Fragment 36

In this "Fragment" I want to discuss two books that I have recently read, and some of the insights and problems with the books. They do not pertain directly to the topic of Crossing the Abyss, but they are about thinking , so they indirectly apply to the topic of Crossing the Abyss. I also have a few things to say about working with the Excellent Goddess Nephthys. Yes, it is going to be a rambling "Fragment". The two books are: "The Alphabet versus the Goddess" by L. Shlain, and "The Master and his Emissary" by I. McGilchrist. Both books are about the Right-Left hemisphere split in the human brain, and how it has affected the history of Western Civilization. The first of the two books (also this is the order I read them in) "The Alphabet versus the Goddess" tries to identify the difference in the two hemispheres with gender. The right hemisphere is identified with the feminine thinking, and the left hemisphere with masculine thinking. To begin with this seems very problematic. How are we supposed to differentiate between "feminine" thinking and "masculine" thinking? This seems to be an overly simplistic model. This does not mean that the book is not entertaining, and does not have insights into the two types of thinking. It is the label that I do not like. So let us begin with an examination of the two types of thinking. According to split brain theories, the right brain looks at the big picture, uses context, can accept ambiguity, and is more pessimistic. The right brain is also more concerned with images and metaphor and other non-linear thinking. The left brain in contrast is adverse to metaphor, and images, is absurdly optimistic, and prefers language and logic to metaphor, images, and context. The right brain also does not like ambiguity or uncertainty. While Shlain tries to identify the two types of thinking with gender, McGilchrist does not, but on the two types of thinking he agrees in general with the above outline of the two types of thinking. It took me a while to understand the two types of thinking, and what they represent. As a matter of fact it was not until I was reading the last chapter of the last book that everything fell into place. The two types of thinking are what I have identified in past "Fragments" with magical thinking (right hemisphere), and compartmentalized thinking (left hemisphere). Right hemisphere thinking, I have identified with Bruno, J. Bohme, and the Renaissance Magi. Left hemisphere thinking with J. Calvin, P. Ramus, and M. Mersenne. So let us get back to Shlain's book: "The Alphabet versus the Goddess". Shlain does ask some very profound questions. Why do societies that forbid images are women denigrated, and treated as property? Islam is of course, the modern day example of this. Is there some connection to the alphabet and the forbidding of images? The ancient Israelites and Cannanites were the first people to use an alphabet. Second Commandment forbids all images, not just those of the divine. Shlain points out that there is no distinctive ancient Israelite art. How could there be in a society that bans images and ornamentation. Shlain's thesis is that societies that become literate and adopt an alphabet usually treat their women as inferiors. We all remember Moses being thankful that he was not born a woman. Shlain has collected an impressive amount of evidence for his theory. The trouble is he does not have a good reason why the suppression of images leads to the inferior status of women. He argues that somehow when the left brain suppresses the thinking of the right brain that women become inferior to men this answer seems too simplistic to me.While the Greeks did not treat their women that well, the Romans did more than anyone to strengthen monogamous marriage. This brings me to a fact Shlain did not address that it is polygamy that leads to treating women like property. Also the classical Greeks and Romans never forbid images, even though they had an alphabet. That being said, Shlain's book is worth reading and pondering. Let us now turn to McGilchrist, and his bood "The Master and his Emissary". McGilchrist does not make the mistake of identifying the split brain with gender, instead he uses the philosophy of Heidegger and the phenomenologists for the framework of his thesis on split brain theory. The part of Heidegger's philosophy that he uses the most is the Hermeneutic circle. That we go from subjectivity to objectivity to subjectivity. In simpler terms, We first experience the presented world as a whole, then we cut it into parts abstracting some features in which we then return to the presented world. An example should make this clear, I am using Heideggers' example of Newton's physics. Humans did not learn to build bridges by studying Newton's physics, instead they used trial and error. they then abstracted what works out of the trial and error, this becomes Newton's physics. Which then is returned to the world for use. The right brain would be the initial presented world, the left brain would be the abstraction of physics, and then the right brain would take over the abstraction and put them into context in the presented world. McGilchrist thinks that the left brain has usurped the place of the right brain as master. Instead of being a servant of the right brain the left brain has become the master. Again like Shlain, McGilchrist uses Western history to explain his theses. And again like Shlain I think McGilchrist's theory is too simplistic. In that he does not acknowledge outside influences on human activity. Of course, I am referring to my theory of the Egregores. That being said, McGilchrist's book is full of insights, especially when it comes to the modern world. That the left brain would turn society into a closed system. An overly optimistic closed system this type of thinking leads to Utopian thinking. As the twentieth century has shown Utopian thinking is a plague on the human race. So let us go to some quotes by McGilchrist; on how a left brain society would function. (all quotes taken from "The Master and the Emissary"): There would be an increase in both abstraction and reification, whereby the human body itself, and we ourselves, as well as the material world, and the works of art we made to understand it, would become simultaneously conceptual and seen as things"MGilchrist points out that the left hemisphere prefers to see things as mechanical or machines than living beings. This of course sounds familiar to the present day. Back to McGilchrist: "There is a complete loss of the sense of uniqueness. All of these features are identifiable as facilitated by the left hemisphere." Back to McGilchrist: "Philosophically, the world would be marked by fragmentation, appearing to its inhabitants as if a collection of bits and pieces apparently randomly thrown together: its organization, and therefore meaning,would come only through what we add to it, through systems designed to maximise utility, Because the mechanical world would the model by which everything including ourselves and and the natural would be understood, people in such a society would find it hard to understand the higher values in Schelers hierarchy of values, except by utility..." Let us now take a look at what such a government would look like: "Such a government would seek total control-it is an essential feature of the left hemisphere's take on the world that it can grasp it and control it." And of course the people governing would get very angry if it met with resistance. This would lead to a paranoid society. Like the one the progressives are trying to build. This is the direction the progressive left wants to lead us. To a society ruled by fear, and paranoia; where anything one says can cause them to get cancelled. This is one of the strong points of McGilchrist's analysis. That in a schizoid type society , schizoid type individuals would succeed, and become the leaders. The present day is of course proof of this claim. The Progressive ruling class is always paranoid, always virtue signalling living is fear that they shall become victims of the society they created. This should come as no surprise that in a sick society the sick would be the leaders. McGilchrist also has a lot of interesting insights on art. The trouble with McGilchrist is that it is too simplistic. Although he has diagnosed our present society, he does not seem to have a prescription. He does have some ideas of a solution coming from art. It is unfortunate that neither Shlain or McGilchrist were deeply read in Occultism. If they had been, they would have recognized that the two types of thinking they are examining were known for centuries: compartmentalized thinking, and magical thinking. And that the only way to restore the balance is through magical practice. Magical practice leads to magical thinking. So to conclude this part let me make some random remarks on the two books. To begin with "The Alphabet versus the Goddess" is an inferior book to "The Master and his Emissary". Shlain does ask a lot of interesting questions, about the use of imagery and the place of women in society. Shlain and McGilchrist believe that the left hemisphere has taken control of modern society. And that is why modern culture is so ugly and barren. McGilchrist makes the interesting point that not even art critics no longer talk about the beautiful. I have written elsewhere that flat ugly (schizophrenic) art is a reflection of the sterile inner state of modern humanity. I am suspicious of split brain theories. The trouble with split brain theories is that we do not have enough data. Research on split brain theories only goes back a few decades; less than a century. We have no data, or idea how an ancient, or a medieval individual's brain functioned. The other problem is of course, if a theory gets expanded too much, it explains nothing. I believe in a magical view of consciousness. Not that these theories are not valuable or interesting, but they are a product of their times. Humans have been telling stories of how things work since before recorded history, and in the centuries to come our theories (stories) shall look as outdated and quaint as theories from past centuries. The main insight I gained from McGilchrist's book is that modern societies are of a schizotypy nature. That the reason that many of the Western nations have chosen Progressive politicians is because compartmentalized thinking has led to a schizotypy form of society. And it is easy to observe the anger of the schizotypy personalities that inhabit the ruling and chattering class when events do not go their way. Cancel culture, the smearing of innocent individuals for political motives are all too common in the present day West. It should be easy to see how this anger could easily become political violence. Hoggg is the demon of the age, denigrating everything he touches, taking everything he can, and always asking for more. One last insight I got from the two books is the importance of history for a person. Both Shlain and McGilchrist used history to try out their theories. If an individual is deprived of a history they become an invalid, not having the vast panorama human experience to compare and test their theories and actions against. And of course this is another ambition of Hoggg and the Progressives is to wipe out history. I shall conclude with a few remarks of working with the Goddess Nephthys. I have made no secret that I have special devotion to Nephthys the Excellent Goddess. I have found Nephthys to be a gentle goddess, after all she is the goddess that leads the dead by the hand to the happy Isle of the Dead. The insight I gained was that I was wrong to call Nepthys a blind goddess. This is an insight I gained from reading McGilchrist, I am hoping this insight shall help when calling Nephthys, so let me conclude this "Fragment" with a quote from "The Master and the Emissary": "A thousand insights are not sufficient to prevent the living form being reduced to sight , when unaided by the other senses to a two dimensional diagram, what Herder calls a "pitiful polygon" This fate is avoided when the viewer's eye becomes his hand,"

Fragment 35

Before I get back to the topic of some of the people who I believe crossed the abyss, I would like to examine my aims for writing the "Fragments". I know in "Fragment 1" I stated my aims, but I have learned a lot since then. I am guilty of conducting my education in public. as Hegel said about Schelling. So let us get to what I have learned. All of us involved in the Great Work are involved in a project we largely do not understand. I think the reason for the misunderstanding is that the Great Work has no determined end point. That we who are involved influence the goal. The older Occultists and alchemists were mostly practitioners of the R.H.P. using Christianity as a model. (I will have a lot more to say about this in future "Fragments"). So they believed that the goal was merging with the One (Aten). I hold that this is a mistake. They were so blinded by the "light' of Aten, that they forgot to turn around to look at the deep shadows they left. This is the freedom to change and control the aims of The Great Work. The R.H.P. along with wanting to merge with the One believes in creating a perfect society. (Utopia) This has been the aim of political philosophers and theologians for a millenium. The building of the New Jerusalem. Of course, it has masqueraded under many names, Utopia, the workers Paradise, the Just Society, etc. It is time to acknowledge this goal has been a total failure. If after all this time that they came up with Marxism show what a failure this project has been. It is hard to believe that there are still Marxists after the disaster of the twentieth century. When Marxism killed over a hundred million people. (Hoggg has a powerful hold on people) This also goes to show how irrational people are, any rational person would have concluded that Marxist experiment was a failure. One of my aims is changing the goal of humanity from building the perfect society to self-deification. Once the goal has changed everything else will change. At last the Christian ethic shall be abandoned. We shall not have to tolerate frauds like Peter Singer. and John Rawls; who just try to out-christen the Christen ethic. Instead, an ethics of self-deification shall arise. Both Nietzsche and Aleister Crowley have made a start, but the L.H.P. is still in its infancy, there is much more work to be done.This is one of the aims of the "Fragments". To provide the materials for a new paradigm for humanity. Now let us turn to another person I believe crossed the abyss: the icy philosopher Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677). Spinoza meets my two criteria for having crossed the abyss. His outward life was destroyed and he seemed to know things he should not have known. Spinoza was excommunicated and banished from the Jewish community in Holland. His outward life was destroyed, he left family, friends, and his business. The other criteria of knowing things he should not know, can be easily observed in his writings. I shall take his book "Theological-Political Treatise" for an example. In this work Spinoza anticipates modern Biblical criticism, and much of modern scholarship on the Bible. Many people at the time believed the book was "forged in Hell', because Spinoza debunks the myths and superstitions of the Jews, and Christians by implication. Of course, it is "The Ethics" that is his masterpiece. A work that still fascinates modern philosophers. Spinoza was ahead of his time. Unfortunately, we know very little about the inner life of Spinoza, or what happened to him before he was banished from the Jewish community. My speculation is that as a young man, he had a vision of eternity, and the One. And he spent the rest of his life working out this vision. Spinoza was a man with a message. What little we do know about Spinoza's inner life comes from his book "The Emendation of the Intellect", where he tells us how he got started on the path as a seeker of wisdom. I am using the Edwin Curley translations of Spinoza. A quote from the book: "Whether there was something which, once found and acquired, would continuously give me the greatest joy. to eternity" Spinoza dismissed all the usual pursuits of humanity: wealth, fame, and sensual pleasure. Instead Spinoza pursued wisdom and knowledge, no matter what the consequences. In person he was always polite, but seemed to have a preternatural self confidence. This alo seems to be a characteristic of those that have found their True Self. I want to examine the last part (5) of his book "The Ethics" titled "Of the Power of the Intellect on Human Freedom" This is the most controversial part to "The Ethics". Many modern scholars and philosophers dismiss it as rubbish. But I believe it is the most important part of the book, and the whole reason he wrote the book. The reason it is dismissed is the logical, rational Spinoza seems to have become a mystic. I have often heard him compared to Gurdjieff. So let us try to make some sense of the message of Spinoza, and how to obtain eternal blessedness. Before jumping into Part 5 we must look at Spinoza's theory of knowledge; his three kinds of knowledge. This is found in Part 2 (P. 40), Schol. 2: "1 from singular things which have been represented to us through the senses in a way mutilated, confused, and without order for the Intellect; for that reason I have accustomed to call such perceptions knowledge form random experience 2 from signs for example from the fact that having heard or read certain words, we recollect things, and form certain ideas of them like these thought which we imagine the things these two ways of regarding things I shall henceforth call knowledge of the first kind, opinion or imagination; 3 finally from the fact that we have common notions and adequate ideas or properties of things. This I shall call reason, and the second kind of knowledge. 4 In addition to these two kinds of knowledge is (as I shall show from what follows) another kind of knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of the formal essence of things. I shall explain all these with one example. Suppose here are three numbers, and the problem is to find a fourth which is to the third as the second is to the first, Merchants do not hesitate to multiply the second by the third and divide the product by the first, because they have not yet forgotten what hey heard from their teacher without any demonstration or because they have often found this in the simplest numbers, or from the force of the demonstration of P.19 in Book VII of Euclid, namely the common property of proportions. But in the simplest numbers none of this is necessary. Given the numbers 1, 2, 3, no one falls to see that the fourth proportional number is 6- and we see this much more clearly because we infer the fourth number from the ration which, in one glance, we see the first number to have the second" I have given this long quotation from Spinoza, for several reasons. So that the reader can get an idea of the icy logic of Spinoza, and to get an idea of Spinoza's third kind of knowledge. The third kind of knowledge plays almost no part in the first four parts of ``The Ethics", only becoming important in the 5th part. There is a lot to unpack in the above quote, and in order to do this we shall have to take a brief diversion for a look at the philosophy of R. Descartes (1596-1650). The reason for the diversion to Descartes is that Spionza chose to describe his vision in Cartesian terms. Everyone has to use the language of their times, and Spinoza chose the best thinking of the time to express his vision of reality. Even though Descartes is considered the Father of modern philosophy, he is also a very misunderstood thinker. Unfortunately, those who followed Descartes chos to concentrate on what Descartes considered the least important aspect of his philosophy. (the Second Meditation) Descartes was much more of a pragmatist and experimentalist than he is given credit for. For our purpose we have to examine Descartes' ideas on freedom. Descartes followed Christianity in separating knowing and doing (Intellect and Will). Im;ole Christianity Descartes had a much broader view of freedom. Freedom was just not the power to make a mistake like in Christianity at that time. Instead freedom for Descartes was the ability to do something new. Descartes did this by separating Intellect and Will. For Descartes the Intellect never makes a mistake, it is the Will that makes mistakes. An example should make this clear. Say you are experiencing a Unicorn. There is no mistake, whether it is a hallucination, a horse with a horn attached, or a real Unicorn. The mistake comes when you act on the experience, lide trying to mount a hallucination. In other words it is only through doing and experimenting that we gain a practical knowledge of the world. The other topic we have to cover relating to Descartes is his dualism and the reason for it. (Thought and Extension) This is why his theory of knowledge works. The mind is not involved in the causality that affects the material world, it is as if the mind hovers over the material world and thus is able to affect it. Descartes knew that getting drunk or dropping a heavy rock on your foot affects your mental state, but you are free to react in different ways to these occurrences. Finally we can get back to Spinoza. Spinoza rejected the separation of Intellect and Will. Spinoza is a determinist. For Spinoza there is only intellect, the different reactions that one has are due to adequate and inadequate ideas. Adequate ideas are ideas that have strict boundaries and one knows the proximate cause. Again I will use an example to illustrate, an example I am sure Spinoza would disapprove of, but he would approve of one part of the example. Let us take the all too common sit-com plot of someone overhearing part of a conversation and misunderstanding the conversation, Then they act like delusional idiots until the whole story is out. Spinoza would agree that most people act like delusional idiots. The whole conversation is context would be an adequate idea. It is bounded and the context would be the proximate causes. Overhearing just part of the conversation out of context is an inadequate idea. For Spinoza the actions that follow an idea are determined. So how can Spinoza speak of human freedom? Let us start with section 4 "On Human Bondage" . When we react to outside affects we are in bondage. That is why the whole example would be dismissed by Spinoza, because it is of the first kind of knowledge. The person who is always reacting to outside stimulus is in bondage and really does not have much existence for Spinoza. When a person has power over how he reacts to outside affects he-she is in control. This should sound familiar to Occultists. It is close to Crowley's finding your true will. How does one gain control of oneself? It is by having adequate ideas. Let us go to Section 5 P.3: "An affect which is a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we from clear and distinct ideas" For Spinoza every idea is accompanied by an emotion those that enslave one to outside affects are negative emotions those that free you from outside affects are positive emotions. Spinoza "The Ethics" Section 4 Preface:"Man's lack of power to mediate and restrain the affects I call bondage. For the man who is subject to affects is under the control, not of himself, but fortune." Unless a person can form adequate ideas he-she is controlled by outside forces; people who can form adequate ideas are in control of themselves. How is this reconciled with Spinoza's determinism? No matter if you have adequate or inadequate ideas the doing is dictated by the idea. Simply put, those that have adequate ideas act differently than those who do not. Spinoza was not interested in experiments like Descartes. For Spinoza there is a right way to do things, and it is dictated by having adequate ideas. All emotions that cause a person to be subject to outside affects are negative emotions. The emotions that accompany adequate ideas are positive, because they give a person freedom from outside influences. Even though there is much more to say on the topic of freedom in Spinoza's philosophy, I want to move to the most controversial topic of his philosophy: Immortality. Let us begin with a quote from Part 5 P.23: "The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but something of it remains." I must break in with some comments about Spinoza's vision. In ethics Spinoza was a combination of R.H.P. and L.H.P., in metaphysics he was all R.H.P. Spinoza had a vision of the One. The One is Spinoza's God. Spinoza, like Descartes, views the mind as hovering over the material world. (I am not going to go into Spinoza's dualism) We directly experience this being a disembodied mind hovering over the material world. The more a person can achieve a state of consciousness of viewing everything from a standpoint of eternity, the more real they become. This should remind everyone of Grudjeff's self remembering. Again let us go to a quote from Spinoza "The Ethics" Part 5 P. 33: "The intellectual love of God, which arises from the third kind of knowledge is eternal" When we identify with eternity, we identify with God therefore becoming more real, since God is the only real thing. Of course, this takes conscious suffering (a lot of work). Those that achieve this state of consciousness are the Blessed. "The Ethics" Part 5 P. 43: " Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself: nor do we enjoy it because we reatrain our lusts, on the contrary, because we enjoy it we are able to restrain it" Like I said, this is only achieved through lots of hard work. I will give the last word to Spinoza, here is the last line of "The Ethics": "But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare."

Fragment 34

In this "Fragment" I am going to continue to discuss people who I believe crossed the abyss. I realized before discussing anyone from the Christian tradition, that I needed to examine guilt. There were also two recent incidents that made me realize how important it is to examine guilt. Guilt is a powerful emotion that deserves much more examination than iit has been given. It can be used to control people, and manipulate people both on a social and personal level, it can destroy someone's life, and it can be used for self-transformation. So let us examine the use and abuse of guilt. Let us begin with the present day. To riff off the old saying on the weather, everyone seems to be spreading guilt around, but no one wants to analyze it. I looked around for some modern analysis of guilt, but found little. In the nineteenth century Nietzsche and Marx did some analysis of guilt in philosophy, and Dostoesky in literature. But not much since. The reason guilt is still so important to understand in the present day is that we are still living in the Christian paradigm, and guilt is a very important part of the paradigm. The fires of Hell are a metaphor for guilt. The Christian mystics who are going through the Dark Night of the Soul are consumed in guilt and doubt, and more guilt because of his-her doubt. I know many people think we have moved out of the Christian paradigm, but that is not true. When I came to examine guilt, I realized how close that the modern day Progressive paradigm is to Christianity. Although much inferior as a method for transformation. I shall illustrate by the two examples that inspired me to write about guilt. The first incident example is that of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D. RI). Whitehouse is a progressive Senator who is quick to accuse his opponents of racism. Yet, he belongs to a whites only Yacht Club. When you belong to an organization that has the same membership requirements as the Ku Klux Klan, you are a racist.If there is any doubt about his Whithouse's racism, his wife owns controlling interest in the Yacht club. In simple terms Whithouse could have the membership rules change anytime he wants , and he does not. I am sure if you questioned Whithouse whether he is a racist, he would honestly reply: no. Of course, he is lying to himself, he is a racist. It first seemed to me that Progressives have no integrity. Progressivism has become synonymous with hypocrisy. So much so I am surprised that some prominent Progressive has not claimed that hypocrisy is a racist construct. This also gives us an idea of how close Christianity is to Progressivism. The charge most often levelled against both is hypocrisy. Although Christians usually try to hide their hypocrisy, while Progressives do not. The question becomes why do Progressive not think they are hypocrites? The answer is very subtle. Humans use projection to interact with the world. We are always projecting our categories onto the cosmos. We do this to achieve our goals. This is why the Pragmatic theory of truth is the only theory that holds up. The trouble with the other two main theories (the correspondence and the coherence) is that we are always changing our categories depending on the goal. An easy example to illustrate this is building a house. The technical workers like the carpenters, plumbers, electricians, etc. use a different set of categories than the interior decorator and sometimes each other. (anyone who has been involved in constructions has heard arguments between carpenters and electricians) The interior decorator must understand what is pleasing instead of what is technically the best. The technical crew is only interested in everything working, I must take a slight diversion here to examine the term "perfect" , a most misunderstood word. The word "perfect" is a subjective word. To be "perfect" , it has to be perfect for someone (a subject), nothing is intrinsically perfect. The thinking that there are things that are intrinsically perfect is a holdover from the Platonic paradigm of the divinized realm of the Forms. This misunderstanding has misled countless people throughout history. There is no Utopia. When Utopianism and projected guilt are found together it is disaster, causing genocide, and tyranny. Back to Whithouse is of course, a Utopian. He is projecting his guilt onto other people, and when they do not show any interest in feeling guilty, it makes him angry. Not just angry but that righteous anger that sanctions repression, tyranny, and genocide. Just as socialism uses other people's money to pay for their promises, and programs, they want other people to atone for their guilt. When I say Whitehouse is a racist, I do not mean like members of the Ku Klux Klan, who are honest about their racism. Instead, Whitehouse is like the nineteenth century Imperialists who believed in the doctrine of "White Man's Burden'' The doctrine of "White Man's Burden" was the old name for "White Privilege" denying people of color any agency. Infantilizing non-white people by denying that they have any power to change their lives. I shall now move to the second example. Recently a news report came out about a group of heavily armed men who do not believe that they are subject to the laws of the United States. Which in itself is disturbing. The Progressives thought leaders did not view it that way. Instead it was a chance to virtue signal by projecting their guilt on to the group.They automatically assumed that it was a group of White Supremacists, and took to social media to show their righteous anger. It seems that righteous anger is as addictive as cocaine. Like a crack addict will crawl through broken glass to smoke a rock, Progressives rush to judgement, without evidence to vent their righteous anger. This is what makes righteous anger so dangerous. It turned out the band of heavily armed men were Black Supremacists. At that point Progressives had nothing left to say. Is this hypocrisy? To understand what happened we must understand projected guilt. The reason that Progressives lost interest in the story is because they do not project their guilt onto Black Supremacists. This is also why when the Assad regime is Syria bombed Palestinian refuge camps noting was said. When Israel bombed Palestinian refuge camps jumped on the story. Even though the Israelis tried to minimize casualties while the Assad regime tried to maximize casualties. It is only on the people, and institutions of Western Civilization that Progressives project their guilt on. Let us turn to a historical example of projected guilt onto a people that had no interest in the guilt. The Puritans were guilt ridden Utopians. If anyone has doubts about the Puritans being Utopians, the reason for coming to America was to try to build a Utopian society. The Puritans were of course Calvinists and Christian communists. J. Calvin is of course the founder and father of all progressives movements in the West. Remember F. Engels grew up as a Ca;vinist and J. Bohme detested Calvin and Calvinists. If there is any doubt about the Puritans being communists, just remember the story of Thanksgiving. When the Puritans first arrived they tried collective farming. No one owned the land; the land was held collectively. And of course they starved, this should sound familiar' it is the same as communist countries implementing absurd agricultural reforms that cause mass starvation. Fortunately for the Puritans their adherence to communism was not so dogmatic. They switched to free enterprise where every man owned his plot of land and the fruits of the land. This is what caused the abundance that was the origin of Thanksgiving. Back to the Puritans and the Native Americans. When the Native Americans showed no interest in the guilt that the Puritans had happily informed them of, the Puritans got extremely angry at the godless heathens.( again righteous anger) This is what made the usual primate struggle for territory so vicious, and justified the struggle. This is the same mechanism that causes today's Progressives to put everyone they don't like into the category of White supremacists.The same as fundametalist Christians lump everything they do not like into the category of Satanic.This is what happens when a group puts ideology ahead of people's welfare. This is a characteristic of Utopians. Before returning to the use of guilt let us take one more historical example of communists Utopians . This time a benevolent society of Utopian communists and the most successful and longest lasting experiment in communism: the medieval Franciscan Order. The monks owned nothing, not even their robes according to Ockam. They were poor and starving. Yes, being poor and starving an essential part of communism. Even if a monk had a little something to eat if asked for it he would give it away. This is how an altruistic society looks. We do not live in an altruistic society , instead we live in a cyrenic society. We moderns pursue pleasure, sensual pleasures. The Franciscan monks put ideology over their own well being. They were trying to use guilt for their own self transformation. Which takes to the use of guilt. Time to examine the use of guilt for self-transformation. Guilt is associated with pain, debt, and obligation. This is why it is such an effective way to control and manipulate people. So we must examine how to cause guilt? The old occultists called this the descent into melancholia. It is also the first step in alchemical transformation; the nigredo.The Christian tradition calls it the examination of the conscience. Bohme calls it the descent into the torture chamber. The best way to get people to feel guilty and obligated is to get them to compare themselves against a perfect standard. In the Christian tradition this is of course, Jesus Chriat, the only perfect man. Progressives use a perfect society: Utopia. This is why Utopians feel so free to commit atrocities. To bring about a perfect society is not by any means acceptable even if it kills people. The goal of all guilty people is to redeem themselves; this is of course the obligation, or in Christanity the debt owed to God. The idea is to induce so much self-loathing that one shall do almost anything for redemption; the cessation of guilt. When one keeps one's guilt one's self there is a chance of self-transformation. When one projects one's guilt onto others it is a recipe for genocides and tyranny. Once self-loathing has reached such a pitch the present self and its complex of Egregores is destroyed. This is a similar procedure to the Zen Master and the use of koans. The idea is to overload the system with so much energy that it breaks. The energy of the abyss destroys a person's outer life. This is why monks take vow of poverty and give up their possessions; so they are not distracted by their outer lives being destroyed. Once one has entered the abyss they do not have to worry about renouncing possessions; the energies of the abyss shall take care of that. This is also why many Indian Gurus will not teach Kundalini. especially how to open the chakra above one's head; it opens the abyss. We notice in both Nietzsche and Bohme that their outer lives are destroyed. Even Bohme's kidest biographers admit that Bohme's children and family did not play a prominent part in his life. Bohme withdrew from his family and his business. He experienced a fourteen year depression before he wrote. Nietzsche of course chronicles the destruction of his outer life. Another characteristic of people who have crossed the abyss is that they see, to know things they should not know. This is the result of breaking the hold of the Egregores. It is what many traditions call sleep hypnotism; that people are not in control of their lives, they are controlled by dreams. To sum up the use of guilt. The ideas is to bring the self-loathing to fever pitch until the psychic system breaks, then the self can be rebuilt with a new paradigm.

Fragment 33

In this ¨Fragment¨ I was planning to examine some examples of people who I believe crossed the abyss, but many people have shown an interest in the god, Dionysus. I realized that these themes are not mutually exclusive. I could do both in examining the Philosopher, F. Nietzsche (1844-1900). The others I was going to examine shall have to wait for a future ¨Fragment¨. Dionysus was Nietzsche's god. It was Nietzsche who single handedly brought Deionysus back to the consciousness of the modern world. He is the modern prophet and High Priest of Dionysus. So we shall begin with Dionysus. To begin with Dionysus should not be confused with Bacchus. The Romans replaced Dionysus with Bacchus. They did so because the Romans did not want to deal with the chaotic energies released by the god. Dionysus. The first clue to the difference is the way the two gods are represented; Bacchus is represented as a middle aged drunk. Bacchus is the funny drunk, his literary representative would be Shakespeareś Falstaff. The jolly entertaining drunk. Dionysus is a beautiful youth, seductive, wild, and dangerously reckless. Dionysus never considers consequences to his actions,this is what makes him so dangerous. Dionysus is not evil or sinister, he is seductive, and reckless. The Classical Greeks recognized his dangers. This is why he was confined in time and space, to a festival. After the festival until the next festival he was left alone.The chaotic energies of Dionysus were confined to a yearly festival. While Bacchus is the god of jollity, Dionysus is the god of divine madness, or divine frenzy. This means all the defence mechanisms of the intellect and conventions are overcome in a wild celebration. The devotee of Dionysus is overcome with an emotional frenzy that leads to a cathartic emptiness. That is the repose of Dionysus. Manifestations of Dionysus are easily observed in modern times. Dionysus was the god of the mid to late nineteen sixties Rock and Roll, not Satan. Fundamentalist Christians are not good at drawing subtle distinctions. They have a tendency to put everything into the category of satanic everything they do not like. Satan is a much more deliberate god, Dionysus contains no treachery or planning. So let us briefly examine some of the Rock and Roll figures I believe manifested Dionysus. As a note these figures are not personal favorites of mine, I am an aficionado of Black Metal. Of course, we begin with Jim Morrison of the Doors. Morrison recognized that the Rock and Roll of his times was a manifestation of Dionysus. After viewing concert footage of his shows, he admitted he released energies that he had no control over. The psychedelic orgy of Jimi Hendrix is another good example. Dionysus is about seduction and losing control. It is easy to view the manifestation of Dionysus in the power and ethereal beauty of Mark Bolan of T Rex and Curt Cobain of Nirvana. The last Rock and Roll figure I shall mention is Iggy Pop of the Stooges. The early chaotic show of the Stooges was a nervous breakdown on stage. Of all the above Iggy Pop is the only one of the above figures that survived into old age. Probably because he fell under the Apollonian influence of David Bowie. Dionysus is inviting and seductive, not evil or scary. The corpse painted, bloodstained front man of Black Metal is not Dionysian. Before moving on to Nietzsche I want to mention the reaction against Dionysus in both ancient and modern times. The ancient example would be Plato wanting to ban the poets from his ideal city. (Republic Book X). The modern parallel would be Tipper Gore and the P.M.R.C. who also wanted to censor the poets. Let us now turn to Nietzsche. I believe Nietzsche crossed the abyss in 1889 when he collapsed on the streets of Turin Italy. Nietzsche knew he was involved in the Great Work. In his letters he admits he is seeking the Philosopher's Stone. That he sought to transmute his suffering, and pain into joy, and happiness. Of course, he did not succeed. It was pain that drove Nietzsche into the depths of his psyche. This is what made Nietzsche into the great psychonaut of modern times. At this point we must make a slight diversion to better understand the nature of the abyss. I heard an Indian Guru say that there were three ways to enter the abyss, (he should have mentioned they are also the three ways out of the abyss) they are Faith, Trust, and Madness. The first Faith is the way of the Christian mystic, who goes through the Dark Night of the Soul. (The Dark Night of the Soul is another way of saying crossing the abyss.) The Christian mystic has faith his god shall pull him out of the abyss. The second way Trust is the way of the Eastern Mystic, who trusts his Guru. A good example of this type of thinking is ¨The Tibetian Book of the Dead. The third way is Madness, this was Nietzsche´s way. He went into the abyss to find the source of his suffering, so he could transform into joy. (Lead into Gold) Unlike the other two ways out of the abyss the way of Madness has not been explored or written about much. If Nietzsche had faith that his god, Dionysus would pull him out, he was sorely mistaken. Dionysus is not the flip side of Apollo. They are two distinct gods. Dionysus does not turn into Apollo. Apollo is the god of harmony, sunlight and healing, he is not a chthonic god like Dionysus. Examples of manifestations of Apollo would be a Bach fugue, a beautiful chess game, or the brilliant dialog of a play. These works of art are deliberate, not the work of a divine frenzy. Apollo gives a glimpse of the divine through harmony., not a frenzy that overcomes the intellect, but art that elevates the intellect. Dionysus does not turn into Apollo. Dionysian repose cathartic emptying. The other mistake Nietzsche made was he thought the way out of the abyss was to crawl up. When one enters through madness the way out is through the bottom. (Remember my friend who exited the abyss through the portal of despair.) It is very telling that in his last letters, he mentions that he was experiencing psychic inflation. Claiming he was the Pope, Napoleon, and every name in history. This is the experience of losing oneself in a greater whole. Most commonly it is the feeling of being one with everything, but it does not have to be a positive experience. Again remember my friend who had the vision of Absolute Despair. He became one with despair losing the self. An exquisite experience. After Nietzsche passed through the inflation he collapsed in the streets of Turin Italy. Dionysus did give Nietzsche his gift of a cathartic emptying. The pain was gone.Nietzsche lived the rest of his life in an empty passivity. I know some readers shall question my choice of Nietzsche as a model in occultism. they should remember what a great influence Nietzsche was on early twentieth century occultism. I shall only mention Aleister Crowley. Nietzsche are well worth studying if one realizes they are one man's record of his journey through the abyss.

Fragment 32

In this "Fragment" we shall continue the discussion of Christ as the new Adam. I realized that I had too much material for a single "Fragment", so I decided to break it into parts. We shall use different perspectives, and approaches to make some sense of the material. We shall begin by examining some ideas of Jacob Bohme. The book we shall be concentrating on is Bohme's book: "Incarnation of Christ'', also all quotes in this "Fragment shall be taken from that book. If any of the readers of this "Fragment" are interested in reading "Incarnation of Christ'' both Bohme and I recommend reading his book "Three Principles of the Divine Essence '' first before attempting "Incarnation of Christ''. Bohme is incredibly difficult to read. Hegel even complained he had difficulty reading Bohme. So let us begin with a quote from the book. "The tree Jesus Christ in the light world, who has revealed himself in our soul, as his branches. He has come in Adam's place, who has caused us to decay, and perish, He became Adam in the new birth. Adam brought our souls in the new birth into this world, into death of the fierce wrathfullness; and He brought our soul out of death, through the fire of God, and rekindled it in fire, so that it obtained again the shining light, as otherwise it would necessarily had to remain in the dark death in the source of anguish. The above passage has a lot to unpack. To begin with Bohme had no interest in the historical Jesus. Both Jesus,and Adam are best regarded as states of consciousness.The transmutation of Adam to Christ is a psychic event. Adam represents the fallen state of humans, which is characterized by greed, drunkenness, gluttony, etc. Christ is the new man or better yet the new self; the new self. Christ becomes the homunculus, or the new conscience of humans. Of course, this is not an easy feat to achieve. It involves conscious suffering. Again let us go to a quote from Bohme. "Thus every twig in the soul grows up out of divine wisdom. All must put forth out of the torture chamber, and grow as a branch from the root of the tree: all is generated in anguish. If a man wish to obtain divine knowledge, he must repeatedly enter into the torture chamber, into the center." Bohme was fond of tree metaphors. What Bohme is talking about is in occult terminology called "crossing the abyss". The old self must die and be torn apart , so the new self can be born. This brings us to one of the most misunderstood concepts in Christianity. That of being born again. One does not become born again by praying with some street preacher who is handing out pamphlets on how you are going to Hell. Instead it is like someone who has a life changing accident. The example I will use is having an accident and becoming a quadriplegic (quad). I had a friend who crossed the abyss by passing through the gate of Absolute despair. (When I talk about a friend sometimes I am talking about myself, and sometimes I am talking about a real friend) He could not find any references to the vision of Absolute despair in most literature, so he took up reading autobiographies of quads, anjd he still found no references, The only reference he did find was in Donald Tyson's "Necronomicon". To get back to our discussion. Someone who has had an accident and become a quad experiences his-her self as divided in to two different people. The one before the accident and the one after the accident. Everything they believed or presupposed has been shattered. Their outward and inward life is in ruins. This is the torture chamber Bohme refers to. When one enters the abyss one's outward life crumbles into ruins, as does his-her inward life. Although the inward life takes longer to destroy. A new quad must rebuild their life from the ground up. This is the power of the abyss. I will have a lot more to say about the abyss and the way out in future "Fragments". This is what it means to be born again. That the old self is shattered. and a new self must be created. When I was younger I was baffled by how many people that suffer life changing accidents become Christians. I could not understand how after someone experiences such trauma that they could embrace a god of mercy. (I always had trouble believing in a god of mercy, although I never had much trouble believing in demons and gods of pain and suffering.) The reason that people that have experienced a life changing trauma have a strong need to somehow made sense of what happened to them. Christianity offers them a paradigm to rebuild their self. This also connects to Iamblichus doctrine of exemplarism. I am always surprised when I meet Christians that do not know what exemplarism is. Exemplarism is the opposite of ontologism. Ontologism is the teahing that one can reach the mind of god without the help of a god. Plotinus is good example of ontologism. Exemplarism is the teaching that one must have a god to pull one over the finish line. Christianity of course got rid of every god except for Christ. After shattering ones inward and outward life one must have a paradigm to rebuild ones life. Christ v-becomes the homunculus that directs the rebuilding. Of course, as all Setians know there are other paradigms (gods) that can serve this purpose.

Fragment 31

In this "Fragment" we shall continue the Search for the Self. In my last "Fragment" I used an analytical perspective, for this "Fragment" I shall switch to a historical perspective. The Search for the Self is too big of a topic for only one perspective. And the Self is a historical creation, it is not stable or static. I shall attempt to enlarge our understanding of the Self by interpreting another myth. That of Adam and Eve. Every good myth has many levels of meaning, This is what makes symbols and myths so powerful. Myths and symbols have content, while reason, and abstractions have clarity. So I am not claiming my interpretation of the Adam and Eve myth is the right one or the only one. Most people know the basic storyline of the myth of Adam and Eve. God created Adam and Eve and they live in the Garden of Eden, which is a paradise (Utopia). God has given Adam and Eve one commandment : not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Serpent then enters the Garden and tempts Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve succumb to temptation, and God throws them out of the Garden, After which Adam and Eve experience great regret for their crime. So let us begin our interpretation of the myth. The Garden represents a paradise, a Utopia. Adam and Eve have no responsibilities except the one rule of not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Garden also represents the bicameral paradigm of consciousness. Where people are told what to do by the gods. It should now be clear why disobedience is the primal sin. There were no rebellious subjective selves in the Garden. So what is the knowledge of good and evil? It is the power of judgement, the ability to think for one's self. This makes the punishment the responsibility of thinking for one's self. No longer does the voice of the egregores (gods) seem to come from outside. There is a great longing to return to the bicameral paradigm. This is also the lure of modern Utopian thinking. By giving the Egregore or the State (which is a collection of Egregorers usually with one predominating one controlling the thinking of the people) all power over your life, you give up all your responsibilities. Again the person has only one responsibility or commandment: not to disobey. The modern person acts on the commands of the internalized Egregore. This loss of the bicameral paradigm was a great trauma for humankind. A trauma many are still trying to reverse. Remember in the myth the first thing Adan and Eve realized after eating the fruit is that they were naked and afraid. They had to assume responsibility for their own lives. They had to use their new found power of judgement to think for themselves. They felt helpless in a fallen world.They can now judge for themselves the commands of the gods. As one notices this is also the crime of the Great Set (Lord of the Self) and the Christian devil; wanting to think for one's self. Before continuing with the above conversation I want to take a brief diversion to talk about Original Sin. Original sin is one of Christianites greatist contributions and one of its worst failures. The contribution was that it overthrew the classical Greek ideal that when one knows the good he-she shall follow the good. Instead it acknowledges that one can know the good and not do it. It is to be noticed even in modern Utopian thought there is this child-like faith in education. All the early progressives (like H.G. Wells and G. B. Shaw spent a lot of time trying to deny original sin. Although present day progressives have fallen in love with guilt. They have realized that guilt is one of the greatest mind control devices ever invented. One cannot build a Utopia if the basic building blocks (humans) are flawed.The trouble with original sin is guilt. As my readers know, I regard the end of the world talk and the building of a new Jerusalem (Utopia) as two of the worst things about Chriatianilty. But I think the absolute worst thing about Christianity is guilt. Christanity turned a fundamental insight about human nature into a control mechanism. Back to the discussion. After the bicameral paradigm broke down, humans also noticed that along with the voices of the gods, there were also the voices of demons. There was no overall consent in the conversation that raged in their heads. This is a manifestation of the trauma that humans suffered when the bicameral paradigm collapsed. The hand hold that god provided is now absent. They experience both the pain and the gain of having to decide for themselves. As I said before, humans can now judge for themselves the commands of the gods. This is the transition to the modern paradigm of consciousness. That of a subjective self that must make decisions (even though they are surrounded by the voices of the internalized egregores) for themselves and take responsibility for their decisions. This is the curse of original sin that humans have to make a decision among all the warring voices in their heads. The voices of both gods and demons. The trouble with trying to give back the power of decision to the Egregores is that they may decide to kill or sacrifice their followers for some goal of their own. Examples of this are not hard to find; read the Old Testament. This sacrificing followers still happens in governments that are controlled by collectivist Egregores. Examples would be the absurd agricultural reforms of communist societies that cause mass starvation. Collectivist Egregores will always decide the right thing to do based on their agenda, even if it means killing many of their own followers. Whether you study the actions of modern day Egregores or the actions of ancient Egregores it is the same. Observe how many times the Egregore Yahweh's decisions resulted in mass death of his own. The lack of responsibility is both the lure and the trouble with trying to bring back the bicameral paradigm. One of the lessons we should learn from Adam and Eve is that there is no return to the time before the Fall (the Bicameral collapse). A Cherub guards the gates of Eden with a flaming sword. Next "Fragment" I shall continue the historical perspective, and examine how Christ became the second Adam.

Fragment 30

It is time to get back to the Search for the Self. I have a few preliminaries to get through before resuming the Search for the Self. To begin with I must acknowledge some intellectual debts. Besides the usual cast of characters: Bohme, Paracelsus, Gurdjieff, Crowley. ertc.; I have a special obligation to the philosopher F.W. v. Schelling and the psychologist G.H. Mead for this "Fragment". And I have some practical advice, which shall help us transition into the following discussion. The advice is when you have achieved inspiration go as far as you can with it. I am talking about mentally not doing something stupid. When you get a new theory or insight do not cut it off. Carry the theory or insight as far as you can. Go as far into the weeds as you can, there is always time later to trim back the theory or insight. Most people kill their inspiration in the cradle, that is why most people are not good at practicing Magic. Don't let the voices in your head or the voices of family and friends cut short inspiration. To restart our search for the Self, we must talk about consciousness. What is consciousness? Are higher states of consciousness possible? Can higher states of consciousness reveal hidden knowledge? These are some of the questions that led me to practicing Magic, and studying philosophy. So what is consciousness? The usual answer is awareness, this is undoubtedly true. The trouble is we substituted one vague word for another vague word. So I shall offer an operational definition that can be worked with. A definition that only applies to humans at this particular time. Consciousness is the conversation that goes on in a person's head. Now we can start answering the questions that were posed about higher states of consciousness and whether they can reveal hidden knowledge. We know from talking to people that some conversae divided inottions are better than others. So higher states of consciousness are the better conversations one has in his-her head (the Egregores). Remember Crowley said one of the goals of Magic was to achieve a conversation with one;s Holy Guardian Angel (H.G.A.). I will have more to say on the H.G.A. in future "Fragments". Before discussing the thought entities that dwell in the mental sphere, let me say a few more things about conversations. When we read a book, what are we really doing? We are having a conversation with the author. Books like all our conversations follow the rule that some conversations are better than others. Even when we are studying nature our consciousness still puts the study into the form of a conversation. We ask questions and then try to get an answer. We try to make nature answer our questions. The experiments we devise are questions. Let me take a more common example of looking for a building you have never been to. We look to the street names and numbers for our answers. Our consciousness takes the framework of a conversation. This is why nearly everyone from the ancients says that consciousness implies a duality. To be conscious there must be at least two elements that are interacting. A dialogue is the mark of being conscious. Let us move on to the characters that make up a person's internal dialogue. They are the Egregores. When a person lets in or has an Egregore implanted into his-her consciousness, the Egregore forms a "Me". I must state before moving on that I am using some familiar terminology in an unfamiliar way, but bear with me. I am doing the best I can, like I have said we have not invented the tools or the terminology to properly investigate the Egregores. A "Me" is passiveI response to an Egregore. It is Egregore's beach head into one's mind. "Me"s do what they are told. In the Bronze Age there were "Me"s and only a few proto- "I"s. This is why people were the [ro[erty of the Egregores in the Bronze Age. Usually in the Bronze Age the controlling Egregore could be identified by a person's name. Most names in the Bronze Age were theophoric. The "I" comes about when a person begins to question the Egregore. The resulting "I" can be divided into two types depending on the relation to the Egregore. If the reacting "I" embraces the Egregore, and his-her reaction is to further the reach of the Egregore, this results in a passive "I" or an active "Me". I prefer the term "active Me ", because the person is still under the control to the Egregore, even if she-he thinks that they are controlling the Egregore. We know sometimes rival groups of active "Me"s arise in an Egregore.These internal conflicts in an Egregore manifest as conflicts among the Egregore"s followers. The difference between the active "Me" and what I call the "I" is the active "Me" accepts the Egregore's goals. Religious wars,and conflicts would fit into this paradigm of active "Me"s in conflict. The followers are in conflict about how best to pursue the goals of the Egregore, or about some technical point that is meaningless to any outsiders. When a person accepts the goals and conduct of an Egregore they become active "Me"s, and become the Egregore's collaborators. This active "Me" is the reason most people think theyBronze Age there is now a lot of duplicity. I think it was C.S. Lewis said something like: "The Devil's best trick is to make people think he does not exist." The Egregores have developed an even better trick, they make you think that their voice in your head is your own. Like S. Kierkegaard I miss the honesty of the ancient and medieval worlds.This state of thinking you are free while being controlled by Egregores is what Occultists have called sleep or hypnotism. Most people are sleepwalkers controlled by an Egregore's dreams.The way Egregores control people is by inducing dreams. Egregores also use guilt and flattery to control people. In self loathing the Active "Me" condemns and tortures the "I' that resists. Yes guilt may be the greatest mind control technique ever. This is how self loathing become manifest in an individual. An Egregore may also use flattery to approve when the "I" becomes an active "Me".This also is how an Egregore rewards its followers. It makes them feel like they are better than other people. This should be easy to observe in our virtue signalling society. How an Egrgore puffs up people making them sanctimonious and didactic. To finish this "Fragment" I shall go back to the practical advice I started with. When one calls either a god or a demon they are seeking inspiration. I know the older view is where the god or demon is supposed to fetch the desired object and deliver it to the door. I also know this sometimes happens, but it is usually for small or unimportant things. We can take the example of a love spell. Very seldom does a god or demon act as a pimp. But a god or demon can give the confidence or tools to win the desired love, or show one the desired lover is not really that desirable. This is the gift of inspiration. As the ancients knew and we moderns have forgotten inspiration is th

Fragment 29

Before continuing with the Search for the Self, I have some more material I want to cover. Material that does not fit in anywhere, yet is still important to understanding the Self and Occultism. This "Fragment" shall have two parts. The first part shall be some thoughts on Astrology. The second part is an ontological theory of mine. A theory I have no commitment to, in simple terms I am uncertain of the truth of this theory. I could be talked out of it easier than I could be talked into it.The reason I am passing this theory on, is because my unconscious mind keeps working on the theory, even though my conscious mind seems to reject the theory. A strange if not unIliphas common phenomenon. Showing that our conscious mind is but a small part of the greater Self. I shall start with the thoughts on Astrology, and its place in Occultism. The older attitude was that no one ignorant of Astrology should practice Magic. Thi@s view can be found in Paracelsus, and most of the ancient and medieval writings on Magic. The best example is sublime grimoire "The Picatrix". This state of affairs did not change until the middle of the nineteenth century, and was the work of one man: Eliphas Levi. Levi was the great reformer of Magic. I have written about Eliphas Levi before (see my essay "Kierkegaard and Levi" @processidealism.blogspot.com), but as with most subjects I write about I have come to deeper insights with further study, and reflection. To give a very brief summation of my previous essay I recognized his accomplishments in reforming Occultism. His reform of connecting the Tarot cards with the letters of the ahebrew alphabet, and the Qabalah, and his doctrine of the Astral Light. Although he was not the first to use these two doctrines, he was the first to develop and analyze these doctrinal changes.I am giving Levi the credit. As the legendary Chess Champion said about naming chess openings. That an opening should not be named after the first player that plays the opening, but the first player that analyzes and develops the opening. As I said previously Levi democratized Occultism. Most people do not have the time, and resources to master the complicated mnemonic systems of the Renaissance, but everyone can afford a deck of cards. Even though I discussed and recognized the above insights, I seemed to have missed the big picture. What Levi did was to switch the focus of Occultism from the macrocosm to the microcosm. Levi pulled off a Copenican revolution in Occultism as Kant did in philosophy. The older Occultism was focused on the cosmos, and the external world. Levi flipped the focus to the subjective self by making the Will of the Magos central to Occultism. This is how he democratized Occultism. Like using the mnemonic systems of the older Magic using Astrology to plan your rituals or consecrate tools takes time and work. While relying on the Will of the operator is a short cut. It is the same with substituting the Tarot cards for the mnemonic systems of the past. The cosmic energies are channeled through the Will of the operator, instead of using the configurations of the cosmos. Thus the energies of Magic become accessible to all. Of course the trouble is people do not do the work. If one wants to explore the older Magic there is no better book than the sublime "Picatrix" to understand Astral Magic. I shall take a slight diversion here to discuss some of the influences on Levi's thought that are often overlooked. Levi, like Kierkegaard, was a reaction against German Idealism. A turning to subjectivity against the deification of the objective by Hegel. The switch from the objective macrocosm to the subjective microcosm. Anyone who reads Levi's books can observe the influence of Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte on Levi;s thought. But, it is Schopenhauer that gave Levi his central nsight to make the Will of the operator the supreme power in Magic. Back to Astrology. I guess the first question most people ask; is can Astrology really predict the future? A question I cannot answer. I am far from a competent Astrologer. A similar question could be asked of the Tarot cards. Astrology like all the occult arts differs in quality depending on the operator. Astrology is a continuum that runs from the daily advice column in the newspaper to the esoteric verse of Nostradamus (1503-1566). What I can say like the Tarot cards Astrology is a wonderful key to unlocking the unconscious. The trick is to identify oneself with the entire cosmos, instead of one's individuality. A trick that seemed easier for the ancients, and medievals. Not that it was easy even back then. The reason that this trick was easier for the ancients was the cosmos was considerably smaller back then. The Copernican revolution was one of the greatest shocks to humanity in history. More far reaching than Darwin's evolution. The Copernican revolution is what made Darwin's discoveries possible. Back to trying to identify with the cosmos. To successfully do this trick, one has to take to heart the saying of many mystics, that the space inside your head is identical with the cosmos. As for Astrology's efficacy in Magical rituals, I can commend the practice. As the key to success in Magic is adding content. When one does the work of calculating the proper time to do a ritual it adds importance and content to the working. What I can say with confidence is having some knowledge of Astrology is of great benefit to the Magos. Even if it is just being aware of the phases of the Moon, and knowing the symbolism and meaning of the planets and signs. We have now come to the theory. I first used this theory in my fiction (see the "Monas Stone" @gwenchustories.blogspot.com), and then promptly forgot it. I should say my conscious mind forgot it, but my unconscious mind kept working on the theory. So I have some ontological speculation for the reader. The theory is that Reality is a wave which I shall refer to as the Reality Wave or R,W. Think of the R.W. as an analogy to a F.M wave. A F.M. receiver only picks up the peaks of the wave, that is where the information is that is the broadcast. So the theory is that our reality only exists at the peaks or valleys of the R.W. like the F.M. broadcast only exists at the peaks of the waveform. This means our reality ceases to exist except at the peaks or valleys of the wave form. So our reality phases in and out of existence, and other dimensions of reality may exist at other points on the waveform. Our dimension of reality would alternate with other dimensions of reality. When our dimension phases out another dimension would phase into existence. How long the time it takes for our dimension to phase back in does not matter, since we do not exist during other phases of reality, or at least exist in a different form. It could take a microsecond or a century. Although I have a hunch that in our time perception it is closer to a microsecond than a century. Before turning to what this theory could mean to occultism, let us take a look at some evidence for the theory. According to Einstein solid matter is the result of a low vibratory rate. If vibrations drop below a certain rate the congeal into solid matter. A dimension of a higher vibratory rate would seem immaterial for us, and a dimension of a lower vebratoru rate would be of solid matter to us. like Parmenides's Sphere. Another piece of evidence is when observing electrons they seem to bounce in and out of existence, but in the R.W, theory they would go somewhere.What we view as electrons would be a point of a waveform not discrete particles. This would make the electrons the information part of our dimension of reality like the peaks of the F.M broadcast wave. We are all made of electrons, thus they are the information carriers of our reality. Not much evidence I admit, so let us turn to what this could mean to Occultism. Our brain waves are of a higher frequency than the brain matter, thus being immaterial (at least from our point of view). The psychologist Alfred Adler claimed that the brain is the tool of the mind. (see his book "What Life should Mean to You") Adler's example is that if someone suffers brain damage, they can train other parts of the brain to take over for the damaged parts. Thus the mind changes the brain. Of course it is really a reciprocity instead of one being prior to the other. This could mean the Egregores exist in a higher vibratory dimension of reality, They feed on the vibrations of our emotions and thoughts, thus there would be a reciprocity between our consciousness and the Egregores. As I have said before Egregores are born and they die. They are born when our brain waves reach a certain pitch, and die when the pitch no longer exists. There is also an argument for life after death that accords well with Occult teaching. That when we die, the higher vibrations of our consciousness live on in another dimension on the R.W. Many mystic and Occult traditions have taught existence after death is only possible if someone had done the work to create some sort of vibrational body. Example of this are the Light Body in Occultism,as well as Gurdjieff's teaching about creating an astral body that will survive death. The Greek Orthodox tradition has a similar teaching about reaching deification. That our human substance is replaced by divine substance if we follow the rites and teaching so the Church. Anyone interested in this teaching can consult "The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Tradition" by N. Russell, or if interested in primary sources Maximus the Confessor is a good place to start. I shall probably write more about the R.W. theory, since my unconscious mind is still working on it. Anyway I hope some readers find this theory useful, even if it is just for writing fiction. Failing that I hope at least it was entertaining.

Fragment 28

In this "Fragment" I have some add ons to some previous "Fragments". So in this "Fragment" we shall tade a short break from the Search for the Self. As I have said before, these "Fragments" are not Systematic or to be taken as eternal truths, instead they are meant to be dynamic; to change and be built upon. To start with I have some further thoughts on our first ancestors, and how they evolved. To supplement my theory that humans were originally scavengers. The fact that humans are bipedal and with an upright posture seems to add weight to this theory. Walking on two instead of four legs and sg.. standing upright would be of great benefit to scavengers. To begin with an upright posture would allow individuals to see further ahead which would facilitate looking for food. Having the hands free would also have allowed humans to carry or drag things back to any sort of temporary camp the humans had set up. Another fact that I think supports that early humans were scavengers is that humans to this day have a penchant for collecting. Humans love to have collections. We do not find this trait in predators or in other apes. Like I said before I believe that humans were to the primates as rats are to rodents. Before moving to Jaynes's theory, I have an add on to my interpretation of the Set myth. I just recently finished reading C.G. Jung's book "Aion" where Jung investigates the fish as a symbol. Jung holds that the fish is a symbol of consciousness, or the self. The water is the unconsciousness that consciousness (the fish) swims around in. Thus the fish eating Osiris's phallus would be consciousness destroying the vitality of Egregores in the bicameral paradigm. I also have some add ons to Jaynes's theory of consciousness. When I said the left brain interprets the voices from the right brain, I should have said "messages". It would be the left brain that would add the words to the feelings, emotions, or images from the right brain. l must also state here that I am not convinced of a lot of Jaynes's right-left brain theory.But i shall leave the neuroanatomy to those more qualified than myself. Al I think of the Egregores as having an existence outside of the human brain. The other thought I want to add to Jaynes's theory is Jaynes offers us a solution to the problem of why many ancient and mesoamerican cultures would suddenly desert their cities and civilizations to return to tribal life. It was because the Egregores were condemning them. From reading the Old Testament we find the Egregore Yahweh several times thought of killing Moses. I bring this up to draw a parallel with today. Much the same thing is happening with the demon Egregore Hoggg. Hoggg is the patron demon of the social justice movement. Hogg is using guilt to condemn Western Civilization. This is why we can not solve problems today that were solvable in the past. Thus leading us back to barbarism. I will say a few words on Hogg, since he is so active today. Examples being cancel culture, the suggestion of re-education camps,and some sort of secret police that the Democratic progressives are calling for to monitor and destroy "domestic terrorism", you can be sure they shall not invetigate any violent leftist movements (Antifa, B.L.M. etc,) In simple terms Hoggg wants to destroy all those that are not serving him. Hoggg has had several internal conflicts over his life. Of course, with Egregores internal conflicts are worked out as real conflict between its human followers. One of Hoggg's most important internal conflicts happened in the Weimar Republic in Germany post W.W.1. It was the fight between the Nazis, and the Communists (Marxists). In that conflict the Nazis won, then to be defeated in W.W.2, and never rise again. I know there are several neo-Nazi movements around today, but they are just maggots feeding off the rotting corpse of the Third Reich. What is happening today is that the latent Nazism is resurfacing in Hoggg in the Progressive left. I know Progressives are always calling their opponents Nazis, but this is also a Nazi propoganda techinique of the orginal Nazis of accusing your opponets of doing what you are doing. A good example of this is when the Progresseve Democrats accused President Trump of corruption in the Ukraine, while all the time it was their candidate that was leveraging taxpayer money to help himself and his family. Let me explain. Today's Progressives are not really classical Marxists. The trouble with Marxism is it was based on a stupid economic theory. An economic system that did not work. Today's Progressives have instead turned to a Fascist economic system. Big government controls big business through regulation, instead of nationalizing production. In return the government cushes big business, big tech., and the big bankers competition with laws and regulations. In this way they can keep the population subject to Hoggg. Also because Marxism had an economic system as its heart, the messianic class was factory workers, supposedly the most oppressed class. It was factory workers that were supposed to lead us to Utopia. This absurd theory was dropped, instead today's Progressives have substituted a racial (Nazi) theory in its place. Although, they have inverted it in several ways.Now it is whiteness instead of jewishness that is the problem. (Progressives still hate Jews. The Democratic party is rife with antisemitism from top to bottom.) So instead of "Jewishness" it is "Whiteness" that is the problem. The Nazis used to talk of Jewish science, Jewish history, etc. in a pejorative way, now the Progresseve left speaks of White science, history, civilization in the same way. It should not be hard to observe that Progressive of today owe more intellectual debt to Adof Hitler than Karl Marx. Although Hogg has kept some Marxist traits. The international character of the movement. which is now called globalism. The other prominent trait is that people living under the Progressives of today must keep up a steady stream of affirmations of the Progresseve value system, to constantly confirm their allegiance to Hoggg. When I was young, I was able to meet some people that had lived under both the Nazis and the Communists. I asked them what was the difference? They told me under the Nazis you could keep quiet, and they would not bother you. Under the Communists you had to keep up a steady stream of talk affirming how great Communism was. This is of course, a technique of mind control; to gain control of the voices in your head. Like when a popular song gets stuck in your head; Hoggg wants his voice to get stuck in people's heads. There are many parallels between modern America and the Weimar Republic. But do not lose hope, there are also many differences. The most important difference is the quality of Hoggg's tools.Today's Progressives are weak, stupid, soft cowards, a far cry frome the cunning, battle hardened veterans returning frome W.W.1. I would advise everyone to stay clear of the warring Egregores to today. So in parting I shall relate a story from the life of Gurdjieff. When Gurdjieff was leading his followers out of Revolutionary Russia, he had a piece of paper, on one side was a pass to get through the Red Army checkpoints and on the other side was a pass to get through the White Army checkpoints.

Fragment 27 continued

The box symbolizes the triumph of the subjective over the objective. Set has freed himself from the tyranny of the Egregores. The water of the Nile is also a chthonic symbol of the subjective swallowing up the objective. Then Isis and Nephthys rescue the box and hide Osires's body. When confronted by Set, Nephthys breaks and tells Set the location of the body. Set then cuts the body up into fourteen pieces. Remember Osires is the god of the outside order. The cutting up of the body represents turning the outside order into a number of abstractions, instead of a living whole. It is no longer the voice of the living god that rules people.but a number of dead abstractions. Isis and Nephthys now go on a search for the pieces of the body. They find all the pieces but the phallus (penis) which was eaten by a fish. The fish is another chthonic symbol of the subjective swallowing up the life of the objective order. Isis and Nephthys assemble Osiris and bring him back to life, but Osiris decides to stay dead becoming kthre judge of the dead. Osiris represents the outside order as and experience of abstractions or laws. The law is no longer a living, creative voice guiding people's lives, but a series of laws that people are judged by. To continue the story Isis uses her magic to become pregnant and give birth to Horus. Horus then defears his uncle Set and becomes Pharaoh. Horus rules by following the dead abstract voice of Osiris. This is of course the subjective self suppressing and repressing its own individuality to conform to the laws of the outside collective order. This probably also represents how every new Pharaoh had to suppress his individuality to become Horus. And so again the outside order rules over the land in Horus. I believe we are in an analogous time today of the breakdown of the Bicameral mind of the Bronze age. The R.H.P. paradigm is falling apart. The modern Crisis. It is time to create a left hand paradigm. The Aeon of Set is upon us.

Fragment 27

The last "Fragment" was inspired in part by "The Naked Ape" by Desmond Morris. In this "Fragment" some of the inspiration shall come from Julean Jaynes's book "The Origins of Consciousness in the Break Down of the Bicameral Mind", Do we shall continue with observing the development of consciousness. I will try to give a brief summary of Jaynes's theory of consciousness. Jaynes posits that the humans of the Bronze Age had a far different conscious mind than we do today. That instead of a conscious self reflective thought to guide their actions, that they were grided by audio hallucinations. In simpler terms, instead of thinking about a course of action, a voice identified with a god would tell them what to do. This was an age ruled by the Egrergores. It seems in the early Bronze Age humans and regularly gods conversed face to face. One only has to look at the arts and myths of the age to observe humans and gods talking. This dramatically changed around 1230 B.C. In the year 1230 B.C. the Assyrian King Tukulti-Ninurta had an alter made that is dramatically different than anything that had come before, Jaynes describes it thus: "In the carving on its face Tukulti is shown twice first as he approaches the throne of his god, and as he kneels before it. The very double image fairly shouts aloud this beggarly posture unheard of in a King before in history. As our eyes descend from the standing King to the kneeling King, just in front of him. it is emphatic as a moving picture in itself a quite remarkable artistic discovery. But far more remarkable is the fact that the throne before which this first cruel Assyrian conquers grovels is empty." So what happened to the gods? There are three theories of what happened to the gods. That the gods left gor reasons only known to them: the theological theory. That the gods were ancient alien astronauts, and left for reasons only known by them: The alien theory. And the third theory, that there was a change in human consciousness: Jaynes's theory. Jaynes goes on to describe brain anatomy, and the symptoms of schizophrenia to bolster his theory. Basically what he is saying is that the left brain hemisphere interprets the voices from the right brain hemisphere as the voices of external gods. That instead of consciously thinking humans were directed by the voice of their gods, and this only changed with the introduction of writing and larger and more complex social structures. Some of the evidence Jaynes produces to support this theory is" quite illuminating. Most human thinking to this day is done unconsciously. That is why solutions to problems often come about as inspiration; out of seeming nowhere. Like when suddenly a solution to a problem pops into our heads when we are doing something unrelated to the problem. As I said before most of our thinking is still done unconsciously. What Jaynes is saying is that Bronze Age humanity did not know how to think out their problems consciously. Instead they heard the voice of a god when the unconscious mind had come up with a solution. Another interesting theory of Jaynes's is that for the ancients reading was a psychedelic experience. That they hallucinated as they read. What Jaynes is saying is that by our standards Bronze Age people were unconscious. I do not think Jaynes needed to make his theory as strong as he did. I think most humans act and think unconsciously. The difference is now we have moved the voices we hear from outside to inside our heads. That except in exceptional cases, and mental illness we regard the voices of the Egregores as internal instead of external. And reading is still a hallucinatory experience. A primate staring at a page of printed symbols has nothing to do with the images and thoughts in the primates' mind. Of course, as I have said before our seperation of inside (subjective) and outside (objective) is a construct. All our experience is inside (subjective) experience. The difference is we have developed tools, like the law of noncontradiction to create the outside or the objective world. In the ancients there was only the external world, all emotions,and voices were all thought to be in the external world. As late as Empedocles we can observe that psychology and physics had not yet been separated. As I have said before it was Protagoras that separated inside (subject) from outside (objective).The thing with humans is that they gain competence before comprehension. And sometimes we never gain comprehension. We start doing or believing something long before we understand the 'why' and the 'how' . So humans were using the law of noncontradiction long before Paramenides and Protagoras explained what we were doing. Philosophers are more discovers than inventors. The other key part of Jaynes's theory, that the subjective self or "I" is created I am in total agreement with.The subjective self is a creation, and was first developed in the Bronze Age. Child psychologists tell us that humans develop a "Me" before an "I". The "Me" is when we view ourselves the third person. An example is when the mind's eye I see myself hunched over my desk writhing, as if from above. The "I" is the first person way of looking from the inside out, instead of the "Me" which is looking from the outside in. Ancient humans did not distinguish between inside and outside, emotions, voices, etc. were all thought to have an external source. Ancient humans found the crocodile scary, they were not scared of the crocodile. Scary was an external quality possessed by objects. Of course , they had not consciously, it is the default way that humans experience the world. This can be observed in children. Children often look to adults on how to interpret an experience. I have observed children looking to adults after a joke was told to figure out if they should laugh. During the Bronze Age humans were property of the gods. One can still observe this in Islam. Many muslims still today talk about being owned by Allah. Humans are the tools which the Egregores use to achieve their goals. It is interesting to note that almost all Bronze Age names are theophoric. they contain the name of a god. The names of the Egyptian Pharaohs are good examples. It is also during the Bronze Age that humans developed the quality of treachery. Many animals use deception. Examples would be birds mimicking the calls of other animals to trick them out of their food. Jaynes gives the charming example of a female chimp assuming a seductive pose in order to trick a male out of a banana. Treachery is different, to be treacherous one needs a more sophisticated form of consciousness, namely a subjective "I". A self that can pretend to like someone while plotting against them. One must have a subjective self to make such decisions, instead of a "Me" that is told what to do by the gods. I will have a lot more to say about this in future "Fragments". I know the reader is asking how do I bridge the gap between the last "Fragment" where I discussed our early hominid ancestors and the much more sophisticated consciousness of the Bronze Age. What happened that led to the new state of consciousness? The answer is that early humans started using audio signs to stand for things or actions. So when an instinct or desire called for a course of action. humans would hear the audio sign for the action as if from an external source. So if one felt thirsty the audio sign for drink would be heard. In the early Bronze Age the gods (Egregores) ruled humans undisturbed by the rebellious subjective selfs. The gods were masters and the humans were their slaves and property. Even to this day there is a great longing to recapture this state of affairs, Jaynes calls this state of affairs the Bicameral paradigm. This is of course, the origin of the modern Utopia psychoses. Where everyone would be united by hearing the same voice. There would be no need of a coercive government. No one would have to take any responsibility, everyone would be the collective property of the god. Modern progressives have of course substituted government for god. Progressives are always saying we are all owned by the government. This is why Jung claimed that the consciousness of early humans was held in thrall by the gods. I will have more on this in future "Fragments". I shall try to make this more clear by concluding with a myth that had its first development in the Bronze Age. The Osiris-Set-Isis-Nephthys-Horus myth. I will be following the Plutarch Version of the story. So let us begin with Osiris. In the ancient world Osiris was often identified with Jupitar. Both were Kingsthat ruled over humanity; they were the archetype of the god-king that ruled over a golden age. J. Bohme when discussing astrology says that Jupitar represents the outside order. According to the myth, Osiris and his fabulous wife Isis brought civilization to humans. They taught humans all the arts and sciences from writing to agriculture. Osiris had a younger brother, Set who was jealous of his older brother. So what is Set the god of? What does he represent? Set seems to be the god of many things thunder, the other, the Red lands, etc. His name is often associated with the destroyer,but destroyer of what? Maybe we could call him the god of alienation. This would seem to tie all the other things together. But more accurately Set is the god of the subjective self, or the "I'. Set is the destroyer of the outside order and the domination of the Egregores over humanity. He is also the god of freedom. It is interesting to note Set's connection with the Christian Devil, Both Set and the Devil walked out of Utopia.They refused to renounce their individuality for the collective. To go on with our story, Osiris is seduced by Nephthys (Set's wife) and becomes pregnant with Anubis. This was the last straw for Set. He vows revenge and becomes treacherous. He talks kindly to Osires while plotting against him. Remember to practice treachery one must have a subjective self. To move on with the story Set has a beautiful golden box or casket made, Set brings the box to a party that is being held to honor Osiris.Set tells everyone at the party that he shall give the box to anyone who fits in the box. Of course, Set had the made only to fit Osiris. Everyone at the party tries and fails to fit into the box. Finally Set gets Osiris to try the box, Osiris eits in perfectly. Then Set and his retainers close the box and nail it shut. And throw the box into the Nile. The box represents the distinction between the inside (subjective) and outside (objective) worlds. As I said humans do things and use techniques long before they understand what they are doing. It would not be till centuries later that Greek philosophers would rationally explain the distinctions and techniques. Lood how long Christianity was around until Agustine explained it to us. Myth was the highest form of consciousness at the time. As reasons uses abstractions, myth uses symbols. To be continued