OccultForum.org

The pages of history are saturated with the extra-ordinary. Things that are impossible, unbelievable.
Dragons, found in every cultures history. literal shape-shifting, inter-marriage between man and spirit, flying carpets, talking to animals, and countless other "myths".

Such belief is not totally dead in the modern world. In a village of Greenland, a man can tell you a first hand account of being chased by a spirit in the mountains (with the appearance of a "yeti").

A fundamental Baptist preacher I know can tell scores of personal experiences with demons. Real demons. Not personifications of our own personalities, not allegories, but literal demons.

My father tells the story of a witch in Pennsylvania, a former neighbor, who turned herself into a cat and visited another sorcerer, with the intent of causing harm. The other sorcerer threw the cat out of the window. Days later,the witch was seen in public, having a broken leg.

Yet the modern religious person, be that Christian, Occultist, or any other; is staying two steps behind the atheist, and the "scientific" person. They say such things are impossible, that such power does not exist in the universe. Such people are slitting their own throats; they are halting their own progression.

Was all of ancient man crazy? Should all the histories of the world be dismissed as a fairy tale?

Our incredible technology, which we could use for our betterment, we have used to blind us.

It is true what has been written in the works of Casteneda; we create our perception of the world.

The world is such and such and so and so because we say so. Our description of the world determines what is true, and what is false.

A woman can not turn into a cat, because you say it is not possible. Your narrow-mindedness you call "science" tells you that such a physical transformation is not feasible.

Transform your perception of the world, and you transform your world.
Nothing is false, everything is true.

What does the title have to do with the text?

Yeshai wrote:Our description of the world determines what is true, and what is false.

Humanity is not the only thing that exists in the universe, and therefore our description of the world determines very little as far as the rest of existence is concerned. You can describe in full detail that the sun will not rise tomorrow, but my bet is that it will. [wink2]

Yeshai wrote:A woman can not turn into a cat, because you say it is not possible. Your narrow-mindedness you call "science" tells you that such a physical transformation is not feasible.

I'd say that particular woman didn't physically transform into a cat. Not because doing so is impossible, and not because of modern science or any other religion says it is not feasible. But rather, that's just not how that particular practice is done in Traditional Witchcraft and Shamanistic Magic. You don't need to transform your physical body when you can leave it behind entirely, and then "ride" another living body to get where you want to go.

Yeshai wrote:Transform your perception of the world, and you transform your world.
Nothing is false, everything is true.

What is theoretically possible, what is practically probable, and what actually happens are all different things. The aspirant who cannot tell the difference between these and similar things will very quickly fall into delusion and madness upon entering the world of "The Occult," so I'd like to politely suggest that you take a much closer look at your "nothing is false" statement and start learning how the real world works. It might save you a lot of pain and trouble later on.

Believe nothing, question everything, and use Reason always.



~:Shin:~

Desecrated wrote:What does the title have to do with the text?

Modern religion doesn't have the faith it used to. [happyface]

Shinichi wrote:

Yeshai wrote:Our description of the world determines what is true, and what is false.

Humanity is not the only thing that exists in the universe, and therefore our description of the world determines very little as far as the rest of existence is concerned. You can describe in full detail that the sun will not rise tomorrow, but my bet is that it will. [wink2]

Yeshai wrote:A woman can not turn into a cat, because you say it is not possible. Your narrow-mindedness you call "science" tells you that such a physical transformation is not feasible.

I'd say that particular woman didn't physically transform into a cat. Not because doing so is impossible, and not because of modern science or any other religion says it is not feasible. But rather, that's just not how that particular practice is done in Traditional Witchcraft and Shamanistic Magic. You don't need to transform your physical body when you can leave it behind entirely, and then "ride" another living body to get where you want to go.

Yeshai wrote:Transform your perception of the world, and you transform your world.
Nothing is false, everything is true.

What is theoretically possible, what is practically probable, and what actually happens are all different things. The aspirant who cannot tell the difference between these and similar things will very quickly fall into delusion and madness upon entering the world of "The Occult," so I'd like to politely suggest that you take a much closer look at your "nothing is false" statement and start learning how the real world works. It might save you a lot of pain and trouble later on.

Believe nothing, question everything, and use Reason always.



~:Shin:~

You cannot change the sun from rising for 7 billion people in the world,
but you can very well change your perception of that same sun.

Yeshai wrote:You cannot change the sun from rising for 7 billion people in the world,
but you can very well change your perception of that same sun.

You completely miss my point.

The sun will rise regardless of the Human Collective, because it is an independent external objective existence that does what it wants. The sun rose every day long before humanity walked this world, and it will continue to rise long after we are extinct.

Pursuing a biased perception of objective reality amounts to nothing more than preferring a lie over the truth, preferring delusion over reality. It's just sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the sun, and that is not a good mode of thinking to bring into Occult study and practice.



~:Shin:~

Yeshai wrote:

Desecrated wrote:What does the title have to do with the text?

Modern religion doesn't have the faith it used to. [happyface]

I disagree. Religious people haven't changed much since it's beginning.
But you are right that there are people who no longer are religious, but does that believe still believe in the same stuff. Technological advances, science and atheism has little to no impact on the true believers.

Shinichi wrote:

Yeshai wrote:The sun rose every day long before humanity walked this world, and it will continue to rise long after we are extinct.

Can you prove that?

Shinichi wrote:

Yeshai wrote:You cannot change the sun from rising for 7 billion people in the world,
but you can very well change your perception of that same sun.

You completely miss my point.

The sun will rise regardless of the Human Collective, because it is an independent external objective existence that does what it wants. The sun rose every day long before humanity walked this world, and it will continue to rise long after we are extinct.

Pursuing a biased perception of objective reality amounts to nothing more than preferring a lie over the truth, preferring delusion over reality. It's just sticking your head in the sand and ignoring the sun, and that is not a good mode of thinking to bring into Occult study and practice.



~:Shin:~

You're missing my point.

What causes the sun to rise each morning? The laws of science? Or the hand of God?

What you believe changes your world only, not your neighbors.

Carlos Castenda once had a conversation with a wolf, only after he had stopped the world. That is, collapsing his description of the world.

Desecrated wrote:

Shinichi wrote:The sun rose every day long before humanity walked this world, and it will continue to rise long after we are extinct.

Can you prove that?

If you want to go into the several ways that we can objectively measure and calculate the age of Earth and the local Solar System, how long the Earth has been spinning, how long the Earth has been in orbit around the Sun and how long it is likely to continue doing so provided circumstances remain as they are...

Yes. There is quite a lot of objective proof for my statement.

Yeshai wrote:You're missing my point.

No, I just think you're wrong. There's a difference. [gz]

Yeshai wrote:What causes the sun to rise each morning? The laws of science? Or the hand of God?

In Truth, both, as well as other aspects of nature and other things that most people don't know about yet. Human scientists can't even explain Gravity in detail yet. Give it a few more thousand years, and maybe things will come together again.

Yeshai wrote:What you believe changes your world only, not your neighbors.

Now that's just a silly thing to say. You do know this is an Occult Forum, don't you? I've changed other people's worlds on more than one occasion, for better and worse. Several others here have done the same. It's Spellcraft 101, and my "belief" has absolutely nothing to do with it. An idea is either True or it isn't, and a method either works or it doesn't. It's that simple.

If you only change your own perspectives, you're not practicing Magick or even religion that well (if we go by the conversion philosophy used recently), you're practicing Mysticism or Personal Psychology. If everything you do is subjective and you have no objective results, then you aren't cultivating Power, you're cultivating delusions and other feats of imagination and "belief" (which really isn't that great). This is why you need to be careful about how you approach Metaphysics. There are a lot of people who enter the forest only to get swallowed by the shadows, because they don't know how dangerous the unknown can be.

Hell, why don't you just study some modern Propaganda and Advertising and then tell me that the human mind can't be easily influenced by outside forces. It's so easy and common that it's almost sad.

Yeshai wrote:Carlos Castenda once had a conversation with a wolf, only after he had stopped the world. That is, collapsing his description of the world.

You seem to think really highly of old Carlos. Do you really think he's the only fellow who can talk to animals or do other neat things? I have lots of neat experiences I could share, including a couple involving animals. There are people on this forum and others I've talked to who have even more interesting stories than me. Experiences like these happen when you have objective results - things that happen not just internally, but externally in ways that often enough other people can observe (in mundane and metaphysical ways). Which doesn't mean that internal changes aren't just as important, because they are. Paradigm shifts happen all the time, because that's part of evolution and the scientific process of learning - when you realize you're wrong about something, you have to adjust everything to account for the newly acquired Truth. Adjustment can be difficult in some circumstances.

But there is a huge difference between personal growth and claiming the entire universe only exists in your head. If you want to be an escapist mystic, that's fine. Ignore the Truth of reality all you want. But if you want to actually grow and have experiences that can change not just you but everyone around you when the experience happens, then eventually you will be hit by a wall, and that wall will be an independent force that doesn't care what you think about it.



~:Shin:~

It should also be pointed out that all of the evidence (and it's very strong evidence) suggests that Carlos Castenada's books are almost entirely fictional - that no such person as Don Juan ever existed, let alone undertook a training of Carlos in shamanism and sorcery as described in Castenada's writing.

Now, that doesn't necessarily write his books off entirely as a source of understanding - I know at least one man of genuine spiritual attainment who occasionally quotes the books to convey a point. Castenada was an anthropologist who studied these traditions in an academic setting, so quite a bit of what he wrote is likely to reflect at least the Western anthropological understanding of these practices at the time, and from the little I've read of his work I suspect that he did undergo various drug-induced mystical experiences.

But at the end of the day, he wrote a whole collection of books packed with blatant lies and presented them as truth, profited extensively from doing so, falsely presented teachings and practices which were likely fabricated (or at least self developed) as part of a traditional Central American spiritual lineage, and developed something of a cult of personality which he seemingly exploited for his own egoistic and sexual gratification - several of the members of which came to a distinctly bad end.

All in all I would suggest extreme caution in taking anything from his work as more than allegorical/metaphorical fiction and drug-induced philosophical musing.

Nothing is false, everything is true.

Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

You say degredation, I say progress.

Thanks to this 'degredation' I can practise whichever faith or none, I may wish to, without fear of trail, torture or punishment.

I can access medical treatments that could save my life.

I can be left handed, without having my hand burst open to encourage me to use the 'right' hand.

I have rights and control over my own body and mind.

I can have gay friends without fearing they'll be arrested and tried just for being who they are.

I can openly criticise ideas without fear also.

It is however, very unfortunate that even now in the 21st century there are places in the world where this is not so, where Religious authoritarianism still rules over all aspects of life and people are still subjugated mercilessly under the dominant religious heirarchies.

Meh.

Okay, so, my first post apparently did NOT want to go through, which is now lost to the annuls of the cyberspace graveyard [mad] so I get to retype everything all over again. *les sigh...* [bummed] So, I think this can be taken as a warning that, if my tone seems a bit peeved, it's because I lost a lengthy post for no reason. So, frustrated at situation, not anyone in particular. [thumbup]

Transform you perception of your world and you transform your world
Nothing is false, everything is true.

this is the quote that started me in wanting to say something. Mainly the nothing is false everything is true part.
Truth and falsehood are not subjective and this is a dangerous viewpoint to take and spread. It ranks up there with "To each their own" and "everything is equally valid" and "everyone/everything is equal". These are degenerative statements and viewpoints that have been around since the time of the ancient Greeks (not the ones that where buggering the young fellows, but before them). You should not be taking situational statements and using them as blanket statements for everything. it's okay to say "everyone's opinion is equally valid" when you are talking about subjective subjects, such as if you enjoyed a movie or not. However this is mainly for opinion situations. Once it starts getting into questions regarding specifics and objectivity, then that equally valid part goes out the window. For instance, a regular person's opinion to the question "was ____ a good movie?" is not as valid as someone who has taken filmography. Their opinions will be more objective, going into the technical aspects of how the movie was made, the handling of the sets and budget and the quality of it's production rather than the regular person's view on the subjective notion on if they enjoyed it or not.

(Though I think "To each their own" is the single most degenerative viewpoint for a person or society to have. However i won't get into that one as it'll take a long time and go very far off topic)

If you take the principles of what you said, that nothing is false and everything is true, then saying 1+1=5 is just as valid as saying 1+1=2. The world, the universe itself, does not have an allowance for just anything to be true because you want it to be. There are specific truths governing the entirety. This is true even in the hard sciences.
For the whole of it, it's best to say we know more of what is false rather than what is true, as for what is true, the best we can say is that something is true to the best of our current understanding.

Our description of the world determines what is true, and what is false.

Our description of the world does not determine any truth or falsehood, but rather it is more of a working hypothesis of our understanding of what we understand, at that moment in time, of what is true and false about the world, and it is perpetually in a state of flux and change as we accumulate more knowledge and determine what is no longer accurate.

We describe what we observe and see. to do otherwise is to no longer describing something but creating a fable.

You cannot change the sun from rising for 7 billion people in the world,
but you can very well change your perception of that same sun.

While this statement is technically true (pending on a person wanting to change the sun rising for people getting a strong enough bomb in order to set off the super-volcano in Yellowstone park, thus not only obscuring the skies with volcanic ash, but setting off a number of earthquakes which can alter the worlds rotation, orientation and axis, making the rising of the sun altered, even by a few decimals of a degree for the entire planet) i feel that you are taking it outside of the spirit of the statement in order to only defend what you previously said. (The changing perception of that same sun part)

The change in perception is a result of gaining knowledge about something, changing how you see it and your perception of it. It doesn't change the object, just the understanding of the object that you have. You see it in a new light, which can change how you see other things. Perception change is about discovering something new about something, gaining more knowledge on it allowing you to see something that has always been there about it that you where previously ignorant about.

*This has been an overly long rant from the desk of Caerdon. All opinions expressed are mine and are a result of my own understanding and education. Reader discretion is advised

Rin wrote: Now, that doesn't necessarily write his books off entirely as a source of understanding - I know at least one man of genuine spiritual attainment who occasionally quotes the books to convey a point. Castenada was an anthropologist who studied these traditions in an academic setting, so quite a bit of what he wrote is likely to reflect at least the Western anthropological understanding of these practices at the time, and from the little I've read of his work I suspect that he did undergo various drug-induced mystical experiences.

But at the end of the day, he wrote a whole collection of books packed with blatant lies and presented them as truth, profited extensively from doing so, falsely presented teachings and practices which were likely fabricated (or at least self developed) as part of a traditional Central American spiritual lineage, and developed something of a cult of personality which he seemingly exploited for his own egoistic and sexual gratification - several of the members of which came to a distinctly bad end.

Kinda sounds like Guy and Edna Ballard with the St. Germain Green Books or Vladimir Megre with Anastasia and Ringing Cedars or Russia.

Shinichi wrote:
If you want to go into the several ways that we can objectively measure and calculate the age of Earth and the local Solar System, how long the Earth has been spinning, how long the Earth has been in orbit around the Sun and how long it is likely to continue doing so provided circumstances remain as they are...

Yes. There is quite a lot of objective proof for my statement.

No I meant, can YOU do it. Not just remember something you read from a book or checking wikipedia. How can you be certain something existed before you did?
For all we know, the sun is just part of your imagination, and if you stop believing in that reality so hard, you might be able to move it around freely at will.

You're being silly.

If your parents did not exist before you, then your physical existence would not have come into being from your fathers seed and your mothers womb. But you exist in a physical body, and therefore you were thusly born. If the Outer World did not exist, then you would have no domain in which to exist, and therefore your existence would be empty - nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to meet.

The belief that reality is purely subjective is simply incorrect and the basis for dangerous delusions. Subjectivity does have a role in perception, but only in so far as you perceive an Objective Reality wherein other people and things exist independent of you.

As for moving things around freely and at will, why do you assume I can't do that? Objective Reality does not make Magick impossible. If anything, it makes it easier, because there are specific rules at play that you can take advantage of - like how an aeroengineer takes advantage of specific rules of physics to make a machine that can defy gravity.



~:Shin:~

Shinichi wrote:You're being silly.

If your parents did not exist before you, then your physical existence would not have come into being from your fathers seed and your mothers womb. But you exist in a physical body, and therefore you were thusly born. If the Outer World did not exist, then you would have no domain in which to exist, and therefore your existence would be empty - nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to meet.

The belief that reality is purely subjective is simply incorrect and the basis for dangerous delusions. Subjectivity does have a role in perception, but only in so far as you perceive an Objective Reality wherein other people and things exist independent of you.

As for moving things around freely and at will, why do you assume I can't do that? Objective Reality does not make Magick impossible. If anything, it makes it easier, because there are specific rules at play that you can take advantage of - like how an aeroengineer takes advantage of specific rules of physics to make a machine that can defy gravity.



~:Shin:~

Why do you assume that your parents existed before you did?

Desecrated wrote:

Shinichi wrote:You're being silly.

If your parents did not exist before you, then your physical existence would not have come into being from your fathers seed and your mothers womb. But you exist in a physical body, and therefore you were thusly born. If the Outer World did not exist, then you would have no domain in which to exist, and therefore your existence would be empty - nowhere to go, nothing to do, nobody to meet.

The belief that reality is purely subjective is simply incorrect and the basis for dangerous delusions. Subjectivity does have a role in perception, but only in so far as you perceive an Objective Reality wherein other people and things exist independent of you.

As for moving things around freely and at will, why do you assume I can't do that? Objective Reality does not make Magick impossible. If anything, it makes it easier, because there are specific rules at play that you can take advantage of - like how an aeroengineer takes advantage of specific rules of physics to make a machine that can defy gravity.



~:Shin:~

Why do you assume that your parents existed before you did?

Time moves forward and backwards, either way you're dependent upon shit beyond your subjective perspective.

I don't assume anything. I observe, and then I deduce or induce all information present until I form an idea or judgement concluded from the information available. Then I take that conclusion and I test it against previously proven Truth in order to further deduce or induce the Truth of my conclusion. And when new information is provided later on, I reevaluate my previous conclusions to expand and deepen my understanding of the situation or idea presented.

It's called Reason, and it's very important for anyone who wishes to wander the depths of Mystery to cultivate this vital faculty of intelligence. It's a very big part of what separates powerful Sages from delusional children, for there is such thing as Falsehood, and one of the marks of an Initiate is the capacity to avoid its trappings.

Now, if you have some reasonable information to legitimately challenge my stance, please do use it. But the simple fact is, the idea that "all reality is subjective" can be and has been thoroughly tested, and it fails all reasonable tests anyone has ever thought of. Therefore, it simply isn't true. You are free to believe in anything you want, but just because you believe in something passionately does not mean that what you believe is the truth. This is why I repeatedly say that belief is irrelevant to practical magick.



~:Shin:~

I differ in opinion. The magic that you are describing sounds more like religion. You speak of absolutes. And thus I would think that you would need absolute truth.
But I've seen no evidence that we humans understand "truth" yet.
The only option we have is an subjective observation of this existence. And looking at some of the theories that are out there, it doesn't seem like we live in an existence that everybody agrees on.

You attack the OP because he has an opinion that differs from you, and honestly you have very little ground to stand upon.

" I don't assume anything. I observe, and then I deduce or induce all information present until I form an idea or judgement concluded from the information available. Then I take that conclusion and I test it against previously proven Truth in order to further deduce or induce the Truth of my conclusion. And when new information is provided later on, I reevaluate my previous conclusions to expand and deepen my understanding of the situation or idea presented."

you, you , you, I, I , I

That is the only thing in your argument that is concrete. Everything else is just a strawman argument.
So you say that you observe something and then draw a conclusion from it. What if, what you saw, wasn't the way it really was? what if your previous thoughts interfered with seeing? And that massive amount of information that a living dynamic moment is was just watered down by your own confirmation bias?
What if your thought process was slightly off that day?, or even permanent off? You might be insane, you might have some physical hindrance that makes you see the world in a certain way. You might not have understood the entire situation, you might not have listen to the whole argument without drawing conclusions based on previous conversations. You might think that you are seeing a strong pattern and rules in the universe around you but in fact you are only seeing parts of it and interpreting everything around you to fit into your narrow little view.

OR, you are completely right.
But coming in with your smurky attitude on a high horse and spouting absolutes like you have the answers to everything just sounds like spoiled milk in my ears.

So if someone says 2+2=5 and I tell them that they are wrong, that puts me on a high horse? You're being silly again.

I never said anything about absolutes. In fact, I inferred the opposite when I described the Reason process. "And when new information is provided later on, I reevaluate my previous conclusions to expand and deepen my understanding of the situation or idea presented." This means that a conclusion, a truth, is never absolute. Everything must always be questioned, because sometimes a previously true conclusion can be determined false with new information. And hell, sometimes things simply change. Did you know that Gravity, the Speed of Light, and other natural forces are not actually numeric constants? In the 50's or so, scientists got so tired of getting slightly different readings that they just averaged them out, and so now we have Constants.

But here, you have given no new information to challenge my stance. You simply dislike my stance and, apparently, my writing style, and so you are attacking an imagined high horse rather than reasonably challenging an idea that is far from being mine alone. A typical emotional response from someone who doesn't like being told that what they believe in is wrong.

There are no absolutes, Desecrated, but there are objective principles by which the objective universe operates, and so there are such things as falsehood and truth. If you don't believe that, well, that is your business. But at the end of the day, Belief is irrelevant. 2+2=4 no matter how much you subjectively believe otherwise.



~:Shin:~

Anyways...

I think I get where he's coming from. If you look at the level of faith and people openly and outwardly living by it compared to what was common during the Crusades - it's no where near what it once was. Yes, I do believe that there is power to be found in that level of faith that many people are missing out on today. It's a very different world today.

If there is no absolutes then there is no objective vision.
Only if you knew everything, you could tell your vision is objective and if you do not then it is a lie.

If 2 + 2 = 5 is wrong, then I assume 2 + 2 = 4 is right? Because if it is right then it is Absolute.

I am little scared because how fluently and concisely both of you write. I would love to serve you the same but I lack in skill.

I would gladly agree with both of you, why? Your little discussion(for me) is how world works. There are contradictions which are only natural because of imperfection of our lives.

We are not perfect which is beautiful.

---

To the OP:
I would love to write somethin but it all sounds like provocation. I do not mean to be hater. Just in my eyes it seems like it. I propably am wrong.

Edit to Rose: I agree but on the other hand people these days do things people from the past can not imagine. Like leaving our planet with a rocket? Having weapons of mass destuction? Where is space for Gods now?

I wish you all happy day, Praise Teh Sun [yay]

RoseRed wrote:Anyways...

I think I get where he's coming from. If you look at the level of faith and people openly and outwardly living by it compared to what was common during the Crusades - it's no where near what it once was. Yes, I do believe that there is power to be found in that level of faith that many people are missing out on today. It's a very different world today.

Yeah, but we're also not getting hunted down for practicing magick these days, either. Faith is a powerful thing, but power without wisdom is dangerous. Besides, this era is a phase just like the era a few centuries ago was. Give it a few more centuries, and things will be very different again. [wink2]

Maya The Generator wrote:If there is no absolutes then there is no objective vision.
Only if you knew everything, you could tell your vision is objective and if you do not then it is a lie.

If 2 + 2 = 5 is wrong, then I assume 2 + 2 = 4 is right? Because if it is right then it is Absolute.

Just because something is true doesn't necessarily make it absolutely true, for that would make it eternally unchallengable, which is a dangerous throne to put any idea upon. 2=2=4, yes. But so does 1+3, and 6-2, and many other equations. "Absolute" implies that there is only "One Twu Way," but one thing being objectively true (2+2=4) does not mean other things cannot also be true (1+3=4). And, by knowing what 4 is, and how we can get there, we can thus say with fair measure that 2+2=5 is wrong.

You don't have to know everything to view something objectively. You only need to know enough information about the subject at hand to seek reasonable solutions.

Maya The Generator wrote:I am little scared because how fluently and concisely both of you write. I would love to serve you the same but I lack in skill.

You should never be afraid to stand up and say your piece. I may agree or disagree with what you have to say, but I'm not going to bite. [wink2]



~:Shin:~

I don't know how to quote on my phone.

Regarding not being hunted down for practicing - persecution is alive and thriving in today's world as well.