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Religion


Seems ok to me, well worth a read too.
I didn't mean the link. I couldn't connect to the Paracast web site. Bush was born into privilege. Had it not been for his father he would have been lucky to get hired as a janitor. He is so stupid and insensitive, he is oblivious to the pain, suffering, and carnage he caused. A fool of the highest order. He was a good Christian.
 
Heres another example where religious ideals mess things up

Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Governor Huckabee is also a former Baptist minister and has been granting large numbers of pardons and clemencies to Arkansas prisoners for jailhouse conversions. Gov. Huckabee does not deny this. In fact he said in a radio interview with KUAR in Little Rock"I would not deny that my sense of the reality of redemption is a factor".

Governor Huckabee has even ignored the unanimous recommendations of the Arkansas parole board to deny release of some violent criminals. When a prosecuting attorney objected to the release of these violent criminals without a logical reason he received this obnoxious reply from the Governor's Office:

letter.gif


Thats the pompus response to a concern about releasing violent criminals without a logical reason (other than they believe in the same imaginary being he does)

Laughed out loud, and told him to cut back on caffine.......................

This is what i mean when i refer to inmates running the mental asylum

Its enough to provoke a John McEnroe "you cannot be serious" moment

A violent crim, perhaps murderer or rapist gets to go to heaven in grace, but some poor villager in papua new guinea whos never met a missionary burns for eternity, because he hasnt accepted jebus into his heart......

I cannot fathom why anyone could in good conscience subscribe to such an absurd notion, such obvious nonsense
 
So there we have it folks, wether its the mindset of those who persecuted Galileo for being right when they were wrong, to the modern examples posted recently.

The level of abject stupidity hasnt changed.

The same superstitious ignorance, breeding the same intellectual dwarfism.
 
This post on the 'ISIS and Israel' thread stimulated interest and a wish to explore the intimacies (or ramifications) of what is being suggested. I'm not sure - but we shall see. :) The thread's title was suggested by another poster.

Here is the post -

I wouldn't put it that way, rather this: literalism. ISIL are literalists, as are Zionists, as are Westboro. It goes further, literalists of unique kinds, of narrow interpretations that most others do not recognize.

If anything points to the existence of spirit, it is all this - because 'all this' has it's origin in spirit. What we see is the physical manifestation of a powerful 'spiritual battle'. For some that sounds like 'woo', but until there is recognition of spirit-soul-body (rather than just soul-body, basically materialism), it will all appear without context. As long as we are blind - and oft times intentionally so - we will march off to wars being led by gods we deny exist, while every moment they are piping the tune, in control. The Greeks knew it was the gods who were 'in the game' and moving the chess pieces; we are (indeed) more advanced and initiate (personal) actions in ways they did not, but the gods still play us 'for their sport'. It will only be those who command the gods, or choose their gods wisely, who will say no to war, no to hate, who will be adept at stepping through the mine-field of twisted thoughts and mired emotions. When all is said-and-done, the world is us writ large. There is more conscious movement towards sanity than at any other time. It can seem hard to see but it is so. So say I. :) IMO.



Be kind to all creatures; this is the true religion.
Buddha........♡
 
Starseed and Royalty Survival: How To Recognize Implants And Tags
Many people on the planet are having a more difficult time surviving and staying balanced and centered than others. There are several individual reasons for this; however there are some patterns that are apparent as to why some people are targeted by over others for implants or tags. It is important to have the information on this in order to have the power to recognize and get rid of mind control implants and tags that may exist within yourself as well as in others around you.
Starseed and Royalty Survival: How To Recognize Implants And Tags : In5D Esoteric, Metaphysical, and Spiritual Database
DO NOT WATCH THE VIDEOS THEY DO NOT ADD ANYTHING
 
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If anything points to the existence of spirit, it is all this - because 'all this' has it's origin in spirit. What we see is the physical manifestation of a powerful 'spiritual battle'. For some that sounds like 'woo', but until there is recognition of spirit-soul-body (rather than just soul-body, basically materialism),
Perhaps there are not separate but so integrated that they are as one. If spirit means breath, it just means that you are still alive. We should not down grade any part of us.

As long as we are blind - and oft times intentionally so - we will march off to wars being led by gods we deny exist, while every moment they are piping the tune, in control. The Greeks knew it was the gods who were 'in the game' and moving the chess pieces; we are (indeed) more advanced and initiate (personal) actions in ways they did not, but the gods still play us 'for their sport'. It will only be those who command the gods, or choose their gods wisely, who will say no to war, no to hate, who will be adept at stepping through the mine-field of twisted thoughts and mired emotions. When all is said-and-done, the world is us writ large.
I am not sure what you are saying here. Which gods? How do you command them?
There is more conscious movement towards sanity than at any other time. It can seem hard to see but it is so.
This is very good news, would you care to elaborate?
 
If anything points to the existence of spirit, it is all this - because 'all this' has it's origin in spirit. What we see is the physical manifestation of a powerful 'spiritual battle'. For some that sounds like 'woo', but until there is recognition of spirit-soul-body (rather than just soul-body, basically materialism), it will all appear without context. As long as we are blind - and oft times intentionally so - we will march off to wars being led by gods we deny exist, while every moment they are piping the tune, in control. The Greeks knew it was the gods who were 'in the game' and moving the chess pieces; we are (indeed) more advanced and initiate (personal) actions in ways they did not, but the gods still play us 'for their sport'. It will only be those who command the gods, or choose their gods wisely, who will say no to war, no to hate, who will be adept at stepping through the mine-field of twisted thoughts and mired emotions. When all is said-and-done, the world is us writ large. There is more conscious movement towards sanity than at any other time. It can seem hard to see but it is so. So say I. :) IMO.
I fear I used some poetic license when I wrote the above. I conflated some 'facts' (or more rightly said, ideas). I suppose it will shake down as the discussion proceeds. I was going to say something but decided to wait and see what was resonating with what I wrote. :cool:
 
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Starseed and Royalty Survival: How To Recognize Implants And Tags
Many people on the planet are having a more difficult time surviving and staying balanced and centered than others. There are several individual reasons for this; however there are some patterns that are apparent as to why some people are targeted by over others for implants or tags. It is important to have the information on this in order to have the power to recognize and get rid of mind control implants and tags that may exist within yourself as well as in others around you.
Starseed and Royalty Survival: How To Recognize Implants And Tags : In5D Esoteric, Metaphysical, and Spiritual Database
DO NOT WATCH THE VIDEOS THEY DO NOT ADD ANYTHING

Dear flipper - I can only respond to this from out my own context: I am not inclined to see manipulation of the kind being described in your links. I have many reasons, which I could go into if you want me to. Otherwise, I will leave my comment there. :)
 
Perhaps there are not separate but so integrated that they are as one. If spirit means breath, it just means that you are still alive. We should not down grade any part of us.
The three aspects of body-soul-spirit are distinct aspects of the human gestalt. It would not be a matter of any 'down grade'. Seeing the human as made up of just body and soul means there is a 'glass ceiling' of a kind, beyond which the human cannot pass. When the spirit is recognized/experienced/understood, true freedom is possible.

I am not sure what you are saying here. Which gods? How do you command them?
I had written -
"As long as we are blind - and oft times intentionally so - we will march off to wars being led by gods we deny exist, while every moment they are piping the tune, in control. The Greeks knew it was the gods who were 'in the game' and moving the chess pieces; we are (indeed) more advanced and initiate (personal) actions in ways they did not, but the gods still play us 'for their sport'. It will only be those who command the gods, or choose their gods wisely, who will say no to war, no to hate, who will be adept at stepping through the mine-field of twisted thoughts and mired emotions. When all is said-and-done, the world is us writ large."

It was here I was conflating 2 or 3 distinct concepts. The ancient Greeks objectified their emotions, and they did not see themselves as initiating actions. In many ways they were correct (seen from an esoteric pov). However, we have progressed beyond the Greek mentality and we do initiate our 'own' actions.

However, there are still 'gods' afoot of a kind, within whose beings we "live and move and have our being." That said we are unavoidably influenced by such gods. They more than 'color' our thoughts, they give us our thoughts.

This is very good news, would you care to elaborate?
I had written -
There is more conscious movement towards sanity than at any other time. It can seem hard to see but it is so.

Three steps forward, two steps back - it'a always the way of it. Go back into any period of history, remote or near, and one would be traumatized by what was occurring, however charming certain slivers of life were. There is more general awakeness to goodness now than ever before, I think. When I look at my own country (the US), it doesn't mean that there are not problems, only that we are more conscious of what is right in ways we never were before. JMO.
 
So does this all boil down to you saying "The Devil Made Me Do It?" Where is your proof that there is a battle going on beyond the material realm? The Bible? Channelings? This is a mighty big supposition you are putting forth as fact. Also, after 100+ years of psychoanalysis of human beings, we are finding that the subconscious actually directs most of our actions, not some exterior "gods" of your making, or demons, etc. The subconscious acts based on programming installed by parents and other authority figures when we were too young to discern any better. This programming remains intact unless challenged, e.g., via psychoanalysis. The subconscious acts, and the conscious mind then rationalizes why it acted as it did, even to the desperate extremes of assigning cause to exterior entities. Once again "The Devil Made Me Do It".
 
So does this all boil down to you saying "The Devil Made Me Do It?"
No, though that would be the position of the ancient Greeks. For them, aspects of their psyche were objectified: the god moved them to do, to rise, to fight, to wander, etc.. However, there still exists a sense - more or less shared - that we are not alone and are helped or hindered by beings/forces beyond us.
Where is your proof that there is a battle going on beyond the material realm? The Bible? Channelings? This is a mighty big supposition you are putting forth as fact.
Ah, here's the rub, the 'proof '. Generally the 'proof ' that will be 'acceptable' under such a query are materially based cause-and-effect demonstrations. There is no one more a proponent of the scientific method than myself, but as with anything, taken to extremes a lot can fall though the cracks - and does.

No bible, no channelings - though it's possible both speak to such. Here we enter the realm of personal experience - not fancy - and it's a dicey arena for debate without certain 'assumptions' and agreements beforehand. I've been down this path before on this chat site. The belief structures around the ideas/concepts of the 'spiritual' and 'material' are as vividly and fiercely held as any political stance. I do not go gently into that good night. ;)
Also, after 100+ years of psychoanalysis of human beings, we are finding that the subconscious actually directs most of our actions
Ooodles of assumptions here. We could easily get into a game of dueling authors - this cite versus that cite. How do you 'know' what the 'subconscious' is? Because you were told so - and believe so?
not some exterior "gods" of your making, or demons, etc.
Again, lots of assumptions nested into these phrases, based on a particular gestalt that I would never argue is 'wrong', just different from the gestalt I work from. In undertaking this conversation with you I would never argue you are wrong. I, myself, have a materially based gestalt when it suits me, and likely use as my default mode most of the time. However, it would be foolhardy - imo - to assume - imo - that only one way of seeing the world is 'the truth'.
The subconscious acts based on programming installed by parents and other authority figures when we were too young to discern any better.
This is a belief. Unless you are a researcher in the subject I would guess that you are repeating the ideas of someone else who has published a book that you've read - that would be your 'bible'. This is not in itself a bad thing - we just need to recognize when it is we are using constructs (of another's making) to help us navigate through a plethora of phenomena we are trying to make sense of.

On first blush, what disquiets me about your above statement is the lack of freedom and creativity implicit in such a stance. Faced with such a view I would not pick it off the shelf and put it in my backpack. It feels too limiting. As limiting as 'the devil made me do it'.
This programming remains intact unless challenged, e.g., via psychoanalysis.
I can accept this idea as generally true with some serious caveats: that 'programming' is not as knee-jerk and predictable as might be anticipated (it's not a mechanical input-output). For example, abuse as a child may well predict (statistically) maturing into an abusing adult, but that is not a given. We have examples - and I know examples - of people raised in horrific circumstances who made other choices and actually came to adulthood as compassionate and sensitive human beings. No psychoanalysis involved. Something else was involved.

However, I will accept that an outside 'challenge' - of many kinds - works powerfully to re-shape us from initial shaping, as proof is all around us.
The subconscious acts, and the conscious mind then rationalizes why it acted as it did
This is a powerful 20th century idea (we could say a doctrine) coming out of the work of psychology - a fledgling science if ever there was one. This is a belief. You are accepting this as fact based on the writings (bible) of someone - not so? How do you know this is a fact? Not in itself a bad thing - we all use some structure to see the world through. But I would argue that the best fact in these instances is as an experience. Have you experienced this?
even to the desperate extremes of assigning cause to exterior entities. Once again "The Devil Made Me Do It".
Unless the 'exterior entity' is a fact based on experience. I would not call such a 'desperate extreme'. I'm not making any claims here, just suggesting something. You have found your way to a paranormal chat site that particularly dances around ideas of aliens and spaceships and what have you. I assume you have some gestalt that entertains these ideas as potentially possible/plausible. In fact I am far more skeptical of aliens (and spaceships) than I am of gods. It's curious, not so?
 
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I do not wish to debate either. Been there and done that. Usually leads to tension and frustration. Nonetheless, I must correct one ASSUMPTION you repeated twice about me, i.e, that I read my beliefs in a book. I do not take my beliefs from a book. I consider that laziness.

Granted, a lot of people do this, which is why the world is in such an insane situation, especially if that book contains the ramblings of bronze age people and their local prohibitions that provided a community benefit that no longer exists (such as prohibitions on gay relationships since tribes needed a large birth rate to stay in existence).

My comments come totally from experience. I do not need to tell my life story. Suffice to say that I experienced an early life of physical and emotional abuse that became embedded within me as a running dialogue. In 2010, when I had reached a crisis state, I sought help from a psychiatrist (who has had his own UFO experiences, by the way). It was the experience of working through his paradigm that led me back from an abyss to a relatively stable life since then. We together revealed ancient programming and worked to release it. He helped me to discover where I was being run like a robot on the negative lessons of my brutal childhood. In a sense, I was a PTSD survivor who did not even realize it. I cannot over emphasize how horrendous my emotional life had become, as if all this life long pressure came to a head and exploded, leaving me in clinical depression and anxiety at such a level that I could not even feed myself.

Having a structured method saved me. The psychiatrist admitted that all such methods are metaphors, but they work to heal the individual. Now, I had a friend during this time that had also had a visual and audio relationship with a so-called guardian angel. I trusted this person implicitly. This person asked such entities about my condition, and we received advice which I followed (which entailed seeking out this particular psychiatrist!). My friend also asked if I would be healed. I suppose if he got a negative answer he would not have shared it. But what he received was a vision of a clock in a very dark room. Slowly the clock began to float to a window. The clock floated through the shades and out into a beautiful blue sky. Now the clock did not give us dates, but I clung to this vision as confirmation that with time I would be healed. However, the method for achieving this healing was specifically through modern western medical science and therapy.

My point is that my condition was NOT caused by external entities driving me crazy. The condition was readily explained from my life history. I got advice from a friend who had a special relationship to an external entity (in brief, he woke up in a Japanese hospital after being in a 4 week coma from head injuries from Viet Nam combat). At the bedside was a glowing figure that he called an angel. The figure said that it would never leave him again during this life time). I have known him almost 40 years, and he keeps this side of his life totally secret. At first, he was angry if I would bring it up. But when I was in a crisis situation, he opened up and went to bat for me. If I have such an invisible pal, he/she/it is very discreet and doesn't indulge in showy theatrics like this. I often speak to "Angels of God" now (since I don't need any other kind to feel an open invitation). I do not hear voices or have visions. The communication seems one way. But it is comforting to me. Sometimes I "cheat" and talk to my friend's angel. We all have some sort of "superstition" that serves us.

However, when we use this to make claims about ontology, e.g., that there is a war in heaven over our souls, or that alien entities (like gods) are messing with our lives, I tend to smirk and think "Too much human confabulation". Let go of the details.
 
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"beyondthestargate said:
The subconscious acts based on programming installed by parents and other authority figures when we were too young to discern any better.

Tyger said: This is a belief. Unless you are a researcher in the subject I would guess that you are repeating the ideas of someone else who has published a book that you've read - that would be your 'bible'. This is not in itself a bad thing - we just need to recognize when it is we are using constructs (of another's making) to help us navigate through a plethora of phenomena we are trying to make sense of.

On first blush, what disquiets me about your above statement is the lack of freedom and creativity implicit in such a stance. Faced with such a view I would not pick it off the shelf and put it in my backpack. It feels too limiting. As limiting as 'the devil made me do it'.


beyondthestargate said: This programming remains intact unless challenged, e.g., via psychoanalysis.

I can accept this idea as generally true with some serious caveats: that 'programming' is not as knee-jerk and predictable as might be anticipated (it's not a mechanical input-output). For example, abuse as a child may well predict (statistically) maturing into an abusing adult, but that is not a given. We have examples - and I know examples - of people raised in horrific circumstances who made other choices and actually came to adulthood as compassionate and sensitive human beings. No psychoanalysis involved. Something else was involved.

However, I will accept that an outside 'challenge' - of many kinds - works powerfully to re-shape us from initial shaping, as proof is all around us.


beyondthestargate said: The subconscious acts, and the conscious mind then rationalizes why it acted as it did

Tyger said: This is a powerful 20th century idea (we could say a doctrine) coming out of the work of psychology - a fledgling science if ever there was one. This is a belief. You are accepting this as fact based on the writings (bible) of someone - not so? How do you know this is a fact? Not in itself a bad thing - we all use some structure to see the world through. But I would argue that the best fact in these instances is as an experience. Have you experienced this?"


Very interesting conversation, especially for me at the moment because we are just beginning in the C&P thread to look into the influence of psychologists (especially Lacan) in postmodern and post-structuralist interdisciplinary Cultural Studies begun in the second half of the 20th century and continuing into the present. Freudian hypotheses concerning the subconscious were carried forward influentially by Lacan into this burgeoning complex of ideas concerning the nature of the human subject and the nature of reality. And of course postmodern and poststructuralist ideas from multiple disciplines remain influential in the contemporary engagement of a variety of philosophers, psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, and information theorists in the very active field of Consciousness Studies.

I have long wondered why Lacan (Freud) became so influential in postmodern cultural studies to the comparative neglect of Jungian psychology, and am finally attempting to understand why by reading Lacan and a range of contemporary philosophers and cultural theorists who have taken up his approach and carry it forward into the present. I have no answers yet but will confess to a presupposition, that Lacan, like Freud, offered a comparatively reductive approach to interpreting the human subject, and reductivism remains the primary tendency in both philosophy and science into our time. The primary unanswered question here concerns the nature of the 'subconscious' and how it functions in consciousness as a whole and thus ultimately in mind.

Is it the case, as beyondthestargate proposes, that "The subconscious acts, and the conscious mind then rationalizes why it acted as it did"? My personal inclination is to agree with Tyger's response to the generality of that proposition -- that this is a belief based in a structure of ideas or concepts rather than a fact established within the discipline of psychology. The subconscious 'mind', involving both the personal (individual) subconscious and the collective unconscious, is one of the great unknowns. Psychical and parapsychological research also disclose functions that have been described as 'supraconscious', involving the reception of veridical information by paranormal means as well as psychokinetic capabilities as demonstrated in intentional effects on random number generators. Can we understand our own nature without being able to account for the full range of our capabilities -- and the interconnections, the intertwinings, they imply between the poles of subjectivity and objectivity disclosed in human experience? I don't think so, and I think this new thread opened by Tyger provides an excellent opportunity for exploration and discussion of these questions and unresolved issues.
 
I do not wish to debate either. Been there and done that. Usually leads to tension and frustration. Nonetheless, I must correct one ASSUMPTION you repeated twice about me, i.e, that I read my beliefs in a book. I do not take my beliefs from a book. I consider that laziness.

Granted, a lot of people do this, which is why the world is in such an insane situation, especially if that book contains the ramblings of bronze age people and their local prohibitions that provided a community benefit that no longer exists (such as prohibitions on gay relationships since tribes needed a large birth rate to stay in existence).

My comments come totally from experience. I do not need to tell my life story. Suffice to say that I experienced an early life of physical and emotional abuse that became embedded within me as a running dialogue. In 2010, when I had reached a crisis state, I sought help from a psychiatrist (who has had his own UFO experiences, by the way). It was the experience of working through his paradigm that led me back from an abyss to a relatively stable life since then. We together revealed ancient programming and worked to release it. He helped me to discover where I was being run like a robot on the negative lessons of my brutal childhood. In a sense, I was a PTSD survivor who did not even realize it. I cannot over emphasize how horrendous my emotional life had become, as if all this life long pressure came to a head and exploded, leaving me in clinical depression and anxiety at such a level that I could not even feed myself.

Having a structured method saved me. The psychiatrist admitted that all such methods are metaphors, but they work to heal the individual. Now, I had a friend during this time that had also had a visual and audio relationship with a so-called guardian angel. I trusted this person implicitly. This person asked such entities about my condition, and we received advice which I followed (which entailed seeking out this particular psychiatrist!). My friend also asked if I would be healed. I suppose if he got a negative answer he would not have shared it. But what he received was a vision of a clock in a very dark room. Slowly the clock began to float to a window. The clock floated through the shades and out into a beautiful blue sky. Now the clock did not give us dates, but I clung to this vision as confirmation that with time I would be healed. However, the method for achieving this healing was specifically through modern western medical science and therapy.

My point is that my condition was NOT caused by external entities driving me crazy. The condition was readily explained from my life history. I got advice from a friend who had a special relationship to an external entity (in brief, he woke up in a Japanese hospital after being in a 4 week coma from head injuries from Viet Nam combat). At the bedside was a glowing figure that he called an angel. The figure said that it would never leave him again during this life time). I have known him almost 40 years, and he keeps this side of his life totally secret. At first, he was angry if I would bring it up. But when I was in a crisis situation, he opened up and went to bat for me. If I have such an invisible pal, he/she/it is very discreet and doesn't indulge in showy theatrics like this. I often speak to "Angels of God" now (since I don't need any other kind to feel an open invitation). I do not hear voices or have visions. The communication seems one way. But it is comforting to me. Sometimes I "cheat" and talk to my friend's angel. We all have some sort of "superstition" that serves us.

However, when we use this to make claims about ontology, e.g., that there is a war in heaven over our souls, or that alien entities (like gods) are messing with our lives, I tend to smirk and think "Too much human confabulation". Let go of the details.

I just read this post and, as once before, think you have dealt with significant childhood abuse intelligently and, fortunately, successfully. I personally don't see your friend's experiences as superstitution, in part because the being that interacts with him actually identified the therapist who was able to bring you through your crisis. Re this paragraph:

"However, when we use this to make claims about ontology, e.g., that there is a war in heaven over our souls, or that alien entities (like gods) are messing with our lives, I tend to smirk and think "Too much human confabulation". Let go of the details,"

I agree that we are not well served by hypotheses and theories of an ontological sort that jump to conclusions about the meaning of paranormal experiences and the intentions or purposes of the 'entities' we think we've encountered. We simply don't know enough to draw those conclusions. We do know that some psychoactive drugs can significantly affect our perceptions, and we also know that our brains and our minds are vastly complex in the ways in which they attempt to 'make sense' (reliable sense) of anomalous experiences. I think Tyger's intent in this thread is to turn us toward a comprehensive and detailed exploration of the varieties of paranormal, anomalous, religious, and spiritual experiences recorded in our species' history as the spectrum of data we need to consider before we can form adequate hypotheses about their ontological meaning. I also think that our thinking in ontological terms about the structure and nature of Being and of our being within it is a natural human inclination, already present in early humankind, a question we evidently can't ignore -- but one regarding which we need to consider all available insights and beliefs historically rising out of human experiences.
 
I do not wish to debate either. Been there and done that. Usually leads to tension and frustration. Nonetheless, I must correct one ASSUMPTION you repeated twice about me, i.e, that I read my beliefs in a book. I do not take my beliefs from a book. I consider that laziness.
I don't. I would say that we arrive at what we think through a combination of personal experience and conversation with others, with a dollop of intuition if we're lucky. Reading books is a form of conversation. I give reading equal weight with conversation. What matters is the calibre of the people one converses with, and sometimes, a book feeds our soul more than any conversation can with one of our peers.
Granted, a lot of people do this, which is why the world is in such an insane situation, especially if that book contains the ramblings of bronze age people and their local prohibitions that provided a community benefit that no longer exists (such as prohibitions on gay relationships since tribes needed a large birth rate to stay in existence).
Not sure I 100% agree here. It's possible the world is a mess because people don't read enough.
My comments come totally from experience.
Experience in itself is not valuable unless distilled into wisdom. I would assume you've had a conversation with a person or a book. It's rare to do the inside-out thing without some form of guidance.
II do not need to tell my life story. Suffice to say that I experienced an early life of physical and emotional abuse that became embedded within me as a running dialogue. In 2010, when I had reached a crisis state, I sought help from a psychiatrist (who has had his own UFO experiences, by the way). It was the experience of working through his paradigm that led me back from an abyss to a relatively stable life since then. We together revealed ancient programming and worked to release it. He helped me to discover where I was being run like a robot on the negative lessons of my brutal childhood. In a sense, I was a PTSD survivor who did not even realize it. I cannot over emphasize how horrendous my emotional life had become, as if all this life long pressure came to a head and exploded, leaving me in clinical depression and anxiety at such a level that I could not even feed myself.
Powerful narrative. As you state, it was "the experience of working through his paradigm" that led you to a new place. That paradigm comes from someone. It had power because the psychiatrist had engaged in conversation with others, either in person (his own professors) or via books (with great minds like Jung, perhaps) - and coupled with his own distillation of those minds and his own experience and wisdom, he could transmit to you a healing modality. But there is always a lineage to every idea. Ideas do not come from nowhere.
Having a structured method saved me. The psychiatrist admitted that all such methods are metaphors, but they work to heal the individual.
Wise man.
Now, I had a friend during this time that had also had a visual and audio relationship with a so-called guardian angel. I trusted this person implicitly. This person asked such entities about my condition, and we received advice which I followed (which entailed seeking out this particular psychiatrist!). My friend also asked if I would be healed. I suppose if he got a negative answer he would not have shared it. But what he received was a vision of a clock in a very dark room. Slowly the clock began to float to a window. The clock floated through the shades and out into a beautiful blue sky. Now the clock did not give us dates, but I clung to this vision as confirmation that with time I would be healed. However, the method for achieving this healing was specifically through modern western medical science and therapy.
Sounds all good. :)
My point is that my condition was NOT caused by external entities driving me crazy. The condition was readily explained from my life history.
As long as you don't generalize what was your experience and assume what you experienced holds for all others. The world is a bit more layered than that, I think. The human condition has many more explanations than we can find in one life - hence, the value of books, of biography.
I got advice from a friend who had a special relationship to an external entity (in brief, he woke up in a Japanese hospital after being in a 4 week coma from head injuries from Viet Nam combat). At the bedside was a glowing figure that he called an angel. The figure said that it would never leave him again during this life time). I have known him almost 40 years, and he keeps this side of his life totally secret. At first, he was angry if I would bring it up. But when I was in a crisis situation, he opened up and went to bat for me. If I have such an invisible pal, he/she/it is very discreet and doesn't indulge in showy theatrics like this. I often speak to "Angels of God" now (since I don't need any other kind to feel an open invitation).
Sounds all good. :)
I do not hear voices or have visions.
Heartening but even if they were occurring not in themselves an indication of pathology. This is where modern psychology has always fallen down - it's inability to incorporate the para-normal into it's gestalt, although Jung and others did so.
The communication seems one way. But it is comforting to me. Sometimes I "cheat" and talk to my friend's angel. We all have some sort of "superstition" that serves us.
Not sure what you mean by 'superstition' in this context.
However, when we use this to make claims about ontology, e.g., that there is a war in heaven over our souls, or that alien entities (like gods) are messing with our lives, I tend to smirk and think "Too much human confabulation". Let go of the details.
I would offer that you smirk because you do not understand. There is a saying that the ways to enlightenment are as many and varied as there are human hearts. You have found your way to peace of mind and a healed heart, but I would offer that there are other ways, too. I would counsel to seek to understand rather than smirk. Just makes good common sense to me.

I'm not sure I understand what you are referencing when you say: "when we use this to make claims about ontology." Ontology? Nature of being? What is "this"? I would say that 'a war in heaven' is not ontology so much as relating to epistemology, but I'm not interested in splitting hairs - only when it confuses me. ;)

You can let go of the details, that is a choice - and a path. For some the path of knowledge is a necessity, as breath is a necessity.
 
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The primary unanswered question here concerns the nature of the 'subconscious' and how it functions in consciousness as a whole and thus ultimately in mind.
The concept of a 'subconscious' is very handy imo - and it is in keeping with esoteric psychology. Or can find parallels for easy 'translation' from one conceptual structure to another.
Is it the case, as beyondthestargate proposes, that "
The subconscious acts, and the conscious mind then rationalizes why it acted as it did"?
We can always find a cause-and-effect as long as we are thinking in cause-and-effect. We have to transcend cause-and-effect thinking - sometimes called the 'blame game' - in order to make sense of it all. Cause-and-effect is a very persuasive place to posit from - it's called karma in other streams, but it does have it's limitations.
My personal inclination is to agree with Tyger's response to the generality of that proposition -- that this is a belief based in a structure of ideas or concepts rather than a fact established within the discipline of psychology.
But there is validity to what is being described. Example: I have a knee-jerk reaction to certain kinds of women who remind me of my sister. Until I bring that knee-jerk reaction up to the surface of my awareness and actively transform it, I will remain slave to that conditioning I set in motion decades ago with my sister when she wouldn't allow me to use her make-up (or something).
The subconscious 'mind', involving both the personal (individual) subconscious and the collective unconscious, is one of the great unknowns.
Agree.
Psychical and parapsychological research also disclose functions that have been described as 'supraconscious', involving the reception of veridical information by paranormal means as well as psychokinetic capabilities as demonstrated in intentional effects on random number generators.
Can we understand our own nature without being able to account for the full range of our capabilities -- and the interconnections, the intertwinings, they imply between the poles of subjectivity and objectivity disclosed in human experience? I don't think so
You posit the question well.
I think this new thread opened by Tyger provides an excellent opportunity for exploration and discussion of these questions and unresolved issues.
Well, we shall see. Never say never, but one never knows. :)
 
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