A question for Mages and Mystics

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neofight
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A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by neofight »

Pardon me for the brief post.

At a certain level of Magick a Mage recognizes that there is no action that can be named to be the "perfect good", and no action that can be named the "perfect evil".

The major religions profess to abstain from desire for this reason, and the Buddhist says that all desire leads to suffering and so to avoid struggle, do not want.

The Tao says to bend and be.

So... which is the most noble act? Do nothing for fear of doing error, or do what thou wilt because no one knows for certain what the greatest good might be?

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Napoli
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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Napoli »

Morality can be subjective. Take for example the matter of abortion. Some people are for it and some against it. But it is not black and white. If abortion can be the only solution to save a mother whose life endangered due to her child in her belly, what would people do?

This is my personal viewpoint but there is nothing wrong with having desires. My motto is not to let my desires harm me or others. However, not all people will share my values. Muslims won't eat bacon and Hindus won't eat beef. For them, their religious laws are important. But for others, it is redundant. Does that mean one of the parties (Muslims and Hindus vs the rest) is wrong? No, I do not think so. I may consume both but I will definitely respect the viewpoints of others even if they do not match mine. I think this is what most people do.

After learning about the rules of what should or should not be done, ask yourself these questions. How much I agree with a particular doctrine, fully or partially? Why? Can I stick to multiple doctrines at one time? Do I have the ability to judge for myself what is good or bad? Am I capable enough for this? If not how can I make myself so? Hint: by learning and thinking. We have a saying in my country that one's conscience is the greatest court of this world. In a similar line, one should not underestimate one's abilities to distinguish good from bad, which can be subjective. I am also of this opinion that blind belief in dogmas, religious, social, etc. is not a good thing.
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Shinichi
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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Shinichi »

Nature is neutral, and will always strive for equilibrium.

Desire and nondesire, action and nonaction, pleasant and unpleasant. All the myriad things of existence are born from the dance of polarity. The myriad things are all part of The All, and all born of The Void. Nothing is isolated from the origin.

Men seek extremes because they seek only what is pleasant, and battle what is unpleasant.

The sage has no preferences, for he knows the way.



~:Shin:~

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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by neofight »

Nothing is unjust.

There is no sanity, except according to what you consider to be truth.

All is as it ever was, except with more details.

CHAOS

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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by neofight »

A good magician knows that God is All. Therefor, all is Good, and if you love God, you love ALL.

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Napoli
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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Napoli »

I disagree. I think God (the Creator Source) is neutral. I do not believe that it is only good. That is more of an Abrahamic perspective. This universe was created so that the Creator Source can experience and learn about itself. If it were only good, then it would not have created evil. As a result, it will not be able to experience evil. Both good and evil is part of the All. That is why we have both murderers and philanthropists in this world. The Creator Source is learning from different perspectives. At the end of the day, duality is an illusion. Take, for example, hot and cold. These are two extremes of temperature. Hot and cold may not feel the same but basically, they are different degrees of temperature.
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Topper
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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Topper »

neofight wrote:A good magician knows that God is All. Therefor, all is Good, and if you love God, you love ALL.
A good magician also knows you are paraphrasing and warping Crowleys ideologies.

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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by neofight »

Napoli: thats what I am saying: God is neutral, and creator likes all of this. We are the ones that are bound in the duality, not God. To God it is all Good.

Topper: This doesnt belong to Crowley its much older. Three initiates, anyone?

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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Cybernetic_Jazz »

This is an area where I think Manly P Hall helped me organize a lot of my concepts.

My concept is that if you'd consider yourself a steady practitioner rather than the type of person who might just use a spell instrumentally you're most likely in the camp of people who are trying to affect transformation on themselves primarily with their work. That desired transformation would in most cases be the improved balance, strength, and resilience of your inner nature and from that more power to do the things you'd like. In a way all of that seems to gel as improvements to one's own integrity. It seems straight forward that such gains to integrity would allow a more free flow of power as the foundational air pockets in your nervous system and whatever you're made of in general get worked out. That seems to fall right in line as well with concepts like The Great Work or the general alchemy of becoming that's offered as the goal in most of the classic western mystery traditions.

In that sense I often don't worry as much about what society would class as good or evil (especially in the taboo sense) quite so much as whether taking up a particular exercise would be good or healthy for me. If it's shadow work you will actually be sometimes running toward antisocial behavior in your own imagination, I suppose 'evil', but it will be to resolve immature or native orientations to the particular subject at hand - orientations that I think set up stress patterns which trip up your progress in other ways. Seems like almost any bad, sloppy, or largely false heuristic that you find yourself operating under is worth getting rid of if you can manage it because they all have consequences that aren't quite worth the protection they provide and that's particularly so if you're willing to work at replacing them with better, more accurate, more concise material.
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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by neofight »

No one defeats Chaos.

Knowledge is the source of suffering

Therefore one might as well submit to desire, and get what one desires, because that is the reason for the sensual experience that we all partake in. Because this is the reason for life, there will be Chaos... and

No one defeats Chaos.

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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Cybernetic_Jazz »

Depends what you're willing to be put through on other people's terms I suppose.
You don't have to do a thing perfect, just relentlessly.

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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Unferth »

I think this is an interesting point

According to some mainstream hindu writers, "right" action is based on a number of factors relative to one own life including the cosmic age (yuga) and society one lives in. Some western philosophers such as Nietzsche and Heidegger also take this point of view.

As for Abrahamic religions,I agree that at least Judaism and Islam have a strong tradition of laws or rules that are very well defined and permeate every aspect of life so that people don't have to think too much about actions. They just ask their priest who assembled their code of laws based on revelation.

One point I like to make is that the concept of good and evil, seems to have been passed down from Christianity and later Judaism, but itself inherited from Persian Zoroastrianism during the early Roman empire. There is no concept of good or evil in early Judaism.

In that religion, Zoroaster divided the Iranian pantheon into two primary forces or goods. Ahura Maza and Ahriman. One translation for these words may also be higher mind and angry mind but most consider them to be dual dieties. In other words, destructive force and higher mind. There is also a slew of angelic beings and hierarchies in Iranian lore that survived the Zoroastrian purge such as Mithra, that was also passed down to early Christian Gnostics.

As for myself, I stick to the old golden rule or categorical imperative of Kant. Treat people as you like to be treated. If they act like trash, you can treat them like trash but you must forgive or forget them for your own well-being. As far as actions that affect nobody else, such as abortion or suicide, or what kind of meat to eat, I use positive ethics based on Aristotelian values. In other words, try to figure out the particulars of each ethical question by acquiring knowledge and also define your goals or objectives. For example, I dont like eating pork because I think pigs are dirty animals who eat their shit. I dont like eating beef or too much meat because I think factory farming is bad for the environment based on the data I have seen. I dont eat lot of organic, free range meat because its too expensive. I dont like abortion after the first trimester because I think the baby has a heartbeat and is thus 'alive.'
These my conclusions, I dont apply them to everyone but remain open-minded to their views.

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Amor
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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Amor »

>the concept of good and evil, seems to have been passed down from Christianity and later Judaism

Family feuding by planetary spirits looks like evil to Earth humans.

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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Omnicentrik »

My approach is that for the mystic as well as the serious occultist, morality, ethics and the like are very real. It's just that they are not understood or worked with as the concepts defined from the perspective of socialization and culture. For example, if an attitude and approach to reality promotes psychic fragmentation, soul degredation and even physical illness, is that wise to pursue? If an attitude and approach end up causing suffering, then the mystic and occultist whose level of perception acknowledges the connection between all things would certainly not dive headlong into what sucks.

I am not speaking of rationalizations some make that they think pain and suffering are good, so long as its everyone else who hurts, or even if it's themselves. I would agree, however, that just as each of us can eat differently and stay healthy, one individual's practices can be healthy and beneficial to them and even others, while another doing the same thing can cause damage all around. Some can handle a mystical experience and grow, while others go through hell when their inner eye opens even just a sliver more.

In my view, desire only leads to suffering when fulfillment is thwarted, and that holds more for ones true desire as opposed to conditioned compulsions and addictive programming. Desire is the force that magnetizes the actualization of events (manifesting) when combined in the right way with intention, will and awareness of energies and patterns of consciousness within self and around. Buddhists preach renunciation of the world to a great extent, whereas those who practice Shakta Tantra claim you can be enlightened and still enjoy life. In fact, you become enlightened to enjoy life more, and in a way that reflects off the wisdom that tells you what is healthy and what is not...if you can face your demons and decondition the mind and energy body from afflicting programming. Then one can realize what needs to be done to engage creatively in existence in a fulfilling manner, at least as a process if not as an outcome.

That being said, evil to me is the hateful negation of existence. Good is its affirmation. Just like consciousness, desire as a divine quality, is a field of presence connecting everything. So your desire should not contradict mine. Something afflicts the field on one plane or another, and that something negates its capacity for value fulfillment. It may seem relative to each, and the physical world has its own afflictions that conditions biological and even cosmological scenarios, but the forced negation of existence (resulting in suffering) is based on a force that- in my view- does not belong, which is why it is "evil". In other words, hatred is a force of negation of existence, and cannot find the oblivion it seeks. Thus it tears manifestation apart wherever it proliferates. Love in all its forms is affirmative (unless it is entangled in hatred, whereupon it makes it seem love causes suffering).

If you do away with desire, true motive also disappears. Love has no context because at best it goes one way, and indifference is often a cover for either latent or misrepresented hatred. If one is connected with self and world, one is not indifferent, nor is one "neutral", because life always pushes toward greater fulfillment, regardless if the outcome reflects the attempt. If the universe is alive, as some mystics claim, then it has some sort of existential direction. It moves to fulfill its nature. But if affirmation is negated then it appears to be statistically neutral. If I want to climb a cliff and someone is throwing boulders to knock me off it, I can be stuck in place. My drive is still to climb.

When trying to examine things such as good, evil etc. we realize there are no simple answers... and to navigate these issues, it pays to question assumptions, to a point. Eventually, some understandings hold water more than others in one's experience. That still doesn't guarantee they are universal truths. It doesn't negate universal truth as something real either. Metaphysics, unlike physics, is ultimately an internalized experience that cannot be packaged into neat little laws. But there are principles, and self knowledge is only one step to grasping and ultimately working with them in an organic manner, as opposed to following some sort of hand-me-down methodology, although knowing, when, how and why to use traditions is very userful if not necessary in practice. It's dependency on such things that is not right for me.

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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Amor »

>evil to me is the hateful negation of existence

Evil can arise from excess light as much as from excess darkness. The yin-yang balance is achieved in a rhythmic cycle.

>Metaphysics, unlike physics, is ultimately an internalized experience

That is not my experience. Like any science, metaphysics can be approached by observation, hypothesis, experiment and peer review. It is a matter of systematic access to planes and sub-planes and developing the inner senses so that objective observation and competent action can occur.

Right relationship is critical so that the inner plane intelligences cooperate or at least behave normally.

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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Kath »

I lean more tantrika.

Taboo is the art of inflating the importance a forbidden thing within the mind by way of denial.

I say examine and become intimately familiar with desire, rather than trying to bury it in the sand. I don't think it easily dissolves by way of ignoring it. But rather by dissolving it in understanding.

Although, technically, I don't have a problem with desire. At least not for the finite self. Finite beings cannot exist without desires. So let the finite part of yourself be what it is. Dissolving desire is only one of numerous aspects of coming to know the non-finite self. It's not so much that desire is wrong, but that it is outside the scope of the non-finite self, and thus it is instrumental to know a non desirous state of being, if you seek to approach this aspect of self. Personally I don't have a problem with "suffering" either. builds character. And it isn't actually relevant, from a non-finite perspective.

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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Cybernetic_Jazz »

Kath wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 2:51 pm Taboo is the art of inflating the importance a forbidden thing within the mind by way of denial.

I say examine and become intimately familiar with desire, rather than trying to bury it in the sand. I don't think it easily dissolves by way of ignoring it. But rather by dissolving it in understanding.
I strongly agree with this although I don't know for sure if you'd agree with my interpretation.

It seems like dealing with pain or threat is a very different circuit than dealing with desire or pleasure. When pain is weaponized against us or coming in from angles that aren't in our interests our whole biological history is wired well to deal with that. When it's pleasure of a kind that could corrode or destroy us - whether it's the sugar, fat, and salt combination, whether it's Twitter or Facebook algorithms and dopamine hijack, or more appropriate to the magical discussion if it's desires that seem rogue or antithetical to our own moral structure if not at least our integrity and larger selves - the grappling needs to be different. On one hand it's genuinely damaging and most likely a situation worse than the problem to try putting a portion of oneself to death. What I have found helpful in certain extreme cases is play-grappling with that part of myself and in exchange trying to, by contact, get that part of me to see what the rest of me is seeing and come to it's own conclusions. With that last bit said if it's pushing me toward something that's clearly a no-go zone and the best it could do is attempt a coupe against my central identity I have to make sure that said play stays sandboxed, enough to absorb it's energy and also enough to establish all sorts of checks and balances around it in case it would attempt to run right up through neurological channels where I - through primacy of the situation for example - there aren't any natural checks.

I put a lot of this as well in the context of something like kundalini awakening where it's apt to light all kinds of desires ablaze that you didn't even know you had and many of them have been in the shadows for reason of being genuinely antisocial.
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Re: A question for Mages and Mystics

Post by Kath »

Hmmm, well I think we agree on the idea that self denial can in some ways inflate (rather than deflate) the influence of something within our psyche. Sort of the trope of the hellfire preacher who's struggles profoundly with a vice.

It's a slightly difficult concept to put to words, but in essence... hmmm, I guess one way to put it is that back when I was in a religion, one of the precepts was to avoid idolatry. Which is kinda setting up a psyche-reference connection to a symbolic item, rather than the substance the symbol represents. Most didn't really dwell too deeply on the topic, but I kinda examined the concept in depth. In essence, I think it was possible to make the mistake of "praying to iconography", rather than to the actual.

This kinda spills over into things like plato's allegory of the cave, and the ancient khemetic concept of "true names", or the intent of the buddha who once said "all words are lies". But i'm kinda getting off topic. For our purposes here, the idea is that I firmly believe we can create sort of "negative idols" and i don't mean "unpleasant" by 'negative' I mean more like a mirror image of an idol, an inverse of it, where we put energy into our focus on something in an attempt to dissociate from it, rather than associate with it. But this has an *extremely* similar effect, in terms of creating a form of idolatry. hehe, i guess in a nutshell, "hating the devil is a form of devil worship". Where hate is not really the opposite of love, it's actually quite similar.

Mind you, I'm just rolling with the kinda religious trappings here to get ideas across. I've no feelings really on the devil or idolatry. Except in so much as idolatry is a possible framework for discussing the idea of how we enshrine things within our psyche, put our focus and energy into them, put them on a pedestal in our thinking, both intentionally and unintentionally, and both via attempts at association and dissociation.

To revile or fear or disdain or reproach from something or look down on it, or to "try hard to ignore something", etc, none of that is at all removing it's effect on your psyche. Quite the contrary, it's kind of giving that thing a rather prominent place in your mind. If anything, only adding focus and energy and structure to it.


I think my own views start to differ with some of yours beyond that aspect though;

As far as some part of the self pushing you towards a no-go zone.. I try to integrate all of the self, whole. So I explore that scary place, and embrace all that is self, entire. gnothi se auton, know thee thyself. That's going to involve having to let dichotomies coexist. Don't worry, I'm a relatively altruistic monster [wink2] But I do explore the entire expanse of the range of my nature. Facets which differ do not need to be subdued to be a unified whole, in my view. That would only be the illusion of a unified whole by way of repression/suppression.

From the standpoint of seeking enlightenment by way of building understanding and connection with the non-finite self... both desire and reproach are equally "trappings of the finite mind". To like apple pie, but dislike asparagus, are both concepts of preference, and preference is born from being singular and finite. I tend to view the acetic approach as no different than hedonism. attraction and repelling are both finite mindsets, in comparison to "being one with all that is". A lot of people just focus on finding a balance. It can be healthy for the ascetic to let their hair down, or for the hedonist to learn restraint. But "balance", while useful for quality of life, is just very rudimentary, kind of a very preliminary first step, and doesn't go very deeply into the heart the subject. I think a more in depth approach might be to just ponder what one means when they say "I". What is it that likes apple pie? What is it that dislikes asparagus? It's not just the liking or disliking which is at play, but the very framing of the thought which starts with "I..." that bears closer examination.

From this frame of thought, I don't really agree with the ascetics who sometimes consider tantra to be a less favorable approach. I rather think ascetics have at least as big of an obstacle to enlightenment as hedonists, possibly larger. certainly more than contra-ascetics, which is tantra really. Put another way, I don't think tantra embraces hedonism nearly as tightly as ascetics embrace repression.

But then at the end of the day, I'm a heretic who's fairly indifferent about both desire and suffering. So, grain of salt and all that. Shun desire to end suffering? It's like trying to bargain one finite self-interest for another, and is in most cases more a distraction than anything else ...to the larger goal of the finite self approaching the non-finite. I mean, I get it... in Samsara people's problems can seem so large, it can feel so liberating to shed that sense of the largeness of one's personal tribulations, blah blah blah, but that too is a sort of comfort-seeking, no?

There's always a million little filaments which bind us to the finite. I have to feed the goldfish, I want this, I need that, I have to preserve this, I have to get back to that... attached, attached, attached. Not that any of those things are bad, but so many strands which obfuscate our experience of the infinite in "the self which is now". It's difficult to feel the tangible reality of the pull of such things unless you have a near death experience. It's why materialism is sometimes viewed negatively, it's not that materialism is itself nefarious, but rather that the things, they own you back.

Or something not entirely unlike that. Some topics I feel like when i put them into words it ends up sounding like a tone deaf person playing motzart on a leaky bagpipe, compared to what I had in my head.

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