Magic Continued 1

This conversation thread is a continuation from Applied Magic, which ended with my comment:

When it comes to Intelligent Design and how to live in this world (including personal ethics), I am in a stage of letting go of personal wanting and living for the connection.

It is not getting what I want, but the quality of attention I give into every moment that matters.

That would seem at odds with your 'having a clear mental idea of what we want to create, strong feelings for what we want to create, and the physical capacity to take actions that implement the creation,' which is ruled by the persona -- but then you add, 'and getting out of our own way'.

The difference is that, because the deepest longing of my heart requires it,  I get out of my own way before the 'wanting for things' beyond my current means begins.

There is also a distinction between the wanting of the persona or conditioned mind and the longing of the heart, the yearning of the soul.

Michael F. -
Talking to Gary, I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes, worth repeating here:

'Just because it's in your head, why would that make it any less real?'

That's the message I'm trying to get across. But its hard, because if you tell someone its in their head, they think that means you believe its not real.

Gary R. Smith -
I understand your "just because its in your head, why would that make it any less real"?' -- and see that there are countless realities. In my reality, there is also one actuality, which I accept as unknowable. I sense the Absolute intuitively with the awareness my sense is still a reality, not the fullness of actuality. We all wear the sunglasses of our filtered perceptions. I like the model I have chosen, it is always subject to enhancements or modifications, and I always remember that I am seeing through sunglasses.

Michael F. -

G. - "We all wear the sunglasses of our filtered perceptions. I like the model I have chosen."

M. - My comment is that it is important that you know that you have chosen this as a model, that we all have our own preconceptions. This is astute of you.

That is the key to all of this.

Far too many people believe that their model (or worse, someone else's model) is reality, indeed, the only reality.

And when two people, each believing that their model is the only model that one can have, meet up, the result is usually a religious war.

My approach is to see what they both have in common, test whether the model achieves anything useful (finding a parking space), and then to see what all the models (using a rabbits foot, cursing the universe, reciting a mantra) have in common.

One then tries to work out if this commonality has any rational explanation for opening up the parking space.

The real test is then making up a new method that uses the same principle, but not the "accidents" in the Aristotelian sense, and see if that works also.

As Blake put it, 

"I must create my own system or be enslaved by another's".

Knowing WHY something works is infinitely more valuable than all the rote-learning of empty formulae combined.

Unfortunately, knowing WHY religion/prayer/magic works is very difficult indeed, because the phenomenon, such as it is, is very difficult to study. It works best when its accepted uncritically and vanishes entirely when you examine it closely.

Its like trying to look at the floaters in your eye, or examining why you trust someone. Or picking up mercury with your fingers.

Incidentally, breathing mercury vapors was an important component of Alchemy - make of that what you will.

Gary R. Smith
 
M. - As Blake put it, 

"I must create my own system or be enslaved by another's".

G. - To paraphrase a Kiwi poet quoted by Rod MacKinnon, a member of the Collective Evolution discussion group, 'Don't let yourself be fitted by another man's version of a hat.'

Gary R. Smith 
The Wikipedia article on Design begins with, 'Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object, system or measurable human interaction (as in architectural blueprints, engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams, and sewing patterns)...'

A plan or convention - laws?

Here is one scenario. When the Unmoved Mover moved, it created both motion and stillness as those exist only relative to each other, and what followed was the creation or evolution of natural laws to provide for the efficient expansion, diversification, and homeostasis of energy/matter to interact with sentient observers. That is my crude version. It is more elegantly expressed here, with the addition of an underlying 'Idea':

'Practical Psychology: The Use of Li to Change Qi

'The practical Chinese Taoist method of attaining enlightenment is to aid the mind to evolve deeper and more powerful li. Li is the underlying aspect of Qi, energy/matter. Without li, there is no Qi. The nature of li defines the nature of Qi. The way the idea is, is the way the world is.

'.... Li is the intermediary, that which lies between nothingness and the material universe. Li is the conception of the material universe. The primary li manifests on a level of reality far removed from the phenomenal world. 

Wu Chi is the ultimate Real, Qi is the phenomenal real — that which is made to appear by the interaction of waves of probability with sentient observers. Li is that which forms the 'laws' that underlie the possible manifestation of the phenomenal world. 

Qi is not real because it passes in and out of existence. Li, which is all ideas that ever can be manifest, in itself is real. It is the principle of ideal consciousness that exists inherent in Wu Chi. This li is expressed in the teachings of the Fourth Way as the Eternal Unchanging, the being state that lies between the un-manifest Absolute and the World of Three, the T'ai Chi. - pages 20 - 22

Excerpts from 'Tao and T'ai Chi Kung' by Robert C. Sohn

Michael F.

'Design is the creation of a plan'

Exactly. It implies a planner, and it implies that someone visualizes the outcome and attempts to put it into practice. As distinct from letting things play out by themselves.

A house is designed; a cave is carved out by water in the course of its trip to the sea.

Gary R. Smith 

M. - 'Design is the creation of a plan" - Exactly. It implies a planner, and it implies that someone visualizes the outcome and attempts to put it into practice. As distinct from letting things play out by themselves. A house is designed; a cave is carved out by water in the course of its trip to the sea.

G. - If I interpret you rightly, Michael, you are saying that 'all that is,' the multi-universe that is seen and unseen, all intricate patterns and delicate balances, all folding and unfolding of the particle kaleidoscope as it dissolves and re-creates endlessly, is nothing more than a cave being carved as it washes to the sea.

I am more inclined to the sunglasses which give me this picture:

'The particular manifestation of events in the material universe could be considered the result of the random interaction of the three constituents of the primary creation.

'However, the fact that all possibilities occur is attested to by modern science in the concept of waves of probability....

'Since all varieties of intelligence and consciousness are inevitable, the source must contain and be greater than the greatest of the possible manifestations of consciousness.

'This then brings us to the conclusion that there is fundamentally an intention, a purposefulness, in the very fact of the motion — that consciousness is inherent in the primary condition....

Excerpts from 'Tao and T'ai Chi Kung' by Robert C. Sohn.

Rod MacKinnon 
"...Since all varieties of intelligence and consciousness are inevitable, the source must contain and be greater than the greatest of the possible manifestations of consciousness...."

....While I agree that the statement is self-evident... it doesn't necessarily indicate only two generative options ("accident" and/or "intention"). Our human perspective habitually defaults to ascribing human perspectives to non-human situations....(an either/or setting.).. 

Being aware that my thinking is purely speculative, there could be other options possible... what would they look like I wonder?

Gary R. Smith

R. - '....While I agree that the statement is self-evident... it doesn't necessarily indicate only two generative options ("accident" and/or "intention"). Our human perspective habitually defaults to ascribing human perspectives to non-human situations....(an either/or setting.)'

G. - Awareness of the human habit of ascribing our limited human perspectives to non-human topics, especially those which are so mysterious and boundless as the origins and actualities of existence, expands my approach to the subject and helps prevent me from getting stuck in a narrow view which could be confused with an absolute truth.

R. - 'Being aware that my thinking is purely speculative, there could be other options possible... what would they look like I wonder?'

G. - Options other than accident or intention... the origin of life which I enjoy calling the grand designer without any tight definition, simply is. And the grand design is simply an expression of the grand designer. Now what intrigues me is, 'How intimately can I know the grand designer while still in the body?' (without deceiving myself) and 'Am I also the grand designer within?' and 'Can the seemingly unbridgeable distance between the sentient observer and the grand designer be bridged?' Honestly, the idea that there is not a grand designer is not an option for me. It is too much fun to play with other possibilities.

Rod MacKinnon 

I'm acutely aware that, when I "think" about consciousness, my internal representations are very circumscribed by the limited nature of the information, experience and technology (wetware) that I have to work with...nevertheless, I'm able to entertain the possibility of an infinite self-creating entity of innumerable levels of subtlety and creativity with the ability to imagine itself into existence just because that's what it does....maybe(?)

G. - Yes, it seems your maybe is similar to my play.

Rod MacKinnon 
Speculation... Given that every form of "consciousness" that I consistently experience in myself and identify in others, always appears to be associated with and expressed by, a physical form, a body, I'm unable to imagine a form of consciousness that isn't.....

"...How intimately can I know the grand designer while still in the body?' (without deceiving myself) and 'Am I also the grand designer within?' and 'Can the seemingly unbridgeable distance between the sentient observer and the grand designer be bridged?..."

I'm fortunate enough to spend most of my days working in gardens, actively participating in the 'natural' (as opposed to 'artificial') processes of life. Sometimes, when a bee flies close to me, I sense that we are aligned in our purposes and feel a sense of kinship...in those moments, I "know"(?)who/what I am as both the design and the designer...I feel very "real"... the situation feels authentic.... I don't experience an intellectual understanding... just a rightness and reassurance of "being ok"., being in harmony....

​It's a purely subjective experience however, as you and Michael F. commented,... "just because its in your head, why would that make it any less real"?' I truly enjoyed reading that discussion... what a steady, balanced approach Michael brings....😎

Joshua Faust
​
... from my vantage, magic: to transform our circumstance by applied means is best done through the alchemy of the self, and the holiest of magic is that of alignment with the divinity. 

Thus, what I found, it is of utmost importance to clear away the detritus within so the gift that lay within us may come forth. Synchronicity is the reflections in our manifestation, or the quantum field, which is immediately responding and intelligent. These reflection are neutral signs of the realms of consciousness we are passing through, reminders of the territory of our manifestation....

---

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