Buddha and attaining to the Path through the Dharma Flower. Besides,
before the Buddha teaching many of the Taoist and Confucianists in
China as well as the Brahmans and followers of the four Vedas in
India were able, through these affinities, to come to the correct
view of life. Again, many, many bodhisattvas and common mortals who,
by listening to the sutras of the universal vehicle of the Flower
Garland [Kegon], Everywhere Equal [Hodo] and Wisdom [Hannya]
periods, came to be aware of their affinity with the seeds sown in
the primordial distance by the Buddha Daitsu. One might suppose they
were the people who were awakened on their own through the
scattering of blossoms and the falling of leaves or those who
attained to the Path outside the Buddha teaching. Then there are
those people who did not have the binding affinities with the seeds
sown in the past and become attached to the provisional teachings or
the lesser vehicle, even if they do find the Dharma Flower Sutra
they are unable to escape their vision of these provisional and
lesser teachings. But because they take their individual viewpoint
to be the correct meaning, they take the Dharma Flower Sutra to be
the same as the teachings of the lesser vehicle or the Flower
Garland Sutra or the Dainichi Sutra or even place it lower. All
these teachers are inferior to the wise and holy men of the
Confucian and Brahmanic doctrines. For the time being let us put
this aside. To formulate the mutual possession of the ten worlds is
fire in a stone or flowers within a tree and even though this is
hard to believe, these things do happen on meeting with the right
affinities and are quite credible. Nevertheless, dragon fire comes
out of water and dragon water is produced from fire, even though it
is not known why but because there is this manifest evidence, it
becomes believable. Already you believe that the realm of humanity
contains another eight realms, then why are you not able to include
the realm of the Buddha? Gyo and Shun as holy men were impartial to
all people, this is a part of the Buddha realm in that of humanity.
What the Bodhisattva Fukyo saw in mankind was the person of the
Buddha, Prince Sitta became the person of the Buddha out of the
realm of humanity, surely this manifest evidence should make you
believe.
The question is asked from here on keep this strictly to yourself:
Shakyamuni, Lord of the Teaching, was the Buddha who cut off the
three delusions and is lord of the abodes of all the existential
realms of the ten directions as well as being lord and prince of all
the bodhisattvas, people of the two vehicles, devas and mankind.
Whenever he went about there was Bonten on the left and Taishaku in
attendance on the right; monks, nuns. laymen and laywomen as well as
the eight kinds of man-like non-humans followed behind and the Vajra
holders led the way in front. Through the preaching of the Dharma
store of eighty thousand teachings he made all attain to
emancipation. How could a Buddha such as this dwell in the
individual minds of common mortals such as we? Again, if we are to
discuss the meaning of the former teachings and those of the
temporary gateway then the Lord of the Teaching Shakyamuni became
correctly awakened for the first time in his historical lifetime.
But when we look into his causal practices either he was Prince
Nose, the Bodhisattva Judo, King Shibi or Prince Satta. It was
during this period of either three asogi kalpas, a hundred kalpas or
for kalpas that are liable to exceed the grains of dust or for the
incalculable asogi kalpas or from the time when he first resolved to
attain to the bodhi mind or even three thousand kalpas of grains of
dust. He made offerings to seventy thousand, five thousand, six
thousand or seven thousand Buddhas and with the completion of the
practices of accumulated kalpas he has now become Lord of the
Teaching Shakyamuni. Do you mean to say that the individual minds of
all of us are endowed with the meritorious virtue of a bodhisattva
realm whose casual position is all those practices? If we discuss
the effective position then the Lord of the Teaching Shakyamuni is
the Buddha who became correctly awakened for the first time in his
historical life. Over a period of forty years he displayed and
revealed the ennobled bodies of the four teachings and through the
articulate expounding of the former teachings, the temporary gateway
and the Nirvana Sutra he was able to benefit all sentient beings.
When it comes to the periods of the Flower Garland Sutra Kegon and
the teachings of the three receptacles zokyo we have the Birushana
on the dais of the ten directions; in the Agon Sutras the Buddha cut
the knots of misleading views and thought through the thirty four
states of mind in order to attain to the Path; in the everywhere
equal teachings hodo and the wisdom teachings hannya we have
thousands of Buddhas and in the Dainichi and the Vajra Apex Sutras
Kongocho there are one thousand two hundred or so World Honoured
Ones. Then there are the ennobled bodies of the four terrains of the
Chapter of the Precious Stupa of the temporary gateway and in the
Nirvana Sutra the Buddha is seen as sixteen feet high or
alternatively he reveals himself in either his large or small
manifestations or even as Birushana and even as an embodiment that
is not different from the spaceless void. From the four kinds of
body up to his entering Nirvana at the age of eighty, he leaves his
relics behind for the effective benefit of the correct, formal and
final phases of the Dharma. If you are to have doubts about the
original gateway, Shakyamuni was a Buddha prior to five hundred
kalpas of grains of dust ago and it is likewise with his causal
position. Since then he has emanated his person into the existential
realms of the ten directions and in a lifetime of an articulate
exposition of holy teaching he taught and converted as many sentient
beings as there are grains of dust. If we compare those who were
converted through the original gateway to those who were converted
through the temporary, then it could be likened to a drop of water
in the great sea or a speck of dust to a huge mountain. One
bodhisattva of the original gateway confronted with Monju or Kannon
of the existential realms of the ten directions would not even
compare to that of Taishaku with a monkey. Apart from that are the
people of the two vehicles of the existential realms of the ten
directions who have destroyed delusion and witness the fruition,
Taishaku, the devas of the sun and moon, the Four Deva Kings, the
Four Wheel Turning Deva Kings down to the great flames of the hell
of incessant suffering, are all of them the ten realms of our
instant of thought or the three thousand in our own minds? Even
though this is what the Buddha preached I cannot believe it.
Then we take into consideration that all the sutras of the former
teachings are real facts and true words. The Flower Garland Sutra
says, `Being the final superlative it is free from empty delusion
and without contamination like the spaceless void.’ In the Sutra of
the Benevolent King it says, `When one has exhausted the source of
troublesome worries and terminated at the fundamental nature, there
remains the wisdom of utterness.’ In the Vajra Wisdom Sutra it
says, `There is nothing but immaculately pure goodness.’ In
Awakening of Faith by the Bodhisattva Memyo it says, `In the store
of the Tathagata there is only immaculately pure and meritorious
virtue.’ In Discourse on Cognition Only by the Bodhisattva Tenjin we
have `It is said, when the remaining tainted and inferior tainted
seeds appear in front of you during a samadhi like the Vajra, you
draw upon the chastely immaculate all round and clear original
cognition and since it has no dependent environment everything is
relinquished and cast off for ever.’ If you measure the former
teachings against the Dharma Flower Sutra the former sutras are
without number and the time it took to expound them is so much
longer, since the Buddha has two arguments you should stay with the
former teachings. Memyo was the eleventh successor to the Dharma
store whose advent was foretold by the Buddha. Tenjin was the
teacher of dogma of a thousand volumes and a universal scholar of
the four dependences. The Universal Teacher Tendai was an
inconsequential monk from an obscure border town who did not write a
single treatise, who could believe him? Further more I could even
discard the many former teachings and adhere to the one if there
were a passage in the Dharma Flower Sutra that was understandably
clear and on which one could at least depend. Which place in the
text of the Dharma Flower Sutra is the clear and understandable
textual proof of the mutual possession of the ten realms, the
thousand such qualities and the one instant of thought containing
three thousand existential spaces? Consequently in the Sutra we
have `He cut off the evil in all dharmas.’ Neither Tenjin’s
Discourse on the Dharma Flower nor Bodhisattva Kenne’s Discourse on
the Precious Nature have anything concerning the mutual possession
of the ten realms, not even the great Chinese teachers of dogma of
the southern and northern schools nor even among the later teachers
of the seven temples of Japan, have this concept. It is only Tendai
who has this biased view that was solely passed on in error by
Dengyo. Because this is what the Teacher of the State Shoryo
said, “It is the mistake of Tendai.” The Dharma Teacher Eon
said, “However when Tendai called the lesser vehicle the teaching of
the three receptacles he inadvertently got the names mixed up.”
Ryoko said, “It is only Tendai who has not yet fathomed the meaning
of the Flower Garland”. Tokuichi said, “Aren’t you ashamed Chi you
brat, whose disciple do you think you are with your tongue that is
less than three inches. You slander the teachings of the time that
were expounded with the tongue of the Buddha that covered his face.”
The Universal Master Kobo said, “The scholars of China wrangled with
each other in order to steal the ghee, each one naming it as that of
their own school.” The Dharma gateway of the one instant of thought
containing three thousand is a term that is lacking in the
provisional and the real teaching of the Buddha’s lifetime, none of
the masters of the four dependences refer to this concept and the
scholars of China and Japan do not advocate it. Then how should one
believe it?
Your criticism is indeed most harsh, however it is understandably
clear that what comes out of the sutric texts is the disparity
between the Dharma Flower and all the other sutras. What is not yet
revealed and that which has already been revealed, the demonstration
of the proof by the broad, long tongue of the Buddha, whether the
people of the two vehicles become Buddhas or not, or whether the
Buddha became awakened in his historical lifetime or if he was
awakened in infinity. With regard to the teachers of dogma, the
Universal Teacher Tendai says, “Tenjin and Ryuju inwardly knew the
truth but withheld it so as to properly conform to the times which
were then based upon the temporary doctrines, nevertheless the
teachers of men who followed were biased in their understanding and
the scholars in various ways held on to their personal views which
finally led to stone throwing and abuse. Each clung to his own
particular position and generally contravened the holy Path.” The
Universal Teacher Shoan said, “Even the Indian Universal Discourse
is not of his calibre, so why should we go as far as to trouble
ourselves talking about the scholars of China? This is not boastful
arrogance, the nature of the Dharma is just as it is.” Tenjin,
Ryuju, Memyo and Kinne had inwardly known the truth but withheld it
because the time had not yet arrived and it was right that they did
not propagate it. Among the teachers of men before Tendai some kept
such thinking to themselves whereas others knew nothing of it. But,
of those teachers who came later, some at first refuted this concept
but later compliantly committed themselves to it; others made no use
of it whatsoever. But you have to understand the sutric text; `he
cut off the evil in all dharmas.’ Here the Buddha is referring to a
sutric text that came before the Dharma Flower Sutra. On taking a
closer look at it, in this sutric text he is understandably and
clearly about to discuss the mutual possession of the ten realms
where he says, “By being a sentient being I wish to open their own
Buddha knowing and perception.” Tendai inspired by this sutric
phrase said, “If sentient beings had no Buddha knowing and
perception, then why would he want to discuss their opening? As
indeed you ought to know, sentient beings do have the knowing and
perception of the Buddha inherently.” The Universal Teacher Shoan
said, “If it were assumed that sentient beings did not have the
knowing and perception of the Buddha, then why would he be about to
open their awareness of it? If a poor woman did not have a treasure
store, then why would he not want to reveal it to her?”
But the points that are difficult to understand are these enormous
problems concerning the Lord of the Teaching Shakyamuni that we have
just been talking about. As these problems are an impediment to our
understanding of the Buddha, it says in the Sutra, `Of all the
sutras I have expounded, am expounding and will expound, this Dharma
Flower Sutra is the most difficult to believe and understand.’ We
next come to the six difficult and nine easy acts. The Universal
Teacher Tendai said, “Because the temporary and original gateways
contradict the past sutras they are difficult to believe and to
understand. It is a matter that is as hard as facing the tip of a
halberd.” The Universal Teacher Shoan said, “In view of this fact
that the Buddha makes it his overriding concern, how could you take
this to be easy to understand?” The Universal Teacher Dengyo
said, “This Dharma Flower Sutra is by far the most difficult to
believe and difficult to understand because it is according to the
Buddha’s own awakened mind.” From the one thousand eight hundred or
so years since the Buddha’s demise into Nirvana, throughout the
three countries there were only three people who were awakened to,
and perceived this correct Dharma; they were Shakyamuni of India,
the Universal Teacher Tendai of China and Dengyo of Japan, these
three are the holy men of the Buddhist scriptures. The question is
asked: what of Ryuju and Tenjin? The answer is given: these holy men
knew it but out of unselfishness they did not talk about it. Either
they expounded a portion of the temporary gateway but said nothing
of the original gateway or the contemplation of the mind. Perhaps
the propensity of the hearers was right but the time was not, or it
could be that neither their propensity nor the time was appropriate.
After Tendai and Dengyo many, many people understood it through
applying the wisdom of these two sages. Among these were Kasho of
the Three Treatises School Sanron and the hundred or so persons from
the three southern and seven northern schools of China, Hozo and
Shoryo of the Flower Garland School Kegon, Genzo Tripitaka and the
Universal Teacher Jien of the Appearance of the Dharma School Hosso,
Zenmui Tripitaka, Kongochi Tripitaka and Fuku Tripitaka of the True
Word School Shingon and Dosen of the Discipline School Risshu. At
first they were in opposition to the concept of the one instant of
thought containing three thousand existential spaces but later they
wholeheartedly and obediently committed themselves to this teaching.
Now, in order to restrain your harsh criticism, the Sutra of
Incalculable Significance says, `Let us imagine that the king of the
realm and his queen had just had a prince born to them and that he
is only one day, two days or seven days old or that he is one month,
two months or seven months old or one year, two years or seven years
old, even though he is not able to administer the affairs of state,
already he is honoured and respected by the ministers and the
people, the children of all the great sovereigns who are his
companions. The king and queen attentively and with great love show
him kindness and always talk to him gently. What is the reason for
this? It is because of his being a little child. Good men, those who
hold to this sutra are just like this child. The king of the realm
is all the Buddhas and this Sutra is the queen who in union gave
birth to the bodhisattva prince. Let us suppose that this
bodhisattva hears of this Sutra and then he reads and recites the
one phrase and the one metric hymn, then reads and recites all the
Sutra once, twice, ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, ten
thousand times or shall we assume he reads it a billion times the
number of grains of sand in the Ganges or incalculable and
numberless times and yet even though he is unable to realise the
ultimate true principle,’ The text continues until, ` he will
already be held in esteem and honoured by all the monks, nuns,
laymen, laywomen, the eight categories of the man-like, non-human
beings and all the great bodhisattvas will keep him company.’ The
text continues until, ` he will always be protected and borne in
mind by all the Buddhas and they will earnestly shelter him with
their care and love, because he is a neophyte who is learning.’ In
the Fugen Sutra it says, `This Sutric Canon of the universal vehicle
is the treasure store of all the Buddhas and is the eyes of all the
Buddhas of the ten directions of the past, present and future,’ The
text continues until, ` and is the seed from whence all the
Tathagatas of the past, present and future come into being.’ The
text continues until, ` through your practise of the universal
vehicle your Buddha seeds will not expire.’ Also it says, ` this
everywhere equal sutra is the eyes of all the Buddhas, it is through
this cause that all the Buddhas attain to the five kinds of vision.
The three kinds of body of the Buddha come into being out of the
everywhere equal teaching, it is this token of proof mudra of the
universal Dharma that is substantiated in the sea of Nirvana, such
an ocean as this is able to engender the immaculately pure three
bodies of the Buddha; these three kinds of body are the fields of
happiness of mankind and the devas.’ Now we should think about the
lifetime of the Tathagata Shakyamuni, we have the exoteric and the
esoteric, the two teachings of the universal and the lesser as well
as the dependent sutras of all the schools such as the Flower
Garland Kegon and the True Words Shingon. Then taking all this into
further consideration, either the Buddha Birushana on the lotus
throne with the petals pointing in the ten directions, the cloud of
all the assembled Buddha Tathagatas gathered together from all over
the universe, the apparition of the thousand Buddhas whose
defilements are fused into nothingness of the Wisdom Sutra and the
one thousand two hundred honoured ones of the Dainichi and Vajra
Apex Sutras, albeit all these sutras articulately expound the causes
and fruition that are close at hand but do not reveal the cause and
fruition in infinity, even though the Buddha talks about prompt,
swift and sudden attainment; his realisation in the immeasurability
of the three or five thousand kalpas of grains of dust is missing
and all the indications as to the beginning and end of his
converting and guidance are visibly lacking. On the one hand the
Flower Garland Sutra or the Dainichi Sutra would, of the four
teachings, appear to be similar to the particular teaching bekkyo or
the all inclusive teaching enkyo but, on the other hand, if you
think it over they are comparable to the everywhere equal hodo or
the receptacle teachings zokyo without approaching comparison to
those of the particular or the all inclusive. As the fundamentally
existing three causes for Buddhahood are absent in these sutras,
then how should we determine what the Buddha seeds are? However, the
day when the translators of the new translations returned to China
they saw and heard about the one instant of thought containing three
thousand existential spaces of Tendai and added it to the sutras
that they had brought back with them or they pretended it was
because they had received and committed this teaching to memory in
India. Some of the scholars of Tendai were delighted that these
teachings were the same as their own school or they venerated the
doctrines that had come from far away and showed contempt for those
close at hand or they discarded the older teachings and embraced the
new as an outcome of wicked and stupid thinking. However it may be,
if the point to which we refer did not have the Buddha seed of the
one instant of thought containing three thousand existential spaces,
then sentient beings becoming Buddhas and both wooden and painted
images as fundamental objects of veneration would just be words
without substance.
I have not yet heard your perceptive understanding with regard to my
great difficulties concerning the one instant of thought containing
three thousand existential spaces. The answer is given: in the Sutra
of Incalculable Significance it says, `Even though you have not
attained to the six practices that ferry one beyond the sea of
mortality to the shore of Nirvana, the benefit of all six will
surely be in front of you.’ In the Dharma Flower Sutra it
says, `..wishing to hear the Path to complete fulfilment.’ In the
Nirvana Sutra it says, ` sat is the name for complete fulfilment.’
The Bodhisattva Ryuju says, “Sat is six.” In Annotations on the
Profound Significance of the Four Theses of the Universal Vehicle on
the Wisdom that is Unqualified and Unobtainable by being Dependent
on its own Relativity it says, `When sat is made clear it means six
and in the Dharma of India six has the implication of complete
fulfilment.’ In the commentary referred to as Auspicious Treasury it
says, `In translation sat becomes `complete fulfilment’.’ The
Universal Teacher Tendai said, “sat is a Sanskrit word which is
translated here as `wonderful’.” Were I to add any perceptive
explanation it would be sullying the original texts; in all events
the two dharmas of causal practices and culminating virtue of
Shakyamuni were completely fulfilled through the five ideograms for
Myoho renge kyo, the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Utterness of
the Dharma. Then, should we receive and commit to memory these five
ideograms we would naturally inherit the culminating virtue of those
causal practices. When the four great hearers of the voce
apprehended this they said, “We inadvertently acquired this peerless
cluster of jewels without even looking for them.” This is the realm
of the hearers of the voice in our own minds. `Equal to myself
without any difference whatsoever, just as that which I vowed in
ancient times has already been entirely fulfilled, all sentient
beings through their conversion will be led onto the Buddha Path.’
The utterly awakened Shakyamuni is our flesh and blood, then should
not his causal practices be the marrow of our bones? In the Chapter
on the Precious Stupa it says, `Those people who protect the Dharma
Flower Sutra are precisely those who make offerings to Taho and
myself.’ The text continues until, `Moreover they make offerings to
the radiant brightness that majestically sublimates all the
existential realms of all the Buddha emanations that are present.’
Shakyamuni, Taho and all the Buddhas of the ten directions are the
Buddha realm within us and by inheriting and following this footpath
we will receive and attain to their meritorious virtue. This is
illustrated by, `If you listen to this sutra for only a moment you
will realise the ultimate Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi, the universal
and correct awakening.’ In the Chapter on the Life Span it
says, `However, since I really became a Buddha it is an
incalculable, boundless, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred
thousand, nayuta kalpas ago.’ The Shakyamuni in our individual minds
is the archaic Buddha without a beginning who manifested his three
bodies prior to five hundred kalpas of grains of dust ago. In the
Sutra it says, `The allotted life span of when I originally attained
to the bodhisattva path has yet to be exhausted, it will be again
twice that number.’ This is the bodhisattva realm in our individual
minds. The countless numbers of Bodhisattvas who surged up from the
earth are the retinue of the Shakyamuni in our minds. Just as Taiko
and Tan the Duke of Shu were ministers of King Bu of Shu and later
were part of the court of the infant King Sei, or like the great
minister Takenouchi who was the supporting pillar of the Empress
Jingu and afterwards became a minister of the Crown Prince Nintoku.
Jogyo, Muhengyo Jyogyo and Anryugyo are the bodhisattvas of our
individual minds. The Universal Teacher Myoraku said, “Really you
should know that the body and its terrain is the one instant of
thought containing three thousand existential spaces because when
one attains to the Path this fundamental principle being
substantiated in the one body and its one instant of thought
ubiquitously permeates through the realms of the dharmas.”
During the fifty or so years which began at the site of attainment
to the Path of Nirvana and the existential realm of the Lotus Flower
Store of the Flower Garden Sutra Kegon until his demise in the Grove
of the Sala Trees, Shakyamuni taught that the Three Esoteric and
Majestically Sublime Terrains and the three transformations of
abodes and terrains are all manifestations of a transitory nature of
expedient means, of real requital, of silence and enlightenment and
the Terrains of Peaceful Nourishment, Immaculate Lapis Lazuli and
the Majestically Sublime as the coming into being, the duration, the
decline and the disappearance of the kalpas into nothingness. When
the Lord of the Teaching who was able to make manifest the various
emanations of the Buddha entered into Nirvana, all those Buddhas who
were his emanations passed into extinction and naturally it was also
the same with their respective terrains.
The world in which we live at present is the time of the Chapter on
the Life Span of the original gateway and is free from the three
calamities that come about with the collapse of a kalpa, it is an
immaculate terrain that dwells in eternity. In times gone by the
Buddha has never ceased to be, nor does he come into being in the
future and those who are converted by him are of the same substance.
This is the full endowment of the three thousand existential spaces
in the one instant of thought in our individual minds or the three
kinds of existential space. The reality of this had not yet been
discussed in the fourteen chapters of the temporary gateway because
even within the bounds of the Dharma Flower Sutra the propensity of
the hearers and the time had not yet matured.
The Buddha did not even entrust the five ideograms for Nam myoho
renge kyo [the consecration and founding of one’s life on the Sutra
of the Lotus Flower of the Utterness of the Dharma] to the two
Bodhisattvas Monju and Yakuo, let alone anyone else but he did
entrust it during his preaching of the eight vital chapters to the
countless numbers of Bodhisattvas who surged up from the earth at
his summons. As to the real appearance of that Fundamental Object of
Veneration, the original teacher is seated in the Precious Stupa in
the relativity above the world in which we live and on the left and
right of the Myoho renge kyo there is Shakyamuni Buddha and Taho
Buddha flanked by the four Bodhisattvas led by Jogyo. Monju, Miroku
and the others, being a part of the following of the four
Bodhisattvas, are placed on seats nearby, all the bodhisattvas great
and small from other regions who were converted by the temporary
teachings are placed upon the ground like the common populace
looking up to court officials and executives of state. All the
Buddhas of the ten directions are also on the ground so as to
express the idea of temporary Buddhas on temporary terrains. Such an
Object of Veneration did not exist during the first fifty years of
when the Buddha was in the world, its confines are only the final
eight years of the eight vital chapters. During the two thousand
years of the correct and formal phases of the Dharma the Shakyamuni
of the lesser vehicle had Kasho and Anan in attendance on either
side. The Shakyamuni of the provisional universal vehicle in the
Nirvana Sutra and the temporary gateway of the Dharma Flower Sutra
was flanked on either side by Monju and Fugen. Even though there
were sculptures and paintings of these Buddhas throughout the
correct and formal phase of the Dharma, the Buddha of the Chapter on
the Life Span had not yet been portrayed. Now we have entered the
final phase of the Dharma should we not begin to reveal the
representation of this Buddha?
A question is posed: in the course of the two thousand years of the
correct and formal phases of the Dharma the bodhisattvas of the four
dependences, as well as the teachers of men set up images and built
temples for the various other Buddhas and of the Shakyamuni of the
lesser vehicle, the provisional universal vehicle, the former
teachings and the temporary gateway, yet there is no instance of the
Fundamental Object of Veneration of the Chapter on the Life Span of
the original gateway and the four great Bodhisattvas being venerated
and honoured by the rulers and their ministers in either India,
China or Japan. I can gather most of what you say but because it has
never been heard by former generations my eyes and ears are taken
aback and my mind and thoughts bewildered. Please explain this once
more, I would like to hear it in detail.
The answer is given: the eight fascicles and twenty-eight chapters
of the Dharma Flower Sutra really begin with the four flavours and
end all the sutras of a lifetime with the Nirvana Sutra, when all
these are put together they amount to only one sutra. The period
that starts at the site of the attainment to the Path of silence and
extinction and ends at the Wisdom Sutras hannyakyo is the
introduction, the ten fascicles that make up the Sutra of
Incalculable Significance, the Dharma Flower Sutra and the Fugen
Sutra are the essential doctrine and the Nirvana Sutra is the
transmission.
Within the ten fascicles that make up the essential doctrine there
is also an introduction, an essential doctrine and a transmission.
The Sutra of Incalculable Significance and the Introductory Chapter
are the introduction. The fifteen and a half chapters from the
Chapter on Expedient Means to the nineteenth line of the metric hymn
in the Chapter on the Discrimination of the Meritorious Virtue is
the essential doctrine. The eleven and a half chapters and the one
fascicle from the four ways of believing for the present time of the
Chapter on the Discrimination of the Meritorious virtue to the Fugen
Sutra is the section to be circulated abroad.
Moreover within the ten fascicles of the Dharma Flower Sutra there
are again two sutras each one has its own introduction, essential
doctrine and a section to be circulated abroad. The Sutra of
Incalculable Significance and the Introductory Chapter of the Dharma
Flower Sutra are the introduction, the eight chapters from the
Chapter on Expedient Means to the Chapter on the Prophecies are the
essential doctrine and the five chapters from the Chapter on the
Teacher of the Dharma to the Chapter on the Practices of Peace and
Joy make up the section that is to be circulated abroad. When we
come to talk about the lord of these teachings then it was the
Buddha who, correctly awakened for the first time in his historical
lifetime whose correct Dharma was difficult to believe and difficult
to understand because it was expounded according to his own awakened
mind, was able to reach beyond the past, present and future through
expounding the previously non-existent but now existing hundred
realms and a thousand such qualities. If we look into the affinities
that bound this Buddha with his disciples in the past, then it was
when he was the sixteenth son of Daitsu that he sowed the seeds of
the Buddha fulfilment in their lives. On proceeding further it was
through the concomitant affinities of the four flavours of the
Flower Garden Sutra that brought about the awakening and perception
of the seed planted by Daitsu. This was not the fundamental
intention of the Buddha but only to clear away part of the poison.
Ordinary people and those of the two vehicles through their affinity
with the first four flavours were gradually able to approach the
Dharma Flower and discover the seeds that were sown and the
propensity to free themselves from the provisional and discover the
real. Moreover when the Buddha was in the world, the eight vital
chapters or the one phrase or the metric hymn that were heard for
the first time by men and devas became the seeds of their Buddhahood
which either ripened or became the seeds of harvest. Some were
liberated when they came to the Fugen and Nirvana Sutras, whereas
others during the correct, formal and final phases of the Dharma let
the lesser and provisional teachers become the affinity whereby they
were able to enter into the Dharma Flower Sutra in the same way as
the people of the first four flavours discovered the seeds during
the lifetime of the Buddha.
Again, the fourteen chapters of the original gateway have the
introduction, the essential doctrine and the section to be
circulated abroad of a single sutra. The first half of the Chapter
on Surging Up is the part that is the introduction, the half-chapter
before the Chapter on the Life Span and the half-chapter that
follows it is the essential doctrine, the remaining chapters are the
section that is to be circulated abroad. When we come to discuss the
lord of these teachings it is not the Shakyamuni who became
correctly awakened for the first time in his historical lifetime;
the Dharma gateways that he expounded contrast with the temporary
gateways as the earth is different from the sky. In addition to the
ten realms and the primordial distance he made the existential
spaces of abode and terrain apparent and almost gave the one instant
of thought containing three thousand existential spaces a covering
just as the stem encloses the pith of the bamboo. Furthermore the
temporary gateway as well as the three discourses of the first four
flavours, the sutra of the Incalculable Significance and the Nirvana
Sutra were all preached according to the minds of others and
therefore easy to believe and easy to understand but apart from
these three discourses the original gateway is difficult to believe
and difficult to understand because it is according to the awakened
mind of the Buddha.
In the original gateway there is also an introduction, an essential
doctrine and a section to be circulated abroad. From the Dharma
Flower Sutra of the Buddha Daitsu of the past to the Flower Garland
Sutra of the present time including the fourteen chapters of the
original gateway and the Nirvana Sutra as well as all the sutras of
the fifty or so years of a lifetimes teaching with all the sutras of
all the Buddhas of the past, present and future of the ten
directions which are as countless as the grains of dust, comprise
the introduction of the Chapter on the Life Span. Apart from the one
chapter and the two half-chapters the remainder can be referred to
as the teachings of the lesser vehicle, heretical teachings,
teachings that have not yet attained to the Path or teachings that
conceal the real aspect. If we are to discuss the natural
inclination of those who follow these teachings, then they are
heavily sullied with little virtue, immaturity and feel like
unwanted orphans or the birds and beasts who cannot appreciate the
love of their parents. Besides being the former teachings and the
all inclusive teachings of the temporary gateway those teachings do
not even possess the cause for becoming a Buddha let alone the
Dainichi Sutra and all those sutras of the lesser vehicle. Of even
less value are the teachings of the teachers of men and the teachers
of dogma of the seven schools of the Flower Garland Kegon and the
True Words Shingon. Putting it strongly, the spirit of these
teachings is no different from the teachings of the three
receptacles, the interrelated teachings or the particular teaching
and are certainly no better than the interrelated or receptacle
teachings. For instance, even though these Dharmas are said to be
extremely profound they have not yet discussed the sowing, ripening
and harvesting of the Buddha seed; instead they propose that the
body be reduced to ashes and that the mind and intellect be
annihilated as in the lesser vehicle, but there is no suggestion of
when the Buddha began and ended his teaching and guidance. The
simile would be, should such a person as a queen be made pregnant by
an animal seed the offspring would be even inferior to an
untouchable. For the time being we will put this aside.
On taking a first glance at eight chapters of the essential doctrine
of the fourteen chapters of the temporary gateway during the
lifetime of Shakyamuni, the people of the two vehicles are in the
forefront and the bodhisattvas and common mortals set to one side:
but on thinking it over a second time it is the common mortal who
comes to the fore during the correct, formal and final phases of the
Dharma. In these three periods of the correct, formal and final
phases of the Dharma it is the beginning of the final phase that
becomes the correct phase. The question is asked: what evidence have
you for this? The answer is given: in the Chapter on the Teacher of
the Dharma it says: ` nevertheless with this sutra at present the
Tathagata is much begrudged and envied, so how will it be after his
passing over to Nirvana?’ In the Chapter on the Precious Stupa it
says: `In order that the Dharma be protracted unendingly ’ the text
continues until, ` the Buddha emanations who are here must be aware
that this is his intention.’ You should look at the Chapter on
Exhorting to Hold and the Chapter on Peace and Joy. This is indeed
what the provisional gateway is about.
Now we come to consider the original gateway which was solely
destined for the people of the correct propensities of the beginning
of the final phase of the Dharma. That is to say if we first take a
look at the period then the seeds sown are those of the primordial
sowing which, nurtured by Daitsu and afterwards through the first
four flavours and the temporary gateway where they ripened, on
coming to the original gateway were brought to the attainment of
both the Overall Awakening and the Utter Awakening. On taking a
second look, the original gateway is quite unlike the temporary, the
introduction, the essential doctrine as well as the section to be
circulated abroad of the original gateway all refer to the beginning
of the final phase of the Dharma. The original gateway of when the
Buddha was in the world and that of the beginning of the final phase
of the Dharma are a pure circle, however the former is the Buddha
teaching of the harvest but this is the Buddha teaching of the
sowing. The former doctrine is the one chapter and the two half-
chapters but this is the teaching of the five ideograms of the theme
and title only.
The question is asked: what proof do you have for this? The answer
is given: in the Chapter on Surging Up it says, `At the time all the
bodhisattva great beings who had come from other abodes and terrains
and whose number exceeded eight times the grains of sand of the
Ganges stood up in the great assembly, put the palms of their hands
together and made obeisance. Then they said to the Buddha: “World
Honoured One, when after the passing of the Buddha into Nirvana we
are to be in the existential realm that has to be endured, if you
will allow us to guard and to hold onto, to read and to recite, to
copy out and make offerings to this sutric canon with zealous and
unfailing progress, then surely we will broadly expound it
throughout this terrain.” Then the Buddha said to the assembly of
bodhisattva great beings: “Desist! Good men, there is no need for
you to guard and hold to this sutra.” The sutric content of the
preceding five chapters that follow the Chapter on the Teacher of
the Dharma are as contradictory as fire and water. At the end of the
Chapter on the Precious Stupa it says, `With a great voice the
Buddha said to the monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen everywhere: is
there anyone who is able to broadly propagate the Sutra of the
Flower of the Utterness of the Dharma throughout the abode and
terrain that we live in?’ There is the instance of when the lord of
the teaching, being but one single Buddha, encouragingly raised this
question, the great bodhisattvas such as Yakuo, the devas Bonten and
Taishaku, the devas of the sun and moon and the Four Deva Kings took
this to be a matter of gravity, whereupon the Buddha Taho and the
Buddhas of the ten directions who, as invited guests, provoked their
conviction further. All the bodhisattvas on hearing this generous
collaboration all made the vow, `We will not begrudge our lives’,
this is because they wholeheartedly wished to comply with the
Buddha’s will. Nevertheless, within the space of an instant, he
contradicts himself by forbidding the crowd of bodhisattvas, whose
count exceeded eight times the number of grains of sand of the
Ganges, from propagating the Sutra. Going forwards and backwards
like this decidedly goes beyond ordinary understanding. The
Universal Teacher Tendai the Wise gave us to understand the six
explanations of three previous reasons as to why the Buddha
prohibited the great bodhisattvas from propagating the Sutra
throughout the world in which we live and three subsequent reasons
for his summoning the Bodhisattvas who surge up from the earth. What
is implied is that the great bodhisattvas who came from other
directions and those who were converted by the temporary teachings
were not qualified to have my substantiation of the Chapter on the
Life Span bestowed upon them. They were forbidden because of evil
propensities in the Dharma slandering abodes at the beginning of the
final era. Then he summoned the great bodhisattvas of the thousand
realms who surged up from the earth in order to confer upon the
sentient beings of the world of mankind the five ideograms for Myoho
renge kyo which are the essence of the Chapter on the Life Span.
Moreover the great assembly of bodhisattvas who were converted
through the temporary teachings were not the disciples of Shakyamuni
when he first resolved to attain to a mind of enlightenment. The
Universal Teacher Tendai said, “These are my disciples who are
destined to propagate my Dharma.” Myoraku said, “The sons who spread
abroad the Dharma of the father are a benefit to the world,” In
Supplementary Adjustments and Annotations of the Textual
Explanations it says that ` since this is the Dharma of the
primordial attainment it was entrusted to the people of that
attainment.’
In the Sutra it says that when the Bodhisattva Miroku wished to
clear his doubts he remarked, “Even though we believe that what the
Buddha says is correct, the words that he utters are never empty
delusions and his wisdom is completely pervasive and penetrating.
Nevertheless, after the Buddha’s passing over to Nirvana,
bodhisattvas who are newly resolved to attain to enlightenment may
not accept with faith that the Bodhisattvas who surged up from the
earth are the Buddha’s original disciples and that will give rise to
the cause and affinities of the sinful karma of negating the Dharma.
It is only natural World Honoured One that we ask you to explain so
as to take away our doubts so that all good men who in generations
yet to come will not be sceptical when they hear of this matter.”
The meaning of this is text that Miroku implored the Buddha to
expound the Dharma gateway of the life span for those who are to
come after his passing over to Nirvana.
It says in the Chapter on the Life Span, `Some lost their original
minds and others did not.’ The text continues until, ` those who did
not lose their minds saw that this medicine was good both in looks
and flavour, whereupon they took it and were completely cured and
relieved of their sickness.’ All the bodhisattvas, people of the two
vehicles and devas whose Buddha seeds were planted in the primordial
infinity were later nurtured through the binding affinities with
Daitsu and then through the four flavours and the temporary gateway
where they attained to the way when they heard the original gateway.
In the Sutra it says, `Those who had lost their minds were filled
with joy when they saw that their father had arrived and they
earnestly begged him to cure their sickness even though they had
been given the medicine but they dare not take it because the spirit
of the poison had penetrated deeply and, on account of having lost
their original minds, they found this attractive and tasty physic
unpalatable.’ The text continues until, `I really must contrive an
expedient means in order to make them take this medicine.’ The text
further continues until, `I will now place this good and estimable
medicine here and you must take it and make use of it without
worrying that it might not cure you. After giving these instructions
h<br/><br/>(Message over 64 KB, truncated)
Group: egodeath
Message: 1514
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 28/03/2003
Subject: Re: Bennett/Ruck’s cannabis Christ in Door Xn magazine
>Cannabis, strong-drink mixtures, mandrake, and mushrooms all are included in
my book and article.
>–Chris Bennett
Some of the proof of this is shown below.
______________________
Next only to sex, do drugs, as in psychoactive substances, play a pivotal role
in the development of religion, and the Bible is here no exception. The
importance of drugs in religion, like that of sexuality, is often overlooked
by researchers who have been imprinted with our Christian influenced societies
innate prejudice against these substances. Moreover, without personal
experience of the power of psychoactive plants, many researchers have failed
to perceive the pivotal role that such plants and preparations have played in
religious thought the world over. “All religions in which mysticism and
contact with the supernatural play an important part, attribute a sacred
character to an intoxicating drink or other intoxicant”(Danielou 1992). The
Biblical references to wine, which had become the blood of the savior by the
Christian period, clearly falls into this category. The use of wine in the
ancient world was “unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical
faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry
criticisms of the sober hour”(James 1929). Even more interestingly, as we
shall amply demonstrate on these pages, was the use of other intoxicants
amongst the Old Testament Israelites.
Despite the early marriage between shamanism and psycho-active plants that
inspired the development of whole religions, naturally occurring botanicals
like the psilocybin mushroom, Indian hemp, peyote cactus and similar
substances have been condemned as devil’s potions and drugs by most religious
groups of our modern era. Historically, this situation is an anomaly, not the
norm. Prior to the Common Era and throughout the ancient world these magical
plants had been seen as sacraments and constituted a very important part of
religious worship. In the 1930’s respected scholar W.E. Budge commented that,
“Many of the ancient herbalists knew that the juices of certain plants
possessed properties which produced extraordinary effects when introduced into
the human body, and that some might be used as aphrodisiacs, and others as
narcotics, and others as stimulants. And the magicians when they were
acquainted with them naturally used them in lotions and philters to produce
both good and evil effects”(Budge 1930). Some modern scholars have taken this
line of thought further, pointing out that the ancients considered these
substances to be the sacred food of the Gods, and a means of communicating
with the divine. (Schultes and Hoffman 1979; Mckenna 1992; Ott 1993, etc.).
Still other scholars suggest that humanities drive to alter their
consciousness is as innate as the drives to fulfill sexual needs and hunger.
… well-known health and drug researcher Dr. Andrew Weil commented, “There is
not a shred of hope from history or from cross-cultural studies to suggest
that human beings can live without psychoactive substances”. (A view that is
discussed more fully in Ronald K. Siegel’s Intoxication: Life in Pursuit of
Artificial Paradise.) [“Artificial”? Jonathan Ott has written a whole book
demonstrating how misleading and incorrect that way of thinking is; they are
the venerable, classic *natural* paradises. This perfectly demonstrates how
today’s entheogenists shoot themselves in the foot and are their own worst
enemies, inadvertantly entrenching further the dominant paradigm even as they
strive to challenge it. -mh]
Etymologist and religious historian John M. Allegro [you see him swinging by
the neck in the background, serving to quite effectively officially discredit
the entheogen theory of religion by his poor grasp of what entheogenic
mysticism is about and his dismissive, disparaging attitude toward the very
subject he considered to be a main advocate of -mh] pointed out that our
ancestors believed these plants were living gateways to other realms, and
thought of them as angels. … The ancients interpreted the experiences they
received from these plant-angels as divine revelations, in much the same way
that shamans have done around the world before recorded history, and are still
doing in South America, Africa, Asia and even North America today.
Although it is little known to most modern readers, marijuana and other
entheogens played a very important role in ancient Hebrew culture and
originally appeared throughout the books that make up the Bible’s Old
Testament. The Bible openly discusses the use of mandrake, which is
psychoactive, along with intoxication by wine and strong drink so the Hebrews
were more than familiar with altering their consciousness. What will be
surprising to most modern readers, is the frequent use of cannabis-sativa, by
both the Hebrew Priests and Kings. Indicating, as anthropologist Vera Rubin
noted, that cannabis “appears in the Old Testament because of the ritual and
sacred aspect of it” (Rubin 1978).
______________________
In addition to watching out for the challenges that the mainstream puts out
against the entheogen theory of religion, we also need to watch out for the
ways in which the insiders, the entheogen scholar community, harms its own
cause and unnecessarily unconsciously limits its own effectiveness by
accepting far too much of the dominant paradigm.
These scholars can exclaim about my criticisms just as G.A. Wells said about
Earl Doherty’s criticism of his work: “I am used to being criticized, but not
for being too conservative!”
G.A. Wells wrote books asserting that Jesus kind of basically pretty much
didn’t exist, not in any way we usually think — whereas Doherty came along
and said “enough with the minor corrective epicycles: out with it, admit it,
give us a *real* paradigm shift: Jesus didn’t exist, period. Honestly and
really change your thinking, and quit just shuffling the same old bits around
with minor changes.”
Then I come along criticizing Doherty as being nothing but a paradigm
destroyer, not a paradigm changer, as he recognizes no profundity and
relevance for the Christian myth system, and has no more insight than any
run-of-the-mill Christian-origins scholar that the myth refers to specific
dynamics experienced and understood during intense entheogenic mystic
experiencing.
I read much of Chris Bennett’s book Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible, and
quickly read his High Times article.
Just as James Arthur claims to have “clearly” emphasized the great extent to
which entheogens are present in religion, upon closer examination it becomes
clear that Arthur and Bennett end up making the same communication mistake and
unbalanced thinking mistake as Huston Smith: after a 50% careful reading of
Arthur, the reader most likely comes away with the idea that there was a
slight presence of Amanita way back only at the beginning of Christianity.
With Huston Smith, one ends up with a similarly tepid impression, that
entheogens are an also-ran, barely present throughout the eras of the
religions. With Bennett, there is a good reason why the Door Magazine
characterized him just like I do: Bennett puts 99% of his emphasis, so it
seems, on Cannabis, and only in early Christianity. Arthur puts 99% of his
emphasis, so it seems, on Amanita, in several religions, but only way back at
the beginning.
Huston Smith, another “defender” and “promoter” of the presence or legitimacy
of entheogens in religion, also ends up giving the readers an impression that
99% of religious experiencing and mystic tradition has *not* been entheogenic.
If these authors intend to communicate what I am emphasizing, they have
failed.
I don’t think this is a mischaracterization of the background paradigm behind
these books; this accurately describes what is actually communicated in
practice by these books.
If their theory is that all combinations of entheogens have been used during
all eras of all religions — which is the radical extremist alternative I am
tentatively or experimentally proferring — they don’t communicate that.
Bennett *didn’t* have that radical theory in mind when writing the High Times
article or the book. If he had, that would have been reflected in the Door
article.
But no, the Door article exclusively describes Bennett’s proposition that Mr.
Historical Jesus used cannabis and that the laying on of hands was with
cannabis. Not one word about any other entheogen in any religion in any era.
What I am criticizing the entheogenists for, and shaking them to wake them up
about, is that they are shooting themselves in the foot (like drug policy
reformers do in so many ways) by buying in too fully into the dominant mode of
thinking and communicating. The world will never pay attention to the
entheogen theory if it is communicated so timidly, with such an exclusive
emphasis on one plant such that the others are completely overshadowed.
*No way* does the book or article by Bennett effectively communicate a
multi-plant theory — it’s far too exclusively focused on cannabis. It’s
really time to discard that way of thinking that chronically overemphasizes a
single plant, with the others relegated to a footnote. Quit identifying with
a single plant, and move on to the “Integral Studies” spirit like Ott, and
like Dan Russell — *they* have the right, more extreme exphasis, probably Ott
most of all.
Don’t just tack on a bit of use of one plant onto existing, status-quo
thinking about religion, and then add an even lesser footnote to that. Like
Wilber would say, we need an “all era, all plant, all religion” Integral
theory of the role of entheogens in religion.
Amanita is plastered all over Arthur’s works. Cannabis is plastered all over
Bennett’s work. Ergot is plastered all over Dan Merkur’s work. They all
claim that they have promoted the multi-plant theory — they are deluded; they
are utterly failing to convey the ideas, because they are each in love with
one plant only. Ott is different — he consistently promotes awareness of,
and thinks in terms of, the entire pharmacopeia.
Today’s entheogen story doesn’t work, doesn’t fly, doesn’t have an impact;
look at how The Door magazine waved it aside like a gnat — Bennett supposedly
is the defender and representative of plant mysticism in Christianity, but his
approach carries no real weight, because in practice, in real-world
communication, it amounts to a theory of a single plant in a single religion
in a single period — *not* a theory of an entire pharmacopia in all religions
in all eras.
In claiming the latter, Arthur and Bennett and Merkur are deluding themselves
about the scope of their thinking are are claiming credit for more scope than
they have effectively ventured — the broad theory, more on the order of Ott’s
thinking, is just *barely* present in their works and isn’t really
communicated at all, any more than Ken Wilber could claim to have “covered” or
“included” the Hellenistic Mystery Religions in his theory.
My criticism is a matter of balance: it is totally commendable to focus on
establishing the use of one plant in one religion in one era, but eventually
the scholars need to adopt a balanced paradigm that assumes the use of all
plants in all religions in all eras, and these authors have not produced yet
such a balanced and ambitious paradigm, which is why we end up with such
effortless dismissals as the Door article.
Such minimalist theories as have been put forward attempt too little in their
surrounding framework. Everyone should buy and read these books, but make no
mistake, the entheogen theory has barely been hinted at yet, and there is much
work at even the most beginning stage of defining the scope of the entheogen
theory.
Today’s books about the entheogen theory of the origin of religion also need
to cover the ongoing nature of religion and the ever-popular use of all
available entheogens inside and outside all the major religions in all eras.
Entheogen scholars should be more on guard against inadvertantly supporting
the status quo theory which is exactly this: that yes, some deviant groups
have sometimes used drugs in some religions, especially in olden days. How
could today’s entheogen books challenge the status-quo dominant paradigm by
merely falling into it? Their little firecrackers bounce harmlessly off the
temple walls. The status-quo paradigm can eat ten of these scholars for lunch
as an appetizer.
These books and articles so far are utterly failing to communicate, partly
because they unconsciously downplay the very thesis they are trying to put
forward, while taking for granted far more of the conventional views about
religion than the authors realize. If you let the readers retain their
overall paradigm of what religion is about, and only introduce a focus on one
plant, one era, one religion, it’s a no-brainer what the result will be:
effortless dismissal; that is how paradigms work.
These scholars severely overestimate their sweep and scope of ambition, and
severely underestimate how massive a challenging paradigm must be. No one, no
one, understands why it is so important to take on the whole of Christian
theology and tradition and history, and transform the entirety of it into a
fully entheogenic paradigm (and drag along all other religions as well).
Bennett’s book was somewhat influential in my studying the whole of the Bible
canon.
Bennett thinks he’s presented a radical, sweeping alternative paradigm, but it
is no such thing, far overemphasizing cannabis, the earliest origins of a
religion, and the Christian religion only, while unconsciously accepting as an
overall paradigm the status-quo paradigm, which is that a few deviant groups
used one drug in isolated heretical cases long ago.
They don’t really offer an alternative paradigm — just a minor modification
within the dominant paradigm, which is easily brushed off like a bit of few
breadcrumbs off a good Christian’s tablecloth.
One kind of serious threat to a new paradigm is a way of thinking that appears
to be a new paradigm and thinks it is, but really is just a minor ill-received
modification within the same, old, half-baked way of thinking. This is how
paradigm replacement works: the new paradigm must be bigger and more
encompassing than the old, more ambitious, more cogent and concise, more
natural, more everything.
Nothing less than a whole new interpretation of metaphysics, religious myth,
the nature of myth, the ever-popular use of every entheogenic plant in sight
by everyone, stands a chance when battling the fierce dragon of the
established dominant way of thinking. Low-dose theories fail to cause
regeneration of the sinner’s heart.
These psilocybin caps just aren’t cutting it; we need a far stronger drink, a
far more efffective potion, to kill the beast of the dominant way of thinking
about the role of entheogens in religious history. We need to leave this
mellow jazz guitar music played by the Bennett, Arthur, and Merkur brothers,
and hook up a chain of guitar amps overdriving each other.
Everyone should buy and read these books and ask what would result by taking
their postulates as far as possible:
Merkur’s book Psychedelic Sacrament is very important; entheogen use by
rabbinic mystics is more important than my review implies. This kind of
serious engagement with Western religion is important and entheogenists really
must expand beyond idolizing Buddhist mysticism. Entheogenists need to get
interested in quasi-official Jewish and Christian mysticism; it’s the only
possible way to ever succesfully challenge the dominant way of thinking.
The one-topic revisionist scholars think that they have a new paradigm, and it
may seem like they do, but really, they don’t have anything but the dominant
way of thinking, with a minor revision; just a revision of the current way of
thinking, not really a new way of thinking.
One of my top priorities is to write a better review that explains why this
book is one of the very most important and why every entheogenist should read
it *even if* they imagine that they aren’t interested in “rabbinic
mysticism” — just like most entheogenists imagine that they aren’t interested
in “Christianity”. They’ll never make a difference and challenge the dominant
paradigm until the day they *get* interested.
I really need to write more explaining why the most important thing to do is
to completely take over the entire nature of religion and the entire history
of religion in order to sweep away the completely incorrect dominant, official
way of thinking about religion and especially to exorcise that delusion from
their own habitual character of thinking, and framework of assumptions.
The existing books have made *no impact* on the dominant way of thinking,
because they unthinkingly take too much of the dominant paradigm for granted
as the paradigmatic framework in which they put forth their minor revisions of
a few points. The problem these authors have on their hands, the only real
problem, is how to construct a serious challenger to the dominant way of
thinking.
It’s been proven by now that this will require far more than the puny, feeble
little gnat-like “entheogen theory of the origin of religion”. The time is
ripe for an actual transformation in thinking, rather than the isolated
revision of points that we have become accustomed to under the false and
deceptive banner of “revolutionary paradigm shift”.
It’s long, like Dan Russell’s book Drug War, but quite readable and makes the
scriptures interesting. If you substitute “entheogens” instead of “cannabis”
when reading and thinking about this book, this book is an essential key for
revealing that the Christian scriptures are inspired throughout. Many of the
sex or ritual sex aspects generally concur with studies like “The Historical
Mary Magdalene” and Allegro’s “The Sacred Mushroom & The Cross”. I’m not
interested in the subject of sex or ritual sex, but like the subject of
astrotheology, ancient religionists were.
When Amazon fixes a problem, I will rename this to something like “Entheogen
theory of religion”, “Entheogen basis of religion”, or something else implying
that real religion has always been about entheogen allegory — all plants, all
eras, all religions, all classes.
The very name of the theory I’ve been using has a fatal flaw: it asserts that
entheogens are only present in a disappearingly small moment: the temporal
beginning — very easy to dismiss as an anomaly that proves the rule that
“religions, generally and on the whole, are *not* about drugs, and are about
rejecting drugs”.
— Michael Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath
Message: 1515
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 28/03/2003
Subject: Heinrich concedes no-HJ explan. Apocrypha, 2-state interp.
I wrote:
>>In contrast, I present this truly sane, wise, and sober interpretation:
Jesus is an entirely mythic representation of the specific metaphysical
experience and conceptual realization which Hellenistic mystery-religion
initiates and Jewish mystics underwent subsequent to ingesting the sacred food
and mixed wine of the ritual meals that were standard and ubiquitous in the
Hellenistic world.
Clark Heinrich conceded that and seems to have forgotten the presumably main
subject of our discussion, the changes in the new edition of Strange Fruit.
His book takes for granted the literal existence of a historical Jesus, which
I maintain hopelessly complicates any explanation of the origin of
Christianity.
When ordinary Christians hear the no-historical Jesus proposal, they think
that the main problem with it is that it would be much harder to explain
Christian origins.
Scholars can more quickly recognize that the problem they are inadvertantly
coming across is that the more you study Christian origins, the more
superfluous and redundant is the need for any individual man, Jesus, to *also*
physically enact what the Jewish and Hellenistic thinking of the day had
*already* constructed with or without an actual man to uniquely literally
carry out the mythic ideas that were on everyone’s mind already.
For scholars, the problem is coming to be how to explain the rise of
Christianity as being a natural development in the political and mythical
climate at the same time as Christianity also “came from” the acts of a
presumed historical individual, Jesus; historical Jesus becomes more of a
complicating, problem-introducing extra hypothesis than a solution.
The historical Jesus assumption is like saying that when you push a door, the
door opens because of cause-and-effect *and* because the door spirit causes
the door to open.
As a theorist, it is a huge relief to abandon the historical Jesus
assumption — a far more compact and elegant mode of explanation results,
instead of trying to explain that Christianity was formed *both* by the
political and historical backdrop *and* by the uniquely actualized actions of
the individual man, Jesus, that just happen to exactly enact the mythic
allegorical drama that was present anyway in Jewish and Hellenistic thinking.
Today’s scholarly consensus amounts to a combination of “Jesus is archetypal
allegorical mystic metaphor” *and* “Jesus literally carried out the allegory”.
For scholars, the question now is how is it that Christianity started both
without needing Jesus, *and* involving Jesus? We have a double-explanation,
and then the question is what would have motivated a rational, clear-thinking
Jesus to have bothered *voluntarily* literally acting out the myths of the
day? To pull off some stunt of faking a resurrection?
Why would he do it? He wouldn’t be considered a victorious king in that
scenario which ends up with a regular literal Jesus walking around after
literally escaping the cross. That’s the problem I came across and grappled
with.
Then the spirit showed me that what mattered to *me* if I ever experienced a
crisis needing a vicarious self-will demolisher to finally and violently cross
out his self-will and self-control, was the *idea* of a divine savior and
rescuer; the savior figure was effective for me in my time of tribulation and
judgment by his actions in the mental realm, not by his literal existence, his
literal motives, and his literal actions.
I also assumed at the time the “savior” and “divine rescuer” idea functioned
the same in the other Hellenistic mystery religions with their
dying-and-rising god-man divine redeemer-figures, which scholars hold to be
purely mythical redeemers.
How could it be that the mystery religions experienced divine rescue and
redemption from their purely mythical saviors, while Christian mystic-state
explorers had to have a savior that was also literal in addition to
functioning allegorically in the mind? From this analysis, the literal
historical Jesus became totally superfluous with respect to the mystic’s
experience of being rescued by a divine savior.
In practice, the literalist assumption (the assumption that the origin of
Christianity was strongly focused on and dependent on a single historical
actual individual man) prevents understanding the high allegorical meaning.
I proposed asking Dale Allison why one should accept his historical-Jesus
interpretation of the apocalyptic Jesus instead of my entheogen-allegory
interpretation.
Clark wrote that I have more patience for theology than he does, and
characterizes literalist Christianity scholars as “can’t get the joke”. Chris
Bennett’s book is responsible for some of my patience for theology, such as
taking on the entire Bible as entheogenic scriptures and then later (unlike
Bennett) as mythic-only entheogenic allegory. If Bennett takes on the whole
Bible, working through each book, then I had better reach that bar as well.
I think Bennett omitted the Apocrypha between the testaments, which is a
mistake. The most literalist version of Christianity is Protestantism, and
that literalist, non-spiritual, non-allegorical mindset is supported by
removing the Apocrypha. In Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, there’s a much
stronger flavor of allegory.
That’s one reason why I’m thinking of retracting or qualifying my idea of
“middle-level religion” or “middle-level Christianity”: in some ways, low
religion is closer to the truth than presumably higher, demythicized religion
which removes all the supernatural and ends up with mundane history and
mundane ethics and oridinary-state archetypal Psychology symbolism.
It may be easier to grasp the entheogenic purely allegorical meaning of the
Jesus crew in Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity than Protestant
Christianity, because the icons and mood are already more archetypal and
symbolic than in hyper-literalist Protestantism. My brand of Christianity was
exclusively Protestant, albeit a mix of conservative and New Age
Protestantism.
The Protestant mythic-system is a more brittle puzzle, serving as more of a
challenge but more definitely and catastrophically breakable.
Catholicism can too easily absorb an allegorical theory, whereas Protestantism
tends to be entire demolished or completely transformed upon finding a sound
allegorical interpretation; Protestantism cannot remain literalist and absorb
and co-opt mystic allegory; it necessarily gives up the literalist ghost and
transforms to the distinct 2-level dynamic system it was originally designed
to be.
In the earliest Christianity, you could say that the collective community
understood the 2-level meaning-flipping character of the religion; this is
reflected in the Paul character’s distinction between milk Christianity and
meat Christianity, thinking as a child does and then putting away childish
things for the adult way of thinking. Catholic orthodoxy tends to bend and
absorb and co-opt mystic allegory rather than successfully transforming into
the exclusively higher mode of interpretation.
Group: egodeath
Message: 1516
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: New in Heinrich’s “Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy”
Compared to the first edition, “Strange Fruit”, the new edition of the book
has the following.
Large-format paperback, which makes it much more user friendly–larger type,
bigger pictures, new layout throughout.
The whole thing re-edited, syntax improved, typos and British spellings
corrected, five important illustrations that my first publisher lost and
therefore left out, two new color plates, two substitutions with better
plates, new layout of plates with different sizing in some cases.
The new photo of Rama and Hanuman holding opened mushrooms while touching a
Shiva linga with their free hands that is actually a large button-stage
muscaria; with pertinent new text explaining it.
>Michael,
>I have read your site about ego death and found it to be very interesting.
>I have a Suite 101 column on Rational Spirituality and I thought you would
>be interested in checking it out. I have added a link to your site from
>there also.
>
>http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/rational_spirituality
>
>Francois Tremblay
>personal site : http://www.insolitology.com/personal
High on my wish list is to convince Earl Doherty of the profundity of the
Christian myth, now that it is becoming understood in terms of systematic
theory, or science.
There are 228 postings I haven’t read in the egodeath discussion group. There
are 138 subscribed members (and anyone can publicly read the group). I
haven’t promoted the group or website at all, except by including my domain
name at the bottom of postings in various online forums, and by including my
domain name in my Amazon page. If my work becomes popular, I will fall behind
in reading people’s postings at an even higher rate.
Outlook 2000 doesn’t permit me to sort by Read/Unread status — damn, what a
major feature limitation — otherwise I could print all unread postings and
read them like a book. I will see if Outlook 2003 permits this.
Similarly, I expect that few people are able to, or interested in, keeping up
with my postings, which have about a 90% redundancy factor per posting.
I’m considering a Web log but there are as many drawbacks as advantages. The
worst thing about Yahoo groups is that they aren’t logged by the Google search
engine.
I started gathering all my postings, including prior to the egodeath
discussion group. There are thousands of postings — just gathering them into
folders is a huge project. For example, my Sent mailbox has thousands of
emails from over the years, with guitar amp gear postings mixed with egodeath,
drug policy reform, and other postings.
I want to gather all my postings, organize them and compile them into a
full-featured frameset, but the tools for doing so continue to be inefficient.
It’s a major project and I’m too impatient to get on with the next insight;
I’ve never liked spending time polishing and presenting ideas neatly; I’m
totally a frontier explorer, hungry only for the next discovery.
A problem is that even if I did collect all my writings, it would be such a
huge collection, the size might work against effective communication of the
basics. Also, the high redundancy from one posting to the next is also
somewhat of a problem.
I could really use an assistant, like a graduate student, editing team, or
ghost writer, to organize my writings. I’m doing some writing myself, which
is like ghost writing, for a very busy famous person.
Group: egodeath
Message: 1519
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: TRIP issue 9 is now shipping
>This is a quick note to let you know that Trip 9, Spring 2003, will be
shipping
within the next few days. If you need to update your address or resubscribe,
now’s the time to do it! We’ve got a great issue featuring DJ Spooky,
Negativland, articles on Psychedelic Activism, and much more. For full details
on the contents of our new issue please visit http://tripzine.com
>James Kent
Group: egodeath
Message: 1520
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: Repairing the rift among entheogen scholars
James Arthur ought to have tighter editing and more citations, more scholarly
style than in the book Mushrooms & Mankind. Dan Merkur convinced me of the
importance of scholarly discipline. It would be wonderful for Entheos journal
to work with James Arthur to publish a respectable article of his even if his
natural style is popular and undisciplined. I have little patience for
scholarly discipline, but unlike Arthur, I have a high respect for it.
Arthur has an interesting hypothesis that scholars already know the entheogen
theory so there’s no point in playing the charade of scholarly citation. Like
some of my experimental extreme hypotheses, there is some degree of truth in
his assertion, mixed with some untruth.
I have to criticize the many typos in the Mithras article in Entheos journal.
I’m sure the editor is as busy as I am, but typos are very harmful for
scholarly credibility, and are the most abrupt contradiction possible of the
magazine’s stated goal. I have great respect for the work of all entheogen
scholars, specifically including John Allegro, James Arthur, and Chris
Bennett, and I intend to give them as much credit for their contributions and
insights as possible.
There seems to have been a major rift in the entheogen scholar community
pursuant to these two books:
The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of
Christianity within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East
John Marco Allegro, 1969? http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0340128755
Much of the rift centers around the no-historical Jesus theory. I was
surprised to find that Jack Herer is quite a scholar and considers it very
important to reject the historical Jesus assumption. I was surprised to find
that Jack Herer was even more critical of the book Apples of Apollo than I
was, because of its assumption of a historical Jesus. I am very forgiving of
the way entheogen scholars assume a historical Jesus — what scholars don’t?
I used to unthinkingly make the same assumption myself, as an entheogen
scholar; it’s hardly an outstanding reason to dock points for when reviewing
an entheogen book. But Herer seems to think that the presence of the
historical Jesus assumption fatally undermines the legitimacy of an entheogen
book about myth-religion.
I’ve been more tentative in postulating that literalist thinking about Jesus
practically prevents one from comprehending the profound entheogenic mythic
meaning of the Passion of the Cross. It seems that Herer is more absolute: it
is impossible to have a legitimate entheogen theory or a higher understanding
of entheogenic myth-religion if one assumes there was a historical Jesus.
Now that Clark Heinrich has conceded the entirely mystic-mythic,
ritual-metaphorical, and allegorical nature of the Jesus figure, Chris Bennett
and the Mark Hoffman/Carl Ruck crowd are the only remaining entheogen scholars
to assume or take for granted a historical Jesus. Would it be good for all
entheogen scholars to do away with the historical Jesus assumption? I don’t
know; maybe a range of views and thinking styles helps the entheogen theory
cause more than it impedes it.
Truly, the most critical of the critical thinkers are the no-historical Jesus
scholars. They have to be the clearest of thinkers. In general,
no-historical Jesus scholars immediately concede the high plausibility of the
entire entheogen theory of religion, whereas the less critical thinkers, the
entheogen scholars generally are completely uncritical about the historical
Jesus assumption — I know this mistake first-hand.
Entheogen theorists typically haven’t read books about no-historical Jesus,
and yet they actively adhere to the assumption of a historical Jesus, and
consider themselves to be critical thinkers. After having seen how
upside-down the world’s assumptions are with respect to entheogens, these
would-be critical thinkers dare to venture a strong affirmation of the
historical Jesus assumption.
Upon Heinrich conceding no-historical Jesus, and upon finding that Jack Herer
is (if possible) more intent than I am on dismissing the historical-Jesus
assumption as a harmful impediment to progress in entheogen knowledge, and
upon James Arthur’s dismissal of the historical Jesus assumption, it looks
clear at this point that the future of entheogen scholarship is moving in the
direction I advocate: effectively *replacing* the historical Jesus assumption
by, basically, Allegro’s view — give him credit for being too far ahead of
his time, so far that he has embarrassed us and now we repent — the view that
Jesus, like Dionysus, is none other than the entheogen.
The only flaw with Allegro is his disparaging attitude toward the early
enthenogenic Christians, not his theory *that* they were entheogenists and the
Jesus was none other than Amanita and its experiences and insights. The only
way forward for entheogen theory is to stop distancing itself by disparaging
Allegro, and instead, give him credit for being so far ahead of his time, that
even we would-be critical thinkers, have had to run to catch up with him.
We must criticize and reject Allegro’s bad attitude, while being in awe of his
prescient conclusion that Jesus was none other than the entheogen —
otherwise, our field is broken and dysfunctional, a field based on a sandy
foundation of untruth, leading to darkness as much as light.
I’m not sure of what constructive outcome can be had by entheogen scholars
criticizing and critiquing each other’s contributions. I was extremely
dismayed at the way the book Apples of Apollo insulted and disparaged John
Allegro by kicking him in the footnotes and refusing to include him in the
bibliography — that was truly bad behavior, bad scholarly citizenship and is
the opposite of the constructive criticism that is necessary for entheogen
scholarship to progress.
Constructive criticism can be blurred into destructive criticism. It’s
important to both criticize and praise other co-workers in this scholarly
field, giving them credit and giving them their due. That’s the only way the
field can really progress. I’m highly critical to the point of being or
seeming destructive, but critical, skeptical thinking has produced results in
developing my own thinking or theoretical system.
The effective attitude among entheogen scholars is neither an uncritical
love-fest nor the kind of insulting dismissals like the footnotization of
Allegro or the disparagement of James Arthur’s popularist, anti-scholarly
strategy.
There is some disadvantage of associating Entheos journal with James Arthur
because of his popularism and anti-scholar attitude — but the solution must
be to work together to overcome each other’s weaknesses and improve each
other, which includes a great deal of critical wrangling as well. It is very
stressful, the hard work of both criticizing the limitations of one’s fellow
scholars, while also working to build up each other’s work and contributions,
to maximize the potential of each scholar together.
Is there outright competition between these scholars? I don’t really think
so; not significantly — clearly there is enough territory for many more
scholars in this field; we need to invite and create and encourage even more
scholars to help work in this field. The real problem, the reason for
contention and insults — each controversial scholar is terrified of the
liability of being associated with each other.
Bennett? That marijuana-Jesus kook? No, he’s not my friend, his work sucks,
he’s totally wrong. Arthur? An embarrassment to us serious scholars!
Heinrich? The fool assumes a historical Jesus; he’s a terrible embarrassment
and liability to us clear thinkers!
Each controversial scholar aligns himself with certain other controversial
scholars, and aligns himself against certain other controversial scholars.
Why? Because being associated with another controversial scholar is partly a
boon and partly a harmful liability for a controversial scholar.
Allegro was tarred and feathered for his theory that Jesus is none other than
the Amanita in conjunction with ritual sex — no wonder entheogen scholars
publically disparage him and distance themselves as far as possible from him
and his theories.
Entheogen scholars should not try to distance themselves from Allegro (because
of his no-HJ, and sex hypotheses) or Bennett (for his seeming marijuana-Jesus
fixation) or Arthur (for his attitude against disciplined scholarly
conventions). Instead, the constructive attitude and the way forward is to
praise each scholar for what one takes to be their insight, and to criticize
just those aspects one disagrees with.
My treatment of Ken Wilber is a good model: the hardest thing in the world is
to legitimately critcize Wilber. He’s so right about so many things and has
made huge contributions to Integral Theory and transpersonal theory of
psycho-spiritual development.
I commend him and respectfully cite him, even while I consign to the flames
his pathetic, totally inadequate, muddled and inconsistent attitude toward
Hellenistic mystery-religion: he is practically oblivious to the entheogen
basis of Hellenistic mystery-religion and myth-religion, assumes a historical
Jesus, and has hardly thought about how cosmic determinism fits into the
Hellenistic way of thinking.
Because of these omissions and severe under-treatment of these subjects,
Wilber has an outright *weak* core theory of what ego-transcendence is about.
His theory of everything is as good as it could be, given the limiting factor,
which is his weak core theory of what is *most important* in the mental
transformation that is ego death and rebirth.
I don’t try to publically distance myself from Wilber, like the way an
entheogen scholar fearfully tries to deny any association with other entheogen
scholars. I associate my work with Wilber’s work *selectively*. It’s
dishonest and chicken of the book Apples of Apollo to take some of Allegro’s
insights, footnoting him repeatedly, and then insult Allegro on the whole, in
an effort to publically distance their work from his by shunning him from
inclusion in the bibliography.
The book’s insulting wholesale disparagement of Allegro is inexcusable (even
if strategically understandable), whereas the book’s gullible assumption of a
historical Jesus is fully understandable and excusable. Jack Herer seems to
have been taken aback by both flaws of the book Apples of Apollo: the
wholesale disparagement of and distancing from Allegro, and the gullible
assumption of a historical Jesus.
Entheos journal ought to do penance and prove that it is as constructive as I
wish to be, by publishing a favorable critical article about the whole Allegro
affair and debate, and by working with James Arthur to publish a scholarly
article (with no typos).
— Michael “brushed off effortlessly like a gnat” Hoffman
Egodeath.com
Group: egodeath
Message: 1521
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 29/03/2003
Subject: Has entheogen theory been effectively communicated?
What are the outcomes of this experimental train of thought, the criticisms of
entheogen scholars’ backdrop of assumptions?
My criticisms are half-correct. It was entirely incorrect for me to associate
James Arthur with an exagerrated focus and weak framework of an all-plants
perspective: I should have used Clark Heinrich, instead, as an example of an
entheogen scholar whose writings inadvertantly equate religion with one plant,
Amanita.
James Arthur is hard to criticize — the main flaw of his work is the
unprofessional, unscholarly presentation of his research in Mushrooms and
Mankind; he’d be more successful among the scholarly community with more
careful editing and scholarly citations.
I have been very careful to qualify my critique of Ken Wilber — unlike my
first attempts at doing so, where I accused him of being oblivious to
entheogens. Now, my criticism of him on that point is far more qualified: he
has a bad *treatment* of entheogens, failing to see their ubiquity such as in
Hellenistic mystery-religion, and failing to see that they are not a
simulation of mystic technique, but are the main, original, and ever-popular
mystic technique. His statements about entheogens are largely right — he
just doesn’t make entheogens central as he should.
I have to improve my criticism of entheogen scholars the same way. There is
something seriously wrong with the existing entheogen scholarship — but what
exactly is it? I refuse to be morose or repentant about the flaws in my
critical efforts so far. Flaws are the price of making headway. I will
correct my criticisms but won’t apologize; I had to venture some flames to
push the envelope and see aspects of today’s researchers immortally survives
and which parts are perishable.
One important outcome of my extremist, experimental condemnation of today’s
paradigm for doing entheogen scholarship is the need to assess the degree to
which this scholarship has achieved influencing general knowledge.
James Arthur has been highly influential in certain respects, spreading the
gospel of entheogen-pharmacopia religion far and wide on the Art Bell show
with millions of listeners — other scholars ought to be jealous of Arthur’s
popular success. He has also been an extremely popular presenter at
conferences. His site gets many hits, and his book is highly popular at
Amazon, higher than 50,000 for a long time.
In the popular High Times and Cannabis Culture magazines, Chris Bennett has
spread the gospel of entheogen-religion, most visibly of “Jesus’ use of
marijuana”, as The Door magazine reports it.
Ruck’s work, altogether, has been influential, though it’s hard for me to
gauge. Heinrich’s work is much better positioned now that his second edition
of Strange Fruit has been published inexpensively in the U.S., rather than the
extremely fine and fairly expensive U.K. original edition.
I don’t really have a “work” to gauge the impact of, but my work at Amazon, in
Christianity and entheogens and no-free-will has probably been about as
influential as my personal communications with entheogen scholars.
Robert Graves deserves much more credit than he’s been given, for the
entheogen theory of religion: in fact, the Wasson Hypothesis really must be
renamed the Graves/Wasson Hypothesis. I wish to read Graves, such as White
Goddess, and King Jesus. Graves’ innovative ideas were influential, but he’s
given little credit for the entheogen theory of religion.
Were Allegro’s ideas about mythic Christianity and Amanita influential? In
some twisted and complicated ways, yes. Entheos magazine ought to have an
article about that question. I evade the responsibility for writing it, but
am a candidate for doing so, even though I’d ignore the sex aspects.
Group: egodeath
Message: 1522
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 30/03/2003
Subject: Amazon review: Bennett’s “Drugs in the Bible”
A review I posted today. There are presently no reviews. This book is in my
Amazon list, “Entheogen theory of religion”.
Anyone interested in the entheogen theory of religion should get and read this
book. It is largely devoted to ferreting out the many entheogen references and
allusions in the Bible. It covers most books of the Bible in order.
High-quality scholarship. Aside from some distracting typos, it is highly
readable and reveals how interesting and complex many of the Bible stories
are. As is standard, it assumes the literal existence of Bible characters —
an assumption which entheogen scholars are increasingly calling into question.
I’m grateful for this book spurring me on to take on studying all the books in
the Bible. Highly recommended for entheogen and religion collections —
essential, in fact, especially in light of how few books there are about
entheogens in Christianity.
Group: egodeath
Message: 1523
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 30/03/2003
Subject: Assessing the influence of Bennett’s work
Chris Bennett strives to offer more credible evidence of the use of a variety
of entheogens in early Christianity than any researcher to date.
Per Ott, I criticized the word “artificial” in Siegel’s book:
I am considering posting the Door review, which I consider a meaningful
weathervane of status-quo thinking and attitudes toward the entheogen theory:
many people assume that the theory need not be seriously refuted, because they
think it'#39;s unthinkable.
I’m finding so many entheogen-diminishing passages in books on mystic
experiencing and early Christianity and Buddhism, so many that I’m highly
aggravated. This is somewhat of a sign of the entheogens making significant
inroads. My driving goal in assessing the situation is to prevent religion
writers from so easily getting away with diminishing the spiritual use of
entheogens and the entheogen theory of religion.
Almost every run-of-the-mill scholar of early Christianity now is obliged to
do the same aggravating dance of “some theorists even put forth such absurd
ideas as Jesus leading a mushroom cult”. Those mainstream, official scholars
then feel that they have safely defused and swept aside the threat of the
entheogen theory, which threatens their paycheck and livelihood as explainers
of “what the historical Jesus and his beliefs were really like”.
One of Bennett’s High Times articles mentioned mushrooms, mandrake and other
entheogens.
Regarding the question of to what extent the entheogen theory is being
communicated effectively, Bennett’s High Times article was coverd in every
major newspaper in the world, including the UK Gaurdian, Sunday Times, BBC,
India Times, Indai Express, Washington Post, and others.
Subject: Re: Has entheogen theory been effectively communicated?
There is
something seriously wrong with the existing entheogen scholarship —
but what
exactly is it? >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I eventually came to the conclusion in my own pondering of this
question that the single fact, that it because it is, except in rare
cases, illegal to do either religious or scientific research on
entheogens. This has colored the way people including “scholars,”
have discussed entheogens and the single most important factor that
has dragged down the development of understanding about these things,
I do believe that at the level of Law, it CAN be proven, within the
lagal context, that entheogens are in fact the origin of religion,
or at least a religious thing.
We are talking about baby steps. You can’t expect a general
scholarly understanding and concurance to occur when reseach itself,
is legally prohibited.
Thus the first step is widening the legality of entheogens for
relgious use and scientific research. A comprehensive theory that
explores are the nooks andd crannies, comes later.
Even if the only definate legal proof of shamanisitic and hindu use
in religious practice, then that is a first step. Then prove the
the Judeo/Christian Islamic and Buddhist links.
“Freedom of Religion,” in the United States, and other countries,
is a legal fact on paper. Now the objective should be to change the
laws. If this means to first legalize shamanistic religious use,
then that is a first step. Effort in this direction, would mean
preparing the legal argument, not the all knowing, all
comprehensive “General Theory of Entheogenic consciousness,” that
all scientists and religionists must agree to at some latter time.
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 1525
From: rialcnis2000
Date: 30/03/2003
Subject: Re: Has entheogen theory been effectively communicated?
It is very easy to demonstrate that Entheogen has been fundamental
to Shamnaistic religon and vedic Hinduism. The documentary proof in
these two areas could never be controverted in any court of law.
This is step one.
Once all the explorers and scientists involved in entheogen research
convert to a religion where entheogines can be studied legally then
great things can come. A new breed of “Medicine Man” or the
Ayuervedic Physicians of the future, would need to unite in the
legal arena, using all the proof at their disposal. If this cannot
be done, then nothing can be done and entheogenic theorizing could
never become mainstream. There are simply laws that need to be
changed based on religious rights.
dc
Group: egodeath
Message: 1526
From: spamsquatch69
Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: The meaning of the S.A.T.O. Abbreviation in the song by Ozzy
The sight mentions this if you go to Ozzy’s songs. S.A.T.O does not
mean sailing the acid ocean trip or anything like that. It’s the
initials to his wife, Sharon’s, full name.
Group: egodeath
Message: 1527
From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: File – EgodeathPostingRules.txt
This text file is automatically posted to the discussion group every two
weeks, in order to provide guidelines for writers, to keep the postings
on-topic and help writers know what subjects are considered most desirable
by this audience.
It is possible to write on most any topic and have it be relevant for this
Egodeath discussion group if you show how the posting is related to the
in-scope topics for this discussion group. This group is not formally
moderated, but it is consistently focused on the defined topics, including
peripheral topics if the writer explicitly connects them to the core topics.
Vague, unclear, hazy postings are off-topic and out of scope and are subject to moderation. Contributors must make the effort for rational, clear, explicit, intellectual, articulate, and comprehensible presentation of particular points.
This discussion group covers the cybernetic theory of ego death and
ego transcendence, including:
o Nonreductionistic block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.
o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.
o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.
o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, the Eleusinian mysteries and
cracking the allegorical code of the mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.
o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.
Group: egodeath
Message: 1528
From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Date: 31/03/2003
Subject: New file uploaded to egodeath
Hello,
This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the egodeath
group.
File : /A Commentary on Liber 609.txt
Uploaded by : panoptes_x <panoptes69@…>
Description : A Commentary on Liber 609
Subject: Import. of det’m, enth., & myth-only Jesus
The importance of determinism, entheogens, and denying the historical
Jesus in favor of a mythic-only Jesus/Christ
This particular combination of distinctive ideas holds together to
very effectively and most immediately produce a certain kind of ego
death experience.
Consider treating determinism as an optional, non-primary, non-
critical component of the model of ego death I’m formulating. What
if someone concentrated on all the ideas I put forward, but neglected
to consider determinism/fatedness, or crticially or uncritically
concentrated on a freewillist framework of thinking?
Consider treating mythic-only Christ as an optional, non-primary, non-
critical component of the model of ego death I’m formulating. What
if someone concentrated on all the ideas I put forward, but neglected
to consider mythic-only Christ, or crticially or uncritically
concentrated on a historical Jesus, or supernaturalist Jesus, or
fairy-tale debunking/anti-transcendent, materialist framework of
thinking?
Consider treating entheogens as an optional, non-primary, non-
critical component of the model of ego death I’m formulating. What
if someone concentrated on all the ideas I put forward, but neglected
to consider entheogens, or crticially or uncritically concentrated on
a “drug-free religious insight” framework of thinking?
Why don’t we ignore the mythic-only Christ theory, ignore determinism
or embrace freewillism, or ignore or dismiss entheogens? What kind
of an ego death systematic theory/model could remain? An ego death
theory:
o Without any emphasis on the mythic-only Christ theory
o With no emphasis on the freewill/determinism issue
o Paying no attention to entheogens.
A couple months ago I realized just how definitive and distinctive is
my combination of determinism (timeless single fixed-future
fatedness), mythic-only Christ theory, and entheogens. A crucial
question for a theorist is to contribute something unique. If your
theory is not unique, you’re dead as an innovator. I often fear that
someone else, in a new book, is expressing the theory I’ve hastened
and labored to pull together first.
Books come out drawing a strong connection between religion and
entheogens, or religion and determinism and freewill, or other
combinations. My job is to explain how each new book containing
higher revelations is inadequate and misses the target of an
effective ego death theory. Many books initially seem to nail my
theory, but then I realize the book fails to integrated determinism,
or entheogens, or the mythic-only Christ. Because these are all so
distinctive and controversial, and less commonly treated subjects,
the set of these 3 topics becomes a reliable and effective test for
the presence of my theory.
If a book were to cover block-universe determinism, interpretation of
the Jesus figure on a basis of the mythic-only Christ, and
entheogens, there is almost bound to be my theory. The mystic
altered state is infinitely more effectively engendered by entheogens
than other methods. Once you have the mystic altered state on tap,
you are in a position to reflect upon Christian myth truly as myth,
fully independent of needing the additional hypothesis of the
historical human Jesus: you can begin recognizing and experiencing
aspects of the stories of the crucified rebel would-be sovereign; you
can start thinking powerfully and experientially about spiritual
crucifixion, metanoia, death and spiritual resurrection.
And once you have the mystic state on tap, you are ready to begin
thinking about the ramifications of perceiving timelessness for the
dynamics of personal control across time — leading to a discovery of
the breathtakingly elegant hypothesis of determinism, or rather,
fixed-future fatedness.
Combining entheogens, the worldmodel of determinism or timeless
frozen-future fatedness, and purely mythic thinking about the meaning
of the Crucifixion, or the religious truth of the cruci-fiction, is
the fastest way to experience and rationally understand ego death in
contemporary Western culture — at least, a specific, comprehensible,
certain kind of ego death. If you focus on other topics and
approaches, that will delay any ego death realization. My goal is to
define an approach to ego death that provides the most intense and
complete kind of ego death as quickly and easily as possible — the
way to do this, given the contemporary Western culture, is to
emphasize these three most disctintive subjects: entheogens,
determinism as I define it, and purely mythic Christ. These are the
topics or perspectives most commonly omitted from spiritual or
theoretical accounts of ego death, and my solution is compensation by
putting a strong emphasis on these key points.
In spirituality, the missing key idea is entheogens, so a truly good
theory of religion now would emphasize entheogens. In Jesus studies,
the missing key idea is the purely mythic Christ/Jesus, so to redeem
the domain of Jesus studies, an emphasis is needed on the “purely
mythic Jesus” theory. Another key missing idea that provides the
framework for finally understanding the mystery religions and
Hellenistic and general religious thought is determinism. There’s
not nearly enough emphasis on entheogens, mythic-only Jesus, and
determinism (heimarmene) — and ego death is not at all forthcoming
in such a conceptual environment bereft of these emphases.
The missing ingredients that are lacking to make the mental bomb of
revelation go off successfully, the aspects of maturity that are
necessary before we can be taught to bring our minds to spiritual
climax, are these three missing domains. If you take away the study
of heimarmene or entheogens or purely mythic Jesus from this ego
death theory, the theory will fail its goal of providing an amazingly
ergonomic and convenient approach to a particular, intense kind of
ego death experience and insight.
Other subjects are necessary, but are already (I wish to suppose)
relatively common, such as semantic facility, such as is required to
talk about the way in which ego is and is not an illusion, and to
differentiate between the collapse of a probability wave versus the
collapse (resolution) of our *knowledge about* the wave’s resolution,
or to shift in concert an entire set of meanings of terms such
as ‘ego’, ‘me’, ‘movement’, ‘guilt’, ‘responsible’, and ‘decide’. I
focus on the most critically absent ideas — the difference between
what we commonly know about religious experiencing and what we must
know to most quickly bring about religious experiencing. The worst
ignorance, about the things most sorely lacking for achieving ego
death, is of the subjects of determinism (heimarmene), entheogens,
and the mythic-only Jesus theory. Now, the entheogen theory is no
longer new — and yet it is; we have really only begun publically
reintroducing entheogens into their proper central place on the
sacred meal table in the dead center of religious activity, replacing
the bunk, ego-sustaining placebo sacraments.
I have to build on the most advanced entheogen theories and make sure
I start from there and move forward far past Huston Smith’s tepid and
tentative apologies for the “religion-simulating” potential of
entheogens — I have to be the next generation after James Arthur,
Clark Heinrich, Huston Smith, R. Gordon Wasson, and Albert Hofmann.
I move into a different paradigm, in which entheogens are so taken
for granted as to almost disappear — or rather, to become merely one
of a multitude of primary domains to at last integrate, together with
determinism (heimarmene) and the mythic-only Jesus allegorical
paradigm. Entheogens are merely one of a set of crucial model-
construction tools — in this, my attitude is the same as Ken Wilber,
who centrally focusses on “altered states” instead of entheogens in
particular.
I take it for granted that entheogens are the source of religious
experiencing, that insight leads to determinism, and that the fullest
grasp of Christian religious insight is based on a mythic-only
Jesus. The problem then that I must contribute work on is showing
how these three axioms, with other domains, work together to bring
ego death immediately, effectively, and far more conveniently than
any other set of ideas and approaches. If you remove this emphasis
on determinism (fixed-future, block-universe fatedness), you
immediately lose the possibility of a convenient, direct approach to
bringing about the climax of ego death.
Group: egodeath
Message: 466
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 18/01/2002
Subject: 2 competing conceptions of ego death
>in our hearts we hold the power of personal choice.
That hits upon the heart of the matter. Do we hold that power in a way that
is metaphysically free? Many mystics and mystic traditions say no. We wield
power only relatively; our hand is forced by the Ground of Being. During the
mystic state, one’s hand (heart, will) is seen to be forced. My hand is
firmly on the wheel of choice and decision, but now I see that someone is
forcing my hand. The ego is the controller of the personal will, but the ego
is secretly controlled by the Ground of Being. When that is seen as
terrifying and a dangerous state of dependence on a hidden manipulator-force,
one may pray to that manipulator force, feeling that one’s only hope is to
hope that the manipulator force is a conscious and benevolent being — God
conceived of as personal and benevolent.
I’m effectively defining a “new” goal, or one different than the goals
commonly assumed by spirituality. The goal I’m interested in is enabling and
explaining a particular kind of ego death experience.
You could say there are two entirely different kinds of ego death — that
which most spirituality is concerned with, and that which I am defining.
There is an enormous amount of tradition behind the form of ego death I am
defining. Loss of control, determinism, disempowerment, timeless fixity of
the future, cosmic failure of personal power, and cancellation of the personal
will are commonly reported in various mystic writings. My task is to pull
together *these* aspects of religious experiencing and mystic insight into a
simple, elegant explanatory system.
Theories and schools of mystic experiencing and ego transcendence are messy
and various, a forest, a chaos, and yet there are certain trends and models
that can capture and organize many of the ideas in a fully coherent way that
accords with block-universe determinism as I define it.
My goal: find some kind of ego death experience that is intense, rational, and
convenient, and package that for easy distribution. Block-universe
determinism succeeds at delivering the promised goods.
It’s about time to write an essay on the nature of belief as held by the
transcendent mind — or the mature mind, in any case. Suppose I declare that
deterministic ego death happens when you believe determinism while in the
mystic altered state, and to be rescued from these dire straits requires
contrite belief in something like a personal compassionate God or mythic
substitute sacrifice. What kind of “belief” is that, and can we say such a
mystic afterwards “believes” in a personal God, or “believes” in determinism?
No, belief becomes held at arm’s length even if it was the key to the peak
experience and the key to recovering from it.
I have no interest heart- or body-spirituality. The convenient approach to an
experience of ego death is through the mind — for me, “balance” means having
both a rational model of ego death and the entheogenic means to access the
mystic altered state on tap. Ego death happens in the mind more than the body
or heart. “Heart” in my dictionary is the center of egoic self-control, the
center of will — also represented by the liver, as in the eagle-eated liver
of Prometheus.
Jesus’ spear-pierced, thorn-crowned heart should perhaps be a liver-heart —
at the center of the crucifixion of the egoic pseudo-king is the will and its
self-sacrifice in the name of logical integrity, and then the compassionate
heart to rescue and reboot the mind back into a viable state of self-control.
Logic discovers the supreme integrity of the deterministic block universe
model of spacetime, including the future worldline of one’s thoughts. This
kills ego and belittles our accustomed assumptions that we are each a
sovereign ruler reigning over our thoughts and engendering our own acts of
will. But this Realization is packed overflowing with emotions as well, and
with strange body awareness, so it’s inaccurate to say this form of ego death
is cerebral rather than emotional or body-attuned.
I might agree it’s mind *driven* rather than feeling driven, but I still need
to define “feeling” because rational deterministic entheogenic ego death is
packed with feelings, including the feeling of dread upon encountering the
Word that kills ego — that is, the Thought of loss of control, or control
being removed as a scepter is pulled out of your hands and replaced by puppet
strings disappearing into the ominous, omen-bearing clouds.
I am prepared to have as little in common with that other ego death brand,
desired by heart- and body-spirituality, as Ramesh Balsekar has in common with
New Age thinking. The spiritual community was shocked by his outrageous
proposal of peace through accepting determinism.
The best road ahead for spirituality is to split into two explicitly defined
denominations carefully sorted out:
Freewill spirituality. Feeling-driven. Heart and body driven.
Deterministic religious experiencing. Reason-driven, cerebral, psychedelic.
Intellectual revelation. Mind-driven.
I will focus on *contrasting* the two — this is exactly what is needed. Why
does popular spirituality fail to bring ego death, whether a rational
deterministic ego death as I define it or an effective and sure ego death as
popular spirituality conceives of it (a mood of humility and undefined
self-deprecation)? The rational deterministic ego death I define immediately
delivers on its promises. If you consider block-universe determinism and use
entheogens skillfully, you will immediately encounter the ideas and
perceptions and experiences I define. My emphasis is not on enlightenment of
what the truth is, but on a revelation of a potential that resides within the
mind. The mind has the potential for convenient entheogenic deterministic ego
death! That is the gospel, the good news, for which I am an evangelist.
Popular spirituality brings bad news: enlightenment is difficult, strenuous,
and inconvenient. Ego death is only attainable rarely. Enlightenment is out
of reach, unattainable, hard, beyond the rainbow.
Rational deterministic entheogenic ego death brings good news. Enlightenment
is easy, effortless, and convenient. Ego death is immediately available for
everyone. Enlightenment is within easy reach — it is low-hanging fruit,
attainable, easy, within your own neighborhood and culture.
So I can market this as easy-path ego death versus hard-path ego death;
short-path ego death versus long-path.
You are welcome to define ego death as something vague and hard to attain, as
popular spirituality encourages. Or you can define it as something specific
and easy to attain — the way I am showing. People can talk about
conventional hard-path ego death tradition here, but it will be tough
competition in light of the system I’m packaging, tuned for ergonomic
convenience.
You are free to define ego death how you like and walk the path you have
defined. I’m intent on revealing the shortcut I have found to an unbeatably
intense and surprising ego death experience, strengthened and enabled by a
specific, tangible, mentally graspable and comprehensible model. Integral to
this model is the entheogen theory of religion, the vision of block-universe
fixed-future determinism with a pre-set future worldline for your own train of
future thoughts and movements of will, and some explanation in terms of
Christianity read purely as myth and only myth — myth which was designed to
reflect this very block-universe insight and point the way past the willing
self-crucifixion of egoic, personal self-control.
If you try to portray this as a mind-driven spirituality, remember that it is
also peak-experience-driven spirituality, so that’s one dichotomy that can’t
be used against it. This approach is not body-driven or emotion-*driven* — I
readily concede that, with the caveat that the experiencing is soaked with
intense emotion and also full of certain bodily dimensions concomitant to the
mystic altered state.
Conversely, I do not hesitate to thoroughly condemn popular spirituality and
its conception of ego death as a bogus and defective product that can’t
compete in the marketplace of ideas when a more effective contender comes
along. American Buddhism is a way of retreating into regressive emotionalism
and running away from religious concepts and of avoiding actual higher
religious experiencing. Psilocybin mushroom philosopher Terrance McKenna
asserts the latter, saying that popular spirituality is a way of avoiding real
mystic experience for a degraded substitute.
There are hundreds of forums in which freewill ego death is discussed to
death — as a rule, in the form of vague, emotional, lifestyle spirituality.
So I do not hesitate to put forth in this forum at alternative, just as the
ever-bold Andrew Cohen, editor of What Is Enlightenment, did not hesitate to
welcome the black sheep of Ramesh Balsekar into the pages of that magazine, to
the deep shock of the world of familiar spirituality.
http://www.wie.org/j14/balse.asp — “while Indian thought has long been
criticized for its deterministic inclinations, it appeared that Balsekar had
taken this fatalism to an unprecedented extreme. It was, in the end, as much a
desire to explore these troubling areas as to pursue our overall interest in
the teachings of Advaita that ultimately brought me to Bombay to speak with
him. And while I had come anticipating a challenging meeting, looking back on
it now it is clear to me that … there was no way I could ever have prepared
myself for the dialogue that was about to take place.”
How has the entire world of spirituality so forgotten the deterministic
tradition? It happened at about the same time as entheogens were forgotten.
We are rediscovering entheogens, which are the origin of religious
experiencing and thus the origin of religion. And so sooner or later we are
bound to rediscover the tradition of heimarmene, Fate, providence, election,
determinism, Necessity, including the problem that it poses and a variety of
solutions to, in some sense, transcend heimarmene (Fate).
>— BlackPepla wrote:
>> The philosophy of determinism is a very
>> hard sell…. one problem
>> is that determinists themselves can’t fully agree on
>> what determinism means.
>
>The main problem I’m having with the philosophy is
>that it seems to come from total
>head-logically-obtained-knowledge and ignores the
>different and useful kinds of knowledge that our
>bodies hold for us.
>
>For instance, I believe that in our hearts (heart
>chakra, or chest area, or whatever) we hold the power
>of personal choice.
>
>When we start to turn our attention inward, even for
>brief moments, to what different centers in our bodies
>are telling us, the mind connects up with the body and
>we become grounded and begin to feel real personal
>power.
>
>I just see this determinism theory as maybe what
>happens when you have been too much “up in your head”
>from reading and tripping, and not grounded into the
>body. Perhaps if I knew that people who participated
>in Tai Chi or Hatha Yoga *also* saw it all that way, I
>might feel differently, I don’t know.
>
>Melody
> our hand is forced by the
> Ground of Being. During the
> mystic state, one’s hand (heart, will) is seen to be
> forced. My hand is
> firmly on the wheel of choice and decision, but now
> I see that someone is
> forcing my hand. The ego is the controller of the
> personal will, but the ego
> is secretly controlled by the Ground of Being.
OK, I can see what you are saying. But how about a
theory that is paradoxical in nature, holistic,
including the body-cell-memory-sensations as well as
rational logic combined with ethnogenetic
enlightenment? (Or have you already covered paradox
somewhere where I haven’t read about it?)
My own experience with focusing on inner body
sensations meditatively, feeling my weight “sink into”
the ground, and centering with the will center/pelvis
as center, leads me to “nature/animalistic” feelings
in which I feel close to an ego-death experience if I
were to be just able “get over the top” with it. (See http://www.traumahealing.com for description of
somatic experiencing, animals, our genetic heritage).
In fact, once, after days of turning my focus within
and grounding myself in bodily sensation, my
6-year-old dog came up to me while I was resting on my
side, and surprised the hell out of me by resting her
whole head over my neck and *sighing* with ectasy. She
had never done this before I starting practicing
somatic awareness.
> When
> that is seen as
> terrifying and a dangerous state of dependence on a
> hidden manipulator-force,
> one may pray to that manipulator force, feeling that
> one’s only hope is to
> hope that the manipulator force is a conscious and
> benevolent being — God
> conceived of as personal and benevolent.
Isn’t that where “surrender” comes in. I’m not afraid
of the hidden-manipulator-force as I’ve experienced it
before. However, since I have had severe “psychotic
breaks,” I’d be afraid to do psychedelics ever again
— I might not come back. Once I forgot who I was. 🙂
(What’s a person to do in a situation like this one,
Michael? Sounds dangerous for me.)
__________________________________________________
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Group: egodeath
Message: 468
From: ->Forward->
Date: 19/01/2002
Subject: Flame Warriors
Not OT per se, but most definitely meta-OT –
_______________________________________________________________________
A truly brilliant gallery of sketches of the various character types to
be found on mail groups:
This text file is automatically posted to the discussion group every two
weeks, in order to provide guidelines for writers, to keep the postings
on-topic and help writers know what subjects are considered most desirable
by this audience.
It is possible to write on most any topic and have it be relevant for this
Egodeath discussion group if you show how the posting is related to the
in-scope topics for this discussion group. This group is not formally
moderated, but it is consistently focused on the defined topics, including
peripheral topics if the writer explicitly connects them to the core topics.
This discussion group covers the cybernetic theory of ego death and
ego transcendence, including:
o Nonreductionistic block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.
o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.
o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.
o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, the Eleusinian mysteries and
cracking the allegorical code of the mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.
o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.
Group: egodeath
Message: 471
From: BlackPepla
Date: 21/01/2002
Subject: Another One of Those Interesting Coincidences
Hello group,
Yesterday I was reading the Sunday SF Chronicle, and there was an
interview with Huston Smith which mentioned “entheogens,” and defined the
term, since it can’t be found in dictionaries.
Just before retiring for the evening, I was reading B. Glassman’s
“Instructions to the Cook” (a book on Zen), and Glassman said he was
introduced to Zen by an entry in Huston Smith’s “Religions of Man.”
I love coincidences, and generally attach no significance to them. But
they are fun anyway, kind of like glazed experiential donuts.
Cheers, Pepla
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Have you ever thought about your soul – can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you’re dead you just stay in your grave
Is God just a thought within your head or is he a part of you?
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?
When you think about death do you lose your breath
or do you keep your cool?
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope
do you think he’s a fool?
Well I have seen the truth, yes I’ve seen the light
and I’ve changed my ways
And I’ll be prepared when you’re lonely and scared
at the end of our days
Could it be you’re afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
that God is the only way to love
Is your mind so small that you have to fall
In with the pack wherever they run
Will you still sneer when death is near
And say they may as well worship the sun?
I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don’t believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can’t retrieve
Perhaps you’ll think before you say that God is dead and gone
Open your eyes, just realize that he’s the one
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate
Or will you still jeer at all you hear? Yes! I think it’s too late.
Gnosticism and Astrology, two subjects almost equally
hard to define or
contain within clear, precise, and tidy boundaries.
And what sort of
rare
hybrid would we have if we were to crossbreed the two
and give birth to
something called ‘Gnostic Astrology’? Would it be a
hybrid form of
fate, a
kind of ouija board full of planets, signs, and
Archons leading us
toward
the dark and predetermined depths of futility?
After all, there exists in the ‘popular mind’ a notion
that astrology
predicts one’s ‘fate’ and that gnosticism posits an
‘evil’ world
brought
into being and ruled over by a ‘Demiurge’ who has
captured us all in
his
dark prison of matter. An ancient and gnostically
conceived ‘Universal
Fate’
technically referred to as the Heimarmene condemns us
to a rather
robotic
existence in matter until such time as we free
ourselves and return to
the
True Creator pictured as a Spirit of Light.
But these are ‘popular’ notions based upon the quick
labelling of ideas
and
systems of thought, and such superficial evaluations
do not take into
account the fact that both astrology and Gnosticism
once shared a
common
root, a common heretical attitude of questioning the
appearances of
what has
been called (for seemingly endless ages of historical
time) reality. In
fact, both astrology and Gnosticism are rooted in the
Spirit’s struggle
to
overcome the illusion of time as the prison which
binds us to a wheel
of
life and death popularly thought to be natural,
inevitable, and
‘normal’.
But is it? Wasn’t it James Joyce who cried out
(through one of his
literary
characters) that history was a nightmare from which he
was trying to
awaken?
If we are to take a Gnostic approach toward astrology,
one of the very
first
things we must do is to question this notion of time.
In terms of the
mythical and symbolic language of astrology, that
means we must look
closely
at Saturn-Chronos, for ‘he’ is spoken of as the Lord
of Time. He is the
principle of binding, focus, form and time, and
contemporary astrology
is
still essentially a study of time cycles based upon
the number of days
and
years required for each of the classical planets
(Luna, Sol, Mercury,
Venus,
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) to complete one full circle
around the
zodiac of
twelve signs (Aries through Pisces). Of course,
contemporary
astrologers
also study the cycles of the ‘newly discovered’
planets, Uranus,
Neptune,
and Pluto, but always and everywhere astrologers are
concerned with
tracking
the passage of time.
Now, any decent self-respecting Gnostic must sit up
and take notice of
this
practice because the very core of Gnosticism is to
question
appearances. The
Gnostic is nothing if not a person who rebels against
the norms, the
taken-for-granted ‘facts’ that reduce life to an
experience of
sleep-walking
through time. The traditional cry of the Gnostic is:
Sleepers, Awake!
The Gnostic feels that humans are caught in the
delusions and snares
woven
by the Demiurge and his appointed executive
bureaucrats known as the
Archons, said to be seven or twelve by count. These
variously seven or
twelve Archons have traditionally been associated with
the seven
ancient
planets (see above) and/or the twelve signs of the
zodiac. So, from a
certain classical Gnostic perspective, astrology is a
study of the
bureaucratic games played by the Chief Executive
Officers (CEOs) of the
false creator-god, the Demiurge known as Yaldaboath –
often understood
to be
the Yahweh of the Old Testament, or the Father of the
political
Christian’s
Jesus Christ.
The Old Testament Demiurge, Yaldaboath-Yahweh, is the
caricature of Old
Father Time making his appearance each year at
countless, global, New
Year’s
Eve parties carrying his sickle and his hourglass
announcing the death
of
the old year (time) and ushering in the child who is
the new.
Unfortunately,
each year the child is forced to age and, in turn,
becomes Old Father
Time
too. The hourglass and the sickle are the traditional
symbols of the
Lord of
Time, the planet Saturn, he who binds humankind into
the reasonable,
serious, and linear prison called time. He is the
‘elder’ among the
CEOs
appointed by the Demiurge-Father-God to run his
corporate business of
enslaving humanity to the wheel of work, suffering and
weekly paychecks
which keeps his world turning round. Doesn’t the
corporate world teach
that
money is time and time is money? And is it not
astrology that
reinforces
this ‘time equals money’ myth by teaching that Saturn,
Father Time, is
the
tester, the symbol for the ‘hard facts of life’, the
author of
‘reality’?
When Saturn is active by transit in the Horoscope of
your life,
contemporary
astrologers are the first to caution that you must
‘bite the bullet’
and
buckle down to conformity. What are we to make of the
newly arising
‘schools
of astrology’ that offer ‘accreditation’ by way of the
authority of the
established university system? What are we to think of
astrologers
teaching
‘clients’ how to adjust through contemporary
psychology to the
status-quo of
an increasingly psychotic world? To any living Gnostic
it is apparent
that
astrology itself has fallen into the grip of Saturn!
If we view Saturn through the lens of historical
Gnosticism we see this
Realist – this authority figure of Old Man Time – as
the chief warden
of the
prison earth. Saturn’s authority is precisely what
binds us to the
realistic
and linear time that begins for each of us at birth
and ends at death.
Life,
as brooded over by this nasty Archon, is a
pre-determined, cause and
effect
veil of tears, a medieval Dance Macabre. He determines
the rules, the
facts,
and the sequence of events as each of us moves from
minute to minute
through
life. He is the measurer, the statistician, the
policeman, the priest,
the
judge, the no-nonsense guy smoking the fat cigar or
drinking the
Perrier
water while basking in the pure groundedness of his
astute timing and
his
‘common sense’.
He says, ‘This is it; this is what works as time has
tested and
experience
has shown.’ He’s the one who used to write on the old
flat maps of the
world, ‘Beyond here there be Dragons’. The Rule Giver,
the jealous
bigot of
a ‘god’ who gave us his ‘Ten Commandments’, the guy
who always manages
to
pull the wool over our eyes by claiming to simply be
stating the facts.
Given the truth of all this, the first thing any
Gnostic must do is see
through the limiting external authority of Saturn to
the real authority
which resides within each of us as individuals. We
have to make up our
own
rules, define our own terms, and watch out for the
rigidity that often
comes
from self-complacent certainty. When we remain focused
exclusively upon
our
own boundaries, when we cease to question even our own
authoritativeness,
when we are fixated upon cause and effect as well as
linear time, we
cannot
sidestep this Archon who blinds us to the spark of
Spirit within
ourselves
and thereby isolates us from the Divine Light. That
‘Light’ is
characterised
by ease and flow, by joy and laughter, by directly
experiencing the
plenitude of the Pleroma.
Even scholars (much to their bewilderment) recognise
there is no
authoritative doctrine that can be said to fixedly
define Gnosticism,
but
the last thirty years has produced a growing number of
astrologers who
do
not question that a scientific and psychological study
of planets,
aspects
and statistics can produce a ‘qualified’ and
‘certified’
diploma-wielding
astrologer! A Gnostic approach to astrology cautions
us to be wary of
anything billing itself as a ‘certified astrologer’
because
certification,
in Gnostic terms, can only rise from within and cannot
be confirmed on
anyone from without. It’s that old saying that if you
meet the Buddha
on the
road you must slay him.
But the tricky Archon who speaks through the mouth of
Saturn will
always
certify uniformity and statistics because these are
the tools of his
homogenised power and pervasively blinding authority.
Saturn, in
astrological parlance, is the symbol of the lowest
common denominator
of
collectively agreed upon social-cultural reality.
Perhaps we should
view him
in the alternative shamanic sense; see him as a
‘worthy opponent’ who
does,
indeed, test us mercilessly before he yields his
limiting sceptre of
externally imposed authoritative rule to our own inner
sense of urgent
self-remembering. After all, it’s that very
self-remembering which
alone
leads us inward past the famous Threshold (whereupon
he is the fabled
‘Dweller’) through the infamous ‘Ring Pass Not’ and
out from forgetful
sleep!
Liberation from the thraldom of Saturn does not come
without
consciously
focused hard work. But this kind of ‘hard work’ is not
imposed from
without.
Instead, it rises up from within each of us as we
hearken to the voice
of
Spirit within and around ourselves, beckoning us to
join the dance of
consciousness that is the Divine. It is an invitation
to wholeness and
openness, and it does not fear or reject the Archons –
nor even
Yaldaboath
himself – for they and he alike, together with
everything else that
exists
on whatever level or ‘plane’, are but part of the
Whole which is the
Divine.
For the Gnostic there is neither Christian evil nor
sin, though there
is
ignorance, inertia, and a very human craving for some
final, ultimate
‘end’
or cessation. One can grow weary, tired and afraid of
the Dance of
Spirit as
long as one feels a need to control the dance (in any
way), but as soon
as
one learns to let the dance dance itself, one is
carried and buoyed up
on
the pulse of the rhythm that is the Light of Spirit.
Saturn’s great
teaching
is that there is a Light appearing as Darkness, a
Black Light part and
parcel of the fullness that is the Pleroma, the Whole.
But this Black
Light
that often triggers in us fear, inertia and the
entropy of despair, has
its
roots in the cells of our own bodies, which partake of
the seemingly
ignorant resistance we find in matter itself.
Though the scholars who classify systems of
philosophy, belief, and
theology
usually claim that the historical Gnostics (the
authors of the Pistis
Sophia
or the Nag Hammadi Library etc.) believed this world
to be evil, and
‘matter
‘ to be ‘fallen’ away from the Light of Spirit. they
are mistaken.
During
the twentieth century at least two self-proclaimed
Gnostics, Aurobindo
Ghose
and Mirra Alfassa, clarified this ‘error’ by pointedly
stating that
matter
is spirit, and that ‘evil’ – though phenomenally
‘real’ – is actually
nothing but the ignorant resistance of the
‘inconscient’. What we
perceive
as negation, and consequently fear, resist, and try to
flee from, is
the
very energy we cling to as ‘Death’. We wear ourselves
and each other
out by
fleeing from Death, imagining a pure life free from
the pain and
suffering
of mortal life, and we call it immortal life as
disembodied Spirit.
But the Gnostic Christ revealed the fact that
‘ultimately’ the body
itself
and all the Earth (not the World, which is a
human-Archon distortion)
are
‘destined’ to be Whole, Transfigured, Immortal. There
is no Spirit
apart
from matter or apart from the Earth; there are no
elect, all evolution
is
elected; as Mirra said, “All the splendors one can
experience by going
up,
by getting out, by leaving are nothing! They’re
nothing; they don’t
have
that concrete reality; they seem vague compared to
HERE. That is truly
why
the earth has been created. It’s in terrestrial
matter, on EARTH, that
the
SUPREME becomes perfect.” Anyone who knows these
truths has nothing to
fear
from Saturn or any other Archon!
I am writing about Saturn as an Archon because during
2001 to 2002
humanity
is collectively experiencing a thrice repeated
astrological opposition
between the planets Saturn and Pluto, respectively
expressing
themselves
through the zodiacal signs of Gemini and Sagittarius.
We are
experiencing a
‘face-off’ or ‘tug-of-war’ taking place between the
Lord of Time and
the
Dark Lord of the Underworld, between Authority and
Invisible Powers,
between
Saturn and Pluto. Of course, to the scientists among
us, it’s merely a
neighbourhood pool game taking place between billiard
balls in our
local
solar system; but this is where we live and walk
around in our human
bodies,
so it’s bound to have some kind of an affect within us
both
individually and
collectively.
What might that affect be, and how might it be related
to the dumb
Demiurge
and his puppet Archons? Well, it is said that all the
other Gods of
Olympus
felt a formidable respect for Pluto due to his
‘helmet’ which granted
him
the gift of invisibility, and his rather absolute
control over Death.
We may
suppose that we are witnessing (and participating in)
an equally
formidable
‘face off’ between Death and Time. And we may further
suppose this
struggle
has about it a certain air of invisible ‘powers’
competing with each
other
over who is the true authority in the Saturnian realm
of business and
government, and who is the covert dealer in the
Plutonian realm of
wealth
and death.
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Group: egodeath
Message: 474
From: BlackPepla
Date: 22/01/2002
Subject: The Eternal Donut
In a message dated 1/21/02 11:12:29 AM Pacific Standard Time, asmodius676 writes:
> Black Sabbath – Master of Reality – After Forever
>
> Have you ever thought about your soul – can it be saved?
> Or perhaps you think that when you’re dead you just stay in your grave
> Is God just a thought within your head or is he a part of you?
> Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?
>
> When you think about death do you lose your breath
> or do you keep your cool?
> Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope
> do you think he’s a fool?
> Well I have seen the truth, yes I’ve seen the light
> and I’ve changed my ways
> And I’ll be prepared when you’re lonely and scared
> at the end of our days
We Zenists believe there is no going and no coming.
Cheers, Pepla
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 475
From: Jason Wehmhoener
Date: 22/01/2002
Subject: Re: Does experiencing determinism prove it as fact?
To play with the edge of determinism and indeterminacy, start a jazz band
and attempt to play “free” jazz. You can add layers and layers of
indeterminacy (removing layers and layers of form) but the most succesful
performance/compositions often retain a sense of “familiarity” that the
completely “free” pieces lack.
One way of looking at “deterministic” qualities is that they tend to be
“ordered” whereas indeterminate, “free” qualities tend toward the chaotic.
The human mind appreciates order for many reasons, much of which is
instinctual.
Sorry I haven’t really delved into Michael’s egodeath theory too deep, so I
might be repeating something that has been said here before, but I just felt
the random urge to jump in. Just keeping up that element of indeterminacy.
😉
Peace,
Jason
Group: egodeath
Message: 476
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 22/01/2002
Subject: “Esoteric Christianity” better than Gnosticism
Esoteric Christianity considers the canonical Bible scriptures to contain a
mythic set of stories, a set that is profoundly effective at conveying
enlightenment and reconciliation of personhood with metaphysical truth.
Esoteric Christianity is the higher part of a proposed 2-level Christianity
that is evident in the scriptures.
“Esoteric Christianity” is all the rage for me now, as opposed to Gnosticism,
which is noxious as it introduces one set of distasteful ridiculous tales to
replace those of Literalist Christianity. I want a clear explanation of
Literalist myths, not a new set of myths. The new book The Lost Goddess does
the best job of explaining the Gnostic myths, but still, it’s not an
explanation or discovery of the enlightenment that is indeed residing in the
received Literalist stories.
I’m also reading Andrew Welburn’s book I mentioned — http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0863152090 – The Beginnings of
Christianity: Essene Mystery, Gnostic Revelation and the Christian Vision.
Other books about 2-level Christianity, including a higher, esoteric level and
set of beliefs, are The Jesus Mysteries and Pagels’ The Gnostic Paul.
I’m collecting books about reading scriptures as mythic literature, including
the Old Testament.
The quality of Christianity books I’ve been adding to my shelves has
skyrocketed recently. I survey many books at Amazon and the bookstores.
I am reviewing Buddhism, to explicitly connect my core theory to it, at least
a little bit. Buddhism explainers are inept at semantic subtleties — I’m
constantly noting sloppy wordings that fall short of the ideals of clarity of
expression that are held in the field of Philosophy. So I may need to best
address Buddhism by showing how to tighten up the explanatory statements made
about it.
The main problem in Christianity books is Literalism instead of esoteric
reading. The angel HBWR explained this to me, so I realized that being
rescued from control-death by some thought about Christ said alot about mental
construct dynamics in my mind but was wholly independent from the actual
existence of Jesus; if some Christ thought caused mental stability to return,
credit the Christ thought, or Christ consciousness, not some supposed
2000-year removed, rumored historical man. Eliminating the actual-Jesus
hypothesis makes it so much easier to construct a comprehensible model of
spiritual resurrection from ego death.
Introducing a historical Jesus adds immense confusion, difficulties, and
philosophical problems. But if it’s all purely myth, that’s *easy* to explain
(about as easy as Buddhism); there are no longer conundrums like “how could
Jesus have done x, what did he mean by saying y and yet z? How can Jesus be
the only incarnation?”
The main problem in Buddhism books is clumsy, inept, incompetent handling of
semantic subtleties. That’s been my conclusion since I first broke through in
making sense of Alan Watts’ book The Way of Zen on December 12, 1987.
Both religions as studied by scholars sorely lack entheogen-theory awareness.
Esoteric Christianity avoids Gnostic dualism, which says that the material
world is bad. Esoteric Christianity integrates lower and higher thinking in a
harmonious relationship. It in some way embraces, accepts, and affirms, even
loves, the Literalist fairy tales, loving lower-level Christianity while
rejecting it without condemning it as evil. The higher makes peace with the
lower — not *believing* the lower, but perhaps accommodating it as adults do
children.
— Michael Hoffman http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath
Message: 477
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 22/01/2002
Subject: Re: Flame Warriors
>Not OT per se, but most definitely meta-OT – A truly brilliant gallery of
sketches of the various character types to be found on mail groups:
>Philosopher differs from Profundus Maximus in that he actually does know
something.
Yes
>While somewhat humorless
Yes.
>and slightly aloof,
Yes.
>he is also slow to anger.
Yes.
>When he does deign
Yes
>to engage in battle he is considerate of other opinions,
Yes
> but his ponderous and lengthy cogitations
Yes
> effectively smother the opposition.
Yes. A point by point rational refutation of a flamer’s spouting increases
exponentially in length. The flamer responds by hurling ever more nonsense
back, then all that must be refuted calmly and reasonably, point by point.
This is not feasible, and is solved by accepting the principle of selective
response, including letting the flamer’s nonsense be unrefuted.
I’m surprised you know how much I’m interested in online communication styles.
I’m looking forward to reading more of these characterizations. I have
written many postings about the universally on-topic meta-topic of flaming and
what it really is and how to deal with it. It’s a fairly complex subject that
hasn’t been studied but is greatly needed. I was disappointed that Mark
Dery’s book Flame Wars didn’t cover it.
The #1 technique is selective response, at the level of a posting or within a
posting. It’s also important to recognize the great divide between
information and social noise – discussion online starts with mostly
information, and quickly becomes mostly social noise. Most flaming and
chatting has little information content, just social noise. Flaming and
chatting are equivalent: social noise. Information content is not rare, but
it normally loses out eventually to social noise unless the forum has
something to keep conversation secured to the goal of being info-driven.
I’ve seen a lot of hosts make a lot of basic mistakes. The entheogen host has
a terrible Nanny streak — his panties get in a bunch every time anyone is
impolite in conversation. I like hosts to be no-nonsense. The hardest
hosting job must be for the JesusMysteries discussion group, debating whether
or not Jesus existed — they even have to try to deal with me, a creative
rule-bender set on contributing too much value to be casually kicked off for
severely criticizing the “scientifically” restricted scope of the discussion
group as being a dead end, as it fails to permit even investigating the
possible positive value of mysticism and esoteric Christianity.
I have strongly advocated an automatic 2-week mailing to help people remember
the stated goals for postings. Few hosts listen to my advice, then they pay
the price when chaos reigns and especially when the most valuable contributors
leave.
I fear this group is already too big for me to commit to being a good host. I
can see why Earl Doherty (JesusMysteries group, Jesus Puzzle author) welcomes
helper hosts, so he can go away often and do research.
— A Philosopher
Group: egodeath
Message: 478
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 22/01/2002
Subject: Can a control-agent rise above Fated cosmos?
Mithra rules over the celestial cross. He is ruler over the sun which rules
the cosmos. He shifts the planets (precession of constellations/equinox),
thus doing the impossible: altering fate.
The Fates ruled the gods, but later Zeus ruled over the fates.
Per Luther Martin in Hellenistic Religions, there are many contending
religions in late antiquity, but the contention orbits around the conflict
between fate and personhood. Is there, or is there not, a way to transcend
fate, and gain some power that can alter my fate, so that I can rule over my
future as the creator of my own future? Notice that the Gnostics affirmed
that the cosmos is a prisoner of fate — cosmic astrological determinism.
They were interested in a way to transcend that imprisoned state, so that one
as an agent can nab the scepter from the one who rules the cosmos. These
starting assumptions and goals are all-important in understanding the Gnostic
programme, the problem they fought against, and their strategy.
Before the Cross symbol was adopted, the XP symbol, the Chi-Rho, was a
flattened X with a tall sword-like P, on coins surrended by a victory wreath.
I propose that the Cross is the same celestial cross — the astrological
cosmic determinism over which Christ is the ruler. Then “Jesus is Lord” would
mean that Christ is the ruler not only “of” the universe, but *over* cosmic
determinism, though such a position of control may be considered impossible
action on the part of a person who is stuck inside the determined
block-universe.
Gnosticism is the affirmation that I can somehow transcend and in some sense
step out of the determined block-universe, that I can become master of my own
fate and alter my destiny, and in some sense change my future and thus become
the author, creator, and controller of my own future, rather than Fate or a
God above Fate being the author of my future.
Fate was a problem for the Gnostics — something to be conquered, resisted,
rejected, denigrated, demonized, transcended.
Eventually, as late antiquity debated about our relation to Fate, the
responsible individual was born.
I propose that the fabrication of a compelling virtually free ego required
suppressing entheogen use. Our apparent collective psychological development
is actually largely driven by the use, then avoidance, then rediscovery of
entheogens.
Group: egodeath
Message: 479
From: asmodius676
Date: 22/01/2002
Subject: Re: Flame Warriors
> …his ponderous and lengthy cogitations effectively smother the
opposition.
Yes Michael, that describes you well.
Group: egodeath
Message: 480
From: asmodius676
Date: 22/01/2002
Subject: Re: The Eternal Donut
> We Zenists believe there is no going and no coming.
I would consider this to be true from a perspective. However,
consider the following hermeneutic example:
“Last night, a woman came (coming) over to my apartment. I went in
(going) unto her and we both came (coming). Then she went (going)
home.”
You Zenists believe in using semantic trickery (kohan) to liberate
the deluded from their prison of rationality. I wish you all the best
in this endeavor.
Group: egodeath
Message: 481
From: BlackPepla
Date: 24/01/2002
Subject: Re: The Eternal Donut
In a message dated 1/22/02 12:40:46 PM Pacific Standard Time, asmodius676 writes:
> You Zenists believe in using semantic trickery (kohan) to liberate
> the deluded from their prison of rationality. I wish you all the best
> in this endeavor
Do you mean “koan”?? Anyway, there are no tricks involved. Just sit,
and you will see.
Cheers, Pepla
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 482
From: asmodius676
Date: 24/01/2002
Subject: Re: The Eternal Donut
> Do you mean “koan”??
Yes, that is exactly what I meant. Thank you for correcting me. I
don’t think that I have ever seen that word spelt until just now.
> Anyway, there are no tricks involved.
Well, its more like a con game or a clown job, but it does get the
job done on those who “buy” into it. I’m not saying it’s wrong or
anything. As a matter of fact, it works IMO. It just doesn’t work on
me anymore. You wanna know why? ‘Cause I’m there, dude. I am so
there. *hits joint*
> Just sit, and you will see.
Do you mean to say that I should just sit and the answer will present
itself, or that I should sit here and wait for you to enlighten me? I
guess I don’t see what you mean. At any rate, I can’t sit for too
long or my butt will fall asleep.
Group: egodeath
Message: 483
From: BlackPepla
Date: 24/01/2002
Subject: Re: The Eternal Donut
In a message dated 1/23/02 6:39:02 PM Pacific Standard Time, asmodius676 writes:
> > Anyway, there are no tricks involved.
>
> Well, its more like a con game or a clown job, but it does get the
> job done on those who “buy” into it. I’m not saying it’s wrong or
> anything. As a matter of fact, it works IMO. It just doesn’t work on
> me anymore. You wanna know why? ‘Cause I’m there, dude. I am so
> there. *hits joint*
>
There is nothing to buy into, because Zen has nothing to sell.
Official members of Zen sects do little or no proselytizing… there is none
of that door-to-door selling that other religions do.
Zen is there for those who are ready for it, for those who can make
use of it. There are many ways to participate. I am a lay Zenist, for
example, and go to the local temple only for classes, not for services.
Also, I might mention that Zen is an all-inclusive doctrine, even if
your are “out”, you are “in”. No saved, no lost.
Cheers, Pepla
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 484
From: BlackPepla
Date: 24/01/2002
Subject: Re: The Eternal Donut
In a message dated 1/23/02 6:39:02 PM Pacific Standard Time, asmodius676 writes:
> > Just sit, and you will see.
>
> Do you mean to say that I should just sit and the answer will present
> itself, or that I should sit here and wait for you to enlighten me? I
> guess I don’t see what you mean. At any rate, I can’t sit for too
> long or my butt will fall asleep.
>
I must say I feel the same way about long sessions of zazen (sitting
meditation). And that is why I go to temple only for classes, and the short
zazen period that precedes the class. But even short periods are beneficial.
Try it at home and you will see.
Cheers, Pepla
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 485
From: asmodius676
Date: 25/01/2002
Subject: Re: The Eternal Donut
> There is nothing to buy into, because Zen has nothing to sell.
> Official members of Zen sects do little or no proselytizing…
> there is none of that door-to-door selling that other religions do.
Stupendous!
> Zen is there for those who are ready for it, for those who can make
> use of it. There are many ways to participate. I am a lay Zenist,
> for example, and go to the local temple only for classes, not for
> services.
Most awesome!
> Also, I might mention that Zen is an all-inclusive doctrine, even
> if your are “out”, you are “in”. No saved, no lost.
Here, here! Well, I hope you know that you are going to hell for
persisting in this ritualistic paganism <joking>. I’m happy for you.
It sounds like you’ve found your niche. Godspeed, my brother.
Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath – A National Acrobat
I am the world that hides
The universal secret of all time
Destruction of the empty spaces
Is my one and only crime
I’ve lived a thousand times
I found out what it means to be believed
The thoughts and images
The unborn child that never was conceived
When little worlds collide
I’m trapped inside my embryonic cell
And flashing memories
Are cast into the never ending well
The name that scorns the face
The child that never sees the cause of man
The deathly darkness that
Belies the fate of those who never ran
Well I know its hard for you
To know the reason why
And I know you’ll understand
More when it’s time to die
Don’t believe the life you have
Will be the only one
You have to let your body sleep
To let your soul live on
Love has given life to you
And now it’s your concern
Unseen eyes of inner life
Will make your soul return
Still I look but not to touch
The seeds of life are sown
Curtain of the future falls
The secret stays unknown
Just remember love is life
And hate is living death
Treat your life for what it’s worth
And live for every breath
Looking back I’ve lived and learned
But now I’m wondering
Here I wait and only guess
What this next life will bring
Group: egodeath
Message: 486
From: Frater .:9:. or StarryDaze
Date: 26/01/2002
Subject: Shew Stones (Exemplaris)
Roots of stability leading to prismal prisons of the
Mind
Concentrating further
Enfolding a position
the Tragic perception Bind
Ever Seeking TrUtH
The focusing of the Philter of the False
Grasping the Construct of tradition
Console With The Interpretation Of LAW
~~~Ed = 9
—
***DISCLAIMER***
~~~We may not necessarily still believe the opinions
expressed by our previous selves…~~~
“The analogy of opposites is the relation of light to
shadow, peak to abyss, fullness to void. Allegory, mother of all dogmas, is
the replacement of the seal by the hallmark, of reality by shadow; it is the
falsehood of truth, and the truth of falsehood.” — Eliphas Levi, Dogme de
la haute magie
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 487
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 29/01/2002
Subject: Rare Psych Compilation MP3 CDR
After much effort and upgrading, I created a high-fidelity MP3 CDR disc packed
with a couple hundred good rare psychedelic songs, with a high-resolution
adhesive label. I like to play it on Random — never know what insanity will
come up next.
I am driven like a lemming toward such time-consuming projects — this one is
really the holy grail: a library of good rare psych tracks on a single
attractive CD. Another CDR I created, for example, has high-fi MP3s of some
seven albums by the creative rock group Pavement.
This music involvement very often pushes its way in front of philosophy
research, which I consider far more important. This super-rich, colorful rock
music is electric atmospheric — it’s easy to see the allure of rock for
creating an audio synesthesia mood environment.
On synesthesia and music: http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v3/psyche-3-06-vancampen.html — “By the
mid-nineteenth century synesthesia had intrigued an art movement that sought
sensory fusion, according to Cytowic (1995, section 3.7; 1993, pp. 54 ff). The
union of the senses appeared more and more frequently in the writings of
musicians and visual artists. Multimodal concerts of music and light became
popular. Cytowic argues that “such deliberate contrivances are qualitatively
different from the involuntary experiences that I am calling synesthesia in
this review” (Cytowic, 1995, section 3.7). He defines synesthesia as the
involuntary physical experience of a cross-modal association. That is, the
stimulation of one sensory modality reliably causes a perception in one or
more different senses. He sharply distinguishes its phenomenology from
“metaphor, literary tropes, sound symbolism, and deliberate artistic
contrivances that sometimes employ the term ‘synesthesia’ to describe their
multisensory joinings” (Cytowic, 1995, abstract). … Cytowic sketches a
nineteenth-century art movement that sought sensory fusion. As one takes a
closer look at that, one can see that it was mainly a movement of inventors of
color-organs (Peacock, 1988; Gage, 1993). The most elaborate experiments with
sensory fusion of color and music were carried out by inventors, not by
artists. One of the reasons was that the art of color-music required the use
of specific instruments. After the first designs of the “clavecin oculaire” by
the eighteenth century French Jesuit Castel, the nineteenth century showed a
large number of attempts to develop a device that could produce music and
color simultaneously on the basis of tone-color correspondence schemes.
Inventors like Jameson, Kastner, Bainbridge Bishop and Rimington sought such
devices. Rimington patented the name “color-organ” in 1893, and had
considerable success in concert halls with his color- music performances of
compositions of Wagner, Chopin, Bach and Dvorak (Peacock, 1988).”
Group: egodeath
Message: 488
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 29/01/2002
Subject: Re: Rare Psych Compilation MP3 CDR
It’s good to say why a posting is relevant to a discussion group. I have
often wondered why I am so drawn toward electric, rock music, and whether this
really is inherently relevant to egodeath theorizing and experience. My gut
feeling says yes, rock music is even more relevant to entheogenic experiencing
and insights than non-electric music. My intellect is skeptical of any
especial, innate relevance of electric music to the realm of the mystic
altered state. Computers, electric and electronic music, and entheogens are
very commonly related in the hi-tech world, including major corporate
marketing of technology. “Buy our computers and you will trip out.” Our
natural desire for entheogenic experience leads us to pay money for a
substitute instead in the form of a computer — computers are sold as a
stand-in substitute for entheogens.
Psychedelic Rock marks the start of modern popular awareness of entheogens.
In Western history, psychedelic music and entheogenic direct religious
experiencing thus arose in conjunction. I am against reading all entheogens
strictly in terms of the psychedelic 60s — a mistake made even by such greats
as Ram Dass, who overemphasized the “new” class of drugs as an “alternate” way
of attaining some “limited glimpse” of “authentic” religious experiencing. We
live both in the psychedelic recent era, and after studying history, we can
also mentally live in Terrance McKenna’s ancient world of plant gnosis as
well. Like many, I cherish the psychedelic 60s but, given the drug-war
culture, I am also wary of associating modern psychedelics with ancient
entheogens.
>After much effort and upgrading, I created a high-fidelity MP3 CDR
>disc packed with a couple hundred good rare psychedelic songs, with
>a high-resolution adhesive label. I like to play it on Random —
>never know what insanity will come up next.
Styles covered: Freakbeat, flower power, pop sike, acid rock, progressive
psych. Pop music history supports my assertion that Rush, the 70s progressive
philosophy-oriented Rock group, is specifically Acid Rock. It is unfortunate
and clueless that the category of Acid Rock is defined so narrowly that only
about 3 bands are included (Blue Cheer, Hendrix, Captain Beyond).
Smashmouth’s popularity shows the potential to discover more of the richness
of freakbeat era — what it was really all about; I similarly anticipate a
rediscovery of the psychedelic roots of Heavy Rock.
We need to go back to the late 60s-early 70s transition and take another look
to recognize the era of Acid Rock and recognize the Acid Rock background of
groups that are not at all recognized as such. It wouldn’t surprise me to see
the psychedelic mushroom aspect of Led Zeppelin denied and pushed out of
awareness. Obviously, Psychedelic Rock uses psychedelic drugs, but it’s
terrible the way that the existence of the category “Psychedelic Rock” tends
to be used as a safety bin to whisk away the psychedelic drugs from all the
other genres that are based largely on psychedelics. People don’t understand
the concept of “Acid Rock”.
Our picture of 70s Heavy Rock is completely inaccurate and out of touch with
reality, as we have forgotten that “Heavy” is practically synonymous with
acid-soaked. Classic Rock *is* LSD-influenced Rock, to a large extent. In
the electric guitar industry, however, together with the popularity of
Smashmouth, the fuzz type of distortion sound has become mainstream and trendy
again, rediscovered. The death of Grunge and popularity of Smashmouth, and
the abovegrounding of 1980s psych-rock 1-man band Bevis Frond, have led to a
resurgence of Acid Rock. Heavy Metal is almost synonymous with Acid Rock, and
some of the best, most influential Metal is LSD-oriented.
(I have not heard the following albums so cannot vouch for them)
Fed to Your Head — by Scorched Earth: “Bevis Frond under a psuedonym with
help from the Alchemysts and the Lucky Bishops. A “heavy metal” record in the
vein of the early 70’s style.” — Amazon.com
Amazon: “On their sophomore effort, the Wellwater Conspiracy create a
multifaceted sound that lurks somewhere between the sonic realms of Seattle
grunge and psychedelic garage. Showcasing the talents of ex-Monster Magnet
guitarist John McBain and former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron, the
Wellwater Conspiracy exist as an adventurous studio project steeped in ’60s
psychedelia. Besides playing a number of instruments, Cameron is an able
singer who occasionally echoes the style of his old bandmate from Soundgarden,
Chris Cornell. McBain exhibits an expansive guitar vocabulary, creating
several acid-flashback moments amid the band’s hard-rock haze. Using vintage
electronic keyboards, fuzz-ridden guitars, tribal drumbeats, and melodic
songwriting, the Wellwater Conspiracy hark back to a cosmic time when rock
music was simpler, more mysterious, and plenty of fun.” –Mitch Myers
How can we have an authentically contemporary form of mystic experiencing?
Rock artists and lyricists creating psychedelics-oriented music. It is often
uncontaminated by dogmas and false notions of religious history, resulting in
direct trip reports in lyric and musically expressive form. I smell more
Truth coming from a fuzzed-out electric guitar with runaway tape-echo feedback
freakout than from spiritual books that supposedly cover mystic experiencing.
But such contemporary and direct-from-the-Source artistic reports still need
systematic explanation.
Why exactly is the fuzzed-out psychedelic freakout today’s authentic
expression of Dionysus’ religion, and why does that religion penetrate the
heart of really religious religion? Why, conversely, does pop spirituality
lack authentic religion? “Religion” is Truth, “spirituality” is delusion that
knows nothing of religious experiencing. In the battle of Spirituality
against Religious Experience, I side with the latter. Everything about the
pop conception of Spirituality smells entirely fake and ignorant to me — it’s
ersatz, a substitute.
Such Spirituality is indeed the Devil to me. Spirituality is even more evil
than Prohibition, but the two go hand in hand. Because of Drug Prohibition,
which is completely a sham, fake, ersatz, we have ended up with the
concomitantly ersatz, sham, fake form of religion. Spirituality is fake
religion for the fake Prohibition era. Spirituality is the religion of the
Prohibition era. “Spirituality” and Prohibition are the same thing; I hate
them as a single oppressor.
After Prohibition, the public will be able to have religious experiencing
again (direct, primary mystic experience) rather than Spirituality, which
lacks religious experiencing. Spirituality is uninformed by the Holy Spirit,
uninformed by *experiencing*. Spirituality lacks experience. The Boomers
hated Religion and created Spirituality but did so largely by rejecting and
putting down entheogens at every opportunity, condemning entheogens to hell
with a mountain of faint praise.
Some scholars are calling for “Back to non-liberal Religion”. I agree that to
gain real religion we need to avoid today’s liberal religion and
“spirituality”. However, the thing we must return to is not literalist
religion, but rather, truly religious experiencing, which goes with neither
Literalist conservative religion *nor* liberalized conservative religion such
as Boomer Spirituality or the paradigm of Historical Jesus scholarship, but
rather, esoteric religion led first of all by the Holy Spirit of Dionysus
residing in entheogens. We may meditate but first of all we are lost from the
presence of religious knowledge, unless we are led by the Holy Spirit residing
in the flesh of entheogenic molecules, where spiritual and material planes
intersect, joining God and Jesus in Christ-consciousness *in us*.
There is no way meditation can so lead us. Entheogenic molecules are our only
practical hope for salvation into religious awareness and knowledge on a
significant scale. Buddhism tells us that now is the time when Buddhism
utterly fails to enlighten. If you believe Buddhism, you believe that
Buddhism is spiritually bankrupt as it claims to be.
I agree with Buddhism, that Buddhism now has no hope of giving us saving
Knowledge and really religious experiencing. At this point in the cosmic
cycle, Buddhism is supposed to practically utterly lack the Holy Spirit of
enlightenment, as it indeed does. In every religion, look to the mystics.
Then look closer at the mystics, and you will find a concentration of
entheogen use.
Religious experiencing, being led by the Holy Spirit, proceeds from entheogens
mainly and directly, and from meditation only incidentally as a weak and
indirect echo. Entheogens are a mainline injection of the Holy Spirit;
meditation is a mere subcutaneous injection. Prohibition has been directly
obstructing direct religious experiencing. Prohibition is the Devil which
provides a fake substitute for direct religious experiencing, called
“spirituality and meditation”, which is designed to *prevent* and shut out the
Holy Spirit and thus prop up ego-delusion. Prohibition, spirituality, and
ego-delusion are three in one, the unholy trinity.
Tomorrow, $3.2 million taxpayer dollars will be used by the U.S. government to
buy two 30-second Superbowl television advertisements to whip up support for
the failing, obviously fake “War on Drugs” by asserting ludicrously that drugs
should be stopped by prohibition because they support terrorists. Given that
Prohibition is in power (albeit a rapidly collapsing power that clearly has no
persuasive future), must we give up on really religious experiencing and
settle for a substitute which is exactly as fake as the sham, bogus “War on
Drugs”? That spirituality is the official established religion proferred by
the same government/corporate machine that uses taxpayer money to oppress
taxpayers and other countries. Offered the spirituality that is endorsed by
the Prohibition Establishment, we might as well refuse spirituality
altogether.
Better to have no spirituality than a spirituality that is designed to be
fully accepted by the empowered rulers during the dark ages of Prohibition.
Pop spirituality only allows a bit of entheogenism, and to that extent is led
by the Holy Spirit, but only to that slight extent which is not sufficient to
break through to enlightenment and revelation. “Because you are neither hot
nor cold, I spit you out of my mouth.” Spirituality is half-religion,
dabbling so as to avoid that which it claims to seek. The greatest risk is
that the half-developed substitute becomes so popular and dominant that it is
taken for fulness and thus ends up blocking the way, like a guitar-amp
simulator that produces Tone of such sterling mediocrity that the young
guitarist never moves on to the glorious richness of the real thing.
This same logic drives Bruce Ehrlich to demonize any LSD that is not the
purest, most first-rate; he lies awake at night worrying about the popularity
of, say, 90% pure LSD because its popularity prevents people from having the
vastly superior pure LSD experience. As much as the Boomers hated “plastic
religion”, so do I hate “plastic mysticism” or “plastic spirituality”.
“Religion” (as supernaturalist Literalism) is indeed bogus — the great
majority of people including most Christians agree; very few Usans (Jonathan
Ott’s correction of “Americans”) believe in supernaturalist Literalism. But
I’m declaring the answer, “spirituality”, also bogus.
Religion is the thesis, Spirituality is the antithesis; the mystic altered
state is the synthesis. There are really three contenders within
Christianity: Supernaturalist Literalism, Historical-Jesus Liberalism, and
Esoteric Mysticism. As Alan Watts points out in the book Behold the Spirit,
there are many theological studies of God, and Jesus/Christ, but next,
clearly, we need coverage of the Holy Spirit — the missing ingredient. That
book was written before LSD, and it’s remarkable how Watts’ prediction of a
Holy-Spirit phase was fulfilled most clearly by the psychedelics revolution.
The Holy Spirit lives in the entheogen molecule, flesh of Christ.
Group: egodeath
Message: 490
From: BlackPepla
Date: 03/02/2002
Subject: The Silly Drug War Goes On and On
In a message dated 2/2/02 10:23:55 AM Pacific Standard Time, mhoffman writes:
> Tomorrow, $3.2 million taxpayer dollars will be used by the U.S. government
> to
> buy two 30-second Superbowl television advertisements to whip up support for
> the failing, obviously fake “War on Drugs” by asserting ludicrously that
> drugs
>
Here, here. It is time for our government to realize that the “war on
drugs” is an abysmal failure that has unfortunately produced a large social
class that depends on the restrictive polices (prison guards, DEA officers,
etc.).
Perhaps the only way to change course is to assure these classes that
depend on official “drug money” that they will have jobs, but jobs related to
treatment of drug addiction as an illness, not a crime.
Cheers, Pepla
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 491
From: Chris Lofting
Date: 03/02/2002
Subject: Transforming and Transcending : The Neurocognitive Roots of Materia
Transforming & Transcending : The Dance of the Neuron (AKA The
Neurocognitive Roots of Materialism and Idealism) – C.J. Lofting
—————————————————–
INTRODUCTION
————
When we zoom-in to identify the structure and function of the neuron, the
cell many species use to manage information and as such forms our brain, we
can identity two fundamental ‘goals’ of neural behaviour where these ‘goals’
reflect the notions of transcendence (aka transmutation) and transformation.
The development of the neuron has led to a dynamic reflected in rhythms and
arhythms of neural process that is reflected at all levels of neural
expression, from neuron to human society in general.
At the level of collectives, the transcendence/transformation ‘drives’ are
reflected in the concepts of Idealism (transcendence) and Materialism
(Transform). These concepts are more often interpreted as opposing one
another whereas they in fact serve one another in that oscillations across
the neurocognitive areas of our brain reflect the characteristics of
transcend/transform and are summed to produce ‘mind’, with different degrees
of oscillations emerging as noticeable biases in individual as well as
collective behaviours.
Thus the apparent differences regarding the ‘source’ of individual
expression in the socio-political emphasis of Karl Marx (sociological roots,
even distribution of energy) or J.S. Mill (psychological roots, hierarchic
distribution of energy) are in fact hard-coded into the human brain – they
are rooted in the neurocognitive processes that generally function
unconsciously in us all and as such are recruited and abstracted to serve as
‘mind’.
Through combinations of nature and nurture ‘biases’ in perspectives can
emerge due to misinterpretations as well as failure to recognise the
distinct ‘differences’ in goals where the transcendence function serves to
differentiate and exploit to achieve transcendence, whereas the
transformation function is more attuned to integration and so to ‘fit in’
with the local context (and so protect the species) rather than assert its
own context (a trait of transcending); thus the transformation emphasis is
on developing ‘good’ habits to conserve energy as compared to the
transcendence emphasis on expending energy, to reach the ‘top’ and then
‘transcend’.
FORMAL DANCE : TRANSFORMING
—————————
The flow of data through the dendrites of a neuron (dendrites are the
primary input area of a neuron) is not just ‘pure’ input but more so
*filtered* input in that within the ‘cloud’ of dendrites are encoded
species-level instincts and local level habits.
The encoding of habits and instincts in the immediate input areas of the
neuron allows for immediate, ‘mindless’ processing of data and so response
to stimulus where the stimulus is ‘in’ the context; there is no need to
‘think’ once something has been identified and habituated, we just ‘react’
to the stimulus.
As such, context is the root of change, e.g. weather conditions, can affect
hormone productions that affect the filtering processes of neurons and
members of the species start to grow winter coats or molt for summer and
this is all done on autopilot.
This reactive emphasis reflects the PUSH nature of context; often
experienced by the individual where circumstances put them in an ‘unknown’
context and they start to behaviour in ways their conscious self does not
understand, it is “why am I thinking/behaving like this!?”. These sorts of
situations reflect ‘instinctive’ or ‘habit’ behaviours which are, or appear
to be, uncontrollable, the person feels as if ‘something’ is pushing them.
We can speculate that thousands of years ago this combination of
consciousness plus ‘mindless’ context-derived ‘push’ could easily elicit the
notion of being manipulated by ‘spirits’ in that lack of clearly identified
concepts such as instincts, habits, and the general principles of evolution
would force an anthropomorphic perspective.
At the neuron level we associate this processing of data, where habits can
be created/refined to maintain the ‘push’ emphasis, with the concept of
transformation. In transformation the core does not change, the outer self
does in response to a context.
This transformation process reflects direct input-output of data, ‘mindless’
stimulus/response and the encoding of instincts/habits at the input level
favours their use as forms of protection in that they ensure conservation of
energy through their efficiency as well as immediate ‘intergration’ with a
context. Furthermore, the ‘collection’ of local habits would be reflected in
the development of identity, both personal and collective, and so beyond
that of being a ‘species member’. As such a hierarchy of identities emerge
all dependent on context as their instigator of expression and so with the
concept of transformation comes the socio-psychological temperaments of
security seeking as well as identity seeking (and so individuals as well as
collectives can develop these temperament biases.)
FREEFORM DANCE: TRANSCENDING
—————————-
In the process of survival it is necessary to avoid becoming too dependent
upon habits and a method to deal with this is in the neuron’s link with
synchronisation. This process, besides ensuring groups of neurons work ‘as
one’ also has the property of ‘slicing and dicing’ habit data where the
synchronisation links, in the form of excitory and inhibitory controls
applied to the neuron’s cell body, the source of neural firing, can be
‘re-sequenced’ and so instinct/habit behaviours can be presented ‘out of
context’. This process allows for the experience of ‘insights’, new
perspectives that can be useful in survival, in escaping ‘habits’ where the
specific context requires a non-habitual response.
This process of developing a ‘different’ perspective can be a source of
error but also a source of sudden insight – the ‘ah-HA’ experience. We
associate this concept with the term of ‘transcendence’ where the insight
elicits such a different perspective that it can change all future
behaviours and as such ‘break’ habits. (At the mindless level this process
also reflects mutation). Thus we establish a tie of transcendence to the
temperaments of problem-solving as well as sensation-seeking (all examples
of more proactive behaviours when compared to the temperaments that reflect
transforming).
The concept of transcendence reflects the introduction of core difference
just as the concept of transformation reflects the maintaining of core
sameness and as such, just as transformation serves to protect, so
transcendence serves to exploit where resources – energy – is needed for the
transcendence process; note that one primary difference is that just as the
transformation aims to conserve energy, the transcendence experience is
associated with the over-expression of energy. Furthermore there is a sense
of preservation of the species in the transforming, a tie to history, as
compared to transcendence which reflects an ‘attraction’ to the new as well
as abstraction, to move from the local to the universal and so the
manifestation of a hierarchic emphasis rooted in species behaviours of
‘pecking’ orders etc.
As such we can identify increasingly complex behaviours stemming from the
entanglement of transcending and transforming.
VARIATIONS IN STEP : RECRUIT & ABSTRACT
—————————————
A set of common traits within the nervous system is that of recruitement and
abstraction, where neuron will recruit another, or a brain lobe another, or
brain hemisphere *the* other, in the processing of data. Together with this
recruitment comes abstraction where old categories are recruited and given
new labels and applied at the level of the universal rather than the local.
If we ‘zoom’ up to the level of the hemispheres of the neocortex we seem to
witness the same transform(protect)/transcend(exploit) functions we witness
at the level of the single neuron and as such any collective of neurons will
develop the transform/transcend biases to a degree where specialised
‘nuclei’ can develop, all nuclei then intergrated as a single brain, and at
the level of the collective personas can develop with distinct biases to
seeking transforming and/or transcending and as such introduce variations on
the general themes.
SELECT YOUR PARTNER : PERSONAS & COLLECTIVES
——————————————–
The development of different perspectives at the personal and collective
levels seems to reflect the transcendence/transform ‘goals’ of the neuron
such that the whole of our neurology, psychology, and sociology acts like a
huge neuron, ready to recruit other ‘neurons’ to solve problems as well as
convert concrete perspectives rooted in the local to abstract perspectives
rooted in the universal.
The transcend/transform concepts, being tied to the neuron, will be
expressed not just in humans but in ANY lifeform that uses the neuron to
process information. The difference between humans and other lifeforms is in
the complexity of neural development that has allowed for a developed
awareness of ‘moment-to-moment’ spanning the lifetime of the individual and
as such a refined sense of consciousness. This sense of connectivity is
reflected in memory processing where the continuity is further refined
through awareness of personal and collective history through external
sources (language expressed in family communications, books, videos etc
etc).
From the perspective of the human species we can identify two fundamental
‘differences’ in personal and social expression that reflect the core
expressions of transcendence/transformation – that of the idealist
(transcendence seeking) and that of the materialist (transformation
seeking). Genetic as well as environmental diversities will introduce
variations on these themes but despite these variations the general
idealist/materialist roots will shine through.
LEADING AND FOLLOWING – IDEALISM & MATERIALISM
———————————————-
A materialist perspective reflects a more transformist approach to life, the
emphasis is on conservation of energy, the identification of algorithms and
formulas for the sake of efficient function within this thermodynamically
dominated universe; time is recognised as an integral part of our being and
is included in all assessments.
An idealist perspective reflects a more transcendentalist approach to life,
the emphasis is on the expression of energy, huge amounts if need be, to
achieve the ‘transcendence’, the escape from the current, sometimes
perceived-to-be sterile, existence as in ‘there must be more..’; with the
idealist perspective time is treated more as a sense of the ‘eternal’ and
free of its thermodynamic links.
As such, in idealism, the formulas and algorithms are more used to emphasise
alchemy. We must be careful here with words in that traditionally the
conversion of ‘lead’ into ‘gold’ is often expressed as ‘transforming’ but in
fact, from the qualitative perspective we all work from as a species, the
emphasis is on ‘transcending’ which incorporates the notion of
‘transmutation’.
KEEPING STEP : TIME DISTORTION
——————————
Analysis of the idealist/materialist perspectives indicates a need to
‘zoom-in’ to these perspectives in that the manner in which they process
data reflects differences in the notion of Time.
The brain reflects the exploit/protect emphasis through the process of
analyising data in high detail, allowing for a ‘clear’ perspective of the
form of whatever it is that is under analysis.
This analytical processing requires the isolation, the encapsulation, of
‘something’ to enable us to focus all of our analytical skills on that
‘something’. As such, the isolation process is combined with a distortion of
attention focus where we zoom-in to get more details of what has been
encapsulated.
The zoom-in is not ‘free’, the act requires physiological expending of
energy and a consequence of this, due to the identified reciprocal
relationship of energy/subjective_time_experience, is that there is a
distortion of time where it ‘slows’ to become, qualitatively, impoverished
where it is ignored (and so a sense of the ‘eternal’ presents itself) or it
is treated in a mechanistic manner, ‘cut off’ from its thermodynamical roots
expressed as begin-end time as as such even interpreted as reversible.
Thus an idealist perspective, recorded over centuries, will reflect this
time distortion in the form of the notion of the ‘eternal’, the ‘one’ moment
of ‘clarity’ where the physiological intent IS clarity in that the drive for
details will ‘suspend’ time or else give it a more mechanistic aire; the
recruitment and abstraction of this sense of ‘clarity’ means it is projected
into the universal realm of our theories about ourselves and the universe.
The recording of the sense of the ‘eternal’ will act as feedback to
perpetuate the notion and as such, due to the ‘natural’ drive to transcend
(and so exaggerate, reflecting the analysis process), extend interpretations
of the notion into the realm of the ‘spiritual’.
The role of Religion has always been to be a ‘keeper of the scrolls’ and as
such maintain old terms, and this sense of ‘oneness’ of the experience of
the eternal, in new times. As such Science is more materialist in general
than Religion in that it demonstrates a lack of faith in Religious concepts
by asking questions and seeking to look ‘behind’ expressions. (Within
Science are the same patterns where idealist Scientists reflect
fundamentalism as compared to the more materialist Scientists reflecting a
more relativist bias. Thus at all scales we see the same patterns reflecting
the entanglement of transcending and transforming. See my texts on
dichotomisations and their properties when used recursively ( and so the use
of self-referencing when we seek details – http://pages.prodigy.net/lofting/dicho.html ).
REFLECTIONS UPON THE DANCE
————————–
(1)Since the synchronisation processes identified as part of transcending
suggest some degree of imposed order, the more ‘habitual’ perspective, being
more reactive, stimulus/response, would seem to be the older. In other
words, within the bounds of neuron development, the materialist perspective
preceded the idealist perspective; spirit developed from matter, just as the
sense of the individual has emerged from the collective and the sense of the
collective (reducible to immediate family – kin) has emerged from the
species. An example at the level of the collective is in ‘instinctive’ group
behaviours in such lifeforms as schools of fish or troops of baboons where
local distinction making can cause ‘crowd’ patterns not sourcable in the
individual but feedback can elicit ‘preferred’ behaviours and as such
formalise a ‘dance’ that emerges as a pattern of group behaviour unique to
the species/genus.
——————
(2)The idealist perspective, with its drive to transcend and differentiate
is the source of social and technical development as well as the source of
charismatic leaderships etc. However this can be delusional in that the
exploitation of resources can take place in a manner when the idealist
perspective reflects the mind of a child in that it reflects behaviours that
lack consideration of consequences of actions.
The original development of part of the brain to deal with high precision
seems to have been as an aid to ‘everyday’ living of the species but its
success has led to the development of idealist perspectives being encoding
at the level of collectives and as such the development of ‘belief’ systems
that although highly charismatic, in the long term of the universe reflect
delusions that although ‘fun’ can also serve as the instigator of the death
of a species through excessive exploitations of contexts to aid in asserting
the ‘ideal’.
—————–
(3)The materialist perspective, although ‘closer’ to general species-nature
as a whole, in that it attempts to ‘fit in’ with the context by recognising
non-reversible time as an integral part of our being, can lack ‘dot’
precision when compared to the idealist. However, the materialist
perspective seems to be better at pattern detection and as such identifying
the implications of events. As such the materialist perspective is more
biased to processing/asserting of illusions as compared to the idealist
perspective that is more biased to processing/asserting of delusions.
Materialist adapts to context, integrates with it, idealist would rather
assert its own context and as such reflects integration within itself – a
focus on purity rather than on mixing.
As such the materialist perspective can be too ‘constraining’ and as such
fail to support excessive energy usage that could in fact benefit in
conserving energy in the long run, or else attempt to perform large scale
developments without employing the idealist perspective and so ‘lack’ the
necessary precision required in such large scale developments.
The benefit of the materialist is its sensitivity to historical contexts and
so consequences of actions upon the whole species etc. The benefit of the
idealist is the intense focus of purpose and the ability to move above
conditions, but this needs to be analysed from a historical perspective to
identify possible problems for the species occurring many generations into
the future. As such we see an oscillation between the poles of
exploit/protect.
This oscillation will inevitably lead to the development of mediation as a
property of development and this is reflected in Mind through the
use/interpretations of Laws/Beliefs (and has its mindless roots in the form
of genetics as expression of mediation between lifeform and context). Of
interest is the casual observation that ‘developed’ collectives focus on
laws that ensure the survival of the future of the species – the children
and as such this correlates with a general ‘childmindedness’ in developed
collectives where ‘struggle’ gives way to ‘fun’.
—————
(4)The idealist/materialist perspectives, reflected in Kant’s concepts of
the analytical and the synthetical, as well as Hegel’s concepts of the
analytical and dialectical, demonstrate different perspectives on
integration. The idealist perspective, due to the strong encapsulation bias
in analysis, reflects more of a sense of integration WITHIN a ‘box’ as
compared to the materialist perspective that focuses more on integration
BETWEEN boxes (the latter is vital in habit formations where many implied
relationships across many ‘boxes’ trigger a general response such as
instinctive preparation for winter/summer etc)
The ‘within’ emphasis identifies a focus on very clear identification of a
particular, on purity, and as such a development of a ‘parts list’ – the
details – of whatever is under analysis. The drive to ‘transcend’ emerges in
that it is the only way in which to step out of the ‘box’ in that once all
parts have been identified a sense of sterility can seep-in; the archetypal
realm, which is what the idealism reflects, needs ‘new blood’ to move on.
The logical solution is to MIX, to recruit other boxes but this defeats the
purpose of analysis, to emphasise clear, ‘pure’ identifications and as such
there is an ‘attraction’ to stay in one’s box to maintain ‘purity’ with the
belief that ‘intense’ focus on the contents of the box will lead to
‘transcendence’.
Overall this transcendence focus emphasises a strong hierarchic emphasis and
a ‘goal’ to reach the ‘top’ emerging from a ‘goal’ to escape the sterility.
(see (5) for more on this at the level of the collective) This transcendence
can also be achieved through the ‘selling’ of the parts-list as ‘THE’
parts-list, “THE” ultimate interpretation. This is reflected in the
fundamentalism possible in idealism where the single context emphasis acts
to assert the sense of ‘the one’.
The ‘between’ emphasis identifies a stronger focus on relationships between
boxes and as such their integration into a ‘whole’ system but more often
this is by implication where the skill in pattern matching can be destroyed
through increase in ‘dot’ precision (and too much entanglement with the
different boxes could ‘upset’ their degree of autonomous function)
As such energy is conserved through allowing dynamics across boxes, avoiding
too much focus within a box – thus energy is distributed across a network
and as such reflects ‘percolation’, a bubbling of activities in the dynamic
of the materialist world but as such lacking the high energy precision of
the idealist world.
Visually we can image this dynamic as being expressed in the form of a
Mandala – where links of different boxes, some specialised and so reflecting
different energy levels, is reflected in patterns of energy that can be
visualised as mandala patterns such that different collectives etc can
maintain different mandalas that aid in giving the whole group an ‘identity’
and as such meditations on the mandalas serve to aid in experiencing the
collective ‘mindset’.
The collective mandala can experience subtle changes due to local conditions
but in general should maintain its structure unless the collective is ‘off
balanced’ to start with (See refs for (5) below).
—————-
(5)The transcend/transform emphasis is expressed at the level of collectives
where the differences in energy management (transcend – expend, transform –
conserve) are reflected in the differences between what sociologist Ray
Bradley and neuroscientist Karl Pribram call ‘control’ collectives (high
energy, charismatic, emphasis) and ‘flux’ collectives (energy conserving) –
where the more ‘functional’ collectives reflect the entanglement of these
distinctions.
(
Bradley, R.T. (1987) “Charisma and Social Structure : A Study of Love and
Power, Wholeness and Transformation” New York : Paragon House
Bradley, R.T., & Pribram, K.(1998) “Communication and Stability in Social
Collectives” IN Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems 21(1):29-81
)
—————-
(6)The support for the development of mental ‘biases’ in expression related
to transcend/transform is reflected in such work as Prof., J. Peddigrew’s
experiments in identifying bi-polar disorders through analysis of rhythmic
differences in the standard oscillations across the neocortex that reflect
‘mind’ at work. Based on this work as well as others covering neocortical
structure and function, depression/neurosis is more linked to
transformation, mania/psychosis to transcendence. (For Peddigrew see http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/procroysoc.html )
As such, resolving ‘simple’ forms of depression can be achieved through a
change in context whereas the more transcending disorders, the psychoses,
can in fact be made worse by context change.
—————
(7) The identification of the processing of ‘clear’ perspectives is possible
through analysis of various research material covering neural processes to
hemisphere processes. Together with a ‘drive’ to interpret, the ‘clarity’
emphasis is a theme common in more idealist mindsets (the analytical
emphasis is driven by exaggerations of stimulus to aid in identifying
details. Exploit/Protect biases emerge in the intent of the analysis).
At all levels there is an FM (frequency modulation) vs AM (amplitude
modulation) perspective mappable to transcendence (FM) vs transformation
(AM) with an overall emphasis on “AS IS” processing reflected in
transformations and “AS INTERPRETED” processing reflected in transcendence.
Due to the development of feedback loops and interneurons as well as
sensory/motor neurons, the basic threads of transcend/transform has been
woven into a ‘carpet’ where patterns in the carpet reflect differences in
perspectives.
——————–
The conversion of AM to FM, continuity to discrete, general to specific, is
sourced in the firing of a neuron/neurons/lobes/brain/collective etc and for
additional references/further reading covering neuron to hemispheres see for
example some of the works mentioned below, noting that in general the
‘opposition’ of idealist/materialist perspectives is illusion and needs to
be understood as such.
The intensity of idealism reflects its roots in using self-referencing
methods to get details on whatever we have focused upon, but once that job
is done to withdraw since the energy in maintaining continued ‘focus’ can be
extreme and so costly, not only to the individual but to the collectives and
in fact the whole species; the recognition of such excess can easily go
unnoticed since we are talking hundreds of years and so well outside of the
experiential range of the individual (or even collective).
The intensity of materialism reflects its roots in conservation/protection
of the species but this can be perceived as ‘lacking in precision’ when
compared to what the idealism can achieve and as such can be readily ignored
and declared ‘alarmist’ in collectives where idealism ‘rules’.
The work in the neurosciences is aiding us in understanding our selves as a
species and as such forcing the focus of our concerns at that level – the
level of the species rather than collective/individual.
The isolationism that can emerge from idealism needs to have its border
‘expanded’ to encapsulate the whole species and in doing so bring the
idealism talents to the fore in ensuring species survival rather than the
maintaining of ‘false’ boundaries around collectives and so the ‘us’ vs
‘them’ becomes an eternal problem to us all.
The interplay of idealism/materialism is vital for the continued development
as well as survival of the species and better for this to be cooperative
than oppositional or more so for us to KNOW when we need to adopt one or the
other where oppositional focus is for differentiation – details analysis –
and cooperation for integration but at all times recognising that all is
dynamic and as such part of the dance of life.
———————–
Some material sources & further readings:
Ivry, R.B., & Robertson, L.C.,(1998) “The Two Sides of Perception” MITP
Hasselmo, M.E., (1999) “Neuromodulation : acetylcholine and memory
consolidation” Trends Cognit. Sci (1999) 3, 351-359
Hutcheon, B., & Yarom, Y., (2000) “Resonance, oscillation and the intrinsic
frequency preferences of neurons” Trends Neurosci. (2000) 23, 216-222
Perry, E., et al (1999) “Acetylcholine in mind: a neurotransmitter correlate
of consciousness?” Trends Neurosci. (1999) 22, 273-280
Tallon-Baudry, C. and Bertrand, O., (1999) “Oscillatory gamma activity in
humans and its role in object representation” Trends Cogniti. Sci (1999) 3,
151-161
Tomaselco, M., (2000) “The item-based nature of children’s early syntactic
development” Trends Cognit. Sci. (2000) 4, 156-163
Hoffman, D.D., (1998) “Visual Intelligence: How we create what we see”
Norton
McAdams, S., and Bigand, E., (Eds) (1993) “Thinking in Sound” OUP
Levarie, S., (1980) “Music as a Structural Model” p236-239 IN Journal of
Social Biol. Structure. 3)
Goldman-Rakic, P.S., (1984) “Modular organization of the prefrontal cortex”
IN Trends in Neurosciences Nove 1984 pp 419-424
Grinvald, A., et al (1991)”Optical Imaging of Architecture and Function in
the Living Brain” IN Squire, L.R., et al (Eds)(1991)”Memory :Organisation
and Locus of Change” OUP.)
Stein, B.E., and Meredith, M.A., (1993) “The Merging of the Senses” MITP
Posner,M.I., Raichle, M.E., (1994) “Images of Mind” Scientific American
Library
Gainotti, G., and Caltagirone, C., (eds) (1989) “Emotions and the Dual
Brain” Springer-Verlag
Doty, R.W., (1989) “Some anatomical substrates of emotion, and their
bihemispheric coordination” IN “Emotions and the Dual Brain” p57-82
Springer, S.P., & Deutsch, G., (1998) “Left Brain, Right Brain :
Perspectives from Cognitive Neuroscience (5th Edition)” Freeman
Koch, C., and Segev, I., (1998)”Methods in Neural Modeling” MITP
Cirrincione, G., Cirrinocione, M., & Van Huffel, S., (1999)”Neural Geometry
for Constrained Optimization” (copy of the paper is on my website — http://www.eisa.net.au/~lofting/neuralprism.pdf )
Hoppensteadt, F.C., (1997)”An Introduction to the Mathematics of Neurons 2nd
Ed” Cambridge UP
Norris, J.R.,(1997) “Markov Chains” CUP
Chaitin, G.L., (1999) “The Unknowable” Springer
Constantine-Paton, M., and Law, M.I.,(1982) “The Development of Maps and
Stripes in the Brain” IN “The Workings of the Brain” A.H. Freeman.
Subject: Drug war is huge success at covert goals; must expand vocabulary
>It is time for the U.S. government to realize that the “war on drugs” is an
abysmal failure that has produced a large social class that depends for its
income on the restrictive polices, such as prison guards and DEA officers.
Perhaps the only way to change course is to assure these classes that depend
on official “drug money” that they will have jobs, but jobs related to
treatment of drug addiction as an illness, not a crime.
That way of speaking uses the paradigm of the prohibitionists and the
expressions of the prohibitionists. Such inadvertent conceptual acquiescence
plays right into the prohibitionist scheme. I would never say simply “The
drug war is a failure”, because that totally misses the point. The drug war
is a great success at its actual, covert goals.
The main point that now must be hammered into the heads of the reformers is
that the drug war is *fake*. It claims to have one goal, but it actually has
an entirely different set of goals. It is, most of all, dishonest — it’s a
*racket* that has *never* had anything at all to do with reducing drug use.
It was never intended to work towards its stated goal.
One of the actual goals of prohibition is to dramatically increase drug use,
to make the whole system profitable. Drug-policy reformers, being all too
much the ordinary propagandized obedient teevee viewers they are, are too
stupid and gullible — or, more accurately, conceptually brainwashed — to
grasp this obvious fact, unless it is hammered repeatedly into their thinking.
Reading a stack of Jonathan Ott and Dan Russell books, and Drug Warriors &
Their Prey, is the only hope. Every reformer should be required to read these
books, along with whatever other information sources they want to use.
There is a paradigm war here, and reformers *think* they are in a different
paradigm than prohibitionists, *but they’re not*. The concept “the drug war
is a failure” *is* the prohibitionists’ paradigm. The concept “addition is an
illness, not a crime” *is* the prohibitionists’ paradigm; it’s merely a
conventional objection that can never kill the fetid heart of the beast, the
sham “drug war”.
The reformers are utterly doomed to failure until they adopt a *truly*
different paradigm, and truly break out of the paradigm fastened over their
head by the prohibitionist paradigm. It’s like Ken Wilber’s idea of inferior
religion as being mere “translation” — moving furniture about — versus
superior religion as profound *transformation*. The ordinary “drug problem”
battling is conducted within a single uniform paradigm, “the drug war and
those who are against it”. But reformers have only one hope of winning: by
providing a truly alternative paradigm.
Reformers are living in delusion, blindly believing that the drug war intends
to reduce drug use, and that the drug war is about addiction or illness. The
drug war has *nothing at all* to do with reducing drug use and it never has.
The drug war has *nothing at all* to do with addiction or illness and it never
has. It is only about money and power, and always has been. The only real
way to wake up and get others to wake up to reality, the reality of power and
propaganda, is *follow the money* within the prohibitionist camp.
The war on drugs is a failure? I would never say that. It is a vicious, evil
lie — now we’re getting warmer. Reformers need to develop more of a sense of
intentional evil.
Addiction is an illness, not a crime? I would never utter that conventional
platitude that totally distorts what the drug war is *all about*. The drug
war has nothing to do with addiction, nothing to do with illness, and nothing
to do with crime. It’s a racket on the part of the prohibitionists, and
that’s all it has ever been, and this dragon can only be killed as what it is,
not as what it is not.
There are two kinds of reformers: the conceptual compromisers, and the
extremists who only want to tell it straight. We need more people to do the
latter to the extreme, because the former are too often oblivious to it. Part
of the extreme straight-talking approach is to emphasize that drugs are, among
other things, the holiest sacrament and the living flesh of Christ, the main
vehicle of the Holy Spirit of Truth. Now we are getting warmer.
How much can the reformers achieve while wearing a bag of ignorance over their
head? Their efforts may randomly occasionally pay off; they may occasionally
make profit-raking slightly less convenient for the amoral prohibitionist
profiteers. The prohibitionists are worried enough to feel they need to
invest in $3.2 million of propaganda during the Super Bowl to keep the sheep
hypnotized into shallow, emotion-driven, knee-jerk support for the
prohibitionist racket.
These sheep include the typical drug-policy reformers, who will refute the
prohibitionists using the conceptual world and paradigm of the
prohibitionists, thinking that they are providing an alternative view. There
are alternatives, and there are *alternatives*. Status-quo drug-policy reform
is succeeding so little and so slowly as to be a failure. We need to, for
once, see and speak the truth, rather than the usual approach of
counterpropaganda.
At least, reformers should *know* the truth, even if they continue trying
counterpropaganda (the use of distortion and double-talk to fight distortion
and double-talk) as a strategy. Counterpropaganda has made only slow, halting
progress; I don’t see it breaking through, only lessening the pain so as to
prevent the problem from ending. The only way to *end* prohibition, rather
than merely mitigating it, is to reveal the evil, the willful commitment to
lying and suppressing the truth, that is its foul, motivating heart and soul.
My favorite group of books, a needed addition to the more common coverage of
20th-century drug use and policy, is about the history of entheogen use at the
roots of religion — http://www.promind.com/conts.htm#E . This more complete
education about drugs, religion, and government, provides a greater range of
thinking and expressions. Reformers need a more general education with a
special emphasis on drugs, religion, and history. A teevee education produces
only a teevee-quality drug-policy reform movement by limiting our conceptual
vocabulary. The last thing the prohibitionists want is historical thinking,
knowledge about the history of drugs.
I have the following book, haven’t read it, and don’t know if it’s
prohibitionist, but it’s the kind of follow-the-money investigation,
especially of “U.S. interests”, that needs to be done by drug-policy
reformers. Drug Politics: Dirty Money and Democracies, by David C. Jordan.
1999. “the drug trade depends on state cooperation and compliance to sustain
multibillion-dollar levels of illicit global commerce.” http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0806131748 But again, beware of the
value system and assumptions this author makes about what drugs are really all
about and what goals we really have and could have for drugs — for that
critical aspect, rely on Jonathan Ott’s books, such as his book The Age of
Entheogens, The Pharmacratic Inquisition, and The Entheogenic Reformation.
No matter how tall a stack of books you read like Drug War Addiction: Notes
from the Front Lines of America’s #1 Policy Disaster, by Sheriff Bill Masters
( http://www.accuratepress.net/dwa.html ), something evil still lurks, giving
off as many foul fumes as ever: the disparagement of drugs, an error which
from the start is an upside-down attitude, framing sacraments as mere poisons.
Such error encourages the drug war to be put back into place, in one guise or
another, just as soon as it is dismissed.
The freed black man was a problem, so he was publically persecuted. After
such blatant persecution became unacceptable, he was covertly persecuted, put
away in jail in the name of “the drug problem” where he is of more use (under
forced labor) to the ruling powers than if he were dead — it’s more efficient
racism, persecution-for-profit that produces jobs for the designated good
guys. The latter scenario is like the supposed great victory offered by
today’s drug-policy reformers, who say they have a better way to deal with the
devil of drugs. If we keep framing drugs as the devil, along with the real
devil which is prohibition, then people will keep treating drugs as the devil
one way or another.
The first thing to change, then, is to stop demonizing drugs. The surest way
to not demonize drugs is to honor and respect them, a model offered most
clearly by psychedelics used as entheogenic sacraments. Let us also put the
opium pod on its deserved place on a pedestal, because opium and cannabis are
the greatest medical drugs — read Jonathan Ott, Dan Russell (Drug War), and
possibly Antonio Escohotado (Brief History of Drugs) on this point. Opium and
cannabis are *so* effective, they certainly are a competitive “threat” — or
an effective complement — to other, patented drugs.
Another genuinely positive book to at least be aware of as a demonstration of
the breadth of eternal entheogen use in religion all around the globe is
Richard Schultes and Albert Hofmann — Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred
Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers.
I also think often about the clear perspective offered by the book A Brief
History of Drugs — http://www.promind.com/bk_bhd.htm — “Story of
psychoactive materials: prehistory, Greek, Roman, witchcraft, new world
plants, start of real medicine; then modern history: prohibition, new drugs,
the psychedelic revolution, the drug war, and the present situation. Says
drugs have been used by most societies, and made important contributions.”
More info: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0892818263 .
It’s a dubious cliché to say that religious experience is worthless unless it
produces a lasting change of one’s conduct and mode of life. Whether or not
the value of religious experience depends on anything outside itself is
debatable, but I would suggest that the best kind of “changed life” now should
be activism to truly end the bunk, sham, fake, pretend “war on drugs” racket,
and honor psychoactive drugs, effectively integrating them into the life of
humanity. This is the simplest way to differentiate drug-policy reformers
into two camps with two opposite paradigms: those who disparage drugs, and
thus support prohibition; and those who honor them, providing the only true
alternative to prohibition.
— Michael Hoffman http://www.reformnav.org — rapid-navigation portal for drug policy reform
sites — still needs work, but even now it works great for navigation and
contacts http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath
Message: 493
From: egodeath
Date: 04/02/2002
Subject: File – EgodeathTopics.txt
This text file is automatically posted to the discussion group every two
weeks, in order to provide guidelines for writers, to keep the postings
on-topic and help writers know what subjects are considered most desirable
by this audience.
It is possible to write on most any topic and have it be relevant for this
Egodeath discussion group if you show how the posting is related to the
in-scope topics for this discussion group. This group is not formally
moderated, but it is consistently focused on the defined topics, including
peripheral topics if the writer explicitly connects them to the core topics.
This discussion group covers the cybernetic theory of ego death and
ego transcendence, including:
o Nonreductionistic block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.
o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.
o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.
o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, the Eleusinian mysteries and
cracking the allegorical code of the mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.
o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.
Group: egodeath
Message: 494
From: ->Forward->
Date: 04/02/2002
Subject: UUDPR – Christ & Drug Reform
Dear Michael, touching upon your recent post –
_____________________________________
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 14:17:44 -0600
From: “Thomas Roberts” <P80TBR1>
Subject: News from UUDPR
The following is an excerpt from the first part of this message. More
information is avaialble at the websites mentioned.
UUDPF = Unitarian Universalists for Drug Policy Reform
Tom Roberts
_______________________________
Dear UUDPR active participants,
Greetings. Here is some information about several new developments:
* UUDPR_Updates has been changed to DrugPolicyUpdates. You will continue to receive 2-4 e-mail
updates each month from Unitarian Universalists for Drug Policy Reform.
* UU congregations have until March 1 to submit feedback on the UUA’s draft
Statement of Conscience — see the link on <http://www.uudpr.org>. Please
encourage your congregation to express support for the entire draft as is,
especially the parts stating that drug use should be a health issue, not a
crime (with users subject to arrest only if they hurt others). If anyone
has any concerns, please let me know, and try to address these concerns
using the info on UUDPR’s web page and pasted below.
* An excellent new publication has been written by the organization Common
Sense for Drug Policy (CSDP). The thoroughly documented “Drug War
Distortions” can be read online at http://www.cspd.org/research/dwdist.htm
— which refutes the most common claims in support of the drug war. Some
UUs have voiced concerns that ending the drug war would be dangerous to
kids. Therefore, I’ve pasted (below) CSDP’s response to the distortion,
“Current drug policy protects American youth.” Please share this with
members of your congregation.
* The best way to protect kids is through honest education, such as Dr.
Andrew Weil’s book, “From Chocolate to Morphine,” available through http://www.uudpr.org — also see the publication, “Safety First: A
Reality-Based Approach to Teens, Drugs, and Drug Education,” which can be
read in its entirety at <http://www.lindesmith.org/library/safetyfirst.html>.
Arresting kids only makes matters worse.
Group: egodeath
Message: 495
From: Kurt
Date: 04/02/2002
Subject: Oprah Winfrey: The mother of all book clubs
<SS>
||
Although it might be verging on the conceptually obscene to post this to
egodeath, OTOH it does stimulate thinking about the vectors of access to
Cybermonk’s once & future book.
Not that I suggest that any such book be compromised or shoe-horned into
being “OSI (Oprah Semantic Infantilism) Compliant” by any means. It would
be miraculous and splendid however if the putative book was selected as
book of the month. Regardless of scoping, she is working a minor miracle of
using TV to promote literacy. That much credit she is due.
She consciously or not, acts as a valve or gateway of certain modes of
awareness to inculate into her audience, a memetic goddess, of sorts.
:
:
Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement can be worth millions to an author. Phillip
McCarthy examines the impact of the world’s most powerful literary promoter.
When Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections was anointed by Oprah Winfrey in
August as the 42nd choice of her phenomenally influential television book
club, his publisher immediately went back to the printer for another
500,000 copies. That reprint was the equivalent of a $US1.5 million (almost
$3 million) windfall for Franzen personally, so it caused something of a
scandal when he began to question the accolade and to disparage Winfrey.
Her five-year-old club had honoured some “schmaltzy” books, he complained,
and her big “O” logo would “corporatise” his book jacket. Worse, he
fretted, such a mass-market honour might compromise his place in the
“high-art literary tradition”.
As TV’s high priestess of self-help, Winfrey has learned a lot over the
years about bad energy and obsessing about negatives. So she didn’t
vindictively yank Franzen’s status. But she did withdraw his invitation for
one of the perks of membership: sitting down to a televised dinner with her
to discuss the book. She didn’t, she said in her best Oprah-jargon, want to
make anyone feel “uncomfortable or conflicted”.
If Franzen, 42, thought his quixotic stance would be applauded in literary
circles, he hadn’t visited his publisher’s marketing department for a
while. In a media-saturated world books are business – mostly controlled by
giant communications corporations like Bertelsmann and News Corp – and
Winfrey has a breathtaking ability to move them. She’s the biggest thing to
happen to the industry economics since amazon.com. Besides, Winfrey doesn’t
choose trash.
As Robert Gottlieb, a former editor of the esteemed publishing house of
Knopf and of The New Yorker, put it: “Her choices seem to me to be very
solid, honourable books with feeling and some kind of substance.” Other
literary heavyweights are less reserved. In a recent interview with the
Herald, the German writer Bernhard Schlink , author of The Reader, said:
“She is one of the 10 people I have met in my life who really has charisma.
She really knows a lot about books, literature and culture. I really admire
her. And she makes all these people read who otherwise would just maybe
read magazines.”
Winfrey might wear her heart on her sleeve, as mandated by the demands of a
successful daytime television franchise, but as far as books are concerned
the heart is also in the right place. The book club came about because it
was the most commercially feasible way for her to introduce some literary
content on her show since, before its launch in 1997, her ratings fell
every time she did a show on a book or an author.
The important thing, of course, was that she was a reader and wanted to
find a formula to add books to her show; she might be bossy but she has
arguably done her audience a greater service than re-treading old shows on
shopaholics and lazy husbands.
None of the usual pulpy, mass-market suspects – Danielle Steele and Mary
Higgins Clark, or even Stephen King or Scott Turow – has ever appeared on
the Oprah Book Club list. But Franzen’s whine was not merely the
condescension of a white male. Even Winfrey’s favourite writer, the
three-time nominee Toni Morrison, was caught off guard when she realised
that Winfrey was a more valuable sales engine than her Nobel Prize.
“I’d never heard of such a thing,” she said back in 1996 when her
19-year-old novel, Song of Solomon, became Winfrey’s second selection.
“When I got the call, with the news, all I could think of was, ‘Who’s going
to buy a book because of Oprah?'”
The answer came fairly quickly and astonishingly. Song of Solomon had been
a modest hit on its own, and picked up steam when Morrison won her Nobel
Prize in 1993, and in the 10 years before its Winfrey selection had sold
360,000 copies. But with Winfrey’s seal the publisher immediately churned
out 730,000 copies, which were snapped up in weeks and soon after that the
book broke the million-copies barrier.
Essentially, a book that had long ago been consigned to the backlist
suddenly became a bestseller. Until Winfrey that sort of thing hardly ever
happened in publishing, but now it happens as often as she cares to pick up
an old book.
A nod from her is, in her sharing, caring way, a bit like a cash-register
hug. It seems to be worth close to a million copies for an author: an
extraordinary number when you consider that in America 100,000 is pretty
respectable. Her current selection, A Fine Balance by the Indian-born
writer Rohinton Mistry, is pretty indicative. Before Winfrey there were
64,000 copies in print. His US publisher has just churned out 700,000 more.
Mistry’s selection was announced only in December, so it’s still early, but
as the Oprah effect goes, that’s fairly modest. Possibly that’s because
Mistry’s book, about politics and corruption in India, lacks some of the
American immediacy of the average Winfrey tome. Consider, for example, the
fate of Chris Bohjalian’s more accessible novel, Midwives, which jumped
from 100,000 copies to 1.6 million after its selection in 1998.
Publishers Weekly once estimated that for every 12 million books sold on
Winfrey’s say-so, industry sales jumped by $US120 million. So if you
extrapolated those sorts of figures over the club’s five-year existence –
more than 43 selections in all – you have an extraordinary number of books
flying off the shelves because of her.
What she has done with her book club is what Rupert Murdoch never managed
to do with HarperCollins or William Morrow. It’s what the American media
mogul Si Newhouse couldn’t do with Random House before giving up and
selling it. It’s called synergy. It’s the idea of having a pipeline of
content to cross-promote and cross-pollinate books with other properties,
movie studios or magazines, in the stable.
Winfrey, of course, is not a book publisher. But she has been able to
leverage, to use the buzz word, her clout as a literary promoter to cement
premium access and enduring relationships to pursue her other enterprises.
Last year she launched
O magazine, a hugely successful start-up, and authors who routinely decline
writing assignments from newspapers and magazines crop up in its pages on
less than weighty topics. Winfrey’s television audience is so vast and so
on her touchy-feely wavelength that recently Time magazine described the
start-up of O as “the most successful magazine launch in history”. This for
a magazine that month in and month out has only one cover model: Winfrey.
Time’s accolade came in a piece anointing her as one of the globe’s 25 most
influential executives.
The author Winfrey has honoured most is Toni Morrison, who has three books
on the list: The Bluest Eye, Paradise and Song of Solomon. So, given that
she turned another Morrison novel, Beloved, into a movie, is there some
sort of conflict of interest there? Or is it just some canny vertical
integration of the sort that News Corp or Time Warner would be envious?
It hardly matters to the Winfrey audience; their heroine oozes empathy when
she has Morrison on the show. As Winfrey says unashamedly on her Web site,
Morrison is “the best writer, living or dead, and I love her work”.
In any case, the second most honoured author, Wally Lamb, is a white man
whose literary pedigree notably lacks Morrison’s Nobel Prize cache. Lamb
has two books on Winfrey’s list. But he does tackle Winfrey-style topics.
The heroine of his first choice, She’s Come Undone, confronts family
dysfunction, obesity, sexual ambiguity, self-delusion and madness – but
with humour, good grace and a redemptive ending.
And while book publishers no doubt attempt all sorts of extravagances to
try to curry favour for their books and their authors, there aren’t too
many in publishing who doubt that she is as scrupulous as any busy media
mogul can be about the way she selects her books. While the process by
which particular novels arrive on her nightstand in Chicago is unclear, it
is clear that she reads every book that ends up on her list.
Perhaps the other element that makes Winfrey so valuable to publishers –
and so different from other media prepared to spotlight a book or author –
is that her book club deals almost exclusively with fiction. Fiction lacks
the news angle that makes, say, a celebrity biography, or a Seymour Hersh
political deconstruction, perfect for chat shows or feature interviews. So
until Winfrey it was much harder to generate coverage for fiction unless
the author’s very success became a phenomenon (John Grisham, Stephen King)
or they became personalities in their own right (Jackie Collins, Jacqueline
Susann).
Only a handful of non-fiction books have made Winfrey’s list, and those
that have give some insight into her priorities and interests. One was the
fourth volume of the autobiography of the black poet and activist Maya
Angelou, The Heart of a Woman, chosen in 1997. A more recent one, from May
last year, was Malika Oufkir’s account of falling from grace with the
Moroccan royal family, Stolen Lives: 20 Years in a Desert Jail.
There are recurring themes among the books that have received Winfrey’s
imprimatur, and isolating the key elements of her choices is neither hugely
mystifying nor especially surprising. They are not that much different from
the content of her daily television show, her monthly magazine or, for that
matter, the themes of the movies that she has championed.
Like most of us she is drawn to books to which she can connect personally,
and inevitably the work and struggle of women, particularly black women,
are a recurring element, especially if they also deal inspirationally with
family, relationships and lessons learned. “Living your best life,” one of
those self-help-infused Oprah-isms that often bookend tales of redemption
on her show, has a place on her bookshelf, too.
A fairly typical example is Cane River by the black writer Lalita Tademy,
the book-club pick in June last year. A fictionalised account of four
generations of the author’s family, beginning with a girl born into slavery
in Louisiana, it follows them into freedom and their struggles for equality
right up to the civil rights movement. The theme is reminiscent of both
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. And they were
two books that so impressed Winfrey that she used her clout to have them
turned into movies with parts for herself in each, with varying success.
For women, particularly black writers, Winfrey amounts to a one-woman
support network. And in a society run on market economics, that’s not
something even the most reactive of quota-loathing American conservatives
can quarrel with, much to their private consternation.
But Winfrey certainly does not assume a stance of predictable advocacy
about her book selections, even when the elements seem to be there for it.
There’s some critical rigour to her choices, evidenced as much by what she
omits as what she includes.
About the most successful black author in the US these days is the
telegenic E.Lynn Harris, who churns out breathy novels about the
middle-class black experience like his latest, Any Way The Wind Blows. His
characters deal with traumatic pasts, unresolved family issues, divorce,
sexual uncertainty and racism. That’s all very Oprah, but Harris’s books
are a bit too trite for her. He has never made the list.
Which might give Harris further grounds to be a little jealous of Jonathan
Franzen and his elitism. Franzen has gone on to win a National Book Prize
and recently disclosed to People magazine, of all high-art literary
journals, that he was moving out of his Manhattan walk-up apartment for “a
roomier pad”. The least he could probably do is name a room after Winfrey.
Group: egodeath
Message: 496
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 07/02/2002
Subject: Re: Drug war is huge success at covert goals; must expand vocabulary
This posting completes my thoughts from the previous posting. Any further
follow-ups of mine, if any, will be at my philosophy discussion area. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath
>Would you grant us permission to reprint your posting on our website?
Yes. You may do reasonable edits of it. Please point to one or both of my
sites below and send me the URL of your article.
I mentioned Drug Warriors and Their Prey: From Police Power to Police State —
an excellent, *most* jarring book, needed to shake reformers out of complacent
assumptions that prohibitionists are merely well-meaning but
mistaken/misinformed. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0275950425 —
Drug Warriors and Their Prey, by Richard Lawrence Miller, April 1996. “One of
the most powerful books that you will ever read.” — a reader.
Two points or conclusions following from my previous posting:
1. If the so-called drug problem went away, the prohibitionist leaders would
hasten to put it back into place as quickly as possible.
2. What so jarred and shook me about the cliché tepid-reformer platitudes I
quoted at the start of the posting was that I clearly saw the *common
assumptions* shared by the prohibitionists and reformers, what can be called
the “drugs are bad” paradigm. I reject the common paradigm shared by
prohibitionists and half-informed, semi- (or pseudo-)progressive drug-policy
reformers: the “drugs are bad” paradigm. That paradigm asserts two key,
essential points that thinking people should absolutely reject:
o That it would be desirable to eliminate psychoactive drugs.
The fact is, psychoactive drugs provide many people with what they claim
are the most profound, brilliant, valuable, and meaningful experience of their
life.
o That the war on drugs is sincere and is intended to reduce drug use.
The fact is, the war on drugs is insincere; it is entirely pretense and
the leading prohibitionists know it. The pseudo-progressive drug-policy
reformers have nothing to teach these prohibitionist pretenders, these con
artists, that they don’t already know about the true benefits and risks of
psychoactive drugs. Thus such reformers are barking at shadows, at an
illusory enemy that doesn’t really exist as it is projected. Reformers are
fully hypnotized by the fake, cheap act of make-believe put on by the leading
prohibitionist profiteers.
The main problem of the reformers now is their own ignorance about the real
mindset and goals of the prohibitionists, not that of the prohibitionist
leaders who know quite thoroughly what they are doing in their manufacture of
consent among the sheep-like television viewers who superficially support
prohibition. But these propagandist manipulators also know that support for
the drug war is, although a mile wide, only an inch deep. These
prohibitionist racketeers know the drug war is running on fumes, sheer
momentum that is bound to run down. That’s why September 11th was dubbed
“America’s New War”.
There are four main, distinct groups to consider and interrelate in the
drug-policy reform battle:
o Prohibitionist leaders (con artists).
o The sheep subject to the manufacture of consent, who superficially support
the drug war, believing that it is sincere. Television-viewing voters who pay
slight attention to the drug war and debate about it.
o The pseudo-progressive drug-policy reformers, who try to inform and
manipulate the sheep but themselves fall victim to the assumptions that prop
up the propaganda (drugs are undesirable, and the drug war sincerely intends
to reduce drug use). The majority of active drug-policy reformers fall into
this worldview or espoused worldview. Within this group are two main
subgroups:
— The deluded ones who believe drugs are bad and believe the drug war is
sincere
— The “strategic” ones who believe drugs are good and the drug war is
insincere but who publicly pretend to believe that drugs are bad and the drug
war is sincere.
o The critically and historically educated, personal-freedom loving, radical,
social-libertarian, and also experientially religious (radical mystic)
legalizers. Sites: http://www.alchemind.org, http://www.tripzine.com. These
are the reformers who believe drugs are good and the drug war is sincere, and
who publicly *profess* these beliefs. This is the only position that is not
deluded and that is honest and that is not intent on profiting from an
industry of profit-driven persecution in the guise of benevolence.
It is up to the individual reformer to decide whether to public ally profess
what they believe, or to covertly and strategically distort and hide their
real position. What must first be accomplished to break out of drug-reform
stagnation is to, first, abandon the delusion that drugs are bad and that the
drug war is sincere.
In the categories I define above, I always group the two assumptions about the
desirability of drugs and the sincerity of the drug war. If you are informed
enough to know that psychoactive drugs are good, you are informed enough to
know that the drug war is insincere. If you are uninformed enough to believe
that drugs are essentially undesirable, then you are uninformed enough to be
conned into believing that the drug war is sincere.
It is an open question: who differs more in their professed versus actual
beliefs: the prohibitionist leaders, or that subgroup of the
pseudo-progressive drug-policy reformers who believes drugs to be desirable
but professes to consider them undesirable, claiming that it would be good if
drug use could be eliminated? They are both engaged in propagandistic
distortion to hide their real beliefs from the mass of voters they are
attempting to covertly manipulate and persuade through trickery.
Pro-drug legalizers should expose the tepid pseudo-reformers as forked-tongue
counter-deceivers who aim to cure lies by lies, and to replace profit-driven
coercion by profit-driven coercion. The two opposite kinds of reformers can
cooperate strategically, but let us all recognize which is which — the two
kinds of reformers radically disagree. One believes, or poses as believing,
the “drugs are bad” paradigm and the “drug-reduction war is sincere”
assumption. The other believes that drugs are good and the drug-reduction war
is a giant hoax, a racket, a sham, the royal scam of the century.
Prohibition, in the hidden heart of its leaders, is nothing but a make-believe
witch hunt driven purely by greed and malice on the part of the supposedly
well-meaning prohibitionists. These bleeding-heart prohibitionist actors are
deliberate, extreme moral hypocrites: they knowingly falsely accuse drug users
of those evil motives they themselves are so intimately familiar with: greed,
immorality, and disdain for ethics, with racism and the need to public ally
demonize others to apparently elevate themselves, to top it off. Reformers
don’t have a ghost of a chance until they comprehend the depth of amorality
and ill-will that motivates the heart of the opportunist, self-serving
prohibitionist leader. This enlightenment about motives, about who is good
and who is evil boils down to the question:
Do the prohibitionist leaders really mean well? Are they sincere?
They do not and they are not. Here is a heavily armed army of aggression, led
by prohibitionist schemers, bearing down on its own populace it is sword to
protect, shooting and poisoning at whim, with an aim of maximizing its own
profits and whipping the drug use/drug repression cycle up into a frenzy, with
equal parts of DARE’ing and Just Say No, to drive the prices up. What is the
impotent response of the reformers? To inform this army that their tactics
are causing harm and are not reducing drug use — both points which are in
fact considered success, not failure, at the actual goals of the
prohibitionist army. What better encouragement could the reformers offer such
prohibitionists to continue their same tactics? Such reformers are to blame
for much of their own problems.
The army of prohibitionists, especially at the top, *intends* to cause harm,
and *intends* to drive drug use up. Blacks are dead, jailed, everyone is in
terror because of the drug squads? Terrific! We’re achieving our goals! The
only way to withdraw public support for such a mission and such a covert
definition of “success” and “winning”, is to expose the entire system of
deception and covert actual goals and mode of operation to the public. But of
course before that is possible, the drug-policy reformers must themselves pull
their heads out from their worldview and understand the real motives, values,
and dynamics driving the prohibitionists. “Reformer, reform thine own
worldview.”
In the Kingdom of God, the least shall be greatest and the greatest shall be
least. Who is the least? Comparing jail terms and which “crime” is demonized
the most, in the U.S. — capital of prohibitionism — “the least” would
evidently be the drug enthusiast or even the drug-Eucharist worshipper. The
values of the prohibitionists are more upside-down than the half-informed
pseudo-reformers can fathom.
Shows a pop-Christian perspective on rave culture, equating it with drugs. I
wonder if it talks about entheogens as the true flesh of Christ? I once asked
for books about drugs in a Christian bookstore, but they came up with almost
nothing. Evangelist scholar Dave Hunt has an almost favorable view of
entheogens in a recent book; he only warns that entheogens have led to worship
of spirits other than the Holy Spirit — a complaint I can relate to; people
experience encounters with fantastic creatures where I hope they would instead
experience what it means philosophically to be a creature that is entirely
produced-forth, in every thought and action, by the Ground of Being and as
part of the Ground of Being.
“It’s Labor Day weekend and it is turning out to be a holiday that will not
soon be forgotten. More than 15,000 ravers have gathered for a 72-hour dance
party at the waterfront warehouse in Philadelphia. Kat is strung out on drugs
and next to her lies the body of a dead boy who overdosed; Heather falls in
love with a college freshman who threatens to leave her with nothing but
feelings of rejection and serious regret. Experiencing firsthand the dangers
of an unguarded heart, the girls are forced to reevaluate God’s true place in
their lives.” From the Back Cover — “It was the first night of the Memorial
Day weekend and Kat Koffman figured she’d dance the night away at a massive,
East Coast rave. She’d go to the beach in the morning with friends from
school. At least that was the plan. But when classmates Jodi Adams and Bruce
Arnold found her, Kat lay unconscious on the second floor of a rat infested
warehouse. Beside her was an empty syringe–and a dead boy. Jodi wanted
answers–and justice. How did the boy die? Was Kat next? Why did the syringe
look familiar to Bruce? And why did the police refuse to help? Nothing could
prepare Jodi for the fact that some kids are worth more dead than alive. And,
just when she thought she’d uncover the truth, she got more than she bargained
for. The Russian Mafia.”
>And why did the police refuse to help?
The ultimate answer for these questions is, “Because of the Prohibition
gravy-train.”
Group: egodeath
Message: 499
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 10/02/2002
Subject: Bobzien’s Determinism/Stoic in paperback finally ships
My university library has this in hardcover for $85 but now it’s finally
shipping in paperback for $27.
“Bobzien presents the definitive study of one of the most interesting
intellectual legacies of the ancient Greeks: the Stoic theory of causal
determinism. She explains what it was, how the Stoics justified it, and how it
relates to their views on possibility, action, freedom, moral responsibility,
and many other topics. She demonstrates the considerable philosophical
richness and power that these ideas retain today.”
“The definitive study of one of the most interesting intellectual legacies of
the ancient Greeks: the Stoic theory of causal determinism. She explains what
it was, how the Stoics justified it, and how it relates to their views on
possibility, action, freedom, moral responsibility, and many other topics. She
demonstrates the considerable philosophical richness and power that these
ideas retain today.”
“The first comprehensive study of one of the most important intellectual
legacies of the ancient Greek world: the Stoic theory of causal determinism.
The book identifies the main problems that the Stoics addressed and
reconstructs the theory, and explores how they squared their determinism with
their conceptions of possibility, action, freedom, and moral responsibility,
and how they defended it against objections and criticism by other
philosophers.”
“This is an awe-inspiring work….It is extraordinarily ambitious. It aims to
recover and understand, so far as the sources allow, the entire early Stoic
theory of fate, causal determinism, and responsibility. It achieves this
ambition while at the same time showing how immensely more difficult the task
is than anyone had appreciated before….It will most certainly be the first
work that everybody interested has to get to grips with. They will have to
start here both because the book is a model of scholarly method and because it
is an outstanding example of lucid philosophical thinking in an area where
clear thought is extremely difficult.” — Miles Burnyeat, All Souls College,
Oxford
Contents
Introduction
1. Determinism and Fate
2. Two Chrysippean Arguments for Causal Determinism
3. Modality, Determinism, and Freedom
4. Divination, Modality,and Universal Regularity
5. Fate, Action, and Motivation: The Idle Argument
6. Determinism and Moral Responsibility: Chrysippus’s Compatibilism
7. Freedom and that which Depends on us: Epictetus and Early Stoics
8. A Later Stoic Theory of Compatibilism
Bibliography; Indexes
I don’t necessarily recommend that as the first book to read or the clearest
book. What we need is a history of ideas about determinism in its many
guises.
Everyone interested in determinism should read Richard Double’s Metaphilosophy
and Free Will – http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195107624 – explaining
the different motives of what I’d called the freewill *moralists* versus the
determinist *philosophers*. I had already concluded what this book lays out
systematically: that philosophers who advocate freewill are motivated by
desire to prop up conventional moral agency and moral thinking, while
philosophers who advocate determinism are motivated by desire for a coherent
model of the world — the debate amounts to morality versus truth, or the
moralists versus the truth-seekers.
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or order from us online is held in strict confidentiality. We will not share
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***As of the end of October 2001 there has been a slight change in the above
policy. The antiterrorism bill has been signed into law. It gives the federal
government expanded authority to search business records, including the titles
of books purchased by our customers. The new law includes a gag order that
prevents us from disclosing to any other person the fact that we have
received an order to produce documents. The Episcopal Bookstore will resist
any requests as far as we can. Except for complying with this law, we will
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The events occurring since the September 11th event keep most of us on edge,
not only us in this ministry-which-is-the-store, but, it seems, to many
others. Weve noticed a different pattern to the frequency of shoppers
visiting our store. We have also seen a dramatic increase in orders through
this Web site. Apparently many customers are more comfortable ordering without
leaving their home or workplace.
If this fits you at this time, please know that we will do all we can to meet
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More: http://www.mapinc.org/find
Search past year for “tattered”. This case — based around a drug book bought
from Tattered Cover — is still in development.
Prize-Winning US Writers Queue Up To Defend Privacy Of Customer Who Bought
Uncle Fester’s Illicit Manual
It never won a Pulitzer or appeared on the New York Times bestseller lists but
a 400-page book about the manufacture of illicit drugs by an author known as
Uncle Fester is at the centre of a legal battle over the privacy of the US
book-buying public. In what has been described as a landmark case for the US
book industry, the Tattered Cover bookshop in Denver, Colorado, has spent 18
months resisting the attempts of both police and courts to obtain the identity
of a customer who purchased Uncle Fester’s opus, Advanced Techniques of
Clandestine Drug Laboratories .
Many of the country’s most celebrated authors, publishers and booksellers are
supporting the shop, which has argued that handing over the information would
be a serious attack on free speech.
‘There is a right to privacy in this country and that includes the right to
read what we like without government interference,’ says award-winning
novelist Michael Chabon. ‘If the police get what they are after in this case,
what is to stop them demanding to know all sorts of things – like who has been
reading books about any subject the authorities deem to be ‘dangerous’, such
as religious beliefs that don’t fit into the so-called mainstream.’
Chabon, who won the Pulitzer last year for his novel The Amazing Adventures of
Kavalier and Clay, is one of several leading writers, including David Eggers,
Dorothy Allison and the children’s book author Daniel Handler, who have giving
financial support to the Tattered Cover’s legal defence fund, along with the
American Booksellers’ Foundation.
‘People shop in bookstores on the understanding that their choices are
confidential,’ says Chris Finan, president of the ABF’s Foundation for Free
Expression. ‘There are a lot of books about subjects – mental health, sexual
dysfunction – that we do not want our wives or husbands to know we’ve been
reading about. If people know the police can get that kind of information
they will not shop for those books.’
The case centres on a raid by drug enforcement officers at a trailer park near
Denver in March last year. The Uncle Fester book and another called Advanced
Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic Drug Laboratories were found inside a
trailer owned by a man suspected of operating a methamphetamine lab. An
envelope discovered in his rubbish bin contained an invoice from the Tattered
Cover.
The following day four plainclothes officers arrived at the shop with a search
warrant, demanding to know if the books were bought there and, if so, by whom.
The shop’s owner, Joyce Meskis, refused to provide the information. ‘It is
not our job to do the police’s work for them,’ she said.
Denver police then asked that it enforce the subpoena. At a subsequent
hearing, lawyers for the bookshop argued the police had failed to interview
other witnesses who could have helped convict the suspect. Details of a
customer’s purchasing record were not sufficiently important to the criminal
case to justify the ‘chilling effect’ that releasing such information would
have on the right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment, they said.
However, the court upheld the police request – a decision which has been
challenged by the shop’s owners in the State’s Supreme Court. A ruling on the
appeal is expected in the next few weeks.
The case has echoes of that brought by Kenneth Starr against two bookshops in
Washington DC during his investigation into the Monica Lewinsky ‘scandal’.
When it emerged that Lewinsky – who was said to have given President Clinton
several books as presents – was a regular customer at the shops, Starr
demanded to see her purchase records. The shops’ owners resisted his request,
but the case never reached court after Lewinsky struck a deal with the former
Independent Counsel.
Finan said yesterday there was a growing problem with authorities seeking
private information from bookshops. ‘I’m afraid this may be a bad idea whose
time has come, and the chilling effect on publishing could be very serious
indeed. In the Lewinsky case, a false rumour went around that the bookshops
were going to comply with Starr’s request. The effect of that was they saw a
big fall-off in business. People trust bookstores to protect them. If they
don’t have that trust, they will not shop there.’
The Tattered Cover, spread over four floors in downtown Denver, is a required
stop on the book tour schedule for every bestselling author and has a
reputation for stocking radical, independently published books that have
little chance of finding shelf space in chain stores such as Borders and
Barnes and Noble.
Meskis said she had been heartened by the support she and her staff had
received from writers, publishers and the public. More than 400 people turned
up at a fund-raising event at a San Francisco bookshop last night.
‘Like us, they realise that everyone in society has to do what they can to
uphold the rule of law but that we also have an obligation to the community to
protect the constitution. When you have one responsibility bumping up against
another, then that’s when the courts should decide.’
Group: egodeath
Message: 501
From: ->Forward->
Date: 10/02/2002
Subject: [book] McGrath – In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bib
The conception of every Anglican’s favourite translation – the King James –
was far from immaculate, finds Stephen Holt.
THE HECKLER
It’s time to demystify the King James Bible. Though long revered as a
religious and literary treasure of the English-speaking world, it turns out
to have had an unheroic, if not downright unholy, birth.
This sobering view of an Anglophonic icon is the only honest conclusion
that can be drawn from a recent pop-scholarly account, In the Beginning:
The Story of the King James Bible, by Alister McGrath. Professor McGrath is
no dyspeptic irreligious bigot, but Principal of Wycliffe Hall, a
Protestant madrassa at Oxford University.
McGrath’s narrative shows how the King James Bible started life as a
cunning response to theological factionalism in 16th and early 17th century
Britain. This was a disunited kingdom where religious, political and ethnic
hatreds were intertwined in a mixture as bewildering as anything inside
war-torn Afghanistan. The authorised English bible was directed at
protecting the established authority from militant Catholic and Puritan
opponents. It was an important initiative in a kingly war on terrorism.
At times 17th century Britain eerily prefigures the smoke and rubble of the
World Trade Centre and Afghanistan. In 1605, Guy Fawkes plotted to blow up
James I and Parliament. In 1666, the Great Fire of London was attributed,
falsely, to Papists. The cult of martyrdom was universal, able to sanctify
anyone from the Protestant King Charles I down to the humblest harried
Catholic priest. Scripture was seen as “a whole armoury of weapons, both
offensive and defensive”, with rival interpretations exacerbating a
murderous civil war.
The more belligerent Puritans were the Taliban of their age. This was an
era when Protestant hysteria was whipped up by well-born parliamentarians
eager to extirpate the spell of Catholicism. The same hysteria ended up by
republicanising England and purging Parliament.
Retaining supreme power amid this instability depended on successfully
hijacking the deadliest weapon of all – the Bible. Protestant missionaries
spread Bibles across the land but the most popular version of all was
frowned on by the ruling authority. Published in Geneva – the Kandahar of
Calvinism – its text was disfigured with anti-monarchical marginalia.
A non-incendiary English Bible had to be invented. James I, who came to the
English throne in 1603 and had a firm belief in the divine right of kings,
achieved this in a way that would do pride to the craftiest bureaucrat.
The job of concocting a trustworthy translation was entrusted to committees
of Oxbridge mullahs whose malleability was ensured by the lure of
ecclesiastical promotion. Extensive cutting and pasting from the
salvageable parts of previous translations was indulged in, with the final
work vetted by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Ecclesiastical power brokers ensured that the decision to impose a
sanitised Bible on a restive nation was surrounded with enough ambiguity to
ensure that nobody involved could be held responsible if things went amiss.
Although the translation of 1611 is known to posterity as the “King James”
or “Authorised” Bible, Professor McGrath points out that no evidence exists
to indicate whether or not the king ever got round to signing a final
document of authorisation. In a fallback position worthy of Humphrey
Appleby, any chance of establishing individual responsibility for the
translation was obliterated after fire swept through the royal archives.
The translation, suffused with the conservatism of England’s Home Counties,
failed to impress the more zealous reformers. The explosive Geneva Bible
was only sidelined when, in 1660, the Puritans succumbed to factionalism
and sought, as the Taliban are doing now, to fade into the wider populace
at large.
A spiritual vacuum resulted. For a century after Puritanism imploded the
King James Bible enjoyed dutiful ecclesiastical rather than popular or
literary regard. In an age of Enlightenment religious terminology was in
bad odour.
It was not until almost two centuries after its initial publication that
the King James Bible finally began to enjoy an unchallenged position in
English literature and religious culture. After the French Revolution – and
until recently – politicised atheism rather than religious fanaticism was
the prime menace in the eyes of the English-speaking world. Sacred texts
were safe and soothing. It was in this atmosphere that the King James Bible
became an enduring cultural delight that would be revered outside the
slowly diminishing host of willing Christian believers.
Stephen Holt is a Canberra writer.
Group: egodeath
Message: 502
From: egodeath
Date: 18/02/2002
Subject: File – EgodeathTopics.txt
This text file is automatically posted to the discussion group every two
weeks, in order to provide guidelines for writers, to keep the postings
on-topic and help writers know what subjects are considered most desirable
by this audience.
It is possible to write on most any topic and have it be relevant for this
Egodeath discussion group if you show how the posting is related to the
in-scope topics for this discussion group. This group is not formally
moderated, but it is consistently focused on the defined topics, including
peripheral topics if the writer explicitly connects them to the core topics.
This discussion group covers the cybernetic theory of ego death and
ego transcendence, including:
o Nonreductionistic block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.
o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.
o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.
o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, the Eleusinian mysteries and
cracking the allegorical code of the mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.
o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.
Group: egodeath
Message: 503
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 18/02/2002
Subject: Doherty’s mythic-Jesus work is uniquely relevant
Earl Doherty’s work has a weakness that also may be a strength relative to
Christian Literalists. I’ve read about 50% of his published work, and skimmed
more, and the coverage of mystic experiencing seems vanishingly small, as I
would expect from such a “scientific”-styled researcher. Scientific
demythologizers throw out the baby with the bathwater: when Christianity is
discovered to be myth, it vanishes altogether for them. But this lack of
coverage of Christ-shaped religious experiencing, of oneself experienced as
crucified with and as Jesus, enables Doherty to focus on scientific refutation
of the Historical Jesus and do an effective job of this for an audience that
is accustomed to placing their Literalist Christology on a scientific footing.
It is harder for such Literalists to dismiss Doherty than to dismiss Acharya S
(The Christ Conspiracy) or Freke & Gandy (The Jesus Mysteries, Jesus and the
Lost Goddess), who in addition to scientifically refuting the Historical Jesus
also put forth a theory of astrotheology and Gnostic mystic experiencing,
respectively.
All three — the Jesus-myth work of Acharya, Freke & Gandy, and Doherty —
provide uniquely valuable and urgently needed work, in different ways. The
more I read of mainstream Christian scholarship, the more I realize that
Doherty’s work stands in most intense contrast and contradiction with almost
the whole of it. Practically *every* mainstream scholar assumes that Jesus
existed — that point is out of bounds as an investigation for them; for them,
the only question is about the details. The mythic Jesus books by Acharya and
Freke & Gandy may be more radical and more relevant in the long run, into the
era that will be familiar with the no-HJ alternative.
But at the moment, Doherty seems to be the most relevant, the most glaringly
opposite of the wave of recent Historical Jesus and Early Christianity
studies. The more mystical mythic-only Jesus scholars are “opposite” of
mainstream scholars, and Doherty is also “opposite” of mainstream scholars,
but in different ways.
In some respects, the most forceful alternative to the Historical Jesus
unexamined-assumption is not just negative (disproving HJ) but also positive
(providing a full, rich alternative picture of Christianity as mystic
initiation, which I happen to portray as initiation into the mystic altered
state of deterministic ego sacrifice). However, such a twofold move, of
negation of the conventional paradigm together with a positive alternative
paradigm, is too complex for scientific-minded Christian scholars, whether
they are supernaturalists (Literalists), atheists, antisupernaturalist
ethicists (Liberal Christians), or antisupernaturalist spiritualists
(Spiritual Christians).
Not even a New Age Christian is likely to readily follow the move of both
discarding the accustomed assumption of the Historical Jesus (assumed by them
to be a perfect spirituality expert) *and* retaining Christ as a vivid,
profoundly meaningful myth that describes their own mystic experiencing.
To make the proposed positive, mystic-experiencing alternative even more
complicated, I additionally ask people to also accept a certain kind of
frozen-future cosmic determinism — yet not the reigning standard conception
of determinism — together with entheogens as flesh of this now entirely
mythic, yet also molecular and physical, Christ.
And, as I have vividly found, such positive speculation about the meaning of
the Christ figure, when the anchor of the Historical Jesus
unexamined-assumption is discarded, can explode with richness, becoming a
confusing entire *realm* of overloaded, multiple mythic meanings (just as it
was designed to do, as a way of encapsulating any and all central religious
mythemes). Christologies are problematically multiple now, but after
discarding the anchor of the Historical Jesus unexamined-assumption, many
additional viable meanings of the Christ figure are revealed.
Doherty’s method and proposition is easier to follow. How many people, at
this time, feel it is relevant for them to engage in dispute with Doherty?
How many people, at this time, feel it is relevant for them to engage in
dispute with Acharya S’ Christ Conspiracy and her forthcoming book Suns of
God? http://www.truthbeknown.com/introduction.htm
How many people, at this time, feel it is relevant for them to engage in
dispute with The Jesus Mysteries & Jesus and the Lost Goddess?
When I read any recent book about Christianity, a frequently occurring thought
is “Doherty has refuted this Historical Jesus assumption this author
thoughtlessly buys into, and thus has rendered this entire book deeply
problematic.” The most glaring contrast is between scientific Christian
historical scholarship, which adheres to the Historical Jesus
unexamined-assumption, and Doherty’s similarly scientific-style scholarship.
Acharya and Freke & Gandy are obviously outsiders, obviously different than
the Christian scholars, and are currently easy for Christian scholars to
dismiss because they are so different in method, style, and overall concerns.
Doherty may have more of an immediate impact because his is *so similar* in
his method and many aspects of his style, to the Christian scholars. Doherty
has infiltrated the methodology, using the method and style of the Christian
scholars to refute the unexamined foundation of their entire system.
Most books about Christianity are not mystic-experiencing oriented enough for
me to think, “Freke & Gandy have refuted this Historical Jesus assumption this
mystic author thoughtlessly buys into, and thus has rendered this entire book
problematic.” The most mystical books, such as The Beginnings of
Christianity: Essene Mystery, Gnostic Revelation and the Christian Vision, by
Andrew Welburn, seem to be completely unruffled by anything the mythic-only
Jesus scholars can propose. Welburn, as normal, adheres to the Historical
Jesus unexamined-assumption, but that is already in contrast with his deeply
mythical, mystic-experiencing portrayal of what proto-Christianity was all
about. Perhaps there is no great contrast between mystical Christian writers
who, as normal, adhere to the Historical Jesus unexamined-assumption, and
those mythic-only Jesus scholars who positively assert that Christianity was
essentially about initiation experiencing in which one was mystically
crucified and resurrected.
Mystical mythic-Jesus scholars point the way past the Historical Jesus
confusion, but for most Christian scholars today, Doherty’s work is in the
position to be more relevant and influential, because its style is limited to
that of scientific scholarship about Christianity, and focused on that
methodology. In the longer term, I would expect and hope that the positive
mystic-experiencing hypotheses are influential. Of course Christianity has
always been many things and has spread many ways. Rodney Stark provides some
non-religious explanation of the rapid spread of the Christian religion, but
as a sociologist, he does as the scientists do, omitting the
mystic-experiencing initiation aspect at the same time as he abandons the
assumption that people adopt Christianity for theological and religious
reasons (he asserts that the real driving reasons are social and practical,
even if the converted later assume they were motivated by
religious/theological reasons).
The liberal Christians formed “religionless Christianity” meaning a system of
ethics more than of religious experiencing; similarly, scientific scholars of
Christian origins are inclined to consider early Christianity as a political
and social movement without considering the mystic experiencing of Christ.
Using a Ken Wilberian “integral studies” approach, we may find that even if
mystic Christian experiencing is the highest form of Christianity, and even if
the history of Christian mystic experiencing is the most lofty kind of history
of Christianity, other, non-mystical threads of Christian history (such as
social or political) are even more important if we measure in terms of sheer
quantity of influence. There’s no way we can say “esoteric Christianity is
real Christianity”, any more than Theology and Creedalism is real
Christianity. Christianity may be best thought of as a free-floating nexus of
power and meaning, which any group with any goal may harness to their own end.
We tend to assume people identify with Christ in order to secure eternal life,
but that’s just the simple official story.
Thus I do not quite go so far as to say that Doherty clears away false,
Literalist Christianity so that the more mystic-initiation oriented
mythic-Jesus scholars can at last present the real, mystic Christianity.
Christianity is what Christianity is: predominantly exoteric, largely social
and political, and at an elite level, a hidden tradition of esoteric
initiation and mystic experiencing. I propose that Christianity should be
considered a 2-level system of Literalist/exoteric and fully
esoteric/mythic/mystic-experiencing, but the exoteric level may be considered
as more than one thread:
1. Social
2. Political
3. Religious in the familiar sense. This familiar sense is exoteric
religiosity, which solidified and justified the egoic moral self and guided
that self by a promise of eternal temporal duration, on the one hand, and the
moral ballast of punishment and reward, on the other.
Starks’ theory of religion is that people adopted Christianity because it
worked for them, but that theory only covers exoteric religion: it explains
that Christianity “worked” successfully to give egoic people what they needed;
that egoic, Literalist, exoteric Christianity served to effectively prop up
the egoic, freewillist, morally culpable (and empowered) agent.
4. Christianity has also served, though as poorly as other religions, to
provide esoteric religious experience of ego transcendence. I get the
impression Start overlooks this dimension of ways in which “Christianity
spread because it worked (socially and psychologically)”.
Doherty refutes thread 3 above, which also affects or weakens thread 1 and 2
as we’ve known them, but doesn’t affect thread 4 much if at all. The mystic
mythic-Jesus scholars ultimately build up thread 4. In shifting from
Literalist to mythic-only Jesus, we move from emphasizing exoteric to esoteric
Christianity. Doherty focuses on reducing exoteric; others focus on
increasing esoteric Christianity. But I’d hesitate to say that esoteric is
“real” Christianity; rather, it’s “higher”. Portraying esoteric as “higher”
Christianity is justified because esoteric happens after learning the
exoteric. My further detailed portrayal of this 2-level system accords with
Pagels’ Gnostic Paul: exoteric naive freewill morality comes first, and
esoteric determinism is discovered later (and is quasi-transcended), in mystic
experiencing. Lower Christianity is not so much “false”, as a needed,
stage-appropriate fairy tale to prop up the miraculous delusion of independent
egoic sovereignty; exoteric moral religion provides and nourishes our seeming
ability to change what our own future will be (a sloppy, confused notion
inherent in the initial, egoic worldmodel).
— Michael Hoffman http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath
Message: 504
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 21/02/2002
Subject: Lyrics: selfhood fading fast
Excerpts from the song Night Is a’ Comin’ – by Warm Sounds (track 110 on my
Pop Sike Comp Mix CDR). In the common schizophrenic light, happy, trippy,
heavy, freaky style.
Somewhere high an elusive fire keeps you burning like a million stars
In my head the grateful dead are peering through the bog
The rainbow trees in a garden thoughts are making ripples on a lake of glass
The person you, suspect is who, is disappearing fast
…
Well the giant comes down from the rooftop shouting
Doesn’t anybody know my name
Yes we do, your name’s guru, and everything remains the same
When it’s light and you’ve got no sight
And inner nothingness is like a knot
Can I be so bold as to ask you what you’re growing in your flower pot
…
(guitar freakout)
…
[backwards vocals, fading out on runaway echo-feedback]
Group: egodeath
Message: 505
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 21/02/2002
Subject: Sudden marginalization of Christianity
After September 11th, suddenly Usan (“American”) Christendom has belatedly
realized that the predictions from a hundred years ago have practically come
true: suddenly, conservative Christianity is merely a marginal cult, and the
majority of self-identified “Christians” are Biblical illiterates and hop not
only between denominations for their occasional Church visit, but among
different religions — it’s a fluid, post-modern kind of Christianity that
takes an extreme cafeteria pick-and-choose approach. My preliminary research
shows that official Christianity is seriously running scared. The trends
started before Sep. 11, but that event has crystallized this awareness of the
trends. During the past few months, Christianity is entering its greatest
time of tribulation since the Reformation. I am saving money to buy some of
the next wave of books on Christian trends. It should be interesting.
And one popular, all-too-typical Christian apologetics book, The Case for
Christ, is up at sales position 343 at Amazon — there are only 342 books that
sell more copies than it, and the reviews mention Earl Doherty’s detailed
point-for-point rebuttal frequently. Meanwhile, I am seeing Freke & Gandy’s
books The Jesus Mysteries, and Jesus and the Lost Goddess at every regular
bookstore, even an Episcopalian bookstore. On top of that, Huston Smith’s
book Cleansing the Doors of Perception is spotted in most Christianity
sections of regular bookstores. It should be interesting.
Back to the books. Please keep the discussion group alive. I may be able to
start work on a glossary of ego death while reading the books.
— Michael Hoffman http://www.egodeath.com — simple theory of the ego-death and rebirth
experience
Group: egodeath
Message: 506
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 21/02/2002
Subject: Budda/Reverend Amps, Heavy Mental Feedback
>Regarding your Amp Tone site, I asked if you were like “the chosen one” and
then you blew my mind with that Amanita/Christ trip. Although most of the
stuff at Egodeath.com is too heavy for me to comment on, your Amptone
editorial [http://www.amptone.com/overview.htm%5d still stands virtually alone
in its articulation of the deeper aspects of amplified electric guitar tone.
>I have thought on occasion that harmonic feedback has a cosmic significance
akin to Nietzsche’s infinite loop (especially with lots of delay [echo] and
reverb), but my knowledge of both is too shallow for it to be anything more
than an amusement. Just wanted to note my admiration and appreciation of your
dedicated and enlightened perspective.
>Hawkwind’s “Warrior on the Edge of Time” album is some sort of
altered-consciousness classic.
>Also Monster Magnet’s take on the “space-rock” genre may be worth checking
out.
Here is some more Monster Magnet psychoacoustic High Art.
Album: Brotherhood of Electric: Operational Directives. Artist: Wellwater
Conspiracy — Feb 1999. “A multifaceted sound that lurks somewhere between
the sonic realms of Seattle grunge and psychedelic garage. Showcasing the
talents of ex-Monster Magnet guitarist John McBain and former Soundgarden
drummer Matt Cameron, the Wellwater Conspiracy exist as an adventurous studio
project steeped in ’60s psychedelia.” http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000HZTJ
Monster Magnet? Watch out for the control vortex with the Minotaur in the
middle; it will pull you in and spit out only bones, ending in a great
victorious defeat. “Oh no, not that thought, don’t think That Thought, that
right there is the one not to think — but it is beautiful as well as
terrible!” That is the thought that kills, the Realization of the
metaphysical impotence and inherent nullity of one’s personal control with
respect to spacetime.
The following new Heavy Metal album has a release date of November 14, 2001 —
the same day as my revelation that frozen-future determinism is the key to a
dirt-simple, rational mystic interpretation of the Christ allegory.
Album: Fed To Your Head. Artist: Scorched Earth. “[Neo-acid/psych guitarist]
Bevis Frond under a pseudonym with help from the Alchemysts and the Lucky
Bishops. A “heavy metal” record in the vein of the early 70’s style.”
November 14, 2001. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005QGA8
Spectators of my discussion group may regret that I am so absent. However,
the group is influencing me by requesting coverage of Buddhism. I don’t like
the burden of explicitly covering religions other than esoteric Christianity,
but recent trends in religion concur that I am obliged to address a Buddhist
and Islamic audience, and a Hindu audience, really as much as a Christian
audience. When I committed to tackling the project of making rational sense
out of the Christ allegory in 1988, it was true at that time that Christianity
towered above the other religions in Western culture. But that was 14 long
years ago. The New Age isn’t new anymore, and Buddhism is no longer exotic to
U.S. natives.
Making sense of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam in terms of rational mystic
experiencing is easy compared to Christianity, especially when one already has
cracked the riddle of Christ as the principle of determinism. Also recall
that my core philosophy was based on Zen, not Christianity. Like in Watts’
books The Supreme Identity and Behold the Spirit, we can use Eastern religions
to at last solve the riddle of the meaning of the dominant Western religion.
So first I had to make rational sense of Watts’ portrayal of Eastern
enlightenment, especially short-path satori, and after solving the riddle of
Eastern religion, then I moved on to the much harder and more hidden riddle of
the Western religion. Thus, explaining Buddhism in terms of deterministic
self-control cybernetics is elementary in comparison to explaining
Christianity in such terms.
The keys to a rational theory of religious insight are determinism,
entheogens, and the mythic-only Christ. Attached posting below.
The definitive psychedelic effect is runaway echo that builds and builds —
used commonly in my 60s Pop Sike compilations.
I have genuine recorded white-light feedback guitar sound that I recorded
myself, a perhaps 4-minute piece in the middle of what may be the most
important peak experience. I keep wondering what day my most important
religious experiencing was, somewhere in the midst of the 90s. I have the lab
notes somewhere on my old hard drive, and may have a printout, but what is
most remarkable is that I have a 4-track cassette tape with tripped out
electric guitar improvisation in one direction, and with *two* tracks of
spoken voice (brainstorming idea development about religious insight) in the
other… from that highest visitation of the Holy Spirit.
There are several episodes from that era, but that was the most perfect, when
I had the tape rolling and I have the moment on tape, the moment of
cybercontrol death and understanding what the fear of God is, understanding
why one would, trembling, be forced to pray, forced to posit and wish for the
unknowable: praying that a compassionate puppetmaster is the one who is
pulling the strings that are certainly moving all my thoughts and actions,
perceptibly.
That peak mountain is merely one of a series of tall mountains, that
effectively communicate across time to each other from their peaks. But that
mountain is the most perfectly significant as far as specifically religious
experiencing — that was the key kneeling prayer, when I understood rationally
and fully clearly why a clear understanding of self-control cybernetics would
cause kneeling in trembling.
There is great competition among these mountains of peak mystic experiences.
An atheist who has debunked the Historical Jesus reports that he has no
understanding whatsoever of what it could possibly mean to experience oneself
as crucified with Jesus and crucified as Jesus, but when keeping the
frozen-future, block-universe model of spacetime in mind, in the midst of the
mystic altered state, when one is consciously frozen into the spacetime block
that strips one of the apparent power to change one’s future, this is much
more of a *report* of an intensely, physically felt *experience* than an
abstract *theory*.
This is why I theorize with such confidence: the Holy Spirit first brings full
intense experience, and theorizing then proceeds to explain and make sense of
that experience. It’s not a tall edifice of theorizing building itself up on
its own, alone; theory and experience must build each other up.
I hope to upload to mp3.com someday my recordings from the peak trembling
prayer experience, with the white-light guitar feedback in the background.
That soundtrack was with a Marshall all-tube combo amp, miked with an SM-58
mic, at quiet volume but with high preamp gain.
Subject: Re: Sudden marginalization of Christianity
Greetings Michael,
After September 11th, suddenly Usan (“American”) Christendom has belatedly
realized that the predictions from a hundred years ago have practically come
true: suddenly, conservative Christianity is merely a marginal cult, and the
majority of self-identified “Christians” are Biblical illiterates and hop
not
only between denominations for their occasional Church visit, but among
different religions — it’s a fluid, post-modern kind of Christianity that
takes an extreme cafeteria pick-and-choose approach. My preliminary
research
shows that official Christianity is seriously running scared. The trends
started before Sep. 11, but that event has crystallized this awareness of
the
trends. During the past few months, Christianity is entering its greatest
time of tribulation since the Reformation. I am saving money to buy some of
the next wave of books on Christian trends. It should be interesting.
While not disagreeing with you about the majority of “Christians” behaving
in such manners, I wonder where you draw the conclusion that Christendom has
“realized” that they are that…
When did the masses wake up and see themselves in the mirror?…I have seen
no evidence of this…perhaps you can expound?…
Blessings,
~~~.:9:.
***DISCLAIMER***
~~~We may not necessarily still believe the opinions expressed by our
previous selves…~~~
“The analogy of opposites is the relation of light to shadow, peak to abyss,
fullness to void. Allegory, mother of all dogmas, is the replacement of the
seal by the hallmark, of reality by shadow; it is the falsehood of truth,
and the truth of falsehood.” — Eliphas Levi, Dogme de la haute magie
I came back to the group to post a message about what me and my
friend had talked about the whole night. Egodeath, the nature of
reality and the quality of realness to a conscious being the meaning
of life and the quality of meaning to a conscious being. Can quality
exist without consciousness? We can say that this stone looks like
different from the other but does that intrinsically change it’s
quality? If it does, how can quality be defined? This is something
that Pirsig pondered about but I can’t remember what he ended up
with. Is that something we can never understand logically because our
brains and minds are not up to the task but only through intuition
and/or momentarily experience the essence of quality. Are there any
way to make certain that this experience is or isn’t valid? If there
aren’t, am I really talking about enlightenment and seeing through
maya when I’m talking about the essence of quality?
I wasn’t supposed to post this particular message. I have no idea
whether I will screw this message too like the last one I wrote just
before trying to SAVE it to prevent accidentally wiping it off the
screen. Before I wrote the message I thought to myself that perhaps
my message will lead to something interesting in the minds of other
fellow humans. After the message disappeared I wondered if there was
a meaning for that greater than just clumsiness. Perhaps it was to
signal me to learn a lesson. About what? How fear gives me a lot of
trouble in life but then how the real trouble is just clinging to the
experience of trouble and it’s “troublesomniness” (here we go
again…) Perhaps not. Perhaps there was no big reason. I guess I’ll
never know.
I feel it can be dangerous just to think everything is predetermined.
Like there’s no morality in zen right? I don’t believe in karma so to
me it is perfectly possible that you could go and kill a hundred
people and claim that you believe that those people were used as an
energy source for selfish beings with consciousnesses but no body,
for example and that you wanted to be good and not give the selfish
beings the chance to use these as their batteries. So egoic interest
excluded, would our socio-biological hardware (meaning all the brain
areas that affect our social functioning) be the only thing that
would make us not consider killing seriously for very long even if we
had a strong sense of this behavior as our “mission” and fate.
Is it really so that what happens, had to happen because it happened.
Is society and the laws it sets AND efforts to make them more just
therefore a dynamic part of determinism, a ying-yang sort of thing?
Could Ken Wilber have it all wrong about existence progressing to
look at itself from the mirror? What if suddenly the human race is
wiped out because of some quickly spreading, deadly and incurable
virus? Then all the things he has said in his books becomes obsolete
because The Master of Puppets would not have it any other way. Maybe
there are other life forms in the Universe but they never developed
consciousness. It was something that fit the set & setting for some
time but then the chaos principle changed the direction of evolution
once again. Why is it so difficult for scientists to accept the
possibility that we could be the only conscious species in the
universe? Haven’t they read from their HGTTG about the Infinite
Improbability Drive (or whatever it’s called in the English edition).
Who knows, maybe “some rules can be bent, while others can be broken”
can be extended to apply to the rules of physics. Or, perhaps certain
changes in the quantum (or is it “morphological”) fields in
consciousness could suddenly cause the engaging of a previously
undiscovered self-extermination mechanism of the whole planet? I know
this is pretty wild but first, remember I haven’t slept at all and
second, that this is still pretty much down to earth compared to the
sum of the things we talked through.
How do you use Occam’s razor in a world that could already at the
same time exist and not to exist? It is possible to “cheat” time
relative to the age of people on Earth by going deep and fast enough
to the space. I see a rule bent here. And most scientists don’t even
know about ego death. Then there is the Hedonistic Imperative arguing
for the use of medicines, genetic therapy and mind machines for the
spreading of mood improvement. Are there any reasons why the two
(cleaning the contact lenses of perception) and efforts to accelerate
emotional evolution with technology and increasing knowledge about
the limbic system could not be paired? It’s strange how many people
are against the use of mood elevating drugs. Do they simply happen to
represent the memes that hold society together? And the ones who
advocate personal freedom to use or NOT use drugs (Ritalin and other
ADHD-meds are a dangerous example of Brave New World mentality) are
seen as escapists or as people playing with fire (more like the
unknown and feared). People in power, who decide about the
legislation, can say using drugs is stupid but yet use in private.
They can be afraid of ending their political career or of the
consequences to the society at large. The thing people fear in
improving one’s mood over the “normal” line (which is pretty
relative) is the feeling of unconditional acceptance or, as people
come to call it, love because the change would not come overnight.
They could not trade the love of money for real love in a tight
schedule because that would probably require a majority of people and
government backing.
Perhaps sometime after our fight&flight-nervous system would have
been slightly updated to reflect the changes in our environment (much
less REAL danger) could the minds of an increasing number of people
to be ready for experiencing ego death. This quote from the Bible is
very fitting: Luke 9:23-24 (NIV) Then he said to them all: “If anyone
would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily
and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but
whoever loses his life for me will save it.” It will take a lot of
time for people to understand this and face both their fear of
material death and the death of their sense of self. The result will
be more a world that has more to offer than just an empathy box like
in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. We have
substances that make you feel real good and allow you to relief
yourself of the things you’ve tried repress (like ecstasy). But raves
and clubs as noisy environments are most often not the places for
deep healing because one doesn’t feel safe enough to come open about
one’s really Dark Side. I believe that we storage our repressed pain
in some way similar to the COEX-systems described by Stanislav Grof.
In a good set & setting people can let go off some of their pain
and probably rewire their brain somehow so that they become more
honest and feel better about themselves and others even permanently.
Hope you’re not annoyed by a lot of things that you already know
about. This seems to have become something like a semi-essay. But
now, let’s continue… the current psychedelics may be adequate for
most people to experience ego death in a way that benefits them most
(timewise, visually, etc.). In the future designer psychedelics
might, for example, allow people to have similar experiences if
that’s what they would like to do.
Now I’m going to sleep. I won’t write about this last part much, just
mention it to give you something to comment on. What is the
relationship between ego death and emotions? The fear of loosing the
ego certainly involves powerful emotions and can trigger repressed
memories. Afterwards the center of awareness may change from oneself
and from yesterday to everything and the immediate moment. Increasing
good feelings (something like empathetic contentment) on the other
hand could make dealing with the unconscious and superconscious
easier.
The change from a deeply traumatised and wounded humanity to a much
humane world with ego death experience perhaps regularly to remind of
the pragmatic nature of ego. It might take a long time because there
is so much to heal even when there are good tools, knowledge and
support available.
Hope you were able to dig something something out of this mess.. it
took a long time to write because I got sleepier and sleepier.
ZZZZZzz..
Group: egodeath
Message: 509
From: Glenn Scheper
Date: 28/02/2002
Subject: Re: Doherty’s mythic-Jesus work is uniquely relevant
Thanks, Michael, for such a good overview.
Doherty does read much better than Acharya. He makes even me
consider Jesus as a figment of Paul’s imagination. I surfed a
bunch of his web pages listed below, best ranking pages first.
Hi All, I know that most of you are not within a reasonable distance
to be able to come but I’m sending this out to everyone just in case.
I will be hanging out on Saturdasy at the “Beverly Garland Hotel” in
North Hollywood, Ca. I will be doing an all new presentation at 3:00
PM at the Conference called “The Catalyst Conference” which is going
on at the hotel. The speakers actually start at 10:30 AM in case you
are interested (There are some interesting topics). Come if you can.
To see the flier for the Conference you can go to my webpage or to
just view the flier with speakers and a contact number for more
information by clicking on the link below. Hope to see you there! Jim
Subject: Technique for completely rejecting false sovereign ego
>We are all subject to the world’s boundaries. This gives us a subjective
>spirit. The Absolute Idea forms an objective spirit. The Absolute Idea was
>existing only in posse. Until I had it. It is a metaphor for surrender, as
>is egodeath. I have completely surrendered once. The objective spirit is
>beyond all knowledge in its power. It is to make my subjective abstract to
>it. I have overdosed on about 400 dollars worth of mescaline hydrochloride.
> A true near death experience where I had the power of my life held by mere
>thought. I want to surrender my subjective, but feel as if I need to bring
>something with me such as thoughts. I am afraid of this next surrender,
>because the mere thought is still there of life or death. I would not want
>to fail the world in my surrender if I happened to die before I became
>abstract to the objective. You must understand of the objective, though,
>that if it takes over noone will have to worry about anything. Your job,
>car payments, dog, wife, business, money, greed, loneliness, none of these
>things and their comparts will be of any bother in the objective’s light.
>Please drop all of the barriers that would refrain you from E-mailing me
>ASAP. I am tired of being afraid. I only want to let go. Peace.
Although I don’t believe Jesus existed, the mythic symbol of the willingly
crucified sovereign on the cross enables us to say “I have so surrendered my
false self.” It is an experienced symbol; one *is* the man on the cross. And
one lives to tell about the experience. How can I methodically and
deliberately kill myself as false self, yet live and even be unharmed? By
being and participating in such a symbol of surrendered sovereignty.
There is nothing to do to purchase identification with such a symbol of ego
death; the only price is to want to reject any false aspect of personal
sovereignty. When you hate false notions about personal sovereignty above
all, and want to root them out of your thinking, such an experiential symbol
of negating one’s false self-sovereignty, a symbol of deliberately killing and
negating one’s false kingship, fits the requirements.
Such a symbol is valuable because through it, by participating mythically in
it, we can completely and perfectly put the lower self in its proper place
without requiring any physical observance, but instead requiring only the
mythical or spiritual act — a cognitive vision-logic act — of comprehending
and identifying with a symbol.
The only “letting go” that is really on-target is to deliberately reject the
deluded concept of personal metaphysical sovereignty. This is an act of
comprehension, not of letting go of the scepter — rather, seeing that one’s
control of the scepter of self-rulership, of self-command, is and has always
been essentially illusory. I never was the ultimate controller of the scepter
in the first place, so there is nothing I can do to let go, except in the
sense of rejecting serious belief in the illusion of being the ultimate
controller of the scepter of self-control. Surrender is no other action than
mentally realizing and understanding the illusory aspect of personal
controllership.
I am investigating esoteric Christianity and comparing it to the equivalent
approach in other major religions. I’m working on a fully esoteric
Christianity such as Arthur Drews proposed in the book The Christ Myth. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573921904
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Group: egodeath
Message: 514
From: Christopher Wynter
Date: 01/03/2002
Subject: Re: A Simple Question – Aaron
Hello Aaron ..
This does not answer my question ..
In simple terms, what is the primary premiss for the paradigm of
ego for this list ..
I have read the site .. and some of the previous discussions ..
but, when you say that “the ego is the controller” what are the
terms of reference for the controller ..
are they ..
1. unconscious personality archetypes at the root of reaction
2. the logical reasoning of the thinking mind
3. the conditioned belief structure imprinted into the linear brain
4. the conditioned beliefs imprinted into the unconscious mind
and so it goes on …
or are we talking about a matrix of all of these ..
and ..
I’m not being funny here, because there is a “death” metaphor
associated with the release of each and every one of these ..
and to go one step further ..
whatever the thinking mind is aware of, it is a retrospect view of
a perception of an event through preconditioned belief filters.
I could go on here ..
but, the simple question is ..
in terms of the discussion on this list –
what are the parameters for defining the ego
in terms of “The ego that dies ..”
That page author wrote a possibly interesting book showing parallels between Bible myths & Greek myths.
“Holmes Bryant created a computer restoration of the east pediment of the Parthenon, whose grand theme was the origin of humanity and the triumph of Zeus’ religion after the Flood. An enlargement of this reconstruction depicts figures that were known only as K-L-M, until identified in 1982 by Parthenon scholar Kristian Jeppesen as the Hesperides, with the serpent-entwined tree to their proper right.”
“Detail of a reconstruction of the Hesperides with the serpent-entwined tree. (public domain)“
After followup work in 2007 for my main article and Plaincourault article, I took a hiatus from public work in this field during 2008, 2009, 2010, and most of 2011 – except for a few “keep-alive” posts in 2008.
Subject: Re: Bob Daisley wrote the lyrics for Ozzy album Diary of a Madman
Group: egodeath
Message: 5113
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 11/12/2007
Subject: Re: Technical voice-recording notes
Attachments :
This recording doesn’t have the signal-noise ratio I hoped for. I need to
put a real sound-card in this computer. Probably all the still-substantial
noise in this latest recording is from the on-board (thus bad) sound “card”
— I doubt that the mic and mixer noise is at all audible against that din.
It’s also lossy-compressed more than my usual: 96 Kbps rather than 128.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5114
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 11/12/2007
Subject: Re: Technical voice-recording notes
Attachments :
I re-recorded my reading of the post “Emergent missional post-church
practice, entheogen house-church movement”, and uploaded it.
Signal/noise ratio:
This time, I used a Mac with good sound chips onboard. This is top-quality
sound for an unprocessed signal (no compressor, no noise gate). I’m going
for an ultra-honest, unprocessed, immediate sound, done optimally. It’s a
philosophy that has pros and cons. This recording has the very good
signal-to-noise ratio I hoped for originally — no ragged, ratty digital
junk noise in the background (like my first try today). I’d have to turn
off the HVAC system to silence the background (room noise leakage) more.
Production:
My voice became hoarse and the room resonates badly. The editing is sub-par
because I just learned the GarageBand recording application. Sometimes
there’s complete silence — an automatic feature I didn’t intend.
This audio file is not as loud as a standard pro recording should be,
because it uses no compressor, limiter, or clipping. GarageBand normalized
it to 0 dB.
Vocalization:
My first try at reading this today used over-pronunciation; it was stilted,
choppy. I read it more smoothly and flowing-together, for the second
recording, although my voice became worn out, more deep and raspy, and less
clear-toned. It’s hard to relax and sound flowing while also working to
control the vocalization and breathing. The recording is really good, aside
from the above complaints, but it’s not my voice, which should be a little
higher and clearer.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5115
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 11/12/2007
Subject: Re: Possible Podcast discussion topics
Attachments :
I might read-aloud various decent past postings.
I want to refine my spoken-word recording skills, including the vocalization
(clean, natural, and flowing), recording (clean, clear, and
immediate/present), and production aspects (loudness, & speed and ease).
One way to gain the quantity of experience and practice to apply what I’ve
learned, is to read-aloud past postings.
For any future postings, I’ll consider also reading them aloud, hopefully as
a thread and as 45 minutes long. Hopefully with some added clarification,
added points and commentary, added-in.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5116
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 11/12/2007
Subject: Motives for house-church participation
The Church of Christ quasi-denomination is based on the principle of exactly modelling
today’s church worship activity on the model that is specified in the New Testament. Does
the worship practice in the Churches of Christ today actually match the model specified in
the New Testament?
Even more directly to the point, does the worship practice in the Churches of Christ today
actually match the practices of early Christians, where those early Christian practices are
basically aligned with the New Testament description of the practices of Jesus followers? I
will abbreviate the latter question:
Does today’s church practice match the practices and purposes of early Christians? For
what purposes should enlightened people do Christian practices today and gather for
house-church-shaped Christian assemblies today? Is it possible to do church in the exact
same way and for the exact same purposes as early Christians?
I define “early Christians” as circa 135 CE ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt
) to 313 CE (a 178-year period that is my favored period as point of reference for what
Christianity or New Testament Christianity actually was about, what it meant). I select this
period as the definitive measure of and reference point for authentic New Testament
Christianiy because I hold that the New Testament books were written, or redacted into
existence from Josephus etc., starting in 135, and that the nature of Christianity shifted
from counter-empire house-church Christianity to organized institutional empire-
supporting Christianity starting in 313.
Did early Christians have pews? No.
Did early Christians have a podium and microphone? No.
Did early Christians have fresh grape juice to drink, on demand? No.
Did early Christians dress up on Sunday and take their family to a building called “Church”?
No.
Why do people “go to church” today? Why did early Christians gather, and how often did
they gather, while the New Testament canon was being formed? What are the motivations,
and how are the motivations for “going to church” conceptualized today? What were the
motivations for the early Christians to come together into assemblies?
What are the background cultural conventions today, as the backdrop or general context
against which people “go to church” and do what they do? What was the normal cultural
context and practices of the early Jesus followers, against which they gathered together
during their assemblies?
Why do people gather “in church” today and bring their children, their families? Why did
early Jesus followers come together into assemblies, and did they bring their children? Did
they have a “family oriented assembly” mentality?
Ultimately, “going to church” and doing “Christian worship” today must be compared not
to early Christian practice, but to *non*-Christian broadly religious-related practice in
antiquity.
Why did ancients in general do whatever they did that is roughly equivalent to, although
distinctly different from, modern-era “going to church” or other “Christian activity”? To
have a religious drug party, with other social activities connected, like symposium
“drinking parties” and “funeral clubs”?
How is “going to church” and “Christian activity” distinct from other aspects of life today?
How was “religious-related activity” distinct from other aspects of life in antiquity, for
non-Christians and for Jesus followers (or Jesus assemblies)?
Families in the New Testament World by Carolyn Osiek
Early Christian Families in Context by David L. Balch
Women’s Religions in the Greco-Roman World by Ross Shepard Kraemer
Households And Holiness: The Religious Culture Of Israelite Women (Facets) (Paperback)
by Carol L. Meyers
House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity
by Roger Gehring
The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives by Beryl Rawson
Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family by Richard P. Saller
From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World by Dennis E. Smith
Group: egodeath
Message: 5117
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 25/12/2008
Subject: Re: Bk: Chemical Muse: Drug Use & Roots of Western Civ (Hillman)
Attachments :
I wrote and posted this review today. The ASIN book links resolve when
reading the review at Amazon.
Review title: Maximal entheogen theory of religion in late antiquity
Rating: 5 stars
Tags: entheogens, late antiquity, psychedelics, psychedelic drugs, visionary
plants, religion, altered state, mystic experiencing
Reviewer: Michael Hoffman
David Hillman’s book “The Chemical Muse: Drug Use and the Roots of Western
Civilization” is a required book in the field of entheogen scholarship. It
presents a maximal entheogen theory of religion in Late Antiquity; it is the
first book to present such a strong, clear view. The use of psychoactives
was utterly normal, commonplace, mainstream, and culturally integrated.
Hillman forces a revision of the assumption-framework that is used by some
other entheogen historians. John Allegro’s book [[ASIN:0340128755 The
Sacred Mushroom & The Cross]] postulated that the early Christians were
motivated to use coded story-figures such as the figure of Jesus in order to
hide their deviant, unusual practice of use of visionary plants (mushrooms)
from mainstream culture, which persecuted and disallowed such use. Hillman
doesn’t address Allegro’s explanation, but that aspect of Allegro’s theory
is soundly disproved by the culture that Hillman reveals, a culture
thoroughly saturated with psychotropic drugs, and must be abandoned.
The cover art shows Plato with red eyes, which today has culturally
distorting connotations of “Plato smoked pot.” Hillman should’ve chosen
instead something like the fresco showing Dionysus’ victory procession, with
Dionysus on a chariot drawn by four tigers with mushrooms above their backs.
The book would benefit from ancient pictorial evidence of psychoactive
plants and their use, of which there is no shortage.
The book ought to have subheadings. The author omits subheadings, thus
obscuring what specific topics are covered in the book. This lack of
topical entry points can also make the book seem more boring, when one gets
caught in a topic of less interest and cannot see where the next topic of
interest begins. I have extracted some potential subheadings below.
Introduction chapter. Hillman’s thesis committee forced him to remove his
chapter on ancient world’s recreational drug use, saying “the Romans just
wouldn’t do such a thing” — a baseless anachronistic presupposition,
projecting today’s outlook onto the past, thus censoring and obscuring the
outlook that characterized the past.
Chapter 1: The Ancient Crucible. This chapter emphasizes the misery and
anguish of ancient life. I too felt miserable and filled with anguish after
reading most of it, since I was expecting to read about entheogens instead.
The reader starts wishing for some opium to ease the pain of reading this
chapter. Skip this chapter and read it afterward. It is of peripheral
relevance and gives the wrong impression that the book justifies entheogen
use because opium lessens misery.
Chapter 2: Ancient Medicines. Skip this chapter and read it afterward. It
is of peripheral relevance and would give the wrong impression that the book
prefers a medicinal paradigm. Chapters 1 and 2 are appropriate to provide
background and peripheral information, but act as a hurdle in their
placement in front of the expected chapters about entheogens.
Chapter 3: Greeks, Romans, and Recreational Drugs. The classical world was
well aware of the effects of cannabis, scopolamine plants, opium, mushrooms,
ergot, wormwood (thujone), and hemlock.
Chapter 4: Promethean Euphoria. Covers drugs in myth, including the myths
of Prometheus, Demeter, ambrosia, Dionysus, Odysseus & the Cyclops giant
Polyphemus, and Narcissus. Mixed wine is partly covered here.
The scope of the book is Greek and Roman culture in Late Antiquity; there is
little comment on the transition to Christendom. Hillman doesn’t address
the question of “To what extent were visionary plants used throughout
Christian history?” But he does conjecture that Jewish and earliest
Christian practice included visionary plants. He uses the noncommittal term
“Christian mythology”, and discusses political struggles in antiquity, but
doesn’t address the origins of the Jesus figure or the motives for creating
Christianity. The investigation of the history of the mystic altered state
must extend far beyond this books’ focus on the sheer use of visionary
plants, such as commentary connecting social structures with the specific
phenomena that are encountered within the intense visionary state.
Hillman doesn’t cover mythic metaphors, cognitive phenomenology (per Benny
Shanon’s book [[ASIN:0199252939 The Antipodes of the Mind]]), and
altered-state metaphor. Hillman’s treatments of myths remain as superficial
as any uninspired scholar’s. He focuses on the sheer fact that the plants
were used, rather than on cognitive phenomenology resulting from the
plant-induced altered state. Like Carl Ruck’s work, Hillman doesn’t provide
interpretations of mythic metaphors except in terms of the physical plants
and the sheer fact of using them. He assumes simple literalistic readings
of the mythemes, as opposed to reading them in terms of mental experiences
from visionary plants.
He doesn’t cover self-control instability in the altered state, or the
common experiential phenomenon of ego death. He reads all mythic references
to “death” as literal death, rather than metaphorical description of
specific cognitive phenomena encountered in the mystic altered state. The
mythemes of ‘death’, ‘mortal’, ‘divinization’, and ‘king’ are bandied about
unreflectively in these pages, rather than considering them as aspects of
plant-induced experiencing. What does ‘death’ mean to the person during the
altered state which Hillman writes about? He ought to consider, for
example, ‘death’ as the altered-state suspension of the self as controller
and mental construct, and the overpowering of the personal self by the
broader space-time world in which the self is embedded.
As another example, the Introduction discusses Actaeon being killed for
looking upon the goddess Artemis, but Hillman superficially treats this
death as a simple literal death as punishment for (vaguely) “seeing too
much”, rather than as the specific death of the pseudo-autonomous self
during the mystic altered state. Hillman doesn’t tie-in the myths from late
antiquity with today’s mystic-state reports of the cessation of the egoic
conception of oneself, or perceiving a higher level of control that trumps
and originates one’s own power.
He reads the themes of ‘maiden’ and ‘youth’ flatly and literalistically,
rather than matching them with the idea of the uninitiated mind prior to
ingesting the sacred meal in a mystery-cult initiation. Hillman’s line of
thought needs to develop further by applying cognitive phenomenology to the
interpretation of mythemes — by explaining mythemes as metaphorical
descriptions of the cognitive phenomena that are encountered in the
plant-induced, altered cognitive state.
Chapter 5: Drawing Down the Moon. This too-vaguely titled chapter actually
covers sorcerer/druggists; ancient magicians were somewhat comparable to
“drug dealers”. Zoroastrianism and the Magi. The practice of magic was
tantamount to the use of drugs. Magic was a matter of control &
manipulation, including manipulating the mind of a desired lover, through
seeming manipulation of reality in the drug-induced altered state. Medea &
Jason. Scholars intentionally mistranslate words to avoid writing “drugs”;
Circe’s mastery is specifically of drugs, and yet scholars deliberately
mistranslate words for her drugs instead as vague “charms”.
Hillman affirms the ancient Greeks’ belief in Fate (heimarmene), but without
detailed elaboration, without considering how the belief in Fatedness was
connected with altered-state experiencing.
Chapter 6: The Divine Gift of Mind-Bending Intoxication. Scholars
standardized on mistranslation of words for opium as “poppy seeds”.
Hillman writes that drugs were “a” means of entering into the divine realm,
“just another means of invoking the Muses”, but he never says what the
implied “other means” of entering into the divine realm were. That raises
the question, which he should’ve addressed, of whether drugs were the only
effective means of entering into the divine realm. If plant-drugs were the
chemical muse, then was there some non-chemical muse as well, some non-drug
technique of entering into the divine altered state? It is surprising that
Hillman is silent about the existence of that debate among entheogen
scholars.
The Muses, divine poetic inspiration, and ancient literature. Psychoactive
drugs were a primary, standard concern of ancient literature. Homer’s
bardic works: the Illiad; the Odyssey, including the Lotus-Eaters. Virgil’s
work: the Aeneid, including stories of Dido and Amata. Ovid’s works:
Amores; Heroides; and Ars amatoria. The audience used psychoactives and
understood the authors’ incorporation of themes involving psychoactives.
Chapter 7: The Pharmacology of Western Philosophy. The pre-Socratic
philosophers, drug-sorcerers, or sages. Diogenes. Epimenides:
Root-cutters, mandrake, and Epimenides’ stimulant. Pythagoras: his
initiations into mystery religions, and Magi. Empedocles and the birth of
natural science. Mixed wine included opium, henbane, and psychoactive
herbs, unguents, and spices. Plato’s Phaedrus: Divine madness, inspired
mania, divine possession, and the Muses.
Chapter 8: Democracy, Free Speech, and Drugs. This chapter opens with 8
pages about the creation of democracy in ancient Athens, with no connection
to entheogens. This puts a strain on the reader’s patience, waiting so long
to get to the claimed subject matter of the book.
The political and drug aspects of plays. Until recently, scholars
deliberately mistranslated or suppressed Aristophanes’ ribald wording, but
they continue to deliberately mistranslate drug references to suppress,
distort, and censor those. Plato’s work The Laws. Aristophanes’ play
Thesmophoriazusae. Aristophanes’ play Wealth. Euripides’ play Andromache:
free speech, personal freedom, and civil liberties. Athens vs. Sparta:
egalitarian democracy vs. authoritarian oppression. Euripides’ play Medea.
This chapter touches on mystery cult initiation, Eleusis, Carl Ruck’s book
[[ASIN:1556437528 The Road to Eleusis]], and the scholarly suppression of
such academic investigation into ancient psychoactives use. Surprisingly,
Hillman provides no deep coverage of entheogens in mystery-cult sacred
meals, which most readers are expecting; he presents only 2 pages focusing
on this topic. The book has a surprising lack of detailed coverage of
entheogens in the sacred meals of all the mystery cults of late antiquity,
such as emperor cult. Hillman merely touches on, but doesn’t provide
sustained, in-depth coverage of “drinking” symposium parties; for example,
he doesn’t expound upon Dennis Smith’s book [[ASIN:0800634896 From Symposium
to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World]] to explain
“drinking clubs” in terms of visionary plants in mixed wine.
Conclusion chapter: The Western Pursuit of Happiness. Personal freedom and
democracy in Athens went along with psychoactives. The status quo claims to
endorse freedom, democracy, personal autonomy, and civil liberties, but
demonizes psychoactives, against the values of Athens which created our
valuation of freedom and personal liberties. The drug knowledge that is
embedded in antiquities would be a valuable resource, and is the kind of
knowledge governments and businesses are looking for. Moralistic censorship
rewrites history and creates a fictional image of the past to prop up the
status-quo powers. Factual historical knowledge about the integration of
psychoactive drugs into the culture of antiquity would provide conceptual
tools that would help society remain free from tyrants and aristocrats.
Notes section. The book uses endnotes rather than footnotes. These are
proper, correctly used endnotes (or footnotes): they are strictly citations
of where to find source material, rather than passages which ought to be in
the body of the book instead. Much more of the book needs such pointers to
the source texts, to help interested scholars quickly develop the material
further than Hillman takes it.
Bibliography. The only entheogen-scholarship book mentioned is The Road to
Eleusis. Hillman’s book seems to be research done in isolation from the
most closely related existing books. There is a surprising absence of Carl
Ruck’s other books, Dan Merkur’s books such as [[ASIN:0892817720 The Mystery
of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible]], Clark Heinrich’s
historical survey [[ASIN:0892819979 Magic Mushrooms in Religion and
Alchemy]], Entheos journal, and the dispute between Wasson and Allegro about
the Plaincourault fresco ([[ASIN:1439215170 The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of
Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity]]).
The game is up, for the status quo academic Establishment. Their effort to
censor out psychoactive drugs from the mainstream of late antiquity is
thwarted by this book. Scholars who care about their future reputation must
cease their alliance with the distorting forces of suppression of the
psychoactives aspect. Those who care about aligning with the facts of the
matter and are looking for longevity, need to divorce themselves from the
status-quo denial of the evidential facts, and work toward building a
drastically revised model of antiquity.
People make the false statement that there is little or no evidence of drug
use in antiquity. Hillman goes beyond merely asserting that scholars would
easily locate ample evidence if they began looking for it. He demonstrates
that scholars have already run into ample evidence, but are censoring,
deliberately ignoring, and deliberately mistranslating the evidence, in a
cover-up.
The effort of proving that the ancient evidence describes the visionary
plants themselves, too much follows the lead of the status-quo academics. A
continued heavy critique of the academic status quo is needed, but without
letting the status quo define the boundaries of the investigation.
This book aims to adequately prove the case that psychoactive drug use was
entirely normal and mainstream and ubiquitous in late antiquity. This book
doesn’t aim to be comprehensive in fleshing-out all use of psychoactives in
late antiquity. The field of entheogen scholarship needs expanded follow-up
volumes that put less emphasis on convincing the skeptical academic
Establishment, and more emphasis on comprehensively laying out more
connections between late antiquity, the culturally integrated use of
visionary plants, and the deeper interpretation of mythemes.
This book opens up a call for serious scholarship that engages the extent of
drug use in antiquity. Serious, substantial scholarship will need to go
beyond Hillman, beyond the sheer assertion and proof that visionary plants
were used, into explanation of mythemes that describe the experiential
content of the resulting mystic altered state. Hillman’s political focus on
personal freedoms needs to be expanded into the realm of altered-state
mythemes such as the death of the king, and gods as rulers — connecting
personal altered-state experiencing with social structures and governance,
as was done in the thoroughly drug-saturated culture of late antiquity.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5118
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 25/12/2008
Subject: Integrating phenomenological & historical perspectives on entheogens
Attachments :
In my book review of David Hillman’s The Chemical Muse, for altered-state
experiential phenomenology, I cited Benny Shanon’s book Antipodes. I could
also mention “The Unfolding Self: Varieties of Transformative Experience” by
Ralph Metzner ( <http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1579830005/> http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1579830005/ ). I categorize Metzner as a 20th
Century-only writer, not attuned to entheogen history, but he writes on Page
81 in his article “Molecular Mysticism”, in the book “Gateway to Inner
Space: Sacred Plants Mysticism and Psychotherapy”, Christian Ratsch (Ed.) (
<http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1853270377> http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1853270377 ): “In my earlier writings, I
emphasized the newness of psychedelic drugs, the unimaginable potentials to
be realized by their constructive application; and I thought of them as
first products of a new technology oriented towards the human spirit. …
my views [about their novelty] have changed under the influence of the
discoveries and writings of cultural anthropologists and ethnobotanists, who
have pointed to the role of mind-altering and visionary botanicals in
cultures across the world.”
Thus the writers about psychedelics in the 1960s made a fatal strategic
misstep in treating psychedelics as new, modern, and unprecedented. Didn’t
the 1960s know that “our own” religion was based on entheogens? No. Who
wrote the first book focusing on psychoactives in Western religion, in the
period of Late Antiquity? John Allegro did, not Wasson, who did his best to
suppress such a consideration about that era. As the first scholar to try
historical speculation about entheogens as the basis of a religion in Late
Antiquity, some of Allegro’s bold postulates will remain standing, even
while his premise of an anti-drug Roman culture rested on the incorrect
status-quo assumption-framework and bolstered the existing, incorrect model
of drug attitudes in Late Antiquity.
Also, James Kent’s book draft Psychedelic Information Theory ( http://www.tripzine.com/pit/ ) is surprisingly phenomenological for a
self-described hard-science approach. My first phase of research used the
cognitive phenomenology approach, but lately I’m focused on entheogen
history, explained by entheogen phenomena, rather than on entheogen
phenomena in isolation. So recently I’ve been on the lookout for
specifically entheogen *history* scholars, and tend to think of
contemporary-only entheogen researchers as uninformed, as continuing to make
the same mistake Metzner made in the 1960s. But really now, I’m calling for
an integration of present-focused entheogen theory together with
historically focused entheogen scholarship: both are needed, to inform and
complete the other. We need to combine the present-day phenomenological
perspective of James Kent, Benny Shanon, and Martin Ball with the historical
perspective of David Hillman, Clark Heinrich, and Carl Ruck.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5119
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 25/12/2008
Subject: Re: Integrating phenomenological & historical perspectives on entheo
Attachments :
>>As the first scholar to try historical speculation about entheogens as the
basis of a religion in Late Antiquity, some of Allegro’s bold postulates
will remain standing, even while his premise of an anti-drug Roman culture
rested on the incorrect status-quo assumption-framework and bolstered the
existing, incorrect model of drug attitudes in Late Antiquity.
That incorrect model is finally overthrown, I feel, with David Hillman’s
book The Chemical Muse. That is why I took a hiatus from my several-year
hiatus to read and review his book.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5120
From: Michael Hoffman
Date: 25/12/2008
Subject: Don’t delete this group, it is active, on hiatus
Attachments :
Yahoo,
Don’t delete this group. I am on hiatus and will be posting to this popular
scholarly group in a year or two. This is an important archival weblog and
it will continue with new content before too long.
— Michael Hoffman, group owner. Since 2001.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5121
From: egodeath
Date: 18/09/2011
Subject: Book:From Bodies of Gods (saints’ bodies as mushroom farms)
I attended an Esoteric Book Conference recently. After I told him of my writing against Wasson for limiting Amanita to the writing of Genesis but no later, a man involved in Inner Traditions publisher (a leading entheogen publisher) briefly showed me a book announcement that’s in preparation and will appear in their next catalog and their online site.
The book is about how bodies of Christian saints in the Middle Ages were used as psychoactive mushroom farms. I don’t know if such an idea should be read literally, but books about visionary plants in Western religious history are valuable and in some sense, needed. We should not, however, make proof and evidence our central concern. We should make good ideas our central concern, such as theoretical elegance, theory coherence, and explanatory power.
I approach the hypothesis of a cannibalism aspect of entheogen-based religion the same way as the hypothesis of sex or astrology: it is possible to incorporate and connect any themes, given that, per Benny Shanon, entheogens induce a metaphorical mentality, but we should keep the emphasis on visionary plants, the experiential phenomology that visionary plants induce (emphasized by Shanon, overlooked by Ruck), and on metaphors as such. Grof, for example, overuses literal birth-trauma; he should instead approach that theme primarily as a metaphor for entheogenic experiential phenomenology.
The origins of modern religion in human sacrifice, ritual cannibalism, visionary intoxication, and the Cult of the Dead
Explores ancient practices of producing sacred hallucinogenic foods and oils from the bodies of the dead for ritual consumption and religious anointing
Explains how these practices are deeply embedded in the symbolism, theology, and sacraments of modern religion, specifically Christianity and the Eucharist
Documents the rites of Cults of the Dead from the prehistoric Minoans on Crete to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Hebrews to early and medieval Christian sects such as the Cathars
Long before the beginnings of civilization, humans have been sacrificed and their flesh used to produce sacred foods and oils for use in religious rites. Originating with the sacred harvest of hallucinogenic mushrooms from the corpses of shamans and other holy men, these acts of ritual cannibalism and visionary intoxication are part of the history of all cultures, including Judeo-Christian ones, and provided a way to commune with the dead. These practices continued openly into the Dark Ages, when they were suppressed and adapted into the worship of saintly bones–or continued in secret by a few “heretical” sects, such as the Cathars and the Knights Templar. While little known today, these rites remain deeply embedded in the symbolism, theology, and sacraments of modern religion and bring a much more literal meaning to the church’s “Holy Communion” or symbolic consumption of the body and blood of Christ.
Documenting the sacrificial, cannibalistic, and psychoactive sacramental practices associated with the Cult of the Dead from the prehistoric Minoans on Crete to the ancient Egyptians and Hebrews and onward to early and medieval Christian sects, Earl Lee shows how these religious rites influenced the development of Western religion. In particular, he reveals how Christianity originated with Jesus’s effort to restore the sacred rites of Moses, including the Marzeah, or Feast for the Dead. Examining the connections between these rites and the mysterious funeral of Father Sauniere in Rennes-le-Château, the author explains why the prehistoric Cult of the Dead has held such power over Western civilization, so much so that its echoes are still heard today in our literature, film, and arts.
About the Author
Earl Lee is a professor at Pittsburg State University and the author of several books, including Raptured, Drakulya, and Libraries in the Age of Mediocrity. He lives in Pittsburg, Kansas.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5122
From: egodeath
Date: 18/09/2011
Subject: My email address
I haven’t checked or downloaded mail sent to ‘mike’ at the egodeath domain since the end of 2007, due to extremely heavy spam and being on hiatus.
If you emailed me at that address from 2008 to present, you would need to re-send to a current email address, which I will provide later.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5123
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory
I refer to my theory as the following:
The Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence (CTET)
The Egodeath theory
Transcendent Knowledge (TK)
_________________________
During 2008 to Sep. 16, 2011, I succeeded at recovering my original situational context and thinking, my original expectations.
My 1986 motive for striving for what would become the CTET or TK: I expected to gain cross-time self-control integrity — the fullest potential deliberate, manual, conscious, non-reactive, responsible control of my mind, thinking, mental construct sequence or system. I would not be subject to reactive steering by egoic control system’s tools of stress, desire, fear, linking, disliking, enjoyment, reluctance, regret, and anticipation. I would leverage the following:
o The no-self realization.
o Recognizing and perceiving feelings as merely mental constructs.
o The illusory aspect of cross-time continuant agent.
o Semantics class.
o Loose cog for metaprogramming (per Ken Keyes’ book How to Enjoy Your Life in Spite of It All, and other spiritual self-help enlightenment writings including writings like Ken Wilber’s first books, The Way of Zen, and John Lilly’s metaprogramming idea).
o Recognition of all mental constructs as mine, as controllable local constructs.
Non-(egoic control reaction, knee-jerk reactivity) would give transcendent cross-time self-control integrity and reliable plan-and-do ability, so I would no longer be vulnerable to self-control conflict and stress.
That was what Blank Books 1-5, written during Jan 1986-April 1987, were filled with: idea development about that, written-out without abbreviations, using typical language in the spiritual self-help enlightenment books, as seen in my idea development notes written on my class notes of Fall 1986.
Like my first time I was inspired to put pencil to paper in effort to capture rapid valuable thoughts about self-control and instinctively (“egoically”) reacting to +/- valued things, the blank book of Jan. 1986 was only intended as a temporary scratch pad or workspace (like Bernard Baars’ theory of the functional purpose of subjective consciousness) where I would get my thoughts clear and take control of my thinking, thus switching from “the egoic mind mode (EMM)” to “the transcendent mind mode (TMM)”.
As implied in the spiritual self-help books and seminars of 1985, this taking responsibility for my mind and thinking and self-control would only take a weekend. When that failed, I reluctantly had to accept it might take a couple weeks of sacrificing focus on classwork. When that failed, as in a disaster scenario, it turned out a couple months.
When that failed and I still valued and expected non-malfunctioning cross-time self-control, I was briefly suicidally frustrated, driven to despair. Fortunately and ironically, my grades were some of my highest, that semester. I got used to continuing a desperate yet rewardingly rapid progress of insights, sprinting toward some expected “final” breakthrough satori insight, which I finally got — with a surprising twist, of fundamental non-control — 1/11/88, a full 3 years after the first semester in which I expected to finish revising my thinking to grasp enlightened, rational, non-malfunctioning self-control.
I had truly bad grades in Spring 1987, but by then, I had reached meteoric momentum and had transcended and tuned-out stress, and my father died, and my mind was in a steamroller Flow state, rushing to reformulate my objective and metaprogram my thinking using new powerful concepts after thousands of pages of idea development.
Having gone through the initiatory fire of the egoic-control-killing Control Beyond Control experience, I knew that stressing myself out would not help; I pointedly demonstrated that I cannot bully or forcibly constrain myself across time (discussed later by Daniel Wegner regarding akrasia – dis-integrity of the will). In that demonstration likely around 4/87, I found a way to break egoic patterns of trying to constrain my future self-control power; leaving me in a limbo with no viable instinctive egoic self-control system, and forcing me to create a new basis for thinking about cross-time self control integrity, which I worked to create during 5/87-1/88.
After the preset/static-time, non-control breakthrough of Jan. 11, 1988, the 1986-1987 initial-phase project became no longer my central driving focus or technique/effort. I switched to focusing on writing-up and publishing my insight, my changed idea about the nature and potential of ego transcendence and satori, while reading about the strange loop of control-agency in Douglas Hofstadter’s book Godel, Escher, Bach, and trying to figure out what I can base my self-control ability on, if not the illusions of egoic cross-time gluing efforts or that mode of self-constraint effort. I would have to rely on transcendent recursive assumption of control (TRA) instead, out of nowhere, baseless, like “just wash your bowl” in Way of Zen.
I would have to simply trust my future self, my time-slice selves, to coordinate with each other across time to study.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5124
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: Key dates (transcendent holy days) for the Theory
Some dates are approximate and subject to correction. The following are point-in-time dates; a characterization of each period is also needed to go along with this. Regarding the artificiality of some single dates: I have posted at the Egodeath discussion group weblog, which has dates on each of my posts, that a breakthrough idea actually is spread across time, as a bell-curve-like series of deepening groks followed up as the understanding plays out. I have an insight, then really have it, then mine it as it plays out.
mm/dd/yy
~8/20/83 — Moved into Delta House; Ranch cottage on Country Club.
4/12/85 — Given Alan Watts’ book The Way of Zen by father. Encounter group (father one of the leaders). Got another bad grade due to lack of cross-time self-control integrity. Some exposure to Ken Wilber from father. The unconscious start of Theory development.
~6/85 — Given a paper by band members at Center House.
MAJOR DATE: (first initiation)
10/27/85 — First mystic experience (loose cog; LCog1); the conscious start of Theory development; inspired to capture thoughts by writing; Idea Development (ID) – using pencil on a sheet of binder filler paper, as a solution to capturing insights about control and valuation, toward getting full rational non-malfunctioning self-control. The start of my writing, thinking, and idea development.
~1/10/86 — Start of semester and Blank Book 1; 1st floor Southwest Dorm; SW1; have great photo, “The Fool”/ extropian high & soon expectations.
~4/20/86 — Brief suicidal frustration at inability to self-control as expected by now; enthusiastic confidence flips to despair and rationality-humiliating brokenness.
~5/25/86 — Moved to 3rd floor single room in Southwest dorm for entire year, June 1986-May 1987, = SW3; have photos.
MAJOR TURNING POINT: (realized a day or two ago these all happened roughly together):
~4/15/87 — Threw away Blank Book 1-5 to “finish Enlightenment”, then switched to idea development on filler sheets; created Mental Constructs / Processing idea (MC, MCP); use of acronym shorthand, experienced Control Beyond Control (CBC) as profound and pointed room-scrambling demonstration following the example of the band-related girl associated with Center House; started distinctive writing style and significantly distinctive thinking style; Spring break; father died from cancer; failed to turn attention enough from idea development to classwork.
12/12/87 — First major breakthrough-feeling ideas about non-control while reading Way of Zen for what felt like 5 times. (I want to pinpoint and differentiate these ideas vs. 1/11/88; must organize my Hand and keyboard writings together by semester, not separate by format. I always felt my 1/11/88 breakthrough happened in two phases, the first phase — earthquake pre-tremor — being around 12/12/87.)
MAJOR DATE: (main breakthrough)
1/11/88 — Main breakthrough (=Phase 1), in computer lab, on a Mac: frozen-time Crystalline Ground of Being (CGoB) contradicts the egoic-style premise/version of self-control cybernetics; the main paradigm shift giving birth to TK as an explanatory framework, incorporating all the previous insights in a new, changed, elegant configuration.
I decided to leave my science/technology/engineering/math (STEM) major in order to find a major that is relevant to TK theory development, but I concluded that my theory is so distinct, it wouldn’t fit in any major except a future version of Cognitive Science or Philosophy of Mind; no (1988) existing major or academic department will help my theory development, so it’s best and easiest, most viable, to stay put; after all, my major in parallel with idea development did permit or enable me to develop this breakthrough theory.
7/16/88 — Book writing commencement party, videotaped (have it). (Somewhere in this era my notes start equating apple/scroll with mushroom, as my independent discovery/recognition, not through reading others’ theories).
3/19/93 — Transcendent religious control seizure (during voice recording with “White-light electricity hum/buzz/beats feedback”, uploaded), repudiated/renounced egoic premise of autonomy/freewill; no viable option but to trust the hidden Source of my control-thoughts; Christian ascension.
[peripheral: baptism date – get from file folders]
1/1/97 — Published core theory summary at Principia Cybernetica website (that Phase 1, core theory summary asserts that religion and myth is about this theory, but I hadn’t done much research on history and mythic metaphor yet).
MAJOR DATE: (key insight into mythic metaphor)
11/12/01 — 2nd main breakthrough; the main breakthrough of Phase 2: ahistoricity of Jesus along with bigger theme of reading all religious myth (New Testament) as essentially and primarily mythic metaphor. The work from this point through 2007 was fleshing out and following up research to develop and confirm that insight, that change of my way of thinking. After reading Heinrich, and King’s critique of Allegro.
[peripheral: ~12/2007 — bar mitzvah date: get from email records]
My Egodeath Yahoo group postings show exact dates during which various insights developed during 2001-2007, and when I recognized entheogens and heimarmene in myth and esoteric metaphor.
12/2007 — Completed publishing TK Phase 2 (history, ahistoricity, mythic metaphor); began hiatus to catch up in other areas of life in which I had extremely strained, overextended, and sacrificed.
1/2008 — Returned to university campus, time-travelled to Jan. 1988 origin of TK theory proper.
5/2008 — Studied more subjects, which caused time-travel to Jan. 1986 Spring semester origin of proto-TK theory in Southwest dorm — but struggled to try to remember the motivations and mentality of TK origins.
4/3/2010 — iPad released. Began recovering classic 1980s writing Hand, distinctively used for 1986-1987 initial TK development.
~9/05 [check notes] — Fully grokked that the heimarmene-snake myth interpretation applies to the Eden tree.
9/16/11 — Fully recovered/remembered the motivating idea/expectation/programme of 1986 before the breakthrough of 1/11/88 changed to an essentially different mentality/approach. Finished Blank Book 6 by summarizing that in the front, in my classic high-1980s writing Hand that’s now fully recovered.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5125
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: Key periods/phases in my development of the Theory
My theory development work from 1998-2007 in the history of religion and mystic metaphor and ahistoricity of New Testament Christianity is important, but it is peripheral work that is founded on my core theory work, which primarily occurred during the 3 years 1986-1988.
1999-Nov. 2001 — After the 1993 experience of vulnerability to my own near-future thoughts, I continued to study the New Testament to read Jesus* and Paul* as writing about how we have to trust in the hidden source of our control-thoughts. (*Still assumed to be single identifiable historical figures.)
The 3 years 1986, 1987, and 1988 are the most charmed, pressure-cooker, stressful, maddening, aloof, magical of my life, years of initiation and breakthrough, of:
1986: Frenzied Titanic amazingly rapid mortal growth of my intellectual power (“I *must* have a final breakthrough, *now*!).
1987: Confrontation with wondrous and fearsome Lovecraftian science-emerging monsters (achieving and understanding our climactic potential for self-control seizure).
1988: Productive laboring to write-up my findings while basing my new self-control power on non-control.
1988-1993: Eventually succeeding at sacrificing my youthful rulership-self and trusting in the hidden controller of my stream of control-thoughts, to which there is no alternative, only futile self-battle and mad chaos.
1986 — Strove to fix my mental self-control malfunction and gain cross-time self-control integrity, and control over my feelings like stress and enjoyment, with a moderately distinctive thinking technique and use of writing. In Extropian/transhuman style (per the culture of 1988-1994), I expected quick success because I used spiritual self-help enlightenment (books/teachings), loose cog, hardheaded STEM mentality (science/technology/engineering/math), giftedness & support/privilege.
1987 — Used a now-sophisticated grasp of ideas and techniques to continue that project, including open-ended filler sheets, Mental Constructs/Mental Construct Processing idea, use of acronym shorthand, Control Beyond Control (across time) idea, fully distinctive writing style and thinking style.
1988 — Breakthrough, drafted the Theory around the Crystalline Ground of Being (CGoB) idea/paradigm/model, about the impact of the CGoB idea on self-control cybernetics.
Later I will characterize all the periods or phases of my life as a theorist. My electronic files — and recent hand writings — cover this extensively. I wish to distinguish and characterize each semester (Spring, Summer, Fall) during 1985-1989, by re-binding my notes into binders/pouches per semester, providing photographs and representative quotations per semester during the 3 original, pivotal years 1986, 1987, and 1988 (main pivots = ~4/15/87, 1/11/88).
I also need to add dates for the original Cybtrans.com domain uploads and first creation of the Egodeath.com domain.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5126
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: My distinctive writing Hand with modern esoteric character
I spent a year and a half (4/2010-9/2011) recovering my awkward, labored, distinctive 1980s Hand, which I wish to convert to a font. I want to upload scans of my handwriting especially from 1986, 1987, and 1988. The Theory is utterly non-metaphorical and explicit, distinguishing it from all brands of religion and esotericism, except perhaps some religious philosophy writing. The Theory does not rely on occult styling and coded hieroglyphics. However, my distinctive “cursive block” Hand does act as stylized sigils and symbols.
Between 1991 and April 2010, I had, to my surprise, completely lost this Hand, which began in Drafting class Summer/June 1978, just after the 8th grade graduation where we were initiated through Space Oddity and an oil light show. I used the Hand from 6/1978 through 1990. The formula for the Hand is: upstrokes, all-caps, left-hand, most commonly Pentel P205 pencil on binder filler paper. I have now essentially recovered the use of this Hand, though it is hard to compete with how heavily I used it every day for class notes, assignments, and idea development through July 1989.
Later I used thin black rollerball pen, which has too uniform line width, and later, mixed case, which has less character, and later, right hand, which has no character. My classic 80s hand has maximum character.
I spent 4/2010-9/2011 recovering my Hand including writing in the hard-to-find tweed cloth bound blank book like Blank Books 1-5 of 1/86-4/87, one of which I have a photo. This is because my classic Hand is so distinctive, I effected time travel to 1986 by re-learning the Hand and doing idea development in a medium that was unique to my 1986 era, rather than 1987 binder filler paper or 1988 keyboarding. And I value and treasure those 3 years so much, my classic Hand is a legacy to keep alive.
My recent life has increasingly returned to the classwork of 1986, and I have after investing 2008-2011, succeeded at constructing a time-travel bridge that had to punch back past the Jan. 11 1988 birthdate of my modern Egodeath theory, when TK as I know it fully emerged, and recover that alien, strange, forgotten, formative time before the great breakthrough, reaching back to my first initiation in Oct. 27 (best estimate), 1985.
When in Jan. 2008 I resumed technical studies, it was easy to time-travel back to the beginning of my modern TK, in Jan. 1988. But around May 2010, studying more technical subjects, I felt a strange affinity going back to the beginning of my work on self-control, in Jan. 1986 — even though that was prior to the formation of my life as I now know it — my life where I’m identified as the creator and Jan. 1988 discoverer of the clear model of static pre-set block-universe ego-transcendence.
Who was I during the prehistory, the early ramp-up to that breakthrough? What was I intent on getting, what did I expect that I never got closure on, during 1986 and 1987? During 1986 and 1987, I couldn’t let go of my runaway obsessive thinking, yet when I stopped rushing and zooming forward in Jan. 2008 to take a hiatus, and when I really started to feel a bridge back to 1986, I found that I could no longer remember what drives had propelled and possessed me during those two initial formative years as a theorist, writing in my blank books, my “diary of a madman” (per Bob Daisley’s occult acid-Metal enlightenment album).
Recovering my classic Hand of 1986-1987, and doing idea development in a blank book instead of keyboarding, was a strategy toward building a time-travel tunnel into the period where TK all began, the beginning of Spring semester 1986, in Southwest dorm 1st floor, and then 3rd floor — a magic, colorful, crazy, vigorous time alone out in the leading-edge intellectual frontier.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5127
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: Archiving my materials for historical & biographical research
I need my materials to be archived in a more useful, organized way, so that I can better understand the evolution of my ideas across key dates, and generally recover and convey what my life was like in the various important years.
I would like to compose a webpage for each semester, showing photographs, scans of notebooks, and transcriptions of those scans, and a characterization of my thinking and writing in each semester. Privacy is an issue.
I have many writings, by my distinctive Hand and as printouts, from the formative era 1986-1989, as well as to the present. I will post an archival inventory of the TK-related materials I created.
I will re-group the papers into binders and/or protective folders by semester from Spring 1986 through Fall 1989, and by year after that. That grouping will be more efficient than the current binders arranged more by format, for the purpose of characterizing the original development of my thinking and my writing.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5128
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: Re: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory
Correction:
I would not be subject to reactive steering by the egoic control system’s tools of stress, desire, fear, liking, disliking, enjoyment, reluctance, regret, and anticipation.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5129
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: Re: Key dates (transcendent holy days) for the Theory
Additional dates:
?/1988 — After two years spent mostly alone developing CTET, I reluctantly withdrew from pledging a fraternity, because I was finally starting to understand that time is a limited resource, and I wanted to write up and publish CTET right away, more than spending time on the non-intellectual consumption of beer and girls. My pledge name on my shirt was Purple Haze, and my fraternity friend insightfully wished to apply an entheogen in fraternity initiations. I spent time in that fraternity house all the way back to high school, including some Rock musician connections, parties, girls, friends, and roommates.
3/30/06 — Finished writing my Wasson/Allegro/Plaincourault article for the Journal of Higher Criticism, criticizing Wasson for not asking extent of entheogens in Christian history. After Robert Price’s hamfisted misciting of SOMA, my article he invited was styled as hyper-Critical, take no prisoners, tour de force, critique Wasson (and Ruck/Hoffman on Wasson) from every angle, no stone left standing — a devastating, scorched-earth parody of hyper-scholarship like the book On the Shoulders of Giants. We cannot permit Wasson to remain standing; we must move past Wasson — and then past Allegro, and then past McKenna, to my Maximal Entheogen Theory.
4/30/06 — Finished the final version of my TK paper (“The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death”) for Salvia Divinorum magazine — serving as a broad-as-possible theory-specification, rather than as an introductory article.
10/28/07 — Mother died of cancer.
My bar mitzvah was in order to run the memorial in the Jewish temple for my mother.
Correction:
“5/2008 — Studied more subjects, which caused time-travel to Jan. 1986 Spring
semester origin of proto-TK theory in Southwest dorm — but struggled to try to
remember the motivations and mentality of TK origins.”
Should be:
3/2010
I need to write about some of the many adults who influenced and supported me.
9/17/11 — Realized that my mother was somewhat of an occultist, per late 1960s/early 1970s popular culture. I grew up looking at the encyclopedia Man, Myth, & Magic, and wondering about what valuable hidden meaning could exist in life, that could reside in the popular Tarot deck. I also grew up in the Hebrew synagogue with her. She gave me occult and Jewish toys and a Persian jigsaw puzzle. She leaned toward being a Western-Esoteric Boomer, along with graphic art and early Renaissance music, and classical music.
My father was Transpersonal Psychology, some Eastern religion, and New Age. He was more of a Psychology and Eastern-religion Boomer.
I also frequented my grandparents’ rural 19th-Century American-originated Christian church (exclusively Bible-based in worship style, not Evangelical postmodern) — the Church of Christ, which used no images or musical instruments, and only sang, harmonizing.
There’s a lot more I’d need to write about my super-rich background and copious resources that were provided to me, that I vigorously leveraged and combined to develop the Theory.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5130
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: Re: Bob Daisley wrote the lyrics for Ozzy album Diary of a Madman
Ozzy has redeemed himself. Sharon Osbourne has stepped aside.
Ozzy rereleased the bona fide original album with the lyric writer Bob Daisley on bass. This album, in vinyl, cassette copy with Blizzard of Ozz, and then also CD, accompanied me out on the Otherworld frontier during 1986-1988, when the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence was being born through me. Only gradually, as my theory developed, did I recognize and comprehend Bob Daisley’s meaning.
It’s remarkable and a lesson we should learn from, that I was not able to learn from such metaphorical, veiled presentation of altered-state esotericism; I was only able to *confirm* and be indirectly influenced by the substantial esoteric content encoded in Rock albums. Amazingly, online discussion threads prove that outsiders don’t even realize that Purple Haze is about acid. This is how mystery religion culture worked in antiquity, too; the meanings are veiled to youth, and remain veiled until a series of initiations with visionary plants, and then are revealed by the individual’s mind.
My theory is designed to work the opposite; a modern, non-metaphorical, explicit model, that skips the veiling phase and jumps straight to the revealing phase — an approach that is “fatal to youths” so one must consider protecting youths from premature egodeath.
Blizzard of Ozz and this album came into my life when they were first released, I learned to play parts of them on electric guitar, and I continued to learn more about them into the 1990s, before publishing the summary of my core Theory at Principia Cybernetica Jan. 1997. Diary of a Madman, along with analysis of lyrics and art by early Rush (through the album Signals) and early Metallica (with the original bassist Cliff Burton), was my preparation for my 2001 breakthrough in recognizing all mythic metaphor as description of visionary plants and the experiential phenomenology they induce.
I played 3 albums on vinyl in the early 1990s when formulating the theory that Rock is largely acid-influenced:
o Ozzy Osbourne — Diary of a Madman
o Rush — Caress of Steel (& 2112)
o Metallica — Ride the Lightning
My electronic archives, file folders, and possibly WELL postings have historical records of my work on this subject.
What did I do during the long period between initially drafting my Theory article in Fall 1988, and publishing it Jan. 1997? Much of that time was spent with lyric and art analysis in acid-oriented, acid-influenced Rock. Thus the period between the early, ample Core work, and the later History/Metaphor work, included transitional or overlap work, which was contemporary late 20th Century use of metaphor in acid-influenced Rock, as preparation before later tackling metaphor in religious history.
1985-1990: theory core; theory Phase 1
1991-1996: rock lyrics and art (metaphor in Rock)
1998-2007: theory periphery; theory Phase 2 (metaphor in Religion)
Group: egodeath
Message: 5131
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: 20th anniversary of breakthrough was January 11, 2008
Just a few days after I went on hiatus at the end of 2007, it was a significant date: On January 11, 2008, it was the 20th anniversary of my main breakthrough — connecting frozen-time block-universe determinism with non-control ideas as in The Way of Zen. Together with my previous insights and useful concepts such as Mental Construct Processing, Cognitive Binding Intensity, and Control-Beyond-Control, I immediately knew I had a viable Theory that was an elegant novel conception of ego transcendence, compared to the state of the field in Jan. 1988. I hastened to write up and publish the Theory, but I continued to develop it through 1996, and even then, my summary merely mentioned or suggested that there are connections to Chrisitian and other mainstream religious constructs.
I continued to wrestle with how to write up this still-expanding theory as I re-conceived all religious mythic metaphor. I finally settled on the original word count I stated in my draft notes in 1988 (it turns out), and strove to put a stake in the ground as widely as possible, sacrificing detail and flow, in order to first put out a theory-specification — a 27-page patent for a self-control seizure technique, more than an introductory article.
Thus it took 20 years, from 1/11/88 to almost 1/11/08, to feel satisfied that I have published the ideas following from that mother lode breakthrough, enough to turn my attention to other matters and catch up there.
I wish I had broken my hiatus enough to post the announcement of the 20th anniversary of the breakthrough, on 1/11/08. But I am thankful that I was able to finally stop the torrent of thought, of frenzied idea development, at the end of 2007. I doubted I would be able to get myself to stop. It was hard to justify halting Theory development in order to catch up on vastly less important things. I justified it by considering my life-trajectory, essentially an argument in terms of practical viable balance. I accomplished being the first to formulate and publish the Theory by being an extremist, sacrificing balance. That accomplished, I had to become a mere mortal again, and catch up on doing the laundry.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5132
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: Heimarmene-snake brings entheogen, in Eden & Mithraism
I recently had a deepened insight about the heimarmene-snake myth: that it applies to Eden.
Given time as a spacelike dimension, your experienced life is like a snake, a finite thread, a finite stream, a path of bounded length, or a tunnel with a fixed length. This is static, changeless, frozen time, if the future is seen as always existing, and ego’s hands are impotent and tied because there is no one to exert change. Per Crowley, all beings live according to the will-paths predestined to themselves before their births, from which any deviation would be impossible.
Anything brought to a person at a given point in time, such as an entheogen (such as the chalice-shaped Amanita), is brought there by heimarmene (Necessity, Fate, destiny, predestination). Snake-shaped heimarmene — your worldline — brings you the entheogen. When you partake of the sacrament, you perceive that the sacrament was brought to you by heimarmene.
The snake brings the cup of mixed wine in Mithraism.
Heimarmene, destiny, brings Lucius to Isis.
The serpent in the garden of Eden brings the apple and makes Eve eat it.
Heimarmene is vertical holistic determinism; the timeless presetness of all self-control thoughts or movements of one’s will. It is not a matter of sequential, in-time, linear causality.
Heimarmene brings the Amanita to Eve; the metal door carving shown in Entheos journal rightly has Adam point attributing blame to Eve who points attributing all blame to the heimarmene-snake. The door is not merely funny. Pointing the blame at God’s avatar King Jesus instead of oneself, or pointing the blame at the snake instead of oneself, is not just comical; it is profound mystic-state truth — or at least, conceptual coherence.
Thus in the main, a rigid snake on the cross or pole is equivalent to the savior King Jesus on the cross or pole. Heimarmene trumps autonomous self-control power (“kingship”). Behind the scenes, at the fountainhead of your control-thoughts, God — the hidden uncontrollable controller outside of time — is in control; autonomous egoic power-wielding agents are not ultimately in control.
Moral culpability “magically” shifts from oneself as a moral agent, to Heimarmene, which is controlled by something hidden that we are frighteningly, maddeningly, profoundly dependent on. God is that unknown “X” which gives me my control-thoughts, which I utterly depend on. I have no alternative to putting all my trust in X, in that which gives me my control-thoughts — the snake, Heimarmene, or a benvolent transcendent Godly controller of Heimarmene sitting outside of time.
All my posts, unless otherwise attributed, are original research, Copyright (C) 2011 Michael Hoffman, Egodeath.com. All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5133
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: Acronyms for Transcendent Knowledge development (TKD)
I won’t rely on using acronyms in postings. I will spell them out at first occurrence within a posting. I started using acronyms very heavily around April 1987, for what John Lilly would call ‘metaprogramming’. My usage of acronyms gives the appearance and intent like assembly language programming. This helped accelerate my thinking and idea development, when writing by hand and by keyboard. Suited for capturing and feeding-back ideas during the peak window of the mystic state. As I review my 1986 and later writings, I have to decipher my own messy shorthand writing. I sometimes wrote lists of acronyms to help that. As my thinking evolved, my acronym usage changed somewhat.
CTET – The Cybernetic(s) Theory of Ego Transcendence (1988)
TK – Transcendent Knowledge; = CTET
TKD – Transcendent Knowledge Development
EMM – Egoic Mind Mode (early); Egoic Mental Model (later)
TMM – Transcendent “
PADA – Plan-and-do ability
CTSCI — Cross-time self-control integrity
CTSCC — Cross-time self-control conflict
t’t — transcendent (used Ken Wilber’s concept of how transcending something works)
e’c — egoic
CBC — Control Beyond Control; I can’t now force myself to get up at my planned time tomorrow, because that future time-slice self wields control that’s not forcibly constrained by me-now or the partly illusory cross-time “superego” self
IS — Intention Set (life plans, how I want to operate my mind)
OO: — operate on: (per Wilber; to operate on something, like some mental aspect, is to disidentify with, transcend, and control that thing)
SCS — self-control seizure
TRA — Transcendent Recursive Assumption; per a Watts/Hofstadter regression of “Who controls the personal controller?”, I can’t will myself to will something now, or later. To act, I just have to act, with no basis or foundation to make myself act, such as consistently doing classwork throughout the rest of the semester. It is futile to try to establish a basis of trust; I have to understand that I have to simply baselessly *assume* that I’m now, and later, going to later will and do the intended actions. Early 1988, following the CGoB/Cybernetic Nullity breakthrough. Similar to Maxwell Maltz’ book Psycho-Cybernetics.
CGoB — Crystalline Ground of Being with time as a spacelike dimension, with a single, pre-set, ever-existing future, containing each person’s life in the shape of a snake. 1988.
LCog, loosecog — Loose Cognition; loose association binding within and between mental construct relationship matrixes. Entheogens are the main way humans have accessed loosecog. 1987.
MC — Mental Construct. All conscious subjective experiencing is presented to awareness in the form of mental constructs. Experiencing is mediated by MCs. 1987. This concept has implicit roots in my 1986 writings, before using acronyms.
Subject: Re: Intellectual autobiography & origins of Egodeath theory
Correction:
“sprinting toward some expected “final” breakthrough satori insight, which I finally got — with a surprising twist, of fundamental non-control — 1/11/88, a full 3 years after the first semester in which I expected to finish revising my thinking to grasp enlightened, rational, non-malfunctioning self-control.”
Should read “a full 2 years”. Instead of 2 days, 2 weeks, or 2 months, it took 2 years (all of 1986 & 1987) to rationally model Enlightenment about self-control constraints, the ‘self’ model, cross-time self-control, and akrasia (vulnerability to self-control dis-integrity).
Group: egodeath
Message: 5135
From: egodeath
Date: 19/09/2011
Subject: Re: Key dates (transcendent holy days) for the Theory
2nd most import date appears 11/14/01 not 11/12/01; see long post 14th Nov; bottom of post “simpler solution: its all fiction”
It was over a few days i grokked, peaking on 14th. Historians and modellers of paradigm discoveries (Paul Thagaard) take note.
10th anniv coming soon, of my 2nd most major insight! On Nov 14, 2011, it will have been 10 years since i posted that brkthru in this group.
(phone)
Group: egodeath
Message: 5136
From: egodeath
Date: 21/09/2011
Subject: Re: Bob Daisley wrote the lyrics for Ozzy album Diary of a Madman
Don’t need no astrology
It’s inside of you and me
You don’t need a ticket to fly with me
I’m free
“Against astrology; I’m free.” That’s our normal view at the start of the fool’s journey, the first song in the sequence. The first few trips have the naive freewill view. Astrology = heimarmene, destiny, fate, vertical causation (Plotinus’ Neoplatonism), vertical holistic timeless causality where there is no change and everything is preset.
Until today when I saw ‘free’ I thought ‘money’ and gifting, low cost. But the past few days I’ve been working on the topic of Heimarmene and it’s more prominent in Astrology than in other Western Esotericism brands, so I recognized the rather explicit “I’m free” as a metaphysical statement, no longer as a Carl Ruck-like fixation on the mere physical form or packaging of entheogens to the exclusion of multistate (Charles Tart) cognitive phenomenology and visionary-state perennial philosophy. If, like Ruck, you are focused on evidence for the purpose of proving the sheer fact that myth is about specific entheogens, you are blind to altered state phenomenology and philosophy.
To post:
Other Daisley lyric recog recent
Ego Tunnel bk
The Phenomenological Mind txtbk
Blogger’s post on vertical causality/ation vs horizontal/sequential
How to eval any Eso. brand, bk, relig, song: weighted using 4 puzzle piece emphases, M Hall immature: covers least what matters most.
Cyb matters most, then Heim, LCog/MCP, least Metaphor
Group: egodeath
Message: 5137
From: egodeath
Date: 21/09/2011
Subject: Re: My distinctive writing Hand with modern esoteric character
Diary of a Madman album lyrics by Bob Daisley are handwritten all-caps, quite common in the 80s in the tech world too then: drafting, computer programming, electronic schematics including guitar amps.
I’d like to know more about the art decisions for that album.
Re: quantum physics, I hate conflating measuring with conscious observing; against those cheaters (Robt A Wilson, backdoor parapsy Psi) observing doesn’t cause the particle’s location. Wolfgang Smith’s peren phil&sci books I hope concur with Cushing on this, my minority view w Ein, against Bohr/RAW.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5138
From: egodeath
Date: 21/09/2011
Subject: Re: My distinctive writing Hand with modern esoteric character
Diary of a Madman album lyrics by Bob Daisley are handwritten all-caps, quite common in the 80s in the tech world too then: drafting, computer programming, electronic schematics including guitar amps.
I’d like to know more about the art decisions for that album.
Re: quantum physics, I hate conflating measuring with conscious observing; against those cheaters (Robt A Wilson, backdoor parapsy Psi) observing doesn’t cause the particle’s location. Wolfgang Smith’s peren phil&sci books I hope concur with Cushing on this, my minority view w Ein, against Bohr/RAW.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5139
From: egodeath
Date: 21/09/2011
Subject: Re: Bob Daisley wrote the lyrics for Ozzy album Diary of a Madman
Can “I’m in demand” be heard “I’m ending man”?
Other:
I’m balancing neatness of my posts against ease of writing my posts, providing more ideas, less formatting sometimes.
Daniel Wegner’s bk Illusion of Conscious Will – I’m more powerful saying the will is largely illusory/aspects; revise ideas, not dumb simple negation.
Best in class: Luke Myers bk Gnostic Visions. Acaciabark+syRue = DMT, & enths in W relig/Eso’m
Eval bks on how much focus on Cyb/Heim/LCog/Metph per my main article.
In my 80s archives, found letters I wrote to nonphilosophers 1987, and long list of my ’87 acronyms.
Just as nature speaks to man in the form of scientific knowledge, Being speaks to him in the form of revelation. The latter speaks to us because we are creatures, and therefore “receive” our being from elsewhere and elsewhom. We do not create our own being, for only the Creator can do that. We can create, but we cannot create something from nothing, or being from non-being.
Creaturehood means “to be continually receiving being and essence from the divine Source and Creator…” Our formal and final causes are vertical, while our material and efficient causes are horizontal.
This is one of the things that distinguishes Judeo-Christian metaphysics from, say, Islam, where there is only vertical causation, or bonehead atheism, where there is only horizontal causation.
Cause and effect needn’t be linear, as in past-to-future. This confuses people who have difficulty grasping the reality of the vertical, where cause and effect are simultaneous, “as when the stories of a building, or rungs on a ladder, or books in a pile each rest on the one below it” (Kreeft).
Not all causes are prior in time. While they are in time, their source is in the timeless. This is how to regard the vertical transmissions known as revelation, which are really interoffice memos from Self to self; that is, from higher to lower self.
We are dependent upon the ocean without dissolving into it. Creaturely things can never become independent of the force of the Creator who communicates being to them.” At no point do we cease being “clay ‘in the potter’s hand.'” That’s related to Genesis 2 in particular and revelation in general. God forms man from the dust in the ground *now*; he gives him the breath of life *now*; he makes him a living being *now*. Scripture is not just about what happened “once upon a time,” but what happens every time, every moment, once upon a timeless.
Revelation is primarily about vertical causation, not horizontal causation. Man has no need of God’s direct intervention where his own faculties suffice. Being that we are horizontal creatures, we have no great difficulty discerning horizontal causes. Indeed, we can trace them all the way back to the first moment of creation, with the Big Bang. But that is only the first horizontal moment. It has nothing to do with the vertical causation that continues taking place at every moment. An exclusive focus on horizontal causation can be misleading.
Vertical causation makes fundamental change is possible. For example, Alcoholics Anonymous is able to save hopeless drunks. Its first principles:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol [or self-control dysfunction in general -mh] — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God [vertical/timeless source of our control-thoughts and everything -mh].
The person first acknowledges that they are completely lost and helpless in the world of horizontal causes. But they place their faith in a vertical cause that can “restore them to sanity,” or wholeness and harmony.
It is a power greater than ourselves. This first step is necessary in order to re-establish that vital link between the above and below, and to get things flowing again.
This communication, or vertical causation, is grace in the broadest sense. This is also the “cause” of our wholeness, or “oneness.” Cut off from grace, even if we are not an animal, we will be riven by splits in the psyche, and perpetually driven or pulled this way and that.
Christopher Hitchens is an example of what happens to someone who declares war on vertical causation. Although Hitchens aspired “to moral authenticity” in his own way, he actually wanted to “have it both ways”: “It is as though he sees his own double-dealing as a rather agreeable versatility — as testimony to his myriad-mindedness rather than as a privileged, spoilt-brat desire to hog it all…. Characteristically, Hitchens embraces the contradiction, making no effort to hide his desire to have it both ways, and making constant references to his ‘two-track system’ and ‘double-entry books.'”
But the unhappy hour of horizontal exile always returns. See Genesis 3 for details.
_______________
end of condensed post by One Cosmos
Group: egodeath
Message: 5143
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Self-control seizure in Mithraism via Cyb/Heim/LCog/Metaph
Per my original research and theory: Mithraism was essentially an initiation technique that deliberately provoked self-control seizure, induced via Cybernetics, Heimarmene, loose cognition, and metaphor. Mithraism and other mystery religions used entheogens to deliberately induce the experience of heimarmene — finding your control-thoughts to be controlled by a mysterious hidden source that lies outside your realm of control. Mystery religions induced the threatening loss of control with self-control turning against itself into an alarming, escalating self-control seizure, and then, in some sense, transcending heimarmene and regaining the sense of effective controllership, now transformed and mitigated by the experience of ultimate noncontrol and heimarmene — the intense dissociative-state (mystic-state, altered-state, ecstatic-state) experience of being ultimately fate-controlled rather than autonomously self-controlled.
Religious initiation and the peak mystic-state experience is about our potential to climax in escalating the effort to control control-thoughts, recursively, in a spiral or whirling pattern. This is not just one strange dynamic among the menagerie (assortment) in the loosecog state or the loosecog experiential-phenomenology realm. Testing our self-control power in light of timeless fatedness, in the loose cognitive state, our understanding amplified by metaphors, is the potential mental dynamic which is the most direct and efficient approach to ego death experience and religious experiencing.
The not-quite-there scholarship of Peter Kingsley, Manly Hall, and Seyyed Nasr is like a guitar amp that’s not plugged in. It’s right, but missing the electricity — that is, such scholarship on initiatory tradition and mystic philosophy is missing the classic Western combination of Cybernetics, Heimarmene, Entheogens, and Metaphor.
Mithraism’s initiation combined:
o Testing the mind’s self-control cybernetics: testing our ability to control our self-control thoughts and prevent thoughts of an effective loss of control.
o Looking for presetness of our control-thoughts (Heimarmene), beyond the power of the agent-self to change or steer away from.
o Entering into the loose-cognition (Entheogenic) state.
o Applying Metaphor to emphasize the relevant mental dynamics.
To form a meaningful reconstruction of Mithraism and of religion, combine the following:
o Carl Ruck/Mark Hoffman/Jose Celdran’s 2011 book on entheogens in Mithraism.
o David Ulansey’s coverage of transcending fate (controlling the axis of the fixed stars to move them; ascending beyond the sphere of the fixed stars, punching through the astral plane).
o Tamsyn Barton’s 1994 book Ancient Astrology, around 10 mentions of fate and heimarmene, transcending them, overcoming the power of fate, a god powerful enough to rule over the fate-controlling stars.
o Luther Martin’s book Hellenistic Religion, on the central importance of the theme of heimarmene.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5144
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: 1988 first drafts of Egodeath article
The first draft of what would become my main article was written August 12, 1988. It begins:
“Here are compiled and resolved the principles of Special Knowledge, inspired by all the major fields which have studied it, but rigorously thought through and resolved logically. With sufficient study, the reader will find that Transcendent Knowledge resolves Egoic thinking in much the same way that Relativity resolved Newtonian physics.”
In contrast to that often-used long-winded style, my final draft begins with a concise summary, like a useful encyclopedia article that cuts straight to the point, the executive summary:
“The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death explains what is revealed in religious revelation and in enlightenment, including the nature of personal control agency. The essence and origin of religion is the use of …”
My first draft of my main summary article (the latter is http://egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm) was hand-written in mechanical pencil (Pentel P205) on binder filler paper in a cabin on a lake in Minnesota between Summer session and Fall semester.
This initial draft written off the top of my head appears to contain the same ideas as my good January 1997 summary article I uploaded to Principia Cybernetica. I spent the 8.5 years delay reading and writing. I only read a handful of books by the time I wrote the first draft. Most of the Theory I worked-up by my own, isolated idea-development over thousands of pages.
After trying to write 25-page drafts of the article by early 1989, and seeing the content tend to explode out of control, I spent until late 1996 reading broadly (nonfiction). I developed an understanding of the existing corpus of ideas I wanted to publish into, and tested my ideas by comparing them against existing writings.
My serious reading period, including building my library and doing library and bookstore research, was from around late 1991 to late 1996 — 5 years. I wrote many postings at the WELL and many free-form idea-development files during that period. I finally dealt with the content-explosion problem by setting a very low word-count and only summarizing each of 9 principles or topics. That became the concise summary of the core Theory posted to Principia Cybernetica at the start of 1997, as “Mark Hofmann”. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Annotations/PHILOSI.0.html http://egodeath.com/intro.htm
Over the years, into 2005, I continued to struggle with the problem of how to state the theory without a content explosion. Again I solved that problem by first defining the word count and then injecting ideas into the article while condensing words as much as possible, resulting in a 27-page article that is a terse theory-specification rather than prose. That project is tracked in Egodeath Yahoo group postings.
After the 8.5 years of reading and writing between the 1988 first draft (August 12, 1988) and the core summary (~Jan. 1, 1997), I didn’t modify or expand the ideas in my core theory. I could just as well have uploaded a late 1988 draft as my 1/97 draft. At one point around 1994, I ceremonially desecrated some of the typical books in my library to break my attitude of respect for current thinking. I feel kind of resentful for being intimidated from publishing my fledgling core article in 1988, by a bunch of half-educated authors. The Web enables such good encouragement now, for good new ideas to be shared without feeling obliged to do 8.5 years of reading the existing low-quality writings first.
I suspect my 1988 draft is, in its content, as good as that core content in my later writings. The core theory was born in and sprang from my head fully formed, in a way, such that my first writeup of it was solid and unimpeachable. I might have thought to include an additional point or better wording, by 1997, but I think if you put the two drafts side by side, there’s no difference in the *content*.
I expect the only content missing from the handwritten first draft is the same content that’s missing from the January 1997 core summary: the Phase 2, peripheral content, which is the least important of the 4 key areas: Metaphor, including ahistoricity (of Jesus, Paul, and the Bible stories altogether), history of entheogens in religion, the Maximal Entheogen Theory of Religion, mythic metaphor, and religious myth — particularly snake and king.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5145
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Re: Self-control seizure in Mithraism via Cyb/Heim/LCog/Metaph
Mushrooms, Myth and Mithras: The Drug Cult that Civilized Europe
Carl Ruck, Mark Hoffman, Jose Celdran
July 2011 http://amazon.com/o/asin/0872864707
Contributes clear mushroom images. No heimarmene (does David Ulansey’s book cover that?) but covers crossing the astral plane and being born from a rock.
Good introductory chapter. Readable.
Recommended, for entheogen scholars. I’m looking forward to reading more of this book.
The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World
David Ulansey
1989 http://amazon.com/o/asin/0195067886
More recently, David Ulansey has some association with entheogens, appearing in an entheogen documentary, after writing his Mithras book.
_______
The Old Philosopher’s review of Ulansey’s book:
From dictionary.com:
Mystery \Mys”ter*y\, n.; pl. Mysteries. [L. mysterium, Gr. ?, fr. ? one initiated in mysteries; cf. ? to initiate into the mysteries, fr. ? to shut the eyes. Cf. Mute, a.]
1. A profound secret; something wholly unknown, or something kept cautiously concealed, and therefore exciting curiosity or wonder; something which has not been or can not be explained; hence, specifically, that which is beyond human comprehension.
2. A kind of secret religious celebration, to which none were admitted except those who had been initiated by certain preparatory ceremonies; — usually plural; as, the Eleusinian mysteries.
The “mysteries” of mystery religions are spiritual journeys through the “underworld” to meet the God or Goddess of death and rebirth. They appeal to the deep part of human psychology as Jung wrote about extensively. Mithraism celebrated its mysteries in caves and caverns beneath the ground, a representation of entering the underworld of the soul.
Mithraism is a “mystery cult.” Its religious teachings were mysteries, journeys through the underworld of the soul. David Ulansey interprets the symbols on Mithraic art, and proposes a theory on the origin of the Mithraic religion. The most common Mithraic art is the “tauroctony” which is a picture of Mithras slaying a bull beneath astrological symbols. Ulansey proposes that Mithraism originated in Tarsus during the first century BCE. He theorizes that Mithras is the constellation Perseus, seen above the constellation Taurus, and portrayed as slayer of Taurus. He theorizes that the astronomical discovery of the precession of the calendar through the astronomical signs caused a major religious upheaval in lands where Gods were astrological.
He theorizes that the Stoic philosophers and religious leaders in Tarsus, a city in Asia Minor, created the Mithraic religion because of this new scientific revelation. The spring equinox at that time was coming out of Aries and moving into Pisces. Two thousand years later it is now moving out of Pieces into Aquarius, the so-called age of Aquarius. Ulansey theorizes that the Stoic philosophers in Tarsus, using the new scientific of the precession of the solar rotation, calculated backward more than two thousand years to an age of Taurus, and based the Mithraic religion on the end of the age of Taurus, supposedly envisioned as Perseus slaying Taurus. The new religion was then supposedly picked up by Clinician pirates and spread throughout the Roman Empire.
Ulansey’s analysis leaves a lot out and raises more questions than he answers. The first question that comes to mind is why the name Mithra instead of Perseus? He suggests that the name comes from the King of Tarsus who was named for Mithra, an Iranian God. He suggests that since the images of Perseus and Apollo were both often seen on Cilicean coinage in similar images, it was obvious to call God by the name of the King, Mithra. The reader may be left wondering where this leap of logic happened.
Also left out entirely is any explanation or theory about the involvement of the Iranian God Mithra, whose worship predates Roman Mithraism by at least several centuries, and for whom the succession of Kings of Tarsus was named. It seems unlikely that Mithraism doesn’t have roots in an earlier version, as evidenced by the previous succession of Kings of Tarsus. I was left wondering.
But the biggest thing left out of the book is the “Mithraic Mysteries” the subject promised by the title. Not addressed, described, or even mentioned is the secret religious rituals, celebrations or initiations of the mystery cult. It may be that nobody knows what they were, similar to the lost Eleusinian mysteries, but if they are unknown why are we promised an explanation of their origins in the title? On the whole I was disappointed, not because the author’s explanation was lacking, but because I read through to the end and the subject of the Mithraic Mysteries had not even been mentioned.
–end of The Old Philosopher’s review of Ulansey’s book–
Group: egodeath
Message: 5146
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Re: Self-control seizure in Mithraism via Cyb/Heim/LCog/Metaph
>>No heimarmene (does David Ulansey’s book cover that?)
should read:
>>No heimarmene (covered by David Ulansey’s book)
Group: egodeath
Message: 5147
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Metaphors: Toys for death of the youthful self-concept
Toys that you, as an adult child, as a “youth” during initiation, play with, when the Divine abducts you to Hades’ realm of those who no longer live:
o A spinning top. Like my sparkly blue dreidel, a top is a religious representation of transcending hiemarmene: it exhibits precession, the movement of unmovable, unchanging fate. The top represents the sphere of the fixed stars spinning around the earth. The fixed stars represent heimarmene/fatedness/presetness of our control-thoughts. Precession represents transcending unchangability, transcending heimarmene.
o A doll, puppet, or marionette.
The song “Twilight Zone” by Rush:
Look up to see a giant boy
You’ve just become his brand new toy
And no escape, no place to hide
Here where time and space collide
The song “Freewill” by Rush, from the album Permanent Waves:
A planet of playthings
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
That verse refers to the middle stage of psychospiritual transformation, in progressing from:
1. Naive freewill prior to initiations
2. Vertical, holistic, timeless, transcendent determinism
3. Trans-rational, extra-cosmic, radically transcendent freedom.
The song “Little Dolls” by Bob Daisley of The Ozzy Osbourne Band, from the album Diary of a Madman:
No where to run – your fate is in his hands
Your time has come – you’ll live to his command
I’m warning you – the worst is yet to come
The killer who – remains a mystery
You never imagined such a fate could follow you
(You never thought it was true)
And when it’s your time I wonder how you’ll do
Your kind of trouble’s running deeper than the sea
You broke the rules
You’ve been a fool
The little doll is you
That’s after the protagonist progressed from the naive youthful view “I’m free” to “Destiny planned out — Speculation of the wise”, or per Iron Maiden’s album Somewhere in Time:
Take my hand
I’ll take you to the other side
To see the truth
The path for you is decided
Group: egodeath
Message: 5148
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Religious myth: self-control seizure from Fate’s prior power
Religious myth explained as metaphor for self-control seizure in light of heimarmene (Fate’s power over your control-thoughts):
The following are equivalent:
o Recovering after self-control seizure and reconfiguring your mental worldmodel to take into account timeless preset fatedness of thought, or timeless holistic vertical causality.
o Being lifted into transcendent, trans-rational freedom (after starting with naive freewill thinking and then discovering heimarmene’s control over your thoughts).
o Transcending heimarmene.
o Being born from a rock.
o Trampling the celestial cross.
o Exiting the timeless block universe.
The following are equivalent:
o Perceiving heimarmene’s control over your thoughts
o Lion
o Gorgon
o face of death
o Medusa
The following are equivalent:
o Self-distrust, not trusting the near-future thoughts potentially given by the ground of being. Occurs a little in some initial loosecog exploration, then alot, then a little, as the mind is re-shaped and re-configured for stability, a dynamic skill of mental rebalancing, somewhat like learning to ride a bicycle.
o War/battle in heaven
o Wrestling with an angel all night
o Wrath, torment, enmity, unrest, conflict
Sacrificing your youthful false self-concept is a kind of migration of power; power (-attribution) magically shifts from yourself to the ground of being. This could explain cults of the dead: a way of harnessing or tapping into ego-death power.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5150
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: The Conservative/Progressive split in scholarship
There is likely to be a split for awhile between truth (or intellectual consistency and integrity) and the official view. The official view will hold on, but will be no longer actually predominant, a dichotomy like we see with cannabis policy: in the rulers’ official story, everyone is against cannabis, though in the grassroots view, everyone is for cannabis.
Writers about entheogens or ahistoricity of Jesus, Paul, and sacred writings shouldn’t be the slightest bit constrained or intimidated by the mainstream hidebound academic establishment. Read their books, write for all audiences, but don’t concede points, don’t compromise truth and boldness of thought. But to do this, progressive scholars must be in the right, in their understanding, having the best, most coherent, mature, and appealing ideas.
Ruck leads here, in some respects — his Mithras book proudly lists Allegro first in the bibliography, as a rebel flag, though I would write that Allegro errs in being too conservative, underestimating the prevalence of visionary plants throughout all Western religion including all mystery religions, an open secret. All culture of antiquity was saturated with psychoactives.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5149
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Entheogen books by Martin Ball
The Entheogenic Evolution: Psychedelics, Consciousness and Awakening the Human Spirit
Martin Ball
Dec. 2008 http://amazon.com/o/asin/0578002280
Martin Ball wonders why people don’t relax and trust their own mind more, in the dissociative state: (condensed)
“Like a space ship re-entering the atmosphere, I could feel the layers of my individual sense of self begin to reassert themselves, a collection of patterns and habits. But now I knew that there was something more profound, more complete, that everything is really just the One Being.
I’ve learned how to truly surrender into God and let go of anything that might prevent me from being absorbed fully and completely in that state. The key is surrender. Simple, really, but I’ve seen it be exceedingly difficult for some. Fear takes hold. One grasps onto the disintegrating ego. Fear of death becomes overwhelming. So many struggle and resist the call to fall back into the Divine Love of God. There is so much fear.
Many people are genuinely afraid of their own hearts, and the heart is the quickest path to God. The only thing that stands in the way of each individual fully experiencing God is one’s self. But that can be a huge obstacle, especially if one is afraid of the contents of his heart, for one cannot get to God without passing through the heart. The Heart of the Universe is One, and only one who has confronted the fear and the attachment in one’s own heart can truly dissolve into God.
For some, this fear, this attachment, this refusal to surrrender and let go makes the 5-MeO-DMT experirnec a hellish one — one that they would not willingly repeat. But that is the hell they make for themselves. God, as the source of all that is, is pure love. We are the ones who choose how we want to create our reality, and if we hold onto fear and judgment, then when confronted with the enormity that is God in the mystical rapture, we will get from it what we create. God has given us that ability and that power. How we choose to use it is entirely up to us.”
Entheologues: Conversations with Leading Psychedelic Thinkers, Explorers and Researchers
Martin Ball
July 2009 http://amazon.com/o/asin/0578030764
“Entheogens have played a direct role in the spiritual practices of countless cultures. Martin W. Ball, Ph.D., makes the case for the value and significance of direct spiritual experience through entheogen use and how they can alter our collective understanding of the nature of reality and our personal relationship with the divine. Includes:
o 2012
o U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding religious use of psychedelics
o The phenomenology of entheogenic shamanism and mysticism
o The history of sacred medicine use for spiritual practice
o Advice for working with 5-MeO-DMT
Ball takes his readers through a philosophical, spiritual, and personal journey into the heart of the sacred in search of a vision of hope and transformation.”
Being Human: An Entheological Guide to God, Evolution and the Fractal Energetic Nature of Reality
Martin Ball
Oct. 2009 http://amazon.com/o/asin/0615328032
Contents include:
The Incomplete Perspective of Science; The Fantasy-laded Perspectives of Religions; Resolution
Ego Formation in Children
Are Entheogens really the most effective tool for Awakening?
Things to be Aware of: Attachment to Story; The Dangers of Shamanism; Fear of Losing Control
Trust
Working Through Your Lessons
Taking Responsibility
Group: egodeath
Message: 5151
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Entheogen scholarship, books
Gnostic Visions: Uncovering the Greatest Secret of the Ancient World
Luke Myers
April 2011 http://amazon.com/o/asin/1462005462
Broad treatment of entheogens in Western esotericism/religion/initiations
I have read parts of this in a Kindle version on laptop and smartphone, but printed books work better for thoroughly reading good books like this.
The Mushroom in Christian Art: The Identity of Jesus in the Development of Christianity
John Rush
Forward by Martin Ball
Jan 2011 http://amazon.com/o/asin/1556439601
Assessment of visual indications of entheogens in Christian history. The images ought to be made available online in high resolution, because the images on disc are low-resolution/blurry and therefore disappointing and inadequate, given that the book is centered on these images. Entheos journal has clear, convincing images.
Recommended, for entheogen scholars.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5152
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Books: Ahistoricity of Jesus, Paul, Bible, & sacred writings
Jesus: Neither God Nor Man – The Case for a Mythical Jesus
Earl Doherty
Oct 2009 http://amazon.com/o/asin/0968925928
An expansion of his original book The Jesus Puzzle.
The Prolegomena of Jean Hardouin
Translated into English by Edwin Johnson in 1909.
New Edition in 2010 by Dr. Hermann Detering, Berlin. http://amazon.com/o/asin/3839183812
>>In his famous “Prolegomena” the Jesuit Jean Hardouin (1646-1729) developed the thesis that the greater part of Classical literature, along with most Christian patristic literature, had been fabricated by a crew of forgers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
False Witnesses: Putting Historical Testimonies of Jesus Christ to the Test
Hermann Detering
2011 http://www.radikalkritik.de/ http://www.alibri-buecher.de/product_info.php/info/p371_Hermann-Detering–Falsche-Zeugen.html
Author’s summary (my translation):
Did Jesus really live? According to most theologians and historians, the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth is clearly testified by not only Christian but also by non-Christian sources. These “witnesses” are primarily the ancient historian Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius and the Roman writer and governor of Bithynia, Pliny the Younger. Modern methods of investigation present the origins of Christianity in a new light. Is the Flavianum which discusses the “wise man” Jesus, actually from the pen of Josephus? Was there really a Neronian persecution of Christians? Does the “Chrestus” of Suetonius refer to Jesus? How authentic are the “Christians letters” of the younger Pliny? It turns out that the alleged “Jesus testimony” cannot serve as testimony to a historical Jesus of Nazareth, nor the existence of early Christianity in the first Century. These negative historical results raise the question of the importance of history for the Christian faith.
Contents:
o Christian interpolations in Josephus
o Tacitus: The burning of Rome and the “Neronian persecution”
o Pliny the Younger – Persecution of Christians in Bithynia
o Suetonius, Pliny the Younger: Christ in Rome – Suetonius and his biographies of Roman emperors
o Mara bar Serapion: the “wise king”
o Thallus: An indication of the passion story?
o The silence of non-Christian sources
In my first drafts of my main article, I used the following working titles:
(No title)
(Aug. 12, 1988)
A Reinterpretation of some Key Tenets of the Current Paradigm of Ego Transcendence
(Sep. 17, 1988)
A New Paradigm of Ego Transcendence
A New Theory of Ego Transcendence
9/26/88
On 10/16/88, I hand-wrote the following set of title ideas in my sketchbook, using a thin black Sanford brand uni-ball MICRO pen:
============
This is the full title of my work:
The Hoffman Relationship Analysis System and Conceptual System of Ego Transcendence, Transcendent Knowledge, and Transcendent Human Mental Construct Processing, Relating Mind, Man, Control, and Environment
Short title:
The Theory of Ego Transcendence
Paper:
Introduction to a New Conceptual System of Ego Transcendence
============
Introduction to a New Conceptual System of Ego Transcendence
(10/19/88 draft printout)
The Theory of Ego Transcendence
Used on the draft printout for my graduation photo, because that concise title looked elegant.
On 10/22/88, I hand-wrote in my sketchbook:
Introduction to a New Conceptual System of Humanity, Man, Mind, Ego, Control, Environment, and Transcendence
On 10/29/88, I hand-wrote in my sketchbook, possibly for the first time:
The Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence
I have always felt that this title is most accurately descriptive and distinctive, while still being elegant, and it puts the public emphasis the same as in my mind. At the forefront in my thinking is self-control cybernetics and mental model transformation away from the egoic mental model, rather than entheogens. And ego death is merely a transient climactic experience, while ego transcendence (rightly understood) is lasting.
Consistently with that, recently I decided that the most important of my 4 broadly defined areas of emphasis is (human self-control) Cybernetics, followed by Heimarmene, Loose Cog, then lastly, Metaphor.
The title of my main article ended up being:
The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death http://egodeath.com/EntheogenTheoryOfReligion.htm
I designed that title, and the article, for publication in Salvia Divinorum magazine, Issue 4.
In my idea development files or notes, I refer to my theory as TK (Transcendent Knowledge) or CTET (Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence).
Group: egodeath
Message: 5154
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Books I read before forming the core Theory
I was only a beginner at critical reading of spiritual self-help enlightenment books. I have a couple bookshelf photos that show my small book collection prior to August 1988. Neither did I spend time in library research or bookstores, until I began library research around Jan. 1988 for the first time. By the time I wrote the first draft of my article in August 1988, I had read, semi-critically:
1985: Ken Keyes’ book How to Enjoy Your Life in Spite of It All. Simple metaprogramming, taking responsibility for running your mind, an idea which was fodder for Extropian, Faustian great (yet reasonable) expectations of securing direct, non-malfunctioning self-control of one’s self-control.
1986?: Some modules in Marvin Minsky’s book The Society of Mind, an AI book that denies free will.
1986: Chogyam Trungpa’s Tibetan Buddhism books _Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism_ (1973), and _The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation_ (1976), both published by Shambhala. I don’t think these impressed me much, though I probably picked up some general predominant ideas about meditation and spiritual enlightenment. I would have to re-read these to determine how much they influenced my objectives in 1986 — and my writing and thinking style prior to the sea change around April 1987, where I switched to more of a contemporary late-20th Century, direct, non-poetic, Cognitive Science style.
1986-7: Alan Watts’ book The Way of Zen.
1986-8: Some of Ken Wilber’s first 4 books (The Spectrum of Consciousness, No Boundary, The Atman Project, A Sociable God).
________
1988 (after the “Tao-block” breakthrough of 1/11/88): Douglas Hofstadter’s book Godel, Escher, Bach (strange loop of self). I discussed some ideas from the book with my music grad student roommate in Fall 1987, but I didn’t get and read the book until early 1988. In the mid-1990s I extracted and uploaded the detailed table of contents, so that people could for the first time see what the book covers — the author didn’t convey that effectively, as he wrote later in his book I Am a Strange Loop. http://egodeath.com/geb.htm http://egodeath.com/geb.doc
Group: egodeath
Message: 5155
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Cog Sci, Phil of Mind, Cog Psych, Phenomenology, Neurosci
Cognitive Science, Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Psychology, Phenomenology, Neuroscience
Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain
Antonio Damasio http://amazon.com/o/asin/0307378756
Lacks much that could be interesting, such as multistate science per Tart.
The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self
Thomas Metzinger
2009 http://amazon.com/o/asin/0465045677
Metzinger is triumphal but unsophisticated in this popular-audience book: he silently presuppposes and proffers a particular definition of ‘self’ as if it’s the only one, and then criticizes ‘self’, taken that way as if the only possible way, as illusory and nonexistent. His earlier long book might be more nuanced. A half-baked analysis style. He argues from physiological evidence – a reductionist, materialist argumentation style that’s lacking.
Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity
Thomas Metzinger
2003 http://amazon.com/o/asin/0262633086
His earlier, detailed academic book.
Daniel Wegner’s work/website/books/limitations. akrasia (dysfunctions of the will), illusion of will, cog psych, Ego Tunnel http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/ http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/seed.htm — The Seed of Our Undoing, about trying to not think of something ironically causes that thought, like getting caught in a net. I suggest trying to avoid thinking of near-future loss of effective self-control.
Bernard Baars
Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness: Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience (2nd Ed.)
Bernard Baars, Nicole Gage http://amazon.com/o/asin/0123750709
Search inside for ‘psychoactive’, see page 295: This big textbook on Cognitive Science has a weak page on psychoactive drugs. One minute the writing is enlightened (“cannabis”), the next, not (“marijuana”). Just as Wasson was critical when critiquing Eliad, and an unthinking dullard when critiquing Allegro, the brilliant cognitive science neuroscientists become mediocre thinkers and writers when the topic of entheogens comes up — even though many people in the discipline are highly interested in loosecog.
“psychoactive plants, long fasting… Many of these practices are no better understood today than they were centuries ago … that humans can and should change their states of consciousness and their sense of self.” The page is not worthy of a science textbook, and barely touches on the subject of visionary psychoactives. Is this the best we can do, Cognitive Scientists? Is that all you’ve got, in this 672 page book?
Group: egodeath
Message: 5156
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Gateway, intruder, stability, trust, and ejection from Heaven
The altered-state ideas of gateway, intruder, and trust: Why the control-vortex self-control seizure must be dealt with and serves as a gateway. Because as long as you don’t encounter it and deal with it and learn to develop trust, and learn to worry about trust and then develop trust, until you’ve done that, you remain vulnerable. The theme of being vulnerable, and fear of being vulnerable, and project of trying to close off that vulnerability, the Achilles’ heel: we are vulnerable to losing control, vulerable to some hidden thing, invincible, invulnerable, Mithras is invincible. We as ego agents are vulnerable rather than invincible.
Until you learn, there’s a gateway function, and you’re an intruder into heaven, and Satan has gone into heaven and tresspassed. Until you deal with the problem of trust, when you enter heaven and you claim to be invulnerable and secure, you’re liable to be flung out. You’re in sin, you’re dirty, you’re tresspassing, you’re in rebellion, you don’t belong there, you’re not a native, you’re an intruder, you’re unstable, your’re vulnerable. Until you raise the question of your security and your vulnerability, and come to the conclusion of having to trust and honor and give obeisance, Fides, faith… without dealing with this vortex and this gate, you’re entering into the dangerous, sacred realm, the Holy of Holies, in an unfaithful way; you don’t realize it, but you lack integrity — lacking mental integrity, unreflectively harboring dumb, animalistic, self-contradictory assumptions about your own control agency.
You haven’t yet put your faith and trust to the test. Only after you have put your faith and trust to the test and resolved your lack of mental control-integrity, are you stable, viable, and secure. Until then, you are entering into this altered state of loosecog, carrying with you an unstable mental operating system– you might do ok for awhile, but almost everyone certainly experiences the problem of trust, stability, and vulnerability. This is why you don’t have religion proper in most pop spirituality and non-initiation religion — what you have is immature, unstable religion, which is why stability is such a big theme in gnosticism.
Stability, the gateway, the doorway, “I am the door”. You can sneak in to heaven, into the loosecog state, without reshaping your mental model regarding personal control. Not only you can, but that’s inevitably how it works. For every initiate, they take the entheogen, and enter into the loosecog state, metaphorized as ‘the divine realm’, and then once they’re in it, then they discover something is amiss, and eventually when the truth comes out that we are vulnerable and that we are not in control of the source of our thoughts, then Lucifer falls out from out of heaven (must fall out), is ejected, and this always happens in every initiate.
Lucifer enters into Heaven, so to speak, and is ejected afterwards, after some time, multiple times, during the series of initiations. A good way to model this specifically is that Lucifer is a little bit ejected the first few times, and then the peak of his being ejected, and then afterwards, following up and fine-tuning the remnants of that egoic thinking are then ejected again a little bit in the subsequent initiations after the peak-most initiation.
Similarly, during our ‘youth’ prior to the series of initations, we are *all* possessed by a demon that must be cast out — or some 7 demons, per astral ascent mysticism. Hierophant is equivalent to exorcist. You get initiated in order to exorcise your youthful demon, your false self-conception as an agent that commands the power of freewill autonomy over his own control-thoughts across time.
This is not then just a discussion of metaphor. The substance here is the question:
Is grappling with the control vortex the main part of religion?
What is the role of this self-control seizure, this grappling about trust and vulnerability?
What is the role of this dynamic?
Is this what religion is all about, is this the real essence of religion, is this the only thing about religion that’s acually the proper subject of religion?
Does religion boil down to only this dynamic?
There’s some truth to that.
But in any case, this dynamic certainly does serve as a gateway or doorway function and a doorway dynamic. So many metaphors tie into this, like cleansing of sin, stopping rebelion again the Lord, Satan falling from heaven, stability/instability, Mithraism, descent to hell or being in hell of separation. Hell is not simply ordinary-state life separated from God, as opposed to say professing belief in some version of God, as one of the versions proferred in the ordinary-state churches and theologies. Rather, the idea of separation from God being Hell, the Hell part of it really applies…
The best model of the hellish existence is that which is going through grasping and churning and struggling (thrashing) regarding personal control, sort of a frustrating exasperating and ongoing long-term controlaholism, mixed in with a series of altered state paranoias or freakouts or hellish, but awesome, fearsome, terrifying, and yet exhilarating, and exciting and *ecstatic* experiences of wrath, of what it’s like to intuit this hidden uncontrollable controller that’s at the source of our thoughts, to intuit that while still fighting and battling against it and taking an egoic position against it.
Hellishness is that mixture, those two alternaating and mixed together: a life of struggling for control and to get more control, and to close off the vulnerability, both in the ordinary state and in the series of initiations. That’s the fullest and truest sense of “alienation from God being Hell”, or “Hell being a state of alienation from God”.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5157
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Re: Gateway, intruder, stability, trust, and ejection from Heaven
(transcription of voice recording while driving, 9/23/11)
Group: egodeath
Message: 5159
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Re: Gateway, intruder, stability, trust, and ejection from Heaven
Here’s a colorful depiction of Hell as a mass-production operation to roast-away egos. Everyone must spend some ample enjoyable time in Hell getting their egoic mental model of autonomous self-control power roasted away by the friendly angels.
This art shows two angels on the left in blue with long poles, and the rest is firey orange. It seems like everyone there is spiritual philosophers. I’m in there somewhere, and the artist is in there too.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5160
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Re: Cog Sci, Phil of Mind, Cog Psych, Phenomenology, Neurosci
Contemporary book about Phenomenology as an approach to Philosophy of Mind & Cognitive Science:
The Phenomenological Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science
Shaun Gallagher, Dan Zahavi
2007 http://amazon.com/o/asin/0415391229
Blurbs and publisher’s description, condensed:
Introduction to:
o Phenomenological Philosophy of Mind
o Phenomenology
o Cognitive Science
o Philosophy of Mind
What phenomenology has to say about cognition and consciousness and how it relates to the scientific study of cognition.
A fresh new approach, this clear and accessible book shows the relevance of phenomenology to contemporary investigations of the mind and brain. For those in the cognitive sciences, to understand Phenomenology and its relevance to their research.
The first book to properly introduce fundamental questions about the mind from the perspective of phenomenology.
Covers:
o What is phenomenology?
o Naturalizing phenomenology and the empirical cognitive sciences
o Phenomenology and consciousness
o Consciousness and self-consciousness, including perception and action
o Time and consciousness, including William James
o Intentionality
o The embodied mind
o Action
o Knowledge of other minds
o Situated and extended minds
o Phenomenology and personal identity
o Phantom limb syndrome, blindsight and self-disorders in schizophrenia
Group: egodeath
Message: 5161
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Re: Bob Daisley wrote the lyrics for Ozzy album Diary of a Madman
The album deserves a fuller analysis, including artwork, all lyric lines, and the audio.
For example:
Artwork: Ozzy is shown 4 times, in 3 phases. Twice on the front cover, twice on the back cover.
Front cover:
1. Happy illicit child, representing the first few loosecog sessions.
2. Young adult having reached the first gate: enthusiastically, ecstatically breaking the chains of egoic cross-time self-control, a half-enlightened madman, having broken and initially transcended his ego-constraints. The cross on the wall is upside-down, representing the continued presence of the presumption of wielding autonomous control-power.
Back cover:
3. The unchained madman is dead, slumped on the study desk.
4. The perfected initiate in white is on the cross, which now appears upright, indicating repudiating the assumption of wielding autonomous control-power. The false claimant to kingship is fastened to, embedded in, the spacetime block. Compare the slumped king puppet with strings into the heavens, on the cover of the Rush album A Farewell to Kings. Also the puppet strings from hidden God to tombstones on the Metallica album Master of Puppets, relating God, death, control levels, and illusion of control.
Lyrics:
The early claim of “no astrology (fatedness), I’m free” gives way to the later claim “Destiny planned out – speculation of the wise”.
Audio:
People think I’m crazy but I’m in demand [double-pronounced as “I’m ending man”?]
Never heard a thing I said (dead, dead, dead)
Group: egodeath
Message: 5162
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Re: Bob Daisley wrote the lyrics for Ozzy album Diary of a Madman
The sleeve art appears to be unavailable on the Web. That’s terrible. The original vinyl album includes 4 square feet of authentic enlightened occult literary and graphic art. The sleeve art needs to be somehow photographed and uploaded in high resolution. The vinyl has been rereleased but without the sleeve art, shamefully. This album was killed and suppressed: shrunk to CD size, then the cover art shrunk smaller than the CD, the sleeve art removed, the bass and drums recorded-over. The entire 12″ vinyl including sleeve art needs to be restored to its original towering glory.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5163
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Re: Bob Daisley wrote the lyrics for Ozzy album Diary of a Madman
I found 1 partial, blurry, angled photo of the sleeve lyrics on the Web, from the recent $140 box set which includes the original restored recordings on vinyl and CD. This does appear to be pretty accurately close to the original packaging.
Bob Daisley’s case to get credit for writing the Diary of a Madman and Blizzard of Ozz lyrics went to the Supreme Court. (This needs fact-checking for precision.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_of_Ozz — “Ozzy states in his new autobiography that he felt sorry for removing Daisley’s and Kerslake’s tracks from the album … he had nothing to do either with the removing or the re-recording process.”
http://egodeath.com/MysticStateAllusionsOzzyDaisley.htm — Daisley said “I wrote all the lyrics on Blizzard Of Ozz, Diary Of A Madman, Bark at the Moon, The Ultimate Sin and No Rest for the Wicked. … one review that said that we were the thinking man’s heavy metal. I was really proud of that. Whether people knew it or not, I knew that I had written the lyrics.”
These links (slide numbers) are somewhat unstable. The sleeve art is around slide 19-21.
Sleeve showing lyrics
Photo of album sleeve of Diary of a Madman from Box Set — Lyrics, 4 columns, picture angled, cut off: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/egodeath/photos/album/516071947/pic/62944178/view?picmode=&mode=tn&order=ordinal&start=1&count=20&dir=asc http://www.guitarworld.com/video-ozzy-osbourne-checks-out-new-blizzard-ozzdiary-madman-box-set#slide-20
Click + to zoom.
Right-click, Save Image As. Open locally in an image viewer.
Actually shows DoaM lyrics, as “Slide 21”. In the 2nd column of lyrics, the 2nd line from the bottom, you can see “DESTINY PLANNED OUT”, and the bottom line is “SPECULATION OF THE WISE”.
Above the lyrics on the sleeve is the word Sunday in Theban script, and the word dhudsday (?) (my translation). I would like to know if the astrological symbols above the lyrics form a particular date and what happened with Bob Daisley on those two dates. I read these lyrics on this 12″ sleeve often, 1981, to 1988, to present, and this album appears in various of my room photos around 1987.
You read these “Ozzy” lyrics or hear Ozzy sing them, but “I” basically means the writer of the lyrics, Bob Daisley.
“Mr. Crowley, I wanna know what you meant.” — Bob Daisley
I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the following lyrics or what’s actually sung or possibly double-enunciated here. From the sleeve, verbatim. Bob Daisley wrote:
[Big M] Mr. Crowley, what went on in your head
Mr. Crowley, did you talk with the dead
Your life style to me seemed so tragic
With the thrill of it all
You fooled all the people with magic
You waited on Satan’s call
Mr. Charming, did you think you were pure
Mr. Alarming, in nocturnal rapport
Uncovering things that were sacred manifest on this earth
Conceived in the eye of a secret
And they scattered the afterbirth
SOLO
Mr. Crowley, won’t you ride my white horse
Mr. Crowley, it’s symbolic of course
Approaching a time that is classic
I hear maidens call
Approaching a time that is drastic
Standing with their backs to the wall
EPILOGUE:
Was it polemically sent
I wanna know what you meant
I wanna know
I wanna know what you meant
— Lyrics written by Bob Daisley
Group: egodeath
Message: 5164
From: egodeath
Date: 24/09/2011
Subject: Re: Bob Daisley wrote the lyrics for Ozzy album Diary of a Madman
The photos are clearer at the Guitar World website; recommended.
Group: egodeath
Message: 5165
From: egodeath
Date: 25/09/2011
Subject: Re: Bob Daisley wrote the lyrics for Ozzy album Diary of a Madman
Album artwork interview that appeared in the German ROCKS magazine in October 2009:
ROCKS: How do you remember coming up with the idea for the “Diary Of A Madman” record sleeve the spooky setting, the details, Ozzy’s dressing, the kid in the background et cetera?
I was first asked if I’d be interested in working on the project by legendary photographer Fin Costello, who’d previously worked for Deep Purple, Rush, and KISS. We’d met in Motorhead’s management office, went for a drink and the rest is history. Fin had already had a meeting with Jet Records (Ozzy’s label) about doing the cover and was now looking for ideas to turn his phenomenal photographic skills towards.
When we first discussed it several ideas were mentioned, but we both agreed that there had to be an element of Hammer Horror humour and the occult about it, hence the upside down cross and the poster with the strange magic alphabet on the wall. I designed the poster and it uses the Theban Alphabet, which I’d seen in a magazine I used to buy as a teenager called `Man, Myth, and Magic’. It actually says `OZZY OSBOURNE THE BAND’. The rest are just scribbles.
My original idea for the cover was to have Ozzy very much in the foreground, in fact more of a head and shoulders shot, with him laughing madly in front of his diary, which was to be one of those big, old leather bound books, with the head of a dove lying on it. The background for the shot was to be a semi-derelict castle interior, with the heavy oak door broken from its hinges, where Ozzy had knocked it down when entering the room and through the door there was a dark landscape with a full moon visible in the sky. But Fin had other ideas, although the full moon appeared on a later sleeve.
ROCKS: Who is the kid in the background actually? Was it a legal problem to show a kid on record sleeve back then?
The young boy in the background was Ozzy’s six year old son [Louis] John [b. 1975], from his first marriage to Thelma. Thelma also designed and made the costumes worn on the cover. There was absolutely no thought at all that putting a young boy on the cover would be a problem. Nowadays I guess it’s a whole different ballgame. But in this case it was part of the concept that Fin had come up with for the album.
On the front Ozzy is represented as a clothes torn, blood splattered, crazy eyed, leering madman. John is supposed to represent a young Ozzy reading the diary of what he’d become, with a dead bird lying on the table, a possible gift from the cat arching its back in the window. On the back John is replaced by the Ozzy from the front, a burnt out shell, draped across the table, like the bird, whilst in the background the new Ozzy emerges, clean of blood, his arms raised in as if in a crucifixion pose, dressed in a fresh and more bold costume. The upside down cross almost looks like it’s stuck into his skull.
What it all means I have no f*cking idea!!! But it still brings a smile to my face, but what brings a bigger smile is that after the photo shoot was finished, someone thought it would be funny to ask young John what Daddy did with dead birds, referring to the stuffed one that had been lying on the table. Without any hesitation John picked up the bird and bit its head off! That cost us £200!!
ROCKS: How detailed was the “mental” image of the final artwork you had in mind and did you have to make compromises finalising the artwork?
I had a very definite idea of what I wanted to see on the cover, but I’d never worked with a photographer of Fin’s calibre and never with a decent budget to spend on props and scenery. I guess I didn’t really have the confidence to push for what I wanted and so I certainly had to make compromises, but I’m glad that I did.
ROCKS: Please tell us about the runes and letters on the inner sleeve. There used to be a lot of talk about “satanic” messages. How long did it take to draw that stuff and IS there ANY meaning?
Aggggghhh! The HIDDEN SATANIC MESSAGES!!! Well I’ve already told you that I used the Theban Magic Alphabet on the poster, but I also used it on the black and white inner sleeve. Above the picture of the band, it reads, THE OZZY OSBOURNE BAND and on the other side of the sleeve, which, was supposed to represent two pages from the madman’s diary, the word on the left says FRIDAY and the word on the right SATURDAY.
The illustrations were my interpretation of some astronomical geographic illustrations that I’d found in a 1934 “Philips’ Universal Atlas”. Every home should have one.
I also hand lettered the lyrics, but as this was a time before computer technology I had to do them larger than they appeared on the sleeve and then have them reduced to drop into the space I’d left for them. However when the reduced lyrics were delivered to my flat I realised that I’d f*cked up. They were actually smaller than the space that I’d wanted them to fill. To make matters worse the phone rings and it’s Jet Records telling me that a cab was being sent to pick up the artwork. I realised that I had about forty minutes before it would get to my flat and I literally picked up a pen and started scribbling.
There are NO hidden satanic messages. The only message in there is `PAM 4 Mr.S’. Pam was my girlfriend at the time, and Mr.S was my nickname. However that wasn’t how the media saw it, especially in America where the indecipherable scrawls were picked up on, and according to them was the very hand of Satan himself. F*cking hilarious.
ROCKS: Was it difficult to convince Ozzy/Sharon/the label of your ideas? Did/do they like it?
No, once the idea had been put forward things moved very quickly. Did they like it? I hope so, it certainly brought them enough publicity that not even money could buy.
ROCKS: Have you been familiar with the music of the Ozzy back then? Did you know the material of the record when you started working on the sleeve?
I was very familiar with Ozzy’s work, especially his Black Sabbath output. I’d first seen Black Sabbath in concert at Malvern Winter Gardens on the 30th May, 1970 and they’d been a very important part of my wanting to work in the rock `n’ roll industry. I’d heard Ozzy’s `Blizzard Of Ozz’ and was suitably impressed as the stories circulating about him at the time were that he was completely out of control, was an alcoholic, drug addict and probably didn’t have long to live.
When I started work on `Diary…’ I was given an advance cassette copy to listen too. I’ve still got it, and that’s what I did whilst creating the artwork, and very inspiring it was too. On first listen I knew that I was privileged to be part of something that was going to be HUGE!!
ROCKS: How long did you actually work on the realization of the concept?
To be honest it was so long ago that I really don’t know, but I would imagine that from my first meeting with Fin Costello to actually sending finished artwork to the printers would have taken four to six weeks.
ROCKS: Was it easier to come up with this concept or with the ones for the following Ozzy records?
To be honest all the work that I did for Ozzy was relatively easy, but with `Speak Of The Devil’ a decision had been made that we would carry on using my supposed Satanic handwriting, but this time we’d actually put some real messages in there using Runes. However I did put one message into the Satanic scribbles that read `NO HIDDEN MESSAGES’, and as for `Bark At The Moon’, well that was a very easy one for me to work on as all I had to do was design the logo and lettering for the front cover and then do a layout for the back cover and inner sleeve.
ROCKS: What are your thoughts regarding this artwork today?
`Diary Of A Madman’ was my first BIG break as far as album covers were concerned; I’d done one for Hawkwind, `Live ’79’, and a few covers for small independent labels, but this was the first one where I knew that it was going to be seen by a far larger audience. I’m still very proud that I was part of that project, and I’m still proud of the cover. I also find it amazing that 28 years later people still ask me questions about it and tell me how much they still love it.
Subject: Re: Books on snake and tree and block universe
Group: egodeath
Message: 6558
From: egodeath
Date: 31/12/2014
Subject: Re: List of my claims to priority of discovery
An alternative, broader title of this thread:
Contributions that the ego death theory makes across fields
No studies of myth before the Egodeath theory pay any attention to the mytheme of ‘rock’, which I discovered is a key mytheme, meaning block universe Eternalism. The list of key myth themes is short like 10 items the key myth themes are:
king (ruler, kubernetes, steersman)
snake (serpent)
monster
rock
wine (sacred food or drink)
Puppet or doll should be a key myth theme (child Dionysus’ toy). Read the history of marionettes in religion. Functionally, puppet is one of the 10 key myth themes. Slave (servant) is related, also prisoner and chains and imprisonment and fastening to the physical such as chained to a rock or nailed to a tree maybe with no branches
I use world mythology; religious mythic metaphor in all eras, all regions. My main focus is Christianity and its broad context in ancient near East and Mediterranean antiquity including Greco-Roman myth.
Christianity is the most important religion and the most important religion to elevate, repair, correct, and complete.
Lift up the average level of Christianity.
A minority have high Christianity, which is true enlightenment; transcendent, proper religion.
The majority, most Christianity, is degenerate, downshifted, ego-level religion.
There is some distribution in Islam of how low or high of a type of religion.
Currently, under the conditions of delusion-preserving Prohibition of visionary plants and chemicals:
Most Islam is low, degenerate, false, degraded, literalist religion, on the ego level.
A small amount of Islam is high, elevated, true transcendent religion.
The task is to raise the average level or reverse the ratio of low religion and high religion so that:
For children we have some kind of temporary low ego religion /Islam.
For adolescents and adults we have fully developed high transcendent religion/ Islam.
Following ancient Greeks, we consider ego delusion of free will to be precious children that we love and then sacrifice upon adolescence.
We do away with childish things and sacrifice them to God in order to be in alignment with truth and intellectual integrity and coherence.
Abraham sacrifices his child but turns to look up and look behind him to perceive a powerful ram caught powerlessly, helplessly in a branching bush, and he sacrifices that.
It is not necessary or effective in giving right credit to God as the controller if we go out of control in some harmful way.
The effective sacrifice enabling life to continue to “choose life”, to be able to continue practical living in order to give credit to the higher uncontrollable controller, we sacrifice our claim to autonomous steering power, by mentally renouncing our assumption of free will power and possibility branching, by mentally affirming an idea about non-control, rather than by demonstrating loss of control in a way that is physically harmful and prevents practical life from continuing.
Let us not limit enlightenment to the people in the insane asylum; we must have a way to realize non-control in an orderly way that preserves health and prosperity and long life.
Religion is a way of doing this.
The childish claim of autonomous personal control power in a branching possibility tree is a delicate illusion butterfly to preserve and protect and shield.
Mothers shield the eyes of their children to protect the children from seeing the naked bicyclists lest the children be harmed by seeing them.
Protect the uninitiated from perceiving the mysteries revealed; protect them from seeing the heimarmene snake, lest everyone have premature ego death and we lose the precious illusion of free will from the world.
One of the most important, powerful and potent of my threads is the dictionary or inventory of groups of myth themes; this format is maximally condensed and efficient.
That thread includes key myth themes and lesser myth themes.
Siri voice dictation does not currently recognize the word ‘mytheme’, so this technology limitation influences me to prefer a synonym, such as ‘myth theme’.
A Kenneth Humphreys YouTube video points out: there is a prototype of the raising Lazarus story at the end of one gospel, versus the developed story: Jesus says “If you do not comprehend the old testament metaphor of sacrifice, then you will not Believe (that is, comprehend enlightenment and religious mythic metaphor) even if I were to do a miracle of raising a man from the dead”, which Jesus then proceeds to do in the elaborated version in the other gospel, of John.
That pattern applies to the raising of Jesus; if you do not understand the metaphor of death and new transformed life after that virtual-ego control-agent steersman death, then you will not believe even if a man were raised from the dead before your eyes.
The one who tells you this, I have seen these things with my own eyes and witnessed it; I tell you what I saw and I told you the truth, so that you may Believe:
When Caesar’s Roman imperial soldier put the spear into Jesus’ side on the cross, immediately water and blood flowed, indicating that he was alive when removed from the cross, and that therefore Jesus’ raising from among the dead is metaphor — describing what we experience in the mystic altered state after drinking the mushroom wine which Jesus gave to his pre-ordained elect who were destined to receive and drink his mushroom wine and chew his mushroom flesh — and not literal.
This is fairly well known, as the swoon theory, but people do not comprehend it in its fullness because they do not have the complete ego death theory.
Note the pattern here, that idea X is fairly well-known.
The swoon theory from the blood and water flowing immediately from Jesus side is fairly well known.
Iron block universe determinism with no free will is fairly well known.
Reformed theology and extreme hyper-Calvinism is fairly well known.
The ahistoricity of Jesus is fairly well known.
That the new testament is metaphor is fairly well known.
Ttat religion comes from visionary plants is fairly well known.
That the mystic altered state reveals non-duality is fairly well known.
What is not well-known is how and that these minority understandings are profoundly interconnected, when modified and combined correctly, produces an explosion of revising the mental world model of time and control.
To Believe is to understand the veiled transcendent meaning that is hidden from those who do not perceive the meaning and do not understand what is being described.
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary ego death theorist, December 31, 2014
Believer:
I’m a believer
I ain’t no deceiver
destiny planned out
speculation of the wise
Group: egodeath
Message: 6559
From: egodeath
Date: 31/12/2014
Subject: Re: List of my claims to priority of discovery
I should probably use this thread for rough unedited uncorrected voice transcription.
Most of my posts in threads will be cleaned up posts.
I should probably use a general all topic thread which I have done here in the past, containing cleaned up writing on any topic.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6561
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: General thread
This thread, like one a couple years ago that I should link to, contains cleaned-up writing or voice dictation on any on-topic topic.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6562
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: Asymmetry of Reformed theology
What’s going on today in Christian thinking:
Critique of PSA (penal substitutionary atonement) as “the gospel”. PSA was created by Anselm around 1000 and is barely present in the New Testament. The ‘gospel’ of Caesar or the gospel of Jesus is not PSA.
Similarly, ECT (eternal conscious torment) a.k.a. Hell is barely present in the Bible.
PSA is un-Biblical, especially as a matter of proportionate emphasis.
ECT or Hell is un-Biblical, especially as a matter of proportionate emphasis.
Pop religion says the purpose of religion is to avoid punishment-Hell and go to reward-Heaven after bodily death — a view applicable to egoic thinking for free-will agents steering through a possibility branching future, but not applicable to no-free-will puppets frozen into the preset block universe.
— Michael Hoffman, the ego death theorist
Group: egodeath
Message: 6563
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Describing what my intellectual work is about
Suppose I want to explain to my fathers and mothers what kind of intellectual work or theory development I do.
What field of intellectual work or scholarship am I in?
What kind of theory is my ego death theory?
What am I working on?
What am I interested in?
Someone wants to link to my site. How should they describe the work at the site? What kind of work does Michael Hoffman do that you will find at his ego death site?
The challenge is to describe this work in repeatable terms that one person in an elevator can repeat to another person in an elevator. Therefore any unusual complicated phrases cannot work.
What is the most generic description of the kind of theory this is?
A physics professor asked me the other day:
What is my area of interest such that I need to research the history of the idea of block universe determinism?
I always invent a new answer on the spot that differs each time.
I developed a theory of:
religion
religious experiencing
the mystic altered state
drugs in religious origins
the use of drugs throughout religious history
myth as metaphor describing religious experiencing
the history of the idea of no free will
interpretation of the mystery religions
the limits of personal control power across time
self-control integrity across time
how Christianity originated without the need for any single historical Jesus or historical Paul.
Ego death
— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of stuff. Including ego death, religion, mysticism, myth, drugs in religion, myth as description of visionary plants revealing no free will
Group: egodeath
Message: 6564
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: Describing what my intellectual work is about
In terms of university departments and broad bookstore topic categories, file my research under Religion, Psychology, Philosophy, or Cognitive Science.
In January 1988, my core theory breakthrough was to conceptualize ego transcendence as a matter of self-control cybernetics in light of block universe determinism rather than as a matter of non-duality.
In 1988, I decided to leave the prestigious STEM major. I considered majoring in Religion, Philosophy, Psychology, and Computer Science. Finally in 1989, as the field and approach I felt most aligned with, I discovered the tiny specialized area of Cognitive Science.
Cognitive Science seems to have gone nowhere, while neuro-whatever, Neuroscience, Neuro-anything has run off with the prestige and marketability.
I realized that the field of Religion, Philosophy, and Psychology were hopeless (rats in mazes) and would not assist me any more than remaining in the STEM major.
The STEM major enabled me to discover and formulate the breakthrough theory; it was proven to be a viable and successful major to produce the discovery.
— Michael Hoffman, theorist of religion, philosophy, and psychology
Group: egodeath
Message: 6565
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: Condemning vs. elevating & comprehending religion
The ego death theory uses as building blocks fields including ahistoricity, no free will, reformed theology, and visionary plants in religious origins (such as the work of Carl Ruck).
The ego death theory modifies and contributes to and improves each of these fields in order to successfully fit them together into something better than the sum of them.
The ego death theory does not use much as a building block to build on: non-duality or Astrotheology.
My theory profoundly contributes to Astrotheology (by explaining {hiemarmene and transcending it} in Ptolemaic astral ascent mysticism), and fills in ideas around (surrounding) non-duality.
I read the book The Christ Conspiracy which (as a broad-ranging book) contributes to the Egodeath theory, but I would not say Astrotheology is a major building block on which the Egodeath theory is built.
The entheogen-history work of Clark Heinrich and Carl Ruck and Mark Hoffman is a building block that I improve and incorporate, upon which to build my Egodeath theory.
The ahistoricity work of Freke, Doherty, Price, and Acharya S is a building block that I improve and incorporate, upon which to build my Egodeath theory.
The Egodeath theory doesn’t use non-duality as a building block, but is more of an alternative, a competitor to the non-duality hypothesis of what religious enlightenment, mystic realization, is mainly and principally about.
— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath
Message: 6566
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
What was striking that I realized November 29, 2013 about {tree versus snake} upon comparing:
Lucas Cranach’s painting “Eve tempted by the serpent” (black & white, right half only)
to
the kylix painting by Douris depicting: limp king Jason, snake (dragon Ladon), limp sacrificed ram (golden fleece), tree (ivy strands, no golden apples shown), Athena, owl, gorgon (death head) on breastplate (aegis), snake tassels, snake fringes
after re-researching block universe determinism, Possibilism, & Eternalism
and reading about heroic dose mushrooms
after researching the hypothesis that ‘monster’ fundamentally is snake (such as dragon or Hydra or Typhon the father of all monsters, dragon Ismenios hidden in spring/pool/fountain in cave demanding sacrifice of children but killed by a rock); that is, perceiving and comprehending the eternal world model.
Why did the realizations and confirmations and discoveries therein cause me days of weeping and two weeks of “OMFG, OMFG!!”?
This early modern painter around 1530 understood that tree versus snake means possibility world model versus eternal world model.
The Old Testament, the beginning of the Bible, the foundational story of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, expresses what must be an exceedingly ancient most fundamental and simple condensed elementary principle, tree versus snake understanding as the possibility world model versus the eternal world model.
The tree in the garden of Hesperides is isomorphic with the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Bible, including tree, snake, apples, & death.
Ancient Near East religion with sacred groves routinely comprehended tree versus snake as possibility versus eternal world models.
Sacred groves must have had snakes in the trees.
Confirmed my hypothesis of probably December 2012 that Artemis’ and Actaeon stag was significant because of the branching of its antlers.
Confirmed my hypothesis that the ancients and early modern reformed thinkers understood Einstein’s and James’ iron block universe determinism.
Placed the stag with branching antlers from Greek myth into the context of Christian Jewish Bible myth.
My well established deciphering of the snake as world line in block universe determinism since sustained research since around 2003 was not a separate myth theme thread than my 2011/2012 hypothesis working theory that branching myth themes express choice steering and how it is preset in the eternal world model.
It brought together the previous separate themes of snake and branching elegantly together in a combination pair that I was not looking for.
I did not expect any kind of immediate adjacent contrast between a non-branching myth theme such as ribbon or ivy and branching myth theme such as hydra or crossroads or stag with branching antlers, but instead placed the non-branching myth theme the snake immediately in contrast against the branching myth theme of tree and also stag all together at once.
And not only in Greek myth but in the separate seemingly unrelated puzzle I had been also working on deciphering for years: the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
My established principle or recognition that snake means eternal world model and my hypothesis of branching myth themes, and my work on interpretation of tree of knowledge of good and evil, which were two or three separate research threads, suddenly were placed in direct contrast, not merely accumulation.
Simultaneously perceived in Greek myth image of Jason and in Bible fundamental starting image of tree of knowledge of good and evil.
“OMFG, OMFG!!” was spread out over time partly because it took time to further confirm and expand these combinations of realizations which kept coming like a jackpot that takes a long time to pour out.
The fallout from this day or week continued through to June 2014, leading to solving the staff of Aesculapius and reducing my four-quadrant diagram idea to two parts instead (before and after; that is, the possibility world model versus the eternity world model).
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6567
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
eternal–>eternity
Group: egodeath
Message: 6568
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: Condemning vs. elevating & comprehending religion
Relation of the Egodeath theory to other theories:
1. Visionary plants — uses
2. Ahistoricity — uses
3. Astrotheology — competes
4. Nonduality — competes
1. The Egodeath theory uses the visionary plants theory.
2. The Egodeath theory uses the ahistoricity theory.
3. The Egodeath theory competes against the astrotheology theory.
4. The Egodeath theory competes against the nonduality theory.
1. Relation to visionary plants:
The ego death theory builds on and corrects the visionary plants theory of religious origins and religious history.
The core theory focuses on loose cognitive association binding, or loose mental construct binding.
Visionary plants is a peripheral topic, as are history and metaphor.
The peripheral portions of the Egodeath theory focuses on visionary plants, history, and metaphor.
2. Relation to ahistoricity:
The ego death theory builds on and corrects the ahistoricity theory of religious origins, such as no historical Jesus, Paul, church fathers, Buddha Abraham, or Muhamed.
3. Relation to astrotheology:
The ego death theory competes against the astrotheology theory of religion.
The Egodeath theory subsumes astrotheology as a lesser component, in the form of {Ptolemaic astral ascent mysticism}.
(Earl Doherty would here write ‘Platonism’. Others would write ‘Neoplatonism’.)
4. Relationship to nonduality:
The ego death theory competes against the nonduality theory of ego transcendence.
The Egodeath theory subsumes nonduality as a lesser component:
Phase 1. In the first few initiations, we discover a premature foretaste of nonduality, in an unstable temporary control state filled with inconsistencies. This stage is where most spirituality writers are, such as Martin Ball and the religious part of Ken Wilber’s interdisciplinary framework & Journal of Transpersonal Psychology 1988.
Phase 2. Then we work through the longer drama of ego death and restoration in a reconfigured life; transforming the mental world model of time and control from possibility to eternity.
Phase 3. Finally, after we reach completion and perfection and have finished the series of initiations, we may enjoy nonduality and fully develop the concept of nonduality beyond today’s authors. Nonduality is merely one of many parts of enlightenment or advanced religious development.
Tmothy Freke could seemingly be categorized in Phase 3, because he asserts visionary plants in religion, no historical Jesus, and no-free-will.
However, Freke has not developed the interdisciplinary connections in a right configuration with right emphasis and connection to myth, and full scope of coverage of these.
Freke writes only a couple pages on visionary plants and only a couple pages on no-free-will.
Freke’s discussions of visionary plants and no-free-will are split apart within separate books.
Freke’s books don’t focus on no-free-will or visionary plants.
Freke’s publisher discouraged proposing multiple controversial topics at once.
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary ego death theorist, January 1, 2015
Group: egodeath
Message: 6569
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
‘monster’ fundamentally is snake; perceiving and comprehending the Eternalism world model.
Snake is:
serpent,
dragon,
Hydra,
Typhon the father of all monsters,
dragon Ismenios hidden in spring/pool/fountain in cave demanding sacrifice of children but killed by a rock,
Medusa
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary ego death theorist, January 1, 2015
Group: egodeath
Message: 6570
From: egodeath@yahoogroups.com
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: File – EgodeathGroupCharter.txt
The Egodeath Yahoo group is a Weblog sent out by Michael Hoffman,
covering the cybernetic theory of ego death and ego transcendence,
including:
o Block-universe determinism/Fatedness, the closed
and preexisting future, tenseless time, free will as illusory, the
holographic universe, and predestination and Reformed theology.
o Cognitive science, mental construct processing, mental models,
ontological idealism, contemporary metaphysics of the continuant
self, cybernetic self-control, personal control agency, moral agency,
and self-government.
o Zen satori, short-path enlightenment, and Alan Watts;
transpersonal psychology, Ken Wilber, and integral theory.
o Entheogens and psychedelic drugs, mystery religions, mythic
metaphor and allegorical encoding, the mystic altered state, mystic
and religious experiencing, visionary states, religious rapture, and
Acid Rock mysticism.
o Loss of control, self-control seizure, cognitive instability, and
psychosis and schizophrenia.
Subject: Equivalent position labels in determinism and Calvinism
Equivalent position labels in determinism and Calvinism
Tricky position labels are equivalent in determinism and Calvinism.
A professed “compatibilist” is actually either a covert freewillist or a covert determinist.
Most professed “compatibilists” are actually covert, mislabeled freewillists. I label this “freewill determinism”.
The other, fewer professed “compatibilists” are actually covert, mislabeled determinists.
Today’s explicit determinists, and professed “compatibilists”, who are actually covert determinists, their thinking is still filled with freewill thinking, in an inconsistent, mixed, muddled, mingled way.
GIVEN:
hyper-Calvinist = determinist
Moderate Calvinist = compatibilist
Arminian = freewillist
THEREFORE by parallel with the observations about determinism vs. freewill position-labels:
A professed “moderate Calvinist” is actually either a covert Arminian or a covert hyper-Calvinist.
Most professed “moderate Calvinists” are actually covert, mislabeled Arminians. I call this “freewill Calvinism” or “Arminian Calvinism”.
The other, fewer professed “moderate Calvinists” are actually covert, mislabeled hyper-Calvinists.
Today’s explicit hyper-Calvinists, and professed “moderate Calvinists” who are actually covert Arminians, their thinking is still filled with Arminian, freewill thinking, in an inconsistent, mixed, muddled, mingled way.
The Egodeath theory is hyper-Calvinism or “extreme hyper-Calvinism”, except that the Egodeath theory is consistent, such as deleting punishment-hell and reward-heaven, which are free-will thinking.
Modern philosophical ‘determinism’ is shot through with inconsistent unresolved freewill thinking such as multipossibility branching.
Hyper-Calvinism, such as the view of John Calvin, is still shot through with inconsistent unresolved Arminian thinking such as punishment-hell (eternal conscious torment, ECT) and reward-heaven.
You cannot have hyper-Calvinism while retaining the assumption of ECT and a heaven and hell concept which are thoroughly still conceptualized as punishment and reward places.
For consistency, you must completely reject such Armenian thinking as hell and heaven as punishment and reward, and you must reject PSA, penal substitutionary atonement (penal = punishment).
To become consistent, the hyper-Calvinist must replace the Arminian conception of punishment-hell and reward-heaven by the alternative conceptualization, which is:
‘hell’ as correction by the Holy Spirit in the mystic altered state, and
‘heaven’ (and the kingdom of God) as a state of consistent thinking and mental healing and perfection & purification in the mystic altered state.
In the re-conceptualized hyper-Calvinist understanding of ‘heaven’, one is permitted to eat of the fruit of the tree “of life” (per Revelation at the end of the Bible bracketing with the two trees at the start of the Bible) but implicitly also the fruit of the tree of *the knowledge of good and evil*.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is visionary plants and the eternity worldmodel they reveal, without any longer dying ego death, because one has completely transformed the mental model so there is no more ego death and such inconsistency of thinking.
In the proper hyper-Calvinist conception of heaven, one has healing, nondying, a-thanatos, eternal life, life everlasting, with no more death, no more sin-muddled thinking, no more attribution of meta-controllership to oneself, no more possibility-branching model of time and control.
For hyper-Calvinism to become consistent, it must redefine and reconceptualize ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ including rejecting ECT (eternal conscious torment), and must reject PSA (penal substitutionary atonement).
In hyper-Calvinism, as held by John Calvin or at least as asserted by John Calvin based in merely the ordinary state of consciousness, God is the author of evil and God is the author of rebellion against God.
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6572
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: Equivalent position labels in determinism and Calvinism
These positions across fields are equivalent, and are the enlightened ego death position:
1. hyper-Calvinism, in Reformed theology
2. Determinism, in Philosophy
3. Eternalism; the Eternity worldmodel, in Philosophy of Time
4. Non-branching iron block universe determinism, in Physics
These positions across fields are equivalent, and are the deluded, inconsistent, self-contradictory, essentially unstable, demon-haunted egoic position, which is liable to collapse when analyzed carefully in the loose cognitive state:
1. Arminianism, in Reformed theology
2. Free will, in Philosophy
3. Possibilism; the Possibility worldmodel, in Philosophy of Time
4. multi-verse branching universes and indeterminism, in Physics
In the middle is those who muddle-together {iron block universe determinism; Eternalism} plus {branching multi-verse; Possibilism}.
This is the tricky covert-mislabeling category.
Anyone who advocates some muddled combination or compromise of {block universe determinism} and {manyworlds branching} (some trousers model of branching time and possibility), are either actually covert {iron block universe determinism} or are actually covert {manyworlds branching multiverse} adherents.
Repeat the analysis spelling out the relationships and labels for all four fields:
1. Reformed theology; Calvinism vs. Arminianism
2. Determinism vs. free will
3. Eternity world model vs. Possibility world model; Eternalism vs. Possibilism
4. Iron block universe determinism vs. manyworlds multiverse possibility branching
Include a focus on the inconsistent middle position.
By default, per our initial state or stage which is original sin, initially in our thinking prior to regeneration by the Holy Spirit in the loose cognitive association state that is induced by the mushroom wine sacrament, we are completely inclined toward the free will or Arminian or branching universes or possibility world model (Possibilism) thinking/position.
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6573
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Hiatus, accomplishments, outline vs. completism details
In December 2014 and January 2015 I have posted updates to ego death theory idea development.
The one remaining thing to do for this hiatus: I need to upload pictures of the diagrams I drew in 2014.
I posted idea development that is as great as anything I posted in the previous winters.
I have established 100% priority of discovery in this entire field.
I have learned and demonstrated phablet and voice dictation techniques and current technology constraints.
Updates about new books, and writing book reviews, is low priority.
I have caught up people and this idea development log record with my latest thinking and language lexicon and myth themes, and dates of key ideas of November 2013 through January 2015.
As greedy as I am for 100% priority of discovery of interpretation of the Villa of the Mysteries fresco, my complete spelling out of the interpretation and deciphering which I have successfully done of the Villa of the Mysteries is not a top priority.
As extremely profound and breakthrough as that complete deciphering of the villa of the mysteries fresco is, it is a turn-the-crank exercise applying the same interpretation mapping principles as I used for other esoteric mystery diagrams such as the Mithraism Tauroctony diagram.
I have switched to merely outlining assertions and claims, and have not even done that in full at all, spelling out all of my claims to discoveries across 10 fields.
Completeness of details is not any longer the top priority.
I have established priority in principle across-the-board, including sufficient demonstrations; the rest follows by the same pattern.
There is decreasing return on investment in demonstrating how to read one more heavy acid rock lyric, or one more esoteric diagram, or one more Bible passage, or identify one more cross-discipline connection.
It is the same deciphering language translation and mapping solution as I have posted multiple times already.
I demonstrated that the theory readily solves and maps and deciphers all such items.
Other writers have narrow focus and seek to be comprehensive in details, such as Richard Carrier and Earl Doherty in ahistoricity.
The Egodeath theory is so great and proven successful, spelling out the decipherment of the villa of the mysteries in full explicit detail — or revealing the meaning of interesting Bible passages — has become, although important, not any longer a topmost priority, given constraints and the importance of new principles more than mere further applications (no matter how great those applications) of the existing spelled-out principles.
I have to focus on profundity rather than being a completist in applying the Egodeath theory to every particular instance of song lyrics or of esoteric diagrams. Or every Bible passage that confirms interestingly that religious mythic metaphor describes visionary plants revealing Eternalism.
Further demonstrations of how the Bible confirms the Egodeath theory has become redundant and diminishing returns, even though it is fun and amazing to recognize such passages and themes in the Bible.
I showed how to read all such passages and recognize them, and I have already demonstrated multiple times how to do this in the various fields, how to recognize and read relevant equivalent themes.
I provided all the interpretive principles and the paradigm and have demonstrated how it applies to all such diagrams and all such songs and all such Bible passages and other ancient writings and later Wester-esoterism imagery and writings.
I pointed out equivalent degenerate, low religion across Christianity and Islam, and how to correct and elevate and make these religions what they potentially can and should be.
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6574
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: Hiatus, accomplishments, outline vs. completism details
I spelled out well enough what led up to the tree versus snake breakthrough of November 29, 2013, and the fallout follow-through breakthroughs through June 2014, and how it felt, and why it felt so surprising, and spelled out the broad-ranging ramifications well enough.
M hoffman
Group: egodeath
Message: 6575
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Myth, fairy tales, literary stories, and the Bible are so similar, they have been visually illustrated in a book series.
Subject: Re: Dutch translation: De Entheogene Theorie van Religie en Ego Dood
Not sure the Egodeath theory was translated into Russian.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6577
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: I am Science, Religion, and the University
I haven’t established criteria for granting degrees.
>>I grant degrees, accredited by me, to Max and cyber D
— Professor Loosecog, elucidator of control distortion
Group: egodeath
Message: 6578
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: Voice recognition text input thread
I think I first learned of ahistoricity in a library search on “mushroom christianity” and found a rebuttal to Allegro.
>>I learned about no historical Jesus through the book strange fruit
Group: egodeath
Message: 6579
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: I am Science, Religion, and the University
BSTK
Bachelor of Science in Transcendent Knowledge
University of Egodeath
Professor Michael Hoffman, Doctor of Philosophy, Transcendent Knowledge (2014). Professor Loosecog. Formulator and discoverer of the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence and the Egodeath theory.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6580
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: I am Science, Religion, and the University
For now, I am granting the BSTK degree to freak & cyber. Congratulations.
BSTK
Bachelor of Science in Transcendent Knowledge
Professor Michael Hoffman, Doctor of Philosophy, Transcendent Knowledge (2014). Professor Loosecog. Formulator and discoverer of the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence and the Egodeath theory. Founder, University of Egodeath.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6581
From: egodeath
Date: 01/01/2015
Subject: Re: I am Science, Religion, and the University
Subject: Re: I am Science, Religion, and the University
I have not defined BSTK vs. MSTK vs. PhD TK. I acknowledge the advanced levels, beyond bachelors’ level, that grantees have done at other universities.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6583
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: I am Science, Religion, and the University
This is not a granting of “honorary degrees”; these are earned degrees.
— Michael Hoffman, PhD TK, founder, University of Egodeath
Group: egodeath
Message: 6584
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: I am Science, Religion, and the University
I owe you three grantees a diploma.
I am not now committing to any further action along these lines.
— Michael Hoffman, the Egodeath theorist
Group: egodeath
Message: 6585
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: I am Science, Religion, and the University
My PhD TK was earned on June 14, 2014 when I txted my girl friend Carol from 1986-1987 the principle that any pair of key mythemes implies the entire system of {myth describes entheogens revealing Eternalism}.
That txt finished and completed the fallout from the Thanksgiving week 2013 {tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism} breakthrough.
The fallout included solving and deciphering {the staff of Aesculapius} on January 21, 2014 and {Moses’ rigid bronze serpent on a pole as debranched tree}, and the maximally condensed, simplified, communicable, and efficient diagram of {king steering tree wine snake puppet rock}.
The University of Egodeath was founded January 1, 2015 and my PhD granted on that date.
— Professor Michael Hoffman, Doctor of Philosophy, Transcendent Knowledge (2014). Professor Loosecog. Formulator and discoverer of the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence and the Egodeath theory. Founder, University of Egodeath.
— Some Guy On The Internet
Some guys on the Internet have just surpassed the old establishment, resoundingly.
We some guys on the Internet have just become the standard, rather than the old establishment.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6586
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: I am Science, Religion, and the University
I grant the three grantees authority to design, share, and print a classic Gothic traditional color sealed diploma with your legal name, to frame and hang, from the University of Egodeath, signed by me.
— Professor Michael Hoffman, Doctor of Philosophy, Transcendent Knowledge (2014). Professor Loosecog. Formulator and discoverer of the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence and the Egodeath theory. Founder, University of Egodeath.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6587
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: I am Science, Religion, and the University
Also I grant the three grantees the authority to create a matching MSTK and PhD TK diploma version.
Not to award the MSTK to anyone yet.
The PhD diploma design variant is for one copy, to award me.
— Professor Michael Hoffman, Doctor of Philosophy, Transcendent Knowledge (2014). Professor Loosecog. Formulator and discoverer of the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence and the Egodeath theory. Founder, University of Egodeath.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6588
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: I am Science, Religion, and the University
I have not defined levels of degrees.
I do not have the time now.
There are arguments for assigning any of the degree levels to these 3 grantees.
The 3 grantees will have the same level of degree.
There are other students as well who have attempted to study the Egodeath theory at an advanced level within academia.
I have no plan now to evaluate additional candidates or define a policy. Everyone desires this bona fide higher knowledge studying and teaching opportunity.
The universities have not taught people higher knowledge.
— Michael Hoffman
I plan to turn off “Show email address” in this discussion group. It was set by default.
A bachelor’s degree (also baccalaureate, from Modern Latin baccalaureatus) is usually earned for an undergraduate course of study that nominally requires three to five years of study (depending on institution and field of study). In some cases, it may also be the name of a second graduate degree, such as a Bachelor of Laws(LL.B.), Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.), Bachelor of Civil Law, the Bachelor of Music, the Bachelor of Philosophy, or the Bachelor of Sacred Theology, degree which in some countries are only offered after a first graduate/bachelor’s degree.
The term bachelor (Middle Latin baccalarius) in the 14th century referred to a young squire in training, and by the end of the century was also used of junior members of guilds or universities. By folk etymology or wordplay, the word baccalaureus came to be associated with bacca lauri or “laurel berry” in reference to laurels being awarded for academic success or honours.
A master’s degree is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.[1] Within the area studied, graduates are posited to possess advanced knowledge of a specialized body of theoretical and applied topics; high order skills in analysis, critical evaluation, or professional application; and the ability to solve complex problems and think rigorously and independently. The degree is awarded upon graduation from a university.[1]
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that, in most countries, qualifies the holder to teach at the university level in the specific field of his or her degree, or to work in a specific profession. In some countries, the highest degree in a given field is called a terminal degree. The term “doctorate” derives from the Latin docere meaning “to teach”.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6589
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Everyone thinks of time as a space-like dimension; it is the opposite of a new idea from 20th-century physics.
The other day, when we were flying high up in the air, a Physics professor pointed out to me that in the early 20th Century, physicists had a classical education.
This is why Popper was able to address Einstein as ‘Parmenides’ regarding the ideas around iron block universe determinism with time as a space-like dimension.
The physics professor asserted that time as a space-like dimension is a recent idea; he seemed to want to put it in the 1950s.
My 1987 university modern physics course presented the idea of block time as if a prerequisite from Minkowsky preceding the 1905 theory of relativity.
The professor said educated physics professors already had mystic ideas prior to working on physics models and they used forms of mysticism ideas to brainstorm to look for physics models.
He had not heard of Rudy Rucker’s book the Fourth Dimension, which expands the 1884 book Flatland to block universe time; block time, equating that with mystic ideas.
Against other people and our prideful modern inclination, I assert that:
Time as a space-like dimension is a self-evident and screamingly obvious idea that is especially thrust at us in the visionary plant loose cognitive association state such as salvia or mushrooms.
Block time must have been known to and thought of by everyone in all areas from greatest antiquity through the ancient Greeks, the Hellenistic era, and the 2nd Century, 1530 Reformed esotericism, 1884 Flatland, and in 1905 with relativity.
When I recognized possibility non-branching in the 1530 painting, it was embarrassingly obvious how elementary and fundamental the contrast between the two models of time and control is and how perfect and straightforward is the representation of block time as tree versus snake, just as natural of an idea to use as in the Stanford page on the metaphysics of time, which requires no understanding of modern physics or relativity or quantum physics.
I go back to the forest patch walking the branching paths looking at trees and mushrooms and rocks.
Of course naturally time is thought of as a space-like dimention.
It is already natural for us to think of a time as a space-like dimension.
That is actually the given.
We just haven’t elaborated on the idea but it is an inmate idea; all that remains is to think it through, to think-through our innate natural analogy of time as a space-like dimension.
The most obvious analogy in the world is “time is like a space dimension”. This is the very opposite of a new or remote or difficult or distant analogy; this is dirt simple and everyone uses this analogy all the time!
What other way could we possibly think about time other than as a space-like dimension?
Go back to Hofstadter’s elementary fundamentals of “analogy as the basic way thinking works”.
The moment you have human thinking, you have the analogy, elementary and obvious and about as short a distance as you can imagine, “time is like a space dimension”.
Mystic metaphysics and modern physics merely takes that elementary, given analogy and elaborates it.
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6590
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: Hiatus, accomplishments, outline vs. completism details
I must stop writing up and posting for the moment so that I can work on software.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6591
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
The dimensions of the Jewish temple are fourfold: breadth, height, depth, and width.
Block time is an idea found in the most remote, distant times, far away from our time, as well as in times that are near, close by, close to our time.
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Group: egodeath
Message: 6592
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
My conversation with the Physics professor who asserted block time is a 1950s idea reminds me that physics has jumped the shark and is where you will find the most confused thinking today.
Shoelace strings tied together, Physics falls on its face.
Instead look to Engineering for clear thinking, which is where the Egodeath theory came from in this new dispensation of Revelation, which is elementary clear thinking.
M hoffman
Group: egodeath
Message: 6593
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Block time is as old as rock.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6594
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
When we modern scientific engineering thinkers through me finally arrived at the recognition of tree vs. snake on November 29, 2013, the old ancients of the greatest antiquity and the early modern thinkers of 1530 together asked me:
What took you guys so long? Are you late, belated thinkers of the future mentally slow?
Welcome to the mixed-wine banquet party, you too-late arrivals, you extreme laggards at the very tail-end of time.
This moment of greatest, most elementary discovery and breakthrough of recognition did not make me feel smart.
This long-belated recognition of the tree vs. snake, and clear simple contrast between the possibility versus eternity models of time and control, made me feel that all the way up to that moment, I had been stupid and mentally slow to grasp the glaringly obvious.
Shouldn’t this all have been self-evident at the moment of my core theory, crystalline ground of being, cybernetics breakthrough of January 1988?
This blindness, in religious mythic metaphor is likened to a veil that is over our eyes, blinding us from being able to see clearly.
One of my breakthroughs in bible interpretation, a point that baffles and puzzles all who respect Jesus, is interpretation of Jesus healing the blind man.
Jesus takes the blind man from:
1. initially seeing nothing, to
2. seeing people incorrectly as TREES (is Jesus struggling and failed to heal? Perish the thought, you clueless blind interpreters!), to
3. (after the failed, struggling healer Jesus tries harder the second time) finally seeing people clearly (which would be, as snakes).
“Criterion of embarrassment”?
The interpreters ought to be embarrassed at not having any idea of the “people that look like trees” in the intermediate step of the blind man seeing.
Did they all miss the 10,000 statements in the gospels that Jesus speaks in parables? All Bible interpreters ought to be reading Douglas Hofstadter on analogy and metaphor.
The blind man is all these bible interpreters, who perceive nothing, not even the word ‘trees’ that is right in front of their face, out in the open, hidden from them in plain sight.
Interpreters are baffled when they see Jesus equated to, likened to a snake.
Bible interpreters are baffled when the snake is positively valued as enlightenment and revelation in the Bible.
Is not, they say, the snake evil, the source of sin and spiritual blindness, as our preachers tell us that the Bible tells us?
Close your Bibles and read antiquity instead, as the context.
Nothing misleads like a blind preacher telling what the Bible says.
What brittle, blind, unthinking thinking.
It is evident that no one *reads* the Bible, except with their eyes closed.
Now with the Egodeath theory, people may, for the first time, read the Bible with their eyes open, instead of closed.
Control agents are not kings steering in a tree; banqueting mixed wine reveals that people are snake-shaped puppets frozen into rock.
My seal’s esoteric diagram:
king steering tree wine snake puppet rock
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6595
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
the old ancients of the remotest, farthest-away antiquity, and the early modern thinkers of 1530 nearby in time, close to the present time, together asked me
Group: egodeath
Message: 6596
From: egodeath
Date: 02/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
The metaphor {time is like distance} is an innate metaphor hardwired into the human mind.
Around 1900 there was also the standard metaphor of the ancients are above us in time and then we come down through history so that 1900 is only a little ways above the present day, whereas the year 100 is much farther above the present.
I reject the evolutionism notion that ancients had different minds than moderns. They had different minds only because they integrated psychedelics as the core of their culture, the common point of reference.
According to the physics professor I spoke with a few days ago, {block universe determinism with time as a space like dimension} is an idea from the 1950s — that was his specific assertion, which can only be true in some narrow sense, some particular Physics use of equations.
Is the Physics professor thinking too hard? Is he losing sight of plain truth, lost in equations and some specific ridiculously particular sense of the assertion?
The narrow particular idea goes back at least to 1900 in physics, proved by William James disparaging the idea. How could William James disparage iron block universe determinism if it was an idea in physics from the 1950s?
What the venerable university physics professor told me has got to be simply wrong, or correct in some irrelevant, inconsequential sense.
The Physics professor asserted to me that the idea of {block universe determinism with time as a space like dimension} was not used in 1905 relativity development but was only added later in schools to teach relativity, as a pedagogy clarification technique.
I felt and conclude that this venerable Physics professor doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about, unless there is some narrow, particular, hair-splitting sense of what he means.
I remain, as since 1987, completely distrusting of anything recent physicists say. If it comes out of the mouth of a recent physicist, it is confusion. All authority is collapsing, including contemporary physics.
I was mystified by authority and what the word ‘authority’ means.
But now I find I am the leading, main authority on transcendent knowledge.
What I say, about religion, myth, time, control, and altered states, remains standing after being tested.
What I say is generally trustworthy and can be resoundingly confirmed.
What other people say on these matters cannot be trusted and is often not valid. They are not an authority; I am.
Part of my authority rests on widespread reading, as well as my own sound thinking, based in experience and removing self-contradictions.
Being an authority means highly fact-checked and accurate, and not a lot of nonsense and baloney.
In the dangerous area of the peak window of the mystic altered state, an authority can be relied on to show the dangers as a trustworthy guide, and how to accommodate them.
An authority is accurate, complete, and reliable, roadworthy.
An authority is wise, not foolish.
— Michael Hoffman, the authority on ego death
Group: egodeath
Message: 6597
From: egodeath
Date: 03/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Minkowsky–>Minkowski
Everyone debates (lost in the forest of detail as usual):
Presentism vs. Eternalism
The interesting contrast though according to the mystic altered state and myth is:
Possibilism vs. Eternalism
These debates (phil o time) are as one-dimensional as they are hyper-detailed with trivia and pedantry. They are not interdisciplinary, and lack vision; cannot provide revelation.
Entheogens cause experiencing to shift from innate idea of Possibilism to innate idea of Eternalism.
Visionary plants cause an experiential shift from Possibilism (tree) to Eternalism (snake).
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6598
From: egodeath
Date: 03/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
In 1907-1908, Einstein’s teacher Minkowski presented the block universe interpretation of relativity.
So I cannot see what the Physics professor I spoke with could possibly mean by placing the block universe idea in the 1950s; I must conclude he is not an authority but is shockingly full of baloney.
I’m disappointed in him like ahistoricists are disappointed in Bart Ehrman.
I had assumed and expected you would be informed in your reply but it is embarrassingly uninformed and worthless on that point, though you spoke as if you were informed and certain.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6599
From: egodeath
Date: 03/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
Psychedelics cause an experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism.
Possibilism and Eternalism are two opposed mental world-models of time, possibility, and control.
Possibilism is like a tree; a king steering in a tree of possibilities.
Eternalism is like a snake; a world line; your life is shaped like a snake, your control is like a puppet forced to steer along a rigid rail frozen into rock.
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6600
From: egodeath
Date: 03/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
tree –> mushroom –> snake
Possibilism –> psychedelics –> Eternalism
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6601
From: egodeath
Date: 03/01/2015
Subject: Re: Deciphered: tree vs. snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism
tree –> fruit –> snake
tree –> apple –> snake
tree –> amanita –> snake
One’s head coming out of a snake can be centered in the tree. The psyche can be overpowered by Eternalism thus the psyche is a female, a maiden subject to death — ego death, the cessation and collapse of the steering-king illusion that the nondual ground of being projects outward.
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6602
From: egodeath
Date: 03/01/2015
Subject: History of block universe
Prehistory: the human mind begins with innate possibility model, consumes visionary plants triggering innate eternity model.
psychedelics cause an experiential shift from possibility to eternity world model.
Entheogens trigger an experiential shift from Possibilism to Eternalism.
700 bc ancient near East sacred Groves with snakes in trees
Ancient near East analogy figure of start of Bible; Genesis 3: tree of the knowledge of good and evil with a snake in it
500 bc Parmenides.
100 staff of Asclepius popular. Heimarmene popular.
[year] William James criticizes iron block universe.
[year] Popper addresses Einstein as ‘Parmenides’.
1985 Rudy Rucker book the fourth dimension.
1988 Michael Hoffman shows loose cognition reveals {problematic personal control cybernetics in light of block universe ground of being} as the real essence of ego transcendence as opposed to the {non-duality} pop spirituality conception of ego transcendence. Summarized at Principia Cybernetica website January 1997.
2006 Michael Hoffman writes main article: the entheogen theory of religion and ego death, mapping myth to the experiential shift from possibility to eternity world model.
2013 Michael Hoffman:
identifies ancient metaphor analogy tree versus snake means Possibilism vs. Eternalism,
deciphers staff of asclepius and Moses’ snake on a pole as debranched tree,
deciphers and masters the language of analogy in world myth and especially Mediterranean antiquity myth including Christianity and possibility nonbranching.
Myth describes visionary plants revealing eternity world model.
See the good wide-ranging website on history of free will.
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Anselm created PSA penal substitutionary atonement and he used time as a spacelike dimension; block universe. Penal is punishment. Block universe contradicts penal. Maybe he used Neoplatonism to split the contradiction: the body is subject to law of fate, soul or spirit is not. To affirm and transcend fatedness.
I see determinism as a particular theory of how fate mechanically works. I see determinism as a thinking tool to help think about fate. But another such tool is presetness of the future, and another distinct idea is monopossibility (alternate possibilities are illusion).
In loose cognition we *experience* not causal chain determinism operating across time, but rather, presetness and lack of meta steering power.
M hoffman
Group: egodeath
Message: 6605
From: egodeath
Date: 03/01/2015
Subject: Books on snake and tree and block universe
Subject: Re: Books on snake and tree and block universe
In a two-level system, healing means moving from
naïve free-will thinking to
realization of no-free-will.
The terminal point is the snake on a debranched tree.
In a three-level system, subsequently almost immediately following in history, no-free-will is the problem, and to heal we need to transcend no-free-will.
You move from
naïve free-will-thinking to
no-free-will
but now in the newer, three-level system, you no longer consider no-free-will to be healing; now we need to transcend no-free-will, to be healed.
The Old Testament and Hellenistic era used the two-level system: the terminal point is no-free-will, the snake and tree.
In the New Testament and post-Hellenistic era, the Christian and non-Christian thinking moved up above the sphere of the fixed stars, so now the terminal point is transcending no-free-will. Leaky metaphors.
This three-level system blurs and dilutes and splits apart the idea of healing, smearing the idea of healing across both level two and level three.
In a three-level-system, is healing to be identified with no-free-will, or with transcending no-free-will?
The body is healed by realizing no-free-will. The soul or spirit is healed by transcending no-free-will. That is the closest we can come to resolving the contradictory ideas, the waffling, the change of heart between the earlier and later era, the change of valuation from positively valuing no-free-will to negatively valuing it.
The problem is indicated in the visual representation of no free will which is snake versus tree, that is level two in a in the three-level system.
It is contradictory or blatantly inconsistent to say that the symbol of healing which is level two which is snake-in-tree is somehow not healing, and we need further healing to transcend the healing, to transcend the snake and tree, to transcend no-free-will.
This is a problem for the three-level system; already the symbol of snake and tree commits to saying that no free will is healing! How can we then turn around and say no-free-will is the problem we need to be healed from?
The visual depiction of no free will is already clearly established as the symbol of healing: the snake on the tree.
Now we’re going to turn around and say that that healing as realizing and perceiving no-free-will, depicted as snake versus tree, is not healing, and that is the thing we need to be healed from.
The imagery of {snake vs. tree} was firmly equated with healing, both in the staff of Asclepius and in Moses’ healing image of {rigid snake on a debranched tree} (pole).
What a mess resulted from trying to one-up the healing symbol of snake on tree, to transcend the idea of {healing equals no-free-will realization}.
What a mess I am left to present and explain – a communication challenge, since I have figured out the two systems that were sequential in history and in the Bible.
The OT is 2-level.
The NT was used later as 3-level. But the NT itself seems 2-level.
Is {transcending no-free-will} a biblical idea, or was it added in theology later?
In the later era, pagan and Christian both sought to transcend no-free-will, rise above the sphere of fixed stars, as in Ptolemaic Astral ascent mysticism.
I have just identified a imagery contradiction between transcending the fixed stars versus the earlier popular idea of {healing as snake versus tree} which equals {the sphere of the fixed stars}.
Which one is healing:
reaching the fixed stars or
rising above the fixed stars
The sphere of the fixed stars is equivalent to snake versus tree.
In the three-level system, the fixed stars is the problem; we need to be healed from enslavement to fate.
Enslavement to fate is snake versus tree.
Fate is the snake versus tree.
Does fate heal as according to the two-level system, or is fate the sickness we need to be healed from, as implied in the three-level system, where the terminal point goal is to transcend fate; transcend the snake versus tree; transcend healing?
I am left with having to explain clearly this stark imagery contradiction around the symbol of snake vs. tree = no free-will = healing.
— Michael Hoffman, the interdisciplinary theorist of ego death
Copyright (C) 2015 Michael S. Hoffman (Egodeath.com). All Rights Reserved.
Group: egodeath
Message: 6607
From: egodeath
Date: 03/01/2015
Subject: Re: Books on snake and tree and block universe
I am so far ahead of others that I am elucidating problems that aren’t even on anyone else’s radar.
Differentiate the Scholarly Research Field of “Mushrooms in Western Religion” vs. Specific Personalities and Their Particular Theories
Discuss the relation between:
the Allegro-Amanita universe, fixated/obsessed on by the Perpetual Allegro Orbiters.
the Egodeath theory, & its sub-sub theory of the maximal mushroom theory of Greek & Christian religion.
the scholarly field of investigation, mushrooms* in Greek & Christian religion. or
the scholarly field of investigation, Psilocybe in Greek & Christian religion.
Read “mushrooms” as “Psilocybe”. “Mushrooms” does NOT mean “Amanita”. Stop projecting YOUR confusion & conflations, wrecking the broad field. 99% of “mushrooms” means Psilocybe; only 1% of the word “Mushrooms” means the use of Amanita. When I write ‘mushrooms’, as a rule, I mean Psilocybe, NOT Amanita. There is only 1 top ideal entheogen, for my theory: Psilocybe. All others — including Amanita — are non-ideal. I almost am forced to name the field, just to solve this way-blocking problem — the scholarly field of Psilocybe in Greek & Christian religion. It’s my way of introducing a Split, a Divorce, in the field. You low-IQ guys, go right ahead, continue your pointless work in the Pop field of “Allegro-Amanita” studies. I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR RESEARCH IN WESTERN SCOPALAMINE, CANNABIS, AMANITA, OPIUM, ACACIA-RUE. I ONLY CARE ABOUT THE IDEAL ENTHEOGEN, PSILOCYBE. I DON’T CARE ABOUT ENTHEOGENS. I DON’T CARE ABOUT AMANITA. IDGAF ABOUT ALLEGRO, IRVIN, THEIR NEGATIVE ORBITERS, WASSON, OR RUCK’S WORK IN AMANITA.
I ONLY CARE ABOUT PSILOCYBE — bc it is ideal, and my Theory, the Egodeath theory, works best with the ideal simplifying case.
let the deviants/excpetions piggyback on my clearly articulated Theory — that’s THEIR problem, not mine.
I did well in framing my main article in terms of Salvia, but history values incomparably more, Psilocybe in Greek & Christian religion.
The Banquet tradition does not describe cannabis, opium, scopalamine, or Amanita; THE BANQUET TRADITION SPECIFICALLY DESCRIBES PSILOCYBIN DOSING AND EFFECTS.
The Amanita hypothesis does nothing but confuse and complicate — the Amanita hypothesis 100% confuses the Perpetual Allegro Orbiters.
So I’m announcing my commitment to the single-plant fallacy:
I hold, for simplicity of Theory, that:
The official entheogen of Greek and Christian religion is Psilocybe mushrooms. So that’s what I’m going to find and explain. The other plants are a waste of time, a distraction, a replacement, and are avoidance.
Not Amanita, not Cannabis, not Scopolamine, not Opium.
To put it another way:
The stupid people have stupidly chosen Allegro-Amanita as the dead-center of their scholarly universe, and above, the perimeter of their thinking, is likewise dictated circumscribed around Allegro-Amanita.
That is their little bubble that all of the Allegro-Amanita Orbiters are trapped eternally orbiting around, never able to escape the trap of their own hallucination; the Allegro monster has trapped and hypnotized them. They are slaves of Allegro-Amanita.
In contrast, I am specifying that THE CENTER OF ATTENTION IN SCHOLARSLY RESEARCH SHALL BE PSILOCYBE AND GREEK RELIGINO AND Christianity. THAT IS, yes, Hellenism beyond Hellenic religion, and yes, Christendom beyond the Christian religion. eg Gnostics, Mithras, Alexandria yes; but the CENTER is Greek, Christian, Psilocybe. Therefore it may be instrucmental to … if I have to choose between a broad vague lable for the field, wihich fails to keep focused and allows-in mind-rotting bullshit like equating ‘mushroom’ with ‘amanita’, then I am … if I have to pick a narrow vs vauge filed-li field-label, I am foruced to do so: picking narrow. BETTER TO ERR ON THE SIDE OF CORRECT SPECFIICITY AND LET THE EXCEPTIONS PIGGYBACK ON THE CENTRAL ITEM THAT’S TARGETED. SO: WHAT IS THE BROAD VAUGE FOCUS NAME OF FIELD, AND THE NARROW SPECIFIC IDELA CNETRAL FOCUS NAME OF FIELD?
NARROW: THE SCHOLARLY FIELD OF STUDY, “PSILOCYBE IN GREEK & Christian RELIGION“
The scholarly field of study, Psilocybe in Greek and Christian Religion
The scholarly field of study, Mushrooms in Hellenism and Christendom — true but leaves door open to conflation idiocy, like the irrelvant Amanita obsession.
AMANITA IS IRRELEVANT. SCOPOLAMINE IS IRRELEVANT.
FOR Christianity, GREEK MYTH *IS RELEVANT*; Hellenic & Hellenistic ARE relevant.
Other plants than Psilocybe, though, are NOT relevant (eg Amanita in Greek religion is irrelevant).
I’m not saying that Greek or Christian religion didn’t use things other than Psilocybe; I’m saying that other plants are objectively absolutely undesirable; non-ideal.
For best clearest theorizing, pick/focus on/ pursue/ study/ look for The Ideal Entheogen, which is Psilocybe.
Am I more interested in Hellenistic, or Christian religion use of Psilocybe/classical entheogens? Or World religious mythology? I find I’m centrally interested in the combination of Hellenistic aka “Ancient Mediterranean paganism” & Christendom eg including Western Esotericism.
hyperbolically speaking – From a Theory-construction point of view:
I do not value scholarship in World Religion or maximal the maximal entheogen theory of religion; I do not value the entheogen scholarship in Western religion, other than specifically, Psilocybe.
Hoffman and Ruck can produce all the books they want on Amanita, I don’t care and I don’t value them and those books are irrelevant and useless of no value to my Theory.
From a Theory-construction point of view, all of those plants are merely backdrop. I’m only interested in the mixed-wine, also bread — meaning, Psilocybe mixed-wine and Psilocybe bread, or raw eaten, or dried eaten (empty stomache w/ only msh, is most potent). anyway the common factor is, Psilocybe. I’m afraid the Allegro-Amanita-Orbiting bozos are going to force me to name the field “Psilocybe” instead of “Mushrooms”. I just can’t fuck around with their misrepresentation strawman bs any longer. It’s a special emergency siitutaion. In a sane world, I’d certainly name the field “mushroom” scholarship, not Psilocybe scholarship. But, to counter the idiocy that’s killing the field, in order to save the field, I may have no choice but to commit the singl-plant fallacy IN THEIR FACE. anyways it means ANY PSILOCYBIN/PSILOCIN MUSHROOM, so, hardly “single-plant” fallacy. And technically, many non-Psilocybe mushrooms have psilocybin or psilocin.
From a Theory-construction point of view, I only value and need and can put to use, Psilocybe.
the field of scholarly historical research called,
Psilocybe in Western religion;
Psilocybe in Greek & Christian religion — in this field, Amanita is literally reduced to decoration.
Psilocybe Is King, for Theory
Almost Forced to Write ‘Psilocybe’ Instead of ‘Mushrooms’, Because Allegro-Orbiters Always Misread ‘Mushroom’ as “Amanita”
To Name the Scholarly Field, I’m Almost Forced to Write ‘Psilocybe’ Instead of ‘Mushrooms’, Because the Reductionist Allegro-Orbiting Camp *Always* Misreads ‘Mushroom’ as “Amanita”
I WANT to write the word “Mushrooms” but that field-ruining troublemaker is going to STRAWMAN the word “Mushrooms” and mis-read it as “Amanita” because he is f*cking OBSESSED with Amanita.
He never misses an opportunity to specify “Amanita”, when any sane scholar is expecting him to say “Mushrooms”.
The infamous Allegro-orbiter, is almost forcing me to write a word I don’t want to write, “Psilocybe”.
It’s *NOT* that I’m that exclusively Psilocybe-only, but if I don’t narrowly specify and highlight “Psilocybe”, what will guaranteed happen, is that Letcher-Hatis will read my word “Mushroom” as “Amanita”, because that’s all he ever thinks about — he lets Allegro/Irvin set the outer boundaries of his thought-universe.
And he tries to force the entire field into his own strawman construction.
When someone asserts Psilocybe instead of Amanita, he accuses the person of “moving the goalpost”.
As if he can dictate the scope of the field for other people, and only permit the field to cover Amanita!
An ignorant outsider newbie interloper is trying to derail and mal-form the entire field to conform to HIS tiny mental world of slavish following the boundaries he imagines Allegro to have set.
For the Perpetual Allegro Orbiter, the word ‘mushroom’ IS the word ‘Amanita’; they are identical; they are exact synonyms.
The only way I can break his noxious programming, which is the worst problem harming the field right now, is to BLOCK his mental error, by going out of MY way (“always say Psilocybe instead of Mushroom”) to prevent him from going out of HIS way (“always say Amanita instead of Mushroom”).
also:
the Allegro-Amanita universe
the Egodeath theory
the maximal entheogen theory of religion
mushrooms in Greek & Christian art
the maximal psychedelic theory of religion and culture
the maximal entheogen theory of religion
mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art
the maximal mushroom theory of Christianity
the maximal mushroom theory of Greek & Christian religion
I formulated and advocate the Mytheme theory; the “Analogical Psychedelic Pre-existence” theory of religious mythology.
Where the Theory of Mushrooms in Christianity Fits Within the Egodeath Theory
Possible problem: this section is worded in terms of particular theories, rather than scholarly fields/ topics of investigation/research/ scholarship.
The Egodeath theory includes: <- my solution in the field of the Cognitive Science of Religion; Transpersonal Psychology; Theory of Religion.
The Cybernetic theory of ego transcendence (1988-1997). <- my solution in the field of spiritual enlightenment; spiritual self-help, the Human Potential Movement; theory of religion; Cognitive Science of Religion; Transpersonal Psychology.
The Mytheme theory (1998-2006); which includes: <- my solution in the field of religious mythology and Esotericism.
The maximal entheogen theory of religion; which includes: <- my solution in the field of entheogen scholarship; entheogens in religious history.
The maximal theory of mushrooms in Greek & Christian religion; <- my solution in the field of entheogens in Western religion; which theory includes:
The maximal theory of mushrooms in Christian art. <- my solution in the field of mushrooms in Christianity.
The Mytheme/analogy theory of mushrooms in Christian texts. <- my solution in the field of mushrooms in Christianity.
Differentiate:
me
my theories
the fields my theories solve
Completely independently of whether the Perpetual Allegro Orbiters are right, completely independently of historical reality, there exists a field of investigation and theorizing, which particular people do some work in.
Even if the Perpetual Allegro Orbiters were right in their insanely sweeping, untenable, vague explaining-away of ALL mushrooms EVER in ALL Christian history, even if — per some muddle-headed idea of theirs, “there was no Holy Mushroom” (my IQ just dropped 50 points), there would still exist the scholarly field of investigation and publishing theories and research findings, called, “mushrooms in Western religion”.
I reject calling this field of scholarly research “Allegro” anything, or “Holy Mushroom” anything, or “Conspiracy” anything; those aren’t proper, scholarly, neutral names for delineating the field.
I reject putting the main emphasis on Christianity; I always package deal it, “Greek & Christian” (= Hellenism & Christendom).
Within that package deal, yes, Greek is distinct from Christian. But, the package deal comes first.
To get to the field of “mushrooms in Christian art”, you have to pass through and enter through, the field of “mushrooms in Greek & Christian art”.
Wishing Thomas Hatsis a Merry Christmas per the ancient tradition of the native Christmas shamans’ secret Amanita cult, exactly as in all of the Hellenistic Mystery Religions, including Christianity.
🎄🍄🦌🦌🦌🦌🛷🎅🎁
The official position of the Egodeath theory is that all Hellenistic Mystery Religions were based on Amanita. (joke) Here’s scholarly proof, using sound “scientific historiographical methodology(TM)”:
“They also drank wine at these Mithraeum communion banquets, and the wine was laced with Amanita muscaria mushrooms, which were intended to produce a kind of out-of-body experience.” Mithraism with Jason Reza Jorjani (2:20)
— Michael Hoffman, the theorist of ego death
Mithras = Dionysus = Persephone = Osiris = Jesus =
Bringing initiates the Ho-Ho-Holy Spirit!
Summary/Outline List of Hatsis’ Errors Regarding “No Mushrooms in Christian Art”
Extremely privileging texts over art, amounting to discounting art entirely and only respecting text evidence.
Extremely privileging literal depictions of mushrooms, over stylized depictions and depictions of effects.
Mistake: The result is, Hatsis baselessly exclusively respects only 1 out of 6 types of evidence, reducing the potential evidence-base to 1 out of 6= 17%; discarding 5 out of 6 = 83% of categories of evidence.
Categories of evidence include:
Literal descriptions in texts. <– evidence-type demanded by Hatsis.
Stylized descriptions in texts. <– evidence-type disregarded.
Descriptions of effects in texts. <– evidence-typedisregarded.
Literal depictions in art. <– evidence-typedisregarded.
Stylized depictions in art. <– evidence-typedisregarded.
Depictions of effects in art. <– evidence-type disregarded.
Mistake: Failing to recognize that a bestiary is religious (at least the Moral Bestiary genre, if not the Love Bestiary genre).
Brittle artificial separation of genres “religious vs. secular” (his video quote where he emphasizes “completely secular” implies he doesn’t understand the era’s consciousness.)
Remedy: Acknowledge that bestiary images of mushrooms are relevant to the field of scholarly investigation, and count as evidence, for the field of “mushrooms in Christian art”.
This mistake can be considered identical with the mistake “rejecting art depictions of mushrooms including Literal, Stylized, & Effects depictions”. Lack of poetic consciousness. Literalism. False assumption that if an item or aspect in text or art can be read as a literal referent, this means that that the item cannot be read as also referring to a mushroom. eg the tone-deaf, genre-misidentifying, fallacious, poetry-illiterate argument “If a mushroom tree can be read as an Italian pine, this means the mushroom tree definitely does not mean mushroom.”
Hatsis doesn’t know (as of November 2020) Mythemese; how to interpret myth-elements. In contrast, Brown shows aptitude and poetic consciousness, in Brown’s book’s decoding eg {skeleton} in the Plaincourault image.
Bestiary. (Like everyone else,) Hatsis failed to decode the Bestiary Salamander. Hatsis shows complete and total lack of Mytheme-consciousness; he is a complete literalist, and creates a malformed version of “scientific critical historiography methodology” that is reductionist, which means, bad and irrational; a failure and travesty of the REAL scientific method.
Of Course ‘Mushroom’ Means Deliberate Ingesting of Psychoactive Mushrooms to Have a Religious Experience
Why do the committed skeptics force me to stoop so low as to have to state the EXCRUCIATINGLY, PAINFULLY OBVIOUS?!
Why are you WASTING OUR TIME PRESENTING IDIOTIC ARGUMENTS?
Obligatory note for wanna-be, play-actor “retards” such as Letcher who practically brag about how dense, obtuse, and thick-headed they can manage to pretend to be:
When I say “mushroom”, OBVIOUSLY OF COURSE I mean a psychoactive (probably non-Amanita) mushroom, ingested deliberately, for the purpose of inducing the mystical religious altered state.
To deny this is utterly nonsensical and self-contradictory, like claiming that someone ingested blotter but without any intention to trip. IT WOULD MAKE NO SENSE.
“I took a rip off the oil rig, but without the intention to get high.” That “possible interpretation” makes no rational sense at all; it’s a gibberish, nonsensical position to defend.
On what possible basis can anyone possibly defend such an anti-mystical presupposition of the nature of religion?
There is simply NO REASONING with someone holding this ludicrous, nonsensical, pseudo-objection of Letcher.
Such a view cannot be taken seriously, and should be ignored — or look for a conflict of interest, that would make a person not argue in good faith, such as finding that Wasson is top PR propagandist for a major bank and met privately with the Pope.
GEE NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST OR ANYTHING FISHY AS HELL THERE; DOESN’T REDUCE WASSON’S CREDIBILITY AT ALL.
It’s a nonsensical argument, “Mushrooms in religious art do not represent psychoactive mushrooms deliberately ingested to induce a mystic religious experience.”
Why would ANYONE maintain such a senseless, irrational view?
What sort of foundational presuppositions would support such an anti-religious-experiencing, biased, anti-mystical view?
We have here a COLOSSAL, GENRE CATEGORY ERROR people are trying to foist off on the world.
It would be idiotic & senseless to have a mushroom in art that doesn’t refer to deliberate ingesting to have religious experience; anyone holding to such a position has deeply malformed background issues; biased presuppositions & assumptions; a twisted paradigm and conception of what religion is.
The comically stupid proposal of mushrooms in religious art that don’t refer to ingesting psychoactive mushrooms, is a frankly anti-mystical view of religion, which renders that person a hopeless “those on the outside” literalist, childhood-thinking, exoteric religionist.
The Danger and Costs of Hatsis Not Actually Using Scientific Historical Methodology
The Danger and Costs of Hatsis Failing to Actually Use Scientific Historical Methodology & Thereby Harming the Scholarly Research Field of “Psilocybe in mixed wine & mystery religion”; Dissuading from and Discouraging Proper, Much-Needed Research
The charge or question or suspicion or fear or worry about Hatsis’ planned 2022 book against mushrooms in Christian art:
The fear is NOT that proper, actual, correctly conducted scientific historical methodology will harm the field, of Psilocybe in mixed wine & mystery religion.
I already proved that ACTUAL scientific historical methodology DONE CORRECTLY confirms that there are tons of depictions intending psychoactive mushrooms for religious experiencing, in Christian art.
The danger/ risk/ fear/ accusation/ worry, is that Hatsis’ INEPT CLUMSY FAILURE to ACTUALLY use scientific historical method, will in some way harm or wreck the field, the field of Western entheogen scholarship, the subfield “Psilocybe in mixed wine & mystery religion“.
Hatsis’ complete wall of mistakes in his caption of Heracles lifting the lid to reveal the worldline snake in the cista mystica, is a huge red flag, that there is a real danger of Hatsis’ extreme overconfidence, which presents a real risk of gross misapplication of “scientific historiography” and misrepresentation of mushrooms in Greek & Christian art.
A Travesty of “Scientific Historiography”, in Western Esotericism & in Western Entheogen Scholarship
The Danger/ Risk/ Fear
The risk that Hatsis is being irresponsible, careless, and reckless; that for no proper reason, Hatsis is mis-handling the field, and will harm the field due to mis-handling and mis-using “critical rational scientific objective historiography methodology”; due to failure to properly, actually use “scientific historiographical methodology”. The best methodology in the world, mis-handled, produces garbage results: the “no mushrooms in Christianity” theory. If Reason & evidence conflicts with the product of your use of method, then your use of method must be mis-use.
The risk that Hatsis’ malformed methodology, and his mis-handling of scientific historical methodology, will dissuade and discourage much-needed research in and development of this field. Exhibit:
“In both of our books, the evidence of the presence of hallucinogenic mushrooms in Christian iconography becomes numerous, and it seems obvious that they are only a small part of those existing or that existed.
“Apart from the American school, some German authors, and a few Italian friends who have expressed interest in the topics covered in these volumes, in the academic field silence reigns supreme.” – Gilberto Camilla & Fulvio Gosso
Names of Fields and Subfields of Scholarship, Scholarly Investigation & Research
From broad to narrow.
entheogens in Western religious history
mushrooms in Western religious history
mushrooms in Greek & Christian history
mushrooms in Greek & Christian art
Psilocybe in Greek & Christian art
mushrooms in Christian history
Psilocybe in Christian history
mushrooms in Christian art
Psilocybe in Christian art
mushrooms in Greek history
Psilocybe in Greek history
mushrooms in Greek art
Psilocybe in Greek art
Topical Subfield Names
Instead of ‘history’, ‘religion’, or ‘art’, more topical terms (Mystery-Religion initiation, mixed-wine banqueting, esoteric Christianity):
Psilocybe in mystery-religion initiation & mixed-wine banqueting & esoteric Christianity
Psilocybe in Mystery-Religion initiation & mixed-wine banqueting
Psilocybe in mixed wine & mystery religion
Names of Positions/Theories within Various Fields
Names of My Theory and Sub-Theories
The hierarchy of fields should parallel the hierarchy of positions. Each field has 3 positions: min/mod/max.
the Egodeath theory
the Cybernetic theory
the Mytheme theory
the maximal entheogen theory of religion
the maximal mushroom theory of Greek & Christian religion
the maximal Psilocybe theory of Greek & Christian religion
the maximal mushroom theory of Greek & Christian art
the maximal Psilocybe theory of Greek & Christian art
the maximal entheogen theory of Christianity
the maximal mushroom theory of Christianity
the maximal mushroom theory of Christian art
the maximal Psilocybe theory of Christian art
the maximal Psilocybe theory of Christian art = amanita were shown, but psilocybe were used; the theory/position that “depictions of Amanita are mythemes referring to the use of Psilocybe to induce religious experiencing”.
The General Nesting Pattern
Greek & Christian
entheogen
mushroom
Psilocybe
to deliberately induce religious mystic-state experiencing
I had to add and specify “to deliberately induce religious mystic-state experiencing” to explicitly counter the lame, f*cking annoying, dense, & dimwitted eternal-naysayer arguments from the Church-Lady Gang Brinckmann-Panofsky-Wasson-Letcher-Hatsis:
Just because it’s a mushroom shape, doesn’t mean the artist intended mushrooms.
Just because the artist intended mushrooms, doesn’t mean the artist intended psychoactive mushrooms.
Just because the artist intended psychoactive mushrooms, doesn’t mean the artist intended ingesting psychoactive mushrooms.
Just because the artist intended ingesting psychoactive mushrooms, doesn’t mean the artist intended ingesting psychoactive mushrooms to induce religious experiencing.
Just because it’s a mushroom shape, doesn’t mean the artist intended mushrooms.
Just because the artist intended mushrooms, doesn’t mean the artist intended psychoactive mushrooms.
Just because the artist intended psychoactive mushrooms, doesn’t mean the artist intended ingesting psychoactive mushrooms.
Just because the artist intended ingesting psychoactive mushrooms, doesn’t mean the artist intended ingesting psychoactive mushrooms to induce religious experiencing.
That is the sheer RETARDATION and dense stupidity that Hatsis’ ham-fisted mis-use and mis-handling of the scientific critical historical methodology leads to.
What we end up with is not the impression of someone doing a good job of applying scientific critical historical methodology — what we end up with is the opposite: the impression of someone being bullheaded and unreasonably obstinate, and only pretending and posturing as if using methodology.
Their use of methodology is really just pretense and pretext, an agenda of deceit, in service of some a priori commitment to removing mushrooms from Christian history.
Maybe to play-act the part of the “sensationalist contrarian”, to sell books.
Something is majorly f*cked up with your alleged “scientific historiography methodology“, if a 7th grader produces more sound reasoning, instead of overthinking to the point of 50-IQ blockheaded thickness, putting on a show of how dense and dull-witted you can be if you just slather-on the alleged (ineptly mis-used) “scientific historical methodology” as thick as possible.
On what basis do you hold this background assumption that’s wrecking your intelligence, this assumption that Christians would avoid ingesting psychoactive (Psilocybe) mushrooms to induce religious experiencing?
WTF, is Letcher-Hatsis against religious experiencing?
Is Letcher-Hatsis against mushrooms?
Why this thick-headed, committed, eternal, relentless bias against the obvious? Is it a cheap strategy-move to act the fool, act the contrarian, to try to boost book-sales?
Why is Letcher-Hatsis digging-in his Church-Lady heels, to do anything possible to deny the manifestly undeniable?
He is throwing all the incoherent kettle-logic, any half-baked argument he can possibly come up with, throwing them splattered against the wall, to try to make something stick.
What the F is Letcher-Hatsis’ PROBLEM with Mushrooms in Christianity? Is Someone Paying Him to Deny the Undeniable? Something Is as Fishy as Wasson’s Repeated Censoring of Panofsky’s Book-Citation of Brinckmann.
I totally acknowledge Hatsis’ valuable valid work in correcting fallacies.
At this website, I’m focusing on Hatsis being CERTAINLY PROVABLY WRONG about his extremist, untenable position of NO mushrooms in Christian history. Why would anyone dogmatically adhere to that clearly losing position?
See my Gallery of mushrooms in Christian art.
See my Proof article showing that the only way to make any sense of the the Canterbury Psalter “mushroom tree/ hanging/ sword” image showing the Psalter reader, is, the mushroom tree MUST mean Psilocybe. And therefore all ~70 mushroom images in the Canterbury psalter must mean Psilocybe.
For the obtuse, obstinately dense Letcher — and Hatsis makes the same brain-dead, anti-mystical argument (todo: link to his article):
For any sane person to say “mushroom” or “Psilocybe”, in the context of fantastical religious-mythology art, is the same (OBVIOUSLY, YOU PRETEND-DIMWIT) as saying “mushroom shapes in Christian art mean deliberately ingesting psychoactive (especially psilocybin) mushrooms for the purpose of inducing the intense religious experiencing mystic altered state of loose cognitive association.
But you knew that already. Stop insulting everyone’s intelligence by making me state the excruciatingly obvious!
This arguing is a waste of time, arguing against committed skeptics who are just against mushrooms in Christianity, biased, a priori.
Who is paying them to pretend they don’t believe the glaringly obvious? Aside from the Pope paying Wasson the PR propagandist; that one, we know — what’s the excuse of Brinckmann-Panofsky-Letcher-Hatsis, for denying the manifestly plain, for holding to:
That mushroom you see is not a mushroom; it is anything else other than a mushroom — it doesn’t matter what, just so long as it’s anything but mushrooms.
Who Is Paying the Church-Lady Gang to Deny Mushrooms in Christian History No Matter What the Evidence that They Are Wrong?
We know that the Big Bank-PR head Wasson got payola from the Pope — what’s the excuse for the rest of the Church Lady Gang for being committed skeptics; perpetual incorrigible naysayers, who refuse to ever allow Psilocybe in Christian history, no matter what the evidence?
Names of Positions Which Hatsis Has Asserted
Hatsis has advocated the moderate entheogen theory of Christianity, by affirming Scopolamine and Cannabis eg in esoteric Christianity, but denying mushrooms (particularly, denying Amanita, and then denying Psilocybe, as an afterthought).
todo: check Hatsis’ book Psychedelic Mystery Traditions: check whether he asserts the [min|mod|max, entheogens|mushrooms, Psilocybe|Amanita] theory of Greek religion.
the moderate entheogen theory of Greek religion (if Hatsis denies mushrooms in Greek religion/art)
the moderate entheogen theory of Greek art (if Hatsis denies mushrooms in Greek art. If Hatsis affirms mushrooms in Greek art, he’s maximal here.)
the moderate mushroom theory of Greek religion
Re-balancing the Emphasis of Scholarly Coverage
Psilocybe is under-studied. Amanita is over-studied.
Term Usages
In my writings:
‘Psilocybe’ is shorthand for “non-Amanita psychoactive mushrooms”.
‘Christian’ is shorthand for “Christendom”, such as Christian moral-instruction bestiaries.
‘Greek’ is shorthand for “Hellenistic”.
‘Brown’ means Brown & Brown, the co-authors of the book The Psychedelic Gospels.
‘mushroom’ means psychoactive, probably non-Amanita, mushroom species, ingested deliberately for the purpose of inducing mystical religious altered state.
unless otherwise specified.
Wrap Up Work in the Field of “Allegro-Amanita”; Do Scholarship Instead in the Field of “Psilocybe in Christendom & Hellenism”
Why the Obsession on Irvin and Allegro? Why Force Them to Be Definitive of the Field?
In the popular mind, Allegro created the theory that Christianity used mushrooms. How they get that impression. Half-truth.
Did Robert Graves Propose Mushrooms in Christianity?
Allegro’s dust-jacket thesis was punchy, bold, explicit — not dancing-around the subject like Graves.
The competitive PR for Allegro’s book vs. Wasson’s book pushed the identification in the public’s mind, that Allegro = “Christianity used mushrooms”, especially with the Plaincourault diagram on the cover, exposing and highlighting the mushroom-centric nature of Christianity.
Allegro’s Position Statement About the Christian Mystery Religion, versus the Egodeath Theory’s Position Statement about Mystery Religions
Why the Popularity & Influence of Allegro’s Dust-Jacket Thesis
Irvin’s reissue uses the same original cover art: November 12, 2009 http://amzn.com/0982556276 As of Dec 18 2020: Best Sellers Rank: #24,205 in Books <– popular #2 in Comparative Religion <– high #9 in Fertility #11 in Worship Sacraments <– high
Much of Allegro’s dust-jacket thesis is sound.
People took note of this book, and continue to take note of it, because of:
The Plaincourault diagram cover art.
The largely sound dust-jacket thesis summary.
The 1970 popular serialization & intensive PR of both Wasson for SOMA & Allegro for Sacred Mushroom.
Allegro uses philology to support the dust-jacket thesis.
Allegro’s Thesis, from 1st-Edition Dust Jacket Flap
I formulated and advocate the Mytheme theory; the “Analogical Psychedelic Pre-existence” theory of religious mythology.
Where the Theory of Mushrooms in Christianity Fits Within the Egodeath Theory
The Egodeath theory includes:
The Cybernetic theory of ego transcendence (1988-1997).
The Mytheme theory (1998-2006); which includes:
The maximal entheogen theory of religion; which includes:
The maximal theory of mushrooms in Greek & Christian religion; which includes:
The maximal theory of mushrooms in Christian art.
The Mytheme/analogy theory of mushrooms in Christian texts.
Types of Evidence for Mushrooms in Christianity [& Greek/Hellenistic religion/myth]
Depictions of mushrooms (Psilocybe & Amanita) & the effects of Psilocybe, in Christian art.
Literal depictions of Cubensis, Liberty Caps, & Amanita in art.
Sylized depictions of Cubensis, Liberty Caps, & Amanita in art.
Descriptions of Psilocybe effects in art.
Mushrooms & their effects described by the analogy-based language of Mythemese in texts.
Literal descriptions of Cubensis, Liberty Caps, & Amanita in texts.
Sylized descriptions of Cubensis, Liberty Caps, & Amanita in texts.
Descriptions of Psilocybe effects in texts.
Hoffman’s Thesis Regarding Psilocybe-Based Mystery Religions; the Mytheme Theory; the “Analogical Psychedelic Pre-existence” Theory of Mythology – Including Mushrooms in Christian Art, & Mushrooms & Their Effects Described by the Analogy-based Language of Mythemese in Texts
Thesis of the Egodeath Theory Regarding Psilocybe-Based Mystery Religions, in Contrast to Allegro’s Thesis
Thesis of the Egodeath theory (the Mytheme theory portion) re: Mystery Religions
My writeup of these ideas has different spin/take/framing than Allegro’s dust-jacket thesis.
My Egodeath theory (the 2001-2006 Mytheme theory portion, not the 1988-1997 Cybernetic theory portion) holds that:
Position Statement
Religious mythology, including Bible stories, is analogies describing things that are observed and experienced in the altered state, typically/ definitively/ archetypally from Psilocybe mushrooms as the main point of reference for entheogenic experiencing.
Mystery Religions and the Symposium Banqueting tradition were primarily based on Psilocybe mixed-wine.
That conclusion is based on the effects of Psilocybe best matching the effects; the experiences and observations that are described in myth.
When other pharmaka were used (scopalamine, cannabis, amanita, opium) those lesser entheogens piggybacked on the real origin/source of the experiences.
To induce the mythic state of consciousness, Psilocybe is objectively preferable, targeted, efficient, focused, optimal.
Psilocybe is effective fresh or dried, mixed into bread or wine.
Sophisticated initiation systems including Mystery Religions were optimally based on Psilocybe.
See Samorini re: the combined hypothesis of mushrooms and ergot strains.
Western religious mythology is mushroom myths.
There was no single mushroom cult.
There were many brands of mushroom cultic Mystery Religions & the general banqueting tradition of Psilocybe mixed-wine.
The “best wine” meant Psilocybe mixed-wine, in broad, Hellenistic, Mediterranean Antiquity.
Taking Psilocybe makes the mind god-possessed; thinking in god-mode rather than egoic-mode.
‘Secret’ refers primarily to the the normally hidden, uncontrollable source of control-thoughts, which is revealed by the intense peak altered state.
Revealing the pre-existing worldline of control-thoughts kills egoic power-claims; the mind is brought to transcend ego.
Psilocybe causes transformation of the mental worldmodel from possibilism to eternalism, from {king steering in tree}, through {wine}, to {snake frozen in rock}.
The universal convention in writings, such as Church Fathers, was to write about mushrooms, by analogies rather than direct modern explicit wording.
Merely speaking the language of Greek or Latin is no use, and renders the scholar mytheme-illiterate.
You must speak the language of Mythemese, to read and recognize writings about mushrooms as the engine of Mystery Religions and initiation and the Psilocybe Mixed-Wine Banqueting Tradition.
Hellenistic-era Mystery Religions and mythology adapted old entheogenic mythologies, describing Jesus, Mithras, Dionysus, Demeter, Osiris, and Isis through Mytheme-Encoded analogy-based description.
The later Church endorsed a historical Jesus, to gather power based on the argument or pseudo-logic of “restricted chain of transmitted authority”, although authority actually comes from the mushroom experience.
Everyone, including Church Fathers, used and respected mushrooms and wrote about them, in the analogy-based language of Mythemes.
Every party accused every other party of demonic imitation sacred meal.
Everyone used mushrooms for their own, favored, non-demonic, authentic sacred meal.
Everyone wrote about their favored Psilocybin sacred meal, using the analogy-based language of Mythemes.
Laughable to Suggest this Psilocybe Is an Italian Pine or a Parasol of Victory
This article explains what happened after I put away my pen after the pair of 2006 articles (my main article + my Plaincourault article) on December 31, 2007:
“In October 2008, Jan Irvin published The Holy Mushroom: Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity which was the first book to present texts which supported Allegro’s theory.
For example, a 16th century Christian text called The Epistle to the Renegade Bishops explicitly mentions and discusses “the holy mushroom”.
Irvin provides dozens of Christian images to support Allegro’s ideas – images that weren’t available when The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross was originally published in 1970.
The front cover of Irvin’s book includes one of these images – some mushrooms can be seen.
Some say that in these kinds of images, it is not the Amanita mushroom that is shown, but the more common types of psychedelic mushrooms, such as the ones shown next to it.”
/ end of excperts from page
I’ve been in this field, of Western mushroom scholarship, for 21 years, since I read Strange Fruit in 1999, communicating and collaborating with the other scholars, and I don’t know what Hatsis has in mind by the strange phrase “The Holy Mushroom Theory”.
I don’t know what field he’s in, and what field he imagines he’s in, on this topic, but it’s not the Pro-level field of Western mushroom scholarship. It does seem to be the same field as Letcher imagines Letcher is in.
The “Debunk the Allegro Theory” field, as if there’s such a thing as “The Allegro Theory” outside the world of hazy popular imagining and “get those hit-counts up”, gee-whiz, Web articles.
Such articles kick around a few popular images, giving the impression that there’s a shortage.
Based on my own searching in printed materials, the known instances are merely the tip of the iceberg.
Further evidence of that: no one showed me that there are some 50 mushroom trees in a high-res Canterbury Psalter; the world ignored the question and left it up to me to finally bother putting together an inventory, for the first time, at the very late date of December 13, 2020.
WHY DID NO ONE BOTHER CAPTURING, CROPPING, AND UPLOADING THE FULL SET OF MUSHROOM TREES FROM CANTERBURY, UNTIL ME, NOW?
That’s the fault of people like Hatsis, and McKenna, and Wasson, and Graves, who say “Don’t look for Mushrooms in Christian art, the big bad Catholic Church suppressed them. Even if you found an example, it would prove there aren’t any examples; because, suppressed.”
Why has everyone been conned — by Hatsis, Terrence McFakea, and Pope Wasson, into putting up with this D-tier, fuzzy, overcropped, no-context image?
Why did the defeatist, eyes-closed, incurious world instead leave it to me in the very late date of November 17, 2020, to finally ask, WHAT DOES THIS SWORD AND ENTIRE IMAGE MEAN?
which I promptly was able to solve thanks to Bennett and then Irvin and then Hatsis who all failed to decode the bestiary salamander with so-called “dancing man”, but who at least brought me the salamander image, which I leveraged (largely decoded in 2015, & fully in 2020 just before re-finding the above problem/image) to solve the above, stripped-of-context image, and then starting November 17, 2020, I proceeded to, as fast as I could write-up my analysis, during the next week, successfully fully decode this entire image.
Context: while writing an article suggested by Jerry Brown, on defining Criteria of Proof for mushrooms in art, I again came upon the above severely cropped blurry image, started decoding it, and quickly that section ballooned and I had to break it out from the already too-long Criteria article.
Kinda like how my main 2006 article seemed to spawn my Plaincourault article at the same time.
The above crop is a great example proving my point that WE HAVE ONLY SEEN THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG.
On November 16, 2020, while finishing my article “Criteria of Proof”, I re-found this little thread and pulled on it (the above pic), and what came forth was not only the entire below picture, but a whale: that complete image and then my entire brand new collection page:
In fact there are so many mushrooms, I got tired of harvesting them exhaustively, and skipped a few. So it is not yet even a “complete” inventory!
Too many Assyrian Parasols of Victory to count — or, Italian Pines; makes no difference, so long as it’s ANYTHING BUT MUSHROOMS! Thanks to Church Lady Hatsis & Pope Panofsky-Wasson, for keeping us safe.
Do not look at that Brinckmann book, readers of SOMA, because there cannot be mushrooms in Christian art. (Pope’s orders.)
“All Mushroom Trees in Christian Art Represent Assyrian Parasols of Victory”
Even were we to grant that all “mushroom trees” in Christian art are Italian Pines — oops, I meant, Assyrian Parasols of Victory — that still leaves untouched, the question of mushrooms in Christian art that might not be dubbed “mushroom trees”, such as simply, literally depicted mushrooms.
Are these non-tree-mushrooms in Christian art, too, to be forced to represent something which they manifestly and plainly do not represent — Italian Parasols of Pine Victory aka “just make sh!t up, ‘rightly or wrongly’, and hide behind my credentials and hope no one notices“, aka “I’ve proudly accomplished explaining-away“, aka “ANYTHING BUT MUSHROOMS!“?
Pyschedelic[sic] Christianity : A Scholarly Debate on the Holy Mushroom Theory YouTube channel: Psychedelic Historian January 5, 2018. Hatsis vs. Brown 1:09:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PXZGiX4Qnk&t=4160s “the Assyrian Parasol: this is what every supposed mushroom tree is based off of.”
Hatsis has a big problem here: he is countering the Pope’s position, asserted by Brinckmann, Panofky, & Wasson — that mushroom trees represent the Italian Pine.
Either:
All mushroom trees in Christian art represent Italian Pines (Brinckmann, Panofsky, Wasson); — OR –
All mushroom trees in Christian art represent the Assyrian Parasol of Victory. (Thomas Hatsis)
WHICH IS IT? WHICH EXPERT ARE WE TO BELIEVE?
instead of simply identifying mushrooms in Christian art as representing mushrooms. My super ultra radical position:
All mushrooms in Christian art represent mushrooms. (Michael Hoffman, Jerry Brown)
Specifically, all mushrooms in Christian art represent mushrooms, typically, Psilocybe and its effects. Amanita in Christian art represents Psilocybe types. The preferred entheogen for Christianity per art is Psilocybe mushrooms – not Amanita, not Scopolamine, not THC/Cannabis products, not Opium.
How to Recognize a Pop-Tier, Sub-scholarly Book: Count How Many Times It Says “Allegro”
A constructive book in the field of “mushrooms in Greek & Christian art” should have the word ‘Allegro’ one time only, and that instance should say:
John Allegro is irrelevant to the field of mushrooms in Greek & Christian art.
Two Tiers of Coverage – Hatsis Is Stuck in the Lower, Pop Tier
It is good that Hatsis is debunking the pop tier, but he needs to differentiate the two distinct tiers — pop, careless, non-scholarship; and careful, sound scholarship.
The field of “mushrooms in Christian art” is split into a Pop Sike Cult, inferior, outsiders’, gee-whiz, confused level (like the urban myth of Amanita Christmas); vs. a valid, scholarly, insiders level, which Hatsis mistakenly thinks he is in or would be in.
Hatsis could and should be within the valid, higher, real tier, the actual & proper field of “mushrooms in Christian art”.
The isolated field of the field of “mushrooms in Christian art” is hopeless; not effective enough.
You have to combine Ruck-type Greek art focus, with the popular wish today, for mushrooms in Christian art.
Better, Hatsis ought to be in the adequate broader field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”; aka the field of “mushrooms in Greek & Christian art”.
Stop Using the Word ‘Allegro’ & ‘Amanita’; It Fabricates a Field & Position that Doesn’t Exist
Every time Hatsis (or Letcher) says ‘Allegro’, he’s spreading falsehood, confusion, and misrepresentation of the field, of Western mushroom scholarship.
The field as Letcher-Hatsis describes it, is completely and totally misrepresented.
It would be essentially better to refer to the field as “the Robert Graves interpretation”, or better yet, the “mycologists/Ramsbottom interpretation”, re: specifically Plaincourault. But I totally disagree that Plaincourault deserves any special place.
Stop falsely insisting on forcing Allegro and Plaincourault to be the center of discussion & debate.
Allegro is irrelevant, and Plaincourault is merely one of thousands of images of mushrooms in Christian art, and deserves no special place.
We have 100x as much visual evidence as we have uploaded to the Web.
People have failed to even try, to recognize and upload and tag the images; they’ve been conned into closing their eyes and not trying to look and recognize mushrooms all thorughout Christian art.
The easiest game in the world is to find printed images of mushrooms and photograph and upload and tag them.
We haven’t even gotten started gathering the evidence — images of mushrooms in the art of Christendom, and in Hellenistic art.
Brown’s good idea of the curated collection to debate. See my sets of articles:
Allegro in one edition of his book, randomly chose this image, which contradicts his theory that the 2nd generation of Christians forgot about mushrooms. No wonder Allegro dropped it.
STOP CALLING IT “THE ALLEGRO INTERPRETATION” – that is a SCHOLARLY MIS-ATTRIBUTION ERROR; this particular instance of mushrooms in Christian art is correctly attributed as the 1924 Rolfe-Ramsbottom-Brightman interpretation, which Allegro sloppily, temporarily took up — contradicting his own theory, and which he later rejected AS HATSIS HIMSELF ASSERTS so why does Hatsis persist in mis-attributing this psychoactive mushroom interpretation of this particular art image, to “Allegro”?
It’s NOT “the Allegro theory of mushrooms in Christian art” as Hatsis mis-frames the field; it’s “the Rolfe-Ramsbottom-Brightman interpretation of the Plaincourault tree“.
Which Rolfe mis-calls “the tree of life”; it would be, rather, “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”.
Hatsis can’t even get THE NAME OF THE FIELD right. The correct name of the field is, “mushrooms in Christianity”, or “psychoactive mushrooms in Christian art”, or “psychoactive mushrooms in Greek & Christian art”, not “the Allegro theory”.
If you insist on attaching someone’s name — which isn’t really possible — a less-wrong name would be Rolfe-Ramsbottom-Brightman, but that would be wrong, because they only discuss Plaincourault.
We who are ACTUALLY IN this field, consider Plaincourault to have no special import, and I consider Amanita to represent Psilocybe; the visually striking Amanita was used by visual artists to represent Psilocybe mushrooms, such as Cubensis & Liberty Caps.
I represent the field. Not sure about Mark Hoffman or Carl Ruck, or Heinrich. They seem to take Amanita a little too literally.
Psilocybe is objectively more desirable than Amanita; Psilocybe is 100% focused in its classic entheogenic effects, eaten raw or dried, mixed into bread or wine.
There is no such thing as “the Allegro theory, that mushrooms are in Christian art” — that notion of such a theory coming from Allegro, is a pop invention which sometimes-sloppy historian Hatsis perpetuates, propagating pop confusions.
Allegro didn’t maintain or assert that mushrooms are in Christian art.
Allegro showed a single image, which contradicted his assertion of Christians forgetting the meaning after the primitive Christians; and Allegro removed the image from his book, as Hatsis himself points out.
You could hardly pick a worse representative than Allegro, to represent the position that mushrooms in Christian art represent mushrooms.
Stop mis-calling the position of “mushrooms in Christian art represent mushrooms“, “the Allegro theory”. Allegro didn’t hold that position, didn’t care about that question, and didn’t assert that position.
The pop mind wrongly attributes the position “mushrooms in Christian art represent mushrooms” to Allegro. One’s job as a historian is to correct the popular mind on that point — not to therefore monolithically blanket-dismiss the entire position of “mushrooms in Christian art represent mushrooms” just because the pop mind is projecting their (correct) wishes & expectations onto Allegro.
There are two tiers of theory or speculation:
The trashy, careless, Pop level, which Hatsis resides on; with Pope Wasson, Letcher, … which conflates Amanita with all psychoactives, and which conflates Allegro with the actual authors / mycologists/ & entheogen scholars.
We real mycologists or we real Western mushroom scholars, want nothing to do with Allegro, he is irrelevant to “Western mushroom scholarship” (the field of “identifying mushrooms in broadly Greek & Christian art“), and everything that everyone thinks they know about Allegro in the pop gossip web community, is wrong, projection & conflation.
Wasson is almost as bad/irrelevant as Allegro, re: mushrooms in “our” religious history. Wasson is 100% compromised, being the Pope’s banker.
Wasson demonstrated censorship of Brinkmann’s name/book citation in Wasson’s book SOMA, reproducing Panofsky’s letter, except replacing Panofsky’s citation of Brinckmann by ellipses.
Discourages People from Looking for Mushrooms in Christian Art
Ignore Hatsis here; go against him.
Stop listening to naysayers like McKenna who command us, “Do not look for mushrooms in normal Christianity.”
“You can’t fill five chapters with mushrooms in Christianity” — A false statement. Near 1:25:00 in Hatsis’ video Pyschedelic[sic] Christianity : A Scholarly Debate on the Holy Mushroom Theory.
Pyschedelic[sic] Christianity : A Scholarly Debate on the Holy Mushroom Theory YouTube channel: Psychedelic Historian January 5, 2018. Hatsis vs. Brown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PXZGiX4Qnk&t=4060s (fine-tune timestamp)
“the Allegro camp” 1:26:00 – false; there is no such thing as “the Allegro camp”.
He says people commit the mono-plant fallacy. I have criticized this tendency like like in 2001 postings. See Egodeath.com for “mono-plant fallacy”.
I don’t know who Hatsis is accusing of singling-out Amanita as “the” single Christian entheogen. He needs to be specific. 1:26:00 in that video.
Psilocybe was the typical, preferred Christian entheogen, indicated sometimes as Amanita. That’s why there are so many mushroom shapes.
Vagueness About Which Writer Allegedly Asserts “The Allegro Interpretation”[sic]
It is impossible to evaluate Hatsis’ statements — they fall well short of scholarsly communication — because he is completely vague about who he means by “followers of Allegro”.
He is hallucinating, projecting, and mentally constructing, tilting at windmills, and hazily strawmanning — not presenting a scientifically testable and evaluable, meaningfully specified, scholarly position.
Explain This Mushroom Tree: Balancing on an Italian Pine, with God’s Sword Underneath? Only Makes Sense if Psilocybe
Explain This Mushroom Tree by This Artist Who Drew some 50 Mushroom Trees in Canterbury Psalter: Balancing Precariously on an Italian Pine, with God’s Sword Underneath? WHY?! It Only Makes Sense if Psilocybe; and Therefore All of His Mushrooms Mean Mushrooms
Why is the maiden apprehensive at the banquet table?
Why is the man being carried away from the banquet table by an angel?
Why are two men on mushrooms balancing on the mushroom tree, trying not to fall onto God’s sword?
Why is the class of 4 students being examined by the bearded instructor to the left?
Why is the psalter viewer in the center of the image, being threatened with blades and entreated for mercy and charity, and why breaking the bow?
Either this image has no meaning, or, it means peak Psilocybe effects: self-threatening in the peak mystic altered state, while transforming the mental model of possibilities branching, personal control power, and the source of control-thoughts.
Overgeneralization that Mushrooms are Shown as Trees
The first image in my 2006 article shows a 6″ tall, lone mushroom; shin height. No one would refer to this as a “mushroom tree”, instead, they IGNORE it. Is this a Parasol of Victory, or is it an Italian Pine? Which expert is correct?
275 “Legend of St. Eustace (first part, window at Chartres), p. 276 second part, 277 third part
The above is a portion of the window, shown below. Imagine the same detail and sharpness for the whole window.
The “Secular vs. Religious” Genre Mischaracterization: Bestiary Teaches Christian Morality
Hatsis’ brittle-minded dismissal of bestiaries as “secular”, I’m surprised “witch” Hatsis makes this basic mistake.
Is this newbie scholar really worth investing in? but we need more researchers.
I confirmed yesterday Dec 17 2020, that medieval bestiaries convey Christian morality.
So much for his argument that “mushrooms in bestiaries don’t count as Christian art”.
Hatsis botches the genre question, has a brittle notion of “this art or document is “wholly secular”.
Does Hatsis not know anything about Christendom and the pre-Modern mindset?
“Wholly secular” is largely a contradiction in terms, until the Late Modern era.
Pyschedelic[sic] Christianity : A Scholarly Debate on the Holy Mushroom Theory YouTube channel: Psychedelic Historian January 5, 2018. Hatsis vs. Brown around 1:08:25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PXZGiX4Qnk&t=4060s
Hatsis doesn’t know how to spell “Psychedelic Christianity” – not that typos are significant; but add it to the pile of signs & evidence that Hatsis is sloppy and not at all trustworthy on this topic. The video has too few views, b/c the title is misspelled.
This field actually is the carefully scope-defined field, of “mushrooms in broadly Greek & Christian art”. That is, mushrooms in Hellenistic art & Christendom art.
Above, I say ‘broadly, because Hatsis keeps making a brittle genre-identification error, trying to dismiss mushrooms in art by falsely claiming that “this art appears in a secular work” (eg a bestiary).
In “broadly Christian art or Christendom art”, I include Western Esotericism art.
Mischaracterizes the “Rolfe-Ramsbottom-Brightman vs. Wasson” Positions on the Plaincourault Image as “the Wasson/ Allegro Debate”
Referring to the difference of views re: Plaincourault, between Allegro vs. Wasson, as a “debate”. There was no debate. Wasson & Allegro lazily tossed a couple darts past each other.
Ramsbottom exposed Wasson writing privately to him, “Rightly or wrongly, we are going to dismiss…”
There was never any 2-way, engaged exchange discussing points, between Wasson & Allegro.
The communications were entirely abortive, with no engagement of the points.
There was a dispute or maybe debate (doubtful) between Wasson and someone else — that someone else was not firstly Allegro, but rather, Pope Wasson vs. the mycologists — Rolfe’s 1924 book, edited by Ramsbottom; and Brightman.
What Hatsis mis-calls “the Allegro theory, of mushrooms in Christian art”, is actually, in fact, “the 1924 Rolfe-Ramsbottom-Brightman interpretation of the Plaincourault tree“.
It is unambigous and safe to say that there were positions taken, about the Plaincourault tree. There was no real debate about that image.
Among Rolfe, Ramsbottom, Brightman; Brinckmann, Panofsky, Wasson; & Allegro, there was neither discussion, defined positions, nor debate, about the relevantly scoped questions:
To what extent mushrooms in Greek & Christian religion & culture?
To what extent mushrooms in Christianity?
To what extent was the Eucharist recognized as mushrooms?
Instead, all of them halted as if taboo, getting themselves completely stuck on A SINGLE ART INSTANCE. Why?
Because none of them are entheogen scholars.
Of Rolfe, Ramsbottom, Brightman; Brinckmann, Panofsky, Wasson; & Allegro, only Wasson took the mantle of an entheogen scholar, but with the Pope, as his banker, Wasson instead censored Brinckmann’s book, and like Terrence McFakea, and like Hatsis, Wasson says
DO NOT LOOK FOR MUSHROOMS IN CHRISTIAN ART.
THESE AREN’T THE SHROOMS YOU’RE LOOKING FOR.
There are no mushrooms in Christianity, because I, Pope’s banker, say so – in my completely evasive, mealy-mouth, roundabout way that could mean anything, by my universally confusing and vague statement “I said there was no … I was wrong”.
Robert Graves 1957-1973 may be the first to pose these properly framed questions.
Rolfe’s Book (1925)
R. T. Rolfe & F. W. Rolfe. The Romance of the Fungus World: An Account of Fungus Life in Its Numerous Guises, Both Real and Legendary. ISBN: 0486231054. 1925 (1974). Foreword by John Ramsbottom, 1924.
Ramsbottom’s Books (1949, 1953)
John Ramsbottom. A Handbook of the Larger British Fungi. ISBN: B0007JA6VC. 1949.
John Ramsbottom. Mushrooms & Toadstools: A Study of the Activities of Fungi. ISBN: B0007JALQC. 1953.
Wrongly Calling the “Mushrooms in Christian Art” Position “the Allegro Theory”
It is an outsider’s error, a non-scholar’s error, to refer to the position “mushrooms in Christian art represent mushrooms” as “the Allegro theory”.
This is a total misrepresentation of the field, the distinct questions or issues, the positions held, and the authors who hold those positions.
Allegro is purely dead weight and is wholly irrelevant. Allegro’s use of the Plaincourault contradicted his theory, maybe that’s why he retracted such reading (if Hatsis is to be believed on the latter point).
No Credibility in Coverage of Mushrooms in Greek Art
The caption on Herakles’ cista mystica image in Psychedelic Mystery Traditions – every word is mistaken. He misinterprets every aspect of this image. This reduces Hatsis’ credibility.
I expect my students — to qualify as peers working in this rightly-conceptualized field (unlike Letcher-Hatsis) — to be competently conversant in Greek & Christian religious mythology, or their view carries no credibility.
Not Even Wrong — Poorly Articulated Arguments and Position re: Eden Tree
The 1-2 page passage in Hatsis’ misrepresentatively titled book Psychedelic Mystery Traditions, on the Eden tree is not even wrong; it’s so vague and garbled, so inarticulately worded, it’s anyone’s guess what Hatsis’ position and argument is.
eg. his phrase “Such a view”. Such a what view? He needs to explicitly state what view he is critiquing.
This topic, Hatsis’ 1-2 pages of careless less-than-treatment of the Eden Tree interpretation, reminds me of Wasson’s mealy-mouthed, anti-clarity way of writing, mistaken by the gullible as “profound” and “artistically sophisticated”.
Such writing has snagged the field and prevented clear thinking and forward progress — no one understands what Wasson or Allegro were asserting; their own thinking is evidently a mass of confusion and unclarity.
I work hard to assert the most sophisticated ideas, in 140-character standalone statements that any random person, any 8th grader on the Web, can readily understand.
Hatsis Is Working-Out a Position Statement re: Secrecy, Suppression, Conspiracy
Ruck – perpetuates ‘secrecy’ framework, which is malformed.
McKenna — “do not look for mushrooms in art, because big bad Cath church suppressed them”. I don’t care whether mushrooms were “suppressed” or not; I only care neutrally,
To what extent mushrooms in Greek & Christian religion & culture?
To what extent mushrooms in Christianity?
To what extent was the Eucharist recognized as mushrooms?
The issue of “suppression or not?” is pretty irrelevant to my research project. Hatsis and Letcher try to malform the field and misrepresent it and hallucinatroily create a different field, by misrepresenting the field as “the Allegro theory” … “the Conspiracy to suppress from texts theory”.
As someone who is actually IN the field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”, I reject and do not recognize; I reject as gross mischaracterization of the field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art” as “the Allegro theory”.
It’s a gross mischaracterization of the field of “mushrooms in Christian art” to mis-call it “the Allegro theory”.
I don’t believe in decoding analogical psychedelic eternalism in Greek materials alone, or Hellenistic materials alone, or Christian materials alone, or the art of Christendom alone.
We must decode & recognize analogical psychedelic eternalism by co-decoding Hellenistic & Christendom art & myth; “Greek and Christian” art & myth. Helleno-Christian art/myth, united. I do not advocate the field of the field of “mushrooms in Christian art” .
I advocate the field of “mushrooms in Greek & Christian art”; “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”.
I actually advocate of the field of spotting analogical psychedelic eternalism in “mushrooms in Greek & Christian art”; “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”. The narrow specific question Amanita in Christian religious art, is like a tenth of a percent of what I care about and assert.
The extremely particular question of Plaincourault is like one hundredth of one percent of what I care about and assert.
And I don’t consider Allegro at all as an appropriate actual representation of even that one particular point, that Plaincourault = Amanita.
That view is the Rolfe-Ramsbottom-Brightman interpretation of that one mushroom representation. Not “the Allegro interpretation of Plaincourault”.
Psychedelic Mystery Traditions book in one spot has botched, brief mis-coverage of mushrooms in Greek/Hellenistic materials, and a garbled, unclear, brief coverage of mushrooms in Christendom materials. I consider Greek/ Christian (Hellenistic & Christendom)
Accurate Names of the Field which Letcher-Hatsis Mis-calls “The Allegro Theory”
Most accurate: the field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”
mushrooms in Western art the field of “mushrooms in Western art” mushrooms in Greek & Christian art the field of “mushrooms in Greek & Christian art” That’s “Greek” and “Christian” in the broadest sense; eg Hellenistic & Christendom: mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art the field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”
Candidates for Writer Names to Represent the Field
Michael Hoffman
I accurately represent the field.
Carl Ruck
Ruck covers Greek more than Christian. He would be no more than a fair representative for the field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”.
Ruck greatly overemphasizes ‘secret’, which I completely bracket-off and ignore. I have little interest in what sense ‘secret’. Ruck treats ‘secret’ like its an entire explanatory framework.
I leave the question of ‘secret’ out of my entheogen scholarship.
In my theory of loose cognitive association, the personal control system initially doesn’t perceive the uncontrollable source of control-thoughts, but then perceives it, {lifting the lid off the snake-basket, seeing it, and thereby dying} in the mind.
The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist Ruck, Staples, Heinrich http://amzn.com/089089924X Brown’s book The Psychedelic Gospels finally delivered, what this book promised but didn’t deliver.
Clark Heinrich
Heinrich covers Amanita, not Psilocybe, and only in Christendom art, not Hellenistic art. He would be a very poor representative for the field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”.
McKenna
McFakea he asserts Psilocybe, not Amanita, but he falsely asserts no mushrooms in Christianity.
McKenna would be a completely poor representative for the field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”.
Mark Hoffman
Mark Hoffman’s position is not clear.
Hoffman’s book with ‘Consciousness’ in the title doesn’t cover cognitive phenomenology or cognition.
Ruck/Heinrich/Staples book with Ruck, I thought was unclear what its point & position are.
Mark Hoffman, editor of Entheos journal and co-author with Ruck, is not an articulate enough representative for the field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”.
Rolfe-Ramsbottom-Brightman
Rolfe-Ramsbottom-Brightman only discussed 1 image, Plaincourault. Not Greek art images. Not broadly Christian art. This 1924 group of mycologists would be a very poor representative for the scholarly field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”.
Robert Graves
Graves wrote about mushrooms in Greek, not much in Christian much. To quantify, review his ~83 pages on entheogens he wrote 1957-1973. Graves would be a poor representative for the field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”. Pope Wasson told Graves to stop covering the field, and Graves did stop.
Wasson
Waasson denied mushrooms in Christian art, didn’t cover Greek.
Pope Wasson would be a very poor representative for the field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”.
Wasson is 100% compromised, as Pope’s Banker.
Wasson censored the 1906 Brinckmann book citation from Panofsky’s letter, copied but not copied, into Wasson’s book SOMA.
Allegro
Allegro covered not Greek art, and almost no Christian art; only 1 image, which he removed.
Allegro would be a very poor representative for the field of “mushrooms in Hellenistic & Christendom art”.
Acknowledgements
This research about Rolfe’s 1924 book was contributed by Jan Irvin for my 2006 article.
John M. Allegro. The Sacred Mushroom & the Cross. ISBN: 0340128755. 1970.
John M. Allegro, “The Sacred Mushroom”, letter to the editor in The Times Literary Supplement, September 11, 1970.
John M. Allegro. “The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross” (David York, introduction: “Christ and the Sacred Mushroom”), in the Sunday Mirror (London). Serialized February 15, 1970 no. 357 – April 26, 1970. Transcribed at Pharmacratic-inquisition.com.
James Arthur. Mushrooms and Mankind: The Impact of Mushrooms on Human Consciousness and Religion. ISBN: 1585091510. 2003.
Chris Bennett. Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible. ISBN: 1550567985. 2001.
Frank H. Brightman. The Oxford Book of Flowerless Plants: Ferns, Fungi, Mosses and Liverworts, Lichens, and Seaweeds. ISBN: B0007AKM3I. 1966.
Judith Anne Brown (Judy Allegro). John Marco Allegro: The Maverick of the Dead Sea Scrolls. ISBN: 0802828493. 2005.
José Celdrán & Carl Ruck. “Daturas for the Virgin”, in Entheos: The Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality, Vol. I, Issue 2. Entheomedia.org. Winter, 2002.
Earl Doherty. The Jesus Puzzle:Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus. ISBN: 096892591X. 1999.
Robert Forte. “A Conversation with R. Gordon Wasson”, in Entheogens and the Future of Religion. ISBN: 1889725048. pp. 66-94. 2000.
Robert Forte. “A conversation with R. Gordon Wasson (1898-1986)”. ReVision: The Journal of Consciousness and Change: Psychedelics Revisited (topical issue) 10(4): 13-30. Spring 1988. CSP.org.
Robert Forte (Editor). Entheogens and the Future of Religion. ISBN: 1889725048. 2000.
Peter Furst. Hallucinogens and Culture. ISBN: 0883165171. 1976.
Manly Hall. The Secret Teachings of All Ages. ISBN: 1585422509. 1928.
Clark Heinrich. Strange Fruit: Alchemy and Religion: The Hidden Truth. (Alternate subtitle: Alchemy, Religion and Magical Foods: A Speculative History.) ISBN: 0747515484. 1994.
Clark Heinrich. Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy. (2nd ed. of Strange Fruit.) ISBN: 0892817720. 2002.
Mark Hoffman (editor). Entheos: The Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality. Entheomedia.org. 2001-2002.
Mark Hoffman, Carl Ruck, & Blaise Staples, “Conjuring Eden: Art and the Entheogenic Vision of Paradise”, in Entheos, Issue 1, 2001, pp. 13-50.
Michael Hoffman. “The Entheogen Theory of Religion and Ego Death”, in Salvia Divinorum, Issue 4, 2006. Egodeath.com.
Aldous Huxley. The Doors of Perception. ISBN: 0060595183. 1954.
Jan Irvin, Andrew Rutajit. Astrotheology and Shamanism: Unveiling the Law of Duality in Christianity and Other Religions. ISBN: 1585091073, Pharmacratic-Inquisition.com. 2006.
John H. Jacques. The Mushroom and the Bride: A Believer’s Examination and Refutation of J. M. Allegro’s Book ‘The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross’. ISBN: 0902791001. 1970.
William James. The Varieties of Religious Experience. ISBN: 0679600752. 1902.
John C. King. A Christian View of the Mushroom Myth. ISBN: 0340125977 . 1970.
Dan Merkur. The Mystery of Manna: The Psychedelic Sacrament of the Bible. ISBN: 0892817720. 2000.
Dan Merkur. The Psychedelic Sacrament: Manna, Meditation, and Mystical Experience. ISBN: 089281862X. 2001.
Jonathan Ott. Pharmacotheon: Entheogenic Drugs, Their Plant Sources and History. ISBN: 0961423498. 1993.
E. V. Pike & F. Cowan. “Mushroom Ritual versus Christianity”, in Practical Anthropology 6(4). 1959. pp. 145-150.
Robert M. Price. Review of Acharya S’s The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold. Robertmprice.mindvendor.com.
John Ramsbottom. A Handbook of the Larger British Fungi. ISBN: B0007JA6VC. 1949.
John Ramsbottom. Mushrooms & Toadstools: A Study of the Activities of Fungi. ISBN: B0007JALQC. 1953.
Thomas J. Riedlinger (Editor). The Sacred Mushroom Seeker: Tributes to R. Gordon Wasson. ISBN: 0892813385. 1997.
R. T. Rolfe & F. W. Rolfe. The Romance of the Fungus World: An Account of Fungus Life in Its Numerous Guises, Both Real and Legendary. ISBN: 0486231054. 1925. Foreword by John Ramsbottom, 1924.
Carl A. P. Ruck, Blaise Staples, Clark Heinrich, & Mark Hoffman (for chapter 5). The Apples of Apollo: Pagan and Christian Mysteries of the Eucharist. ISBN: 089089924X. 2000.
Acharya S. The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold. ISBN: 0932813747. 1999.
Eusebe Salverte. The Occult Sciences: The Philosophy of Magic, Prodigies, and Apparent Miracles. ISBN: B0008AC74O. 1846.
Giorgio Samorini, “The ‘Mushroom-Tree’ of Plaincourault”, Eleusis: Journal of Psychoactive Plants and Compounds, n. 8, 1997, pp. 29-37.
Giorgio Samorini, “The ‘Mushroom-Trees’ in Christian Art”, Eleusis: Journal of Psychoactive Plants and Compounds, n. 1, 1998, pp. 87-108.
Richard Evans Schultes & Albert Hofmann. Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing and Hallucinogenic Powers. ISBN: 0892814063. 1979.
Richard Evans Schultes, The Sacred Mushroom Seeker: Essays for R. Gordon Wasson. ISBN: 0892813385. 1990.
Edmund A. Wasson. Religion and Drink. ISBN: B000861CLM. 1914.
R. Gordon Wasson. “Seeking the Magic Mushroom”, in Life, May 13, 1957. Druglibrary.org
R. Gordon Wasson. Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality. ISBN: 0156838001. 1968.
R. Gordon Wasson. “Persephone’s Quest”. pp. 17-81 in R. Gordon Wasson, Stella Kramrisch, Jonathan Ott, & Carl Ruck: Persephone’s Quest: Entheogens and the Origins of Religion. ISBN: 0300052669. 1986.
R. Gordon Wasson. “Lecture to the Mycological Society of America” in The Psychedelic Reader. University Books: New York. ISBN: 0806514515. 1961.
R. Gordon Wasson, “The Sacred Mushroom”, letter to the editor in The Times Literary Supplement, August 21, 1970 and September 25, 1970.
R. Gordon Wasson. “The Divine Mushroom of Immortality” in Furst (Editor). Collection of papers written by Wasson at Harvard. 1972.
R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, & Carl A. P. Ruck. The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries. ISBN: 0151778728. 1978.
Valentina Pavlovna Wasson & R. Gordon Wasson, Mushrooms, Russia & History, 2 volumes. ISBN: B0006AUVXA. 1957.
Valentina Pavlovna Wasson. “I Ate the Sacred Mushroom”, in This Week magazine. May 19, 1957.
R. C. Zaehner. Mysticism Sacred and Profane. ISBN: B0007IL51S. 1957.
What Hatsis mis-calls “the Allegro theory, of mushrooms in Christian art”, is actually, in fact, “the 1924 Rolfe-Ramsbottom-Brightman interpretation of the Plaincourault tree“.
Reasons Why the Maximal Psilocybe Theory of Greek & Christian Mixed-Wine Banqueting Tradition
No one has looked for mushrooms in texts or art yet. The best lens is the Egodeath theory. Various types of evidence have been forthcoming.
It’s a necessary piece of the puzzle to make everything fit together.
Entheogen scholarship is only one of many fields I repair and incorporate together.
Mushrooms are a mainstay in Christianity & myth.
The meta-theory best incorporates the maximal mushroom theory, modelled on Psilocybe. I’m willing to sacrifice historical certainty, to construct a simple, clear-cut model, based on the relatively well-known and well-evidenced mushroom as the eucharist — not the speculative and counter-indicated cannabis.
Psilocybe is the most optimal entheogen to reproduce the depicted effects.
Were I initiator, Psilocybe is the most desirable to produce the sought effects.
All indicators are, Psilocybe is the normal reference Christian entheogen.
Not cannabis, scopolamine, opium, or ergot.
Text and art and myth indicates Psilocybe form & effects — not cannabis etc.
Psilocybe mushrooms are the most ergonomic, the most focused in their entheogenic effect.
Mushrooms were manifestly the preferred entheogen.
Mushrooms are the norm for Christian art.
Psilocybe = Cubensis; Liberty Caps; & Amanita representing Psilocybe.
Psilocybe is a primary entheogen.
Psilocybe is definitive of psychedelic effects.
Psilocybe is short-lasting; lends well to redosing.
Psilocybe is reliable.
Psilocybe is ergonomic.
Psilocybe is flexible. Eat raw, eat dried, mix into buns marked X which obv refers to celestial 23-degree cross of Heimarmene-transcendence; like Mithraism, be busted out of heimarmene-prison — at the cost of:
Your childhood kingthink.
The simple autonomous egoic locus of control.
The false, illusory egoic foundation and source of control.
A false-primary control source.
{evil king}
{usurper of throne of the true king}
Psilocybe is safe biologically; non-toxic.
Psilocybe gives classic entheogen effects.
Psilocybe is flexible for dosage mixing into bread or wine.
Psilocybe is depicted in countless Christian art works, and we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg, in my Christian mushroom gallery, because people have been brainwashed into closing their eyes and not looking for mushrooms; clear-thinking people ought to open their eyes and be actively looking for mushrooms.
There is no shortage of evidence; it is easy to find and photograph and upload many more instances of mushtoomrs in Christian art.
We haven’t even gotten started rounding up Pope Wasson’s crews’ censored collection of the alleged “hundreds of instances” they’ve been censorting to withhold as Pope Wasson censored Brinckmann.
[todo: quote the Vatican-Puppet Art Expert Panofsky.
Pope Brinckmann
Pope Panofsky
Pope Wasson
Jester Letcher
Jester Hatsis
The Expert Popes of Proclamation and their Court Jesters agree:
For you people, there are no mushrooms in Christian art. — and that’s Ex Cathedra, dammit!
There is a glut of evidence; images of literal mushrooms, stylized msurhooms, and depictions of effects.
There is no cannabis depicted in Christian art, but tons of mushrooms.
Mushrooms are commonplace in Greek & Christian art.
Church Fathers write about the Eucharist in psychedelic ways, fitting the mind’s built-in, innate, psychedelics response; transformation caused by ingesting the flesh of the gods.
I only treat “mushrooms in Christian art” as one part of a much more widely scoped, entire explanatory framework, that includes:
The Egodeath theory, which has two parts:
The Cybernetic theory; the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence (psychedelic eternalism)
The Mytheme theory (the “analogical psychedelic eternalism (pre-existence)” theory of religious myth).
Decoding Rock lyrics as description of the intense mystic altered state.
The maximal entheogen theory of religion and culture.
The maximal mushroom theory of Christianity.
It is *not* the case that my views on mushrooms in Christian art is an isolated theory, that I arrived at in isolation.
I came to the field of entheogen scholarship and mythology in 1998, bringing to it, an already fully formed theory, Core theory, the Cybernetic theory, psychedelic eternalism; loose cognitive association binding.
How the mind changes and transcends egoic thinking, in the loosecog state.
I merely had to realize, see, and confirm, by reading World Mythology, and by playing “spot the entheogen”, that mythology confirms my core theory’s eternalism (eg snake = worldline, rock = block universe, king in tree = ego steering), and also that mythology corroborates the “loosecog” aspect of my core theory, that is, mushrooms are shown in myth.
I was NOT merely playing “spot the mushroom” as an isolated game/activity, like the emphasis in the field of entheogen scholarship.
I was as interested in finding correlation/corroboration for non-psychedelics aspects of my Core theory, in myth.
Not that surprisingly, my entire set of views (including the maximal mushroom theory of Christianity) had a clear match with:
The entire set of views depicted in world religious mythology (including Greek & Christian religious myth).
The whole integrated coherent set of views held by Freke & Gandy (Freke’s sprirituality book’s section on no-free-will); their book on Jesus’ ahistoricity; (Freke’s spriituality book’s section on entheogens).
Valentinian Gnostics as described by Ealine Pagels, extreacted/summarized by me around 2002.
I got that confirmation, including of mushrooms in normal mainstream Christianity, around 2002.
History of the Egodeath theory & specifically of the Mytheme theory, which includes the maximal mushroom theory of Christianity:
1988: I discovered the Core theory; the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence. I started trying to write an adequate, compelling, non-arbitrary, non-random article about the technical, scientific, modern, directly described Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence.
1997: I published Core theory outline-spec, as a fallback, since it was hard to write a good, appropriate article about the Core theory; the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence.
1998: I started working on Mystery Religions & mythology.
1999: I read Clark Heinrich’s book Strange Fruit (1995). I read all the entheogen scholarship books.
Clark Heinrich, Carl Ruck, and Mark Hoffman connected mythology & mushrooms.
2001-2002: I posted announcements that mythology corroborates my Core theory (the Cybernetic theory; the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence). I posted announcements proposing & introducing the maximal entheogen theory of religion and culture.
2006: I finally wrote a proper (excellent, worthy, readable, appealing) article about the Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence, as I had intended since discovering the Core theory in January 1988 — but, now, including the Mytheme theory:
Religious mythology is description-by-analogy of repeatedly taking psychedelics, producing transformation of the experiential mental worldmodel from literalist ordinary-state possibility-branching to analogical psychedelic pre-existence.
It’s as if, to accomplish my 1988 goal of writing an adequate, compelling, non-arbitrary, non-random article about the technical, scientific, modern, directly described Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence, I had to add colorful, descriptive Mytheme decoding, per the Mytheme theory.
2010-2013: Further intensive work on decoding mythemes, including in Western Esotericism & Mystery-Religions; decoding “scenes” eg Tauroctony & Western Esotericism diagrammatic images.
Quadrants Diagram: {king steering in tree} -> {wine} -> {snake frozen in rock}
Branching, rock; quadrants for my book cover art diagram to express something like:
Upper left: egoic agent
Lower left: branching world in the ordinary state of consciousness.
Upper right: transcendent agent
Lower right: non-branching, monopossibility, block universe frozen rock world.
find “quadrant” in the Egodeath Yahoo Group digests. found it! easy!
My description of a 4-quadrant diagram, ~Feb. 2013 posting:
We change from a mental model of
[upper left:] Autonomy (King) steering in a
[lower left:] possibility-branching tree (Tree; bush; reinforced by motif of Antlers behind & plant-branch in front of Eve’s branching legs — a phallus in contrast is non-branching, snake-shaped; worldline-isomorphic.)
to a mental model of
[upper right] puppet/slave
caught motionlessly in
[lower right] a worldline-tube (of subjective experiences including control-intention thoughts) frozen into the changeless rock universe (Eternalism; Rock motif, snake/serpent/worm)
/ end of excerpt from post-breakthough post, December 2, 2013 posting
Psilocybe Is the Ideal Entheogen for the Banqueting Tradition
The words ‘Gnosticism’ and ‘Esotericism’ mean entheogen, especially Psilocybe, causing transformation from possibilism to eternalism from literalist ordinary-state possibilism to analogical psychedelic eternalism.
That transformation didn’t originate from Cannabis, Opium, Scopolamine, or Amanita; that primary original source of transformation from possibilism to eternalism came from skilled use of Psilocybin such as in cultivated banqueting parties with re-dose rounds of Psilocybe mixed-wine.
The main typifying archetypal correct original definition of ‘Gnosticism‘ and ‘Esotericism‘ and Mystery Religions, is the use of Psilocybe to cause transformation from possibilism to eternalism; from literalist ordinary-state possibilism to analogical psychedelic eternalism.
the branching-possibilities mental worldmodel of time and control
the frozen block universe pre-existing control thoughts, {snake frozen in rock} worldline; a puppet rail of pseudo freewill based the personal control system, steering so as to create the future from a range of possibilities. From {king steering in a tree}, to {snake-puppet frozen in rock}. Dionysus doll toys top I need a puppet mytheme dammit! The Little Doll Is You yeah, no where to run (Major-scale upbeat light-hearted uplifting music mood) inappropriate affect
lyrics here for Dionysian scholarly study Symposium with the horses bouncers for those rowdy academics at the Symposium Conference party but they were tied to the rock benches by snakes and when Herakles pulled them he could only… sigh don’t type, just quote my article.
ok I wrote about virgin maiden Kore turning into Queen Persephone Queen Ruler of the Underworld Married to Hades the King of the Underworld who abducts virgin maidens and transforms their thinking about the uncontrollable source of control-thoughts so they are no longer virgins but have gotten impregnated with the new replacement model of life, local agency exposed and tripped-up and disproved, by an overpowering message that is sent by the Creator of control-thoughts.
The uncontrollable source of control-thoughts made the virgin vanish in power and the mind transformed into the adult mental worldmodel, the Eternalism mental worldmodel of the mental worldmodel of time, self, possibility, and control — pre-existence of personal control-thoughts from possibility-branching to the pre-existing block universe.
winnow thresher and Queen of the Underworld, wife of King Hades
Key Questions for Any Entheogen Scholar, and My Answers
A key, differentiating set of questions to separate the esoteric men from the exoteric boys:
What was “Mixed-Wine”, “Holy Bread”, “Ambrosia”, “Nectar”, and “Kykeon”, Throughout the Ancient Banqueting Tradition (Greek & Christian)?
Psilocybe.
Did mystic-state religious experiences happen, in the history of religion?
yes
Were many of the mystic-state religious experiences induced by mushrooms (in terms of numbers and percentage)?
yes, large, 100%
All of the mystic-state religious experiences were induced by entheogens, typically Psilocybin mushrooms.
If they weren’t induced by mushrooms, then how did they come about?
n/a
All mystic-state religious experiences were induced by entheogens, typically Psilocybin mushrooms.
Are religious myths metaphorical descriptions of the mystic altered state?
yes
The primary referent of myth is:
things that are observed and experienced in the entheogen-induced, loose-cognitive, altered state;
particularly, centered around the climactic peak-state transformation of the mental worldmodel from possibilism to eternalism.
Evidence Type: Stylized Description, in Texts
I read just enough of the Church Fathers to confirm, as the Theory predicts, they talk about bread and wine entheogenically, in a way which is most ideally fulfilled by Psilocybe.
As the “History of Esotericism” portion of the Egodeath theory predicts.
Lyrics – Little Dolls (Bob Daisley)
Ozzy Osbourne – Selected lyrics for Dionysian scholarly study
He’ll show you no mercy Your image in his hands It’s useless to try Escaping his curses
Tortured and flaming You give birth to hell Living a nightmare It’s a pity You’ll pray for your death
No where to run Your fate is in his hands Your time has come You’ll live to his command I’m warning you The worst is yet to come The killer who Remains a mystery
I that believe in the stories of old Would never fight it Demons and curses that play on our soul Like something ignited
You never imagined such a fate could follow you You never thought it was true And when it’s your time I wonder how you’ll do Your kind of trouble’s Running deeper than the sea But whatcha gonna do about it? You broke the rule You’ve been a fool The little doll is you, yeah!
Wrything and screaming He’ll show you no mercy Your image in his hands It’s useless to try Escaping his curses
[9:16 p.m. December 17, 2020] Decoding, I have the feeling of something tugging on the line, I have a catch: ‘knucklebones’ = ‘jointed doll’ – of bones? then from there, read about …
I need to read more myths and myth references, such as following links in Wikipedia Greek Myth entries, which pays off richly.
My lookups always turn up interesting fruit full connections on something or other.
Golden Apples of Immortality in the Garden of the Hesperides Guarded by a Serpent-Dragon Monster of Looking
{golden apples guarded by the serpent dragon fire monster blasting too much light, too much perception, it breaks and bursts and flips the {childhood} {perishable} temporary mental worldmodel of mind into its adult configuration, resulting in {IMMORTALITY, becoming IMPERISHABLE};
changing from the DIE-ABLE state to the NON-DIE-ABLE state} including from literalism to analogical thinking; immortality meant esoteric mystic sense, not literal sense.
Recognized consciously as being embedded in the block universe, powerless to change, only able to manifest the future and worldline of now’s, early ones filled with mental images of possibilism, the mental world shaped as a king steering in a tree; transformation of the mental world model from model of agent-in-world, from a:
{king steering in a tree, wine transforms, snake frozen in rock}
In one tauroctony, or rather a banqueting scene, is shown a snake basket – helpful for solution!!
cista mystica; a lid-lifted snake-basket: the torch man brings a horn of wine to king sol at banquet with Mithras representative of god Lion outside the orbs of the cosmos in Emperium with God Creator,
About the apple like Eden, Hesperides garden apple fruit of the tree and snake is IMMORTALITY, live forever — MORE PROOF OF DECODING PARALLELS IS THE WAY TO GO… TWO BOTH Christian GREEK – ADD TO list of independent co-proving systems: break out “religious mythsm” into two sources of cross-proof/support:
Why don’t scholars treat these together? Why does a book either talk about Hesperides’ golden apple snake guarded, and the Eden alt config of same. Lest they eat of the golden apple and live forever it grants IMMORTALITY the golden apple (good match for choosing to depict Amanita rather than Cubensis or Liberty Caps, tho Eve has both. that is (obv Amanita strong candidate for artistic rep’n)
Greek myth; hellenistic, “pagan”, Ancient Mediterranean
Christian myth; Christendom
Historians need to take my lessons on the Mythemese language required to be fluent at .
Get better at reading texts by learning Mythemese, as Cyberdisciple demonstrates.
Religious mythology is description-by-analogy of repeatedly taking psychedelics, producing transformation of the experiential mental worldmodel from literalist ordinary-state possibility-branching to analogical psychedelic pre-existence.
Mythemes: Trapped in the Underworld for Eternity, Can’t Come Back
so if you can please understand you might not come back
You, the personal egoic control agent, are not supposed to come back as Kore the virgin maiden, but as Queen Persephone who has known God thorugh seeing his will inside her, making her childhood thinking die, disproved, as a passive reflection, a projected mask-image depicting a substantial locus-of-control, but the false king is mocked in his caught in the tree. [8:55 pm Dec 16 2020] check if they are mocking the king in the tree.
“King Hades imprisoned Persephone’s would-be suitors (and abductors) by fusing them to a magical bench and binding them to it with snakes while bringing them ‘mixed wine’.
It was possible for Heracles to free the divine hero Theseus, but Heracles had to leave king Pirithous behind, fused into the banqueting bench in Hades for eternity, because the whole world shook when Heracles pulled him.
This myth describes the dissociative-state sensation of physical embeddedness in the timeless block-universe, followed by abandoning the former pseudo-sovereign model of one’s personal control agency.” – mh2006
Going to abduct and marry Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, wife of Hades, King of the Underworld.
At banquet with King Hades on a magical rock bench, the snakes bring mixed wine Psilocybe wine.
Body is bound to the magical stone bench by snakes.
Hero Theseus was freed from the Heimarmene Trap, but the false king Pirithous had to be left in Hades for eternity, because when Heracles tried to pull king Pirithous, the whole world of rock shock, everyone fastened embedded in the rock world, all those types of false king egos.
“Pirithous was set to marry Hippodamia, their offspring being Polypoetes. The centaurs were guests at the party, but they got drunk and tried to abduct the women, including Hippodamia who was carried off by the intoxicated centaur Eurytion or Eurytus.
“The Lapiths won the ensuing battle, the Centauromachy, a favorite motif of Greek art.
___
“Pirithous and Theseus pledged to carry off daughters of Zeus; Theseus chose Helen of Sparta and together they kidnapped her when she was 13 years of age and decided to hold on to her until she was old enough to marry.
“Pirithous chose a more dangerousprize: Persephone herself. They … traveled to the underworld. When they stopped to rest, they found themselves unable to stand up from the rock as they saw the Furies appear before them.”
Mytheme: {rescue}
“Heracles freed Theseus from the stone, but the earth shook when he attempted to free Pirithous. He had committed too great a crime for wanting the wife of one of the great gods as his own bride. …
“The rescue of Theseus and Pirithous …in Attic comedy:
“Heracles attempted to free them from the rock to which they had been bound [by snakes, at banquet – this article is mystically weak, told by outsider] in the Underworld (for having tried to carry off Persephone). He succeeded in freeing only Theseus and left behind his buttocks attached to the rocks.”
attempted to free them from the rock to which they had been bound … succeeded in freeing only __, and left behind __, attached to the rocks.
“Due to this, Theseus came to be called hypolispos, meaning “with hinder parts rubbed smooth.”
“Pirithous was worshiped at Athens, along with Theseus, as a hero.”
3 Corroborating Domains: the Cybernetic Theory; Rock Lyrics; Religious Mythology
Acid-inspired Rock lyrics corroborate:
The Cybernetic Theory of Ego Transcendence (psychedelic eternalism).
The Mytheme theory (the “analogical psychedelic eternalism/pre-existence” theory of religious mythology).
The Entheogen Theory of Religious Mythology, including mushrooms in Christian art.
History of the Egodeath Theory
1985-1997 – Core theory; the Cybernetic theory
Heyday of lyrics decoding.
Relatively little myth-decoding activity.
~1986, started decoding “eaten scrolls” in Revelation.
~1987, read book Up from Eden by Wilber. Has a poor attempt to use mythology (no psychedelic eternalism).
~1995, read Gnosis magazine set, ~1995 (to the final issue around 1999).
1988-1994 – early decoding of lyrics
1998-2006-2013-2020 – Mytheme decoding in religious mythology
Shock Wave (Black Sabbath)
Key Words in Black Sabbath – Shock Wave Lyrics
for non-commercial use; scholarly analysis of mystic sh!t
can’t escape fate chosen rising in sky you’re going to die
Drink blood brew cheat this master You’re on your own going through
has taken over your mind you think you’re on your own Don’t believe you are the only one here Look around, you’re not alone — god controller phallus injecting control thoughts
Feel the forces from another world Ghostly shadows fill your mind power over you freeze, your life in time Look behind you
Somebody’s calling Someone is near there is nothing you can do
Ghostly shadows from the other world forces in your mind — god controller phallus injecting control thoughts Trapped between the worlds of life and death Frozen in the realms of time — eternalism Look behind you
You feel yourself falling, you’re at the end of the line Your body is crawling — crawling on floor to get low to avoid having the high view of the personal control system , to try to avoid seeing control-loss vortex running through your brain
Before I cracked the code, decoding religious mythology elements successfully (which gained traction around 2002), my warm-up exercise (which gained traction around 1991-1992) was to explain acid-rock lyrics that describe altered-state experiencing.
These are extremely relevant, highly descriptive poetic lyrics, which describe the peak experiencing of the altered state, by use of analogies. This is the song “No One at the Bridge”, lyrics by Neil Peart.
Lyrics are shown here for academic analysis and commentary.
“The sky ispitching violently [perceptual distortion in the altered state: visual undulation] Drawn by shrieking winds [the egoic control system doesn’t propel its thoughts, in the altered state; thoughts are driven forward by mystic {wind} without egoic control] Seaspray blurs my vision [perceptual distortion in the altered state: blurring of vision] The waves roll by so fast [perceptual distortion in the altered state: visual undulation] Save my ship of freedom [the experience of freewill-premised control power vanishes, but is desperately needed, as control increasingly seizes and is cancelled in the loss of the experience of having personal control; a “deus ex machina”, artificial transcendent rescue from outside the entire egoic control system and alien to it, is required] I’m lashed helpless to the mast [the altered-state experience of non-control; suspension of the familiar experience of wielding control-power; an allusion to the myth of Ulysses]
Remembering when first I held [when first discovered the altered state] The wheel in my own hands [the illusion of egoic control power, supported in the ordinary state but not in the altered state] I took the helm so eagerly [naively expected to be able to control the experience] And sailed for distant lands But now the sea’s too heavy And I just… I just don’t understand Why must my crew desert me? [vanishing of the accustomed experience & perspective of being a control agent wielding personal control power] When I need… I need a guiding hand… [the power of the egoic control hand vanishes]
Call out for direction And there’s no one there to steer [the egoic control agent illusion vanishes in the altered state] Shout out for salvation [a good time-tested idea; to rescue viable control and return control-stability, the mind has to learn to consciously place trust its own uncontrollable source of control thoughts, which was secretly always the case anyway] But there’s no one there to hear [not that God doesn’t respond to prayer; the meaning here is “there’s no egoic control agent here”] Cry out supplication [pleading, begging for control-stability earnestly & humbly] For the maelstrom is near [cybernetic control seizure and nullity, cancellation] Scream out desperation [continuing to rely on the premise or presumption of egoic control power, is futile and leads to increasing panic and seizure and instability until changing the mental worldmodel from Possibilism to Eternalism per Mystery Religion initiation]But no one cares to hear [not that there’s no God or rescuer; that would contradict all mystic tradition and experience; the emphasis here has to be on “no one”; no egoic control agent. The survival-protecting sense of caring and values and self-preservation is suspended and transcended, in the altered state]
— song No One at the Bridge, album Caress of Steel, Rush / Neil Peart, 1975
The Egodeath theory 