From:    Nightstar                              Area: Metaphysical
To:      Drui                                    5 Mar 94 21:58:12
Subject: quotes                                 UpdReq 

 <IKWIS
    Problem. I know what I said; you know what I said; but someone who has 
just logged on for the first time is totally in the dark.
    You may not have been on PODS for vrey long so to explain the quotes, they 
aren't for you, or for me, they're for everyone else.
    In practice, you don't quote the whole message, just the specific 
statements you are refering to in your reply. This is so someone else other 
than who the message is sent to, can get an idea of what's going on. It's 
simply a means of being polite. After all, confrences are open discussion 
areas.
    One important item: When the conversation takes a change in direction, the 
"Subject" heading should be changed. I don't expect this to be a problem from 
you since I've noticed you doing it already. However, there are a good many 
others who do not make this effort. I have seen messages with the subject 
listed as "OTO Gatherings" but was a recipe for making currie!
Nightstar


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From:    Nightstar                              Area: Metaphysical
To:      Drui                                    5 Mar 94 22:35:24
Subject: Pagan Ontology Echo                    UpdReq 

<YNWYS
    Sorry to disappoint you. I am not going to tell your home sysop to force 
you back under the rock you crawled out from, nor am I going to deluge you 
with ideas (as far as topics are concerned).
    Your description of the proposed "Pagan Ontology" echo sounds fine to me. 
Your choice of titles and reasons are good. I ask one question: Is "Pagan" 
the most desirable clarify adjective and is such a clarifing adjective even 
necessary considering the topic? Okay. I admit it; it's really two questions, 
but they are related. We can discuss this.
    I also admit that my specific intrest in anthropology lies more in the 
socio-cultural archeological area. I'm very interested in what made ancient 
cultures tick and tick they way they did. This really is an aspect of 
ontology even if it doesn't necessarily sound like such at first. As such, 
don't expect me to spout a whole number of philosophers or psychologists. Do 
expect me to quote _Discover_, _Archeology Today_, _Nature_, and the like. If 
you're willing to hear this kind of thing from me, I'm in.
    The mechanics for setting up an echo are simple.
    First you need someone to propose the echo (I guess that was me although 
you gave it a name).
    Second, an AREAS.BBS title is required. I'm not sure what the maximum 
number of characters this can be but the longest I've seen so far is 
"KITCHEN_WITCH". Note that all the characters must be uppercase.
    Third, at least one non-private board must agree to carry it.
    Fourth, the appropriate configuration files need to have the title added 
to them.
    Fifth, people must actually write messages to it now and again.
    Then, viola! The echo is running.
    I don't propse starting our own net. We could, but I see no real need. Net 
management is an even worse nightmare than confrence moderation.
    Incidentally, Maximus has a problem with long messages. You have already 
noticed this. What you may not know is that if you upload a message which is 
too long, Maximus will truncate it. However, the size of an uploaded message 
can be longer than an enterred message. BUT, if the message is generated on a 
system which can handle longer messages, Maximus will display the longer 
message. The problem is not in the display routines, but in the creation 
routines.
    To get around this problem, an off-line reader is needed. With an off-line 
reader, you log on to the board, tell Maximus to pack all the areas you wish 
to read, download the packed messages as one file to your own system, log 
off, unpack the messages, and then run your message reader/editor. On a 
PC-based system, this usually means MSGED (or MSGEDSQ) and SQUISH. SQUISH 
does the packing and unpacking of the message archives. (Note: SQUISH is a 
front end. You still need LHA or PKZIP/PKUNZIP to do the actual 
compressing/decompressing.) MSGED is the message reader/editor. MSGEDSQ is 
identical to MSGED except that it adds Squish message database compatibility. 
If you don't have MSGEDSQ but have MSGED, and you have SQUISH, you can still 
make it work but it will require more disk space for the message areas.
    One side effect of having this software is that you can then get a 
frontdoor program like BinkleyTerm or FrontDoor and set up a private node 
which will take care of the log on/off section for you.
    Now that that's out of the way, we have a choice of ONTOLOGY, 
PAGAN_ONTOLOGY, PAG_ONTOLOGY, or something similar. If we desire the 
clarifying adjective "Pagan", then I suggest PAGAN_ONTOLOGY. If we decide to 
do without the clarifying adjective, then we can get by with ONTOLOGY.
Nightstar
 

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From:    Nightstar                              Area: Metaphysical
To:      Drui                                    5 Mar 94 23:15:32
Subject: Re:PATH EVALUATION GUIDE               UpdReq 

You're path evaluation guide is interesting and I would like to bring it up 
for discussion briefly.
    First, it assumes that the person is following an existing path, not 
creating one. You almost certainly think of Bhuddism as a valid path, but it 
wasn't until Bhudda carved it out of the forest of life. Was it a valid path 
for him? I tend to think so. He knew where he was going (or at least had a 
rough idea of it) and he allowed others who wished to follow to do so with no 
prerequisites as it were. He demanded no money, no servitude, nothing. Those 
who decided they didn't like his path were free to follow another without 
physical, emotional, or mental punishment.
    However, Bhudda didn't start creating his path willy-nilly. He had tools, 
symbols, and concepts which had been borrowed from other philosophies, which 
he integrated into a new philosophy.
    Now that's all fine for him who lived back in the ancient orient. All his 
sources were nearby. What of the modern path creator? With things like the 
printing press, he/she has access to even more tools, symbols, and concepts 
from all over the world. He/she asks for no followers but accepts any that 
chose to follow. He/she takes all that he/she has learned from experiance and 
integrates it togather to form a new vision, but some of that experiance may 
be based on things that he/she has read as a practice in some other 
religion/philosophy and decided to try and test for validity.
    As such, item 3 is ambiguous in this regard. Our modern path creator is 
"mix'n match"ing his/her sources. If he/she reads about wicca and finds a few 
good ideas there, tests them and finds them valid, and incorporates them into 
his/her own philosophy and then does the same with shamanism, does that 
invalidate the path? Of course not. The creator's path is always changing and 
will continue to do so until it is created.
    I don't think this is what you meant in guideline 3. To my understanding, 
you are refering to inappropriate "mix'n match"ing, that is, mixing and 
matching without reason and especially without thought. Path creators 
conciously think about everything they incorporate into their world view 
before they incorporate it. They test it's validity. The find how it fits, 
how it relates to what they already know. When they use it, it is not without 
understanding.
    The Pop-pagan (new-ager in my terminology) makes no concious effort to 
examine the very concepts behind anything they incorporate into their 
practice. They use items inapproriately because they do not understand what 
they are working with and how it relates to what they are doing. They simply 
use it because "it's neat", "it's pagan", "it's mystical", or whatever.
    Enough on guidleine 3. Now to guideline 7. Again, better phrasing is 
desirable. In your phrasing, it sounds like those who follow a path are not 
expected to change in accordance with their path. But, as one follows a path 
and comes to a fuller understanding of the concepts and philosophies behind 
that path, they will almost certainly change or grow. To not change would be 
stagnation, akin to standing on the path instead of walking along it. As an 
example, one would expect a person who willingly enters a seminary to become 
a priest/pastor/minister and to act like one. Such individuals are learning, 
growing, changing, being spiritually enlightenned, but then, that is why they 
went there in the first place.
    Of course, you are not talking about the natural progression a person 
makes along a path and the changes which can be expected to occur to them as 
a result. These will happen to the person when the person is ready and 
willing. You are talking about being forced through peer pressure or other 
means into following the behavioural norm for a group. The infamous "it's 
traditional" isn't a valid answer for doing something. If it's traditional, 
there is a reason for that tradition and without the reason, the tradition 
isn't valid. Simply put, changes are expected of those who follow and 
actually walk along a path as a natural progression of learning and growing, 
and these changes are valid, but expecting changes of a person simply because 
they belong to a group is not valid. In the former, the changes come from 
within, in the latter, without.
    I'm not sure I've made myself clear on this last point. Do you understand 
what I mean? Do you see how the phrasing in the guide is alittle ambiguous on 
these points?
    Enough for now,
    Nightstar


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From:    Nightstar                              Area: Metaphysical
To:      Drui                                    6 Mar 94 00:45:16
Subject: Re:towers                              UpdReq 

    Generally I'm not considerred an elitist. I'm usually considerred a less 
educated intellectual. However, most of my friends are considerred either 
less or more educated intellectuals. It comes with being an information 
sponge (or more likely as a result of it).
    Plato           - No.
    Socrates        - A beginning, but little else.
    Jung            - yes.
    Freud           - You said it best. (although his cookbook is fun)
    Castaneda       - Have books 2 and 3. Is there a question about it being   
                     true despite not being fact?     Lao Tsu         - Very 
much like, good foundation for further construction
    Sun Tzu         - Knowledge is Power!
    B.F.Skinner     - It was so long ago, I can't remember what I read         
                     anymore, just that I read something.
    Bhudda          - only tea? Try lunch and supper.
    Edward Hall     - haven't gotten a round tuit
    Timothy Leary   - library discard. Should have discarded it myself.
    Other material:
    DeBono Thinking Lessons     (Only for review if you've already learned to  
                               think).
    Richard Bach's Illusions
    B.Fuller's Synergetics
    You're the fifth person to recomment Hall to me. I think I'd better track 
down that tuit pretty darn quick. When I start my course next year, he'll be 
mandatory reading.
    Nightstar


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