Birch

Excellent film. Really good find.

Yes, I'd seen a documentary about Crowley that mentioned this event. Thanks for that post TaoMeow, many things to ponder in there. Far too many.

"..the things that my heart seems to want are what almost all spiritual traditions I've read about warn against." Good place to start :-) I like to look at why the spiritual traditions say what they do and then decide whether it's something that I ought to do, would like to do, that sort of thing. Just one reason to do so is that some traditions might be wholly conditional on local environment, culture, population, political power ( ) food sources and trying to extract the why's and wherefores out of them to apply to yourself in an entirely different set of conditions could have unintended consequences. It's the difference between throwing down an anchor in a calm lake and a raging torrent, one of them will rip your boat apart in seconds

That's quite a few ideas about time Phore. Calendar creation IMO is less about actual time than binding time. Other time-binding happens with the establishment of time-zones. The classic example is China, with just one for the entire country, or how about DST? The railroads required standard time to run. Why does a Monday come loaded with emotions for many? It's possible that the various cultures had a uniform understanding of the "same" universe but chose different ways of explaining it for other reasons. My thoughts are that if you're going to time-bind, make it so flexible and with as much reference to actual verifiable events and phenomenae as to be considered as "natural" as possible. I realise that sounds negative, but it needn't be:-)

Thanks to the two cats (TaoMeow and Cat Pillar) for their understanding of black magicians. I'm a bit influenced these days by this Huna stuff (I'm still an influenceable idiot but at least I'm choosing stuff i like:-)) There was a good article in there about power vs control. I think the distinction made was a good one. TaoMeow, are you saying that even power is an issue in and of itself? I liked Witche's remarks on Yin money and SB's article on giving money up. I'm thinking to myself "damn, better learn how to do something useful quick!"

I think so Mr MH:-) What it was exactly and it's consequences, hum, can't share but I do believe I reached a turning point in path/practice. It's as if i had been horsing around on the wrong one (path) for far too long. For the world, many significant things. Just don't expect them all to be reported:-)

"host dinners where he would do a "toast to the idiots" where everyone around the table would have to toast to whatever type of idiot they got classified in," That's just called having a good time IMO :-) I found the Gurdjieff mentioned in the only book I read about him 'Meetings with...' highly intelligent, pretty arrogant and somewhat lacking in heart. But that's my very personal reading. He also had a bit of thing for drinking. That's in the book. Alain Watts was another alcoholic womanizer. I liked him. He was a brilliant guy, funny with it. What's with the buddhists and drinking ;-)? This ego-business isn't sitting so well with me these days. I have insulted myself with my attempts to rid myself of it a bit too much. I'm such a heavily-influenceable idiot that I bought mindfulness practice and ego-destruction hook-line-and-sinker.

I guess I just don't get it. Why oh why would anyone want to be a black magician?? What do they get promised, or what do they promise themselves? I guess we're not talking about ignorant lost people who fell into the black magic stew under false promises of a better life, or an eternal one for that matter? IMO one would have to be seriously removed from their own consciousness to consider it.

Thanks for all of the links SB! Putting it on my list to plow through :-)

Yeah. I'll PM you later. I'm watching a movie:-) Been a heavy few decades;-)

Meh, I'd be careful with that one :-) I wonder how much fun the crazy teachers actually have and how the society frames them to keep on doing what it was doing in the first place. Is this the right point to suggest that society is a distinct entity from people Probably not, but I'll put it in there. And no, I don't care how 'crrrraaazy' you are in your so-called wisdom. If you have to resort to mistreating people to get an enlightenment message across, nope, not buying it Do people still sign up for that shit? Guess they do :-)

Do the Vedas really mention lawns??? If so then all bets are off. Still, I feel scared talking about Vishnu in this manner. I think that's weird in itself. Ah, how a little indoctrination goes a long way!

Oh Man. 10 hours a day in front of a screen??? Right there. I know I'm driving slightly OT but i'd look into ways to counter this (aside from the fact that any work safety folks worth their salt should have you off the screen every x number of houes and limit total time in front of it, make sure your work-station is correctly designed etc) The "right livelihood" thing is a good one to discuss but i do believe it involves following your heart. Here's where I'm not in agreement with the "mind only" approaches. The issues are IMO both in your environment and internal. Can't fight fire with fire. Can control fire with earth. Can balance 5E. Edited to add this really neat link: http://www.huna.org/html/execfunction.html

Hehe. I know. Felt a lot better too:-) Funnily enough, now I'm scared what'll happen with people who are used to the nicer version. Scared!

Today I decided I didn't want to be 'nice' anymore. That seemed to help It was very very subtle Don't think anyone noticed.

Er, Seth, aren't the Yugas more descriptive metaphors of stages of a person's awakening? Like an actual person could do this, go through all the Yugas and get to the end where he/she realises Vishu is, um everywhere and he/she is also actually Vishu? Y'know, that old stuff. Which is why IMO Clarity winked. Hi Clarity

Well, you don't have to wait as such. My 2 cts, making a decision to take action counts almost as much as taking action. Actually, making a decision is taking action:-) Do you know what makes it worse? I know I feel like shit when: - I'm worried about finances (and the robber baron a44holes aren't) - I fear relationship issues (and it's just that 'not fair' thing) - I get concerned about my health (yeah, not so cool effect of heightened awareness, it means I feel every tiny thing, plus I get some kind of bizarre wandering pain when I meditate) This week I just felt awful. So I decided to look a bit deeper at all of the above. Do some stuff in each of those areas. I also got a hold of a salt bath. That seems to have helped before. This one has orange peel in it Anyway, what I mean is 'hang in there' Sorry to blab about what I'm doing. What works for you?

Here's another one

Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if the TTB's are half as into economics/politics/policy/history/science/ecology and all that as they are into enlightenment practices. But maybe they are and this forum is no reflection of what they do the rest of the time :-)

So who are the contemporary Western shaman working for?

Journalistic 'objectivity' lasted a few decades only. It was brought into being so as not to offend (too much) the advertisers who funded them. Given the multiplicity of media outlets and organs, catering to the needs and prejudices of lots of different people just becomes a smarter marketing move. If you're complaining about Faux News, it just means you aren't its target audience :-) Go and watch something else. And oh shock the horrors that opposite sides of any debate would deliberately frame events to their benefit. This 'objectivity' business ought to be valid for all sides. If it ain't, well, there's a thing...that we get to discuss quite frequently on TTB's. ----personal opinion alert---- Wallstreet is a gambling shop with too much influence on actual economic activity. Y'know, the 'real' value created by goods and services, not just hauling ca%h with ca%h. No reason why WST shouldn't be allowed to go on gambling, just un-index their over-influence from tangibles and don't have CEO's salaries tied into share-price-performance. Simple -----personal opinion alert----

No, it's that "every generation needs it's revolution" stuff. I think we have our revolutions. Do i need to post links to all of them? They're not all described in the same way. So are all of them revolutions? The stuff in the UK for example was often reported as just a bunch of thugs with no agenda. The ladz lootin. And where were the parents who hadn't done a proper job of raising em? But when similar goings on are found in China, suddenly it has political clout. Does the press realise that the internet makes their reporting look a bit inconsistent? I think that what we do once each revolution is over is just as important. Protests in the street with the authorities looking on won't acheive a huge amount IMO but I'd be very happy to be wrong. And i reiterate that it would be a shame if crowd action provides any so-called "justification" for any constitutional backsliding. Which it shouldn't. Know your rights:-)

When i were a kid all we hazd were third-hand shoes and fish on Fridays because the good pastor told us to. Yes I think it's a bit ironic to complain that the successes won by those who endured "real" brutality are still in effect. But that's just my overly-coddled, thankless, never worked a decent day in her life POV. If we let it backslide, we'd have all those protesters in a camp in a jiffy. Isn't this democracy-thing written down somewhere? Can't we burn it and revert to the good old days? I propose serfdom as a new paradigm.

I reckon it takes as many different viewpoints as possible in order to acheive love unity and one-ness realisation. If you begin from a transcendant view of love and oneness but can't apply it across the wide variety of situations IMO this is leaving something out so it ain't love unity nor oneness you're after but your version of it. Which might be very nice, up until you decide what is and is not love-unity and oneness. At that point it probably gets not so nice:-)