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 Veritas
Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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 Re: Sorcery, the journey of return.  [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#6921671 - 05/15/07 08:05 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Where did I say that we should focus only on the material/rational aspects of thought? I believe that my point was that our "normal," reactive mental pattern prevented us from experiencing the other aspects of our cognition. 
My take on the techniques proposed by Casteneda is that they "trick" us into disrupting our habitual irrational cognition, and allow us to experience the full complexity of our lives. I have no problem with his techniques, but the framework he has proposed does not work for me.
If you believe that psychologists, in general, do not comprehend the complexity of the human mind, I think that your exposure to psychology has been limited to the Social Science approach. Jung, Maslow, Ellis, Reich and others have delved more deeply into the psyche, and integrated many ancient concepts into their studies of human cognition.
I find Castenada interesting, and his framework entertaining, but I see all the terminology and ideology as unnecessary to convey the central ideas. Ultimately, I simply prefer my ideas without all the frippery. 
Edited by Veritas (05/15/07 08:11 PM)
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Veritas
Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: fireworks_god]
#6921692 - 05/15/07 08:10 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Sheesh, FWG, did you notice the  ??
He was joking.
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elbisivni
Registered: 10/01/06
Posts: 2,839
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: Veritas]
#6921720 - 05/15/07 08:15 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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i want a pet pyrrharctia isabella 
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From dust you are made and to dust you shall return.
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 fireworks_god
Sexy.Butt.McDanger
Registered: 03/12/02
Posts: 24,855
Loc: Pandurn
Last seen: 4 months, 14 days
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: Veritas]
#6921722 - 05/15/07 08:15 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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You have to realize it is hard to tell with Icelander sometimes, for me at least.  You're his soulmate, not me. 
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If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
 
 
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,679
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: Veritas]
#6921809 - 05/15/07 08:37 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Quote:
I think that your exposure to psychology has been limited to the Social Science approach
I don't know why you would make such an assumption because I have never mentioned my background as a psychology student to you. In reality I am very well acquainted with the works of Jung and Maslow, and I feel the most affinity with Maslow, but even he only defined a narrow spectrum of human experience. This seems to be a nasty habit with psychologists. Their interpretations of behavior...and the symptoms of disorders have more in common with their school of thought than observed behavior. I will admit that I was never properly exposed to Ellis and I cannot judge his works.
Quote:
Ultimately, I simply prefer my ideas without all the frippery
Just as ancient engineers have been shown to have beeen as competent as modern engineers with the limitations and materials that they had at their disposal, ancient shamans were just as competent with the technology of cognition. That is a technology over 50,000 years old. The vocabulary of cognition that was developed to explain these concepts is much more specific than the vocabulary that is currently in use by modern psychology which is not properly 100 years old yet. To ignore the vast work of primitive knowledge in this area is a serious mistake for modern science, but displays the typical arrogance of modern man. There is much superstition in many of these ancient ideas...no doubt, but superstition is present in nearly every culture. The field that I work in...technology...has reams of associated superstition.
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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: AlephOne]
#6921859 - 05/15/07 08:46 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Quote:
AlephOne said:
I'm sure it's relevant to the discussion to point out that Castaneda was a fraud, and Don Juan didn't really exist.
It isn't ad hominem if it isn't a person. 
Since you have no personal knowledge of your claims they are just as useless and irrelevant as those who claim that it's all true. And it is not relevant to this discussion as I never brought any of this into it. So how about lets stick to the subject at hand.
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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falcon
Registered: 04/01/02
Posts: 7,938
Last seen: 1 day, 13 hours
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: Icelander]
#6921867 - 05/15/07 08:47 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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OK now, for the record I'm not saying any of this is true or false. But it's worth contemplating don't you think?
Nope.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: fireworks_god]
#6921876 - 05/15/07 08:49 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Quote:
fireworks_god said:
Quote:
Icelander said:
At least the Moderator sould make some attempt to keep my thread on topic.
I really don't have great expectations though.
Please, its no different than any of the excursions you and Veritas have been involved in.
If you really want it, I will remove the entirety of the short aside. I've considered doing it before. The next time you Veritas and huehue have a friendly aside I'll be sure to dump it as well. I've never seen anything like this disrupt the on-topic discussion but if you want a strict, unflowing discussion with no sense of community spirit or fun then so be it. Its your decision.
Well I was joking.;)
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,679
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: AlephOne]
#6921920 - 05/15/07 08:59 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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It really doesn't matter if Castaneda published fiction. I have studied shamanism for over two decades and practiced it for nearly one. It is beyond dispute that Castaneda had a deep knowledge of primitive religion, philosophy, and shamanism as far I have been able to discern. This makes his writings quite relevant to the modern consideration of that field. I personally think that Castaneda was attempting an update of that field for modern readers. His writings are works that I feel have great validity and deep artistic merit.
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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: Veritas]
#6921930 - 05/15/07 09:02 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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I believe that Carlos Castaneda was missing the great potential of the rational mind. It is not necessary for our cognition to be self-obsessed, and we do not need to revert to some idyllic, pre-Homo Sapiens Sapiens brain structure in order to maximize our experience of living.
While I agree with your post I'm not sure that Castaneda was missing the great potential of the rational mind. Remember you are getting all this second hand as you have not read the book I'm referring to here. I'm not claiming that I can accurately interpret what Castaneda means. It's just what I think he means.
Great store is placed on sobriety and rational thinking as part of the warriors way in all of his books. If you read them you might agree some of the discussions seem quite cerebral and rational. He never to my knowledge suggested we revert to some pre homo sapien sapien brain structure or way of thinking. IMO he is stating that we have discontinued and are mostly unable to use because of the way we use our neo cortex, this thing called silent knowing. I know I used the word intuition but he did not. He said that intuition was a vestige of our awareness of silent knowing if I remember correctly. I think that you and he are basically in agreement as to where the problem lies. The methods and goals of sorcery and psychology might differ is some ways or to some degrees however.
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,679
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: Icelander]
#6921938 - 05/15/07 09:06 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Quote:
we have discontinued and are mostly unable to use because of the way we use our neo cortex, this thing called silent knowing
This occurred when man developed objective thought and ceased to be like the other animals in that respect. The path of the shaman is to return to the animal state...silent knowledge...or the Garden of Eden if one prefers.
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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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AlephOne
Registered: 05/13/06
Posts: 150
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: falcon]
#6921939 - 05/15/07 09:06 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Quote:
Since you have no personal knowledge of your claims they are just as useless and irrelevant as those who claim that it's all true.
Yeah, that's why I said it. I'm just making shit up here. Richard de Mille too. Because investigative journalism is just bullshit. Evidence of plagarism and outright fabrication is all in the imagination as long as it's inconvenient enough.
Quote:
And it is not relevant to this discussion as I never brought any of this into it.
This must have been a flashback then:
Quote:
According to Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan anyway, there was a time according to him that humans possessed silent knowledge. Knowing without thinking. (Intuitive knowing) He called it seeing.
...
Don Juan called it moving the assemblage point. The assemblage point is sort of a point of focus inside our awareness. When it moves we can experience things in very different ways then we could were it glued to another spot.
Appealing to pretend people isn't a good way of advancing a case.
Now, that certainly doesn't mean that you can't talk about it. So lets do that. The idea is patently absurd. Intelligence exists to coordinate observations in order to make deductions and inferences. This is self-evident. If it didn't provide us with a selective advantage, and, indeed, if active thought were harmful, it wouldn't exist. The time at which we didn't have the cognitive ability for abstraction and symbolic thought (that would be the time of non-thinking) was the time when our distant pre-human ancestors were acting on instinct alone. Now, my dog has some intelligence, but is not capable of abstraction or symbolic thought. Actually, that's true of most mammals. I have yet to meet a sorcerer dog.
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,679
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: AlephOne]
#6921953 - 05/15/07 09:09 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Richard DeMille's book showed only cursory understanding of Castaneda's works. It was the product of a personal vendetta against Castaneda due to the fact that Castaneda would not collaborate on a biography with him. DeMille admitted this in his book. Castaneda's Journey was utter unresearched and ill thought out bullshit.
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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,679
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: AlephOne]
#6921958 - 05/15/07 09:10 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Quote:
I have yet to meet a sorcerer dog.
You haven't met Leonard.
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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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AlephOne
Registered: 05/13/06
Posts: 150
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#6922066 - 05/15/07 09:34 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Quote:
Huehuecoyotl said:
You haven't met Leonard.
Curses! I have been foiled again by faulty induction! 
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,679
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: AlephOne]
#6922078 - 05/15/07 09:38 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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His eyes shine with timeless wisdom.
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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: AlephOne]
#6922272 - 05/15/07 10:30 PM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Appealing to pretend people isn't a good way of advancing a case. Once again you pretend you know something you don't.
It's really irreverent who existed and who did not. The ideas stand or fall on their merit and as I stated I wasn't saying I believed it or not. So can you get over yourself here.
Now, that certainly doesn't mean that you can't talk about it. So lets do that. The idea is patently absurd. Intelligence exists to coordinate observations in order to make deductions and inferences. This is self-evident. If it didn't provide us with a selective advantage, and, indeed, if active thought were harmful, it wouldn't exist. The time at which we didn't have the cognitive ability for abstraction and symbolic thought (that would be the time of non-thinking) was the time when our distant pre-human ancestors were acting on instinct alone. Now, my dog has some intelligence, but is not capable of abstraction or symbolic thought. Actually, that's true of most mammals. I have yet to meet a sorcerer dog.
Nowhere did I state nor did Castaneda as far as I know, that logical thinking and thought was unimportant or unnecessary, but that we had other faculties that that we had ceased to use that were of great benefit to us. This idea of silent knowing may or may not be true but you haven't addressed the topic.
So if you want to start a thread about whether Castaneda was a fraud or not go for it. It's been talked to death here already but I think that you would enjoy hearing yourself pontificate.
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,679
Loc: On the Border
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: Veritas]
#6923388 - 05/16/07 04:39 AM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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Quote:
Ultimately, I simply prefer my ideas without all the frippery.
It should also be noted that if the average person were to evaluate either of our ideas about philosophy they would likely dismiss all of it as pure nonsense whichever angle one took. That has been my experience discussing philosophy of any sort with "normal" people I meet in the course of my day to day life.
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"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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Bard
Ultrahuman
Registered: 09/10/01
Posts: 172
Last seen: 3 years, 8 months
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
#6923429 - 05/16/07 05:21 AM (16 years, 22 days ago) |
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I think, that when a human being is born these days, for example when I was born, I was in this "Garden of Eden" of silent knowledge, of this knowing without thinking state. (Or maybe i wasn't? I'm not sure, sorry, but let's pretend.) At least self reflection came a few years after my birth. Maybe my intuition told me, my silent knowledge told me, to start self reflection... So, thinking is an act, initiated by intuition, for whatever purpose... Maybe no purpose at all. Just I intuitively knew, that it is good for me... So... If I really believe my intuition... I must believe, that thinking is good for me... So thinking is good...
(Shamanism... For me the shaman is the spirit guide. The one, who knows the other planes, and can navigate the lost souls. In this way, the psychologist is the shaman. Only the name differs, and there are bad psychologists, who maybe don't deserve their title...)
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So dreaming let's you know reality exists.
I don't belive. I fear.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: Sorcery, the journey of return. [Re: Bard]
#6925135 - 05/16/07 01:30 PM (16 years, 21 days ago) |
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So, thinking is an act, initiated by intuition,
Whether this is so is speculative. However I really don't believe that thinking per se is a problem or the one Castaneda is refering to. Obsessive self-reflection would be closer to the mark IMO.
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"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.
" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.
With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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