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Reason & The Hidden Will
Another interesting item from Pesce’s article “The Executable Dreamtime” (from Disinfo’s Book of Lies):
It seems that although we like to perceive ourselves as rational, reasonable creatures, carefully weighing our decisions before we commit, the fact of the matter is precisely the inverse. We arrive at our decisions through emotional sensations, acting “from the gut” at all times. Our reason enters the process only after the decision has been made, and acts as the mind’s propagandist, convincing us of the utter rightness which underlies all of our actions.
This reminds me of something I heard Philip K. Dick talk about in an interview once. He was hypnotized once. Later, he ended up acting upon the hypnotic suggestions, without realizing that’s what they were. At the time, he said he felt that he had perfectly rational reasons for everything that he did. It was only later that he realized the reasons were after-the-fact inventions of his mind. (Maybe this is a little like when your dream incorporates some sensory stimulus into it. For example, your alarm is going off to wake you up for work, but the dream weaves it into the narrative as a police siren chasing you.)
I wonder if this is what is meant in Taoism by “wu wei” - where you’re basically living in the moment, acting and reacting almost without purpose or reflection. And is this what Landmark is talking about when they suggest that events are completely meaningless? Sever the connection to reason and after-the-fact interpretations and go solely on gut instinct. Also reminds me of the Charles Manson quote (from a wild Rolling Stone interview):
Have you ever seen the coyote in the desert? Watching, tuned in, completely aware. Christ on the cross, the coyote in the desert - it’s the same thing, man. The coyote is beautiful. You learn from the coyote just like you can learn from a child. A baby is born into this world in a state of fear. Total paranoia and awareness. He sees the world with eyes not used yet. As he grows up, his parents lay all this stuff on him. They tell him, when they should be letting him tell them. Let the children lead you.
Interesting to note: Manson himself actually studied Scientology for a time. How Scientology would weigh in on this issue though, I’m still trying to decipher. It seems like their auditing process is ostensibly designed to free you from automatic “reactive mind” behaviors, by confronting and moving past your “engrams”…
I just thought of something interesting though. Hubbard has these terms for the mind: reactive and analytical. Since I’m an English speaker, I have always automatically assumed that when Hubbard said “analytical” he meant that more or less synonymously with what the rest of us would call “reason” or “logic”. Maybe he was using one of his characteristic language tricks here though - maybe it’s nothing more than a sleight-of-hand reversal. When he says that auditing helps you erase the reactive mind, maybe what he actually means is erase “reason” as a hang-up. Thinking back over the training routines, this seems like it’s a much more accurate assessment of what goes on, especially at the higher levels. If this is really what he meant, Landmark would have removed this linguistic game in their version of it, saying that events are “meaningless”. Is this really what Hubbard meant, but was cloaking one of the most basic tenets of his teachings to prevent outsiders from being able to understand it? If that’s the case, it seems like a brilliant move.
One of the missing puzzle pieces in my understanding of all this, of course, Aleister Crowley. Do what thou wilt. Seems like he must have understood this paradox of reason being an after-the-fact sham, created by urges which go on beneath the surface. And are what he called “gods” an attempt to make a direct connection to these underlying urges, bypassing the “whore” of reason? It would seem then that magic and entity-work is an attempt to work according to the sort of underlying rules of the hidden urges (in the case of PKD, the hypnotic suggestion), rather than the made-up logic of reason. So, is “Do what thou wilt” essentially equivalent to wu wei? Feel like I’m starting to get somewhere with all this. Either that or I’m totally off-track and veering into outer-space.
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June 30th, 2005 at 8:21 pm
Do what thou wilt. Seems like he must have understood this paradox of reason being an after-the-fact sham, created by urges which go on beneath the surface. And are what he called “gods” an attempt to make a direct connection to these underlying urges, bypassing the “whore” of reason? It would seem then that magic and entity-work is an attempt to work according to the sort of underlying rules of the hidden urges (in the case of PKD, the hypnotic suggestion), rather than the made-up logic of reason.
———–
Yer totally getting somewhere with this. We make decisions first and rationalize them afterwards. There have been a ton of recent studies showing that rationalization comes after decisions, I’ll try to find a few and then come back and post if I can.
Teens & decisionmaking
The results from the McLean study suggest that while adults can to use rational decision making processes when facing emotional decisions, adolescent brains are simply not yet equipped to think through things in the same way. For example, when deciding whether to ride in a car driven by a drunk friend, an adult can usually put aside her desire to conform and is more likely to make the rational decision against drunk driving. However, a teenager’s immature frontal lobes may not be capable of such a coolly rational approach, and the emotional feelings of friendship may be
likely to win the battle. As Dr. Yurgelun-Todd told U.S. News, “Good judgment is learned, but you can’t learn it if you don’t have the necessary hardware.”
Pretty women scramble men’s ability to assess the future
Psychologists in Canada have finally proved what women have long suspected - men really are irrational enough to risk entire kingdoms to catch sight of a beautiful face.
Biologists have long known that animals prefer immediate rewards to greater ones in the future. This process, known as “discounting the future”, is found in humans too and is fundamental to many economic models.
Resources have a value to individuals that changes through time. For example, immediately available cash is generally worth more than the same amount would be in the future. But greater amounts of money in the future would be worth waiting for under so-called ‘rational’ discounting.
But some people, such as drug addicts, show ‘irrational’ discounting. For example, preferring a small amount of heroin today rather than a greater amount in the future.
June 30th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
Maybe the whole point of ritually breaking taboos is to throw the rational mind into a panic, releasing it’s hold… I remember RA Wilson also saying something about how the semantic function of “nonsense” is to “make the Rationalist grasp in shock” (ie, the rational part of the mind) - you could make this argument for other religious impossibilities as well, things like the Transubstantiation. It’s supposed to shove a wedge into the gears of the rational mind.
June 30th, 2005 at 8:39 pm
as to the subversion of the will, this might be of interest: the illusion of concious will.
June 30th, 2005 at 8:41 pm
Here’s a quote about Hubbard’s theory of the mind. If you just reverse the meanings of the words, the underlying concept that I described above seems to be taught here:
Of course, I realize the inherent danger of voyaging in the realm of interpreting people to mean the opposite of what they say they mean. But then, Hubbard was a known occultist, and made many statements about intentionally changing the meaning of words - not to mention that this occurs throughout the higher levels of OT initiation.
More important than that though, I think is this idea that we have the “events” and then we have the “story about the events” - if you interview any two witnesses to a crime, you’ll hear a different story. One woman says the perpetrator had a white shirt. The next says he had a black shirt. Another says he had no shirt. They are all telling a story about the event, and though their accounts differ in detail, the event is the same.
June 30th, 2005 at 8:41 pm
You’re on the right track, definitely. Consider what motivates children- they are transprent, and they live in the moment. They don’t say, “I want to play because..” they just do it. We build layers and layers and then we compare every single thing that happens to everything that’s gone before, how we felt about it each time, and so on. If I give my little girl a flower, she appreciates it for its beauty, and as a gesture, and when she does the same, it’s an expression of love. But then compare that simple gesture to its loaded adult equivalentp- the giving of flowers isn’t just a sharing of beauty, it’s symbolic proof of love, avoidance of guilt, an attempt to impress, feelings of resentment (why tulips and not roses? He knows I prefer pink..” “john gave Mary a cruise” and so on) an obligation (birthday, anniversary), and on and on it goes.
Those are the klippoths, the endless shells of interpretation and secret symbolism. likewise, we create elaborate rationales for every impulse- Jesus says “turn the other cheek,” we say, “but you gotta defend yourself,” or “the death penalty prevents crime.”
We delude ourselves and then we abet in others’ delusions so they’ll abet ours. And then we al feel discomfited and vaguely dissatisfied and we can’t figure out why we feel so bad..so we create more rationalization…”if I made just a little more money,” “if he/she would only pay more atention to me,” “if only my childhood hadn’t been so rotten” to excuse how bad we feel, or worse, to continue what makes us feel bad (”just until the mortgage is paid,” “but she needs me,” “he would have wanted me to”). In the worst manifestations, we rationalize it to the point it’s completely externalized- and find a victim to blame, an enemy to punish (damn fundies, job-stealing Mexicans, evil politicians)..see? It’s not me, it’s them.
So you kill Urizen and all that’s left is you, the babe in the egg, who has everything he needs and wants nothing…outside the prison, beyond the reach of Saturn’s jaws.
June 30th, 2005 at 8:54 pm
So let me ask you a question: where in HELL does Crowley say all that? Cause that’s what I want to read of him. The thing about the flowers was great too, by the way.
June 30th, 2005 at 9:21 pm
perhaps some of this can be explained without a secret conspiratorial reversal. here’s an essay by dan wegner, author of the illusion of conscius will, on the subject of “ironic” psychological reversal and mental control. its basically like, if someone tells you not to think of an orange bear, you’re not going to be able to think of anything else BUT an orange bear. he talks about it in terms of self-control but the ideas could probably be applied to other kinds of mind control:
‘ironic’ psychological processes as artefacts of ‘polarity consciousness’? hmm..
June 30th, 2005 at 10:17 pm
He doesn’t in so many words, that’s mostly my own rant…but the concept of the “New Aeon man” is found in the commentaries to the Book of the Law, in MITP, etc. Actually, the best description I’ve seen is given by Heinlein in “Stranger..” in the character of M
June 30th, 2005 at 10:37 pm
Right-
that’s the underlying reason why people who continually resolve to diet can’t stop thinking about food, or why so many preachers keep getting caught with hookers.
Instead of adressing the underlying issue they’re resolving not to commit “bad” behavior. (and there’s always an external reason that it’s “bad” in the first place.)
June 30th, 2005 at 10:39 pm
WTF happened to the rest of my post? There’s like two paragraphs completely missing?
June 30th, 2005 at 10:40 pm
It seems like kind of a clever way to obfuscate information also. Like you could publicly announce: There’s no such thing as aliens or ritual abuse - All of a sudden, all anybody can think about is aliens or ritual abuse.
What, are you serious? It’s eating posts? I’m disabling that ad thing…
June 30th, 2005 at 11:34 pm
Yeah, the rest of the sentence should read “Michael Smith.” I went on some blather about rights and responsibility, and so on.
June 30th, 2005 at 11:52 pm
In L. Fletcher Prouty’s writings, he emphasized that the members of “the Secret Team”, his phrase for the power brokers who try to control things from behind the scenes, are great believers in the usefulness of the Hegelian dialectic. A complex philosophy open to different readings, in this context the idea seems to be that the most efficient way to determine the course of events is through the implanting of certain concepts, memes, world views in the deep collective mind that will help shape peoples’ thought constructs and behaviors so that as events occur, the public reactions to them will provide support and sanction to the policy goals of the secret controllers. This would seem to be all about getting into that “gut level” so the rationalizations become predictable, it also gives you the ability to determine the course of events with a minimum of direct effort… you just plant the seeds, then watch things play out the way you want them to. One place where I think you can see this work is with the Idea of Disinformation. There doesn’t really have to be much real disinfo out there, all you have to do is make sure the concept is firmly planted in the mindsets of targeted groups, the kind that tend to ask inconvenient questions, then sit back and watch the fun as paranoia takes hold and the accusations start flying back and forth. The so-called 9-11 Truth Movement provides an excellent example of this process at work at the moment.
July 1st, 2005 at 1:03 am
Absolutely, Nathan. Of course, many of these folks travel down these roads all by themselves, too. It strikes me as very odd that these people continue to pour their energy into these “movements” but never to the point of actually creating a solution to the problem. As far as I know, nobody’s ever hear anyone holler “you’re being lied to” and said “yes, I’m being lied to, I must join the revolution.”
July 1st, 2005 at 7:11 am
Just to reiterate the same point, that behavior is rationalized rather than being driven by logic, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame did some hypnosis training and relates in one of his books [The Dilbert Principle, maybe?] how people offered “logical” “rationalized” explanations for absurd actions taken under post hypnotic suggestion. Simply affirming that man is inherently irrational… and that reason is frequently a post behavioral justification. The ideas are everywhere if you look, even Dilbert
I think it’s useful to remember that “logic” and “reason” are just linguistic maps of human experience. The Map is Not the Territory, etc, etc. I think a lot of folks [outside of this and similar webpages] tend to forget that because logic has been such an evolutionary successful script. It’s really useful. But limited.
Wilson’s idea of nonsense, Burrough’s cut up techniques, surrealism, zen koans are all useful ways of snapping or shocking you out of the illusion or idolatry of “logic”.
In an odd, but more interesting note, one of Grant Morrison’s earliest “breakthrough” stories was an issue of Animal Man back in the late ’80’s featuring a coyote figure as a sacrificial/Jesus metaphor. It also was one of his first uses of meta-narrative and “levels” of reality.
It’s either an amazing synchronicity or Morrison worked in a Manson reference in a mainstream DC Comic.
Yay for subversion!
July 2nd, 2005 at 3:31 pm
[…] “what happens” and “the story about what happens.” Haeresis wrote in one of the comments: Consider what motivates children- they […]