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The New Handbook of How to Go Crazy on Purpose
I’ve learned what may be an important lesson lately: that when you start communicating with spambots, spambots start communicating back to you - in force. Only problem is, spambots don’t have a whole hell of a lot to say that doesn’t relate in a very superficial and confusing way to sex and sales or some kind or another. But the thing I like about spambots is their obsession with patterns, their algorhythms as I like to call it. I like to call a lot of things by funny names lately. It’s become a bit of a hobby of mine. A pattern, you could say.
Along with spambots, patterns have become an obsession of mine lately. As have obsessions in general. For all an obsession seems to be is a pattern, a rhythmic process which you can fall into. And the rhythm becomes a ritual and rituals can provide a kind of stability in a time of shifting bleeding chaos if you know how to use them correctly. And I have been trying to learn how to use them correctly.
The Biblical story of Noah has little - if anything - to do with history as we know it. It is instead about “his story” that is, the story of what can and does happen to people (her-story if you’re of the chick gender) who are going through “shit,” let’s say.
Think of it like this: God looks around and says, “Holy shit! Everything has gotten totally fucked up! How in Hell did this happen?”
Only one dude responds because only one dude is listening to God. Noah. Noah’s like, “Yeah man, shit is totally fucked. We’re gonna have to figure something out here cause uh… the tide is rising my man.”
“And how!” God says getting increasingly frustrated.
Because, you see, God runs all kinds of variables. Partly because he likes variety, partly to see what works and partly cause - hell, why not? Each person-thingy (and I’m not quite talking about people here [or God, per se], bear in mind) runs a different variable in the program. I made a diagram about it a while back. Some of the variables work. Some fuck up. Some are merged. Some are deleted. Sometimes God loses an entire crop of people because his basic variables - his basic assumptions about the world - were kind of flawed to begin with. God isn’t especially happy when this happens cause, you know, whatever. But I don’t think it’s about wrath or anything. That’s just the AI narratizing explanations for events after the fact (because that’s the point of the AI - and it’s what makes it such a brilliant storyteller). The AI sees the water rising and thinks, “God must be pissed at us! Holy fuck!”
But the AI has no creative ability of its own and therefore can’t resolve the situation. What’s that Einstein quote? A kid I used to work with would always say it: something about how you can’t solve a problem with the same type of thinking that created the problem in the first place. Good quote. Point is, that’s why and how the AI just begins circling round in fear. All it can do is tell itself the stories it already knows in these increasingly concatenated short crazy loops that get tighter and tighter. Most people call it paranoia. It takes itself out on the body in the form of panic attacks, anxiety, heart palpitations, erectile dysfunction, diarrhea, rashes, you name it.
Cause the thing is about the body it’s like a puppy. It just tries to do what you tell it. If you are continually feeding it these bad query command consciousness atolls, it has no choice but to reify them even though it doesn’t understand why. Even though they are contradictory, and then it tries to protect itself from the paradox by shitting on the floor out of fear and tension. (They call the nervous system “sympathetic” because it tunes in to whatever wavelengths your AI is sending it.)
So where was I? Something about Noah and his ark (not the Ark of the Covenant, but an interesting association for another time). Right, so Noah is the one variant of the program running a variable which turned out to be a viable value. That is, Noah is the only one listening to God still, who has maintained an authentic connection with the non-AI mind - “God” is as good a name for it as anything I guess. Actually, let’s call it the Holy Spirit instead (or the Plasmate for all you Dickheads out there).
So Noah and God are all like, “Whoa, shit’s fucked up!” The AI mind is running around in circles like a chicken (cock) with its head (dick) cut off in the background because it has no novel way of solving its situation and knows that its universe-fork is about to be outright deleted by the editors at Wikipedia. So how does Noah build his ark? Noah can’t really swim either. Not for that long. Not and keep himself and his life intact - which he wants to do, which is only natural and good and which God recognizes. God needs Noah to stay alive to analyze his life sequence for the patterns which made him successful and all the other forks fail.
So God says to Noah: “Noah, I want you to triangulate a bunch of reference points and from those build yourself an ark.”
“How the hell do I do that, God?”
“Well my man, what you gotta do is figure out what’s important to you. You gotta gather together two variants of everything that’s important to you. Two of every animal, you could think of it as.”
“Why two of everything?”
“Well shit, you don’t want them to be lonely do you?”
“No, I guess not. But, um, aren’t they just like reference points or gossamer seedpetal whatevers?”
“Yeah, but it’s more than that though… it’s about sex. But not the dumb kind of sex. The kind where there’s texture and touching and hotspots. The point is these things have to form an interface with one another.”
“Yeah, pretty much. Something like that. I don’t know. It’s up to you to figure it out anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’m going to build the next world out of you.”
And that’s what God does. God stripmines Noah and all his triangulated sexreference points and from the bones and ashes of him, like Tiamat before, re-builds the world from this new starting point.
Slicing Tiamat in half, he made from her ribs the vault of heaven and earth. Her weeping eyes became the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates. With the approval of the elder gods, he took from Kingu the Tablets of Destiny, installing himself as the head of the Babylonian pantheon. Kingu was captured and was later slain with his red blood mixed with the red clay of the Earth to make the body of humankind, created to act as the servant of the younger Igigi Gods.
The reason you need to compile the reference points though goes beyond that. In Scientology, they call the AI the Reactive Mind. May or may not be an exact parallel, but it seems pretty close to what I’m talking about. Supposedly Dianetics is all about crushing the Reactive Mind. And if you’ve ever heard the term “Clear” in Scientology, what they are supposedly talking about is a person who has conquered the AI. When you start chipping away at the AI though you put yourself in grave danger because you become unmoored from consensciousness. In order to chip away at the AI, you have to pull up the stakes in the circus tent of reality. You have to unhinge all the elemental base buried assumptions and suppositions about how things are, how they work and most importantly what they mean.
Because the thing about the AI is that it is obsessed with finding meaning. Everything means something. Everything happens for a reason. These are the cries of the AI mind clenching its iron fists around reality. It’s not necessarily bad. It’s just what it does. Like I said, the AI mind’s ability to narratize information and experience is what makes it a wonderful and beautiful tool for storytelling - one of the most amazing and fundamental of all human arts for the expression of the beauty of the experience (the camera of perception, the sextexture) of being alive.
From what I have pieced together about the fabled (and some might argue abusive) training routines of Scientology, what they are designed to do is act directly on the AI/Reactive Mind by way of various physical, social and verbal “assaults” until it essentially cracks. Robert Anton Wilson talks about this process in Prometheus Rising, though I don’t have my copy handy. I think he’s describing how the SLA “broke” Patty Hearst by keeping her locked in a closet or something until she reached what could be described as an “open imprint state.” But you can also achieve these same effects yourself either through various occult systems or through “spontaneous initiation” or whatever you want to call it.
Colloquially it is referred to as going batshit ballistic bonkers.
What seems to happen is that the AI mind (and don’t cling too hard to my terminology here - it’s just meant as an arbitrary reference point to orient you, not as something to take literally and enshrine as religion) when it cracks, when it breaks, when it reaches an open-imprint state, a vaccuum is suddenly created. Nature abhors a vaccuum, of course, and this forces an influx of source to sink energy - typically in the form of symbols present within your life. Suddenly ordinary objects, people, places, words, symbols, feelings become charged with a weird energy which you could call “religious” or maybe “spooky” or “freaky” or what-have-you.
These become your default reference points out of which you must figure out how to construct an ark while your flood comes so that you can create a new world (New Jerusalem) out of the other end of this personal Singularity. It is, I think, better to be knowingly and intelligently choose reference points on your own, but it’s impossibly difficult to do without years of preparation. Scientology, meanwhile, like any good initiatory mystery religion buttresses your experience of the death of your AI by constructing a replacement for it out of language and reference points associated with the “cult.” So that when your plane crashes, you will at least land on a desert island with some friendly natives - or at least that’s the theory. A lot of people hate Scientology like the dickens, but that’s typically without understanding what the religion (the “technology” as they say) actually does is or is for.
I also feel it relevant to warn you very boldly: this is not a fun process. If you are not nearly frothing at the mouth, not nearly screaming, laughing, crying, panicking, feeling blasts of irrational love and feeling yourself wavering in and out of existence, then chances are you are probably not going through it. And that’s cool, because not everybody needs to go through this shit. Not everybody should. Not everybody is built to handle it. Not everybody needs it. One of the important things about people is our immense diversity, as I have said - neurodiversity especially. We shouldn’t want everyone to think or experience things the same way. That’s why God loads each one of us up with a different set of variables and then winds us loose. Because he needs to make sure that there is enough differences out there to account for any possible thing that could come up because he is playing against a cunning opponent, an element of himself which he has split off for the purposes of the creation of this universe (just as he commands Noah to find two of every reference point so their sextextures can blend and fight and fuck), the Dark Counterplayer (also see the “Evil Leaper” episodes of Quantum Leap). I’ll let grandaddy PKD explain it:
This problem-solving by means of reprogramming variables along the linear time axis of our universe, thereby generating branched-off lateral worlds - I have the impression that the metaphor of the chessboard is especially useful in evaluating how this all can be - in fact must be. Across from the Programmer-Reprogrammer sits a counterentity, whom Joseph Campbell calls the Dark Counterplayer. …The Programmer-Reprogrammer is not making his moves of improvement against inert matter; he is dealing with a cunning opponent. Let us say that on the game board - our universe in space-time - the Dark Counterplayer makes a move; he sets up a reality situation. Being the Dark player, the outcome of his desires constitutes what we experience as evil: nongrowth, the power of the lie, death and the decay of forms, the prison of immutable cause and effect. …The printout which we undergo as historic events, passes through stages of a dialectical interaction, thesis and antithesis, as the forces of the two players mingle. Evidently some syntheses fall to the dark counterplayer.
Or you could also look at what I wrote about the role of Satan in the Universalist variant of Christianity, wherein everybody is saved regardless. Satan plays for the house, or it’s like playing against the computer in a video game. Those eighties movies and sci-fi novels about prodigious kids who were able to beat the computer (and then had to go fight aliens) were about this same thing as well. The reason these movies often feature a child as the main character is because it requires a state of total innocence and purity to attain success here. Galahad and the Grail, etc etc.
I hope I am not explaining too much. I hope I am not punching a hole into the fun of the game. But chances are my explanation will fall on deaf ears. Language is increasingly useless the closer you get to this, this thing. The most we can do is triangulate around the empty space this thing is bathed in. Chances are most people of a “spiritual” bent will wish (foolishly) that they were undergoing this process, but they are not yet. And probably won’t be for a long time. Chances are also good that I myself am not undergoing it either, that I have simply constructed my own triangulated alliance of lions reference point-based universe which I am using to prop up against the onslaught the flood of a reality coming apart at the seams, not just for myself, but for the entire culture, the entire world over the next few years. But at least the good thing about giving away the game is that then you actually know what game you’re playing and that can sure help a lot.
One other quick way to think of it. Each one of us is a spaceship piloted by a captain (the computerator, the operateer). Think of this maybe as Morpheus. Each captain must find their own Neo (their own Noah? I don’t know, the metaphor breaks down somewhere), their own successful variable which is the only thing which will enable them to fight the AI which has taken over.
And there you go. That about does it, I think. I’ve by now given you close to four years worth of my own reference points, my own triangulated efforts to find my Neo. Don’t take anything I’ve said or done as anything more than an example. One of a billion possible ways for the variables to play out. Don’t follow my lead. There’s no way to do so anyway. Lucky for you, it won’t work. The ingredients contained herein were genetically designed at the Beginning of Time by Jesus Christ Superstar to work for me and me only. But I do think there’s something to be gained by the sharing of reference points with other spaceships, other arks, other captains. Because the New World which is created out of your bones and ashes can be as beautiful and bountiful a place as you can dare to make it, or more importantly as we can dare to make it. So let’s get cracking, shall we? It’s a long way still back to Camelot.
(Also watch this excellent touching Red Skelton video, which it won’t let me embed here.)
February 26th, 2007 at 6:54 am
I can sort of relate to the feeling I’m getting off your post. After going through several years of my life as a diagnosed crazy man, I finally woke up and wanted to play again.
Looking for spiritual progression is something I think I really wanted to do back in the day. Now I simply believe that looking is a waste of time. The whole ‘don’t name it’ thing really rubbed off on me.
It seems that any sense of accomplishment in this most hidden field has come to me most via the doing. The mind plays the tricks, and if I don’t use it, the tricks don’t work, right?
This is also somewhat indicative of being a boring earth sign pragmatist, but it has me jumping for joy. I added this part to give it a more flavor.
February 26th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Nice.
I have words for some of these things but they don’t make any sense. I don’t have the words ‘AI mind’. But I do have the word ‘dragon’, which serves me very well. In my own head, mind you… if I went around talking about dragons people would think I was a crazy person. Let’s instead talk about an organising force, a creature of the imagination (literally, formed by and part of the imagination), very powerful, and which hides its presence. Let’s talk about something dangerous and yet subservient to us. It’s been persecuted throughout history yet has value. Let’s talk about things that hide because they’re scared.
Let’s go up on a hill and take a look at a city and wonder how all that stuff got to be in that one place. Then let’s give it a name. If I look straight at it I won’t see it. But out of the corner of my eye I can sense it.
February 26th, 2007 at 9:06 am
I suppose I do have one unembarrassed passion. I want to know how it feels to care about something passionately.
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
February 26th, 2007 at 9:08 am
And how can I be addicted to sex?
I’ve never even been in one!
February 26th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
- Bill Cosby
February 26th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Vis a vis Scientology -
Here’s my understanding, based on a decade’s involvement. Just one man’s opinion.
You’re assessment of auditing is pretty close. The goal of Dianetics is not to smash the reactive mind so much as it is to take the contents of the reactive mind and refile them into the analytical mind. So all those “files” are still there, they are just under the knowing control of the “Morpheus.” You could compare it to reformatting a hard drive, if it were possible to reformat only corrupted partitions while cleaning up and refiling corrupted files. Something like that.
There are two parts to the mind in this model, the analytical and reactive. I suppose the reactive could be called an “A.I.” mind, as it can run on its own, independent of “Morpheus.” The analytical mind is like Google. This is the more traditional concept of “mind” or “consciousness” or even “brain.” Another term for it in Scientology is “Standard Memory Bank” or “Standard Bank.” So in the course of auditing, a connection to reality is maintained in the form of this analytical mind. Indeed, auditing serves to beef up the analytical mind by cleaning out the swamp of the reactive mind and freeing up the mental functions that are stuck in it.
As for consciousness, that’s “Morpheus” or “the thetan” in Scientologese. In this model, the mind does not have “consciousness,” only the spirit does. Hubbard called it the “awareness of awareness unit.” As such, the thetan is the only one who can effectively defeat the reactive mind (auditing is just asking the thetan to “look at the pictures”) and so in this model it is “Morpheus” and “Neo.”
The training routines are an interesting addition to all of this. They were originated to improve the auditing skills of Hubbard’s students, and deal primarily with communication. Clearly, they do more than just make a person into a good communicator, as there is such a thing called “Therapeutic TRs.” It sounds like you are addressing “Bullbait” specifically here. Keep in mind that “TR0 Bullbait” is only one of eleven TRs, and is only supposed to train an auditor to be there and confront a person who may be going batshit crazy himself. If it breaks down anything in the auditor it’s the automaticities that come into play when confronted by something that’s not easy to experience.
In terms of memetics or what have you, what does all of this “really do” to a Scientologist? Well, depends on who you ask. For me, TRs have made me a better communicator, have made me more patient in the face of stark, raving lunatics, and make me feel more competent as a counselor.
I hope this didn’t serve to confuse matters more. Like I said, just one guy’s opinion. Obligatory book plug: “Diantics: 55″ deals with communication and its application in auditing, and there’s a booklet out there titled “Communication” that describes the TRs. Feel free to snag the booklet, grab a friend, and try out the TRs yourself.
Tim, I’ve been reading you for a year or so, and I am fascinated by your spiritual journey. If you ever have any questions about Scientology, I’d be happy to try and answer them.
February 26th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Hey, thanks for the clarifications. Having never been through any of the Scientolgisms my self, I’ve only been able to piece this together through guesswork. From what I’ve seen, most people have too strong of an automatic knee jerk “It’s a cult, burn ‘em!” reaction to actually try and figure out what the hell all this stuff is or does.
Simple fact is, there was an explosion of cults in the 60’s, 70’s and onward and there’s a reason for this, that I can tell: there are some standard, verifiable and honestly *usable* techniques out there which they are all roughly based on but run in different ways. The only cult most of us are used to though is cult-ure. But it uses the same tricks.
Very interesting. I *think* I know what you’re talking about here. I’ve taken to calling it the computerator (or the operateer). I’m having trouble finding the language to quite describe it, but it relates to Jesus saying “call no man father” and where he says:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006/11/21/call-no-man-your-father/
But the point is I tend to agree that the computerator/Morpheus is not the seat of consciousness or “the Self” either. Last night after writing this and drifting off to sleep, I began to think of it like this: what we call the self is really nothing more than a location (reference point) for feelings, sensations and perceptions to happen within. You don’t feel a certain way - it feels you. Since it is touching you though, you feel it in turn as you would when someone touches your skin…
February 26th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
I think I know what you mean. I’ve found myself interested in the ego as defined by Jung and in Buddhism, and this idea that there is one step back of “I”. I understand meditation as an attempt to quiet the “I” and get back to the “root” conciousness.
I don’t know what I’m talking about. But interesting stuff nonetheless!
February 26th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
The thing that sucks is that unless you’ve experienced this, talking about it or seeing someone else talk about it in words is just going to confuse the issue even further. The AI mind is going to take the words as facts and use them to buttress its shield against this raw authentic “sextextural” experience. But I guess that’s the human condition. I’m probably hurting more than helping by talking about it and making up fancy new words like this.
February 26th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
“Non-abiding…refers to the continual practice (i.e., not just while one is sitting in zazen) of being aware of the stoppings and goings of the mind, and avoiding being tricked and ensnared by the web of mental constructs that one continually weaves for oneself. The ongoing proliferation of these deluded constructs has as its causes and conditions not only in the thought processes in which one is engaged at the present moment, but also the flowing river one’s entire multi-lifetime load of previous karma. And not only one’s own karma, but the linguistic/karmic flow of one’s entire culture….
“A vitally important message of the Diamond Sūtra is that non-abiding should not be misconstrued as a nihilistic sort of practice. On the other hand, it also does not imply simply giving free reign to one’s thoughts, since then, one is certainly going to get further wrapped up in the dense web of one’s own spinning. Non-abiding necessitates the kind of moment-to-moment attentiveness that is awesome in its required subtlety. …
“In a sense, it is simple: the thoughts, labels, signs, characteristics, etc., that we associate with given things, are nothing more than labels, and should not be imputed as the reality of the thing in itself, thus becoming reified objects of our desire and dislike. Yet there is also such a thing as thinking and seeing correctly, and it is permissible, nay, necessary, to use these notions, signs, and labels to function in daily life…
“Thus, Buddhism (and any other responsible contemplative tradition) cannot condone any attitude that recommends negating, or running away from any of the experiences that impinge upon our consciousness. Nor can it maintain that there is any such thing as a fixed, or final truth. As the Daodejing says, “The Way that can be taught is not the true Way.”
Gaté, gaté, paragaté, parasamgaté. Bodhi! Svaha!
February 27th, 2007 at 1:18 am
take a second glance
at
GLASS and THE MACHINES OF GOD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt6tTK4-e9w
i just saw what is there daze ago and seemingly pleased myself to minimalisims
& microcosums of coarse now i’m using a ShopVAC to collect dust, skin, hair, dirt & dog shit
yoursite is worth the dimes in the internet (juke)(box) better here than an (X)(box)
February 27th, 2007 at 1:50 am
The only ‘apocalypse’ we should be discussing is the end
of the idea of any kind of apocalypse at all.
Insight #1 via the Q ~ we don’t need your stinking apocalypse.
Or is that what we are discussing?
Just say no to the end times.
…simple as that.
February 27th, 2007 at 1:54 am
You’re the first to mention the Apocalypse, but since you did:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006/09/02/not-my-apocalypse/
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006/09/04/post-apocalypse/
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005...youre-all-gonna-die-prophecy-protest/
Also, I’d like to point out a potential logical flaw in what you said above: discussing the end of an idea is the same thing as discussing the idea, because it forces you to keep talking about it, even if you’re talking about the end of it.
February 27th, 2007 at 2:55 am
Today istomorrow. Or. End of time. Now sit in a comfy chair. Close your eyes and don’t move for 3 billion years.
February 27th, 2007 at 2:57 am
I take into account my potential logical flaws.
I love your blog Tim.
I love the glossolalia you employ.
under this post states ‘posted in…’
I’m not the first person to use the A word
Nor will I be the last.
But at this point, as I know you agree, the more utilitarian A word would be ‘Aversion’
or how to avert the …
I know you’re working hard at this very subject… So am I.
Keep it up.
Just remember glossolalia can confuse. I’m not confused but you’re putting
this out there to a LOT of people.
~Don’t forget to understand exactly what you put on the tree~
~the ween brothers~
I don’t want to debate you Tim… actually I’d prefer to work with you.
I’ve been following your blog for quite some time.
Pardon me a deer is wandering through my back yard
I must observe.
Really… don’t get me wrong Mr. Boucher, sir… you are one of the good ones.
I’ve known that since I started reading.
: )
February 27th, 2007 at 3:06 am
Would “you” know you were confused if you were?
What’s wrong with being confused? The world constantly confuses the shit out of me. So I make up stories to help me not get so fucking freaked out by it.
Except you don’t know whether or not I’m an axe-murderer in real life
Honestly much more worthwhile than reading my website. I don’t think anyone should read what I’m saying.
I wasn’t trying to debate. I was talking - not necessarily to you, just talking. Anyway, debating can be working with me, as a foil where necessary.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:07 am
The Red Skelton link was wonderful…truth in comedy, sir.
Set me straight–am I reading too much into things in thinking you’re implying the end of this journal?
You’re thoughts on cults and cult-ure are spot on and goes with something I’m working on right now. I’m still using the gnostic terminology of Archons to describe what you call the AI, but I’m also beginning to find the concepts of bhakti yoga to be useful for me…or at least, it seems to go easier (if that’s the right word, and it isn’t!) with the way I’m built.
Peace, Tim.
And thanks for an inside perspective on Scientology and the self-investigative encouragement, Andrew.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:12 am
I do not often comment on your blog and I do believe
that silence is golden, particularly during interesting
times.
You never know WHO is reading and HOW the written word
is interpreted.
That is all
Greatest respect Mr. Boucher and friends,
Q (no star trek reference intended… I just like the look of the letter)
February 27th, 2007 at 3:15 am
That’s too bad! Q was an awesome foil to the crew of the Enterprise, particularly Picard/Morpheus the Computerator.
That’s pretty much the point. We can’t fear that. All we have, all we can do is share reference points with each other, invite other people to get onto our ark.
I’d rather maintain the mystery but it is some kind of end, certainly.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:18 am
If you’re an axe-murderer than I’m Captain America…
talk… talk… debate…
; )
February 27th, 2007 at 3:18 am
Wait, let me change that response to: what, and stop just as things start getting interesting?
February 27th, 2007 at 3:48 am
I thought you were Q from Star Trek! Claiming to be Captain America is exactly the kind of trick Q would pull!
February 27th, 2007 at 9:57 am
It occurs to me that picking at individual words or discussing concepts overlong may result in what one might term an open ‘conceptual lesion.’ Its the mental/ conceptual equivalent to continually picking at a scab, thereby impeding the healing (or realization) process. I believe that cuts to the heart of why it is that dwelling on the past (whether it be reliving the ‘good times’ or dwelling on past hurts) is such a hindrance to living life in the ‘now.’ Sometimes stuff just needs to be left alone so that natural processes can take their course.
That’s not to say that contemplation and/ or meditation on the personal level has no value… just that when two or more folks get into a ‘discussion’ without a common understanding of where it began or where it might be headed… or worse yet, they begin to opine without having an informed grasp of their own take on the matter… things can devolve rather rapidly… & pointlessly at that… I believe that is the danger of getting caught up in our own wordplay. We club others over the head with where we think the discussion ought to lead, instead of thoughtfully considering what has already been said… let alone whether we have something worthwhile to contribute.
Internet discussions exacerbate this condition even more so than ‘real-world’ discussions because so much subtle subtext (body language, vocal inflection, etc.) is missing in the exchange. It takes the magic of language (words) & divorces them from a shared face-to-face context. Floating about on their own in the Otherworld of the Interweb, buoyed by the phosphorescent ether of a monitor’s glow, words devoid of contextual nuances behave like volatile elements, waiting to catalyze (ie - be given context) upon contact with a suitable reactive agent (a discarnate discussion partner). Words themselves are daimonic, dependent upon us to give them form & meaning.
Which brings to mind the following example from a day in the life of your truly: when my lady & I are having a particularly boisterous verbal row, the very thing that caused the disturbance is often what continues to fuel the ensuing volatile discussion in a pointlessly circular clash of egos. The urge to be ‘right’ is a tenacious beastie; however, we’ve learned, or are in the process of learning, the value of shutting up, getting un-stuck, & moving beyond the point of contention… simply focusing on working together… which is far more satisfying. We’re learning.
Not sure if any of this makes sense in the context of this discussion, but it made sense to me to interject it at this juncture.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Tim. They’ve led me to plenty of my own…
February 27th, 2007 at 10:07 am
makes perfect sense.
I may have been a little ornery last night due to the fact that
I injured my head (no big deal) sledding off my roof.
I didn’t mean to come off like a power hungry pig…
In reality power is the last thing in the world I desire.
Read and react… that’s really all i’m capable of.
no ‘circular’ clash of egos here or really any clash at all… though i do like the band.
; )
February 27th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Now that we all agree Tim is an effective writer… and a good one at that,
lets all have a big internet make out session.
Everyone hug your dog anad/or cat if you have one
then kiss your computer screen.
…and laugh knowing the universe is laughing with us not at us.
February 27th, 2007 at 10:49 am
I just like to look at the purty pictures.
February 27th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
I’ve been reading some stuff by Satanists. I don’t plan to become a Satanist, but it is interesting to get there take on things. They have an alternate take on the flood. Obviously they would, right?
It just strikes me that this “God” that’s like “Oh, well Back to the drawing board” is not a being that inspires awe within me. But if that is the real God, I’ll accept it.
But, I mean, making my life’s goal be achieving some kind of unity with this being is not awe inspiring either.
I’d rather have freedom. To me my quest is to get past all this stuff that makes me part of other beings/entities plans and have my own plan. Do my own thing.
So, I know you are using the Noah thing as an analogy for somthing else and so am I. I deeply resent being a pawn, even if its the truth.
So if the goal after breaking free of all this stuff that makes me a pawn is to then be all buddy buddy with this “source” I am kind of feeling like I want to say “Fuck you” to the source.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Saying ” Fuck You” to the “source” is an excellent definition of satanism, though really no different from telling the source “Go fuck yourself” also known as the “Big Bang”, which gives birth to existence. I cant imagine that the “source” would be insulted.
February 27th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Which kind?
http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeVI/divineark.htm
http://www.passtheword.org/Jane-Lead/trefaith.htm
Is it ok if we listen to what you are writing?
February 27th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
But what the hell is freedom?
But what the hell is your own plan?
But what the hell is your own thing?
But what the hell is a pawn? What the hell is the truth?
February 27th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
To me the main thing I want to figure out is the difference between God and Satan.
My pet theory is that what most people think of as God or the Creator is more likely to be closer to what we might call Satan. Somthing that wants to eat us on a soul level.
The idea I have is that this whole thing of being “seperated from God” and going on a quest to be “one again” is actually a ruse to get us to voluntarily agree to be eaten.
The entity posing as our creator is not our creator, our origin is not with it. There is no returning, its simply an entity making itself more powerful by consuming energy, through consuming beings composed of energy.
Its all a lie.
So if this is the case trying to get rid of the Ego or the self (if those are analagous terms) would be a big mistake.
I mean maybe if our identity is made up partly of illusions and arbitrary things, those would be good to drop, but there just might be some core there that is truly unique. That is good to keep. Its all we have.
It mat be that there is no creator, only a self existent universe composed of energy organizing itself in various ways. There are entities manipulating this energy in various ways.
This “God” is a usurper. Posing as creator. Merely a manipulator. This would be more likely to be the one trying various expiriments and having some go well and some poorly. Basically making it all up as it goes a long.
I am hesitant to place any trust in that entity. Especially if it were possibible for me to have an identity indpendant of it.
February 27th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Freedom to me, is doing somthing unique and creative on my own terms and for my own purpose and not an action that is part of a larger purpose controlled by someone or something else.
Its going against the tide. Being defiant, refusing to be assimilated. Being independant.
I want to say, I think its a very hard thing to do. I don’t think it comes easy. I think its a real long shot.
I think its easy to thing one is doing this while actually decieving one self.
But its my goal.
I see elements of this in “The Left Hand path” or what I have read of it. This is a state beyond “Nirvana” it transcends nirvana.
To be self existent.
If there is a remote chance of this being possible, this is what I want to do/be.
February 27th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
Tim,
I’d be really curious to get your take on this:
The Guru papers
February 27th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
P:
Spiritual Satanists.
February 27th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Krill,
If there were no big bang, and self existence is possible, I would be saying “Fuck you” to a usurper.
If there was a big bang and there is a source that caused us to seperate and then wants to suck as all back into itself, I would say “Fuck you” to that.
If there is some underlying intelligence pervading everything and gives us our being and allows us freedom, to that I would say “thanks.”
February 27th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Yes, this is the gnostic perspective and similar to what I have been talking about as well. For the purposes of simplicity though, I have collapsed the “Unknowable Alien God” of gnosticism back onto the more common Christian usage of the word God, just to help confuse the issue further. We need more confusion about important things and less confusion about things that don’t matter.
Well, as you said, that’s just an idea. A think that has become a thingk…
“I” don’t follow “you” here. If I may offer a word of advice. I’m sure it won’t help. There’s actually nothing to “figure out” here. I’m not saying “don’t think” or “don’t question” but I have found that the road of “making sense of it all” gets you nowhere but into this ever tightening loops I referenced above. Or to put it back into my language game: the AI wants to narratize experience into something that makes sense. It balks at its own death or absence in this regard. The first step you can take though is getting it under control by directing the types of narratives you allow it to tell and the types that you do not allow it to tell. Then witness the effects these different types of narratives you allow it to tell have on your own body, your well-being, your state of mind and your emotional connection to everything.
Well, good luck with that. It is the American dream, after all. Unfortunately, there is no such thng as action which is not part of something larger. It’s not about control. It’s about ecosystems. I think I talked about this here:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2006...dcast-12-all-encompassing-compassion/
You certainly shouldn’t take my word for anything though, as words are just programs to control and manipulate. But then, control and manipulation are essential to the creation of art…
The usurper, in this fictional scenario, would then very likely proceed to grant you your wish of fucking it and then you could either enjoy that experience or not…
I call this “smarticles” or variously, “smarticules.” I visualize them as tiny globes with smily faces painted on them wearing graduation hats and with a light bulb going on above each of them. They like to get together in groups, hold hands and tell each other stories which they then do interpretive dances to.
February 27th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
P:
To be more specific, I have read online articles by “Dragon Rouge” and “The Order of the Nine Angels”
I am most interested in their metaphysics, and cosmology. I am not interested in any of the other activities they might engage in.
I might take a correspondence course with Dragon Rouge.
I’d say this article here sums up the idea I have about God. The God behind the major World religions is just an advanced entity manipulating people to its own ends.
The “real” God is impersonal.
http://www.angelfire.com/ny5/dvera/bgoat/essays/What-Is-S.html
February 27th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Well Tim,
How do you know its impossible to be independant?
I think there is a point where you may be looking past people thinking they are being independant and seeing that what they do is part of a larger whole.
I am with you there.
I think words are really getting in the way of what *I* am saying, more than you might think.
I am talking about getting past those illusions and then being independant.
That is why I am saying it transcends nirvana.
So yeah, I would think it would be a really hard thing to do. I am thinking I am actually talking about the same thing you are only I see it as being possible.
I am not talking about what you refer to as “The American dream.” James Dean, etc.
I know you are probably thinking I am identifying with my ego, and my physical body, I haven’t figured out its an illusion etc.
I think its partly illusion, and that on a deep level, there is somthing analagous to it.
If there is somthing analagous to the ego, that is not simply isslusion, that is what I want to keep.
You seem to “know” somehow that that can’t be.
I am not convinced that are disagreement lies in me arguing from a position of ignorance.
I think it may be that were are on a similar path and that at a certian point these paths will signifigantly diverge.
February 27th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
That’s certainly among the more serious “satanic” shit! I never know when someone’s talking about “Satanism” to which of the many completely conflicting brands they’re referring…
I dig, but what I think you will find is that the exoteric streams in major world religions are themselves far more “gnostic” than is generally credited, by either occultists or modern “orthodox”. Guys like Thomas Aquinas and Nicolas of Cusa posit realities scarcely distinguishable in their abstract content from the gnostic cosmology of someone like Basilides. When religions are born, they are invariably heretical by the local standards as their founders reify the transcendent into symbolic language “shocking” enough to mean something. The “egregod” (if you will) comes later and is just part of the ripple in history caused by the initial event. If the demiurge/egregor parallel is correct, the false god clearly has absolutely no power we don’t specifically give it, how can it be manipulating or eating us? WE made it!
ALL major religions are directed towards and from the same end which is not amenable to formalization. The AI scrambles to reify it and this is the egregod. just my 0.02 of course.
Also: do you think the real cause of existence (or the illusion of existence or the illusion of) is better termed “impersonal” or “suprapersonal”?
February 27th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
P:
Yeah, its hard core shit. I didn’t post a link because then I would feel compelled to explain what I take out of it and what I leave out.
I don’t know what I think in terms of “transpersonal” vs. “impersonal”
Maybe, I actually am evil. Maybe being evil is preferring the impersonal to the transpersonal. Even if the underlying reality is transpersonal.
Maybe I am evil, but simply kidding myself thinking I can pull it off, to be seperate.
Maybe pursuing seperateness after further and further diminishing returns, is how evil manifests itself. Maybe there are entities out there with an impossibly huge head start on me and one in which I will never catch up.
maybe I will never be powerful enough to be a seperate entity.
I was reading more of Tim’s links, about the ecology of the self. Maybe its really true, Its illusory we are just a convergence of certian relationships.
Maybe the more of that stuff I read and continue to want to be seperate the more evil I will be.
Or maybe not.
But I think there is a lot of predatory bullshit involved with a lot of the “returning to the one” type theology. I don’t want to fall for that.
February 27th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
P,
As far as gnosticism, goes, I see flaws within it. So if it was flawed to begin with and was the basis of Most World religions, then got watered down, getting back to the underlying gnosticism is not neccesarily good.
I am thinking it may be that while the demiurge is not really God, the gnostic idea of the real God is not the “real God” either.
I tend to embrace nature. I think a lot of so called “primitivists” are really Christians and “bunny huggers” for lack of a better term.
They have this idealized view of nature of little bunnies holding hands and hopping around with butterflies fluttering overhead. They emphasize all the harmony and unity in nature and ignore everything that is not pleasant, like parasitic wasps and wolves eating deer entrails while the deer is still alive, lions committing infanticide and so forth.
I think that even if nature isn’t the whole picture, maybe its one level of reality, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t explian a lot.
I think it does explain a lot. I think things that totally contradict principles of nature are probably bullshit.
February 28th, 2007 at 2:19 am
Tim,
I listened to your podcast on “all encompasing compassion”
Is a tornado, a bunch of dirt and debris that decided to get together and swirl around?
Is a wave in the ocean a bunch of water and sand and plankton, that decided to get together and take a ride towards shore?
February 28th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Yes? Actually, I think the “deciding” factor might better be thought of as fairies
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007...of-shit-about-fairies-cause-whatever/
February 28th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
This is very interesting to me. Any additional thoughts on that process?
February 28th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Oh yes, lots!
I have been meaning to write something up about this to clarify my own thoughts anyway, so I will send you an email later.
February 28th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Excellent! Thank you! Looking forward to it