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The psychology of mysticism
    #26097899 -

I have been reading a little about these mystic societies like Golden Dawn, Rosecrucians etc ...

It makes little sense to me, but I also think that this is the point. From my understanding, mysticism is not at all about logic, it is about the illogical - unleashing the imaginative capabilities of the mind. And one does this by highly irrational thinking, meaning: one breaks down all ones beliefs, the logic, the rationality and so on.

Recently I have been writing, and I have been questioning all that I write. Like what is really the purpose of the subject, verb, and object, and I started to break it all down, i wanted to write something were the syntax of our language is only there as a convention, but the story I tell do not depend on it. Anyways, enough about that ...

So then, I smoked some marijuhana and listened to Beethoven and then Vangelis' space age music. I've never understood what Beethoven was trying to get at with his music, but this time I understood everything, I understood each note as if I could see the music, see the soul of the composer. And what Beethoven was "singing" about was God. So, I thought that's really impressive, but I am not a Christian. I read the first sentence of the Bible and got it. Where it stands: "God is the word, and the word was God ...". So what does this mean? It means that God is the totality that is created by our language that is divided up in the subject, the verb and the object. SO! God is a controll system. We see the world in terms of our language, as us, as them, as actions, and as objects.

But I was something else, I was more in a Zen kind of state. Seeing everything as an happening, happening now. The ego only exists on a conventional basis.

Anyways.

I listenend to Vangelis, and suddenly I was catapulted into space. And I thought, well, this is really impressive, and wow! it really goes high up when you are in space.

Anyways ... I forgot what the point of this post was.

I think what I am getting at, is that if you condition your mind to think in language, like any kind of religion, it only creates these blockages in your imagination. And imagination I believe is how the world manifests on a ultimate and on a not so ultimate level. Like if I start a business, it is by imagination that I come up with a good bussiness idea etc... And it seems to me that the purpose of mysticism is to unblock the imagination by this nonsense kind of magical system. That is, a system that is so disorganized and irrational that it cannot even be called a system.

Any thoughts?

Edited by Hotdog from Space (07/09/19 11:03 AM)

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Hotdog from Space] * 1
    #26097969 -

all is reflection


:etjesus:

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: DontFearThePeepr]
    #26099099 -

Mysticism is just encroaching back upon our divinity, our godliness, since we are all gods/goddesses inhabiting finite outer shells for the moment.

We can awaken the divine within us in this life, regenerate the body, change the weather with our minds, and perceive all the infinite dimensions around us that lie on a frequency in perception.

Civilization has forgotten we are divinities. There may have been civilizations that knew, and lived in utopia, who knows, but we have got this far on the basis of luck and the birth of geniuses.


--------------------
Hostile humankind
Can't you see you're fucking blind?

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Hotdog from Space]
    #26101434 -

Congratulations on your #1 post! :congrats:


I think that you are conflating magick with mysticism. These come close in transcendental magick, theurgy, as written about in different contexts (like the theurgical magick of Moses vs. the thaumaturgical magick of Pharoah's magicians, or the theurgy of the Neoplatonist Iamblichus), but which ultimately remains asymptotically parallel and separate. Magick seeks to control existence, mysticism seeks to surrender to Ultimate Reality. God is not a "control system," God is shorthand for Ultimate Reality which is Absolute Freedom from limitation. It is the transcendental nature of Reality that imputes freedom to the human psyche, just the opposite of your conclusion. You are confusing God with God-concept. There is Ultimate Reality and there are insipid intellectual representations of Ultimate Reality. Of God nothing can be posited since God transcends all attributes and does not admit of multiplicity. God-concepts are rife with attributes.

Since you mention Zen, the Zen meme of 'the finger pointing to the Moon' is apt. When people take God-concepts for God, they are looking at the finger, not the Moon. The same applies to the Dharmakaya, which is why there is that other saying: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." You will not meet the Buddha on the road any more than God-concepts are God. These are all idols not to be regarded as Reality. Zen rock gardens usually place a shapeless boulder in place of a Buddha statue for this reason, to confound misunderstanding about the formlessness and transcendental nature of Reality. Ignorant Christians similarly worship an imagined 1st century Jewish peasant as the Incarnation of God. If Iesous could be interviewed, he'd be horrified by the gross misunderstanding of his teachings. Part of a Triune Godhead?! :eek: That God-concept would offend the monotheistic Jewish wisdom-teacher! :yesnod: :lol:

As to your quote, John wrote the Prologue (Pro-Logos) 90-120 years after Iesous died. The original Greek word is Logos which has close to 20 meanings associated with it, but the translation as "Word" is unfortunate as many are confused by this. The Logos is the first manifestation of God according to the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria who lived contemporaneously with Iesous (if Iesous was a historical person). The author named John was clearly familiar with Philo's work on the Logos and began his gospel with some of it. John alone portrayed Iesous as God incarnate. Mark, Matthew and Luke (the Synoptic or 'same view') authors did not do this yet almost all Christians either don't know this or forget it. For the Synoptic authors, Iesous was 'a man anointed by God.' That is to say, anointed with oil, chrism, the basis for the title Christ (anointed). Language does shape our apprehension of existential reality but language cannot touch Ultimate Reality which defies description since it transcends existence utterly.

:peace:
MtG


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #26102199 -

MarkostheGnostic said:
Congratulations on your #1 post! :congrats:


I think that you are conflating magick with mysticism. These come close in transcendental magick, theurgy, as written about in different contexts (like the theurgical magick of Moses vs. the thaumaturgical magick of Pharoah's magicians, or the theurgy of the Neoplatonist Iamblichus), but which ultimately remains asymptotically parallel and separate. Magick seeks to control existence, mysticism seeks to surrender to Ultimate Reality. God is not a "control system," God is shorthand for Ultimate Reality which is Absolute Freedom from limitation. It is the transcendental nature of Reality that imputes freedom to the human psyche, just the opposite of your conclusion. You are confusing God with God-concept. There is Ultimate Reality and there are insipid intellectual representations of Ultimate Reality. Of God nothing can be posited since God transcends all attributes and does not admit of multiplicity. God-concepts are rife with attributes.

Since you mention Zen, the Zen meme of 'the finger pointing to the Moon' is apt. When people take God-concepts for God, they are looking at the finger, not the Moon. The same applies to the Dharmakaya, which is why there is that other saying: "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." You will not meet the Buddha on the road any more than God-concepts are God. These are all idols not to be regarded as Reality. Zen rock gardens usually place a shapeless boulder in place of a Buddha statue for this reason, to confound misunderstanding about the formlessness and transcendental nature of Reality. Ignorant Christians similarly worship an imagined 1st century Jewish peasant as the Incarnation of God. If Iesous could be interviewed, he'd be horrified by the gross misunderstanding of his teachings. Part of a Triune Godhead?! :eek: That God-concept would offend the monotheistic Jewish wisdom-teacher! :yesnod: :lol:

As to your quote, John wrote the Prologue (Pro-Logos) 90-120 years after Iesous died. The original Greek word is Logos which has close to 20 meanings associated with it, but the translation as "Word" is unfortunate as many are confused by this. The Logos is the first manifestation of God according to the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria who lived contemporaneously with Iesous (if Iesous was a historical person). The author named John was clearly familiar with Philo's work on the Logos and began his gospel with some of it. John alone portrayed Iesous as God incarnate. Mark, Matthew and Luke (the Synoptic or 'same view') authors did not do this yet almost all Christians either don't know this or forget it. For the Synoptic authors, Iesous was 'a man anointed by God.' That is to say, anointed with oil, chrism, the basis for the title Christ (anointed). Language does shape our apprehension of existential reality but language cannot touch Ultimate Reality which defies description since it transcends existence utterly.

:peace:
MtG



I see that you have read into these traditions more than I have. And it is interesting what you say.

But to clarify my position, my experiental understanding of the word, of knowledge is as master Eckhart pointed out: "Knowledge always deceives. It always limits the Truth, every concept and image does."

Saussures "signifier, sign and signified" can be used to clarify this

The signifier is the physical manifestation, etc. the word, the sound or the image ...

The sign is the object/thing

The signified is the mental concept.


So in the case of a apple. "apple" is the signifier, the sign is the physical manifested apple, and the signified can be our mental concepts that comes up when we think of apple: sweed, tasty, red etc ...

But when we utter the word "God" (signifier) this word has no "sign". It only has a "signified". So then, by using the word God about something absolute we activate our language (system of signs) to try to understand it. And, in my experience, this can only limit absolute truth. We create mental representations of it, and take the mental representations for it. Or we go for an endless search to find it through mental representations. It cannot be found this way.


So thats why I called God a controll system. Reading the Bible initiates this kind of search for representations of the absolute. And what I am pointing at is that when we get really high, knowledge like this is only going to decieve. So ... what is the correct use of knowledge? in my view the correct use of knowledge is to use knowledge to "break down" knowledge. To get into the state that the Buddhist calls emptiness, or nothingness. That state which cannot be represented in any image.

So i guess then that I have the same idea as the Zen monks, when they place a shapeless rock in the garden to symbolize Buddha. And when you have this understanding, naming the "absolute" "God" seem totally crazy, cause God is a word full of ideas and concepts. For thousands of years we have been discussing what this mean, what it is and so on... and the usage of this word is only bound to get our minds tangled up with cultural dogma and so on ...

Edited by Hotdog from Space (07/11/19 12:34 PM)

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Hotdog from Space]
    #26102770 -

Within the context of language I suppose god is a control system but like you and others have said language is simply a restriction (or something like that) towards the transcendental. 

I like that sign, signifier, signified model.  It’s true the word god does not have a sign.  Or does it ?  I’ve been thinking more or less about this recently and how we come from the dark and the unknown in the sense of birth/death and how we return to the dark when we die.  I keep coming to the conclusion that god, from my subjective POV, literally = death.  Like you said everything else regarding god in this life is imagination some more realistic than others but nevertheless I’m fairly sure it’s relative illusion.  So god = the dark, the unknown.

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Yellow Pants]
    #26105603 -

Terrance McKenna one of the greatest free thinkers of of our time actually talks about this in one of his dialogs referring to language as structure that forms our reality.  Think of a child who sees a bird for the first time it must be amazing a creature that flys around what else can it do spit fire maybe there are no limits on reality. But when we structure that object with a word it makes a limit a bird is creature that flys around and eats worms nothing else we create our own reality in this way. Maybe magic is like this making no limits on the imagination by deconstructing our words or reality and making the impossible possible.


--------------------
"Who says upright Ape's should know the secrets of the Universe"--Terrance McKenna

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: fatal222316]
    #26108156 -

Right, so if god is what we are after then we need to find him or her and deconstruct our language so that his or her infinite nature will reveal itself.  :stirthepot:

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Yellow Pants]
    #26108826 -

Right this is the idea but I believe this is not a easy task we are ingrained with language we are ingrained with our current reality. I believe eastern mystics have transcended this with their practices such a meditation then we have shamans who do this with there sacred medicines there are many ways to get to the targeted goal but the point is reality is our perception ,change your perception and change your reality. Science even verify’s this on the quantum scale with thought experiments such schrodengers cat theory etc.


--------------------
"Who says upright Ape's should know the secrets of the Universe"--Terrance McKenna

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: fatal222316]
    #26109877 -

yea i agree, i think this could actually be a basis through which people can deduct/induct the possibility of a living god in our world. quantum physics promotes the concept as a spontaneous observer, of sorts. the seemingly random nature of this "observer" is where people get the ideas of angels/demons, god/devil, etc.

these instances are very tentative which makes it appear elusive or even absent for the most part, and are also considerably factored by the individuals' states of mind/thoughts/beliefs...



:mushroom2:


--------------------
Legalize drugs and prostitution

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Hotdog from Space] * 1
    #26110791 -

You may still have difficulties of association with the word God, but for me it is just shorthand for Ultimate Reality. The Dalai Lama used the word God in his lectures at Harvard and he is a Buddhist for crying out loud. It did not bother him and it does not bother me, but then again I am probably closer to the Dalai Lama's age than I am to your age and I do not have an uncontrolled torrent of pictoral or emotional representations of an Old-Bearded-Guy-in-the-Sky, or a Saint Joseph Baltimore catechism book with pictograms of lambs, doves, and glowing triangles to depict a Holy Trinity. :lol:

I am a fan of Meister Eckhart. I've been to Cologne Cathedral where he was to be put to the stake had he not mercifully died of natural causes first. Your example reminded me of semiotics and epistemology in my theories of knowledge course that I took in grad school in the early 80s. I get the difficulty with language and concept but I also have 48 years of psychedelic experiences as well as an almost equal number of years exploring systems of contemplation and a mystical experience that has sustained my engagement since December of 1973. Transcendental, transpersonal awareness is also trans-rational, non-linguistic and therefore non-conceptual.

Mysticism results in knowledge of a different order than epistemé, namely gnosis. This is jnana (gyan) in India and even though it is often translated as the Yoga of Intellect, it is the Non-Dualism that Ramana Maharshi teaches. It is direct knowledge, a unity of Knower-Knowledge-Known, neither subjective nor objective but transcendental unity. As Meister Eckhart said, "The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love."


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

Edited by MarkostheGnostic (07/16/19 01:37 AM)

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #26110798 -

:thumbup:


--------------------
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #26110894 -

MarkostheGnostic said:
You may still have difficulties of association with the word God, but for me it is just shorthand for Ultimate reality. The Dslai Lama used the word God in his lectures at Harvard and he is a Buddhist for crying out loud. It did not bother him and it does not bother me, but then again I am probably closer to the Dalai Lama's age than I am to your age and I do not have an uncontrolled torrent of pictoral or emotional representations of an Old-Bearded-Guy-in-the-Sky, or a Saint Joseph Baltimore catechism book with pictograms of lambs, doves, and glowing triangles to depict a Holy Trinity. :lol:

I am a fan of Meister Eckhart. I've been to Cologne Cathedral where he was to be put to the stake had he not mercifully died of natural causes first. Your example reminded me of semiotics and epistemology in my theories of knowledge course that I took in grad school in the early 80s. I get the difficulty with language and concept but I also have 48 years of psychedelic experiences as well as an almost equal number of years exploring systems of contemplation and a mystical experience that has sustained my engagement since December of 1973. Transcendental, transpersonal awareness is also trans-rational, non-linguistic and therefore non-conceptual.

Mysticism results in knowledge of a different order than epistemé, namely gnosis. This is jnana (gyan) in India and even though it is often translated as the Yoga of Intellect, it is the Non-Dualism that Ramana Maharshi teaches. It is direct knowledge, a unity of Knower-Knowledge-Known, neither subjective nor objective but transcendental unity. As Meister Eckhart said, "The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love."


I like the knower-knowledge-known triangle. Instead of the subject-object-verb that always puts the object as something above the subject, something that really is unreachable, cause one get's stuck in the "verb", the practice. One always gotta do something to reach the upper plateau, be it belief, meditation, spiritual practice and so on ...

Though, "doing" has it's benefits, like doing DMT. But there is no subject that does the doing. It is no meditater that meditates. This would not be meditation, and a DMT experience with the subject would not reach the upper plateau of the DMT experience - the ego dies.

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Hotdog from Space]
    #26112045 -

yes the god of this reality, Jehovah, is the word aka language.
language begets reason , hierarchy, time, space, separation, limitation, constriction, suffering, stuckness..
hes like Lord business in the first lego movie trying to keep everything perfectly frozen.
the gospel of the serpent says that he came from the black depths of the outer darkness. an ill, twisted wraith born from fear of the void.
this god is not apart from you. he is the personification of the ego, the aspect of you that cant cope with constant flux.

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: mt cleverest]
    #26112120 -

I stay away from most religious jargon and rhetoric.  There are certain realms which we all interact with. 

The first is the ego or recently understood as the default mode network. 

Then there is the subconscious.

The unconscious

The collective conscious

Then lastly Universal Conscious.

There may be consciousness beyond that.

But losing meaning to words and a sense of reality could just be cannabis.  Psychosis is also very much that.  Losing the ability to communicate and respect where others live and associate is not a viable option.

Even though it is fun to experience things differently.

I was just thinking that perhaps at death there is only evaporation of consciousness.  Going back to the system as a whole.  That everything that was held together in the mind, was only the brain.  That the last moment is simply a destruction of whole.

The brain can come up with any sort of philosophy or theory, religion, belief and illusion.  Capable of creating heaven and hell, all on it's own.


--------------------
"in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur"

In filth it will be found in dung it will be found

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Morel Guy]
    #26112140 -

Think that at death, the brain may attempt it's greatest effort at an illusion.  Just to make sense.  So it doesn't know it's the end.

Meditation is an attempt to bring that strength and power into more of life.  It's rare we try our best all the time, because we are not evolved to and it seems oh so unlikely to be profitable to do that.

We are humans and error.  So religion speaks of grace.  Something the world is very shy of.

The greatest irony is we try to make sense of things.  We do a lot of harm not having a refined brain that always make perfect sense.  We get tired and lose our maximum effort.

Perhaps at some point there will be some sort of new effort of existence as a whole.  But there is zero evidence that anything is other than a cultural construct.

When the brain holds on, it forms structures.  Any sense at all.  Even nonsense.


--------------------
"in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur"

In filth it will be found in dung it will be found

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Morel Guy]
    #26112241 -

Yeah I agree death is, potentially, the only true answer to any question of ultimate reality.  But that doesn’t do us any good while we choose to stay alive.  Hence the mystical (or scientific) drive to play with the construct.  And according to modern science there seems to be suggestions that playing around with things has realistic implications.

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Yellow Pants]
    #26112297 -

2 trillion galaxies is the only reason I am open to spiritual dimensions.  I see a lot of understanding in just why people are so afraid of death.  It has nothing to do with fearing God.

Being able to be a better person is something that religion tries to impress with.  Often fails more often than not at that.

Religion was an early form of social medicine.  Our egos are more developed and defined these days.  So we'd like to assume and can observe in some of us.

Facts are facts and being open seems a large part of what death may be.  Seems like a waste of energy, borderline insanity to think about the abstract.

In real time, religion is a political device.  It's been that way for a long time. A great deal of assumptions are made, because so many never thought outside of their culture.

Even the Nazi's had mystical beliefs.  Very very dangerous to just make up culture catch phrases and go about changing the world on a powerful delusion.

Now we are in a mess where people find it so offensive that someone thinks outside the cultural box.


--------------------
"in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur"

In filth it will be found in dung it will be found

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Morel Guy]
    #26112400 -

So maybe you’re more of a  :rail: type person.  Time is money 24/7 get after it.

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Re: The psychology of mysticism [Re: Yellow Pants]
    #26112405 -

What is the end goal?  Pass on children?

That sounds too involved.  Work your but off just to have kids pass on eternal inheritance?


--------------------
"in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur"

In filth it will be found in dung it will be found

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