Zhongyongdaoist

I pointed out earlier atheism with strong “religious” aspects: Of course this implied “Godless Communism”, the “bogeyman” of my childhood. Examples of which were provided by: This restores the links: If you are referring to the idea of “Islamic” terrorists, how about this for atheist/anachist terrorists: One well known example of Anarchist Terrorism and also the inspiration for these particular attacks: Luigi Galleani and the "propaganda of the deed" These militant atheists were content with bombs and guns for terror and assassination and when related groups took power, settled on firing squads, rather than beheading. One possible example among many. Of course these poor deluded folks are not examples of the real, true atheists/anarchists: Well, you folks have submitted good arguments to what I said but I will still stand by it none-the-less. to whom Marblehead is referring. Oh, postscript regarding Hitler as a Christan:

These suggestive “parallels”, as interesting as they are, fall short of a proof. What would be required of a proof would be an exact mathematization of the concept of the Akasha Tattwa and a demonstration that this mathematical model was related to quantum mechanics in general and the higgs boson in particular. I myself model akasha as four dimensional substance, but I have not worked that out to any great precision, it is more of a conceptual investigation. What can be inferred from Quantum Physics relative to materialism is a reductio ad absurdum disproof of both mechanism and atomism as conceived of by science from the time that it was “grandfathered” in to the “Scientific Revolution” at the end of the the Seventeenth Century to 1900. This model was derived from the revival of Epicureanism circa 1600 by the efforts of Pierre Gassendi, and which, for reasons that have more to do with the religious controversies of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries than with any newly awakened spirit of "objective" investigation, became an unexamined and later unquestionable proposition at the base of the “Scientific Revolution”. It was never directly subjected to scientific scrutiny itself, but rather simply assumed to be the truth. Quantum Physics is its formal and experimental refutation. I don't think formal causes would be like karma as I understand it, formal causes are one of Aristotle's four causes, a set of ideas that have been very useful to me in my studies, you can read a fair introduction to them on Wikipedia here: Aristotle's doctrine of the Four Causes Also related to formal causes and very useful is Aristotle's doctrine of Potentiality and Actuality, again Wikipedia is satisfactory: Aristotle's doctrine of Potentiality and Acuality and of course Hylomorphism: Aristotle's doctrine of form and “matter” These are some of the useful ideas that Aristotle has, but I don't think that it is very useful to get too caught up in him. What is important is how these ideas were integrated into a Platonic framework by the Middle Platonists, finally reaching a well formed synthesis in the work of Plotinus and further developed by his successors. F. Max Muller wrote from a generally Protestant and specifically Lutheran perspective. This is a man who left the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches out of his "history" of Christianity. He is hardly a representative of an “occidental establishment of traditional scholars”, much less an “ancient” one. Regrettably, since he was one of the founders of modern Sanskrit and Indian studies, his eccentric point of view colored subsequent inquiry longer than it should have.

Certainly not because of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26YLehuMydo or wait a moment maybe it is because of that. Erwin Schroedinger became deeply involved in Indian thought in his later life and wrote: My View of the World I enjoyed Werner Heisenberg's: Physics and Philosophy more. Heisenberg had an excellent grasp of the history of Philosophy and Science.

Yes, very nice iain, what it has to do with akasha is another thing entirely, but that there is some relation to traditional concepts is certainly a possible extrapolation, and I would like to point out another traditional concept for which there is ample, what we might call meta-evidence, and that is the concept of "Formal Cause", a concept put forward by Aristotle, but strongly related to Plato's "Doctrine of Ideas". In his essay "Concepts of Cause in the Development of Physics", which can be found in a collection of his essays The Essential Tension, starting on page 21, Thomas Kuhn argues that while the notion of "formal causes" was explicitly rejected by the nascent "Scientific Revolution" in the Seventeenth Century, it has consistently worked its way back into physics in the progressive mathematization of physics since 1700. The interesting thing is that this reintroduction of formal causes as mathematics actually moves the concept more in the direction of Plato than Aristotle would have liked. I looked seriously at the implications of the double split experiment back circa 1980 and it was one of my reasons for adopting Platonism as my general working model of the world. I also made a conjecture at that time that information theory (in a sense an instantiation of Plato's "ideas") would allow the unification of physics which would solve the particle/wave problem. Physics has certainly opened up in that direction, but it has a ways to go.

Hating to burst this bubble of admiration, but this "grand perception" was based on "knowledge passed on for thousands of years", Coleridge and the whole early Nineteenth Century development of Romanticist poetics was strongly influenced by thousands of years of knowledge based on in the Platonic tradition, in most cases largely through the work of Thomas Taylor, whose indefatigable literary work in translation and his own writings was responsible for the Nineteenth Century revival of Platonism: Coleridge also read Taylor, but he could also read the Platonists in the original Greek. The matter is of course too complex to go into here in any detail.

I came across this book while doing some searching: Becoming a god in the Christian Tradition on Barnes & Noble Here is the publishers overview: Here is the Table of Contents: I haven't read the book, but nothing about it is surprising to me, except perhaps how important it was to Greek orthodoxy, because of course in order to understand Agrippa's Occult Philosophy and also the historical development of Western thought, I did a lot of study of the history and development of Christianity and had come across these ideas already, if not summarized in such a net and handy form. I am putting this here as a final exclamation point to my consideration of the Christian background to Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy. It is addressed to those who imagine that they know what Christianity is all about and make blanket statements about Christianity and "the Christians", as if they all slept under the same blanket, far from being true, many don't even sleep in same bed, much less the same bedroom. For those interested in a closer look it can be read online here: The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition on Librarum I will emphasize again that all I have posted about Christianity in this thread is for historical context, which is important, since context determines meaning, I have no interest in the practice of Christianity or even Christian magic, except historical, nor would I recommend it, but as I said at the beginning, if you really want to understand Agrippa you have to understand Christianity as Agrippa perceived it circa 1500, not the popular versions, whether positive or negative, bandied about today.

Sounds like Plotinus to me.

As long as you're going to mention Max Planck and argue about quotes from a pop music star, you may as well argue about quotes from Max Planck. Here are some: All from Wikiquote It was Planck's constant that launched Quantum Mechanics.

Yes, the Martial deities tend to like their wine. I could only speculate and don't have much time now, but it may be more complex than it seems. The remote ancestor of later gangsters are the secret societies that arose after the establishment of the Qing dynasty, a foreign dynasty that treated native Chinese in a way that, shall we say, naturally aroused great resentment, in order to restore the native Ming dynasty, in other words for patriotic reasons, and were naturally forced to do so outside of the system. So the left or right handedness may have had a more noble origin then its current associations with Gangsterism might suggest and the statue could very well be a copy of an older one which predates these more modern usages. Also the inclusion of the seal box also has a strong link link to the Confucian traditions, which particularly emphasized his role as the Scholar Warrior.

I'm sorry if my dangling pronoun's were confusing. It is definitely not Zhenwu, but Guanyu, but still a lucky purchase.

You might want to get yourself a copy of: Between Heaven and Earth and do the self evaluation. Your problems sound like heat in the Liver/Gallbladder rising. It may be made worse by Yin deficiency. Liver/gallbladder heat is fairly common. There are herbal formulae that you can use or adding some to your food may be useful. The book has a nifty introduction to Chinese health food cooking.

Well, regarding the relationships between the Planetary days and hours I figured them out from the table of planetary days in hours in my copy of The Greater Key of Solomon, when I about thirteen. I had to wait until I read Israel Regardie's The Golden Dawn, around the time I turned twenty before I realized it was also one of the septagrams that could be drawn in a septagon. I was a very strange boy and prone to the study and practice of forbidden arts. I am glad that you are enjoying McClain.

Every one should read Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the is the source of the notion of "paradigm" and what we have here are differing and in many was incommensurable paradigms. This is what BaquaKicksAss is trying to bring out. Newtonian Dynamics and Special and General Relativity seem to use many of the same terms, such as force velocity, gravity etc., but the meaning of these terms has so changed that they are using the same words to describe different things. The difficulty which the notion of "energy work" with a "center", is that it completely leaves out the dynamics of the Dao. The meditater is not using energy to open a center, he is using awareness to connect to shen and then shen sets the Dao in motion to do its own work.

The statement is not ignorant it is a speculation, as beginning it with "I suspect" should indicate, nor it ignorant it is the result of some thinking that I did in the mid 1980s reflecting on the teachings of Mantaka Chia and also some early works of Jerry Alan Johnson that I had, and how they related to those of Taoist Yoga which I read in the early 1970s and Saso's Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal, which I read about 1976, and my own readings in the emerging literature of Chinese martial arts in the 70s, a literature that constantly emphasized the lower dan. Both Taoist Yoga and Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal emphasized the Kidney's and their relationship to the lower dan, well before reliable works on TCM appeared in English in the late 1980s and early 90s. I bought Giovanni Maciocia's Foundations of Chinese Medicine circa 1993, as well as a large number of other books dealing with acupuncture, herbalism, etc., so that my formal study of TCM is only about two decades. I said this because both the Daoist Ritual tradition and the meditation tradition emphasize different training methods and goals then the Martial arts traditions. In particular Taoist Yoga, emphasizes the importance of shen. This thread is about the importance of Shen for preserving jing and that is a part of the Chinese meditation tradition represented by Taoist Yoga and which has its roots in the Neiye. Daoist Ritual is another matter. In it the lower dan is the dwelling place of the Dao De Heavenly Worthy, who draws his nourishment from both lungs and Kidneys and unifies refined essences of these two organs into jing. You'll note that I said: I continued to practice yoga and other did other disciples throughout my teens, this was in relation to claims of "energy work" in general. So, I'm sorry, my direct acquaintance with and early experiences with the Chinese esoteric anatomy which is the basis of TCM is only about four decades and my direct study of TCM only about two.

I said the I said "the proper beginning philosophical position", Babies start out ignorant, philosophers start out perplexed. The perplexity arises from the competing truth claims with which he/she is presented. Working one's way through these in a rigorous and rational manner is the task which the philosopher then sets for themselves. This is achieved by self examination, why do I believe this, why don't I believe that, what are the logical consequences of my believing such and such, what must I presuppose in order to believe that, and the same for not believing this or that. Philosophy is an activity, not a belief system. It may result in a certain set of beliefs being taken as more likely true than another, but the philosopher will know why they believe that and is open to the possibility that they could be mistaken, by the same token they should have reached a level of certainty about what they profess to believe that it stands out in a real contrast to what they consider unlikely, very unlikely, well-nigh impossible, to things that are impossible. The domain of genuinely impossible things is almost exclusively limited to mathematics. When you get into the nature of "reality", you are in a sea of conjectures related to certain propositions about the world, that suddenly becomes very complex. More complex then I have time to enter into here.

I have a rather more varied diet than this. If we're talking about opening up the heart center: I'm not talking about opening up the "heart center" at all. The "energy centers" are a borrowing from the Yoga chakra system, they are only one aspect of human esoteric anatomy and in the sense usually used a very limited and restricted one. The use of "energy" as a translation for qi or prana is also not very accurate, especially in the case of qi. I have plenty of experience with this: I have decades of experience, if you want to count my first experiences with pranayama watching Richare Hittleman's "Yoga for Health" on TV, it is over five decades and you have been working with this how long? There's nothing either abstract or theoretical about it. It is the a tradition of Chinese Meditation that goes back to the Waring States period, the earliest surviving surviving work to express it in any detail is the Neiye, from which I was quoting. The first several chapters in Taoist Yoga can be seen to be related to this work. That sounds like energy center development; It may sound that way to you, but then there is a whole traditional story about a swan being only an ugly duckling. I don't have the time to go into detail why characterizing it this way is wrong, but it begins with the thread title, "Regarding Shen and it's natural properties to restore essence", reducing this to energy work to open a center is to show that you don't have the background or experience to make any meaningful comment. If you wish to ignore what I have said, that's fine, it's your loss not mine. That's all I have to say on this topic.

Points that I was thinking of making. The proper beginning philosophical position would be agnosticism, beyond that the whole matter becomes too complex to deal with on a forum like this.

I would say that another thing that characterizes "religion" as opposed to philosophy is that a religion, whether personal or that of a group is authoritarian, some individual or group of individuals is taken as having the ultimate answers, to question these people and their works is heresy and all matters are referred to their words as represented in their books. Marxism is an excellent example of this. It is basically an evangelical atheism and the "Religion of Humanity" founded by Auguste Comte is another example. This is organized "religious" atheism, but on the other extreme one finds people who set up their own private religions with one or more authorities to whom one appeals to justify ones beliefs and actions. Here on the Tao Bums this is how you get the "Tao Te Ching" fundamentalists arguing about the text of "Lao Tzu" like a bunch of Medieval Scholastics. The fact that this is not recognized as being basically "religious" is funny in its own way, that it is confused with philosophy is rather more tragic.

Who said anything about, ? If that is the direction in which you think I was pointing, you have a long way to go just to get to the beginning. Good Advice. Pay particular attention to the first chapter.

Well taken points. You can find support for your ideas here: I suspect that part of the emphasis on the lower dan comes from the marial arts tradition, where both balance and internal power can be matters of life and death.

Over the past few days I have given a lot of thought to the matter and as a next point I would recommend this: How to Meditate: A Guide to Self-Discovery by Lawrence LeShan It is a good overview of many different types of meditation and I have misgivings about both Bardon and Sadhu for your situation. I don't have much time right now to explain why, beyond saying that I think learning about a variety of meditation styles right now, where you can get some ideas and develop them creatively is a good approach.

Nungali, you might like this: Plutarch, Plotinus and the Zoroastrian Concept of the Fravashi Other people may enjoy it also.

A One-derful post.

Finally some time to get back to this. Actually it forms two pentacles, one related to “the morning” star and one to the “evening”, they alternate and form this in an eight year cycle that combines with the Moon in an interesting way. The Sun, Moon and Venus have a conjunction once every hundred new Moons, this happens in eight years and four months and a little less than two days earlier each year, thus repeating eventually in something over 200 years. When I first learned of this back in the 1980s, I couldn't help but think of the Ten Heavenly Stems with their alternation between yin and yang aspects of each of the five elements. The combination of the Ten Heavenly Stems with the Twelve Earthly Branches defined by the Jupiter cycle give us the sixty unit cycle of the jiazi, which repeats as a cycle of sixty years, months, days and hours giving us the eight pillars of Bazi. As iain has noted: This sixty year cycle is three of these twenty year cycles, which is the cycle of the Saturn/Jupiter conjunctions, which I mentioned here: Which form a triangle against the starry background, as Sun/Venus forms a pentacle. The Chinese have another important cycle and that is the cycle of the Nine Stars and they unify the sixty year cycle with the nine year cycle through a great cycle of 180 year, consisting of a lower, middle and upper cycle of the sexegenary cycle and twenty nine year cycles. I posted some useful references here: Hinze's Tantra Vidya consists of two fascinating essays, one a treatment of the Chakras related to these planetary periods and the other a discussion of the similarities between the Greek philosopher Parmenides and Tantric doctrines. McClain's works deal with music and esoteric number theory in ancient times, for most modern “mystics” who are dismissive of Plato and the value of his dialogues The Pythagorean Plato is an eye opener. In The Myth of Invariance, McClain looks into the number patterns which he examines in Plato's dialogue in other cultures. It has been a long time since I have read McClain and I don't believe that he considers these astronomical cycles, and he works with the later seven tone musical scales, but combining his work with these astronomical cycles is an interesting field of thought. Edit: After posting the above link to Ernest McClain's site, I discovered that Professor McClain had passed away and his site was no longer active. However thanks to Mr. Peobody and Sherman, his site and material can be accessed here: WayBack Machine Internet Archive: Ernest McClain Second Edit: Oddly enough the above link works for some but not all of McClain's works, The Pythagorean Plato being one of them, however it can can be found here: The Pythagorean Plato on Google docs

Here is a bit of cutting edge physics for you: Majorana Fermion finally observed The existence of this particle was predicted in the late 1930s. I had never heard of it before, but its finally being observed has profound implications for physics.