The Consciousness Wars

I don't recall Esotericism being taught in school but I don't think it's a purposeful neglect of the worldview due to "Consciousness Wars" but rather that most of it is irrelevant to the curriculum. Science keeps updating itself as well, as technologies progress and new ways come about of understanding phenomena, and now that it is pretty much utilized in most parts of the world, there is a lot of information coming about from different places that probably consume the vast majority of time that it takes to cover many of these things.

They don't teach the worldview of Mayans, Pagans and other obscure cultures either, if anything else there is simply not enough time.

They have specific education for esoteric stuff it looks like, why don't you get involved in a program like this and do something with it?

http://www.gatewayuniversity.org/Esoteric_Sciences_Degree.html

 

Thanks for the link. Will definitely check it out. There used to be a place called Kepler University that was somewhere out west, and you used to be able to get a true Degree in Astrology, but the true degree has recently been changed to simply a certificate. My girlfriend's mom also has been part of a school for esoteric studies but it recently had to remove the word "Academy" from its title. Stuff like this is what I mean. And I also just mean the fact that we don't have enough time for it because Science basically runs the show.

And many top philosophers such as Paracelsus, Copernicus, Plato, even Newton were astute students of Hermeticism.

 

I feel that the problem is not simply rationalism. Rather it is rationalism coupled with objectivism. As cultures approach their collapse you see them embrace rationalist objectivism. For example you saw this in Greece and Rome and a lot of the science that came out of Europe in the late 1800's early 1900's reflected the fall of the European bourgeoisie culture---World War II was, in a sense, a final attempt to revive that culture.

Fascism and socialism were products of that rationalist objectivism. In the US today it is the corporation, which now has the same legal status as a person.

The problem is that all living things are objectified----people become objects to be used, they become numbers. The value of the individual drops considerably.

A great book to read on this subject is Carl Jung's The Undiscovered self.

 

Bro , we just wanna be fully concious . There are those against that and weirdly against themselves
and for themselves as a collective . The fully-concious will endure ; dreaming with sure meaning and
reasoning well .

The hipforum is about dead , eh ?

 

Totally agree with all of that. Bourgeoisie is almost the opposite it seems to the Bohemian, which stems from Bohemia and Frederick V Elector Palatine of Prague. Have you ever heard of the Battle of White Mountain? Prague was probably the last great attempt at establishing an Alchemical society. Alexandria before that was also a huge hub for things of that nature. Ever heard of John Dee?

The Red Book and Psychology and Alchemy by Jung are also purchases that I would like to make. The one you mentioned sounds great too.

 

No, I am not very versed in Alchemy or Hermeticism. I am more familiar with Hermes as the God rather than Hermeticism.

The Undiscovered Self is written for a wide audience so it is an easy and good read---not as dry as some of Jung's stuff. Another good one is Man and His Symbols, which is a compilation of Jung and other authors. There is a lot of good stuff by Jung and his followers. I am now struggling with the flu, otherwise I would go downstairs to my library and dig out some titles for you----I can't think of them off hand----but I have quite a few. I do not have Alchemy or psychology however. I have seen Jung's Alchemy in a local used bookstore. (I am very fortunate that it is close by---it has supplied quite a bit of my library.

 

'Scuse me . I repent of death .

 

For sure. The Red Book is supposedly his magnum opus, but i don't know much about its content.

 

You want an answer to the consciousness war? There isn't an answer, and there's practically nothing we can do about it... :devil:

http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/donjuan12.html

"Every one of us human beings has two minds. One is totally ours, and it is like a faint voice that always brings us order, directness, purpose, The other mind is a foreign installation. It brings us conflict, self-assertion, doubts, hopelessness: it's ourselves as the me-me center of the world.
We are not naturally petty and contradictory. Our pettiness and contradictions are, rather, the result of a transcendental conflict that afflicts every one of us, but of which only sorcerers(sic) are painfully and hopelessly aware: the conflict of our two minds! One is our true mind, the product of all our life experiences, the one that rarely speaks because it has been defeated and relegated to obscurity. The other, the mind we use daily for everything we do, is a foreign installation.
We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The predator is our lord and master. It has rendered us docile, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don't do so.

In order to keep us obedient and meek and weak, the predators engaged themselves in a stupendous maneuver -- stupendous, of course, from the point of view of a fighting strategist. A horrendous maneuver from the point of view of those who suffer it. They gave us their mind! Do you hear me? The predators give us their mind, which becomes our mind. The predators' mind is baroque, contradictory, morose, filled with the fear of being discovered any minute now.

I know that even though you have never suffered hunger, you have food anxiety, which is none other than the anxiety of the predator who fears that any moment now its maneuver is going to be uncovered and food is going to be denied. Through the mind, which, after all, is their mind, the predators inject into the lives of human beings whatever is convenient for them. And they ensure, in this manner, a degree of security to act as a buffer against their fear.


Think for a moment, and tell me how you would explain the contradiction between the intelligence of man the engineer and the stupidity of his systems of beliefs, or the stupidity of his contradictory behavior. Sorcerers believe the predators have given us our systems of beliefs, our ideas of good and evil, our social mores. They are the ones who set up our hopes and expectations and dreams of success or failure. They have given us covetousness, greed, and cowardice. It is the predators who make us complacent, routinary, and egomaniacal.

What I'm saying is that what we have against us is not a simple predator. It is very smart, and organized. It follows a methodical system to render us useless. Man, the magical being that he is destined to be, is no longer magical. He's an average piece of meat. There are no more dreams for man but the dreams of an animal who is being raised to become a piece of meat: trite, conventional, imbecilic."

 

Theprodu, he knows too much...

I must leave this planet temporarily for further instructions.

 

Thanks Theprodu, I always felt something else was to blame for my covetousness and greediness rather than just my own mind. Now I know what to blame :-D

 

I watched this movie "Lucy" with Scarlett Johansson last night. The gist of it was that human beings are only using 10% of their brains. Dolphins use up to 20%, etc. What if we used 100% of our brains? It's sci-fi but I found that it was really a likable movie, & it reminded me of these brainy conversations you all are always having. lol The movie is by the same guy who wrote the Fifth Element, Taken, Transporter, and Lockout; Luc Besson.

 

I can suspend disbelief for movies, I enjoy sci-if and thought that movie was decent, but The 10% brain thing is also not accurate.

 

Yeah God fearing people call it the devil. I guess you've found religion! Now pray for redemption, sinner

 

Yes, I knew the 10% thing is now believed to be incorrect----but then Morgan Freeman said it, and now I believe it-----that's Morgan Freeman for Christ's sake... ;-)

Seriously though, on the DVD they have a short video on the science behind it. They point out that now it is generally accepted that we use more than 10%. But they pointed out that because of how we learn new things that our mental capacity is believed by many researchers to be limitless, therefore the 10% is valid as a metaphore for how much more we could potentially use.

In any event, I really liked Lucy because it reflects how I understand our true abilities to be on a higher dimension, and what I have been saying for years.

 

Mental energy is extremely expensive, and it involves the entire body. The brain by it-self may not be able to do nearly as much of what many generally attribute to it. If the question is whether or not, after correct training, our brains can be used as computers, storing immense data accurately, and doing complex calculations very quickly, then perhaps the idea that half or more of the brain is not being used would make sense, but not otherwise.

Since we have an intricate network of neurons, it seems like we could potentially train our brains to act like computers, but let's not confuse such computing with conscious thought. One can do math problems in one's head, consciously, by manipulating imagined symbols, but if we could train our brains to commute, one would have little more intimate knowledge of the process of his brain computing as an outside observer.

Conscious thought involves making evaluations and then willing those evaluations against competing evaluation or more fundamental needs. The more intense the conscious thought, the more internal stress upon other parts of the body, such as the nervous system and digestive system.

 

To explore the implications of one who would take such ideas as the 10% issue seriously. It's likely for those who're under-using their brains. It similar to the difference of telling a professional non-skilled athlete (weight lifting, running, etc.) that we only use 10% of our body and telling that to one who has been inactive for a long time. The former doesn't need to refer to authorities to answer such questions, he already knows he's using his body to the near maximum, 90% or more. He consults authorities to help him approach 100% efficiency to gain competitively.

This relates to computing, which is basically a trick. One calls making use of something it wasn't meant for a hack. And one could possible hack a brain to compute as they hack micro chips, etc. to compute. A hack is also related to a shortcut. Not to say that mental energy must be considered only in terms of strength and efficiency in the same terms as the more overt physical energy. Efficiency to pure strength may be more in terms of 50-50 than 10-90, but the key hear is that in athletic competitions, they're often measuring little more than energy expenditure - whatever the case the objective is clear, and a high level of athleticism easy easier to distinguish next to a low level. But, here we're trying to measure or distinguish that which in part is doing the very distinguishing, which makes it much more difficult.

The objective in determining physical fitness can be reduce to having an ideal body for surviving in the particular environment it's in. Attributes such as speed, strength and agility are obviously useful in themselves, before considering the costs of such abilities. But, the mental factors for survival, which are already very hard to determine, become far more so, in complex social environment. One could hardly expect impartiality by authorities who sets the standard for mental input/intelligence if such authorities are related to the very authorities who set social standards in themselves, putting the benefit of the social entity before the specific and often opposing benefits of the individuals.

A computer based society, would naturally find computing to be a sign of intelligence. One must look at what makes this society so inclined towards binary functions, to reducing everything in terms of quantity. It's the same thing that makes a person so incline. It's a shortcut, or hack. It's easier to declare or follow the declarations of others that a certain number of any given item is a quality number, than it is to decide quality for oneself by making evaluations.

As I established, mental functions couldn't possibly be anywhere near only 10% by a person whose highly active mentally, but even such highly mentally active people, should they find a void in their life, wish to find a short-cut to the agonizing process of personal evaluation, and decide that their value would multiply ten times if they could reduce their brain to a computer.

Or take the case of supposedly differing people. One who lacks value wishes for a short-cut through fantasy worlds, higher levels of existence. Seemingly we have the spiritual person and the scientific person, at odds in what they seek. But, they're both substitution value for something unreal, whether it be higher dimensions, fantasy worlds or pure quantities, with no substantial connection to anything qualitative.

Either than brain can be turned into a computer and become 10 times better at calculating, or it can access these higher levels of existence and become ten times more valuable - somehow.

 

Not exactly----it depends, for example, on the type of mental activity. Meditation, for example, requires concentration, and yet it has been shown to have all kinds of calming and relaxing physiological effects on the body.

Researchers who say that our full use of the brain is as still untapped point to such factors as the fact that as we learn more things and new skills, the brain relegates certain previously learned activities into a kind of autopilot. Take for example learning to ride a bike. You may or may not remember how difficult it was to ride a bike when you first learned, and you had to concentrate on your balance and turning into whatever direction you were leaning. However it didn't take long before that all became automatic. I'm sure today when you ride a bike you don't even give it a thought----unless something happens, like you go into a skid or something, then suddenly your brain is awake with what to do.

We also have considerable memory power and abilities to control our own body, for example, that the vast majority of us are oblivious to. We are oblivious to it because it involves our subconscious mind. You may have heard of some of the well documented cases of the individuals who remember very clearly and lucidly every single moment of every single day. Newscientist has done an article or two on such cases, and there have been segments in TV shows on these cases----the one case I am familiar with, the individual sees it as a burden----he wishes he could not remember everything so well. The thing is that we all do this----we just do not have conscious access to such information. But hypnotic regression can pull it up----it is buried in our subconscious.

Tibetan monks know how to survive cold by consciously generating heat from there own bodies. The Meninger Institute has done extensive research on this and other cases----for example a man who can alter the blood flow in his body, and control it in other ways. And of course there are people who are trained to mentally lower their own blood pressure and other such things------these are all things that are done through our subconscious mind. We can all do this, but it involves learning how to do it----accessing such areas of our subconscious. As Jung would say, it is part of our individuation------the more whole we become, the more we use both our conscious and subconscious minds the more amazing we become.

 

Exercise also can result in relaxation. I was speaking about energy use in general, not specifically about stress, but now that I think about it more, stress is really is what specifically limits us, not energy in general, so long as food is in supply and can be digestive quickly enough to keep up with increasing demands for mental energy. Nonetheless, I'm still not clear on exactly how meditation would constitute a significant way of making more use of one's brain. An unstressful form of concentration would only be useful for mental output, if it was concentration on something useful for mental output.

New skills take time to learn. So maybe the idea is that times limits our brain from being fully used, quantitatively (as in actual physical portions) and/or qualitatively (output). But that seems very obvious, while those who speak of the use of only 10% of the brain seem to be speaking of something less obvious. There's the idea that we aren't reaching our full potential, even concerning the time that we generally do have in a lifetime, but I don't think that is specifically, either, what they're speaking of. I was thinking they were speaking in terms of the percentage of qualitative use of our brain that simply wasn't accessible, or easily so, not in terms of what simply took time.

If it's a burden then he has no ability to use more of the brain qualitatively. It also may speak to what I was saying about stress.

I wonder what the cost is of learning to do such things as those monks. I assume Jung wasn't able to do such things. Jung accomplished much qualitative work, I doubt it would be likely for one person to do both. And even if one could do both things, I still have doubts that the latter things should even count as a significant mental achievement.

 

For many years 10% was used literally. Now it is used more metaphorically, as it has been shown to be incorrect in the literal sense.

I saw this particular case on a TV show----the burden for him is that the bad memories were just as vivid as the good memories. Part of the problem was that they were so vivid. There was no filter that many of us would have to help soften the bad memories. But there may have been something about him getting tired of all the mundane details as well. You could tell him a date and a situation, like a TV show, and he could tell you exactly what happened.

They represent conscious abilities to change your body, therefore they would be. If you were in a situation where you could potentially freeze to death, for example, and you were able to consciously maintain a safe body temperature----that is pretty significant. If you are able to maintain a healthy level of blood pressure by a conscious effort, then that too is a significant mental achievement.