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Reverse-Engineering From Stories
Here’s another riff on the whole idea about the disparity between “what happens” and “the story about what happens.” Haeresis wrote in one of the comments:
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 equivalent - 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.
This strikes me as a wild and fascinating idea coming from an occultist so well-versed in “secret symbolism”. In fact, in a sense, the occult seems to be entirely devoted to the “endless shells of interpretation” - or at least on the surface. Is the occult “nothing more than” a sort of super-charged projection of meaning? Or is the meaning actually derived from the things themselves? Does an apple mean anything, or do we associate it with things? How much is too much meaning to derive from something?
In another related post, I also started to try to apply these questions to my own interest in the occult. Am I merely circling around from system to system of interpretation, entranced by symbolism, but cut off from actual experience? Put another way, once we’re adults, and we no longer have the simple directness of children, how do we get it back or otherwise proceed? In a sense, it seems like we’re stuck in the endless shells of interpretation, the layers-upon-layers. The occult to me seems like a quest to overcome that by utilizing it to its fullest, and perhaps by stretching it to it’s breaking point. Either that, or we study the language and the stories and the symbols and the interpretations in some kind of attempt to “reverse-engineer” from them back down to the actual direct child-like events beneath.
Once (if ever) we reach back to these direct events, how then do we communicate them? Seems like we re-align the symbol-systems in an effort to either match our perceptions, or lead others to a place where they can experience them on their own. So there is this weird process that occurs where we begin to play with time. We try to intuit backwards into what someone else left us as a record of technique and experience. And we also try to project forwards to leave such records for others. All the while though, what we’re really aiming for is a direct unmitigated experience of the Real Now. Are we using meaning to overcome itself? Why is that more acceptable than just throwing out meaning altogether and going “crazy”?
Whoo! I’m really cooking my mind here. Is anybody following any of this nonsense?
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July 3rd, 2005 at 12:12 am
I just wanted to say, Tim, that I totally get you — I think.
I simply cannot appreciate things today like I used to as a child. These days, expectations, value judgements, and interpretations of meaning separate me from directly experiencing anything anymore. Too many shells.
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:43 am
[…] oes this model then imply that the person who doesn’t recognize meaning is closer to “direct” child-like experience? How does this also fit […]
July 3rd, 2005 at 1:30 am
I cooked my brain doing this kind of thinking a few months ago, and got totally burned out on everything. I can’t say if that’ll happen to you, but if it does, I recommend you stop thinking and climb some trees.
July 3rd, 2005 at 6:16 am
In fact, in a sense, the occult seems to be entirely devoted to the “endless shells of interpretation” - or at least on the surface.
Well … I’d disagree. Of course, it might appear that way if all one does is listen to or read endless debates on or about occultism in general, but occultism - or at least magick - is centered around actually doing things, instead of getting caught up in “reason”, which always contains within itself the germ of its own self destruction.
As Aleister Crowley wrote in his Liber O:
July 3rd, 2005 at 9:27 am
Isn’t the childlike state of mind simply unawareness of cultural duality? Isnt that the state one tries to recapture in enlightenment and gnosis, the non-duality of the universe and throwing off of these “shells of interpretation”? Aren’t they (children) closer to the source, since they have not yet embraced these interpretations, hence the saying through the eyes of a child? Blessed are the children?
How does one live in a state of constant acceptance of duality that surrounds them especially in the occult and organised religion without being swept up in it’s duality and judgement, I think its almost impossible unless one becomes a recluse, or as a child or unless we empty ourselves of thought routinely, even if its only for a few minutes a day, which relates back to your ideas on absolute bodhicitta.
July 3rd, 2005 at 12:20 pm
I guess that’s what I’m actually trying to do. Weird as that may sound…
And that’s the method to my madness at the moment, to use reason against itself, and try to dismantle it from the inside.
Anyway Z, I see what you’re saying and wrote exactly the same thoughts on Crowley’s “True Will” in a previous post. However, I don’t so much see the connection between that and the quote you posted from him…
July 3rd, 2005 at 1:06 pm
[…] ntentional Burnout
Eric left an excellent comment on my article about “reverse-engineering“: I cooked my brain doing this kind of […]
July 3rd, 2005 at 6:12 pm
[…] my FAQ page!
Endless Shells
Z. left a really good comment on my article about reverse-engineering […]
July 4th, 2005 at 1:36 am
In fact, in a sense, the occult seems to be entirely devoted to the “endless shells of interpretation” - or at least on the surface.—
In a sense, yes…but you’re not really moving outward. In magick, the systems of symbolism are minutely explored, compared, and turned inside out..eventually, all those seemingly disparate things begin to blend together into an experience of unity. (example- the serpent on the cross & the gematric relationship between the serpent and the messiah, two outwardly irrewconcilable symbols)
In a (kabbalistic) sense you’re going back up the tree, reconciling the “shells.” in a way, you’re putting the pattern-recognition part of your brain on overdrive.
July 4th, 2005 at 1:38 am
Consider Aquinas and his quest for meaning, creating hierarchies of symbolism, only to transcend them all and abandon the project never to return.