![[tmbchr]™](/journal/popocculture-blog-logo.jpg){kind=logo}
The Path of Radical Questioning
I know I keep hitting certain points over and over, but that’s just because I’m trying to work them into a useful shape. And everybody is putting together such great comments and criticism that I want to try this one again and see where it goes.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but one of the common threads I keep seeing among the advocates of ritual magic/k is that part of the point of rituals is to bypass your rational mind. Besides rituals, people tend to throw into this same category a variety of other experiences, such as: drugs, trance, drumming, etc. But the thing I’m finding is that one of the best ways to really move past total rationalism in everyday ordinary states of consciousness if through a radical devotion to questioning. It seems to be the best tool for me personally to apply because it trains me that (1) I don’t need to be right and (2) everybody’s right on some weird level. I’m also finding that it requires enormous discipline.
I just think it’s weird that I’m not really seeing it discussed either in the literature or in the community. Maybe it’s better as a transitional phase, rather than as a lifestyle. I don’t know. I mean, “clinging to uncertainty” isn’t especially easy. And there are a lot of pitfalls. What I’ve noticed is that at some point you can hold onto uncertainty just as adamantly as you could to certainty. I don’t really know that it’s any better, but I do know it’s helping me move and change. The other pitfall I see is that at some point, you can become so good at asking questions, that it feels like you can unravel anything. And it can once again turn into sort of a rational game to dismantle things or distill them down to their essence. Again, I think it’s mostly positive, but I find myself getting pulled in a lot of different directions with it. I think the other good thing that I’ve found about it though is that it actually slows you down. When you’re out there making conclusions and coming up with answers, it tends to snowball, and before you know it, you might be in a place with your thinking that you never actually intended to be. But then, that can happen with questioning too, which is weird. Suddenly you start questioning things that you’ve always taken for granted, and just assumed were true. And then as you do it, they begin to crumble and you’re suddenly in a territory you absolutely never expected.
This all reminds me of an exercise an art teacher in college gave us. Our homework was to do a series of drawings that were really bad. Technically, conceptually - as bad as we could make them. It was a weirdly impossible thing to do once you actually tried. Otherwise, every week each person would actually put some effort into doing good work, and more often than not it would suck. But when you sat down and sucked on purpose, you couldn’t. Well, you could, but the point is that it put you into a really weird sort of paradoxical space. I guess what I’m saying is that for me questioning is having kind of the same effect. It’s like if you question aggressively, you give up the idea of progress. In some cases you might even go backwards. I never hear anybody in spiritual circles talking about this though, about trying to stay absolutely still. It’s always: Move forward! Learn more! Read this! Study that! Sometimes that seems like all you hear. It can be deafening and exasperating. This forward motion to me seems like another creeping trick of the rational mind - obsession over sequence and development.
Anyway, to go back to one of my original questions on the topic, nobody’s given me a really solid answer yet (that I can remember) as to whether or not it’s really a good idea to try to bypass your rational mind. From one perspective, it seems “bad” to be constantly trying to trick yourself. I guess that’s another thing I like about questioning as a path: that it hones your rational mind at the same time that it systematically dismantles it.
- Prev: I Can Do That!
- Next: Louis Farrakhan: UFO Nut?
July 6th, 2005 at 5:20 pm
Albert Einstein once said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Tim, I love your site, but I am increasingly coming to believe you are a victom of language and need to seriously sit down and try a few of these things out that you’re exploring. Scholarship and reason only get you so far, especially in the occult.
There is no “tricking” per se, as you put it, whe you work with altered states. They are heightened, ecstatic states that allows the sorcerer to entrain themselves to brainwaves outside of the normal, everyday beta-wave consiousness. The human mind produces and is enveloped in all sorts of frequencies, these EEGs, and one can see the slight change in consciousness apparent when you watch a movie or are trying to fall asleep: flittering through the twilight phase of alpha waves and the sort of perception & conscious capacities that accompany a relaxed alpha state. Your mind does not start to produce alpha waves when you sit down to watch a movie, but instead it’s consciousness that allows itself to become more entrained to the vibratory affect of alpha frequencies.
Generally, people tend to fall asleep as their body slows down and consciousness is drawn into the lower frequencies — theta and delta:
Ceremonial magic, evocation, states of ecstasy, trance, et cetera… are all ways to coerce the mind under duress to correspond with a state of mind that is not natural to the productive, social mean that we’ve come to accept in monotonous, “conscious” life.
As I pointed out in another comment from this morning, ceremonial magic exists as an intuitive development between sorcerer and outside intelligences. Just because you need to make some sense of it doesn’t mean it’s non-sensical. At this point, it is technically just alien to you.
“Intelligence is restricted. It can deal only with facts discoverable by the senses and experiences related to these. It can act only in the area of the visible, the viable.” Ceremonial magic is, currently, the best methods we have with opening perceptual doorways to communicate and interact with the cosmos in all their brilliance. Our little minds are only privy to a undescribably small sliver of potentiality and probability.
July 6th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
this begs the question: is the “rational mind” really your deepest, truest self?
is the rational mind really in control or is it clinging to the illusion of control
in some shamanic paradigms they believe that people have multiple souls or spirits - 2, 7, 9, etc
maybe one is logic, one is emotion, another personal memory, another ancestral memory, another the divine spark, etc
at the very least we do have three brains that are responsible for totally different aspect sof our consciousness, eg teh lizard brain, mammalian brain, neocortex etc
they work together in a symbiotic way to create the illusion of a whiole with a personal and unique identity.
But when you strip away all the layers of the onion what is let in the middle?
The void? The divine spark? Nothing?
Isn’t there some passage in Exegesis where PKD talk about questioning god or playing some sort of game with god and no matters what he tries the answer is always infinity - god wins
July 6th, 2005 at 5:27 pm
Yeah I have a link to that Max
Fell, I’ve been saying just that for weeks. It’s what brought me to this place. But I think we all are. To say you or somebody else is not is as much of an illusion as anything.
Anyway, I’m a writer. Language just happens to be my poison of choice. Some people are into hookers and cocaine.
July 6th, 2005 at 5:31 pm
There is an interesting perspective taken by Scott Adams in his “thought experiment,” God’s Debris. The idea that God attempted to destroy itself in an attempt to understand the resultant consequences and possibilities of such an act. And that we’re existing backwards in time, consciously, as we head “towards” a re-unification of the Whole. Which sorta strikes with me cuz there is all this talk of radiation “existing ‘backwards’ in time,” for lack of better descriptions, and the idea that the universe is still composed of all this exotic matter and energy we’re not privy to except through theory.
ps — rev max, if it’s the you I know from Enemies.com, I just realised that I still have your logo and we’ll throwing up this sticker campaign this summer. I’ll send you an e-mail with images here soon.
July 6th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
Hehe…
If I might, may I suggest your checking out Astral Dynamics, by Robert Bruce? Easiest way to get some tangible results in all of this voodoo-hoodoo that we do. Trust me when I say it’s worth the $17.
July 6th, 2005 at 5:42 pm
I trust you, I’m just a little burned out on book recommendations lately. You know? It’s like if the problem is language, how can I use language to overcome it? I guess I’m sort of waiting for whatever it is to come from somewhere else altogether. I’ll definitely put it on my wishlist though for a time when I feel it’s appropriate.
July 6th, 2005 at 5:52 pm
That seems like one of the big insights of PDK actually - you can take the prison bars and use them to build a ladder out of the prison
Or - from the POV of tantra - if the problem is attachment to desire how can I use desire to overcome the attachment?
Are you mapping the belly of the beast from the inside out? That seems like a good way to discover the limits of its appetites.
Maybe floor the pedal until you hit the wall - maybe you will disocver that the wall is some sort of paradox.
WHat are the limits of intellectual knowledge?
How far can you pursue questioning?
Descartes gave us one solution but its far from the only one.
July 6th, 2005 at 5:54 pm
Because, Tim, some people are better at expressing themselves through language than others. That being said, languiage isn’t and never has been a substitute for experience.
I think Fell is right- perhaps you do need to ‘take the plunge.’ The book recommend isn’t more language, it’s a ‘how to’ guidse.
July 6th, 2005 at 5:54 pm
tim, maybe you need to travel somewhere and meet someone old and wise and/or crazy.
July 6th, 2005 at 5:56 pm
Fer sure, you’ve become quite popular with your little soirée of a site here.
Just keep it in mind when you want to explore an “objective,” sensational approach to all of this. Robert Bruce has developed some very good techniques to easily achieve results in dealing with the subtle bodies and exploring the depths of consciousness. It will aid greatly in your journey to understand without the language.
:D
July 6th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
Oh yeah! How you doin’? Are you the guy who wrote me about doing a design project parodying civic awareness for Alberta?
I grew up in Ottowa myself. Well met kind sir, dig yer site BTW.
RE: Astral Dynamics - I own a copy but haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. Sounds like its worth doing though?
July 6th, 2005 at 6:02 pm
Some people are into all three
July 6th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
Yeah, I’ll mail you some when we get em done up. A friend is doing them in his studio in Vancouver, so there’ll be no paper trail here. I am basing them off of municipal City of Edmonton bylaw materials, quoting Philip K. Dick’s Tractates Cryptica Scriptura. Nothing too fancy, but they’ll get the job done!
And yes, I highly recommend Astral Dynamics. Every other text out there pushes visualisations and such as the exercises to do to bring awareness to the subtle bodies and the manipulation thereof, but Bruce was asked to develop a way to teach these things to a blind man. After some time, he developed what he calls the NEW method to out-of-body. This approach uses tactile stimulation and concentrations to really bring an awareness and control ×10 faster than visualisations would ever.
July 6th, 2005 at 6:06 pm
groovy, thanks!
will check out tonite
July 6th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
Funny thing, visualizations never worked for me. (Datura did, but that’s not exactly something that’s gonna make it into a how-to book…lol)
July 6th, 2005 at 7:33 pm
Thanks guys, I appreciate all this. I really do. It’s really kind of amazing sometimes to see the way people respond.
Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do. It’s easier said than done I guess. I’ll check out that book too I suppose, although I think I’m almost there in terms of OBE without it. I keep reaching a point where it’s just about to happen, I freak out and draw back. It’s exactly the criticism everybody’s giving me about all this stuff in a larger sense…
July 6th, 2005 at 8:05 pm
Don’t worry about the freak-out. Practice enough, and you’ start doing it in your sleep, or in the HG state.
July 6th, 2005 at 8:11 pm
maybe you keep drawing back because you have a gut feeling its a trap.
why not? because you cant?
the paths are infinite.
for a species that basically knows nothing, questions seem to be appropriate…
this i like.
Tim, dont let the dogmatists get you down. thats the lure of the trap “Look at us, we are so happy! We have found the answers! We KNOW something!”
liars.
one
human?
July 6th, 2005 at 9:57 pm
That was an occult cliché.
July 6th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
What was?
July 6th, 2005 at 10:32 pm
eh, i dunno– why bother ‘dipping one’s toes’ into ceremonial magick if it’s not for any reason other than to check it out? that’s like saying you can’t think about or critique buddhism without shaving your head and spending a season in the himalayas, or like saying you shouldn’t write all of these posts about scientology without going in and getting audited, or you shouldn’t post on ‘fundamentalist’ christainity because you haven’t protested at a gay person’s funeral. if you *really* want to try it, then you’ll *do* it. if not, i say fuck it; if you wanna do it cause you feel a need or urge to do it, do it. if not, keep on doing what you’re doing, write about what you want to write about, and damn the torpedoes. i don’t see any ‘need’ or ‘non-need.’ as edward gorey said, ‘beware of this and that.’
of course, i’ve always found writing to be a magickal act in and of itself, like back when only certain people knew how to write so it was considered ‘magic,’ or like in alan moore’s promethea series (one of the very best ever, imho). again, if you’re following the path of pkd, he never went out and practiced ritual magick or anything of the kind, but turned out some of the most insightful, amazing revelations. your writings on gnosis are some of the best out there at the moment, but you’ve never attended an eg mass. there are no hard or fast rules. i’m not saying you should or shouldn’t do any of this stuff, i’m just sayin’ it’s up to you, and if you dont’ do it, so what? make your own way, mang. you’re not ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ one way or the other.
btw, while we’re tossing around ‘results oriented’ books, the best one i can think of is ‘magical tattwa cards‘ by mumford. that one’ll have you seeing alternate realities in less than a week. the tattwas are some amazing stuff.
July 6th, 2005 at 11:35 pm
Tim,
What a great thought. Question who or what is doing the questioning as well!
July 7th, 2005 at 12:14 am
[…] NG BITCH!
One more post on this before I move on to greener pastures. Thanks Jeremy for saying what I’ve either not been able to or people […]
July 7th, 2005 at 12:28 am
Rational minds are required for our current (ie centralized) civilization. When we all become psychic we won’t need it. We will become psychic when we have a different (”organic” (I feel commercial-cooties when I say that)) civilization. What mind will rule? Will they merge? Are these the only two (rational and intuitive? animal and vegetable? physical and etheric? …?)? Are they the same?
I hope your approaching mind orgasm is good. Though my last one seemed pretty lame, the afterglow just keeps getting better.
July 7th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
[…] only asking questions. Now, extrapolating from context I can see that lately he has been questioning EVERYTHING - even questioning. It began (or at least my […]
July 11th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
[…] ism, the exchange of ideas and information and interaction between fellow adherents of the Path of Eternal Questioning. It’s a sign that can be worn by […]
July 17th, 2005 at 9:53 pm
[…] re: question things until you can prove them valid or invalid. But in my experience when I put my questioning hat on in a serious way, it’s hard to take […]
September 7th, 2005 at 4:14 pm
[…] d over on Fantastic Planet’s entry about this, this is an excellent corrolary to the Path of Radical Questioning. Totally excellent stuff.
[…]
September 19th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
[…] Control Systems to dominate one’s internal experience. One does so by following the Path of Radical Questioning, the search for Authentic Meaning inste […]
September 20th, 2005 at 1:03 pm
[…] Continued
Tim’s provided the basis for what we’ve come to refer to as the Path of Radical Questioning, and I’d like to continue with so […]