Universal Magick: The Five Principles of Power

[Humming]

Universal Magick:
The Five Principles of Power
http://shamans-cave.com/Universal_Magick.html

Whether you call yourself a shaman, a witch, a sorcerer, or whatever it may be, the act of performing magick is universally the same. Remember that we defined magick as the ability to alter the fabric of reality in conformity and proportion to our imagination and will. There are certain universal principles that govern our reality. Once we understand those principles and learn to apply them effectively, we can virtually assure the results of our efforts every time we apply ourselves to that knowledge and understanding. This page is the result of decades of careful study and application of the principles that govern the mortal individual's ability to literally change reality. The application of these principles in our everyday lives is so innate to our nature and thinking that we virtually apply them every day without any clear recognition that we are even doing so. For most people, the negative application of these principles in their lives has led to unnecessary pain and suffering world-wide. A simple understanding of these principles and their correct application can have equally astounding positive results. The principles are clear, easy to understand and require no financial investment on your part. That only requirement in the application of these five principles is that you follow each step precisely and completely. Do not move to the next step until you are completely satisfied with the results of the last step. You have nothing to loose.

REALITY OF ILLUSION

On previous pages, we have discussed The Reality of Illusion versus The Illusion of Reality. I don't desire to take the time and space to repeat that again here, but some mention does need to be made. In every society and culture, there exists a universal acceptance of what reality can and can not be. This is called Consensus Reality. From earliest childhood and subsequent experience, we are indoctrinated by social interaction as to what the consensus reality is, and, thusly, what our illusion of reality may and may not be. This consensus reality is extremely powerful and all inclusive. Anyone who wanders outside of consensus reality will very quickly discover how powerful the influence and effects of consensus reality really are. For example, when I say David Koresh and Waco, Heaven's Gate, Jim Jones, or Salem, Massachusetts, around 1690, we all have an instant recollection of those who have wandered beyond the norms of consensus reality. Within each of their own individual realities, their conditions and actions were perfectly understandable and justified. So we come to consensus reality vs. individual reality. Like the hundredth monkey theory, consensus reality is a long process in which everyone within a group, society, or culture agree and adapt a mass identification, complete with all the beliefs and taboos. Within this group exists all the individuals who are part of this mass identification, each with their own individual illusion of reality. In our present industrial consensus reality, anything that is not empirically oriented is subject to skepticism and denial. Anything that can be reasonably be termed occult, is feared and avoided. Thus, anyone involved in the paranormal, and especially the occult is shunned, feared, and usually threatened or punished back into conformity. For more information on consensus reality and the challenge of going beyond the consensus identity, I strongly recommend the paperback book written some years ago by Dr. W. Brugh Joy, called "Joy's Way".

This brings me to my point. In a group, society, culture or religion where adherence to the consensus reality is limited to empirical data only, magick and the practice of the occult arts with their corresponding gifts and abilities can not flourish. In order for magick to exist, your individual illusion of reality must undoubtedly include the ability to perform magick. This is the prime difference between a witch or shaman and the average person attempting the same act. The "Magickal Illusion of Reality" will enable the practitioner to accomplish easily that which someone else who is either doubting or unsure will have great difficulty accomplishing. This magickal illusion is then reinforced time and again through positive experience until the witch or shaman is absolutely sure of their abilities.

Among the most sacred and important magickal truths that you may ever learn, you must learn a magickal illusion of reality. You must accept the possibility that magick does exist and that you, in fact, can alter the fabric of reality in conformity and proportion to your intent and will.

Shamanism, like other occult arts, is not a playground. The process of learning the craft, if you will, requires years of dedicated effort, and acknowledges the existence of powers, forces, and beings in a world separate from our own, but equally as real. By acknowledging the reality of these other-worlds and learning to work within the bounds which exist there, the Shaman gains the vital help and wisdom which is available. To the Shaman, the worlds through which he or she travels are just as real, just as vivid, and just as alive as the world in which you and I exist.

Having accomplished step #1, achieving a Magickal Illusion Of Reality, there are five key aspects to the creation of any magickal act. The absence or negative influence of any one or more of these aspects will turn the tide of your efforts to naught almost before you begin. The ironic part of these aspects is that each one is totally dependent upon one thing - you!!! No outside influence, Solar or Lunar position, planetary alignments, archangels or even your immediate environment can stop you faster than your own "humanness." That said, here goes.

The five elements by relative order of execution (some overlap or realignment may occasionally be required) are as follows:

1.)DESIRE
2.)INTENT
3.)ALIGNMENT
4.)RITUAL
5.)EXPECTATION

DESIRE
That's pretty simple. We all know what desire is. Everyone of us at this very moment, if asked, could name a desire and probably several. Desire is a longing or a need which someone wishes to satisfy. Desires usually range from wishful thinking (with no real expectation of it ever really coming to pass) to deep, burning, life consuming desire. For an act of magick to occur, there must first be a want or need that requires satisfaction. And secondly, that desire must have a force of emotion behind it. It must be a burning desire. Any thought sufficiently empowered by intense emotion will begin to draw to it the object of that thought, either good or ill. Thus the old adage - what ever you desire the most or fear the most, you will draw to you.

INTENT
One of the most important factors in bringing empowered desire into physical reality is a clear and specific blueprint of exactly what you desire, or your expected outcome. This is not a vague or fuzzy guess, or in the case of a friend who run a business out of his home, who has 8 different house pictures, 3 different yacht pictures, 3 new automobile pictures and at least as many vacation packages, all on one refrigerator door. What is your clearly defined desire and the exact blueprint for your specified solution or outcome? Ever try to assemble one of your children's more complex Christmas toys without using the instructions? Magick, and life in general, function the same way. Garbage in, garbage out!!! You must have a detailed, specific idea, plan or blueprint in mind of exactly what it is you desire to manifest, while being flexible enough to allow the Universe to bring to you the manifest result in the highest and best way. Please remember, when you are working on your intent as it relates to another human being, i.e. love spells, binding spells, etc., it is never acceptable to impose your force of will on another by Magick or otherwise. I cannot advise strongly enough that you avoid any Magickal practice that will knowing and deliberately harm or restrict the free agency of another. Be very careful what you send out as it will come back to you.

ALIGNMENT
When you look in the mirror, how many people do you see? According to the ancient teachings of Huna and others, we are actually three people - the Higher Self or spirit, Talking Self or mental, logical self, and Younger Self, the lower, physical self. Each has a critical role to play in our ability to exist and function in this time and place, and in our ability to grow and evolve from our experiences while we are here. But each also has an agenda to satisfy. Younger Self is concerned with physical survival and sexuality, and generally associated with base wants and desires. Talking Self is concerned with your conscious thought processes and logic. And Higher Self is connected to Younger Self and to the Universal Consciousness, the seat of creation. From this standpoint, every decision, every act must originate with one or more aspects of our being and agree with or override the others. Here is where we encounter internal conflict, which can be sudden death to acts of magick. The purest act of magick will manifest with the greatest expectation of success when there is no internal conflict within yourself, between yourselves. Any internal conflict is bound to have a proportionately negative effect on you chances of success. For instance, if you desire to quit smoking, all three selves must be in alignment if you are to be totally successful. If Higher Self says that it is important to quit smoking, and Talking Self agrees that it would be good to stop smoking, but Younger Self enjoys smoking and does not want to quit, no matter how often you perform a ritual or "spell" to stop smoking, no matter how fervently you say you desire to stop smoking, you will never be completely successful until all three Selves are in agreement.

The following quote sums up pretty much all there is to be said about alignment and magick in general, "If you have done everything correctly, and there is no greater force opposing you, you have every right to expect the desired outcome".

There are, of course, other considerations concerning conflict and magick. The compatibility of your friends and associates while you are working (if you are working in a group), and the compatibility of your external surroundings are all important, but any Shaman, Witch or Medicine Man worth his or her salt must practice to overcome all blocks and challenges and be ready, willing and able to work when work is required. To me, this separates casual magick from the true practitioner.

RITUAL
The next step in the co-creative process is ritual. In all of my experience, this is probably the most over-emphasized and least understood aspect of magick. It seems that the New Age shelves are full of books on ritual, candle magic, love spells, elixirs, potions and more. All address ritual from a purely mechanical, physical level, without adequately addressing the deeper aspects of true ritual.

So, what is ritual? In its simplest form, ritual is the effort of mortal man to reach beyond himself to that which is Timeless and attempt to evoke a favorable response. In ancient times, the more often a ritual evoked a favorable response, the more powerful the ritual was thought to be. People would attempt to copy the powerful rituals, hoping to experience the same success, without understanding that there are very powerful hidden mechanisms working within a successful ritual that enhance or nearly guarantee that favorable response.

To understand ritual, you must understand metaphor and the associative functions of the human mind. Our minds work by association. We think in relative terms, we remember by association with other items already stored in our memory.

A metaphor is a pattern of thought in which the meaning ordinarily associated with one thing is applied to another. Have you ever heard someone say that they feel like they have been hit by a train or that they feel good enough to walk on water? These are metaphoric statements. We use metaphors constantly in our lives because the mind has a powerful capacity to relate through association of thoughts and concepts.

We now return to the three selves and the act of getting all three to agree and work together. This is the actual function of ritual. Ritual is the physical enactment of a clearly understood metaphor that works on all three levels of self to draw the selves into more perfect alignment, each self participating in the ritual at the level of its own function. The Younger Self, through the physical body, is drawn into the actual physical enactment of the metaphor, Talking Self clearly understands the associations of the metaphor and the logic of the ritual in relation to the desired outcome, and Higher Self, connected to Younger Self and to the Eternal, can associate with the metaphor and then transmit the power of Younger Self generated in the ritual to propel the desire toward manifestation. The enactment of the metaphor on the physical plane is designed to align the selves and create sufficient power within the etheric substance of creation so as to alter physical reality according to the desired outcome.

EXPECTATION
The last and final stage of the ritual is expectation. Expectation is the attitude or state of mind that you assume while you are waiting for the etheric tide to return the physical manifestation of your desire. Expectation can range from obsessive worry and frustration to the point of illness through the full spectrum of human emotion all the way to joyous anticipation. If you have prepared well, done everything correctly (in accordance with the principles I have previously outlined), and there is no greater force opposing you (and there normally will not be unless you are acting contrary to the good of another), then you have every right to expect the anticipated outcome to be exactly as you created it. To the experienced shaman, this is a time of rest and taking the mind off the desired outcome. Worry, frustration, or anxiety over the outcome only cripple your work and stall or even cancel all your previous efforts. Rest, relax and enjoy your spare time.

I sincerely hope that you find this information helpful. I use these principles constantly in my own life and in my magickal practices, and know first hand that they work.

[ March 05, 2006, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[Swami]

I sincerely hope that you find this information helpful. I use these principles constantly in my own life and in my magickal practices, and know first hand that they work.

The main principle to remember is that unless there a real plan of physical cause and effect, magick is merely self-deception as is CLEARLY demonstrated by Randi's unclaimed million.

I have previously been promised a remote curse for my blasphemy. Things have got even better since that time.

[Lowlight]

Randi...

just think about the man...

nothing more to say

[ March 06, 2006, 10:41 AM: Message edited by: Lowlight ]

[silentwolf]

What's a million dollars to a guy who can toss a levin-bolt from his fingertips?

[Dna]

Humming, I liked that a lot.

Silentwolf, what is a 'levin-bolt'?

Thanks,

Dna

[Thom]

I've heard of elf-bolts, which are darts flung by elves in folk tales, so maybe a typo from Silent?

Anyway, nice find Humming. I found the piece unfussy and lucid - other good stuff on the site.

[Humming]

waterthere posted in the "so bored" topic saying,

"I remember Daniel asserting in the past that there's something inherently selfish in the practice of magic(k), that the practices seem to be self-serving, about acquiring power. Silentwolf's actions of late would seem to back up that idea, but I'm sure many of you out there will swear by certain rituals. Out of curiosity and respect, what do you all use for your personal exorcisms (so to speak) and what, in the name of bare honesty, motivates you in practicing them?

Whitewave? Daniel? DNA? Anyone?"

I'm quite interested in that discussion, but thought it would be more appropriate in a different thread.

So, the question I would like to ask is: what is magic?

Is it true that through the focused, conscious application of energy and perception, reality can be influenced or shaped in a certain way? Is the application of magic a question of manipulating forces exterior to yourself, or of re-shaping one's own beliefs or mode of perceiving so that the reality that is desired is the reality that is perceived?

Is this statement in the above post correct?

"In order for magick to exist, your individual illusion of reality must undoubtedly include the ability to perform magick. This is the prime difference between a witch or shaman and the average person attempting the same act. The "Magickal Illusion of Reality" will enable the practitioner to accomplish easily that which someone else who is either doubting or unsure will have great difficulty accomplishing. This magickal illusion is then reinforced time and again through positive experience until the witch or shaman is absolutely sure of their abilities."

[ March 06, 2006, 12:41 PM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[silentwolf]

A levin-bolt is a type of magic frequently used in fiction...it's kind of like a lightning bolt, but it's composed of pure magical force and tends to simultaneously incinerate and blast things to dust.

I like the instruction in this post, but the problem I find with a lot of modern magical traditions is too much ritual - I try to remove all external focus-items myself like daggers, wine, altar, chalice, that sort of thing. They're bulky, and they get in the way of speed.

I also find the part of alignment interesting...but since it does not work for me, I leave it to others who are able to use that as a focus.

I've actually had another break-through tonight that I am terribly eager to share, but I know that sharing it before I have seen it through will only be detrimental to the practice itself.

I am still amazed at the way ancient techniques "come to me" as I practice and seek a more potent, efficient way.

[daniel]

I thought I would post a bit from the enlightened Hindu guru Ramesh, which can help refute a lot of the silly ideas about magic, once he is understood properly:

Quotes form “The Divine Banker” - Ramesh Balsekar



1. The ego is the belief that you are

a separate entity with free will.

The basic ingredient

for the movie to go on is the ego.

It is the very essence of the game of life.

God has created the billions of egos.

Of these, God eradicates a few egos

in order to maintain the balance.

The only obstruction for the ego to be eradicated

is the individual thinking

'he' can achieve Enlightenment.

If this is accepted unconditionally

then Enlightenment is not far away.

If Enlightenment itself

is the total annihilation of the individual

then how can the individual be Enlightened

or achieve it?

Enlightenment means the total absence of desire



Ramesh says,

It is that State in which

there is total acceptance of what is.



2. I was told to watch my mind

by my previous teacher."

Can you explain that a little bit?

"It means wait for the next thought.'

Who is waiting for the next thought?

If somebody is waiting

then it is the mind or the 'me'.

There is a big difference

between someone watching the mind

and the happening of watching the mind.

Then 'you' don't wait for the next thought.

You just sit quietly.

Ramana Maharshi says,

"BE STILL".

He also says,

"The interval between two thoughts

is your natural state".

If there is somebody waiting for the next thought

then there is no stillness.

Now that you understand

that things are just happening

you arc no longer concerned with it.

The understanding is

that nothing happens

unless it is the will of God.



Ramesh says,

This understanding

is itself

watching the mind without judging.

But, if the 'me' is watching the 'me'

then you are running in circles.





3. As you keep on watching

the actions that happen

through the bodymind organism

as not 'your' actions, the mind-intellect

becomes more and more convinced that

no action is William's action.

Then the question that arises in the mind is,

"If no action is my action

then who is William?

Is there a William at all?"

This bothers the mind-intellect so much

that this period is called

'The dark night of the soul'.

The dark night continues

until there is total conviction

that William just does not exist.

With total understanding the dark night ends

and I AM shines forth in all its glory.

The doing does not stop.

Doing includes thinking and experiencing too.

The feeling "I am doing things"

disappears totally.



Ramesh says,

As the understanding goes deeper

there will be a.Sudden Realization

that involvement has not happened for a long time.





4. If there is resistance

what can you do about it?

Accept that it will be there until

it is God's will for it to go.

You can't do anything about it.

When 'What Is' is not accepted

there is disturbance.

Why is it not accepted?

Because you have expectations.

Elimination of expectations

can happen only if it is God's will.

You have no control

over the arising of expectations.

In abandoning expectations

there is an essential sense of doership

Not having expectations

means freedom from suffering.

The basis of expectation is time.



Ramesh says,

When there is no expectation

you are in the present moment.





5. “I want to control my desires.”

The arising of a desire

comes with the programming.

Trying to control

the functioning of the programming

is the basic involvement which causes trouble.

Who is to control the desires?

Being able to witness

depends on the destiny of the bodymind organism

and God's will.

Whether the desire, even after witnessing,

gets cut off or not

depends on the destiny of the bodymind organism.

You cannot cut off the desires.

The Sage is not concerned

whether the desire gets cut off

or turns into action.

Life is action.

Desires turning into action happens.

There is a misconception

that the bodymind organism

becomes perfect after Enlightenment.

The misconception is,

The Sage is always in control.

Ramesh says,

In the Sage

there is no 'me' to control anything.

[daniel]

In the deepest sense, the idea that "you, in fact, can alter the fabric of reality in conformity and proportion to your intent and will," is complete bunk.

There is no you.

You don't think. You don't act. Thinking is just happening. Acting is just happening.

When we think we are altering "the fabric of reality," we are in error. We are not doing anything of the sort - these things are just happening.

Ramesh notes that enlightenment is the annihilation of personality. Therefore, it is not "good" or "bad," happy or sad. It is beyond dualisms.

Chogyam Trungpa, speaking to a group of Buddhist students in the West, said, "Of course, you could all be enlightened right now, but I don't think you would like it very much. You would find it too cold and too spacious."

If we stopped trying to make things happen -- whether through science or magic -- we might find that something could actually occur.

[Eagle Wing]

that sounds very similar to Sun Ra's advice, as well.
According to Ra, our only necessity is to BE.
Only when we stop human doing can we know human being.
Ramesh and Sun Ra have seemingly sage perspectives on this.

I find it interesting that many of us on this board are preoccupied with power and how it can be acquired (or lost) through magic. This is indeed the kind of territory that we begin to tread when we get involved in stoking the currents with psychedelics.
Nevertheless, no matter how amazing the synchronistic manifestation of magic or a presence that I have experienced, is there not always, somewhere inside of me there, that feeling of a hole? Yes. An infinite void. It is there, it is within me and it surrounds me. I am nothing.
No matter how much power I could ever collect...
where would i keep that collection? Is the receptacle of this collection truly an illusion itself, just like the "reality" that would be manipulated?

Some kind of intution in me is saying that the use of magic for the means of increasing personal power, is a futile struggle, for the essential reality of beingness is to be powerless.
"Power", in this reality, is even twice the illusion.

the reality of being -- is nothing.

any thoughts people?

[Thom]

As i understand it, ceremonial magic is bascically an elaborate method of self hypnosis. It can be dangerous in the way that hypnotic regression can be dangerous - the story created in the circle is very rarely, if ever, the sole creation of the magician's higher 'will.' It seems to me that magicians are as egocentric as anyone else.

Those who do have some power are supposed to have surrendered elements of their personality in exchange for that power. The idea being that this 'surrender' is actually a sacrifice to the divine will, the higher self, and so any changes made are in accordance with God anyway, manifested through this will. Again, there is obviously ample room for self delusion here. In theory the idea is sound - but in practice it seems pretty torturous to me.

Maybe if you achieve enlightenment you are already doing god's will and so have no desire to change reality. If you haven't achieved enlightenment and are seeking to change reality you may be doing gods will - but at the ego level, god is just another entity.

[Dna]

I have said elsewhere in this forum that ceremonial magic is camp, silly and self-indulgent.

Thom wrote: Those who do have some power are supposed to have surrendered elements of their personality in exchange for that power. [...]this 'surrender' is actually a sacrifice to the divine will This is closer to my experience of 'magic'. More in a moment.

First, magic is no more than the law of nature. The adage 'be careful what you wish for...' and 'you attract what you think' are so true in my experience. Magic is the natural working of life, and it applies to me, you and everybody. It is probably the same as Karma.

For example, I have had times when I have thought ill of others, at work, more than once. It snaps back at you like an elastic band. It hurts. Magic might put more distance between you and your nemisis, but it will be more painful when you have to meet it.

I think we do have free will. Thom suggested above that people are powerful insofar as they submit to a divine, or higher, will.

Yes, and no. I prefer to think that we align with the divine will and [URL=http://www.wholistichealingresearch.com/Articles/Burbank.asp]co-create[/URL ] our world. In this there is great power and freedom.

Many Christians believe in the power of prayer as a means of altering reality.

The practice of altering reality, or creating your own destiny is outlined well in Wayne Dyer's book: 'The Power of Intention'. He is a popular new age author and I like his later stuff. He talks about aligning with the divine will.

I liked the quote from the "Divine Banker". Particularly this bit: Whether the desire, even after witnessing,
gets cut off or not
depends on the destiny of the bodymind organism.
You cannot cut off the desires.
The Sage is not concerned
whether the desire gets cut off
or turns into action. We are always going to have desires. The only difference is what we do with them.

That's all for now.

[silentwolf]

I think that Ramesh quote was taken a bit out of context...especially after studying Panchodasi's writings. That's why I don't take anyone's work as "definitive" or "gospel," and I advise everyone else to see for yourself through exploration...if you aren't enlightened yourself, you can't comment on it yourself from a perspective of understanding, and if you didn't write it, you can't say what the guy who did meant by it. Sometimes people say garbage to encourage you to do what they feel is the right thing.

Xi Sui Jing was a very, very hidden practice, only shared with those that the head monks and priests thought could handle it in Buddhism - in fact today, it's hard to get good information on it because it's so little understood. However, that is a basic exercise leading to the great work of creating vibrations - something spoken of a bit in "Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism."

[silentwolf]

Also keep in mind that on the subjects of enlightenment and magic, you are qualified only to comment as an observer...

Perhaps if you practiced, you could see for yourself, and you wouldn't have to rely on your interpretation of what others have described to see.

Remember the story of the blind men and the elephant? You are not even touching the elephant, you are taking what you like from the descriptions of the other blind.

[Eagle Wing]

silentwolf,
do you agree with dna's statement that magic is very closely connected with karma?

[silentwolf]

Manning - it's a touchy subject, enlightenment; the only people who argue about it are those who don't have it. Magic is the same way, really. Your comments on the two are very much from the view of the observer.

Eagle Wing - that depends on your view of karma. Karma as I understand it is totally cause and effect, and it's extremely complex. A good practitioner will develop the ability to sense this flow, and work with it...because it only takes a little nudge to bump a moving object the way you want it to, whereas it takes a massive shove to get something that's not moving to go where you want it.

[jezebelle]

I experience magic everday. It's called a miracle. I swear one follows me everyday and I'm grateful.

I quess my point is; terminology and the intent of the user can make the difference whether the lamb will lie with the lion.

It's tough facing your pain (the lion) with lamb's open eyes.
respectfully, jez

[Thom]

Manning when you wrote,

"the people I felt most hurt by appeared to be alive and well, whereas those I most loved were hurting rather badly, me along with them."

this poem by Janos Pilinszky came, stealthily, into my mind:

Fable

Once upon a time
there was a lonely wolf
lonelier than the angels.

He happened to come to a village.
He fell in love with the first house he saw.

Already he loved its walls
the caresses of its bricklayers.
But the windows stopped him.

In the room sat people.
Apart from God nobody ever
found them so beautiful
as this child-like beast.

So at night he went into the house.
He stopped in the middle of the room
and never moved from there any more.

He stood all through the night, with wide eyes
and on into the morning when he was beaten to death.

(Incidentally, I've always felt uncomfortable with the end of that. It seems overly melodramatic, and yet appropriate.)

[daniel]

hi manning,

i don't think there is a "fully enlightened" condition. I would think of enlightenment as a process rather than a state, and potentially it is a never-ending process.

[Dna]

Posted by Manning: Then again, growth often occurs in a mix of leaps, stalls and lurches. This is like the modern view of the evolution of species. It happens in fits and starts. Species adapt quickly to new challenges over a few generations and stay the same in stable ecosystems for aeons.

The evolution of the individual is the same. We need to be challenged to evolve.

Dna.

[jezebelle]

manning
I bet if you think about it, there is a miracle in your day.
I teach art to incarcerated teenagers (girls & boys) and privilaged children and everybody wants to tell you what they cannot do. I mean everybody has an attitude.
Just getting one person to try something they have never done before (without quitting) and make their own personal "magic" picture is a miracle. Creativity and "art- with-no-excuses."
I mean we as a speces are impossible, yet we are alive, how utterly impossible. Our natural intelligence ever awaits our ushering-in-of-it in a moment.
Pregnant in the now is a miracle!
respectfully, jez

[Swami]

Originally posted by Dna:
The adage 'be careful what you wish for...' and 'you attract what you think' are so true...In a recent public TV Wayne Dyer special, he features a young woman named Immaculi, who survived the Rwandan genocide. Her story is inspirational, but goes directly against yours' and Dyer's assertion.

Most of her friends and family were slaughtered yet NOT A SINGLE ONE wished to be hacked to death by a machete. Immaculi hid out for months and was incredibly afraid of being discovered and killed (fear is a negative wish), yet survived.

There is not a scintilla of corroborating evidence to your world view other than in your own mind. Did the World Trade Center victims all wish to die in a fiery inferno? Does every murder victim have a similar wish?

[Dna]

Thank you Swami,

You are the voice of reason. Perhaps you are right.

Do you really think that the world is essentially random, and that co-incidence is no more than a result of random colissions? Does will have no influence on reality?

Peace,

Dna.

[silentwolf]

You throw a rock into a pond.

The rock causes ripples.

A floating seed hits the shore, takes root, and sprouts into a giant tree.

The giant tree dies, then collapses on a guy fishing underneath it.

Was it your fault he died?

[Rob P]

.......

- if you are ready to die, does it matter if you survive or not ?

.......

[jezebelle]

I guess death is the total leap or surrender but then you'll be in the same game again. You and the next world. My point is this:
Yea, yea, teaching art is rewarding, but it when it is . . . it's because I'm on my own target. For instance maybe I did my 5 am taichi and packed my stuff before.
One has to carve a place of empiness to receive a miracle or magic by putting out some effort.
A friend and I were just talking and he asks; how can one not be depressed by the mere facts of worldly affairs?
Depression I think it a condition of thinking "you are trapped." (a sort of simple interpretation, I know)
Perhaps we are trapped, but it's really "how you think about it ". . .that is . . . the trapped part.
The rest is sort of the human condtion expiencing the collective changes of a bigger entitiy.
respectfully, jez

[daniel]

hi swami,

just to give you the buddhist perspective, as i understand it, even those unfortunates in Rwanda and elsewhere are enmeshed in tragic and horrible situations because of past karma. Of course they didn't choose to be in those situations as ego-based individuals, but there may be a deeper level to it.

It is only if you can shift to a perspective that includes reincarnation, that much of the world's atrocities make some kind of sense. I suggest checking out the research of Ian Stevenson (some of it is on-line) or reading the latest issue of What Is Enlightenment, which has a 30 page feature on the best current research around reincarnation and past lives.

There may be an evolutionary process on the level of soul and spirit that requires suffering for development of capacities. Nietzsche was also interesting on this point.

JG Bennett, a Gurdjieff follower, thought that a certain amount of global suffering might be necessary to increase the planet's sensitivity. I agree with Nietzsche that without suffering there would be no ethical and moral growth.

[Lowlight]

The question is...

Is the suffering worth it when the suffering is in an extreme form? Many would answer no. What reward cancels Treblinka?

Traditional theodic responses are silenced by such things...unless the God image is redrawn or reconceptualised.

Daniel - The new God is beyond Good and Evil, but not in the sense of Aquinas (God IS the Good), but rather God is the mystery beyond Good and Evil. This is no happy clappy all is alright in the end deity...this God lies beyond morality and that has terrifying conclusions.

[Humming]

"There is not a scintilla of corroborating evidence to your world view other than in your own mind. Did the World Trade Center victims all wish to die in a fiery inferno? Does every murder victim have a similar wish?"

Swami, I think you're taking the concept of magic into a literal/rational context, which is sort of missing the point.

It's not that you get what you wish for, but rather that you are responsible for your own circumstances.

When you create or tolerate negative energy, that doesn't mean that you will immediately pay the karmic price for it. In some cases karma will act immediately, but in other cases the negative energy manifests in more subtle ways in your life.

For example, I believe that most human disease (dis-ease) is caused as much by the mental manifestation of negative or un-harmonious energy as it is by a physical occurrence. There are many forms of energy healing that do not utilize the apparatus of Western medicinal science that would corroborate this statement.

In other cases this energy may manifest as an obsessive psychological disorder, or unwarranted anger, or depression.

This inevitably leads to the question that Manning brought up somewhere about bad things happening to good people. I agree with Daniel that these circumstances arise not necessarily because someone "wanted" them or wished it upon themselves in the relative sense, but rather that their purpose of existence is to experience this pain and anguish, with the hope of viewing it creatively and making something constructive out of it.

In the discussion of good and evil, I've thought about it at length and basically come to the conclusion that there truly is no good or evil, there is no duality; there are only infinite cycles of growth and decay, of novelty and entropy to use Terence McKenna's term.

If we look at what is considered "evil" I think that what we're seeing as evil is actually a blockage of creative growth, or a blockage of free expression.

As for the general discussion about magic, Daniel your post reminds me about what Goswami calls the "unified mind" or "supramental intellect". The point is well taken. In reality there is only one unified consciousness that is manifesting the world in myriad forms: I agree with this idea.

But to me that does not preclude the possibility of influencing or directing consciousness in a certain way, through ritual or mental energy and focus, or other means. This seems to be a question of free will, but it may be semantic.

In "Physics of the Soul" Goswami addresses the perceived paradox of the unified consciousness: that people have different opinions about things, and see things differently. What Goswami says is that in the relative sense this is true, there is a divergent opinion. But in the absolute sense, there is only one unified mind and that mind is creating all the possibilites that we experience, even those that appear to be paradoxical in nature are actually unified in the totality of perception.

So it seems that in this view, magic would be possible in the sense that it may be possible to influence consciousness to manifest in a certain way, but ultimately that manifestation is part of the whole of consciousness and so no influence is required.

In my own life, magic is found in the everyday "zen" of living. There are miracles happening around us all the time. Existence itself is a miracle.

And then there are synchronicities, which appear to reveal a deeper layer of an inter-connected magical reality than we normally experience.

For example, the first time that I met the poet Saul Williams I had been studying dreams, and had just come across the idea that it is possible to dream the future before it occurs, and that such an ability to have pre-cognitive dreams may be innate to human nature, and a learned behavior of shamans.

I had been thinking about this for several days, and applying my energy to meeting Saul because I wanted to talk with him.

When I did meet him, I wanted to ask him the question about dreaming: is it really possible to dream the future?

I walked up to him and before I spoke a word I saw that his t-shirt read these words: "Remember your dreams, then act them out two days later."

Literally, he had answered my question before I even asked it.

The power of even just this one experience is so immense... the statistical possibility of that synchronicity happening randomly is preposterous. This indicates to me that there is a deep inter-connection of reality that exists beyond space and time, and that irrational energetic fluctuations of realized inter-connection may have as much, if not more influence on reality than the rational physical laws of space and time.

Whew, long post..... tongue.gif

[ March 09, 2006, 08:38 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[daniel]

hi lowlight,

you write: "The new God is beyond Good and Evil, but not in the sense of Aquinas (God IS the Good), but rather God is the mystery beyond Good and Evil. This is no happy clappy all is alright in the end deity...this God lies beyond morality and that has terrifying conclusions."

I suggest you read Carl Jung's essay, Answer to Job. He posits that the God-Image of humanity is going through a dialectical process of development through its subject-object relationship with the human species. I would see the development of ethics and the will to adhere to them as part of this process, which is a difficult one.

[daniel]

hi humming,

you write, "But to me that does not preclude the possibility of influencing or directing consciousness in a certain way, through ritual or mental energy and focus, or other means. This seems to be a question of free will, but it may be semantic."

I think it is semantic - and the problem is that in the workings of magic, you are creating a lot of room for egoic delusions to arise. Even without doing magic ritual, you are still magic - everything is magic, as other posters noted.

I suppose you can do all the rituals and sigils, without giving into a delusion that you are somehow controlling the forces, rather than being a vehicle of them.

[Swami]

Originally posted by Dna:

Does will have no influence on reality?
Dna.None whatsoever unless expressed through physical action.

[Swami]

Originally posted by daniel:
hi swami,

just to give you the buddhist perspective, as i understand it, even those unfortunates in Rwanda and elsewhere are enmeshed in tragic and horrible situations because of past karma. Of course they didn't choose to be in those situations as ego-based individuals, but there may be a deeper level to it.

It is only if you can shift to a perspective that includes reincarnation, that much of the world's atrocities make some kind of sense. I suggest checking out the research of Ian Stevenson (some of it is on-line) or reading the latest issue of What Is Enlightenment, which has a 30 page feature on the best current research around reincarnation and past lives.

First off, you are going far afield from my point that wishing makes something so.

As to moral karma (as opposed to Newton's laws of cause and effect), and disregarding the fact that karma is a Hindu-based concept, it is a far-fetched idea for several reasons:

1. It is a totally untestable hypothesis as it can never be observed. One could make any any of an infinite number of untestable fantasies to attempt to make sense of tragedy.

2. The first creatures or men would have had no previous karma; yet still suffered and died.

Do you truly believe that a tsnuami is not caused by tectonic plate movement but by the evil of Thai villager's past lives?

Did evil dinosaur karma cause a planetary chunk to slam into the earth? What made asteroids hit planets with no prior lifeforms?

This type of primitive superstition helps no one and explains nothing.

[Swami]

Originally posted by Manning:
I have, for instance, occasionally been struck dumb by the descriptions of those who have gone the ethnogen route and return with reports of talking mushroom people. As you should be - it is purely imagination.

Think about this: Maria Sabina could not tell the difference between synthetic psilocybin and that produced by a mushroom.

If a person ingested synthetic psilocybin and saw 'the mushroom people' even though the chemical never came from a living fungus, where do you think the vision would come from?

[Lowlight]

Swami, you never debate things here. You just state the materialist/reductionalist postion to what ever idea you feel like trying to destroy. On your terms you cant 'argue' with you, so there is little point in responding to you.

The problem you face is that your presuppostions are flawed and outdated. You love to doubt, but you only doubt so far, why not have the courage of your convictions and see what science actaul says about the world when you follow it to its logical conclusions? Here is a little question for you to start with...What is matter?

[M. Twilite]

Lowlight writes:
Is the suffering worth it when the suffering is in an extreme form? Many would answer no. What reward cancels Treblinka? But don't you see how this line of reasoning is trapped in the duality of opposites? Any sort of argument about "what kind of a loving God would create so much pain" cannot come from an enlightened perspective. Think of a child at dinner whining "what kind of a loving God would make me eat brussel sprouts!"

God knows I still hate brussel sprouts. But with time I've come to understand their place in the universe.

If it can be endured, it's an experience...if it's too much to be endured, you will pass out. This is "flavor country" as all the animals daily eaten alive by other animals can tell you, or all the neo-primitives enduring masochistic rituals, tattooings and piercings.

Empathy is fine, but once you get indignant about suffering, you should realize you would probably at this point in time find enlightenment to be "too cold and too spacious." Which is totally fine by the way, but you still have to eat your brussel sprouts.

[silentwolf]

Originally posted by daniel:
I suppose you can do all the rituals and sigils, without giving into a delusion that you are somehow controlling the forces, rather than being a vehicle of them.Any devoted practitioner of magic knows that you do not wield the Ether - you have to become it to the point where there was no past and there will be no future, there is only now.

And as far as being deluded goes...a lot of people who don't practice are pretty adept at doing that without rituals and (lol) sigils.

[silentwolf]

Manning - A lot of people blow Karma out of proportion. It's simple cause and effect, though it's very complicated...like the question I had asked earlier about the tree that feel on the guy.

It gets a lot more expansive than that. What actions led to the guy who had the tree fall on him being there at that exact spot that day? It could have been something so little as a sneeze that flushed a fly out of the house that flew down to the pond to start annoying the guy enough that he moved away to get away from the fly...or someone could have left a piece of trash underneath the tree that he felt he should pick up...or his wife could be an unbearable berating shrew who had literally been sucking the life out of him and left him so tired that he needed to sit down and think...or he could have been in a stupor because his first grand-kid had been born and he'd never live to see the day.

That's what Karma is. People who say "Oh, you were bad in a previous incarnation so you suffer now" are only partially right - whatever you were previously incarnated as affected the direction things have moved into now. The most subtle thing can have a great impact. One wrong step can literally set off a chain that destroys not just an entire species, but an entire eco-system, even if its 20,000,000 years down the line.

Every little thing that we do has a lot of impact...that's why it's important to take responsibility, hold no regrets, and try to become more sensitive to what's going on in the now - so we can see what's going on from our measly perspective in relation to the larger view.

[Dna]

I agree that you should hold no regrets. Regret is not compatible with love. Regret is a stagnant and inward-looking emotion. Love radiates outwards, is fresh, and moves.

Karma is the shape of your shadow, as projected out into your world. It is what you are not aware of affecting what you are aware of.

[Thom]

Hi Silentwolf, "Any devoted practitioner of magic knows that you do not wield the Ether - you have to become it to the point where there was no past and there will be no future, there is only now."

When you say that, you are incomprehensible to those who haven't learned your terms. 'Wield the Ether' sounds like something from Lord of the Rings. You know this surely. How does one wield ether? I have deeply ambiguous feelings about those who think they know the law - they sound like rookie cops.

I want to read your book, but my credit card doesn't exist, so I can't read it as far as i can tell.

Do you follow prescribed moves in your rituals? Thats what has prevented me invoking the watchtowers, or whatever - I don't want to be a robot operative in a magic factory.

[ March 10, 2006, 11:42 AM: Message edited by: Thom ]

[Lowlight]

twilite have you heard of Ivan Karamazov?

Your response is easy to say but not so easy to live when you and your family are about to be pushed into a gas chamber - its a little different than eating sprouts. As is using babies for target practice, or kicking pregnant women to the point of death and then throwing them into the ovens alive.

I think you missed my point. I was stressing the implications of a god beyond morality. That is not something i am adverse to, in fact it makes more sense than traditonal western theism's model to my mind, but the question remains, whatever God is...is existence worth its price? This question can be said in reference to reincarnation as well and highlights the power of a true questioning of the value of existence in the vein of Camus - one of the few true 'existentialist' or atheist thinkers worth engaging with.

Also the Non-dual idea gets bandied around this board without much actual thought. Hindu thought is actually very varied in this respect with definite differences between Advaita, Vishitadvaita and Dvaita to name but three forms of Vedanta.

[ March 10, 2006, 12:19 PM: Message edited by: Lowlight ]

[silentwolf]

Thom - Ether, Prana, Chi, Ki, Spirit of God, Plasma, Psychic Energy, are all interchangeable terms for the same substance. When you work magic or do any type of psychic work/qigong/martial arts, you have to let it flow through you. It partially controls your actions if you remain sensitive to it, but it also responds to your needs. Command it with emotion, clarity of vision in what you want to do, and intensity of focus. You have to sacrifice yourself in a way to motivate it to your fullest extent; stake your very existence upon your goal. It's easier said than done.

I personally do not care for traditions and I only use a somewhat rigid ritual system when it comes to using the Sacred Teacher Plants. I have never seen LBRP or the Watch Tower work as effectively as spontaneity, in myself or in others.

I do have set exercises that I do, but they're not rituals; it's like the psychic version of weight-lifting to build strength. The exercises I do use are adaptations from Xi Sui Jing, which was given by Da Mo along with Yi Jin Jing to the monks at Shaolihn (and passed on to the Taoists at Wu Dang) after he saw how weak they were and meditated upon a solution for 7 years straight facing a rock wall.

It is very, very important to experiment once you start to understand how subtle energies work and you are able to perceive them. (Perception always comes through the mind in the guise of your other senses.) Experimentation is important because if you keep trying to do what someone else figured out and passed on to you in the way they did, you will not be able to master it yourself. There comes a point where you have to step out of your guide's footsteps and strike out on your own. This is something that I stress repeatedly in my book, because if you do NOT try to do that, you get bound up in senseless tradition, symbolics, and your practice will petrify. What I want to see is not stagnation and mindless repetition of what I put out in my book, I want to see it help people forge their own path and pass techniques back to me that they discovered on their own.

Magic is not a few words, a flick of the wrist with a stick, or a sacred symbol drawn to invoke the response of the gods. It is work. It all lays in your lap, and it's tough. Once you get past the initial doubting of whether or not you can do it, you start to doubt your sanity, in regards to whether or not you want it so bad you're just imagining it.

Even if I am imagining it, I'm invoking a change in myself, and thereby changing the world around me.

[silentwolf]

Thom - you should be able to go to your local bookstore and ask them to order it for you, it is on world-wide distribution.

The ISBN is 1-4116-4210-4

[whitewave]

Silentwolf,
I appreciate your eloquence and clarity in your last post. Your process sounds very sensible to me. I have noticed over the past week a reluctance in myself to take anyone's word as an authority. Any time anyone has said "you should read" or "but so and so says" in response to something I've written, something in me rebels. I think what I am being taught is to become my own authority, to not look outside myself for answers. Of course, reading a book can open doorways, and once you read a book it becomes a part of one's self, but I am feeling more and more that everything I need to know is already inside me. All I have to do is remember. I acknowledge there are native traditions who have elders who have preserved and embodied this knowledge for centuries, but this does not mean that I cannot have direct access to the same knowing they do. I can't speak for others, but at times I know I have suffered from white liberal guilt, thinking indigenous people were spiritually better than me, but I know this is not the case. We are translucent beings. We all have the ability to shine. As you said, discipline and practice are key. Those of us who grew up without a spiritual lineage probably must practice even harder, but I believe it is possible for all of us to develop and embody our radiance.

[ March 10, 2006, 03:40 PM: Message edited by: whitewave ]

[silentwolf]

Definately, Whitewave.

I figured that the root of tradition was some guy doing the same thing that I'm doing now - trying to figure it out for himself. The people who hold the traditions together these days are people who are more interested in touting the person they're following than seeing for themselves.

That's why I get really critical on people who preach other's work and writings at me like it was their own, and can never input their own experiences and conclusions based upon that. (You know who you are, and to quote Mr. T, I pity tha foo! lol)

[Dna]

You have to sacrifice yourself in a way to motivate it to your fullest extent; stake your very existence upon your goal. It's easier said than done.Yes, you do have to sacrifice/surrender yourself in this process. I experience that as a sense of relief/release.

You sum this up well.

Dna.

[snow]

"I figured that the root of tradition was some guy doing the same thing that I'm doing now - trying to figure it out for himself."

Authentic traditions have very mysterious roots. Perhaps it is honest seeking that can put one in touch with such traditions.

"The people who hold the traditions together these days are people who are more interested in touting the person they're following than seeing for themselves."

This is not always the case. Perhaps, these days, the more profound the master, the less you can talk about them, never mind what they teach you.

[whitewave]

Slow,
My teacher is like that. It's hard to talk about what goes on between us, and she's not a celebrity, although she could be if she chose to be. She is totally grounded in normal American day to day life. Some people can't see at all who she is, and she is comfortable with that. She never forces what she sees or knows on anyone. If they come to her, then she shares what is right for that moment. People are always asking me what tradition she follows, so I finally asked her, and it was a mixed bag of things we would recognize like qi gong and reiki and soul retrieval, but most of all, she teaches what she has received directly from spirit and it may not necessarily fit into any living tradition around today. I have always trusted her from the moment I met her and have been able to let go of needing to question where everything she teaches comes from, or how she does it.

[snow]

she sounds great, whitewave.

[Dna]

Is she your mom?

[whitewave]

Life would have been much easier for me if she was my mother! But then I wouldn't have been given such an incredible opportunity to give birth to myself...

[Fool Zero]

Working my way through this thread...

silentwolf:
What actions led to the guy who had the tree fall on him being there at that exact spot that day? It could have been something so little as a sneeze that flushed a fly out of the house that flew down to the pond to start annoying the guy enough that he moved away to get away from the fly...
(#000048, March 10, 2006 10:43 AM)Mark Twain looks at questions of this sort in an odd yarn called The Mysterious Stranger (http://www.shsu.edu/~eng_wpf/authors/Twain/Mysterious-Stranger.htm). The title character (who early on introduces himself as an angel) frequently alters the "appointed" course of events: Two minutes and a quarter from now Nikolaus will wake out of his sleep and find the rain blowing in. It was appointed that he should turn over and to to sleep again. But I have appointed that he shall get up and close the window first. That trifle will change his career entirely. He will rise in the morning two minutes later than the chain of his life had appointed him to rise. By consequence, thenceforth nothing will ever happen to him in accordance with the details of the old chain." He took out his watch and sat looking at it a few moments, then said: "Nikolaus has risen to close the window. His life is changed, his new career has begun. There will be consequences."

It made me feel creepy; it was uncanny.

"But for this change certain things would happen twelve days from now. For instance, Nikolaus would save Lisa from drowning. He would arrive on the scene at exactly the right moment - four minutes past ten, the long-ago appointed instant of time - and the water would be shoal, the achievement easy and certain. But he will arrive some seconds too late, now; Lisa will have struggled into deeper water. He will do his best, but both will drown."
. . .
I clung to him and begged and pleaded. but he was not moved. He made me sit down again, and told me I must hear him out.

"I have changed Nikolaus's life, and this has changed Lisa's. If I had not done this, Nikolaus would save Lisa, then he would catch cold from his drenching: one of your race's fantastic and desolating scarlet fevers would follow, with pathetic after-effects; for forty-six years he would lie in his bed a paralytic log, deaf, dumb, blind, and praying night and day for the blessed relief of death. Shall I change his life back?"

"Oh no! Oh, not for the world! In charity and pity leave it as it is."

"It is best so. I could not have changed any other link in his life and done so good a service. He had a billion possible careers, but not one of them worth living; they were charged full with miseries and disasters. But for my intervention he would do his brave deed twelve days from now - a deed begun and ended in six minutes - and get for all reward those forty-six years of sorrow and suffering I told you of. It is one of the cases I was thinking of awhile ago when I said that sometimes an act which brings the actor an hour's happiness and self-satisfaction is paid for - or punished - by years of suffering."

I wondered what poor little Lisa's early death would save her from. He answered the thought:

"From ten years of pain and slow recovery from an accident, and then from nineteen years' pollution, shame, depravity, crime, ending with death at the hands of the executioner. Twelve days hence she will die; her mother would save her life if she could.- Am I not kinder than her mother?"
(Chapter VII)

[Fool Zero]

dna:
Does will have no influence on reality? (#29)

Swami:
None whatsoever unless expressed through physical action. (#40)
I'd say that would depend a lot on just what was included in "physical action". If the river were rising and threatening to come through my living room, I wouldn't count on changing its course just by (private) visualization, prayer or ritual. If, however, I were to devise a plan for diverting it with properly-placed sandbags and communicate my plan to everyone in town and get them interested, I might get a thousand people out sandbagging. Sure, even if I joined them at the waterside it would be their physical action, far more than mine, that would affect the river; but if someone didn't first come up with a workable idea and then communicate it effectively, no actual sandbagging might get done.

To back up a step -- how did I come up with the idea of sandbagging in the first place? If I'd omitted whatever private visualization, affirmation, meditation, prayer or ritual helped put me in a suitable frame of mind for it, I might very well have chosen to panic and flee instead.

(Disclaimer: This has been only a hypothetical example. I don't, in fact, live anywhere near a river.)

[Fool Zero]

The Sorcerer's Apprentice vs. the Five Principles of Power

-- I. --

As I was looking at the topic post by Humming -- a lengthy repost from shamans-cave.com on the fundamental principles of magick -- I found myself wondering just how easy it would be to understand and apply those principles correctly or to misunderstand and misapply them.

-- II. --

I find it especially interesting that the author defines magick as "the ability to alter the fabric of reality in conformity and proportion to our imagination and will." It happened to remind me of a now-famous article on politics that ran in the New York Times Magazine about a year and a half ago: Without a Doubt (http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/101704A.shtml), by Ron Suskind. A few excerpts:
Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. "I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad," he began, "and I was telling the president of my many concerns" - concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. "'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?"'

Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts."

Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. "I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!"' That a deep Christian faith illuminated the personal journey of George W. Bush is common knowledge. But faith has also shaped his presidency in profound, nonreligious ways. The president has demanded unquestioning faith from his followers, his staff, his senior aides and his kindred in the Republican Party. Once he makes a decision - often swiftly, based on a creed or moral position - he expects complete faith in its rightness. In the summer of 2002 ... I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He ... told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend - but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."-- III. --

Suskind's source, the "history's actors" guy, seemed to be saying that, just as in the "Five Principles of Power" article, the Bush administration proposed to alter the fabric of reality in conformity and proportion to their imagination and will.

"In a group, society, culture or religion where adherence to the consensus reality is limited to empirical data only," says the author of the "Five Principles" article, "magick and the practice of the occult arts with their corresponding gifts and abilities can not flourish. In order for magick to exist, your individual illusion of reality must undoubtedly include the ability to perform magick. This is the prime difference between a witch or shaman and the average person attempting the same act. The 'Magickal Illusion of Reality' will enable the practitioner to accomplish easily that which someone else who is either doubting or unsure will have great difficulty accomplishing."

The Bush administration led the U.S. into Iraq confident that we would be greeted as liberators; that democracy would soon flourish there; that we would be invited to stay on to rebuild the country and help protect and guide it; and that the example of Iraq would soon transform the entire Middle East to our benefit. So confident were they, that they appear to have had only token plans if any for dealing with the looting, sabotage, insurrection and civil war that followed. They continue to insist that things are proceeding more or less according to plan and unquestionably getting better, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

It appears to me that the President has chosen to conduct foreign policy according to the principles of magick, not "consensus reality." Much like the legendary "sorcerer's apprentice," he seems to have gotten himself into considerable difficulties by so doing. Bush continues to promote his "magickal illusion of reality" to such audiences as still believe him but his credibility is increasingly in tatters. Reading the "Five Principles" article leads me to wonder: could we possibly identify just what principles of magick he has violated?

The "Five Principles" article lists the "five key aspects to the creation of any magickal act":
1.)DESIRE
2.)INTENT
3.)ALIGNMENT
4.)RITUAL
5.)EXPECTATION1.)DESIRE

About this, I find I don't have a great deal to say. I don't know for sure what the President desired (and perhaps still desires) from his Iraq gamble but I suspect it might have something to do with proving himself, becoming a hero, escaping his past reputation for having failed at everything he's attempted until rescued by family connections.

2.)INTENT

You must have a detailed, specific idea, plan or blueprint in mind of exactly what it is you desire to manifest, while being flexible enough to allow the Universe to bring to you the manifest result in the highest and best way.

To take away Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction? To stop him from sponsoring Al Qaeda? To save the United Nations from becoming an ineffective, irrelevant debating society? To bring democracy to the Iraqi people? To secure a foothold for the US military close to the sources of Middle Eastern oil? To protect Israel from the Muslim hordes eager to destroy it? To warn Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia what might happen to them if they don't cooperate?

In light of the looting and destruction that began immediately after Iraq was liberated and the still-growing insurgency, it appears that Bush's blueprint may possibly not have been quite detailed enough.

------------------------

I'm afraid that's all I'm up to writing tonight. I'll find out tomorrow what, if anything, I have to say about 3.)ALIGNMENT, 4.)RITUAL or 5.)EXPECTATION.

[ March 26, 2006, 08:24 AM: Message edited by: Fool Zero ]

[Dna]

I am very much looking forward to the rest of this post. It has been a 'tour de force' thus far.

Thank you.

Dna.

[Fool Zero]

(Thank you kindly, Dna and Manning!)

---------------------
3.)ALIGNMENT

The purest act of magick will manifest with the greatest expectation of success when there is no internal conflict within yourself, between yourselves. Any internal conflict is bound to have a proportionately negative effect on you chances of success.The author of the "Five Principles" article seems to be referring almost entirely to the alignment (or misalignment) of the three "selves" of the individual practitioner. Although obviously not intended as echoes of Freud's or Berne's theories, the author's "Higher Self," "Talking Self," and "Younger Self" do happen to resemble, at least superficially, both Freud's Superego, Ego, and Id (http://allpsych.com/psychology101/ego.html) formulation and Eric Berne's Parent, Adult, and Child (http://www.businessballs.com/transact.htm) "ego states".

The President, however, is obviously not acting as an individual practitioner here. Rather than setting out to produce a desired result by his own actions, he orchestrates his staff and his party to carry out his intentions and persuades the voting (and taxpaying) public to apply their support in desirable directions. It may not much matter whether the President is in fact aligned within his own mind on whatever he is proposing to do -- as long as he and his staff are able to keep up the appearance that he is so aligned:
The President was seated in a classroom of second graders when, at approximately 9:05, Andrew Card whispered to him: "A second plane hit the second tower. We are under attack." The President told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction in a moment of crisis. The national press corps was standing behind the children in the classroom; he saw their phones and pagers start to ring. The President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening.
source (http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/001985.php))Far more important here than the President's individual state of mind is something that we might loosely refer to as the nation's state of mind: with respect to whatever the President is proposing, (a.) how well aligned are the rest of the administration, the Congress, and the voting public; and (b.) how well aligned do they perceive one another to be?
Republican Sen. Wayne Allard on Thursday became the seventh member of the Colorado congressional delegation to say that people should not be removed from a presidential event for a bumper sticker - as happened March 21 in Denver.

In that case, three people who had done nothing wrong said they were ejected from a Social Security town hall meeting by a man who looked and acted like a Secret Service agent.

The Secret Service investigated the incident and reported that the man was a Republican Party staffer. The agency told the three that the man admitted removing them solely because they arrived in a car bearing a "No more blood for oil" bumper sticker.

The White House has said that the man removed them "out of concern they might try to disrupt the event."
(source (http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/10210/printer)) We had a legal permit to demonstrate against this war and President Bush, a permit from the Secret Service, as enforced by the [Louisiana State University] police. When our group of demonstrators arrived on Dalrymple Drive that morning to protest this visit, an LSU policeman told us that we had to stand in a 35-foot fenced-in square, exactly 100` from Dalrymple Drive, for "security" reasons, under the threat of arrest if we didn't. We refused to stand in that thing, but we did not get arrested. (It would have been funny if all the protestors had stood in the little square and said "MOO" over and over, like cattle do.)

Directly across the street from the "free speech zone," about 25 "pro-Bush" citizens stood along the curb and waited for the President. I was selected as spokesman for our group, so I asked the LSU police Sarge, "Why can those people stand along the curb but we can`t?" The Sarge said, and I quote, "Because they are pro-Bush, and they don`t have signs".... damn, it was my sign's fault!

At the end of the demonstration some of us demonstrators entered the little roped-off square, pulled up the stakes holding it in place, and proceeded to walk all around the Parade Grounds of LSU, inside the world's first government-issued "Moving Free Speech Zone." FOX News filmed it, and they even showed us marching around in our captured "free speech zone" on New Orleans TV.

So let me get this straight--and also let me present this to you, and you decide what is wrong with this picture. If you are "pro-Bush," you need no permit to stand along the edge of the road, and no security is necessary if you decide that you want to get as close to the President as you can. The police checked none of them, asked them for no permits, and allowed those people to line the street within only inches of where the President would be riding.

So if I were a terrorist or an assassin trying to "hit" our President, all I would have needed to do in order to get only inches away from him, would have been to say nothing, get no permit, and carry no sign.
(source (http://baltimorechronicle.com/052704FreeSpeechZones.shtml))The "Five Principles" article adds:
There are, of course, other considerations concerning conflict and magick. The compatibility of your friends and associates while you are working (if you are working in a group), and the compatibility of your external surroundings are all important, but any Shaman, Witch or Medicine Man worth his or her salt must practice to overcome all blocks and challenges and be ready, willing and able to work when work is required.The President's recent progress in this regard:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/436/1538/400/BushApproval20050620060317.jpg
(source (http://politicalarithmetik.blogspot.com/2005/11/approval-of-president-bush-in-2005-and.html))

I hope to have still more to say in another day or two.

[Dna]

Thanks Fool Zero.

Dna.

[Humming]

Fool, as I posted in another thread, I agree with your idea here that the people in control are using ritual to retain and create power.

We are lead to believe that they are a bunch of bumbling, moronic, misguided yet ultimately harmless idiots.

This is the story that they have created about themselves so that people will not realize the horrific implications of their power.

The level of dedication necessary to maintain and propagate the immense and widespread deception that forms the foundations of our collective assumptions about the true nature of those power systems is staggering. Bush literally cannot conduct an interview or give a public speech without lying about something. Or, more accurately, without lying about everything.

The energy required to maintain that facade indicates to me that the grip on power and the indoctrination of the worldview of deception is entirely conscious and intentional, although it is clearly not conscious and intentional in any cosmic or integral sense.

The power of the elite is based on delusions--the illusion of seperateness, the illusion of superiority--that allow them to justify the torture and murder of anyone who is "less worthy" or "less valuable" than themselves.

However, I have faith that the truth of unity will prevail, and these people will eventually confront the grim face of their own depraved souls, and perhaps they will find a radiant light there, rather than a hideous deception.

[ March 30, 2006, 09:01 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[forteanajones]

I have to say this is one of the most fascinating and inspired threads I've read here. Good work, Fool Zero! I look forward to reading more.

[Fool Zero]

It seems that when I wrote, "I hope to have still more to say in another day or two", I really meant in another week or two ;)

Thanks to those who have commented. And Manning, thanks for that Bushflash video link.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice vs. the Five Principles of Power

3.)ALIGNMENT (continued)

It occurs to me that even as the President is asking us to trust his instincts, forgive him his trespasses and support his war, he is directing his appeals especially toward those of us who are most inclined to be in spiritual alignment with him. I'd like to look briefly at who is most in alignment with Bush and the Bushies, and what they might have in common.

Ann Coulter:
This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack. Those responsible include anyone anywhere in the world who smiled in response to the annihilation of patriots like Barbara Olson [passenger on the plane that hit the Pentagon].

We don't need long investigations of the forensic evidence to determine with scientific accuracy the person or persons who ordered this specific attack. We don't need an "international coalition." We don't need a study on "terrorism." We certainly didn't need a congressional resolution condemning the attack this week.

. . .

We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now.

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

-- This Is War (http://www.anncoulter.org/columns/2001/091301.htm), 9/12/2001
Jonah Goldberg:
In the weeks prior to the war to liberate Afghanistan, a good friend of mine would ask me almost every day, "Why aren't we killing people yet?" And I never had a good answer for him. Because one of the most important and vital things the United States could do after 9/11 was to kill people. Call it a "forceful response," "decisive action" — whatever. Those are all nice euphemisms for killing people. And the world is a better place because America saw the necessity of putting steel beneath the velvet of those euphemisms.

-- The Cowboy Way (http://nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg012903.asp), January 29, 2003
This same Jonah Goldberg later got into an argument with Juan Cole (http://www.juancole.com/), a professor of history whose specialty is Iraq. After Cole had established that Goldberg knew next to nothing about Iraq, Goldberg retorted, "The fundamental issue I raised in my column was not about the extent of his knowledge but the quality of his
judgment." (source (http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200502070943.asp))

(Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence)

A year ago, Boykin conducted a slide show with a church group. He said, "Well, is he the enemy? Next slide. Or is this man [Saddam] the enemy? The enemy is none of these people I have showed you here. The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He's called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan."

When asked why terrorists have targeted the United States, Boykin said, "Why do they hate us so much? Ladies and gentlemen, the answer to that is because we're a Christian nation."

America's "spiritual enemy," Boykin once said, "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."
-- Boykin was poised for punishment (http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/3669.html), The Carpetbagger Report, March 04, 2005
(from a news story about Abu Ghraib)

[An Iraqi detainee] said one soldier continued to abuse him by striking his broken leg and ordered him to curse Islam. "Because they started to hit my broken leg, I cursed my religion," he said. "They ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive."

-- New Details of Prison Abuse Emerge (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43783-2004May20_3.html), Scott Higham and Joe Stephens, Washington Post, May 21, 2004
[b]George W. Bush describes the American people to themselves:

You know, I was floored to think about the attitudes of the enemy when they thought we were soft. I couldn't figure out which TV show they had been watching. (Laughter.) I mean, can you imagine somebody saying the great United States won't respond, or the great United States really doesn't care, won't commit the resources necessary to rid the world of evil? But, my, oh, my, did they make a huge mistake.

They also didn't understand the character of the country. They don't understand how good we are. They don't understand America's values -- the values of freedom of worship, no matter what religion you choose; freedom to speak; freedom to run for office; freedom to vote; freedom to be -- to work for your family so your family can live in a peaceful world. They don't understand that. They must not understand it.

-- President Calls on Congress to Pass Economic Security Package (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020122-8.html) (Bush speech in Charleston, West Virginia), January 22, 2002
One thing I see these various examples having in common is a certain inauthenticity. They seem to call on Americans to defend our American traditions, principles, and culture -- by throwing aside those very traditions, principles and culture. They seem to call on Christians to defend Christianity -- by casting aside such wimpy, impractical principles of Christianity as, say, turning the other cheek. That, I'm afraid, is what Bush is asking us to align with him on. The price would seem to be our alignment with ourselves.

More in... a day or two? A week or two? Eventually?

[ April 05, 2006, 08:39 AM: Message edited by: Fool Zero ]

[Isaiah Mpski]

1262

[Isaiah Mpski]

External catalytic phenomenomization.

The unconscious energy that goes into the living Christ should allow Him to perform miracles this week-end or perhaps taken to the next level of the ritual.

[Steve C]

Originally posted by daniel:
In the deepest sense, the idea that "you, in fact, can alter the fabric of reality in conformity and proportion to your intent and will," is complete bunk.

There is no you.

You don't think. You don't act. Thinking is just happening. Acting is just happening.

When we think we are altering "the fabric of reality," we are in error. We are not doing anything of the sort - these things are just happening...Boy, I wish I'd read that a couple of months ago.

One of my major obstacles has been with regards to making judgements. When I read about 2000 children per week dying in the Peruvian Amazon or a catatonic 3 year old being admitted to a hospital with STDs and burn marks, sometimes I want to wreak terrible vengeance upon the world. And it's something I've tried to do through ritual, I ended up all dissociated among other things. Part of my learning curve no doubt, but I find the atrocity in the world gut-wrenching and it sometimes interferes with my ability to perceive the perfection of it all.

But that just an extreme example of judgement being an obstacle. I'm also trying to work on internal talk like 'look how fat that guy is' or 'wow she's amazingly beautiful', though I often doubt I'll ever be entirely free of that...

[ May 18, 2006, 03:26 AM: Message edited by: Steve C ]

[whitewave]

Steve,

If you want to be free from judgment, call upon the Divine I Am Presence, or whatever term you use for God to take over. I have found that it is a matter of surrendering to our higher selves. This does not feel as strange as I thought it would at first, I expected to feel taken over. Instead, I feel able to rise above emotional reactions, which makes me stop judging. I feel like the self I knew before I surrendered, but a lot more positive and less lonely. I was surprised at how easy this transformation was after all the difficult and painful ones I have been through. If we all do this, we will be able to transform our consciousness without the trauma I thought had to occur in the past. Good luck and welcome to the board.

[Steve C]

Thanks for the kind words WW. <3 Ya it does get lonely out here in the weird sometimes, guess that's part of why some people end up in cults.

Originally posted by Eagle Wing:

Some kind of intution in me is saying that the use of magic for the means of increasing personal power, is a futile struggle, for the essential reality of beingness is to be powerless.
"Power", in this reality, is even twice the illusion.I read Casteneda at a young age and always found something vaguely unsettling about it. I think that Daniel hit the nail on the head in an interview with Tim Boucher where he mentions that Don Juan didn't really seem to have any concern for anyone outside of his group of apprentices and fellow sorcerers. Though I still think the series is useful in that it gives the reader a view of 'non-ordinary reality'.

[ May 18, 2006, 06:03 AM: Message edited by: Steve C ]

[willoweyes]

Surrender to God is capitulation. My God begs me to wrestle Him at the ford.

[12bodies]

on the subject of changing the fabric of reality and the futility of this notion seeing that "these things are just happening," as daniel put it, i bring up the the idea of worry.

i was raised into a 'pious' catholic family, received an 'enlightened' education under the watchful eye of priests and 'patriots'. one of the most enduring emotions passed on to me from this tradition is worry. But i somehow don't think i am alone here in this feeling.

We worry about everything, how much money we have, how little our prayers are working, how crazy our leaders are, how many people are dying in africa, how it seems like everyone you know has cancer, or mental illness, we worry about death obsessively, worry worry worry worry worry worry worry. We worry about the surfaces and the depths of our reality hanging constantly on the edge of actual happening.

if we are really embedded in nature as so many have intuited, then any action put forth to 'alter' the fabric of reality is misguided.

But things in reality can be made manifest.

Terence Mckenna explained to me once that if you make want you want what you have, then you have what you want. This is really how musicians work.

Through abondonment of WORRY we can join into the cosmic song and resonate with it.

Yes, one can then choose to 'alter' this cosmic song, to go against it and sing it's opposite into existence. But this is all in bad taste, you see.

"Musician work is play
and play pays well in beauty"- Friedman

[whitewave]

Willoweyes,

To surrender does not mean you will not be called to wrestle.

When I speak of surrendering, I mean surrendering the ego to the higher self so that one acts from the higher self, not from the limited self-serving vantage point of the ego.

[willoweyes]

Thanks Whitewave, I appreciate your words, and respect your path. I guess "my" ego is still flailing about in its struggle to understand. And afraid of peace--

[ May 19, 2006, 05:48 PM: Message edited by: willoweyes ]

[willoweyes]

Here is the God I wrestle with:

Between our house on the hill and the highway, there lies a thin strip of tortured woods. This morning, I heard pathetic mewlings coming from the woods. I went to investigate.

Three small kittens, eyes barely open, unable to walk, were looking for their mother.

Unfortunately I had noticed what now I realized was their mother, splayed out on the highway yesterday evening.

The kittens are probably too far gone from the fire ant bites to save (the ants are meat-eaters). Not interested in milk from an eyedropper. What to do?

Lesson to me: That it never stops. That I have a right to curse G-d, the F-cker Supreme.

(Instead of Intelligent Design, I support Intelligent Malevolence--such gratuitous cruelty could not arise spontaneously).

If He is omnipotent; if it is all One--I curse It.

However, I can live with a diety who must bow to Lady Luck, like the rest of us.

[tana]

willoweyes, i feel your anguished "why?!?"...i wrestle with that same god. it stings to witness the suffering of any life-form. (i'm far more comfortable in the presence of death than of suffering.)

however...misery and suffering, helpless dying kittens included, represent just one isolated facet of a greater, multi-dimensional reality. as a whole, all is perfect...even the brief, painful lives of orphaned kittens.

greater perspective aside though, i really struggle to accept the cruelities of existence...especially when directed at the defenseless...it hurts my heart.

[Dna]

I am sorry to hear of the predicament of the Kittens, Willoweyes.

How are they now?

Dna.

[ May 20, 2006, 02:28 PM: Message edited by: Dna ]

[Steve C]

Willoweyes,

The dead cat and the other suffering and absurdity in our world driving you to nihilism draws a stiking parallel to Kevin's situation in Phillip K. Dick's mostly autobiographical book 'VALIS'. I found it to be a very thought-provoking book.

I think Daniel Shorr is full of shit. There's plenty of people who are horrified by the course this administration is taking.

[willoweyes]

Thanks for the encouragement, my friends. I guess my point in sharing this everyday, almost cliche-d horror, is to point out why I shy away from worshipping an omnipotent god. If god is under the sway of fate and luck, fine, join the crowd. But a god who knows all, sees all, controls all--what's the point? That would be nihilism to me--belief in such a god.

Nihilism: a viewpoint that all traditional values and beliefs are unfounded, and that all existence is consequently senseless and useless: a denial of intrinsic meaning and value in life.

I abhor and deny such a philosophy!

I think Schorr's point might have been that people have lost the feeling that their outrage has any purpose. We the people, hear the latest adminstration offense, and we are horrified, yes, but also bone-tired, and it seems (as in a dying world) that it's just the way things are; what can we do? (This feels like nihilism to me, no matter what our supreme being acts like in our mind.)

I guess I'm prodding people--don't lose your outrage. It still might come in handy someday.

Steve C, I'll check out the Dick book. DNA, the kittens died.

[tana]

I think Schorr's point might have been that people have lost the feeling that their outrage has any purpose. ...actually, that's pretty much how i feel when it comes to our political/social situation.

i don't feel that our cultural situation itself is hopeless, it just seems that those twisted elements which appear to be in control (criminally insane politicos, media-driven cancerous consumerism, etc.) are obviously headed for self-destruction. this is a lousy analogy, but trying to battle these elements may be like trying to kill off something that is already dying.

could it be that the most effective action we can take is to maintain personal integrity, and refuse to go down with the ship?

(i hope i haven't veered to far off-topic with my posts here.)

[willoweyes]

It might appear our ship has veered off topic here, Tana, but to me these questions are a search for magic and power--being still in possession of the will to act.

My solution is your solution--I certainly wouldn't advocate strangling eorgegay ushbay, as the editor of Harper's "did" this month. One of my few absolutes is that good ends don't justify evil means (whoops, there go those pesky words again, slipping out!).

I am being judgemental--is that dangerous? Do judgemental people sometimes end up stoning others to death? Well, yes. But without judgement, one does indeed become a nihilist.

[[pRovS]]

http://www.inner-quest.org/Real_Advaita.htm

[nanouk]

" In Bombay, in the large room, next door to the satsang room in Ramesh's residence, I noticed numerous photographs of Ramesh, some of which showed him when he was young, in a pose like that of a statue of a Greek athlete of antiquity. Every photograph was for sale at a rather high price for India. I was puzzled, ill at ease, finding it surprising, and even out of place, that a 'sage' would expose his physical body in such a way and make money out of selling photographs such as these."

These are the real Gurus....and lusting to be near them is not such a bad thing!
...these encounters don't require a healthy bank balance, just a nose for true treasure and reality...Experience is real.

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/FCPicLib.nsf/LUImagesByFilename/1046166.012big.jpg/$FILE/1046166.012big.jpg

Love and Respect,

~n~

[Isaiah Mpski]

OKLAHOMA,where the winds come where the winds come tumbling over the plains...
If you haven't figured out what song I'm humming by now,it's Oklahoma.


Where did you get the picture of my post oak tree?

[hereandnow]

hi swami,

just to give you the buddhist perspective, as i understand it, even those unfortunates in Rwanda and elsewhere are enmeshed in tragic and horrible situations because of past karma. Of course they didn't choose to be in those situations as ego-based individuals, but there may be a deeper level to it.

It is only if you can shift to a perspective that includes reincarnation, that much of the world's atrocities make some kind of sense. I suggest checking out the research of Ian Stevenson (some of it is on-line) or reading the latest issue of What Is Enlightenment, which has a 30 page feature on the best current research around reincarnation and past lives.

There may be an evolutionary process on the level of soul and spirit that requires suffering for development of capacities. Nietzsche was also interesting on this point.

JG Bennett, a Gurdjieff follower, thought that a certain amount of global suffering might be necessary to increase the planet's sensitivity. I agree with Nietzsche that without suffering there would be no ethical and moral growth.

Hi everyone,

That's true for many schools of Buddhism, however, there are a few other alternate views on suffering and Karma that i've found interesting.

For example, there are those who apply the non-dualism of life to suffering, saying that since everything is one, there can be neither good nor bad karma. A succinct way of saying it is that "there is no negative karma, only karma we have yet to learn from."

I like this approach, since it encourages one to experience life and look at it as a learning process, and to attempt to view things from a different angle.

Also, in terms of people who die in violent or horrible ways, or seem doomed to suffer, it is important to remember several things. First, death is not a terrible thing to be feared and avoided. It is a natural process, so while on a personal level, the stupid and pointless loss of life, particularly innocent human life, is rightly saddening, one must also take a larger perspective. Once you begin to view death from a more neutral standpoint, it becomes a little easier to see why people might choose karmic paths that lead to sudden deaths or suffering. There might be important lessons they learn in doing so that cannot be had in any other way. This is where it sort of connects with Nietzsche, in that suffering is a part of life, if life were a perfect utopia, it would be static, unchanging.

It also could be that we all must live lives that seem to be more full of suffering in order to gain compassion for those who suffer. A person who needed to learn empathy for the sick might choose to reincarnate as a very sickly baby who dies as an infant. Their suffering, while to our eyes is cruel, might serve purposes that we cannot even begin to suspect.

P.S. This is my first post and after reading a good chunk of the topics here, i have to say i'm really happy to be in the company of such smart and well read people. I just hope i can keep up.

[bopes]

excellent post, hereandnow. Keep them coming.