Oeaohoo

Exactly!

I will admit that the thread you linked is probably one of the least convincing things I wrote on this forum. This is probably because I could sense that you are a spiteful mutant who will never be convinced of anything but their own eternal self-righteousness in defending the Empire of Lies. I have a habit of shifting to deliberately provocative rhetoric when I sense that it is pointless to discuss anything further with somebody… My main regret is that I didn’t explain my use of the term “Faustian” very well. “Faustian man” is a useful term that Oswald Spengler used to describe European civilisation since around the time of the Renaissance. “Faustian man” seeks to break down all boundaries, to explore everything and conquer the world. “Faustian man” produced the “Age of Expansion”, the colonial European empires and the Industrial Revolution. Things which I personally view as, for the most part, highly immoral and decadent. Since the Second World War, “Faustian man” has been castrated and as a result has become introverted. His new goal is to break down all boundaries, not of the outer but of the inner world: to explore the endless subdivisions of subjective identity. “Breaking down the boundaries” becomes a matter of breaking down all boundaries of gender, sex and race. This is framed as a “conquest” over bigotry, xenophobia, sexism and so on… Ironically, however, this is all just the conclusion of the same values which produced the horrors of the mercantile imperialism which is now condemned. Transgenderism, as a subset of Transhumanism, is also “Faustian” in the earlier sense. It is the final destination of the technological advances and the conquest of nature that commenced with the Renaissance: man conquering his own nature. Of course, this is a complete inversion and parody of the true conquest of human nature, which is spiritual liberation. Anyway, I doubt that you will be particularly interested in any of this.

Of course not! An advanced Stage Yellow Systems Thinker like me would never waste his time on such trifling trivialities! I could be bestowing my wisdom upon the world right now, enlightening the undeveloped masses and helping to raise them to my advanced level. Trolling is an extremely low-consciousness activity. Though as a Stage Yellow Systems Thinker I know that I am not yet a Stage Turquoise Great Sage, purity of mind is still very important to me. The quality of the systems that I am able to think is substantially diminished by any low-consciousness activities that I engage in. Here is an analogy for you (as a Systems Thinker, I find it very easy to come up with analogies): Imagine a diamond. Now imagine that diamond thrown in the mud. That diamond is me. The mud is low-consciousness.

Ah, the Internet… Full of such beautiful and contemplative souls. This place is practically a virtual monastery! The perfect place for a Stage Yellow Systems Thinker like me. Me too. A world of Stage Yellow Systems Thinkers like me would be just too efficient! There would be no one to look up to me anymore. Who would I be able to bestow my spiritual gifts and powers upon?

You’re probably right. Honestly, this isn’t something I know much about. I remember her speaking about a feedback mechanism between the brain and the external world, whereby the brain is continually (more specifically, recursively) updating its model of the external world. Autism, then, would occur when the brain is not able to update its predictive model quickly enough, perhaps because of an overly intense focus on analysing each particular frame, whereas schizophrenia would occur if the predictive model became extremely sensitive to external input. I think by “over-prediction” she meant more a rigidity in predictive processing, rather than being particularly good at predicting things. This rigidity would also inhibit the capacity to predict things in the material world, just for the opposite reasons as that of a schizophrenic.

…and yet you can be exiled from this progressive society for blaspheming it’s taboos… There’s an old Buddhist joke, “There’s no God in Buddhism, just lists”, referring to the endless lists of “the twelve links of the eightfold path of the fourth root of the Dharma” that you find in Buddhism. I think that today we could say: “There’s no God in progressive societies, just Progress.”

I think it makes sense that young people today are more likely to believe in God. Boomers view everything (and particularly religion!) as “the man trying to keep us down”, whilst Gen-X are just cynical about everything. Remember John Lennon’s song God: “I don’t believe in God, I just believe in me”? Most of the New Atheist intellectuals are either very old or dead. Fedora-tier atheism is a much harder sell nowadays… Also, the older generations are whiter and atheism is mostly a Western cultural phenomenon. Many of those younger people who believe in God are probably Muslims, Christian Africans, Hindus, Sikhs and so on.

When I was at University a student gave a talk on this subject. I don’t remember much except that she related it to the neurological theory of “predictive processing”: autism being a kind of “over-prediction” and schizophrenia “under-prediction”. In other words, the autist struggles to relate to the world because they are stuck inside their own mental model of it, whereas the schizophrenic suffers from the lack of a coherent mental model. This would also explain the over-sensitivity of schizophrenics to external cues, as someone who lacks a coherent mental model of how the world ought to be will be much more sensitive to how it actually is at any given moment. The thing you point out about femininity being more “psychotic” is interesting. At the time, I remember interpreting this autism-schizophrenia relationship as a gendered phenomenon: autism as the extreme male brain and schizophrenia as the extreme female brain. However, while it is true that men are much more prone to autism, it seems that men and women are more or less equally prone to schizophrenia. Regardless, my limited experience is that most women are a bit crazy..!

Interesting video. I hadn't seen this before trying to justify mythology to you through the symbol of the Sun! Funny coincidence. One of the things I find very interesting about the Egyptian myth which Jordan mentions is that Seth, the god of chaos, goes down every night with the Sun to protect it from Apep. This suggests a significant distinction between the snake Apep as Absolute Chaos and Seth as the relative chaos which is the necessary counterbalance to divine Order. I mostly agree with the Jungian critique of Nietzsche's idea of "value creation" which Jordan lays out, except that it overlooks the primarily destructive orientation of Nietzsche's whole project: his "transvaluation of all values" is essentially an attempt to clear away those values which are no longer serving to humanity so as to create the free space out of which new values can emerge. I'm also looking forward to "Snail King", in cinemas soon! I may have been reading H.P. Lovecraft recently...

This is a very utilitarian explanation. Humans do things for so many other reasons than simply making sense of the world. As an example, even assuming that such things don’t exist, people may have worshipped and made offerings to deities simply as an expression of gratitude for their existence. This has nothing to do with cognition! It also overlooks the fact that, for the ancients and even up to the Renaissance, everything in nature was a symbol of a supernatural reality. For example, the Sun was worshipped in many ancient cultures as a permanent reminder of the eternal and undying Truth (Sol Invictus), the purity and incorruptibility of pure Consciousness (like Gold which does not rust), the virtues that characterised Regal nobility (above all, solitary and supreme leadership), and even of the life-giving principle and the male seed (which fructifies the Earth like a man impregnates a woman). These symbolical relationships aren’t really useful for anything, except pointing to the perfectly ordered and “as above, so below” nature of existence.

(Again, not arguing!) I don’t see it as a process of finding out the truth so much as shedding all attachments to anything other than the truth. The truth is staring us all in the face; we just all have our reasons for not wanting to see it…

Fair enough. My only question is: How versatile is your Love if it can’t tolerate a bit of hate? I am not arguing with you here, just responding with my own perspective, but to me it is just the opposite. None of them are me. Not even I as a human am me. I don’t believe (“believe” originally simply meant “to hold dear”) in a pantheistic conception of God because the Absolute is beyond all forms. This is another reason for my polemical effacement of others and my own private self-effacement.

You invalidate what I say by calling it “projection”; I invalidate what you say by calling it “deflection”. What’s the difference? This is the problem with reducing everything to psychoanalytic mind games; something Shubowmurti incidentally loves to do… You say projection, I say deflection - let’s call the whole thing off! As to the main point, I’ll be less rude on this forum. I just like to provoke people into considering a different perspective on things which they think they understand. The more someone is convinced they already understand, the more provocative one has to be!

I’m just offering my perspective. I find that the notion of “projection” is thrown around a lot in spiritual communities without a lot of thought having gone into what it really means, or indeed where the term comes from (the dubious motivations of Freudian psychoanalysis). You aren’t interested in discussing this subject, either because you don’t want to waste your time on me - which is completely understandable, I don’t really want to waste my time on you either - or because you believe that such a discussion could only be falling into “the mind”, which is just typical New-Age brain rot masquerading as spiritual attainment. My sense is that in appealing to “projection” and “the mind playing tricks”, you’re just parroting spiritual platitudes whose real purpose is to keep you exactly as you already are.

Of course a machine designed to emulate a communicating human will claim to do all the things that humans do. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be successfully emulating a human! Exactly.

This video is interesting in that it reveals the sheer mediocrity of Jordan Peterson’s political perspective. It is another case of an internet intellectual who thinks they are innovating when they are really just reinventing the wheel: his “conservative manifesto” is literally just another rehashing of Boomer conservatism and libertarianism, with a sprinkling of the “Judeo-Christian West” to please Shapiro. What is particularly surprising is that Peterson almost entirely jettisons the very traditions that he elsewhere claims to admire. He repeatedly talks in this manifesto about the values embodied in the “Eternal Western Canon” and yet proceeds to espouse a form of “conservatism” which would be largely alien to anyone prior to the Classical Liberal thinkers of the post-Renaissance secular age. The very concept of penning a manifesto reeks of enlightenment rationalism, which was itself a deliberate inversion of traditional Western values. Conservatism is about conserving the essential principles that have been forged in the fire of long experience, not sitting in your armchair and penning a vain and self-serving manifesto. He also fails to address the undeniable fact that “the West” which he celebrates was discriminative and exclusionary for most of its existence, in contradiction to the universalist nature of his own ideas. The greatest flaw in this manifesto is that he defines what it means to be a conservative entirely in opposition to the advances of the progressive left. Perhaps this is the problem with even adopting the terms “conservative” or “reactionary” to describe oneself. This is a bad idea even from a merely tactical perspective because it means you have handed your autonomy over to the enemy. It is also particularly inappropriate, given that he starts by saying that he is speaking here at the “metaphysical” level: by definition, a metaphysical statement must transcend the petty squabbles of the present day. And, rather than just explicitly framing himself against the left, his criticisms are all veiled in a dense and cryptic form of allegory - making it even less likely that any of the people he is criticising will even understand what he is saying! Who is this manifesto intended for? Even when his criticisms are valid - for example, regarding the infantilising and smothering nature of progressive societies - his delivery is so jilted and grumpy that the whole thing falls flat. What is even more peculiar is that his “conservative” manifesto is barely even conservative: his solution to every problem is just “sovereign individuals freely associating in the free marketplace of friendship”! Is that what Aquinas, Plato, Seneca or even Christ would have conceived of as the “Eternal Western Canon”? Where are the calls to belonging to something greater than yourself and making human life into a vehicle for spiritual realisation? All I hear from Jordan is: “Blessed are the sovereign individuals, for theirs is the kingdom of material ambition”! When he does eventually get to briefly discussing “community”, he does so entirely in utilitarian terms. He is just clinging desperately to the corpse of the Classical Liberal anti-tradition whilst somehow remaining blind to all of its flaws, which become more and more obvious with every passing day. There is also something peculiarly Masonic about the whole thing, particularly in the way that he appropriates a spiritual and metaphysical perspective for the purpose of selfish and materialistic ends. He seems to be very torn between genuine compassion for the people who look up to him and preaching gibberish so as to sell his soul to Daily Wire. In the same way, perhaps, that he is torn between the rich traditions of the past, particularly Christianity in his case, and a petty and pointless “reactionary” stance on present events. He should have it called: A (Truly Awful) Conservative Manifesto… In the end, this manifesto serves to prove that Dr. Peterson - whatever interesting things he might have to say regarding mythology, the relationship between science and religion, and so on - has by now been entirely consumed by his role as controlled opposition. His presence in online public discourse is amplified precisely because his arguments against the left are so weak, and in reality he is just fuel for the very fire that he seeks to quench.

I generally find that “projection” is just a label used to deflect unwanted criticism. It also brings with it the assumption that we all live in our own private fantasy bubbles and that there is no even relative reality to things. It implies that the only reason anybody could take issue with somebody else is because they are projecting their own issues or “complexes” onto them. In truth, there are many other reasons why two people can fail to relate to each other. If I am projecting onto you, I am projecting my anger at living under a smothering gynocratic tyranny… But only because you have demonstrated yourself as an appropriate target! I would also like to say that the path of the warrior, which of course is completely misunderstood and mocked today, generally involves projection: one projects the inner enemy (the soul commanding to evil) outwards so that, in fighting it outwardly, one can fight it inwardly. There is nothing wrong with this so long as you are conscious that you are doing it. I think there’s a lot more that could be said about projection. Taking your view of spirituality to its conclusion, aren’t we always projecting anyway? You are just God projecting yourself outwards onto another character, who just happens to be projecting onto you through a forum! I understand. My parody of Shunyamurti is regarding his teachings in general. No hard feelings either.

Thank you for my “warning points”. I only make things personal when they are personal: so much spiritual teaching is just personal beliefs and values masquerading as absolute truths. For example, you just want a nice cosy and safe spirituality, listening to Matt Kahn and Shunyamurti talk about “love” and how “beautiful” everything is. I used to listen to Shunyamurti but this is precisely why I stopped: he is leading a feminised communal cult of banal and sterile conformity. I practice a spirituality of transcendent destruction. As an example, here is a parody of your “Great Sage” Shunyamurti: A Wisdom Teaching from A Great Sage It’s a great joy, and certainly not a great jouissance, to be typing this today. A Sat Yogi is one who sits in the past. As the great sages - and remember, to be a sage is to see-ages - tell us, the good days are over. I think the religions call this state “fallenness”: one is no longer willing to open one’s heart to love, to live on fifteen carrots a day, to donate one’s soul to the community… But there is hope: once one has realised the futility of life in the ego, gone through the zero point and turned it into a hero point, the Sat Yoga Institute will be ready to welcome you with open arms. Of course, I don’t really need to be telling you any of this: if you wanted to you could download your own hodgepodge of psychoanalytic conundrums and new-age messianism, but your consciousness is choosing to project itself onto a guru-figure who can give you the answers that you already have. …but you don’t want answers, do you? You want jouissance. Well *puts on funny hat*, “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try some times, you’ll find — you get what you need!” May we save the universe from our cosy, rich Costa Rica ashram, collapse the quantum wave function and re-dream the energy field - w i t h o u t… d e l a y… Namaste P.S. “Thank you Shunya, that was such a beautiful teaching; you always say just what I needed to hear. I know you have a new book and retreat coming out soon, could you tell us all some more about that?”

@AtheisticNonduality It is not a Ku Klux Dog! It’s an angel from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. I have been loving his work recently, it is a wonderful blend of deep compassion and mysticism. Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire are such a fascinating mixture of traumatic and transcendent.

If we are engaging in a dream-measuring contest, I had a wet dream last night! I have them every couple of nights and it gets a bit annoying sometimes. Maybe my subconscious is compensating for my hermetic lifestyle…

Schmachtenberger’s polyamory certainly gives “in search of the third attractor” a whole new meaning!

Hate to say I told you so… One look at the guy and I could have told you he’s in a polyamorous relationship with a couple of morons. He’s the quintessential evolutionary psychology game theory nerd who convinces himself he’s smart because he’s read books like Sex at Dawn… I realised why I dislike this guy so much. He’s like all the worst aspects of Leo without any redeeming features. At least Leo actually reminds me that my ultimate nature is Absolute when he isn’t ranting about how Trump is Hitler and progressive leftism is the embodied equivalent of divine Love!

Fair enough. The only thing that seems arrogant to me is the way that you conflate the aloneness of the Absolute with you as a human. It’s not just speculation. It is possible to become directly conscious of what prior civilisations were conscious of. You just aren’t interested! Not that you have to be… I only insist on this because you yourself have framed your awakenings in terms of what no other human has ever understood. How do you know if you are so dismissive of understanding what others have understood? Not to reduce things to a merely logical level, but this seems like a Motte-and-Bailey fallacy. You have been advancing a very outlandish reframing of awakening as the practice of compiling psychedelic insights into the endlessly weird capabilities of consciousness. Then, being challenged on this, you fall back onto the traditional conception of awakening.

I understand that you seek to ground everything in your own direct experience and throw off the false authority of contemporary spiritual teachers. In the end even the Buddha told his followers to be a light unto themselves! All that I am objecting to is the way that this is framed as though anything other than your own direct experience is sheer nonsense. Just because you claim to have arrived at a point in which any external teaching is no longer of any use, that doesn’t invalidate their relative value. What is more enlightening: TYT or the Corpus Hermeticum? Not are, were! We live in the ashes of human civilisation. Boasting that you are the most awakened man alive in 2022 is like being proud of being the tallest man at a midget meet-up club! The bar is set so low…