Show me where.

Maybe, just maybe you got some good SF in there, but hardly a way to base one’s philosophy and practice of law.

It’s a foregone conclusion that traditional “rule of law” in our society is selective and capricious, albeit steeped in honor, faith by those who adhere to it and susceptible to verbose tampering. What if “law”, like everything else, must eventually succumb to an entropy? Kind of an entropy of anarchy which the forces of social control feel they must bottle up in order to keep the fluid stirred and bubbly — thus why anarchy is synonymous with lack of control, mayhem, robberies, massacres etc. This way you get anarchy to represent that which it is not, which is not a lack of control, but a lack of belief in control. Big difference.

What is belief if not control? What is law? But a belief! Therefore law does not exist anymore than does the emotion of fear over our rational minds and spiritual selves. Which it does exist and so therefore too, must laws exist as well.

What we need then are lawyers who are simulataneously messiahs! Yes. From San Francisco shall they come bearing Google searches!

it was somewhat disingenuous of me to say they have no value outside the self.

Well, maybe there is no such thing as “outside of the self”. I don’t mean that in a solipsist way, but maybe it’s like we have selves, the universe has selves, it goes all the way up…?

as a type of experience, rather than as a truth or reality.

Well isn’t experience a type of truth or reality?

the dross can be life destroying

So can the gold, unfortunately!

Jennifer:

She was offered the job but didn’t take it, and not long after she decided the experience was the work of Satan and joined an eastern ortho church.

Go figure! Case in point about even the gold being destructive…

Maybe the important thing is simply the sharing of these struggles….

good point. having studied these things throughout history and, to a lesser degree, in myself, i guess it was somewhat disingenuous of me to say they have no value outside the self.

rather, i guess, i would say it’s important they be studied rationally, as a type of experience, rather than as a truth or reality. it can be easy to blur the boundaries, as they frequently generate, or correlate with, the most absurd of synchronicities, provide hidden information, are apparantly the cause of effects, etc.; however in regards to providing grand metaphysical explanations, prophecies (especially cataclysmic,) and ego-inflating stories, they can surely be dismissed as falsehoods.

one of the secrets to being a successful magician or serious drug abuser is to have a well tuned filter for separating the gold from the dross, because in this case the dross can be life destroying. indeed, in these cases, the gold is actually in the most apparantly trivial results of the experience.

She interviewed at an SF law firm, and the interviewer took ONE LOOK at her and asked her point blank if she was undergoing ego-dissolution. Turns out he was a Buddhist teacher as well as a lawyer.

i believe that any value such experiences have is solely of a personal sort

Well, that’s part of my point, I think. It’s supremely important to that person. But just how individualized are we really? Do we all fractally or holographically contain one another? Do we all share a collective unconscious?

If nothing else, we could argue the simple fact that we all have the common experience of being humans and struggling through life. Therefore the record of any one person’s struggle is automatically of value to everyone else - no matter the form or the content. Maybe the important thing is simply the sharing of these struggles….

There is passionate intensity behind it. And even if you can’t recognize or accept what it is that they are claiming to be or to have experienced, if there’s one thing we can all respect and relate to, it is passion. It is the burning desire to share our lives with one another. And hopefully we can see that above and beyond everything else.

i respect that position but, personally, i disagree completely. too many people spouting messianic nonsense just dilutes the info-sphere with noise, making it harder to find information of real value (Q. what’s the magical power of Malkuth? A. discrimination.) frankly, i believe that any value such experiences have is solely of a personal sort. the only use, externally, will come as a result of the personal empowerment the experience provides. preaching about it practically guarantees that one is using it incorrectly, in my opinion. kill all gurus!