Various points ... Dear G0D ...,
The remark about buddhism=suffering seems somewhat unjustified and a premature conclusion. If I were asked, I'd probably say B is about enlightenment/satori. But that is all off on different topic.
Quite simply, regardless of where it leads, I consider the notion that life is suffering observational but I am not ready to place it near the center of a religious approach. Not until I better understand the rest of the fourfold path and its implications among people can I possibly put it toward any effective use. And in my primary Buddhist contact, the adoption of the faith has resulted in a world-fleeing period, in which it's unclear exactly how he works toward the reduction of suffering. To be perfectly honest, if it really
does come down to drawing pretty mandalas and thinking good thoughts about my neighbors, I hardly need a formalized religious system to prescribe such action.
So, at the cost of oversimplification, can one say that the basis of your belief in a realm of the spirit is a series of unexplained phenomena that you (and others) witnessed?
Pretty much. That and an unhealthy association to iambic pentameter.
And no, I do not attribute any of that to weed or even hash. Despite having smoked prodigious amounts, I've only had auditory hallucinations, never visual. Though it does lead to very realistic seeming (and scary) dreams ... Never come across hash oil ... perhaps higher concentrations of THC (and absorption via skin) lead to visions of flying, but without having tried it, I cannot say.
Exactly. 99.999% of all witchcraft-related flights are, indeed, related to the effects of whatever flying ointment one chooses to use. I generally don't go to the bother of slaking hash and clove with oil and simmering it for a given period. Psilocybin is a much easier though less-stable way to achieve the effect. I'd guess the remaining witch-flights can probably be attributed to exploding cauldrons :bugeye: ... and, of course, major airline use is not included in the witchcraft-related flights, despite the fact that I prefer the reliability of United coach class over a broomstick were I to, say, fly to a conference in the Carolinas.
One thing tho, you do have a very colourful imagination, as your posts repeatedly show. Perhaps it was a combination of imagination + setting ("haunted" areas) + expectation that leads to the visions cited?
Like I said, half (at least) of the weird things I saw can be directly accounted for by natural--though speculative--factors. Imagination and setting, for instance. But I've seen a condemned house undo atheism before. Like one night in the alleged presence of the Devil. Okay ... yes, we were being stalked by
something, but even though the wolves don't often hunt in tightly-distributed packs so close to civilization, I'm quite sure that the three or four independent entities were, most likely, canine and entirely mundane. They may be wolves but wolves are still dogs. There was a also a difference in the way fear came in relation to knowledge. The nature of that sudden anxiety changed according to a simple precept: does the subject know where s/he is and what is associated with the place? The atheist--he went out with us thinking we were taking him someplace to drink and be young with pretty girls. As a friend and I were parking our car, his went speeding by in the opposite direction. We later found him and his passenger having coffee at a nearby restaurant. Place scared the hell out the both of them, and they were two of the four who had never been there before. It's one of my favorite stories. In the end, our atheist pal spent about a month revising his worldview. Strangely, unresolved natural phenomena fell outside the scope of his accepted range of possibility. While I've never been one who sees the necessity of excluding natural phenomena from the atheist paradigm--as I said, proof of ghosts would equal merely proof of the existence of an event which we call a ghost--the degree of mystery he undertook somehow defied his atheist boundaries, and called for a revised paradigm. Didn't have much practical effect, didn't change him outwardly. Well, there were some differences. He no longer dropped his voice like a Jewish mother speaking of cancer in a Neil Simon play every time he referred to the mysterious ... it was an interesting period to witness.
By and large subject mentality played the most significant factor in those occasions, but sometimes you feel it before you see it, like someone watching or pursuing you. Over the next years it might turn out that there is a peculiar electromagnetic balance at the site, or some such. But the sense of presence that defies explanation or expectation must necessarily have a cause. Internal or otherwise, there's still a handful that can't be written away as us scaring ourselves. The eyes in the belfry, for instance. Three people saw them, which tells me that something physical occurred in the space in that belfry. If only our fallen friend had seen them, then I would say 'dem blue eyes were symptomatic of assimilatng a heart attack. (We cannot guarantee that this event
was the cardiac, but all signs point to "Yes".)
One of the links was a surprising co-incidence tho. The one about "angels" and the Kabalah. A friend is embarking on 6 months of complete isolation in order to contact an "angel". And the attempt is beginning within 36 hours from now. I expressed my full support ... and my complete skepticism. Also I agreed to make an occasional supply of fresh clothing (white kurtas, knee length robes.) Do you have a take on contacting angels? Or do you only converse with satyrs and faeries?
Understanding that the notion of the angel stands, for me, as part of the Abramic tradition, I consider angels to be either pure pucky or else a specific range of interpretation of a given event. During the last "angel" rage, a woman who walks away from a hideous car accident credits it to the "angel" she saw. Okay, no concussions, no serious damage to induce hallucinations ... what, though, about the chemical state after being t-boned by a delivery vehicle and realizing that the volume of your body fills the only portion of the car which isn't utterly destroyed?
Yet Crowley attributed Thelema to an "angel" named Aiwaz. I tend to think the use of the term angel here is in conformity with the systems he was pursuing. But in that sense, a seemingly external insertion of knowledge and will has many possible causes. Occam's Razor, at least, purports that the actual presence of an angelic entity is about the last thing one might find.
Given the full liberty of pseudo-academic pomposity, I would go so far as to say that seeking angels or spirit-guides in any higher religion or magickal scheme is a question of faith. By my perspective, I equate it to all manner of solitary spiritual experience, the most basic of which can be described as a listening party, where a small troop of people retreat into isolation and spend a period simply not speaking, and listening to nature. Were it not for the cost, I would have taken the opportunity I found at random through an article in IONS magazine to spend two weeks in the isolation of the Moroccan desert.
But at its foundation, such quests are meditative, and whatever form or function we staple onto that experience is a mere accretion. I find the higher-magickal ideas (e.g. "angel" as compared to "spirit") far too exacting to accurately describe the experience. Much like Christianity, then, the higher magickal systems often tell you what you expect to see in specific terms. Certes, a particular grimoire might tell me a few details about what to expect, but what purpose is there in relating to spirits under the specific presumption of human inferiority? (Why enslave oneself to tribute and begging? It's hardly a healthy result in the immediate.)
To the other, in the broader sense, I should not necessarily criticize an angelic quest. Given the scope of possibility in the Universe, it's quite apparent that I could be entirely wrong.
And that idea, wherever else it might exist, came to me through the witches' path.
Satyrs, no ... faeries ... well, more often while socializing about town than when searching dancing rings and so forth, but what really gets to me are sprites. Little shadows of tangible irony flitting around whenever the natural order becomes too twisted by desire and ignorance to function according to expectation.
They are, however, perfectly respectful when laying ladybird beetles to rest in the ground. But when your girlfriend is standing there shouting, "What are you
doing?" while you burn incense and bury the carcass of the fallen ladybug and your best friend shows up and says, "What happened?" and she says, "He's burying a f--king ladybug," and your best friend says, "Oh, shite, let me get my gear," and runs back to the car for his magick box ... yeah, about that point the sprites lose it and you can hear them tittering in the trees like pure-tone windchimes. But it's nice to know that if I ever stop and talk to the trees, there's a fifty-fifty chance that someone or something is actually listening. Of course, more often than not, whoever's listening doesn't give a rat's behind except for your value in humor. So in that particular sense, the spirit realm isn't that different from the mundane world.
It's all about the joy that hides beneath the mundane veneers of life, waiting for its chance to burst forth and spill across the land in merriment and rhythm.
I mean, come on ... the day happiness bleeds into every dark corner of the human experience ... that'll be magic alright.
Of course, in the modern day, there would be some threefold blowback. After all, when happiness infects everyone, we'll be taking away the sovereign right to be deliberately unhappy. And that's wrong, and so we'll apologize in advance.
Oh, and one last note in general ... perhaps more important than the unexplained phenomena is the living result. Among the objectivism I found in my atheist phase I found a serious lack of living passion. The hollowness of the mundane experience, and the duplicity of the mundane conscience--well, what's important? What you have, what you call yourself, or how you feel?
thanx,
Tiassa