ONION-PEELINGS

Universe is the Practical Joke of the General
at the Expense of the Particular, quoth FRATER
PERDURABO, and laughed.
But those disciples nearest to him wept, seeing the
Universal Sorrow.
Those next to them laughed, seeing the Universal Joke.
Below these certain disciples wept.
Then certain laughed.
Others next wept.
Others next laughed.
Next others wept.
Next others laughed.
Last came those that wept because they could not
see the Joke, and those that laughed lest they
should be thought not to see the Joke, and thought
it safe to act like FRATER PERDURABO.
But though FRATER PERDURABO laughed
openly, He also at the same time wept secretly;
and in Himself He neither laughed nor wept.
Nor did He mean what He said.

______________________________

From The Book of Lies, by Perdurabo (Aleister Crowley).

{Edit: to remove page number in C&P, and add citation)

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The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur eggs was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. (Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett)

[This message has been edited by tiassa (edited March 16, 2000).]

Okay, I thought I'd throw this one out there, too. Also from the Book of Lies:

SAMSON

The Universe is in equilibrium; therefore He that is
without it, though his force be but a feather, can
overturn the Universe.
Be not caught within that web, O child of Freedom!
Be not entangled in the universal lie, O child of Truth!

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The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur eggs was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. (Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett)

If I took the sort of drugs that Crowley took, that's what I'd say, too.


Ah, just kiddin' ya. Neat words. Sounds like something off my old record collection.

General commentary

It's actually taken me about three years to come to terms with that poetry.

I offer these as a feeble explanation of my canon of ideas; someone recently asked me to anchor my ideas--since I don't hold with The Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, or other texts, my "holy" writings, as such, reflect certain perspectives which I think point toward "truth", as subjective as it may be.

But it comes from all over; there's a couple of songs by the Rheostatics that hedge around that vague notion of inherent truths for me, one of which is called Jesus was Once a Teenager, Too.

Ranier Maria Rilke, GWF Hegel, Richard Crashaw ... morality seems vague to me in the sense that it cannot be canonized, enumerated, or otherwise accounted for in its entirety. Hegel more than Kant, and then the poets, Rilke and Crashaw perhaps more-so than the formalized philosophies of the philosophers.

Aldous Huxley, JD Salinger, Harper Lee, Jack Cady, Madeline L'Engle, Clive Barker ... the hidden threads of any good story inherently point toward some sense of clarity, if not truth. I don't expect production-model Bokanovsky octets anytime soon, but something about Shakespeare's slings and arrows, and about futility bleeds through from Huxley. The so-called "moral" of stories isn't canon, but a wonderful philosophical springboard.

Music? I get better philosophy from certain lyricists than I do from holy texts; I receive more emotional energy from Pink Floyd, Soundgarden, or Floater than I do from Handel's Messiah. (Oxygen--does your record collection form any portion of your philosophies?)

But nothing is fixed. The source-list waxes and wanes as new ideas demonstrate the folly of old ones, but nothing looks quite like conventional religion yet.

Oxygen ....

As a note about the drugs, Crowley was fond of rye mold (C. purpurea, I believe), which is one I don't encounter much due to availability in this area, and the wide availability of S. cubensis mushrooms, which I think are considerably more stable. I've always wondered if his habit contributed to his ego, which was a nation-state unto itself.

Regarding record collections, Crowley is my literary-philosophical equivalent of Floyd's Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict.

But as I mentioned ... it took me a few years to begin to understand these.

Oh ... I might add Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus to the list ... it is perhaps the most dangerous and consuming philosophy I've ever encountered; it incited such a visceral reaction in me the first time I read it I almost actualized its unfortunate conclusions.

But it's all like the stars; we can only perceive and calculate and guess right now.

thanx much (for puttin' up with it)
Tiassa :cool:

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The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur eggs was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. (Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett)

Tiassa,

#1 Where you at? Shrooms are my all time fave. SUPERWOMAN!!!! Ta da!!!

#2 Thanks.

#3 I think I may, kind of, perhaps, am beginning to see your beliefs. Let me take a stab....you believe in the Father, the Son, in the soul, and in two opposing (in intent towards us)types of spirits, one good and one evil. BUT, you don't think (and I must say I agree whole-heartedly) on man's interpretation of the manifestations of these influences. In that, we fail to recognize the truth regarding these manifestations in our world. For example, the dogma from the church. There is evil manifested and in members and in doctrine, though many people perceive this as "good". I guess what I mean is that good and evil are not necessarily defined as many humans would define them. Am I even close here?

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You may think I'm a nut, but I'm fastened to the strongest bolt in the universe.

Lori--

I live in Seattle. The shrooms we get up here are usually Stropharius cubensis or Psylocibe pelliculosa. Both are cool raw, but I met a guy once who sold them powdered up and mixed with chocolate with MAO-inhibitor additives. The sum effect with S. cubensis chocolates is a spectacular exposition of blue and green, whereas pelliculosa in chocolate, or either variety raw loads up the red end of the spectrum.

But I have a friend who went to Stanford, and while I won't invoke the University's quality in order to substantiate this claim, my friend did take, for science credit, a class on Pharmacology of Street Drugs and Controlled Substances, in which a text asserted that the best hallucinogenic mushrooms in the world come from the Van Duzer corridor, along Highway 22 leading west from Salem, Oregon, to the Pacific coast. I'm quite sure that, had the course been taught at the University of Amsterdam, the texts would invoke the fine quality of European weather and manure conditions, and thus cite European psilocybin as the best. Either way, the Van Duzer varieties are glorious little friends.

* * * * *

Since we're at a civil moment 'twixt us, I thought I might try to clarify the basis of some of my more vehement points of our past discussions:

I am fully prepared for the possibility that, by the end of my life, the only aspects of God that work for me might point me toward Christian faith. This would not be any sort of moral disappointment. However, if I may liken rhetorical religion to politics for the moment ... My brother and I came to political awareness at virtually the same time; almost predictably, we chose juxtaposed paths toward similar ends. All my life, I've been out on the left wing, more than simply "moderate", as the American watchword goes. Certain issues push me to bleeding-heart status, but rarely to I come "full-center" about anything.

This is important because I think that so long as we continue to argue over the "name" of God, per se, we forego deeper issues of the religion which history has blanched in the modern faith. Much like religion, my political life is spent searching for the true goal of political theory--the enhancement of human society.

On the other hand, my brother chose the GOP and its conservative fiscal policies. For years he followed the "Greed is good" idea from Wall Street, fully believing that its benefits would trickle down. To this day, it is more important that the economy produces money in general than the fact that the wealth gap is spiraling again. The point? He's never looked outside the philosophy until the GOP fell apart a few years ago. When they handed the fiscal policy over to the Clinton Dems, he abandoned mainstream politics altogether, feeling that it's better to flee the system than to switch sides and support the pinkos. But he believes in those political issues he believes in because, aside from academic commitment, he has never attempted to transcend his original choice; he has no idea why he actually believes these principles, as they compare to something that can only be fictional or projected to his perspective.

Likewise, I see the same thing happening among American Christians. One of the reasons I hammer on abstract issues like the creation of the Devil is that most people who believe in the Devil and his power don't seem to know what it is, save for an old definition they learned as children and haven't ever abandoned.

The things I advocate aren't new. They're actually old concepts, as I'm finding out. They seem to have been abandoned, perhaps for reasons of convenience (not a bad thing by implication). But I read a phrase the other day that expresses it beautifully: "To say that God is good is as wrong as to say the sun is black." Now, I know some physicists who would miss the idea due to particulars of their theories (for instance, what is black?), but in general, the statement embodies the transcendence of human experience I look for.

Nicholas of Cusa is a Christian philosopher from the 15th century whose summary of the nature of good and evil might become part of my central canon, because it might turn out that I'm simply parroting an extant philosophy I hadn't heard expressed before. But the ideas are there, and they're part of the Christian heritage, and I don't honestly have a clue why such considerations aren't important, unless Western faith has suffered the same "economization" as other Western institutions.

I have a standard called Their Standard that I only invoke when viewing a certain type of conflict. When people complained about the anti-adultery inquisition in the Air Force a couple of years ago, Their Standard served well: "The soldier signs the document pledging to obey service rules; as outmoded as anti-adultery might be in some people's minds, it's not like these soldiers didn't have the choice to forego that condition." Or, perhaps, when an American bishop threatened to excommunicate Catholics who gave money to certain charities whose interest was outside the Christian dogma (United Way, Queer Nation, &c.). Catholics said, "This is America, you can't do that." I applied Their Standard: This is God we're talking about, who transcends our human-written Constitution; if God's instrument talks, you listen.

But instead of saying, "This is too hard, we have to find a better expression of faith," it seems that Christians have instead spun off into their individual universes where God suddenly fits their own preconceived view of the world. Now, I know this is a generalization, and seems unfair, but the consistency with which I encounter this process defines it as a prevailing trend.

Part of the problem is that diversity in the United States often means diversity among the common idea, such as Baptist, Quaker, and Lutheran all mean "Christian" in a way. Through nobody's fault that I care to establish (nor could I, probably, were I to care) my experience is largely limited to functioning within a Christian "sphere of influence". Thus, much of my philosophy, when it transcends a concept, is first seen to transcend Christianity. Were I to live in Iran, that transcendence would probably first be noted regarding Islam.

If left to their own, my philosophies would neither identify with or against anything specifically. In fact, if my philosophy leads me back to Christianity, I might die thinking I'm the only one who ever got it, and my only regret would be my inability to express that perception properly.

And now I'm rambling. ;)

The only other thing that time will allow me to address is your #3. And within that the only thing I can say for certain is that there need not be a Father and Son (or Holy Spirit, as such). It isn't an outright rejection of it, but part of a paradoxical limitation. Some things we see as good because they enhance "life" and "evolve" our society. Some things that we see as evil (specific issues that people regard, such as homosexuality, drugs, &c.) might possibly be good if it can be established that the fight over propriety does more damage than the perceived impropriety. Plus, we have the advantage of believing ourselve in control of our own destinies, in a way.

In the sense of controlling destiny, I offer homosexuality and Leviticus. Specifically, I don't think it matters who one sleeps with in that regard because we, as humans, are no longer wandering the desert, requiring frequent reproduction to maintain our presence in the food chain. When there's only a relative few of us wandering the middle of a desert for a generation, it suddenly become very important who's zoomin' who.

I try not to say of things, "If you don't understand this, you won't get the rest." I admit I sometimes come to that point in frustration, but I try to keep it rare. However, of the two Crowley poems in this thread, I might note a variant: If these poems read as anything better than gibberish, then yes, I can probably explain enough of my philosophy to make reasonable comprehension and accuracy possible. If not, then I admit I'll have a difficult time, because the "bang-essence" of the poems, that is, the most striking abstractions of them, are perhaps the most definite things about them. They are among the most mysterious parts of my canon.

Wow ... I do prattle on. :D

If it makes sense, wonderful. If not, well, we've got ground to cover. But since we've been brought to such severe dichotomy lately, let me say that it's not you personally, but that there are certain arguments that puzzle me as to how I should respond because I had thought the counterpoint was the self-evident part of that equation. And that's what makes it feel like I'm smacking myself with a brick.

The writing on the wall--specifically the numbers that tell the time--are whispering that I must run. It's all incomplete, but I think that's part of the way of things.

But it is difficult, sometimes, to not let the writings speak for me. Often, things like Onion Peelings are the first time I ever saw the concept phrased in a way I could relate to. In that sense, many of the more abstract quotes I use should be regarded like Bible citations; while I'm not bound to them as I would be the Bible, they speak part of the mystery as it has been taught to me.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

(Edits--one horrid grammatical bit; and I changed one instance of the word "Muslim" to "Islam" because I think it's appropriate.)
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The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur eggs was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. (Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett)

[This message has been edited by tiassa (edited March 17, 2000).]

Tiassa,

Hi, I hope you don`t mind me joining in here. I really like the way you think. Firstly a question on the mushrooms. How do you know which mushrooms to select and are there any after-effects, such as headaches and nausea? How close do these mushrooms come to an acid experience?
Do you find mental expansion with the use of these substances? Are these substances really the Doors of Perception? I really am quite serious about this. For me, all my glimpses into the sublime have thus far been when I`m straight. (not even with Carling Black Label!!!)

Some other comments: I also have known all my life that I`ve really found more life philosophies and answers from music,lyrics and poetry than from religious texts. And in this it has always been the human artistry and creativity that have turned me on.
For example: (Neil Young)

Old man lying by the side of the road with the lorries rolling by,
Blue moon sinking from the weight of the load and the building scrape the sky,
Cold wind ripping down the alley at dawn And the morning paper flies,
Dead man lying by the side of the road with the daylight in his eyes.

Don't let it bring you down It's only castles burning,
Find someone who's turning and you will come around.

Blind man running through the light of the night with an answer in his hand,
Come on down to the river of sight And you can really understand,
Red lights flashing through the window in the rain, Can you hear the sirens moan?
White cane lying in a gutter in the lane, If you're walking home alone.

Don't let it bring you down It's only castles burning,
Just find someone who's turning And you will come around.

Don't let it bring you down It's only castles burning,
Just find someone who's turning And you will come around.

And poetry: (William Blake)
London
I wander thro' each charter'd street.
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

(there`s so much wisdom here, Blake has really concisely summed up the human condition)

All my life I`ve been searching for ways of reconciling the obvious paradoxes within Christianity, in order to embrace the faith. (I`ve also been through the Eastern religions and spent about 15 years embracing Zen Buddhism within a Karate environment) Unfortunately I discovered too many answerless questions and paradoxes within the core of Buddhism itself. For example the whole concept of human suffering, which is an entire discussion all on its own.

But recently it was as if a veil was lifted from my eyes and I started discovering truth and beauty in certain texts. (and yes Christianity is the springboard) I came across The Nag Hammadi Christian Gnostic texts. Gnosticm accepts the duality of God and therefore does away with the old paradox of an omnipotent loving God allowing evil and suffering within his domain. Gnosticm splits God into a male and female (ying/yang) sided Godhead. Gnosticm also accepts Jesus Christ as the Divine Redeemer. Anyway before I bore everyone, here is an excerpt from Gnostic scripture.

The Thunder, Perfect Mind
Translated by George W. MacRae

I was sent forth from the power,
and I have come to those who reflect upon me,
and I have been found among those who seek after me.
Look upon me, you who reflect upon me,
and you hearers, hear me.
You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.
And do not banish me from your sight.
And do not make your voice hate me, nor your hearing.
Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or any time. Be on your guard!
Do not be ignorant of me.
For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am <the mother> and the daughter.
I am the members of my mother.
I am the barren one
and many are her sons.
I am she whose wedding is great,
and I have not taken a husband.
I am the midwife and she who does not bear.
I am the solace of my labor pains.
I am the bride and the bridegroom,
and it is my husband who begot me.
I am the mother of my father
and the sister of my husband
and he is my offspring.
I am the slave of him who prepared me.
I am the ruler of my offspring.
But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.
And he is my offspring in (due) time,
and my power is from him.
I am the staff of his power in his youth,
and he is the rod of my old age.
And whatever he wills happens to me.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.
I am the voice whose sound is manifold
and the word whose appearance is multiple.
I am the utterance of my name.

That’s just an excerpt, and at first one confronts a barrier to see these words in a Christian context. But as one delves deeper into the texts and begin to understand the deeper insights and mystery in the words one can bring the two beautifully together, because they really are one. By the way, both William Blake and Aleister Crowley were very involved in the mystical aspects of Gnosticm, but where Blake found the real truth (which is reflected in his poetry), Crowley used elements of Gnosticm within his O.T.O and found a selfish use which he perverted in the name of his God(s) … BABALON, BAPHOMET and his church THELEMA. Love is the law, love under will.

Anyway does anyone share my view on this subject and appreciate how we block our mental potential with Western Society`s manacles? I don`t have a problem fitting all this in with Christ`s message of redemption. Any comments Tiassa? Or am I quite nuts?

Take care.

Stretch--

Regarding 'shrooms ... to be honest, I rarely pick my own; I know enough people who either pick or grow their own that when I want to leave the ZIP-code on the Rainbow Express, my ticket's always waiting.

However, I do have a wonderful field guide; I don't know if it's possible to find other copies of it, but it's called Teohuanactatl, and is the presentations and notes of a 1972 conference on hallucinogenic substances at Port Townsend, Washington.

I'm careful about using phrases like "mental expansion". Certainly, it seems to be something of that sort that one experiences under positive circumstances while tripping on psilocybin. It's a massive shift of perspective, but it's like any other substance ... you get from it what you put into it. If you carry the burdens of your psyche with you when you take the dose, you'll be mired among them throughout the trip; but this is not a bad thing. The sense of expansion you refer to is extremely positive; it's almost like being able to remove oneself from the equation, and observe its solution in media res.

I do like the psychospiritual perspective psilocybin gives, and it's considerably more relaxed than taking LSD. Most prevalent of my experiences recently has been an overwhelming satisfaction that, no matter what I think of what I see, it's perfect in that the circumstances or processes I observe are the only ones that could be--not so much a sense of predestiny, but a perspective outside the common flow of time where the end result occurs no sooner or later than the equation itself. I've begun to see things, of late, as they seem to be inherently, not as we commonly perceive them (this, of course, to be amended by my awareness that new perception is merely that, a different perspective).

The drugs can only give you the means to see the sublime, much as your eyes only give you the means to see the sunset. Like the sunset, what you call those things you see is still entirely up to you, else you have let the substance consume you.

A note on Crowley's ego--Crowley took part, or, rather, was in fact the issue, in one of the hardest questions I've ever examined pertaining to faith. One must use one's faith to the benefit of mankind, but does one have a responsibility to employ a ("a", as opposed to "the") true faith? To clarify: If I go forward, acting on and enforcing my faith for the benefit of humankind, what, then, if the principles of my faith contain a critical error? That infection of untruth will poison all that I give, so that all of those gifts are diminished. Crowley seemed to be caught up in the art of perfecting his faith--he would frequently destroy quantities of his prior work, erasing them as irresponsible parts of his process. On the surface, I see the ego spilling over in his profound effect on the rituals of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and all the entrapments thereof in the scandal that nearly brought the order to ruin. I do believe his poetry to be infinitely more valuable than his attention to format and ritual. For all that, then, I tend to be a little more forgiving about the ritual perversions of Crowley's philosophical determinations. I am aware, however, that it would be a little more difficult to explain that idea to the Sherpa.

But I definitely hear you knocking about the manacles. And we seem to be sharing at least one common thread, that these ideas are not hard to reconcile within a modern, Christian-redemptive structure. Beyond that, it would be dangerous for me to speculate.

But, no, you're not nuts. (I cannot speak for the rest of the world, though.)

Hope, sunshine, & good stuff :D
Tiassa

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The whole business with the fossilized dinosaur eggs was a joke the paleontologists haven't seen yet. (Good Omens, Gaiman & Pratchett)