alchemy How does it work?

[snowymountains]

38 minutes ago, Master Logray said:

 

 

That depends on the subject.   For other things you are right.  With so meager information, what can you do?  wholesale believe or not believe?   Or interview one of them?   At least it is a reasonable start.  It is not unlike predicting lifeforms in other planets.  You have to start somewhere.   My conclusion is that the success rate must be very low, given the long history and huge population of China, with the loose definition as in my another post.

 

Everyone loves money and makes money.  But no one targets to be the richest man on earth.   Having more is good enough.  Immortality is the same.   As one of us said, is it really fine to live in a body for hundreds of years?   But having longer life with vitality is certain welcome.

 

Living a long and healthy life is a good thing. And perhaps the advice of the old books helps achieve a long and healthy life.

 

This is something different to living thousands of years or never dying though.

 

If all the evidence and theoretical knowledge points to impossible, then indeed we consider it impossible.

 

This is contrary to life on other planets which is theoretically possible and the main question has been "where is everybody" as in, why isn't life more common in the galaxy.

Here the evidence points ( so far, who knows what the James Webb telescope will find ) to not finding life anywhere, while there's no fundamental known limitation to life developing in another solar systems on a planet with eg similar conditions to Earth.

 

Which is why scientists do scan space for biosignatures but nobody is looking for immortals.

Edited February 3 by snowymountains

[snowymountains]

7 minutes ago, Maddie said:

to convince the world an extraordinary claim is true requires extraordinary evidence and this is a reasonable point of view.

 

I'm not a fan of the Sagan quote 😁

 

An extraordinary claim needs evidence, just that 😁

 

The evidence doesn't need to be extraordinary, but it needs to exist and satisfy the same standards of evidence that's used in the respective field.

 

But evidence is absolutely needed to make an extraordinary claim.

[Maddie]

1 minute ago, snowymountains said:

 

I'm not a fan of the Sagan quote 😁

 

An extraordinary claim needs evidence, just that 😁

 

The evidence doesn't need to be extraordinary, but it needs to exist and satisfy the same standards of evidence that's used in the respective field.

 

But evidence is absolutely needed to make an extraordinary claim.

 

Okay yes you're correct point taken but I guess I'm just a Sagan fan girl LOL.

[Master Logray]

2 hours ago, snowymountains said:

My grandparents lived that long but they weren't Taoist nor did they call themselves immortals. They did lead a very healthy lifestyle, close to nature.

In ancient times people did reach that age sometimes.

This is stretching the definition of immortal by quite a bit.

 

Surpass the limit of a body , how ? By attempting to plant their soul into other bodies like the ancient Shamans allegedly wanted to ?

This is not possible, projections of emotions is a recognised phenomenon, though its mechanics are not fully explained yet, and I'll take the liberty, for the sake of the argument, to extend it to projection of individual thoughts ( even though this is not considered a fact, for the sake of the argument ).

 

There's simply not enough bandwidth to transfer a whole pack of conscious+subconscious+unconscious, it would take centuries even assuming such a projection is even in principle possible.

 

Though I do pity their students if that's what they were trying to do to them because this is quite literally abusive behaviour.

 

 

Stretching the definition?   The definition of immortal is loose, just like many other things.  It is the culture. 

 

Planting the soul - possession, is quite commonly mentioned.  In fact one of the Eight Immortals had his body burned when he was in deep trance for days.  He had to takeover a deformed beggar's body to carry on.    Taking over a living person's body was not only considered abusive behaviour, but was heavily censured. 

 

You have a very good point on the bandwidth issue and how do these guys store their information?   I recall New Agers say the memory is stored outside of the body, the Akashic Records, spiritual version of cloud storage.

 

 

 

[snowymountains]

8 minutes ago, Master Logray said:

 

 

Stretching the definition?   The definition of immortal is loose, just like many other things.  It is the culture. 

 

Planting the soul - possession, is quite commonly mentioned.  In fact one of the Eight Immortals had his body burned when he was in deep trance for days.  He had to takeover a deformed beggar's body to carry on.    Taking over a living person's body was not only considered abusive behaviour, but was heavily censured. 

 

You have a very good point on the bandwidth issue and how do these guys store their information?   I recall New Agers say the memory is stored outside of the body, the Akashic Records, spiritual version of cloud storage.

 

 

 

 

I don't know what new agers say on this but bear in mind that without any need to refer to mysticism concepts 

 

• our unconscious has a vast data storage capacity. If my ( conscious 😁 ) memory doesn't fail me, it has even more capacity than all the technology data centres in the world.

• Projections of emotions typically do need a few minutes to happen.

Even if someone could say project a single emotion within seconds under some ideal conditions and assuming they could project any mental process ( this is a hypothetical big IF, just for the sake of discussion , nothing suggests this is possible ) under a similar timeframe, to project all of conscious+subconscious+unconscious simply takes forever.

 

To de-mystify projections a little, projections of emotions isn't magical, it's something which happens.

It's more pronounced by borderlines and narcissists, the reason some people feel bad close to them is not because of magic, it's because they got projected the emotions borderlines or narcissist feels inside ( and usually they don't feel good ). They don't even do that intentionally, they just feel crap themselves and project it onto others through some unknown mechanism. The physical mechanism for projection is also not confirmed but projections happening is a known fact, though not fully explained yet.

 

Now entering mysticism lore,

 

I'm aware that ancient Shamans are alleged to be doing this by some author(s). The author(s) claim indirect knowledge of this, through unnamed 3rd persons (go figure if true...).

 

If they were trying something like that, then they could only try it on someone who they saw a lot and still time wouldn't suffice.

If so, I do pity their students, they were literally victims of nasty abuse.

 

There's also allegedly a version of Phowa for the same purpose, the reference text has allegedly been destroyed in the past. Again whatever the technique was, the limitations are the same and it wouldn't work, even assuming all big IFs were possible.

 

On a final note, to add a personal view at this point, if that's something they were indeed trying to achieve, these folks were disturbed and don't see how they'd fit any conceivable notion of enlightenment.

 

 

[blue eyed snake]

18 hours ago, snowymountains said:

 

That's fair I also keep most of my meditative experiences out of public forums.

The point though wasn't to disclose your experiences, the point was that the experiences themselves are yours and incontestable.

 

The use is "right view", which by definition needs to be objective.

 

It's ok to have different ideas on what to speak about, that's a personal choice.

 

"right view"

 

well, sounds a bit empty to me

so something happens, an 'experience'

 

lets say you became aware of light shining from above, as if you sit under a lamp.

I recognize that.

 

now you can attach some terms to it, i am not good at terms, Buddhists will have a name and a concept for it, Daoists will, I've known a shaman who called it the white light from above, or maybe the high white light, something like that. Then we have the Christians who may think of the holy spirit. No Idea how Moslims and Sufi's would look at this phenomena.

What more do we have, all of the Hinduism related philosophies of life. Aboriginals, maybe Nungali knows about that. The indigenous peoples of America, the Egyptian cultures from long ago et cetera

 

Probably I left out most lifephilosophies but this will do.

An endless list of names and concepts for being aware of a light shining above your head.

 

Now please tell me, what is the right name, the right concept, the  right view? 

 

 

[blue eyed snake]

18 hours ago, Maddie said:

 

We did seem to get a bunch of self-proclaimed unquestionable guru's in here lately didn't we? all around the same time?

 

they gave or give me a dejavu feeling

[snowymountains]

Just now, blue eyed snake said:

 

"right view"

 

well, sounds a bit empty to me

so something happens, an 'experience'

 

lets say you became aware of light shining from above, as if you sit under a lamp.

I recognize that.

 

now you can attach some terms to it, i am not good at terms, Buddhists will have a name and a concept for it, Daoists will, I've known a shaman who called it the white light from above, or maybe the high white light, something like that. Then we have the Christians who may think of the holy spirit. No Idea how Moslims and Sufi's would look at this phenomena.

What more do we have, all of the Hinduism related philosophies of life. Aboriginals, maybe Nungali knows about that. The indigenous peoples of America, the Egyptian cultures from long ago et cetera

 

Probably I left out most lifephilosophies but this will do.

An endless list of names and concepts for being aware of a light shining above your head.

 

Now please tell me, what is the right name, the right concept, the  right view? 

 

 

 

The name can be whatevs.

 

Right view is that it's just a sign indicative of meditative progression, nothing more, nothing less. 

There's no need to attach anything more to it than what it is, no enlightenment, no divine intervention etc.

[snowymountains]

1 minute ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

they gave or give me a dejavu feeling

 

We share feelings on this, some MB types are naturally good at having a feel and intuition on these things but here I'll refrain.

[blue eyed snake]

18 hours ago, snowymountains said:

 

It's not.

 

To give an example there was someone here who had a porn addiction here and was asking what to do "energetically".

I'm actually not referring to the fact that some folks did suggest "cheap energetic healings" ( aka spells ) instead of visiting a psychotherapist.

I'm referring to that someone actually even thought about resolving an issue which needs therapy in a forum about Taoism. Because if fireballs definitely happen and infinite life is surely possible, then porn addiction is surely treated easily.

 

I've actually known someone who almost died because of belief in BS like that, and ultimately did pay a dear price while if instead they were listening to their doctors from the get go they would have had a simple operation and a healthy life.

I can think of other cases too, with Tummo side-effects, where the all knowing guru vanished ( who likes lawsuits after all ) but the spiritually blind doctors saved them. Another one where "divination courses" caused a psychosis.

And more.

 

If something is unfounded, it's unfounded, those who support it cannot expect to have a monopoly on speaking about it.

 

ah, I see were you're coming from.

 

I am coming from the other direction, western medicine has several times endangered and abused me and I regard energetic work, to choose some words, as the biggest gift I got in this life.

 

energetic healings are no spells either.

 

and regarding any addiction, I would always advise a threepronged route. Body, energetics and mind/mental things should be targeted.

 

My trust in doctors and psychotherapists is close to zero, with good reason.

 

[blue eyed snake]

4 hours ago, liminal_luke said:

What is an immortal?  My understanding is that immortals die like everybody else (although they might be long-lived) but something of their consciousness remains intact after death so that there's a sense of seamless continuation as they enter whatever comes next.  It's unlikely the existence of this kind of immortal -- or any other kind -- can be proven scientifically though we might come to feel it's true (or not) as we progress along our spiritual paths.  In the meantime, what is to be gained or lost by believing or disbelieving?  I prefer to rest in the "maybe" state -- open to the wondrous possibilities of life.

 

Schrodinger's Luke speaks wisdom here, 

 

thank you

[blue eyed snake]

3 hours ago, snowymountains said:

Of course nobody can prove nor counterprove a statement on what happens after life

 

there's quite a bit of research on near death experiences and reincarnation nowadays, you may want to read up a bit before judging 

[snowymountains]

25 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

ah, I see were you're coming from.

 

I am coming from the other direction, western medicine has several times endangered and abused me and I regard energetic work, to choose some words, as the biggest gift I got in this life.

 

energetic healings are no spells either.

 

and regarding any addiction, I would always advise a threepronged route. Body, energetics and mind/mental things should be targeted.

 

My trust in doctors and psychotherapists is close to zero, with good reason.

 

 

Doctors and psychotherapists are not perfect and not all are good professionals, there exist medical errors, there's neglect, sometimes insufficient oversight and controls etc. sometimes they're also falling short on the being human side of things.

 

Still the best bet is the medical system, not because the above doesn't happen, it does, it's because its methodology when practiced correctly offers the best chance.

 

This is not meant to negate or demean any misdeeds nor the effect of these misdeeds on people's lifes, including yours of course.

 

Energetic body work at the level of therapy does exist , Reichian psychotherapy . It's admittedly not easy to find a qualified therapist for that though.

 

A good psychotherapist is a different discussion, imo what's lacking here imo is someone to direct someone to the right type of therapy, similarly to how a GP directs someone to the right specialists.

 

Someone abiding by their ethics code though should refer to someone else if a different type of therapy is needed, the wrong approach is for folks to cash-in the session and keep the client, which would be the equivalent of paying a cardiologist  to discuss knee-pain.

 

Therapy itself is extremely effective in doing what it claims to do though.

Edited February 3 by snowymountains

[snowymountains]

7 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

there's quite a bit of research on near death experiences and reincarnation nowadays, you may want to read up a bit before judging 

 

I have read Stevenson's work on reincarnation and ndes publications.

 

I've also done past lives regressions with a qualified hypnotherapist myself.

 

I consider it interesting on one hand but not conclusive nor proof of reincarnation.

[snowymountains]

17 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

there's quite a bit of research on near death experiences and reincarnation nowadays, you may want to read up a bit before judging 

 

As your tone seems rather suggestive, I wonder have you ever done past lives regressions with someone qualified in doing this ?

 

Do you know if phychotherapists and hypnotherapists consider past lives regressions to be actual past lives, and if not, then why ?

 

Or what is the actual purpose of these regressions?

 

Or you took everything you read in a book or in an article or a Guru at face value?

[blue eyed snake]

20 hours ago, snowymountains said:

 

 

It's the interpretation of the experiences that is in question, things like oh this light during Samatha must be enlightenment, tummo moving energy up leads to enlightenment, the astral realm is real etc 

 

 

 

Note that I'm not saying whether someone can see lights in Samatha etc, of course they can.

The interpretation is almost always disjoint to the experience ( unless eg the experience is about taking to parts of our IFS ) and is meant to explain it (not).

 

 

 

20 hours ago, snowymountains said:

 

Pali is clear on that, it's other traditions that interpreted it as enlightenment, or a sign from God, being chosen by the light etc.

 

In general, the Pali Canon ( our best understanding of what the Buddha taught), especially for it's time, was trying to be as scientific as possible about it, in many ways. I'm even reconsidering changing my view on whether it describes earthquakes in a whacky way or not.

 

39 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

The name can be whatevs.

 

Right view is that it's just a sign indicative of meditative progression, nothing more, nothing less. 

There's no need to attach anything more to it than what it is, no enlightenment, no divine intervention etc.

 

in your earlier posts you are clearly talking about interpreting,

which to me is useless, storytelling.

 

indicative of meditative progress 

i was born with that white light shining its clear light on me.

 

But it's no matter to me, you can see it as you like and I see it different.

that's the beauty of all those different people down here, all those different ideas  

[blue eyed snake]

40 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

We share feelings on this, some MB types are naturally good at having a feel and intuition on these things but here I'll refrain.

 

MB types

 

meh

 

low validity

[snowymountains]

Just now, blue eyed snake said:

 

 

 

in your earlier posts you are clearly talking about interpreting,

which to me is useless, storytelling.

 

indicative of meditative progress 

i was born with that white light shining its clear light on me.

 

But it's no matter to me, you can see it as you like and I see it different.

that's the beauty of all those different people down here, all those different ideas  

 

I'm talking about the interpretation of these experiences typically being unrelated to the experience.

 

Instead all that's known is that it's something appears in a meditative state.

 

If you were born being able to see it, you were born with a natural talent to concentrate.

 

Of course if you want to assign it meaning ,you're free to do so, but my point is that the experience doesn't come part and parcel with the interpretation.

[snowymountains]

5 minutes ago, blue eyed snake said:

 

MB types

 

meh

 

low validity

 

Depends, mbti through internet sites usually just shows the top ranking type but this could be at 51%, in which case the type displayed won't say much.

 

MBTI of course is not meant to capture the whole personality, it can't do that.

But the full set of personality types and %s for each does encapsulate useful information.

 

If you can have a strong intuition about the OP, it's indicative of some MB types and a specific MB type is really good at that, the rarest one actually, less than 0.1% of US population for strong matches ( high  % ).

 

If so and you "know you know", then trust your gut and I'll refrain from saying more.

[snowymountains]

Unrelated to the above but for something more granular than MB, there's the Minnesota personality test.

 

This is available only through therapists though ( or at least used to ) and it costs. Typically it's done only if it's a requirement for a job, as it costs a lot, eg I believe fighter jet pilots take it.

[thelerner]

27 minutes ago, snowymountains said:

 

As your tone seems rather suggestive, I wonder have you ever done past lives regressions with someone qualified in doing this ?

 

Do you know if phychotherapists and hypnotherapists consider past lives regressions to be actual past lives, and if not, then why ?

I don't credit past life hypnotic regressions, but I read a persuasive book quite a while ago about children who recalled past lives.  Done by a university professor who had no skin or belief the game, ie not a new ager.  He looked for and found young (<6y.o.) kids in the US who recalled past lives, not under hypnosis, but had memories.  Where he could he tracked down details remembered and they'd often matched up to deceased.  

 

There were even cases where they remembered what killed them and the kids had marks on their body corresponding to the 'remembered' deceased.  He had many cases in the US and when he went to India from his airport driver to most people he met, most took it for granted, ie it was well known phenomena there.  With US and Indian kids the memories would fade as they got older.

 

I'm sure there's many similar newer books.  I think its real, yet it may not be simple re-incarnation but some other psychic action at work.  Fascinating though.  Just Googled 'book on kids who remembered past lives' and there are many titles, not sure which one I read a decade or two ago.  

[snowymountains]

Just now, thelerner said:

I don't credit past life hypnotic regressions, but I read a persuasive book quite a while ago about children who recalled past lives.  Done by a university professor who had no skin or belief the game, ie not a new ager.  He looked for and found young (<6y.o.) kids in the US who recalled past lives, not under hypnosis, but had memories.  Where he could he tracked down details remembered and they'd often matched up to deceased.  

 

There were even cases where they remembered what killed them and the kids had marks on their body corresponding to the 'remembered' deceased.  He had many cases in the US and when he went to India from his airport driver to most people he met, most took it for granted, ie it was well known phenomena there.  With US and Indian kids the memories would fade as they got older.

 

I'm sure there's many similar newer books.  I think its real, yet it may not be simple re-incarnation but some other psychic action at work.  Fascinating though.  Just Googled 'book on kids who remembered past lives' and there are many titles, not sure which one I read a decade or two ago.  

 

It's Stevenson, his student also became a professor ( he was the one at the recent Netflix series ) and Dr. Weiss who have done a lot of work on these.

 

It's very interesting but their conclusions are not accepted by their peers.

At this point it's definitely not proof of reincarnation.

 

 

As I said I've done the regressions myself, with a qualified therapist. A qualified therapist does the regression only when certain criteria are met, never because someone is merely curious. So I do mean it when I say I'm genuinely interested in this.

 

But being genuinely interested doesn't mean convinced though, nor that it's factually correct.

[Apotheose]

Mysticism means the study of the Mysteries.

In Ancient times, “mystery” was a term which referred to something akin to “sacred knowledge which is obtainable directly from the Source”. It does not mean mysterious, puzzling, or obscure.

 

So, mixing Psychology with Mysticism can make sense until a superficial level. After that, it becomes a wild-goose chase, honestly. One who is initiated knows both are not dissonant, since science is the study of nature which has its origins in the Oneness. But mysticism cannot be approached in its entirety by psychology language and concepts, it gets tautological. Scientific Method can’t get that deep, even the unorthodox ones.

 

Yes, Akashic Records can be accessed with methods, and it is definitely not a “new age” thing and does not have any correlation with “new age” pseudo-mysticism like “the law of attraction” and repeating shallow affirmations. I wouldn’t categorize it as collective consciousness either… Trying to apply concepts from psychology on it, again, does not work above superficiality. Only experience will tell you what the Akashic Records truly are - without the limits of Language.

[Nungali]

5 hours ago, Maddie said:

 

Okay yes you're correct point taken but I guess I'm just a Sagan fan girl LOL.

 

At least it wasn't    Brian Cox

 

 

" I am ever so cute ... and wistful  "

 

 

 

"  and rather irresistible . "

 

 

 

" Problem is, when I am not posing,   I look like Father Dougal from   ' Father Ted '  .

 

 

.

Edited February 3 by Nungali

[snowymountains]

22 minutes ago, Apotheose said:

Mysticism means the study of the Mysteries.

In Ancient times, “mystery” was a term which referred to something akin to “sacred knowledge which is obtainable directly from the Source”. It does not mean mysterious, puzzling, or obscure.

 

So, mixing Psychology with Mysticism can make sense until a superficial level. After that, it becomes a wild-goose chase, honestly. One who is initiated knows both are not dissonant, since science is the study of nature which has its origins in the Oneness. But mysticism cannot be approached in its entirety by psychology language and concepts, it gets tautological. Scientific Method can’t get that deep, even the unorthodox ones.

 

Yes, Akashic Records can be accessed with methods, and it is definitely not a “new age” thing and does not have any correlation with “new age” pseudo-mysticism like “the law of attraction” and repeating shallow affirmations. I wouldn’t categorize it as collective consciousness either… Trying to apply concepts from psychology on it, again, does not work above superficiality. Only experience will tell you what the Akashic Records truly are - without the limits of Language.

 

I don't believe in mysticism, at least not in any magical sense.

 

I believe it discovered meaningful symbolic ways to talk to our unconscious, which doesn't understand verbal / written communication. This is something very powerful and not to be underestimated.

 

But all phenomena attributed to mysticism are in reality either physiological or psychological, not necessarily in a reductionist way.

 

I'm not too familiar with the akashic records, in general I don't follow new age stuff, nor do I currently practice mystical traditions.

but if they're records of both our personal history and collective history, bear in mind there is such a thing as the collective unconscious and in principle it can be accessed.

A great way to do that is work with a therapist who does "active imagination".

 

My experience with mystical traditions has been that they do use a lot psychodynamic techniques. In fact a lot of psychodynamic techniques have their origins in mystical traditions.

 

Nonetheless, they're practiced much more effectively in therapy and done so without religious or superstitious beliefs.

 

Jung's own experiences would had been classified as mystical thousands of years ago. But instead of using religious language, he chose to create a framework, which is the basis of today's psychodynamics. He also was not a reductionist.

 

Of course it's entirely fine for someone to practice a mystical tradition if that's what they like to practice. But all the experiences there are not magical.