From: Bill Hartwell Area: Thelema To: Jonathon Blake 2 Sep 92 09:02:10 Subject: Re: Right & wrong UpdReq -=> Quoting Jonathon Blake to Michael Lee <=- JB> what you're saying might be valid JB> if Kharma had any relevance. JB> IMHO its justs another thing bunny-pagans JB> brought over to continue the guile trip JB> started off by xtians. On the other hand, there's the stand I hold to, which is that Kharma has not pluses or minuses - it merely is. If you hold your hand to a flame, you'll likely get burned. If you walk off a cliff, you'll likely fall. If you have sex with a willing partner, you'll likely have pleasure. No morality involved. Merely cause and effect. ... I can't be over the hill...every day is an uphill battle. ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.10 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Rapier Area: Thelema To: Karl Lembke 2 Sep 92 09:02:00 Subject: Re: liber 777 UpdReq KL> Well, since I'm still hacking away at a $700 phone bill, it will KL> be sent by Snail-Mail, unless others are willing to relay it. KL> (I haven't had the time to familiarize myself with the ins and outs KL> of Netmail, Echos and FReq-ing.) ^^^^^^^^ Actually, its called "phreaking"...as in what happens when you manage to call LD and charge it elsewhere (the phone comppany "phreaks"...to say nothing of what happens when they catch you :) ) But, I sympathise re: your phone bill...now I find myself calling "Mumbo Jumbo Katherdral"....an excellent New Orleans BBS....once aweek....and as you can see...I am calling from Toronto! ... ------>|* RAPIER! ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.10 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Liliani Area: Thelema To: Josh Norton 1 Sep 92 20:48:00 Subject: Love under Will UpdReq JN>Thanks for your input Liliani. You've given a very clear definition of JN>the two terms in the phrase. Now, how do they go together? How do your JN>definitions of "Love" and "Will" fit together in "Love under will", and JN>what is the meaning of the whole phrase? You're not - I hope - implying JN>the New Age chestnut that we should all love one another? Well, even New Agers might have a little of the truth, you know. The problem with the New Age concept of loving one another is more (IMO) a failure to apply direction and control to love, than a failure of the basic concept. There is someone I chat with occasionally who is a Xtian, seamless garment type. Vegitarian, anti abortion, will take no life. But he lacks the ability to see that this is impossible to truely follow. He chided me for leting the cats kill a mouse that was stupid enough to wander into my house, but ignors the rodents killed in providing his food. As one of the original flower children, (yeah, I am that old), I saw even then that sweetness and light doesn't work. Been searching for what does ever since, and think I am starting to find it. Will must direct emotion, rather than letting emotional responses direct will. If you see the problems (from your own life to the fate of the universe) clearly, you see that not all the solutions are the ones we might wish them to be. The sweetness and light folks think that by wishing every thing to become nice and pretty, it will do so. But this can not be. Death is a part of life. Balance is essential. Life is a cycle that includes death. Also a cotton candy world would be pretty dull, and cotton candy people are very dull. I like spice. Will directs one towards a path, love gives one the power to walk it. At least that is how I see it. ___ * SLMR 2.0 * It's only a hobby ... only a hobby ... only a 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Liliani Area: Thelema To: Michael Lee 1 Sep 92 22:04:08 Subject: Right & Wrong UpdReq ML>The size of the universe is completely irrelevant to me when another persons ML>actions affect me. The only thing that is relevant is ML>whether you are doing something to "hurt" me (physically, ML>psychologically, or psychically), or others to whom I have ML>some special interest in. Oh, then you are advocating situational ethics. As in, what hurts you is bad, what you want is good? ML>The whole point of the "zeroeth" law was to show that some _judgement_ was ML>required. The zeroeth law was not something programmed ML>into a robot, but was something reasoned from the other ML>three. By a robot. A more developed robot reaching towards reasoning, but still a robot. Remember, to the robot, the built in laws made protecting itself the last and least consideration. ML>Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that ML>Thelema, as it sometimes is interpreted, is incomplete. ML>There is no concept of "Duty". (I would interpret Thelema ML>as having "Duty" as a subset). Duty could be a part of will, could it not? I feel I have a duty to myself to leave the world better than I found it, so that when I am reborn, I will be reborn into a better world. Of course, the way the world is going, there is little chance of my being able to do that. My concept of a better world is likely a bit out of the ordinary as well. Might be a better world if aids or something kills off a few billion people. I do not expect this body to be imune from that, should it happen. But then I think of myself as a continuing thing, not frozen in an instant in time, or totally bound by the current incarnation.. ML>Just because we have a collective inability to tap into the universal law o ML>right and wrong does not mean that there is no such thing. Doesn't prove there is either, though. ML>The relative nature of morality is _not_ because there is ML>no absolute right and wrong, but is simply a result of our inability to ML>gain clear insight into the true nature of right and wrong. ML>Without this true nature, "morality" is nothing more than ML>overt power. I do not see how that necessarily follows. What is good in one situation can be very bad in another. Is a someone in Dade county who takes some cans of baby formula they find in a blown out store a looter, or a parent trying to save their child? What if someother baby starves because they take it? What if the owner's child starves because they take it? ML>As for the "ends not justifying the means"... I believe ML>sometimes ML>it does. Let's take an extreme. If my true will defines a ML>particular end,then all means are appropriate towards that end. ML>No? No. If there are five different ways to get to that end, are they equally acceptable, just because the end is your true will? There is rarely only one road to get you to a particular place. ML>Actaully, I think it's "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Amen to that. ML>Anyway, if I'm stronger than you, there is very little you ML>can do which can affect my freedom or restrict my action. But there are many types of strength. You may win the battle yet lose the peace. ML>All "peace" flows from the barrel of a gun. It's just ML>determing what sort of peace you want. Peace that has to be enforced continuously by firepower, is not what I want, for sure. --- * SLMR 2.0 * Cast your bread upon the waters and it will return soggy! 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718 From: Josh Norton Area: Thelema To: Karl Lembke 2 Sep 92 23:28:02 Subject: The Great Work UpdReq KL>The Judaic mystical tradition practices what is known as "Tikkun Olam" >or "repairing the world". When the universe was created, it fragmented, >and it is up to Man to restore it to the originally planned perfect >state. Of course, it is impossible to work to bring about perfection >in the world without that same work reflecting in one's own character, >so Tikkun Olam brings about Tikkun Adam, the repair of humankind. Both of these assume that the universe is in need of repair, an idea that I don't buy, except perhaps in a purely local and temporary framework. KL>Sometimes, I wonder if the universe might not be the equivalent of a >computer simulation, set up by the Gods and allowed to run, to see >what the optimal solution for some problem is. >Computer simulations are often used to explore possible solutions >to real-world problems which are too complex to solve analytically. >Repeated trials usually generate a solution which, while not provably >the best available, are quite good enough, thank you. If the universe is a simulation, then what "reality" is it simulating? Something that is like the universe, except more so? More so in what way? Seems to me that -- from a god's p.o.v. -- the universe has some advantages as it is, without assuming that it is a substitute or simulation of something else. (Brief pause while he gets out his soapbox and sets up a backdrop showing Hyde Park......He takes a deep breath and begins:) First, it has inertia and spatio-temporal sequentiality. An Ideal in the "mind of God" happens all at once; there is no sequence to it. Causing it to manifest in matter forces it to appear as a sequence of steps which can be examined and appreciated in detail, revealing imperfections and problems that are not obvious in the Ideal-in-itself. Second, it has particularity. That is, it restricts the possibilities of the ideal so that only a few of them can manifest at the same time. In the Ideal in the "mind of God" ALL the possibilities inherent in the Ideal are equal; there is no way of giving them a comparative evaluation. Causing the Ideal to manifest in matter forces it to express a limited number of those possibilities, which can then be evaluated in context of their interactions with other Ideals being manifested at the same time. (One could argue that individual human beings -- acting unconsciously or willfully as part of the Great Work -- are each "responsible" for testing a few of the possibilities inherent in the divine ideals through the process of incarnation. Taken in toto, our successes and failures at expressing them in our various individual contexts add up to a rather detailed evaluation of their relative merits.) Yes, this is almost exactly what you said; what I don't buy is the idea that it's a "simulation" -- rather, it's a massive "field test". The Ideals in their unmanifest state are closer to the principles of a computer simulation than are the Ideals in the manifested state. Another point on which I seem to disagree with both the Jewish tradition you describe and the Western magickal traditions: I don't see the goal of the Great Work as being the "perfection" of anything, except perhaps, again, in a purely local and temporary sense. Instead, I see the divine creative process -- what I think of as the Great Work -- as being basically endless. Most common ideas of the divine creative process seem to assume that the creator (however you care to define that term) has a specific and limited objective, and that once this objective is achieved, everything is over and the universe gets packed up and put on a figurative shelf in some ethereal otherwhere. But we might learn something about the divine creator(s) by looking at their microcosmic counterparts. One thing I've heard from creative artists in a number of fields is that no creation they do is ever really finished. There are always more possibilities than can be put into manifestation in a particular work of art, or a series of such works. There is always room for endless tinkering and variation. Another point -- this one more important to my argument -- is that the "final" form of the creation rarely, if ever, conforms to the artist's initial conception. Writers talk all the time about "unruly" characters who refuse to follow the intended plot line. Painters and sculptors say similar things about how their materials insist on making changes in the ideal they are trying to express. Stage actors know the necessity for playing to the mood of their audience. In other words, there is a constant _feedback_ between the artist and his materials, so that the materials shape the creation as much as the artist does. I see the "divine" creators as being in a corresponding position, except more so. The "materials" on which the divine creation is worked are the "matter" which makes up all the planes of existence. And these materials _change_their_nature_ as the act of creation progresses. A third property of the matter of existence is memory. It retains the imprint of all forces applied to it, and retains the memory of every form into which it has been built. When some creator manifests a new Ideal in matter, the qualities represented by that ideal become a permanent part of the matter. So its possibilities are constantly increasing as the creation progresses. And the work of lesser creators, like human beings, is going to be constantly producing ever more elaborate combinations of those new potentials. So if the "divine" artist experiences feedback from his materials, as I believe to be the case, then the artists conception of the creation is also going to be constantly changing as these things work their way back up to him through the creative web. One might counter-argue that an omniscient God might, on some "timeless" level, know about all these changes and build them into his conception from the beginning. But there is one thing wrong with that idea: the material also contains a built-in "surprise factor", which shows up on the physical plane in the form of quantum uncertainty. This means that the exact state of the material at any time is impossible to know completely; the artist is always at least partially blind to what is going to happen. And the material is spontaneously and unpredictably generating new and unexpected qualities on its own, without intervention from any creative being. So, IMO, the Great Work is far from being a progress towards a foreseen and "perfect" goal; instead it is a constant dance of adaptation between the divine and the material of the work. As participants in the Great Work, our own activities are necessarily also in a state of constant adaptation, as we attempt to manifest our own little piece of creative activity within the larger scheme. Initiation doesn't end in a re-unification with the godhead; what appears to be such a unification is merely a waypoint. Instead, each step opens us up so that we can create on a larger scale, in a series of expansions that never ends. * SLMR 2.1a * I left my heart in Chichen Itza. 718499927771849992777184999277718499927771849992777184999277718