Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Example of Revelation of Method

I have been listening to Alan Watt's show lately and he drew my attention to a very revealing piece on psi-warfare by Ralph Peters, a US major, called Constant Conflict

Considering it's over ten years old, the piece is surprisingly frank and revealing about the covert methods which the shadow govt uses to undermine "enemy" peoples (tho it refrains from including its own citizens among the target groups).

Here's some sample bits for those not up to reading the full piece:

In this age of television-series franchising, videos, and satellite dishes, this young, embittered male gets his skewed view of us from reruns of Dynasty and Dallas, or from satellite links beaming down Baywatch, sources we dismiss too quickly as laughable and unworthy of serious consideration as factors influencing world affairs. But their effect is destructive beyond the power of words to describe. Hollywood goes where Harvard never penetrated, and the foreigner, unable to touch the reality of America, is touched by America's irresponsible fantasies of itself; he sees a devilishly enchanting, bluntly sexual, terrifying world from which he is excluded, a world of wealth he can judge only in terms of his own poverty.

Most citizens of the globe are not economists; they perceive wealth as inelastic, its possession a zero-sum game. If decadent America (as seen on the screen) is so fabulously rich, it can only be because America has looted one's own impoverished group or country or region. Adding to the cognitive dissonance, the discarded foreigner cannot square the perceived moral corruption of America, a travesty of all he has been told to value, with America's enduring punitive power. How could a nation whose women are "all harlots" stage Desert Storm? It is an offense to God, and there must be a demonic answer, a substance of conspiracies and oppression in which his own secular, disappointing elite is complicit. This discarded foreigner's desire may be to attack the "Great Satan America," but America is far away (for now), so he acts violently in his own neighborhood. He will accept no personal guilt for his failure, nor can he bear the possibility that his culture "doesn't work." The blame lies ever elsewhere. The cult of victimization is becoming a universal phenomenon, and it is a source of dynamic hatreds.

It is fashionable among world intellectual elites to decry "American culture," with our domestic critics among the loudest in complaint. But traditional intellectual elites are of shrinking relevance, replaced by cognitive-practical elites--figures such as Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Madonna, or our most successful politicians--human beings who can recognize or create popular appetites, recreating themselves as necessary. Contemporary American culture is the most powerful in history, and the most destructive of competitor cultures. While some other cultures, such as those of East Asia, appear strong enough to survive the onslaught by adaptive behaviors, most are not. The genius, the secret weapon, of American culture is the essence that the elites despise: ours is the first genuine people's culture. It stresses comfort and convenience--ease--and it generates pleasure for the masses. We are Karl Marx's dream, and his nightmare.

...

Ours is also the first culture that aims to include rather than exclude. The films most despised by the intellectual elite--those that feature extreme violence and to-the-victors-the-spoils sex--are our most popular cultural weapon, bought or bootlegged nearly everywhere. American action films, often in dreadful copies, are available from the Upper Amazon to Mandalay. They are even more popular than our music, because they are easier to understand. The action films of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger or Chuck Norris rely on visual narratives that do not require dialog for a basic understanding. They deal at the level of universal myth, of pre-text, celebrating the most fundamental impulses (although we have yet to produce a film as violent and cruel as the Iliad). They feature a hero, a villain, a woman to be defended or won--and violence and sex. Complain until doomsday; it sells. The enduring popularity abroad of the shopworn Rambo series tells us far more about humanity than does a library full of scholarly analysis.

When we speak of a global information revolution, the effect of video images is more immediate and intense than that of computers. Image trumps text in the mass psyche, and computers remain a textual outgrowth, demanding high-order skills: computers demarcate the domain of the privileged. We use technology to expand our wealth, power, and opportunities. The rest get high on pop culture. If religion is the opium of the people, video is their crack cocaine. When we and they collide, they shock us with violence, but, statistically, we win.

As more and more human beings are overwhelmed by information, or dispossessed by the effects of information-based technologies, there will be more violence. Information victims will often see no other resort. As work becomes more cerebral, those who fail to find a place will respond by rejecting reason. We will see countries and continents divide between rich and poor in a reversal of 20th-century economic trends. Developing countries will not be able to depend on physical production industries, because there will always be another country willing to work cheaper. The have-nots will hate and strive to attack the haves. And we in the United States will continue to be perceived as the ultimate haves. States will struggle for advantage or revenge as their societies boil. Beyond traditional crime, terrorism will be the most common form of violence, but transnational criminality, civil strife, secessions, border conflicts, and conventional wars will continue to plague the world, albeit with the "lesser" conflicts statistically dominant. In defense of its interests, its citizens, its allies, or its clients, the United States will be required to intervene in some of these contests. We will win militarily whenever we have the guts for it.

There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.

39 comments:

Anonymous said...

Elephant in the Dark by Alan Icke

Some have an elephant to show.
No one here has ever seen an elephant.
They bring it at night to a dark room.

One by one, we go in the dark and come out
saying how we experience the animal.

One of us happens to touch the trunk.
"A water-pipe kind of creature."

Another, the ear. "A very strong, always moving
back and forth, fan-animal."

Another, the leg. "I find it still,
like a column on a temple."

Another touches the curved back.
"A leathery throne."

Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk.
"A rounded sword made of porcelain."
He's proud of his description.

Each of us touches one place
and understands the whole in that way.

The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are
how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.

If each of us held a candle there,
and if we went in together,
we could see it.

Anonymous said...

I've said before that every craftsman
searches for what's not there
to practice his craft.
A builder looks for the rotten hole
where the roof caved in. A water-carrier
picks the empty pot. A carpenter
stops at the house with no door.

Workers rush toward some hint
of emptiness, which they then
start to fill. Their hope, though,
is for emptiness, so don't think
you must avoid it. It contains
what you need!
Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting you net
into it, and waiting so patiently?

This invisible ocean has given you such abundance,
but still you call it "death",
that which provides you sustenance and work.

God has allowed some magical reversal to occur,
so that you see the scorpion pit
as an object of desire,
and all the beautiful expanse around it,
as dangerous and swarming with snakes.

This is how strange your fear of death
and emptiness is, and how perverse
the attachment to what you want.

Now that you've heard me
on your misapprehensions, dear friend,
listen to Attar's story on the same subject.

He strung the pearls of this
about King Mahmud, how among the spoils
of his Indian campaign there was a Hindu boy,
whom he adopted as a son. He educated
and provided royally for the boy
and later made him vice-regent, seated
on a gold throne beside himself.

One day he found the young man weeping..
"Why are you crying? You're the companion
of an emperor! The entire nation is ranged out
before you like stars that you can command!"

The young man replied, "I am remembering
my mother and father, and how they
scared me as a child with threats of you!
'Uh-oh, he's headed for King Mahmud's court!
Nothing could be more hellish!' Where are they now
when they should see me sitting here?"

This incident is about your fear of changing.
You are the Hindu boy. Mahmud, which means
Praise to the End, is the spirit's
poverty or emptiness.

The mother and father are your attachment
to beliefs and blood ties
and desires and comforting habits.
Don't listen to them!
They seem to protect
but they imprison.

They are your worst enemies.
They make you afraid
of living in emptiness.

Some day you'll weep tears of delight in that court,
remembering your mistaken parents!

Know that your body nurtures the spirit,
helps it grow, and gives it wrong advise.

The body becomes, eventually, like a vest
of chain mail in peaceful years,
too hot in summer and too cold in winter.

But the body's desires, in another way, are like
an unpredictable associate, whom you must be
patient with. And that companion is helpful,
because patience expands your capacity
to love and feel peace.
The patience of a rose close to a thorn
keeps it fragrant. It's patience that gives milk
to the male camel still nursing in its third year,
and patience is what the prophets show to us.

The beauty of careful sewing on a shirt
is the patience it contains.

Friendship and loyalty have patience
as the strength of their connection.

Feeling lonely and ignoble indicates
that you haven't been patient.

Be with those who mix with God
as honey blends with milk, and say,

"Anything that comes and goes,
rises and sets, is not
what I love." else you'll be like a caravan fire left
to flare itself out alone beside the road.

Jasun said...

at what point did Stormy Weather turn into mystics central, I wonder? ; )

did i say somewhere i was afraid of death?

oh, and i like snakes.

Anonymous said...

I am actually utilizing these things out of a desire to affect this narrative...which is strange...strange attractors...

check this out...

"If Rome had developed in such a way that a great all-embracing mechanized empire had arisen, it would only have been habitable for egoless human beings who would have remained on earth after Lucifer had drawn out their souls on the path of Greek culture and art. YOU SEE HOW AHRIMAN AND LUCIFER WORK TOGETHER. LUCIFER WANTS TO TAKE MEN'S SOULS AWAY AND FOUND A PLANET WITH THEM OF HIS OWN.AHRIMAN HAS TO HELP HIM. WHILE LUCIFER SUCKS THE JUICE OUT OF THE
LEMON, AS IT WERE, AHRIMAN PRESSES IT OUT, THEREBY HARDENING WHAT REMAINS. "

http://8esphere.blogspot.com/2007/10/la-huitime-sphre-selon-mark-hedsel.html

Anonymous said...

I don't know why sorcery is such a mystery to so many people...we all practice it all the time, even if some of us are not honest enought to admit to ourselves that is what we are doing. Its just that the big league Sorcererz are much, much better at it than most people, plus they have access to major media, etc. We are only fooled because we refuse to know ourselves and are afraid to acknowlege just what kind of world we live in. If we would just stop being psychological, mental and emotional children and grow the f--- up, the Sorcererz would lose much of their power over us. If I understand aeoulus rightly, we will become free when we become sorcerers in our own right and quit giving our power away.

Jasun said...

nicely put

the power we disown is claimed by others and used against us, or simply works against us in an autonomous way

"If you bring forth what is within you it will save you. if you do not bring forth what is within you, it will destroy you."

Anonymous said...

all of it is just the useless skin of the snake...

To make a metaphor out of ourselves...is to castrate ourselves...."we are sorcerers","we are democrats", "we are housewives", "we are peaceful warriors","we are christians", "we are the shit stained ELITE who will pass through the anus of reality into the forbidden realm"....all bullshit....

creation as castration, also known as "sorcery","art","intelligence","culture"....skin...skinflute

vanGogh didnt only cut his ear off...

Who is this "power"?
Who is this "other"?

Jasun said...

who is this anonymous who cares enough about it being all bullshit to post a comment about it being all bullshit?

Anonymous said...

its an exploration of adversary...and ignorance...

its relevant....

Anonymous said...

To anonymous of the "bullshit" comment. Would you care to explain further, because it seems to me that you are the one spouting the bullshit; doing "zen master" nonsense-masquarading-as-wisdom drivel.

Anonymous said...

It was a need to be someone in a moment of coarse self pity...I could only regret it if it had the power to distort or prevent what is being authentically shared here...


bullshit doesnt hurt people...

unless they take an unsuspecting bite....

for that I am sorry....you never know what will show up at the potroast....that was my plate....if you have stomache pains, please consult your physician...and get your own food...

goodnight friends

To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.
Edgar Allan Poe

Anonymous said...

The most negative maneuver of the present trend is to keep people falsely angry about unchangeable
things while keeping them apathetic about heinous things people really can change, so we are induced to
hate each other’s differences, all of which keeps good people from getting to know and admire each other.
Maybe instead of foolishly trying to dominate and secure a future for only one type of human in a
world made for all life forms, we should endorse a courageous coming together through our common
human grief and our common failure, to convert the sorrow of our losses into beauty and culture instead of
bullets and small thinking.

Anonymous said...

To Stinky anonymous: that was a very good example of the kind of opaque drivel from imitation zen masters I was refering to! An imitation zen master should never say anything clearly or leave people with the fuzziest clue as to his meaning. The whole reason for a fake zen master's existance is to puzzle people enough to entrigue them and keep them coming back for more, but never make enough sense to satisfy them or make them weary of the bullshit. Like the performances of a really good strip tease artist: only reveal enough to keep them coming back for more.

Jasun said...

there appears to be a split personality having an argument with itself here at SW

should i rename this blog "Lost Souls"?

Anonymous said...

Hi aeolus. The "antiStinky" comments are not from the same person as the "Stinky anonymous" comments. I, "antiStinky anonymous" have taken up an antibullshit position for the fun of it. I'll back off if you want me to, but I was having SO much fun.

Jasun said...

oh i can't keep track of the mice as they play, fun is ok but preferably constructive fun?

question always must be: what is the intent behind it (enjoyment is a side effect, never a goal)

yet also the means must justify the end, not vice versa

Anonymous said...

My intent was to question anonymous's intent.  All the elipses...leading nowhere...non-sequiters meaning who knows what...nothing or everything...see...I can do it too...do I qualify as a guru now...?  I thought I was being constructive, as I think its always constructive to point out bullshit (by the way, it was anonymous who started the bullshit thread).  I was just calling bullshit on bullshit.  Someone had written in a previous comment somewhere on this site about her experiences with gurus and ashrams and it seemed to me that here was another would-be guru writing in.  Not only so many vague ramblings that could mean anything to anybody, with no responsibility taken as to their meanings, but actually mocking people's questing by calling it bullshit! As far as I am concerned THAT is the kind of stuff that is destructive, because it gives spirituality a bad name.  As I see it, when someone is in spiritual need, amorphism and mockery don't help them one bit; it indermines their self-esteem and throws them back upon themselves instead of giving them a way through, and sometimes a tiny little chink is all a person needs to find a way through.  So it is  throwing up reams of vague verbiage that seems destructive to me (and not only destructive but CHEAP because it is so easy).  I like your blog and pod casts precisely because you are not vague and you take people's questions seriously and answer them seriously.  Its not about having all the anwers, but about respecting a questioner's need.  Maybe you disapprove of my method and the fact that I was not "nice" (pleasing or agreeable), but my intent was to point up anonymous's destructive vagueness.  It is one of the ways I practice sorcery.

Anonymous said...

p.s. I meant UNDERmines self-esteem, not INdermines. Sorry for the typo.

Anonymous said...

Auroragirl, you Go grrl!!!

This blog is becoming more interesting all the time!

The thing that stood out for me about "Stinky (anonymous)'s posts was a distinct sense of a posture, rather than a person, being behind them. An odd and off-putting sensation that I will be paying more attention to in future.

Aeolus, I particularly enjoyed this weeks 'cast and am looking forward to reading your book when it comes out.

Anonymous said...

Thankyou vikki!, and a better analysis of what I, too, found creepy about the post in question. It is always that odd and off-putting sensation that you've identified that clues me into the probability that I'm dealing with a phoney, in any walk of life; that very feeling that triggers my instincts and alerts me that I'm dealing with a charlatan who's trying to shine me on. And thanks for the moral support. We women are socialized to be too "nice" by far!

Anonymous said...

LOL aurora! Hold on now!

Nothing kills a conversation faster or alienates 50% of the population like the gaping maw of gender roles and identity politics so I’m going to attempt to put a stake through it’s sternum right now.

First of all, the requirement of "niceness" that is imposed on women is fundamentally the same as the socially approved behaviors imposed on men, and for the same ends: to disconnect people from their authentic selves, undermine their individuation and trap them in a net of peer- and self-policing, outward orientation and approval seeking. We are all familiar with the unhappy results; the abuses, the violence and the litany of other-directed aspersions.

It’s a trap but it is possible for people to find their way out though not all choose to. I think that’s difference that counts. When I meet people, whether male or female, who have invested themselves in their socially prescribed “nice” identities I invariably have two responses depending on their proximity: wariness or disinterest: Wary because of their convulsive policing of “deviant” behaviors and because I know that there must needs be a vicious shadow component to their identity lurking nearby; disinterest because an husk without the germ is just an husk.

So it’s not necessarily better for women not to be “nice,” and let’s face it, even the very “nice” ones aren’t really that nice, and most can only maintain their “niceness” if their circumstances suit them.

It’s also possible to be “not-nice,” in a way that is equally dishonest and manipulative, which I think our Stinky (anon) demonstrated nicely. (Pun intended! ; ))

What REALLY is better is for people just to be authentic themselves. Authenticity resonates. It’s the worthwhile “signal” in the sea of “noise.” It’s the point.

A great way for us to attune ourselves to the authentic is to point it out when we see it, or conversely cry bullshit when it’s lacking.

Seems that’s what you did with Stinky (anon). Kudos aurora

Anonymous said...

And being preachy and didactic is yet another way to kill dialog, vikki. I am glad that you have shed the need for your gender role so well that you can deign to give me lessons in the joys of stepping outside of it. For my part, it seems to me that gender roles have their uses, like self-protection when dealing with unknown persons and/or in many everyday uncertain situations, and in formal situations where playing a role is neccesary. It seems to me that abandoning gender roles is for intimate company and/or situations where I want to surprize and disarm an opponant (at whatever level of opposition, using whatever level of gender role abandonment seems appropriate.) The one person I never play my gender role with, however, is myself.

Anonymous said...

Okay, yes. You are right auroragirl, I was being pedantic. I was trying to say something clearly so as to avoid the many hot spots inherent in any discussion of gender/identity politics. Unsuccessfully, as it turns out.

I do think that I made some good points though and here's one more:

You presumed that because I've used a woman's name to identify myself here and backed you up, that I would subscribe to the implied assumption of collusion of your "we" ie "we women have been…." Which I don't. Leastwise not without the qualifications I’ve given.

Anonymous said...

But I wasn't "discussing" gender politics; I simply made a passing comment refering to it. And you had referred to me as "grrl", indicating approval of my fierceness and my repudiation of the traditional feminine stance of meekness and submission, so if anyone did any PREsuming (presumption of my sympathy with feminisim, possibly of the radical kind) it was you, not I. I just responded in kind to YOUR presumption of collusion. And we women, at least those of us above a certain age (I hope you have no experience of being forced to don an apron and being given housekeeping and sewing lessons by a teacher who clearly hates her job), have indeed been socialized to be "nice": to be meek and submissive and practice passive aggression instead of assertivness. I never said that men hadn't been socialized to gender roles also, in their own way, and to their own, and everybody else's detrement. You say you have used a woman's name to identify yourself "here", possibly indicating that you use a man's name elsewhere or that you are a man masquerading as a woman on this site. If that is so, that you are really a man writing as a woman, then I cannot trust you because you have hidden your true gender. Maybe other people don't mind such shenanegans, but I don't like them. Posting anonymously is one thing, but falsifying your gender is another. Your certainly get to falsify your gender if you want to, if that is indeed what you've done, but I find such behavior inherently duplicitous and untrustworthy. And if you sign yourself as a woman, then I don't "presume" you are a woman. By signing yourself as a woman you've IDENTIFIED yourself so and in effect LIED to me if you are not one. It seems you are practicing a form of entrapment, possibly to upbraid gender politics you disapprove of, given the officious character of your unprovoked rant.

Anonymous said...

I had forgotten that "grrl!" Well, it seems that you are right- I did set you up albeit unwittingly (unconsciously!) You've just helped me figure something out so I thank you for that.

Today has been a by far too grueling day for me to go into any of the other points you made except to say that gender is practically irrelevant on the internet, as is other aspects of our in-real-life identities. If I was a Korean man who chose "George" for my online nick, would you consider it lying?

My apologies for the fuss-up.

Anonymous said...

Apology accepted, Vicki. No, I wouldn't consider it lying for a Korean man to call himself "George". My husband used to work with lots of Asian people who took Western pseudonyms because English speakers found it hard to pronounce their Asian names and they also felt more assimilated with Western names. And if I were writing back and forth with a Korean man who called himself by a Western pseudonym, at least I would know I was addressing a man and not a woman. But if he were writing under the name "Susan", I would concider it to be lying. Gender may seem like it ought to be irrelevant, but its really not irrelevant. People's life experiences differ very much depending upon their gender, and I know that I instinctively adjust my thinking when I talk or write to someone depending on what their gender or even their age happens to be. Its not a matter of prejudice or making assumptions, but just a matter of respect for the differences in life experience a person may or may not have had based on the information. I don't assume I know anything about them, but I have to start somewhere, and knowing the gender and age of the person I am addressing makes things alot less confusing and uncertain. I am sorry you had such a grueling day. I hope tomorrow goes better for you.

Jasun said...

Seems a little guru posturing has been effective in drawing out the ladies(?) to engage in some public sparring. It was more entertaining when you ganged up on the pseudo-guru, however; once you got distracted by nonsense and decided to have a go at each other instead, I lost interest (and I imagine anonymous was quite relieved!).

For the record, auroragirl, niceness is def. not a required trait of sorcerers, but impeccability is. There’s a reason why sweetness is one of the four moods of stalking (as well as ruthlessness). As a general rule, whenever a discussion enters into the realm of the personal it becomes a way to assert identities and express opinions, and it's at this point i have an urge, not to censor but to discourage folk from indulging in pointless and disruptive behavior in the Kingdom. (Off with his head!) But then, who's to say a little disruptive behavior won't liven things up?

As for giving spirituality a bad name, if you ask me that was accomplished a long time ago, and rightly. The very word reeks of inauthenticity, which is partly why I employ sorcery terms as an alternative framework to the idea of "spirituality," with its whiff of morality and "purity". Self-knowledge is a terrifying journey into the depths, not a trip to shamans' disneyland. To attain the gold of Spirit, we have only the lead of Matter to work with - and gardeners spent a LOT more time with shit on their hands than they do contemplating the beauty and mystery of flowers. Or rather, they usually have shit on their hands while they are contemplating.

Anonymous said...

Well, AK, I didn't intend to go off subject, but when Vikki got personal, I felt I ought to defend myself, and then she asked me a direct question which I felt I ought to answer. Why are you taking aim at just me, as you seem to be? As to your point that spirituality deserves its bad name (I for one hate "spirituality", which is why I so heartily dislike gurus, and all the New Age crap with its denial of all that is dark and difficult), I heartily agree. It reeks of sanctimony, which is why I replied as I did to Stinky's post, which seemed very inauthentic, as Vikki perceived, too (so why didn't you post to Stinky about his posturing?). And as far as digging in the dirt goes, it seems like Vikki came away with a small piece of gold from our exchange when she realized she had indeed set me up so she could lecture me, albeit unwittingly. So maybe you got bored, for which I apologize, but she and I seem to have gotten something out of it. And yes, the jouney inward is a terrifying ordeal and not at all an abstract mental exercise, and not for dilitantes or the faint-of-heart.

Anonymous said...

p.s. I would also add that I don't see the inward jouney as an end in itself, but as something one undertakes at the behest of a greater force in the service of life. As I see it, there is no point to the inward journey if the person doesn't use it in the service of life.

Jasun said...

aurora
no i didn't intend to single you out for criticism, just that i chose to answer your questions/comments and that got mixed up with the other, more general remarks.

as for why i didn't take it up with stinky more directly - i was hoping others would see through the posturing without my imposing my own feelings on y'all

this indeed came to pass

PS word verification synchroanimystic byte today: i me gazes

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm glad that YOU are glad, because I've been wondering about the skill of ANTIsorcery. It seems to me that a would be sorcerer needs to be able to practice antisorcery (seeing through posturing) if it suits her purpose (which, now that I've expressed the thought, seems pretty obvious!) I have a times let others think they were practicing upon me, when in fact I was practicing upon them. Boy, were they ever surprized!

Anonymous said...

Aurora,

Thanks for your good wishes. I did indeed have a better day.

The thing that you helped me see was how my masculine side (I guess that would be Animus- detachment, intellect etc) dominates my feminine side (Anima.) I had been wondering about this for a while now due to a series of ridiculously exaggerated confrontations with Maiden-type women. I was unable to see the mechanism until it played out here with you and I had my words to refer back to (and eat.)

The irony is that I have been on the receiving end of the same dynamic many times and never questioned my self-righteous complaining; a bitter pill indeed. :\

I’m not sure what you mean by anti-sorcery. What you describe seems just like regular sorcery (in Aeolus’ vernacular) to me ie the handling of awareness. Isn’t it so that the depth to which one is able to perceive OUTside oneself, is commensurate with the depth one is able to perceive INside oneself? If so, then is your anti-sorcery just the external complement of the internal by which a feedback loop of awareness can be set up and utilized to deepen perception?

Word verification synchroanimystical message: sling at

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Anonymous said...

Hey, vikki. I've been down that overbearing animus road myself many times, and still have to work to stay in balanced, and clearly don't always succeed, but I'm working on it. I'm actually not quite sure just yet what I mean by antisorcery: there's something at the back of my mind that trying to work its way to the front, and it has to do with the distinct sense of being more than one person at the same time sometimes. Its like there are at least two and sometimes three conciousnesses that are witnessing an event or conversing with someone. I don't mean anything pathological like multiple personalities, just a sense of different levels of witnesses: one shallow or naive, one "normal" and one very deep, ancient and wise WAY beyond my personal self, plus a fourth, "me", who sees all this going on. They seem to be real personalities because I can call on them to handle different situations, but I have to have a real need for their help and not just use them for selfish ends. That may seem a little weird, but that's how it is. But yes, from my experience, you can see into others only as far as you can see into yourself. So yes, I think you're correct, "antisorcery" is just "regular" sorcery.

By the way, have you heard this one? A woman is feeding her dog and cat. The dog says, "Wow, she feeds me and takes care of my every need. She must be a god." The cat says, "Wow, she feeds me and takes care of my every need. I must be a god."

Anonymous said...

Very interesting....

“Its like there are at least two and sometimes three conciousnesses that are witnessing an event or conversing with someone….”

Very much my own weird experience, too, aurora. Sometimes I am also aware of multiple consciousnesses in other people communicating with me and even contradicting each other. Before I had any framework to understand what was going on, this used to make me anxious and confused, not knowing which part to respond to. It still can make me anxious depending on the circumstances.

“but I have to have a real need for their help and not just use them for selfish ends.“

I get a terrible, unbearable feeling when I try to use the power and intelligence of my other selves for my personal ends, making it essentially impossible. Is it the same for you?

Thanks for the dog and cat aphorism. I hadn’t heard it before, as a matter of fact. Now I’m wondering if I’m more of a cat person or dog person. : \

Happy Sun Day!

Jasun said...

anthony peake has written a book about this - called the Daemon: Guide to Your Secret Self

recommended - tony ought to be on SW one of these days too.

Anonymous said...

Hi, aeolus. I think the ancient and deep presense I feel must be the daemon. It is an inhuman presense, in that human catagories of good and bad don't apply to it. From a human perspective, its attitude would be called unscrupulous or calculating and cold, plus preternaturally intellegent, but I don't think its proper to apply human catagories to it, since it is not human. Anyway, my point is that I wonder if that the people we call sociopaths are people who have let their daemon to take over and submerge their human personalities. And thanks for the tip on the book!

To vikki:
I think what I was calling anti-sorcery is my calling upon my daemon in self-protection against another person's daemon! I'll have to get that book.

Anonymous said...

This doesn't sound right:

"The Daemon inhabits a different world of cognition and perception. The Daemon fulfils the role of a 'guardian angel' in that it warns its everyday self, termed the Eidolon, of potential future dangers. That it seems to be able to foresee the future is analysed and considerable anecdotal evidence is presented to support this position...

Could it be that the chemicals involved in a temporal lobe seizure facilitate the accessing of forbidden 'Daemonic' perception by the everyday 'Eidolonic' consciousness? If the access is total then a schizophrenic state of mind can result. If the access is very mild then a migraine takes place. The 'middle course' being a temporal lobe seizure."

???

Anonymous said...

Hi vikki. The first paragraph sounds right, but the second doesn't. Where is the quote from? I have felt a guarding presense all my life, and its like everything in my life has been leading me up to being prepared for the End Times. I cannot boast of any success in the world, but I know how to prepare and spin fibers and how to weave them, how to make soap from wood ashes, am well versed in wild vitamin and food sources, etc. There seems to have been a presense (thats the only way I can describe it right now) that has kept me firmly away from the wider world. I used to think I was just a f**k-up, and maybe this is just self-delusion, but things definitley go better for me when I have minimal dealings with the world. I have a job, yes, but one of minimal importance in the eyes of the world. I used to fight this inner presense, but don't any longer because it is much stronger than I am, plus the world genuinely doesn't seem to want me, and there doens't seem to be anything I can do about that, and believe me, I've tried. My ego does't like it much that I am so very low on the worldly totem pole, but this force doesnt care what my ego wants. As far as the second paragraph of your quote, I have never had a migrain or anything like that, but I was severely beaten for the first time when I was about 1 year old and maybe sustained a head injury then. I don't remember, of course, because I was too young. p.s. by "the world" I mean the concensus conciousness of the world of business, academia, medicine, etc. It seems I have always lived outside concensus conciousness because I couldn't even get through one of their schools with my integrity intact, so I chose my integrity instead of concensus approval (maybe more self-delusion there, but it genuinely doesn't feel like it). All of the concensus schools seemed more interested in breaking my will than educating my mind. But then, maybe they succeeded after all.

Anonymous said...

Aurora,

You sound like me, stubbornly unconventional and contarian!

Except that I've gone the opposite route (whether due to my Daemon [?] or not, I don't know) of challenging myself to live within the conventional world, even as an oddity. This is because I want to be able to negotiate whatever situation I find myself in, whether by choice or not. And also to pursue opportunities to deconstruct my identity, which for me at least, seems like it needs interactions with people to work. I think that I've done pretty well with this, as I'm no longer identified with my personal wants and needs so much but I've utilized a kind of emotional detachment which is now being challenged on multiple fronts. Letting go of my detachment feels like I'll be waking up in nightmare. Wish me luck! ;)

I've also always felt the looming eschaton and look forward to it. At this point I think the shift is going to be so profound that our physical bodies will either become irrelevant or so different in their needs and functions that we wont recognize them.

The excerpt is from Anthony Peake's book promo site here: http://www.anthonypeake.com/pages/daemon.htm

Cheers!