It was said (by one of those wise old dead dudes, in response to a Jewish mystical cliche,) that if every blade of grass has an angel over it whispering, “grow, grow…” then surely each also has another over it whispering, “die, die…” These are the opposing angels, and it is their God-given task to lead astray and destroy all who seek enlightenment or spiritual power. Whether taken literally or merely as a metaphor of the neurological stresses resulting from mystical practice, does not matter.

For this reason, among others, I prefer spiritual “invisibility” (banishing?) exercises and a modular systems approach to self-modification, rather than attempts to contact and conquer or destroy the dark side. The first, because once disassociated from all influence, one is free to contact those influences one finds beneficial, unencumbered by negative and unknown influences. The second, because taken as a monolithic force, one’s Shadow is nearly always a greater power than can be handled at one’s current developmental level. It is much safer and easier to analyze, chip away at and modify negative traits one unit at a time. Also, in some systems, the Astral Double is a primary tool for performing sorcery, so projecting the incarnation of your dark side onto it seems a doubly bad idea.

An interesting thing about these methods is they seem to lead toward a personality construct similar to what you’re talking about in this article. It seems, to me, though, more of a side effect of other processes rather than something one should necessarily strive for directly.

Now, I think Casteneda is a scam artist and his Don Juan character was totally made up BS, but this stuff of his you picked out has some merit, so I guess if someone writes enough crap some of it might hit close to home.

Yes, I think I meant that, I just didn’t write it very well.

Taken to the extreme, this is iconoclasm, the destruction of ALL representations. I’m not so sure about that. I think that the important thing is to be aware of what is and isn’t a representation.

I was always suspicious, by the way, when computers started having icons…

I visit your site about once every 3 months. I spent most of the afternnon reading and thinking about earsing my history. Took a break from all that “mystical” stuff and Surfed the net “randomly”…ended up with this article of yours!

You mean losing all those false representations of identity that we carry round with us?

Yes, but it may be that ALL representations of us are false and that taken to the extreme, even “us” is a representation and a false one

You mean losing all those false representations of identity that we carry round with us?

I think most of the hubub over whether or not Jesus existed has to do with the fact that (like Socrates, my personal hero) he never wrote anything down in his own hand. Everything we know about him is written by others.

I was surprised to learn that there are historical reports of Jesus writing, contrary to everything I had ever heard in my life until a year or two ago. One can be found in Eusebius’ History of the Church. Doesn’t clinch the issue, but interesting.

But the Paris exercize sounds alarming. This relates to research for a novel…

‘I always imagined Paris would smell of garlic,’ said Jane.

One has to be very careful /who is thinking what/ in a novel. If you haven’t been to Paris you can have your protagonist express any prejudice you like as long as it’s obvious who the thoughts are ascribed to. On the other hand, if you have /actually/ been to Paris, long stretches of exposition describing the street layout are out of the question. I’m slogging my way through Dan Brown’s ‘Angels and Demons’ at the moment, and I have to say his grasp of this who-is-thinking-what thing seems decidedly lax. If his writing made it clear who had thought what about what, it’d (a) be easier to buy the story and (b) tell me something more about the characters.

()

The real experience of a place tends to surprise, in my experience.

(Of course, this raises the whole issue of things like astral projection…)

Same goes with Don Juan. But isn’t it interesting that there are doubts about the personal history of Castaneda, known primarily as a writer? He became a recluse after a while. When died, the newspaper didn’t have a stock photo to use for his obituary.

While the good artist makes well-considered choices about what he or she will leave and what he or she will erase, they never erase the entire canvas.

You’ve obviously never done any painting. In my experience, this is about 90% of painting

This is a recipe for disaster.

And that’s pretty much exactly the point!

Interesting how talk about erasing personal history leads to talk about synchronized minds, as if giving up our individual identity opens us up to the latest broadcast from our overlords…

…or giving up a bit of individual identity opens us up more to each other, as we relax the boundaries of our personality. The overlords thing also could be true though…

ps: I shouldn’t post after drinking either, especially with extreme exhaustion making brain even stupider. That Owen Wilson thing made sense to say last night, but I honestly can’t figure out how I imagined it relating to this thread, reading it now. My humbled apologies.

pps: speaking of synchronized minds, I had a dream about Tim and Zac last night. We were on a quest, for what I don’t know, but it involved a burning swamp, a singing contest, Zac eating a cracker, and Tim finding a magical flower.

I think this erasing personal history is a cool idea.
In reality, it’s difficult to totally erase personal histroy, without indulging in crimial acts (falsfying various official, and leagal documents), but I don’t think that’s your point.
A better goal might be to erase yourself in the eyes of those who will invest emotionally in your history.

Maybe you should look into the concept of personal identity. It seems to be tightly boundto personal history, and many people seem to find it quite important. This is something I don’t quite understand, so I can’t really help you here. Maybe that’s beacuse I’ve always intuitively practiced a little personal history erasure.

P.S. I’ve noticed strange synchronicities with your blog too

We only have one life (that we can remember) and living it is a work of art. While the good artist makes well-considered choices about what he or she will leave and what he or she will erase, they never erase the entire canvas.

When the subject somehow arises, I will tell people about the time I made out with Owen Wilson in the back of a cab on the way to somewhere. Yes, it was a dream, but I remember it like it was yesterday, and like it was real, more than I remember much of yesterday itself. I often talk about dream experiences this way and only reveal it as a dream if asked.

Erasing personal history / past sense of self is something I can vouch for as a powerfully freeing act. And you can always go back (fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), or re-integrate old threads with new ones. If you want to.

i think if we’re actually in the same room the floorboards of reality are going to give out…