Spiritually Gifted

[Rimbaud]

I've always considered myself spiritually gifted but I've always been very secretive about it. I have some idea about what Buddhists, mystics, and psychedelic drug users are talking about even though I do not meditate or use drugs. I am especially interested in visionaries and I try to learn everything I can about the great visionaries like William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud, George Russell (aka AE) and Joan of Arc.

I've decided that it is probably safe to talk about such things because Buddhists aren't really interested in visions and psychedelic drug users attribute everything to chemicals. I think they really underestimate the spiritually gifted and this is a good thing. :D

[Humming]

I take psychedelics but I certainly don't "attribute everything to chemicals".

Psychedelics are natural catalysts for states which exist to be actualized within the brain. I would argue that even the synthetic psychedelics are "natural" manifestations: the technological extrusions of organic consciousness.

[Rimbaud]

So you would not take special note of the spritually gifted, would you? When I read a biography of William Blake I was especially intrigued by the fact that he reported seeing visions in childhood, his gift seemed to remain with him his entire lifetime, and he valued his imagination to the point of considering it to be truly divine. This made him "a person of interest" to me and therefore I suspect there are other spiritual seekers who would take special interest in particular qualities in particular individuals. :eek:

[Humming]

Undoubtably. :D

But, it is important to realize that, for many of us, psychedelics are catalysts to the imagination, opening portals of thought and experience which would otherwise be closed to us due to propagandized social reality conditioning.

If you like Blake, you should check out Terrence McKenna's book "The Archaic Revival" wherein he discusses Blake's peculiar phrase "the externalization of the soul" and how it relates to psychedelics and the concrescence and actualization of the psyche. tongue.gif

[ December 08, 2004, 08:28 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[nanouk]

Rimbaud wrote:
"...his gift seemed to remain with him his entire lifetime, and he valued his imagination to the point of considering it to be truly divine."

I believe it is within any person, some people simply 'grow out' of the ability to use their imagination in the way our beloved visionairies did and do, the Inner Child gets buried under the layers of the onion(was it you, Humming, that used the onion metafor?)and it takes some hard work to channel the senses again.

The (rare)use and exploration of psychedelics has only strengthened and 'decyphered' what i felt and knew before, and i do not feel that i can attribute any of these 'chemicals' to my spiritual experiences, although, they have helped me confirm my sanity.
:D

love and respect,

[ December 08, 2004, 08:57 AM: Message edited by: Nanouk ]

[Rimbaud]

Thanks for recommending the Terrence McKenna book. I've added it to my Amazon Wish List. Fortunately, I received some books on William Blake today from http://www.scholarsbookshelf.com/ but they appear to be reprints of some really old texts.

I've just finished reading the book "DMT: The Spirit Molecule". I have to admit that I've never experienced anything as freaky as what it describes. The only thing that seems vaguely similar is when a miracle occurs in the mind. Miracle is an appropriate word for a transcendent leap of the imagination that leaves the mind stunned. The mind is so shocked and awed that it refuses to identify with its own thought processes, also known as a dissociative state. The unprepared mind is apt to be totally fooled by the miraculous conceptions of transcendent imagination.

[Rob P]

hello and welcome Rimbaud-

i have curious questions:

1) why have you been secretive
about being 'spiritually gifted' ?

i suppose we all have parts of ourselves
that we keep under wraps until we feel that we
are in a safe environment...

2) what exactly do you mean by 'spiritually gifted'?

3) do you have ways of expressing your 'spiritual gifts'?

seeya
R O B

[nanouk]

one learns with time to discriminately try to rationalize the "the miraculous conceptions of transcendent imagination" when one has run out of ways to, one has to give in to the experience as is...

there is no point telling people about it anyway, you would be talking to blind ears mostly, or be taken advantage of by people with big egos and little guts,

it takes guts to admit what you have, and i hope these learned folks here can help enlighten you, Rimbaud.

love and respect,
n.

[Rimbaud]

Hello Rob P,

I will try to answer your questions:

1. Why have you been secretive?
It would not be wise to go around telling people that I have visions. They would lock me up! Also, there is something inherently esoteric about heightened states of consciousness. You could not describe it even if you wanted to. I was recently surprised to learn how well Buddhists understand these matters and they are not secretive so I've been encouraged to do some cautious probing. Buddhists have been exploring and mapping out consciousness for thousands of years through meditation.

2. What exactly do you mean by 'spiritually gifted'?
I can demonstrate this to myself to my heart's content. I frequently forget just how impressive my spiritual attainment is because there is a sort of amnesia involved. Unless you are actually in a particular state of heightened consciousness, you cannot even conceive of that state of heightened consciousness. This is well understood by Buddhists and many mystics.

3. Do you have ways of expressing your 'spiritual gifts'?
Not really. It just makes me a "distracted soul". I am wickedly self-absorbed and lose any desire to communicate with others. I live like a hermit. It is easy to hide "spiritual gifts" in this country. In an Asian, Buddhist country, I'm sure my contemplative nature would attract attention.

[Rob P]

Thanks Rimbaud! - I am reminded
of this Onion satire from 1996..
seeya!
ROB


(WORLD NEWS) MONK GLOATS OVER YOGA CHAMPIONSHIP*
'I am the serenest!' he says

** LHASA, TIBET – Employing the brash style that first brought him to prominence, Sri Dhananjai Bikram won the fifth annual International Yogi Competition yesterday with a world-record point total of 873.6.
** "I am the serenest!" Bikram shouted to the estimated crowd of 20,000 yoga fans, vigorously pumping his fists. "No one is serener than Sri Dhananjai Bikram – I am the greatest monk of all time!"
** Bikram averaged 1.89 breaths a minute during the two-hour competition, nearly .3 fewer than his nearest competitor, second-place finisher and two-time champion Sri Salil "The Hammer" Gupta.
** The heavily favored Gupta was upset after the loss. "I should be able to beat that guy with one lung tied," Gupta said. "I'm beside myself right now, and I don't mean trans-bodily."
** Bikram got off to a fast start at the Lhasa meet, which like most major competitions, is a six-event affair. In the first event, he attained total consciousness (TC) in just 2 minutes, 34 seconds, and set the tone for the rest of the meet by repeatedly shouting, "I'm blissful! You blissful?! I'm blissful!" to the other yogis.
** Bikram, 33, burst onto the international yoga scene with a gold-mandala performance at the 1994 Bhutan Invitational. At that competition he premiered his aggressive style, at one point in the flexibility event sticking his middle toes out at the other yogis. While no prohibition exists against such behavior, according to Yoga League Commissioner Swami Prabhupada, such behavior is generally considered "unBuddhalike."
** "I don't care what the critics say," Bikram said. "Sri Bikram is just gonna go out there and do Sri Bikram's own yoga thing."
** Before the Bhutan meet, Bikram had never placed better than fourth. Many said he had forsaken rigorous training for the celebrity status accorded by his Bhutan win, endorsing Nike's new line of prayer mats and supposedly dating the Hindu goddess Shakti. But his performance this week will regain for him the number one computer ranking and earn him new respect, as well as for his coach Mahananda Vasti, the controversial guru some have called Bikram's "guru."
** "My special training diet for Bikram of one super-charged, carbo-loaded grain of rice per day was essential to his win," Vasti said.
** The defeated Gupta denied that Bikram's taunting was a factor in his inability to attain TC. "I just wasn't myself today," Gupta commented. "I wasn't any self today. I was an egoless particle of the universal no-soul."
** In the second event, flexibility, Bikram maintained the lead by supporting himself on his index fingers for the entire 15 minutes while touching the back of his skull to his lower spine. The feat was matched by Gupta, who first used the position at the 1990 Tokyo Zen-Off.
** "That's my meditative position of spiritual ecstasy, not his," remarked Gupta. "He stole my thunder."
** Bikram denied the charge, saying, "Gupta's been talking like that ever since he was a 3rd century Egyptian slave-owner."
** Nevertheless, a strong showing by Gupta in the third event, the shotput, placed him within a lotus petal of the lead at the competition's halfway point.
** But event number four, the contemplation of unanswerable riddles known as koans, proved the key to victory for Bikram.
** The koan had long been thought the weak point of his spiritual arsenal, but his response to today's riddle – "Show me the face you had before you were born" – was reportedly "extremely illuminative," according to Commissioner Prabhupada.
** While koan answers are kept secret from the public for fear of exposing the uninitiated multitudes to the terror of universal truth, insiders claim his answer had Prabhupada and the two other judges "highly enlightened."
** With the event victory, Bikram built himself a nearly insurmountable lead, one he sustained through the yak-milk churn and breathing events to come away with the upset victory.

[Rimbaud]

THE MYSTIC'S DILEMMA

The way I see it, a mystic either has to become an egomaniac or run the risk of becoming seriously deluded about the nature of reality. A mystic can choose to take ownership of everything that occurs within his mind. He can consider every extraordinary thought and vision to be evidence of his great imagination and personal genius. Or, the mystic can enter into a dissociative state and consider every extraordinary thought and vision to have a source outside of himself, a transpersonal interpretation. The Buddhist will believe that he is seeing scenes from a past life while the Christian mystic will believe that God is showing him something. A person without faith may even believe in something like astral projection, remote viewing, or alternative dimensions.

I think rationality requires the egomaniac's path. I've never encountered anything that really forces me to accept a transpersonal explanation. :rolleyes:

[Buzz]

Rimbaud,
I think there is a lesson in Robs post, and it is, "oh, the irony".

You have, no doubt, come into some power. That power is, simply, you have stumbled onto your infinite side. We all have that connection, some are more aware of it than others. But, none of us are really anything special or we are all very special. And you could be a great man, terrible but great. So, establish the French Symbolist School of Enlightenment if you wish and set yourself up as the almightyist, allknowingist, and all that...

Anytime i see a prejudice as to how one enters the road to enlightenment, a flag goes up. This sort of competitive nature smacks of the bumper sticker philosophy, "he who dies with the most toys wins." As far as William Blake goes, he may have been stoned on psilocybin every day, & due to the witch-hunt limited Christian mentality of the 19th century he hardly would have spoke of it. It seems that Shakespeare smoked pot, does that belittle his storytelling ability.

You are either part of the solution, or part of the problem. Do you want to scare the indians or heal them? I recently I came across a story about Timothy Leary and Charlie Manson meeting in prison. Leary used LSD to heal people, Manson could not believe that Leary didn't use it to gain control over their minds, to make them submissive to him. Everybody agrees that Charlie has power. What are you going to do with it?

BIG PICTURE!

Did anyone see "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" on ABC Sunday night?

[ December 10, 2004, 05:32 AM: Message edited by: Buzz ]

[sidecross]

Alan Watts when discussing Zen would refer to “Spiritually Gifted” as Zen Stink!

[nanouk]

i wouldn't be so harsh on criticism...it is difficult to verbalise certain 'secrets', and in lack of personal temples, where one can shout out one's love and readiness to serve, sometimes the 'messiah consciousness' is overwhelming when poured out, the path gets lonelier as one walks further...

love and respect,
n.

[Rimbaud]

Arthur Rimbaud has been a bad role model for me. He was very immature and a true egomaniac. :( Also, Rimbaud scholars always focus on Rimbaud's genius and never ascribe his visions to any transpersonal source. Theirs is a strictly Western interpretation of the visionary.

The big problem with the Western egomaniac view is that it allows the conscious mind to take credit for the unconscious mind's creations and this is not valid.

[tesseract]

Originally posted by sidecross:
Alan Watts when discussing Zen would refer to “Spiritually Gifted” as Zen Stink!Man o man that's so true. I have to admit to being a bit of a grump lately, but that particular spiritual stink has been aggrivating my sensibilities a lot lately. There is this silly formula that floats on the surface of the koan or similar mysteries that some latch onto, and end up making sport out of, rather than accessing the deeper dimensions of those realities...like listening to people speak in bumper-sticker language. Bet then, who am I to know the experience of another...all I know is I can smell that frivolous stink of spiritual one-upmanship. yuk.

[nanouk]

Rimbaud wrote: "Arthur Rimbaud has been a bad role model for me. He was very immature and a true egomaniac. Also, Rimbaud scholars always focus on Rimbaud's genius and never ascribe his visions to any transpersonal source. Theirs is a strictly Western interpretation of the visionary.

The big problem with the Western egomaniac view is that it allows the conscious mind to take credit for the unconscious mind's creations and this is not valid."


What?(are you about?)

[sidecross]

Watts went further to say that bodhisattva Buddha were like “birds in the sky that leave no tracks.”

[Manning]

Another possibility that occurs to me -- if a person is surrounded by people who haven't had experiences similar to their own and those same experiences are considered valuable in some manner, it could be easy to self-identify with a label of "special" or "gifted". But if they're in an environment where nearly everyone has had experiences in a similar vein, that self-identity might relax its way into something that feels a bit more grounded.

[nanouk]

:D

[craazyman]

Rimbaud, what are your visions of? The curious thing about some of Blake's visions, to me anyway, is that he credited some of them with teaching him things. He even drew a sketch of a being that he said instructed him in drawing. See plate 63 in "Drawings of William Blake", Dover Books, 1970. The being looks to me like a cross between a nordic and a reptilian. I could never be sure if he really saw these things as objects in the world or if they were products of his imagination that he gave special importance to, like dreams.

[Rimbaud]

Hello craazyman,

Rimbaud, what are your visions of?
First, I should probably mention that it is not strictly true to boast that I do not meditate. Some definitions of meditation are very broad and cover a wide range of mental activities. Tonight I came across a good definition, "There are many types of meditation. The one definition that fits almost all types is...'Consciously directing your attention to alter your state of consciousness.'"

Last night I was listening to The Swans album "The Burning World" which features some highly meditative songs like "She's A Universal Emptiness". tongue.gif I put my mind into the past and fantasized about an early seventies college apartment. I pictured the books they would be reading (not real books, but imaginary books), the campus with its modern architecture and austere landscaping, and the ascetic apartment. I really made the past come alive in my mind and started a pleasant chain of quasi-memories because I would have been much too young to be in college in the early seventies. Then I tried to push it further by grasping for the spirit of the times with a emphasis on their interest in eastern mysticism. I wanted to create an impersonal, safely distant perspective on these intellectual pursuits. A lot of vague but beautiful images came to mind which seemed to be idealized like stock photos in a textbook. This type of mental activity used to be called a revery. It was also a regression into the past.

He even drew a sketch of a being that he said instructed him in drawing. See plate 63 in "Drawings of William Blake", Dover Books, 1970.
I don't have that book but maybe you mean "The Head of a Ghost of a Flea"? I have the Harry N. Abrams book of works exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[ December 10, 2004, 10:20 AM: Message edited by: Rimbaud ]

[craazyman]

Originally posted by Rimbaud:

He even drew a sketch of a being that he said instructed him in drawing. See plate 63 in "Drawings of William Blake", Dover Books, 1970.
I don't have that book but maybe you mean "The Head of a Ghost of a Flea"? I have the Harry N. Abrams book of works exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Actually it's a drawing titled "Blake's Instructor". The caption next to it in the book reads: "The drawing is inscribed below, probably by Varley: 'Imagination of a man who Mr. Blake has rec'd instruction in Painting &c from.' Two other versions of the same subject are known; one, in the Tate Gallery, is inscribed: 'The Portrait of Man who instructed M' Blake in Painting &c in his Dreams."

Basically it's a head and shoulders shot. Blake did a bunch of drawings of what were called "visionary heads" of historical and biblical figures, but they all look relatively human compared to this one--it's got a distinct alien look to it, based on our contemporary conception of aliens.

I saw that show at the Met, what an incredible display of Blake's work, he has such a reputation for being a bit of a wacko that it was amazing to see the enormous body of work he produced and the technical mastery of the human figure that he achieved from a very early age.

[daniel]

What a fun thread - thanks Rob for that great Onion piece.

As for whether Blake considered the instructor-being to be real or an imaginative entity, I think he had superseded such dualities - he wrote that the imagination is not a state, it is the human existence itself. McKenna considered the imagination to be like a lens that could reach into different levels and layers of the morphogenetic field of the psyche.

In Mysticism and The New Physics, Michael Talbot quotes a book I have never heard of, by Wescott: "... extraterrestrial anthropology comes to mean not only interplanetary anthropology but also the anthropology of our own planet with additional spatial or temporal dimensions to it - what might be called hyperplanetary anthropology. For such anthropology, the chief supporting disciplines would not be astronomy and astronautics but... mythology and folklore, and as regarding its synchronic aspect, the emerging field that I call 'anomalistics,' the systematic study of anomalies."

Something like that was Blake's project perhaps.

Mythology is a kind of science of the Self.

[Buzz]

Edgar Cayce, while in trance, spoke of the 4th dimension as a universe of ideas, but that it was real.

Thought I'd add, Rimbaud, that being a hermit you are not likely on a "Charlie Manson" type of kick. You rolled pretty well with the punches. Just wanted to point out a difference in people who obtain power. There is a choice, and we make decisions good, bad, or at any point in-between.

I hope you stay around here, this is one site online where people seem to freely share information and personal experience. And it is discussed with a certain aptitude of understanding that you won't find elsewhere. I've placed a few more pieces of the mystery puzzle together by participating here. I am practically a hermit as well and there aren't many people around me who I can discuss these things with. By participating you may learn to better verbalize what is going on inside you. I would like to hear it.

"I used to be a waiter, but I was fired for clearing tables. I was clearing them for take off. I had them all lined up outside. People thought it was an outdoor cafe. I said, 'No, these are leaving at 3.' They were going to fire me anyway, because I told them I thought they should put the wrapper on the inside of the straw since that's the part you don't want to get dirty." Stephen Wright

[ December 10, 2004, 06:07 AM: Message edited by: Buzz ]

[Rimbaud]

I have suffered a shocking revelation today! :eek:

While looking for sixties books on the "Age Of Aquarius" on Amazon, I came across a book by Gary Lachman entitled: "Turn Off Your Mind : The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius".

It turns out that Gary Lachman is none other than Gary Valentine, an early member of Blondie. :eek: I used to have a teenage crush on Debbie Harry and became totally obsessed with Blondie. I used to play their songs over and over, pounding them into my head. One of those songs was written by Gary Valentine and its lyrics now seem quite significant:

Was it destiny
I don't know yet
Was it just by chance? Could this be Kismet?
Something in my consciousness told me you'd appear
Now I'm always touched by your presence dear
When we play at cards you use an extra sense (it's really not cheating)
You can read my hand, I've got no defence
When you sent your messages whispered loud and clear
I am always touched by your presence dear
Floating past the evidence of possibilities
We could navigate together, psychic frequencies
Coming into contact with outer entities
We could entertain each one with our theosophies

Stay awake at night and count your R.E.M.'s when you're talking with your super friends
Levitating lovers in the secret stratosphere
I am still in touch with your presence dear
I am still in touch with your presence dear
I am still in touch with your presence dear, dear, dear, dear, dear

Since leaving Blondie, Gary Valentine has written such books as "A Secret History of Consciousness" and "A Dark Muse : A History of the Occult". Considering how horribly obsessed I became with Blondie, it was a shock to discover that one of their members was writing such books. Reviewing his lyrics that I read so much meaning into has shocked me even more! :eek:

[ December 10, 2004, 05:47 AM: Message edited by: Rimbaud ]

[nanouk]

(:

[Rimbaud]

I have confirmed that Gary Valentine has a deep interest in altered states of consciousness. He seems to be quite the expert on the subject. This is too much of a coincidence for me to accept. Indeed, it is no coincidence at all since his Blondie songs apparently contain hidden occult meanings. The lyrics to the song "(I'm Always Touched) By Your Presence Dear" are eeriely similar to a description of the DMT visions I recently read about in Rick Strassman's book.

http://www.forteantimes.com/exclusive/lachman.shtml

[nanouk]

...the 'occult' is only 'occult' to the untouched...

[nanouk]

*lol*

makes me think of PWEI's unthinkable flop, after such a genius album...it goes "cicciolina, cicciolina, touched by the hands of cicciolina..."
i believe the title of the song was: "touched by the hands of god"

[Buzz]

Straussmans book (and research) are interesting. He claims that he hasn't ever done psychedelics, ever. It's weird to call hallucinagens drugs, they are something so totally other.

For me they are wonderful, but you may not need to indulge Rimbaud. I'm not going to be juvenile enough to dare you, if you are thinking about it, give it some careful thought. There is a bunch of reading on the subject.