Aithrobates

Comparative mythology is a science, with decads of research. There are ways to evaluate if myths are related, from where a myth came, when, etc... The use of genetic algorithm is not in itself enough. It's just a new tool that is mainly used to verify existing hypothesis. Let's not marvel at this new tech, taken alone it's highly speculative, as you said. One should be aware of the traditional methods, like structural analysis, knowledge of history (hey! Europeans went to America, that would explain the presence of this european myth in some Native tribe !), etc... And of the fact that it is never about reconstructing a proto-myth, but of being aware of as many of its version as possible, to get and idea of what the myth is about. A myth is the sum of all it's version.

Genetic tools like neighbour joining have been used by comparative mythologists, and the results published in journals like Bulletin de la Société Mythologie Française, or Nouvelle Mythologie Comparée, for some years now. (See http://nouvellemythologiecomparee.hautetfort.com/archive/2013/01/20/julien-d-huy-polyphemus-aa-th-1137.html which is the translation of the orignal french article in BSMF). And bronze age is nothing... Some myths can be traced back to the paleolithic, even witout those fancy algorythms. Sometimes you find two versions of the same myth on both sides of the Pacific, but neither Inuits nor Aleut know it. As those people were the only two sailing the Pacific, Siberia <-> America, for millemnia, and so the only two who could have carried the myth from Siberia to the Americas (or the other way around), the only possibility is that the myth existed before Bering strait opened, and that the ancestors of the native americans took it whith them. And the strait opened 15 000 BC.

There are overlapings and different views about Sahasrara, Nirvana and Guru chakras. But basically there is a part of the Crown center that is on the cranium, and another that is above, in the void. http://kheper.net/topics/chakras/Guru.html http://swamij.com/guru-chakra.htm

For the greeks if you go to the extreme directions opposites merge. Should you go to Heaven, Tartarus, Hyperborea, extreme East or West, ect. You'll reach a paradoxical place where all cosmological layers are available. Same for the egyptians travelling through the body of the sky goddess is the same thing as travelling to the underworld. For the new year the king engaged in a ritual that united the opposites, the highests heavens and the underworld symbolised by a well, etc...

In a nutshell: Vampires, the real ones, in balkanic-central european context, would be likely candidates. There you find shamanic-like practices, the vampires, and some affinities can be showned between the two. Sometimes vampires will not only feed on human but can feed on sun and moon. Mongols have regular ghosts that are plain lost sun souls (similar to po). Spirit causing illlness are called chotgor, most some of them are suns, some not. And some illness are caused by burhan. Burhan are very powerfull and should be tamed, unlike the others that can simply be dissmissed to the underworld (from where a sun reincarnates). The origins or burhan are unclear, but what is is that they have to be tamed and transormed into a helping spirit by a powerfull shaman. That is what happens when a tibetan buddhist tame an evil spirit so that it now helps and protects the Dharma, and to me looks similar to a guixian having to be saved by another immortal. Some clues, I think, can be found in chinese folklore, chinese culture as a whole, not just daoism. Huli Jing and other Fox fellows are said to feed on humans, and sometimes sun and moon.They have that feminine quality, and that vampiric quality too. The predation can often be expressed sexually, then whe have all the folklore about sex hungry female, yin, spirits, available almost everywhere on the world. Some of them satisfied by shamans who would gain much power from that alliance (as a matter of fact spirit marriage appears to be a key point in siberian shamanism, if one take the time to read ethnographic litterature...). Most of them causing trouble to men. Think of the christianized version: succubi and incubi. Greek Empousai. I could say much about Empousai, but do no feel that I have the right to open that. Anyway this is available eveywhere in mythology and some philosophical texts. The question is: can humans be transformed into those yin beings ? Thay may or may not be a good question but: what kind of immortal Bai Mu Dan became when she tricked Lü Dong Bin ?

You're right. But but the problem is that in the "non-spiritual" practice of LD, things are often taken lightly, as an entertainement. Still dream pratices are considered a spiritual practices, and powerfull ones in many traditions, it is something powerfull, a way to contact the spirit world, and indulging too much in it without respect or precaution is tricky. LD is normal, yes. But everything that happens during any practice is normal. Human beings have this latent potential. Consiously and systematically cultivating it is another thing. As for the minimum risk of leaving the body: I noticed that some tech given to achive LD involved entering the dream by "leaving the body", and starting the dream from the room your are sleeping in. That, I think, is visualizing oneself doing that, not doing it effectively. But as you trained yourself to aim for this situation... is there not a risk that one entered an unwanted and unmastered astral travel ?

I'm sorry if I gave that impression. I'm not trying to force anything. After reading the answers to the questions I've been asking, I made my mind and was persuaded by one of the POV that were exposed. I may have choosed the wrong one, bad for me if it's the case. I'm not criticizing incorrect daoist practices while not practicing myself. That would indeed be absurd ! It happend that I got interested by the fact that different cultures talked about how some dead persons won't follow the regular course of death, join the other world, etc.. but that something considered as bad was happening. Two things seem to overlap in the available datas: 1) Regular souls that for some reason are bond to a place or a person, or unable to move on often because they are too angry. 2) Persons who attained a certain condition because of what they did in life, spiritual practices that involved spirit travel (not to say that such practices will allways cause that), alliances with bad spirits, and wicked deeds. So I asked for a Daoist perspective on that matters. That's all. I tried to formulate my understanding of thoses matters in a former post. I chosed to used a terminology that people here will be familliar with, not wanting to use the cultural neutral terms that would be more adequate as I'm basically doing comparative work here. I was hoping that, while totally uncorrect from a daoist perspective, my explaination would make the way I understood all that more or less clear. And so that people would be able to criticize and correct me. I hope everybody understood that I fancy myself a translator, not a daoist ^^, a translator of different cultural names for what I think are the same things. I'm not pretending to be a daoist, or knowledgeable in daoism, and able to tell what is good or not in that field. Not at all.

And so "virtue" does not seem a good equivalent. But, fun fact, virtue comes from the same root, vir (a man), as virus (initially it means a poison), virulent, and of course virile. It refers to something really active and potent, very Yang. The related sanskrit term "viras", means a virile hero, specifically someone who became a Siddha, who has attained immortality by practicing internal alchemy. In greek it's related to "ios", like in the iosis (rubedo) the fourth and final stage of the alchemical process.

Thanks for all the answers guys. I'm happy to be sure that ghost immortals are not regular ghosts. That it's still ok to offer veneration to the beloved ancestors, like they do everywhere around the world. I hope your're right, opendao, when you say that today most are not good enough to practice effectively and to reach ghost immortality. Well, it's Kali Yuga / Iron Age / pick your favourite cultural name, we are supposed to be less and less good at spirituality, and as the teaching are endangered to have less and less access to the real stuff. So it makes sense. I'm worried about people practicing astral projection. But I think I'm even more worried about people practicing lucid dreaming as a hobby with no spiritual intention at all, like it's a purely neurological technology, a fun passtime. There are so many sites and books and forum about it... Well maybe they are just playing with karmic traces, but the risk of leaving the body, while perhaps minimum, is still there...

I've been pondering this (I mean intuition and confirming my conclusions with divination) and I think I have something like and hypothesis. I'll try to put this into "shamanic" terms. Yin travel is basically moving consciously with your Po soul. Your Po will in any case do its own buissness, travel by itself, and go back, bringing strange memories that we call dreams. It is possible to make yourself aware of your Po acitivity. To put your intention in there, intention is the Yi soul. During regular sleep and dreams Yi is bascially "off". That's why it is so soothing to go to bed and have a good night sleep. Because Yi is Soil and is Worrying. While you loose consiousness in sleep you do not worry, about any of your mundane problems. ^^ Now if you activate your Yi and use it to follow the Po activity, to put your intention, attention, counsciousness there. Dreams can become lucid, spirit travels can be done. This is indeed a technology, it creates and imbalance that will have to be taken care off. Here you play with Soil and Metal. Spleen and Lung. The Yin Soil of Kun (not the Yang Soil of Gen) and the Yin Metal-giving-birth-to-Water of Dui (not the Yang Metal of Qian). So it is indeed very Yin. You'll have to balance that with Yang, and with the other Elements. Now what happens if this state become a permanent post-mortem condition ? Hun, Po, Yi, Zhi, Shen souls would not go part ways like in a regular death, to continue their existence, and eventually, for some of them, recompose a new being with others Hun, Po, Yi, Zhi, Shen, call it "reincarnation". Instead like in a never ending spirit travel Po and Yi will be joined together. And those two won't reincarnate, they are out of Samasara. That is - I think - what a Guixian is. They are only Yin Metal and Yin Soil, Lung and Spleen, Grief and Worrying. That's why it is a miserable condition. How can you continue your cultivation in that condition ? How can you work with your emotions when three of them are lacking. How can yout work on your body when you do not have one anymore, and only Lung and Spleen energies ? I think this analysis could be refined using Celestian Stems and Earthly Branches. But I'm not very good at them so ... Anyway, my two cents.

In any tradition I've read about spirit travel is considered quite a tricky thing, and you need someone to guide and protect you to do this. Shamans have alliances with helper spirits, and human assistants (there are two Ren in the Wu character, right ?). Tibetan dream yoga needs Guru Yoga and asking for protection from the Dakini, etc...

My understanding, and my concern, in those matters is that (and I may be totally wrong is that, I don't really know, that's why I ask questions) ghost immortals seem to be persons that have the trick to make the state you are into when out and about, out-of-body shamanic travels, a post mortem condition. And with all the new age fun about astral projections and lucid dreaming, I wonder how many people are cultivating that without knowing it... Edit: And so the link to that other thread about spirit traval that I notice just now, because I was writing my posts when it arrived, is just in line with my interrogations. Thanks.

Tibetan traditions have a lot of stuff about evil spirit being saved by being explained the Dharma, and becoming proctectors of a teaching or lineage. It looks like the Buddhist version of a shaman taming a wild spirit, but it also IMO fits the save a guixin thing we're discussing here. Apparently there's a passage in the Wu Zhen Pian, that I read quoted in a book (I only have the text for the Regulated Verses). It states that "Those who comprehend essence and project yin soul are ghost imortals. [...] can enter and exit as will, still since their abode is not permanent they still have the affliction of abandonning a body and entering another. [...] one (earthly immoral) falls into having death, the other (ghost immortal) into having birth." Half-educated guess but: I don't think it refers to reincarnation, as the guixian enters and leave bodies, and still seems to be the same guixian so it's not like it became a human or a cow. It looks likes it refers to possession. The ghost immortal not having a body of it's own is doomed to possess living human beings in order to to borrow one. So this "birth" is the taking of a body, here opposed to the death of the earthly immortals, to express the fact that none of them have a spirit body to carry on.

Ok. So if I've followed you correcly: the central yang line of Kan is Qi we refine out of Jing (that is Kan) and that we coagulate with the Shen (that is Li) in order to "repair" it and obtain Qian. Is that so ?

Yep. There's allways the problem that it's not a free technology. Nobody can implement "a" FB on it's own server, and interconnect it with other nodes. FB does not work like that, it all belong to one, and only one corporation... while it became a major mean of communication, at global scale. It's like if there was only one phone company for the whole planet... (Same thing can be said for twitter, etc...) For microblogging an equivalent, and freely implementable, tech exists: https://gnu.io/social/

After all it's just a tool. I'm sure it is possible to use it in a constructive way. But most of the people I know abuse it.

I remember randomly going to a bar where most of my friends were going by the time. I sit a a table with say 6-8 people. I hear the conversations and I understand that 1) they actually were chating on FB and decided to join IRL from there and that 2) now that they meet in the meat everything that they talked about is what "happended" on FB today o_O . It was kind of scary, like you never really disconnect...

Never had had a Facebook account, so can't tell the difference. But it seems annoying and time consuming. It's strange how, afters years, people keep puting pressure on me for opening one, like if it was so fucking abnormal not to "be" "there". (Well people also want me to cut my hair, find a real job, get laid more often even with women I don't really care for; and think that tea is a bitter shitty powder in a little bag, so... o_O)

Reality, obviously, is the same for all ages and all cultures. So of course all traditions are related, and ultimately speak about the same thing. It's just a matter of tricks and ruses, of how to persuade the mind of men and women, in a particular age and culture, using specific devices. But the Reality the traditions are trying to seduce us into experiencing is the same. The one and only. The real problem is to know what are the practical applications of this oneness. I think that it gives us the opportunity to repair what's left of western wisdom with things that are long forgotten here, but still alive there. But to do that, you must first get to know what this western tradition is about. Because we have every reason to flee from this joke of a civilisation and to turn our hearts towards the East, shamanic traditions of the Americas, whatever, etc... in order to find a living spirituality. But in doing so we are like travellers bringing back seeds that can not be grown in the local climate of their homeland. We must grow the local plant in the local soil, and then graft the missing branches from other traditions. Otherwise we will always be in a spiritual exile, and unable to use our spirituality to do something about our western situation. There are remains of some teaching, in greek. If you start reading them, you'll read them all your life. You'll end up ten years later, with some good book about Bön or Daoism, Sufism our Mongolian shamanism, ... reading a very good passage. And you'll sudently see that you knew this already, it was in the greek fragments, but you missed it, lacking the context, the explanation of how it was relevant. And thanks to this investigation of another tradition you'll finally get a teaching from the Greek one. As for the Celtic, Germanic, etc.. traditions: they are as exotic to the modern West as the Chinese or Indian ones are. Because it is the Greek philosophy that evolved into the logic, science, technology, that shaped our world; not them. So what has been said earlier applies to them too.

I've been intrigued by it for some times now. Mostly because I hoped it is some kind of cousin of the old greek incubation, indeed it looks a lot like it. What I don't understand is if it is really a modern version of an ancient practice, whatever the old name was. And so what are the old sources ? After reading quite a lot this site: http://www.swamij.com/ I bought myself a copy of the Mandukya Upanisad and constated that my sanskrit was not so bad I remember Peter Kingsley saying somewhere that there are references to something akin to incubation in the Mahabharata, but I'm not sure... And I read the Wiki page on yoga nidra which says the same thing. Of course I could buy the book of Satyananda Saraswati, and probably will one day, but asking here is cheaper ^^

Incubation, tibetan yoga of dream and sleep, yoga nidra, some forms of sufi dikr, etc... are - I think - just different cultural versions of the same practice.

It's mostly what you describe. It's a non-practice, you don't do anything special. You just lie down and let the dream/sleep process follow its natural course. Only you keep your awareness. The important point is that it is considered a travel to the world of the dead. You lie down like if you were a corpse. I think in tibetan lore you have something similar, dream and sleep states being related to specific bardos.

Woman: Something "Woman-man". http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=woman Note that we have too "queen" that in other languages is simply means "woman". From that we got everyone's favorite greek "gune" that we have in all our gyn- words (gynecology, etc...) http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=queen&allowed_in_frame=0 Man: Ok, I agree. Human: It's a latin etymology. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=human Did I mention that I like this Etymonline site ? ^^

It looks a lot to my experience. While what I said earlier (going throught dreams to enter consciouss deep sleep) correspond to longer sessions. I practice too "yogic naps" - I you will - that fit your description.

Well, knowledge of how it works or not, tea basically saves my day, every day. I have a so called MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity), I'm hypersensitive to all kind of chemical products. I need my tonic herbs to be more or less functionnal. Without puerh, I'm basically a zombie