Eques Peregrinus

Client-side, your browser will keep about 200 bytes to store the cookies. So it is really negligible. Server-side, the framework used to run the forum needs to track the active sessions, so it will have more work to do. I suppose that the statistics on the active users are also going to be wrong. If so, it might be possible to find accurately the moment where this problem began by checking if there is a sudden increase of active (registered) users.

Short solution: Delete the cookies in your broswer to log out. Longer analysis: I guessed it was bug in the session handling on the server side, so I made a few tests: It seems that pressing the "Thank you" button or posting prohibit us from logging out. Simply reading posts does not trigger that mechanism. If we delete the cookies (thus ending the session browser-side) after posting or pressing the "Thank you" button, we are of course logged out (browser-side). But if we log in afterward we can no longer log out of the new session even if we touch nothing during this new session. I wrote this post after pressing the "Sign Out" button. The following observations were made: The site registers 5 cookies at login: session_id (128 bits integer) coppa which (integer) ipsconnect_[number] (integer) pass_hash (128 bits integer) member_id (integer) By doind certain actions or under certain conditions, new cookiees are registered. modtids (string) mqtids (string) rteStatus (string) In a normal situation, member_id is set to 0 when logging out and some cookies are deleted. None of their values change at the log out when the bug occures. Removing the session_id and member_id cookies permit us to log out.

According to Google Translate: "大道至简 道法自然" = "Avenue to Jane Road natural law" "松静自然，无为无我，动静阴阳，自然演化。" = "Song Jing natural, inaction without me, dynamic yin and yang, natural evolution." "实修 is important!" = "Practical repair is important!"

[random philosophical rambling=on] If we assume time exists as an abstract quantity before being "materialised" as a duration as we generally perceive it. And that there is an intellect which exists in the same level of abstraction which "materialise" as reason. Then determinism and free will can coexist, all free-willed decisions being taken by the intellect "outside" of the time which pass. The decisions being taken by reason "inside" of the time which pass, however being determined, therefore not part of free will. A corollary of this hypothesis is that intellect, being unbounded by time, has no beginning nor any ends, it is therefore eternal. [random philosophical rambling=off]

An other IT guy! \o/

Using erotic performances is not new in contemporary art. Without particularly searching this subject, I remember of an artist selling paintings made with her whole naked body in the 60s or 70s. A more recent example performance is a woman who was dropping eggs filled with paint from her vagina, while standing naked on two ladders. (I even found her with a fast Google search \o/: http://www.artfido.com/blog/plopegg-vagina-egg-paintings-by-artist-milo-moire-nsfw/ [NSFW]) Now, there are artists who are genuinely inspired by mystical themes. Of course, their art would not be interpreted as such in general. Considering the "power hungry and corrupt" guys, I suppose you mean stuff like the "Bohemian Club", that is: occult more in the sense of "involving secret societies" rather than "mystically oriented".

In the catholic doctrine, and, I suppose, also in most esoteric orders, there exist the concept of "ex opere operato" — the result is produced by the operation. For example, if a sacrament is made by a priest as indicated in the missal, then, according to the catholic doctrine, the sacrament will be valid, the "ability" of the priest being irrelevant to this operation. This last point bothers me. I only see a few reasons why an unskilled priest (or magician in case of a loge) would suddenly be able to do the same work as a skilled one. One of them would be that the sacrament itself is a kind of spirit's "contact form" (in the catholic doctrine to God itself) which does the work for the priest. An other would be that the sacrament is a kind of recipe which permit anyone following it to achieve a similar result. However, I also find many reasons for "ex opere operato" to be a superstition. If you excuse me this sophism, there is an very good motivation to invent it. In the case of an organised religion, without that concept, there would be no guarantee that a priest could perform all sacraments (and even with the guarantee that a priest could perform them, nobody would be sure that he is not slacking on his job). A better reason to doubt this concept is that certain sacrament were changed through time. For example in the case of the baptism, it was first performed on adult people which were naked and completely immersed. Later the baptism was mostly performed on babies, with the complete immersion replaced by a sprinkling of water on the head. An other reason is the intangibility of the result of most sacrament, which is therefore impossible to verify (which led some people to doubt the sacraments themselves, but this is not the topic). On this last point, in case of magic, from which we can expect tangible results, there exists a very large number of spells and rituals to gain money, to get sex, to curse, to find buried treasures, etc... Of course, they were created as an answer to a demand, and some people cast spell after spell, and perform rituals after ritual without success. Therefore, I tend to view the "ex opere operato" with a certain amount of skepticism, even if I can entertain the idea that there might exists certain rituals which are effective in themselves. What is the opinion of other bums in this matter?

True, natural and astrological magic works by the operation. But, concerning the sacraments, at least in the case of the mass, there are no astrological considerations and only tidbits of natural magic, like the use of frankincense. There is some sacred geometry incorporated into the architecture of churches (at least the traditional ones) and some sacred music, but they are not mandatory for the rites. This is why it surprises me that they are meant to work "ex opere operato". The term "egregor" is a translation from the French "égrégore" which was invented by Victor Hugo, the greatest french poet (unfortunately), for his master work "La Légende des Siècles". This term itself seems to come from the greek "grigori", which means "watcher" or "guardian", and seems to have been used to speak of the spiritual beings we call today angels. Now, the question is why did some guys in the 19th century decided to use this term to describe a kind of group mind entity?

These paragraphs made me think about the golden calf story in the bible, precisely the moment where Moses destroys the tablets after seeing the people misbehaving. I looked it up, in the Exodus and realised that I did not knew the story well (this well known film is to be blamed for that). Moses does not simply sit on top of the mountain for 40 days then went down with the tablets with 10 commandments. I emit the hypothesis that at least 3 versions of Moses ascension to the Sinai were compiled and more or less stitched together. In Exodus 21 to 23, Moses has to wait for 3 days before ascending the Sinai, the 10 commandments are given, then the description of a altar, then a list of laws are given (concerning servants, social responsibility, etc...). Note that there is no mention of tablets in these chapters. In Exodus 24 to 33, Moses has to wait for 7 days before ascending the Sinai, then he spend 40 days on the top. The chapters 25 to 31 describe the material and consecrations needed for the rituals, then in the last verse, the tablets are given. In this version the people waiting for Moses on the top of the Sinai build a golden calf and when Moses came down the mountain and saw the people dancing with the calf, he broke the tablets. Their content was therefore never disclosed. In Exodus 34 to 40, Moses ascend the Sinai in a morning with tablets he made himself, at the top of the mountain, he got dictated a set of commandments (different than the first set of 10) and the chapters 35 to 40 describe the ritual stuff, much of the material was already described in chapters 25 to 31. Note also this version is (rather crudely) stitched to the previous one: At the beginning of the chapter 34, it is claimed that new tablets are to be made, then Moses is instructed to build them and to go up the Mount Sinai. However, the large similarity between chapters 25 to 31 and the 34 to 40 let me think they originally were separate versions, in the same manner there are two versions of the creation of the world. If we restrict ourselves to the chapters 24 to 33, then claiming that the tablets are containing the missing parts to make the rituals effective fit nicely. I am now wondering: If we take a sacrament/ritual as a recipe (or as a color book), with some parts missing (which prevent its successful realisation), am I correct in thinking that these missing part were communicated verbally, or learned through an initiation, and therefore not present in texts? I have read here and there about untrained people dabbling with occult stuff like Simon's Necronomicon and being frightened by nightmares or physical manifestations like knocks or objects moving, but it is still possible that they are making up stories. Concerning trained people, Josephine McCarthy wrote recently that her work with the Arbatel caused her problems. It seems that the structure of this grimoire contains unequilibrated elements which she missed in previous readings.

Reading the saints is a nice idea, I am going to look at this link. Note also, that I am not particularly against the Catholic Church. Many parts of their dogma make sense, either in general, either if we undestand it from a restricted viewpoint of a clergyman living in the middle-age. Sometimes, even when the doctrine is about control. For example concerning exorcism: The Church consider than any baptised person can perform a valid exorcism, however, the exorcism is considered legal only if it is performed by a priest. Which make sense, since we not want to mess up this operation. Then of course, there are the Inquisition and witch burning stuff, which the Church inherited from the roman laws, abolished, then re-established. This is precisely what is bothering me. These statistics are far too low to consider that the operation itself is producing the result. It seems they work "ex opere operantis" — the result is produced by the operator.

What is that "Demon Lover" story?

I was not quite right! Now for something completely different. It surprises me that this thread did not go more in-depth in astrological magic, like Agrippa's planetary talismans.

I think that I understand the circle, but I am not sure about the octagon. Tell me whether I got it correctly. The circle represents the divinity, the "Source of all", the "One", "All that was, is, and will be", etc... Which is beyond all understandings. The octagon represents the whole World, the manifestation of the divinity. More specifically its emanations as the 8 trigrams which rules the formation of the World. Which, in a western context, is represented as a cross for the 4 winds, the 4 rivers, or the alchemical transmutations in the scale of 4. Am I correct?

The Qabala is a cosmological system, the I Ching is an other one, the Egyptians used an other one, so did the Greeks, so did the Sumerians, and plenty others. It is not surprising that there exists some similarities and differences between these systems. If we compare "mapping the cosmos" to "cutting a wheel of cheese", finding a similarity between two systems would be equivalent to finding a similarity between the wedges in two different cuttings. Actually, I am making a mistake by speaking of Qabala with the singular form (I just wrote "The Qabala"), even if we restrict ourselves to the traditional Jewish Qabala. There are many different systems build during the antiquity, the middle age and the renaissance, by putting together different philosophical elements that their authors felt interesting to add. Note also that "ideological impurity" does not necessarily makes a bad cosmological view. Neither does it necessarily makes a good one. I do not know any system which was not roughly mangled by someone at a moment or an other, neither do I believe there exists one (If anybody know such a system, feel free to tell, I am always curious). The Jewish Encyclopedia has an article on Cabala. It is long, I would be lying if I said I read it completely, but it is interesting. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3878-cabala

There are mysteries, arcanes, etc... all these terms are synonymous for secrets. The difference between their usages comes from their contexts. "Mystery" is generally used in a religious or mythological context, while "secret" is more often used in hermeticism, and "arcane" in the tarot or in certain paracelsian texts. The intellectual knowledge is what can be discussed, and the experimental knowledge is the secret, because it can not be shared. (I suppose this is what Zhuangzi means when he wrote about that wheelwright telling a nobleman that his readings made by ancient philosophers were dead guys' shit.)

Well, if nothing was occulted, the guys who seeks that stuff would not be called occultists.

You might be already aware of this study, I post it just in case. http://iands.org/resources/media-resources/front-page-news/1060-aware-study-initial-results-are-published.html

The term "spoon feeding" is used, because speaking of "breastfeeding someone" as a male could leave a weird aftertaste. PS: This book is great. It was available online for a while on the author website, but she had to remove it when it was published on paperback.

Rain...

I use Chromium, mostly for the javascript execution performance. Everything seems to works correctly.

These US elections seems like a bad TV debate where the participants throw constantly ad hominem at each other. In your opinion, who is Scylla and who is Charybdis?

Generally, when it is claimed that gods fight, it is actually their clergy. That is why atomic weapons are kept by politicians instead of religious authorities.

Well, that's a lot of studies! (And a lot of travels too!)

Yes, you are correct. Agrippa is definitely a great resource. His examples are a bit dated, which make them confusing when I began reading the Three books. Tyson's commentaries added to this confusion. Finally, when I began to just take them as examples to illustrate the actions of virtues in a neo-platonic world view, it became clearer. By the way, E. Purdue is going to publish his translation of the Three Books, in 2017. This is golden! Yes!