From: Rab Area: MagickNet To: Gaia 23 Nov 94 03:29:04 Subject: Re: Wideranging Myths UpdReq -=> Quoting Gaia to Rab <=- Ga> and Rab@93:9630/0.0 dicoursed upon Re: Wideranging Myths R > The only border they've ever been concerned about is the US/Soviet R > one, which was closed until a few years ago. Since then, families R >who have been separated for generations have been allowed to visit. R >The other border, US/Canada, hasn't posed much of a problem because R >between Alaska and the Cdn. Arctic there's an unsettled gap, R >separating the two main Inuit branches. (There are no Yukon R >Eskimos). Ga> The lack of First Nations folks in the Yukon must be a recent Ga> phenomna as a friend of mine excavated perhistoric sites there. Hi Gaia; You misunderstood. I said "no Eskimos". There are, however, 14 official First Nations, 'Indian' rather than 'Eskimo'; all Athapaskan speakers (or the more distantly related Tlingit). The lack of Inuit in the Yukon is fairly recent. They stopped visiting the north coast, (which is a relatively small strip of land), just this Century. About the time Euro whaling went out of fashion. There was a whaling station on Herschel Is. where Inuit went to trade. Who's your friend? Where was s/he excavating? I've done some archaological work in the Yukon also. Oldest sites in Canada are found there, specially since the north & west regions were unglaciated. R > One anthropologist has been working on a theory that among R > Athapaskans there are traces of refugees who fled Genghis Khan R >in the 12th C. Th > Who is this? R > Ethel (Somebody) from Ottawa. I keep forgetting her surname. Perhaps R > Campbell. I'll have to look it up ... Ga> Get me references. I occasionally work with 15-16 c. Navajo Ga> (Athapaskan) archaeology around here. I will. But I'm in the middle of a residential move, so it will have to be later. Sorreee! R> the third main American group, R > the "AmerIndians", making up the rest of population, seem to have R >been here much longer, GA>(We've got 20,000 year old dates from a cave Ga> in southern NM) And more to come, no doubt. Evidence at Monte Verde in s. Chile seems impressive. Last I heard, Tom Dillehay suspects settlement there goes back much further than the 16,000y BP he's publicised. I also like the Brazilian finds at Toca da Boqueron -- 30-45,000y. And wonder what will become of Simpson's 200,000y guesses in California. (When Workman first began scouring the Yukon in the 60s, he got a geologist's reading of about 200,000y for one find. But he scrapped his report on that in a hurry. Much too far out. 8-] ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Rab Area: MagickNet To: Joseph Max 23 Nov 94 04:08:06 Subject: Re: ASTROLOGY UpdReq -=> Quoting Joseph Max to Rab <=- JM> Don't get me wrong here - your not dealing with a materialistic JM> skeptic! What I'm trying to point out is that there may well be other JM> actions at work besides the mundane physical ones like gravity and JM> electromagnetism. I understand. And have a soft spot for scientific scepticism. I'm sure other actions & factors are at work, but that physical ones we know are also involved, in ways we don't yet understand. JM> And if I wanted to quibble, I could point of that tidal effects are JM> not gravitational per se, but centrifical -- otherwise we would not JM> have equal tides on both the near and far sides of the earth as related JM> to the moon and sun's positions. There's an interplay, surely, between tidal & centripetal (?) influences? JM> And the "butterfly effect" is something that is an exception, not a JM> rule. Things like the jet stream and the ocean currents play a far JM> greater role than any one butterfly. The whole point of chaotic JM> functions is that they are _chaotic_ and hard to predict. They don't JM> happen consistantly, or we'd see as many hurricanes as there are JM> butterflies! Conversely, astrology is the epitome of consistancy, so I JM> don't think you can properly invoke Chaos Theory to be the loophole JM> that allows for astrology. I see your point. I should have mentioned a better example to illustrate how a weak influence can be consistently significant. I don't suppose you'd accept one from subatomic physics? Weak interactions, etc. JM> Remember, I'm not saying that such things like days when feminine or JM> masculine energies can be accessed aren't actually there and JM> predictable. What I'm saying is that the planets aren't _doing_ JM> anything to _cause_ this to occur. JM> I happen to think that there _is_ indeed a "greater pattern" at work, JM> and this greater pattern is what "influences" _both_ the feminine JM> current AND the manifestation of the full moon. But one is not caused JM> by the other, they are _both_ caused by this greater pattern - IOW, "as JM> above, so below", not "as above, THEN below"! I understand your a-causal perspective. But fail to see why you don't think there is human response to the cyclic cosmic influences in which we are immersed. Do your really believe that the relationship with our cosmic environment is almost totally coincidental? This sounds very out of touch. ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Rab Area: MagickNet To: Samuel Wagar 23 Nov 94 04:15:08 Subject: Re: Shamanism UpdReq -=> Quoting Samuel Wagar to Josh Norton <=- R> And as far as non-Slavic Russian myth goes, there's R> the original Siberia shamanism, some of which has found its way into R> AmerIndian traditions, most noticeably in the far northwest. SW> And the really interesting things that Carlo Ginzburg has to say SW> in his book "ECSTACIES - decyphering the Witches' Sabbat" (Pantheon SW> 1991) about Siberian-European shamanic links into the period of SW> the Burnings. He documents very shamanic things in Greece, SW> Bulgaria, and into Northern Italy as well as the Baltic areas and SW> spotty occurences through much of Europe. Fascinating reading. It's pretty clear by now that a shamanistic layer underlies (and to some extent permeates) virtually all cultures worldwide. ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: Rab Area: MagickNet To: Rose Dawn 24 Nov 94 02:36:06 Subject: Re: CHAOS, REPLY PART II UpdReq -=> Quoting Rose Dawn to Kai Mactane <=- KM> Yes. I think that, *if* it exists (which I'm not sure it does), KM> it's a totally impersonal, non-moral (pre-moral?) force, much like KM> Newton's Third Law of Motion. RD> If I act, my actions affect other people, and they re-act. RD> That's all the law of karma really means, though it sounds RD> overly simplistic for most peoples' tastes. Results and RD> intentions don't really even come into play. On the contrary, results & intentions are an integral part of karmic law. Intention, in fact is the most important shaper of results. (Karma= action; karma vipaka= results of previous actions). Good intention inclines to good result, & bad intention inclines to bad result. In the human domain, at least, morality is intrinsic. However, the result IS modified by one's total store of karma vipaka. Much "merit" can act as protection against slings & arrows. Whereas one with weak merit can be brought down by the slightest infraction of goodwill. In one sense the working of karmic law can seem very impersonal, yet in other ways it can be intensely personal. RD> If one is not a sociopath, the psychological & emotional effects of RD> one's actions are likely to have subtle or profound 'inner RD> consequences' at least eventually. But that's not 'karma,' _per se_. Of course it is. Why do you think it isn't? In any case a sociopath is often MORE subject to the results of his or her actions, not less than a more balanced individual is. ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: JOSEPH MAX Area: MagickNet To: JOSH NORTON 23 Nov 94 17:55:00 Subject: Re: CHAOS UpdReq -=> Quoting Josh Norton to Joseph Max <=- Hello Josh! I was considering another of my famous point-to-point tag-team message replies, but I'm going to restrict it to correcting a few of what I think are misunderstandings, and then take a different approach. I though about a long-winded re-stating of everything that led me to the formulation of my magickal theories, but I realized that a) I'm in the middle of writing a book about it anyway (3 chapters down - yay!) and I don't want to re-write it here, and b) I think there's a more important set of points to thrash about anyway. But first, the clarifications: JM> If there's anything Magickal to astrology at all (according to the AIT JM> model) then it has to do with the psychic "field" being set up by all JM> of the believers in astrology around the earth exerting a morphic JM> effect on our consentual reality; "self-fullfilling" prophecy prophecy, JM> if you can appreciate the multi-leveled metaphor at work here . JN> ARRRGGGHHH!!! IOW, the effects are there because people believe JN> effects are there. And why do people believe the effects are there? JN> Because they see the effects! Just a bit circular, don't you think? JN> If we follow your reasoning, then at some point in the past some one JN> person _decided_ entirely without evidence that there _should_ be JN> astrological effects, and his belief was so strong that they came into JN> being for everybody else as well, and have been self-sustaining ever JN> since. The astrological archtypes _are_ accurate metaphors for human experience and behavior. They weren't picked at random, or chosen arbitrarily. And I'm not trying to say that people are simply deluding themselves into seeing the effects they wish to see. It would have proceeded from ancient times when the archtypical symbology of astrology was first formulated, the formulators of which not only recognised the applicability of the archtypes they formulated, but invested them with strong beliefs (IOW, strengthned their morphic fields) so that they "got the ball rolling", so to speak. Subsequent generations of believers reinforced the morphic field's power. So this is a linear process at the start, even if it is now all but self-perpetuating. JN> Why is it so much easier for you to believe this than believing JN> in some continuing, natural connection? Because I hold that _everything_ is "there" in our subjective universes because we expect it to be there, Josh. I'm a strong proponent of stochastic reality. I accept the model of the observer-created universe, the "bootstrap" model. WE, meaning the sentient observers of the universe, are continually _creating_ the universe on an ongoing, never-ending basis. SO in a way, I must admit that yes, it is a "cyclic" concept - but then _so is everything else in the universe_! If that's the case, then what's your point? JN> A transmittal of "non-energetic" information which produces a change JN> at its reception point -- which is what you are proposing -- is _not_ JN> a cause-and-effect relationship? If you want to be picky about terms, in a way, it is. But when I say "causal" I mean the scientific definition. Causality is bounded by the speed of light. If information (or anything else, for that matter) is transferred from one point to another in less time than it would take light to travel the same distance, it is considered to be "acausal". Not _non-causal_, which is more like what you're hinting at. Magical effects, ie. telepathy, divination, the casting of enchantments, etc. seem to transcend the constraints of any known form of energy - most notably the speed of light and the inverse square law, and probably the second law of thermodynamics as well. _I_ think it's simpler to chuck the idea of energy mediums and all of the violations of natural laws that such a model entails and instead posit something that avoids those constraints altogether. Especially if, unlike the "ectoplasmic energy" model, there is actually some experimental data that shows that such phenonmena as acausal particle information exchange and action at a distance do, in fact, occur. If one wants to quibble over definitions and call Aetheric Information Transfer another form of "energy", then go ahead. But I think it's misleading to lump it in with phenomena like electromagnetism and gravity that consistantly follow certain behavior patterns that magickal "energy" does not. JN> I get the feeling that your definition of causality is flawed in some JN> way. Only one of your previous messages is still on my database, and JN> the few examples you give there don't seem to me to be necessarily JN> acausal in nature. Like I said above, I'm using the definition that physicists use when describing the behavior of energy quanta. It doesn't mean that one thing isn't "making something else happen" to another thing - the more "vulgar" definition of "causal". In the vulgar sense, if I cast an enchantment to influence a future event, and it works, it could be said that I "caused" the event to shape itself to my will. But instead of interpreting that phenomena as being due to my mind/body having "generated" some kind of "electricity- like" power that stretched out from my brain and "affected" the event, instead I interpret it as certain particles in my brain making an aetheric link to other particles in space-time (since acausality is not bounded by space-time constraints, direct linking-up to anywhere/when else presents no violation) and changing their state-vector via acausal information interaction. If my perception is of sufficient depth, then probabilistic events will be "tipped" in favor of my desired outcome; a sufficient number of probability vectors will end up zigging instead of zagging to yield the chain of events I will to come about. (In this way it is similar to your "rising up through the planes of manifestation" model.) Once the process is initiated, then normal causality takes over. The "chaotic" aspect is being able to bring about the precise "flapping of the butterfy's wing" that will ultimately result in the change according to my will. Magick is not 100% reliable (or even close) _because_ it is a chaos function - not _all_ butterfly wing flappings result in hurricanes. Tell ya what - you've got a copy of _Liber Kaos_, right? Pull it out and read pages 18 to 40, and you'll see the jumping off place I'm coming from. It's easier than typing it all in here. Then tell me what parts you think don't quite make it for you - I'll bet they're the same ones that _I_ had problems with - and then I'll tell you what I would change about Carroll's proposals. Now, let's get down to the nitty-gritty here. JM> I'm sometimes surprised at the amount of resistance I get from occultists JM> when I present these ideas. Most heavy physicist types that I throw these JM> ideas at end up going "Hmmm, maybe you've got something there..." I would JM> have thought that the Magickal types would be overjoyed and eager to adopt a JM> model that they can confidentely toss in the face of "scientific skeptics" JM> with a smile of satisfaction! JN> It always amazes _me_ how resistant hard-science types are to JN> astrology, even when the astrologers try to play by their rules. The problem is exactly that - they're trying _to_ "play by their rules". Or in other words, trying to use energy models to explain what energy models _can't_ explain. JN> In one of his books, Steven Weinberg goes through some incredible mental JN> acrobatics to avoid admitting that he is rejecting it without any JN> basis for doing so; it's clear that his arguments seem weak even to JN> him. Michel Gauquelin's work satisfies _every_ scientific standard for JN> treatment of statistical data a hundred times over, but few will even JN> look at it. Others have resorted to outright fraud to "prove" JN> Gauquelin was wrong. Nothing wrong with Gauquelin's work, but his finding's support only that there is a corrolation between human events and astrological calculations. Jung found the same thing. It does _not_ identify the "vector" as the biologists would say. Statistics can answer "What?" but they cannot answer "How?"! (continued next message) ... "I am not part of God's Little Oiled Machine." - Danny Elfman ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718 From: JOSEPH MAX Area: MagickNet To: CHRISTEOS PIR 23 Nov 94 17:55:00 Subject: RE: CHAOS UpdReq -=> Quoting Christeos Pir to Rose Dawn <=- RD> Hey, it might be kinda fun! Why shouldn't 'cyber rituals' include FAX RD> machines? ;> CP> This reminds me of an idea I had: if symbols can be put together to CP> indicate a flow of ideas (just as we read a letter in a certain flow: CP> topleft to bottomright), why couldn't a painting also be a spell or CP> ritual? CP> (Next question to myself: what makes you think this hasn't already CP> been done?) Check out the work of Austin Ossman Spare. That's exactly what his drawings and paintings are - graphic spell/rituals. Anyway, what is sigil magick, after all? - J:.M:.555 ... I'm not really lost. I just woke up in an alternate universe. ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718